It was widely expected, but Gamba Osaka have made public the signing of Korean striker Cho Jae-Jin from K-League side Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors for the 2009 season.

As mentioned elsewhere, Jae-Jin became a cult hero during a goal-laden three-year spell at rival J. League club Shimizu S-Pulse from 2004 to 2007.

With his contract at S-Pulse set to expire the Korean had set his sights on a move to the English Premier League, but talks with a host of clubs including Fulham, West Ham United and Newcastle United came to nought.

On a recent trip to Korea I spoke with a source close to Jae-Jin, who claimed that the Korea Republic international was keen on a return to Shimizu S-Pulse. With the Shizuoka side having already signed Brazilian striker Marcos Aurelio - who was ironically released by S-Pulse this week - Jae-Jin was instead forced to return to the K-League, where he struggled to win over fans with some nervy displays for Jeonbuk.

Jae-Jin will now call Expo '70 Stadium in Suita City home for the foreseeable future, with Shimizu S-Pulse having pounced to sign ex-Nagoya striker Frode Johnsen, who has been replaced at the Aichi club by former Consadole Sapporo striker Davi.

Just another dizzying spell of musical chairs in the J. League, but Gamba's signing of Jae-Jin could prove significant for football in the region, with the K-League looking an increasingly attractive source of ready-made talent for a league that the likes of Korea Republic captain Kim Nam-Il already call home. 

What a time to be alive! These are certainly heady days for fans of Shimizu S-Pulse, who are gearing up for three massive clashes in just seven days.

The first takes them to a sold-out National Stadium in Tokyo, where one of Japan's most popular clubs will be looking to see off Oita Trinita in the League Cup final. "Kokuritsu" will be a sea of orange with more than 30,000 S-Pulse fans expected to turn out in the capital, but with Shimizu red-hot favourites to claim the title, coach Kenta Hasegawa will do well to dampen some of the euphoria currently surrounding his team.

Any suggestions that this will be a mere walk in the park should be dispelled by memories of Shimizu's opening day home defeat to Oita Trinita in the J. League this season. That spelled a catastrophic start to the new campaign for S-Pulse, but for Oita it set off a fairytale run that is yet to cease, with the Kyushu side not only qualifying for the League Cup final - they are also sitting fourth in the table, just two points behind league leaders Kashima Antlers with four games to go.

Oita's chances of winning a first ever trophy have been cruelled by a suspension to influential midfielder Shingo Suzuki for this match. Worse still for coach Pericles is that goalkeeper Shusaku Nishikawa has not recovered from injury in time to take his place between the posts, while fellow Beijing Olympian Masato Morishige is also suffering from injury, meaning that Oita could start the League Cup final missing arguably their three most important players. Much will rest on the young shoulders of midfielder Mu Kanazaki who has been the driving force of the Oita attack for most of the campaign.

Travelling up to Sendagaya could prove problematic for S-Pulse fans given that seemingly half of Shizuoka is planning to decamp to the National Stadium, but spare a thought for Oita supporters - who have probably left for the game by now - with barely enough seats on JAL and ANA airlines between the two to accommodate those wishing to fly up to the main island of Honshu for Oita's big day out. 

As if one Cup outing wasn't exciting enough, S-Pulse are back in action on Wednesday evening, this time in the Emperor's Cup. There'll be no repeat of Shimizu's nail-biting penalty shoot-out win over the students of Meiji University in the fourth round last season - no sir, this time it's the big guns coming to town, as Alex Miller brings top flight outfit JEF United down from Chiba to the atmospheric Nihondaira Stadium. Both clubs must have sighed a collective groan of disbelief to have been drawn against each other - particularly as the two also meet at Nihondaira in the penultimate round of the league campaign - but only one will progress to the fifth round of the Cup and a chance to claim a coveted place in the newly cashed-up AFC Champions League next season.  

