Liga Deportiva Universitaria's remarkable penalty shoot-out victory over Brazilian giants Fluminense in the recent Copa Libertadores final will cause headaches in Japan. That's because as continental club champions, LDU Quito have won through to face the likes of English champions Manchester United and Mexican outfit Pachuca at the 2008 FIFA Club World Cup.

The 2009 and 2010 editions of the FIFA Club World Cup will be played in Dubai, and critics suggest that FIFA's desire to move the tournament away from Japan stems partly from a lack of local support. All three of the Club World Cup finals played at Yokohama International Stadium have drawn capacity crowds, yet the match-ups in those finals have been as follows;

Liverpool vs Sao Paulo

Barcelona vs Internacional

AC Milan vs Boca Juniors

To suggest that South American football is well regarded in Japan is true only to an extent. Certainly the J. League borrowed heavily from aspects of Brazilian and Argentinian football culture when Japan kicked-off its professional football league, and the biggest Brazilian and Argentinian teams are popular in Japan. Boca Juniors were well supported at last year's Club World Cup, but that was partly because current Urawa striker Naohiro Takahara once played for Boca, albeit briefly.

That fact that Liga de Quito have now booked their place in this year's Club World Cup will cause headaches for tournament organisers. Enticing local fans to the preliminary rounds of the competition was already a hard-sell, but FIFA have at least been able to rely on one European and one South American giant to sell tickets to semi-final fixtures. Now Liga de Quito will throw a spanner in the works, with the Ecuadorian club unheard of in Japanese football circles.

A Fluminense victory in the Copa Libertadores final would have been welcomed with open arms, given that Flu's powerful striker Washington scored 64 goals in just 85 J. League games for Tokyo Verdy and Urawa Reds. "Washington Returns" would have been the banner headline of the day, with the Japanese public no doubt keen to bask in the globe-trotting striker's reflected glory.

Liga de Quito will inspire no such headlines in Japan. Manchester United will invariably prove the biggest drawcard at the tournament - although the fake jersey sellers outside the National Stadium in Tokyo will groan in disbelief should Cristiano Ronaldo choose to move on, but even if a Japanese team manages to make it through to the semi-finals of the tournament, the prospect of a half-empty National Stadium looms large for what is supposedly a showpiece FIFA tournament.

In 1992, Queen Elizabeth II memorably put what had been an horrendous year for the British royal family to rest in a speech in which she described the year as an annus horribilis. Ironically that was the same year that the J. League was formed.

In 2008, a mere one-third of the way through the season, the J. League is facing up to what could potentially be an unmitigated disaster - at least off the pitch, as the shameless shenighans and boorish buffoonery that has plagued rival leagues looks to have finally hit the land of the rising sun.

Of course, it would be remit to suggest that dumb behaviour has not plagued the J. League in the past. It's just that stupidity has generally been the exclusive domain of league officials and referees. But now even the players are getting in on the act! And boy, what an impact it's having. For a league that could hardly be described as "boring" in the past, the J. League has suddenly been enlivened by a spate of bad behaviour that has put Japanese football under the microscope.

If 2007 was an unforgettable year in the bonehead department; what with Naoya Kikuchi being arrested for having sex with a 15-year-old schoolgirl, Ilian Stoyanov calling his coach "an idiot" in front of the press and referee Kazuhisa Osada memorably sending off a bemused Yoshiaki Fujita for a bookable offence committed by his team-mate, 2008 has already thrown up plenty of early contenders for the Moron Of The Year award. And so, without further adieu, here are some of the candidates!

Masaaki Iemoto

Iemoto turned in what might be politely described as an "interesting refereeing performance" during the season-opening Super Cup. He sent off Kashima defender Daiki Iwamasa - possibly for the crime of breathing, no one is really sure, before deciding to even up the numbers by sending off Hiroshima's Ri Han-Jae for good measure.

Not content with simply brandishing unnecessary red cards, Iemoto then turned penalty-kick expert - ordering Tatsuhiko Kubo to have another go when he'd already converted a dubious looking spot-kick in normal time, before twice ordering Hiroshima to retake penalties in the shoot-out after they'd originally been saved. Not surprisingly Hiroshima eventually won the shoot-out, prompting a pitch invasion from angry Kashima fans. Iemoto was supposedly suspended for six months by the league for his baffling pedantry but, in a land where nothing surprises, he was back refereeing again last week.