If S-Pulse fans weren't already frothing at the mouth at the prospect of these two clashes, they'll be suffering from severe heart palpitations come next Saturday when Shimizu make the seventy kilometre trip down to Ecopa Stadium to take on bitter local rivals Jubilo Iwata in the fabled Shizuoka derby. S-Pulse fans are still revelling in the glory of last season's double over Jubilo, but the hero from those fixtures is long gone, with Cho Jae-Jin these days not endearing himself to K-League fans by missing open goals for his new club Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors.

The big South Korean will always be a legend around these parts, but S-Pulse fans can't afford to dwell in the past, and they've already played Jubilo three times this season as the two clubs drew 1-1 in front of a full house at Nihondaira Stadium in the league. They met again in the League Cup group stage, with S-Pulse crushing Jubilo 4-2 at Nihondaira, only to be on the end of a 2-0 defeat at Yamaha Stadium in the final group game.

Kenta Hasegawa will hope that his team is not punch-drunk given the critical fixture list come November 8, but with Jubilo Iwata sitting second-from-bottom in the league and Dutch coach Hans Ooft desperate to drag the Shizuoka giants to safety, this will be a bitterly contested clash with more than 40,000 fans expected to pile in to the windswept Ecopa Stadium to witness it.

All to play for, then, for Shimizu S-Pulse and fans of the popular seaside club will hope that it doesn't end in tears in seven days time.

On a quick personal note, I hope you guys are digging the new banner and profile pic I've come up with as a means of increasing readership from more than just that Mongolian yak herder and the Obscure Leagues Of The World fanclub in the Faroe Islands. I had a thousand monkeys working for a thousand years on a thousand typewriters to come up with that one (but seriously, cheers to Soul Rebel for the professional-looking banner and my old mate Rieper for the life-like portrait). Hold on to your hats, guys, I can feel a Pulitzer prize coming on here. 

I caught the first half of the top-of-the-table K-League clash between FC Seoul and Seongnam Ilwha Chunma at Seoul World Cup stadium yesterday afternoon.

A pleasant afternoon in the South Korean capital saw 24,000 fans turn out to see if FC Seoul could hold on to their lead at the top of the K-League standings. They managed to do so thanks to a late volley from Lee Sang-hyub, although by then I was in a taxi on the way to the airport.

From what I saw of the match it was a cagey performance from both teams, with the visitors looking somewhat sharper in the first half despite missing star striker Mota through suspension. Former Middlesbrough man Lee Dong-guk was on display for Seongnam, while for the Şenol Güneş-coached FC Seoul the star was clearly Montenegrin international Dejan Damjanovic, who looked the most likely source of a goal in what was a somewhat foul-ridden first half. 

FC Seoul are, by all accounts, a fairly unpopular team in Korean football, due largely to their relocation from satellite city Anyang back to the capital in 2004, to take up residence in the 66,000 capacity Seoul World Cup Stadium.

K-League officials must regret forcing teams to originally move away from the capital in 1996, having claimed at the time that Seoul-based clubs had an unfair advantage in terms of drawing support compared to regional teams. At the time co-hosting a World Cup probably seemed like an improbable pipe-dream, but with the World Cup Stadium sitting vacant in the capital, it was back to Seoul in 2004 - name change and all - where the LG-backed FC Seoul were forced to try and rebuild their supporter base once again.

Even that pales into insignificance compared to the background of Seongnam, who may be the most successful side in K-League history, but who are perhaps best known for being backed by controversial religious leader Sun Myung Moon. That may or may not explain the fact that only around 25 away fans turned out for what was, in reality, a marquee fixture.

Seoul World Cup Stadium was certainly an impressive venue - Manchester United supremo Sir Alex Ferguson admitted as much when he brought his team there for an international friendly in 2007. The standard metallic grey seats didn't do much for the imagination, but the sightlines were superb and I struggle to recall as compact a stadium featuring as vast a capacity as Seoul's premier football venue.

All in all an interesting excursion then, and I'll certainly be heading back to Seoul - a city full of diverting sights, warm and friendly people and a football club looking to rebuild itself as one of South Korea's best.