Magnum

After joining Nagoya Grampus from Kawasaki Frontale, the disappointingly unmoustached Magnum started the season in a blaze of step-overs and general good form. Sadly that form didn't quite transfer over to his automobiling skills, and after running a stop sign in Aichi Prefecture, police discovered that Magnum does not have a licence to drive in Japan. Handed a three-match internal suspension by his club, Magnum watched from the sidelines this weekend as Kashima Antlers obliterated Nagoya Grampus 4-0 in front of a full house at Mizuho Stadium.

Hidekazu Omichi and Yuji Funayama

"Drink and drive, and you're a bloody idiot." Evidently that iconic Australian TV advertisement was lost in translation in Japan (much like those stupid "where the bloody hell are you?" tourist ads and, if you're reading, Australian Tourism Board, I'm right here), with Kashima reserve players Hidekazu Omichi and Yuji Funayama deciding to take a late night spin while under the influence of alcohol. Not a good look for the J. League, especially when the news made the papers in Europe.

Ryota Tsuzuki and Marcus Tulio Tanaka

Another joint applicant in the Moron Of The Year stakes, Ryota Tsuzuki and Marcus Tulio Tanaka set off a mini-riot at Saitama Stadium with their inability to comprehend the fact that Gamba Osaka players might actually be pleased to have beaten Urawa Reds in their own backyard.

After the match former Gamba player Ryota Tsuzuki set about trying to attack any ex-team mate that happened to stray within a twenty yard radius, while Tulio proved as irritating off the pitch as he is on it, acting as a kind of traffic marshall by ordering the Gamba players to celebrate on a specific blade of grass as personally determined by the great man himself.

His choice of forcing the Gamba players to celebrate in front of the away end was perhaps a tad hopeful, as the two sets of supporters then set about lobbing projectiles at each other in a spot of post-match mayhem that ultimately warranted 30 million yen worth of fines.

The J. League

Possibly concerned by the spotlight thrown on fan hooliganism following that incident in Saitama, the J. League then set about turning the spotlight firmly back on itself by taking a mere THREE WEEKS to hand down a punishment. And what were the sanctions? Stadium closure, player suspensions, docking of points? No. Urawa Reds - quite probably the richest club in Asia, were handed a 20 million yen fine, while Gamba Osaka were handed a 10 million yen fine.

Then there was the small issue of Kazuki Ganaha. The Kawasaki Frontale striker was handed a six-match suspension by the J. League last season after club doctors gave him an intravenous injection of garlic to try and cure a heavy cold. The J. League claimed that the injection contravened their anti-doping laws. They were no doubt horrified when Ganaha took them to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Geneva. The CAS overturned the J. League's ruling and ordered them to help out with Ganaha's court costs. Still intent on claiming the final word, the J. League later issued a statement that claimed "according to the tone of the CAS decision, our original ruling was correct." For his unwitting part in the fiasco, the blameless Ganaha lost his place in the Japan team and this weekend scored his first league goal in over a year.

Takehito Shigehara

Where in the world is Takehito Shigehara? My guess is that the erstwhile Kashiwa Reysol midfielder is languishing somewhere in Camp X-Ray. Controversy and Shigehara seem to go well together - last season he was handed a seven match suspension for "spitting/swearing/smashing some seats" after receiving a baffling red card whilst playing for Ventforet Kofu, who were eventually relegated.

This year Shigehara has been running around for Kashiwa Reysol - or at least he was, until police decided to reopen an investigation into a break-and-enter in Kobe in 2001 that resulted in the theft of a woman's underwear. Since then our (alleged) panty-loving friend is nowhere to be seen, with Kashiwa deciding to "drop him like he's hot," as it were.

Opposition fans haven't quite yet taken to waving women's underwear at Reysol fans, but that's probably because they fear being beaten up by Kashiwa's notoriously feisty supporters.

Yuichi Nishimura

Not content with Mr Iemoto hogging all the spotlight, referee Yuichi Nishimura entered the tabloid newspaper hall-of-fame by telling respected player Taikai Uemoto "to die" in a match between FC Tokyo and Oita Trinita The J. League denied that Nishimura told Uemoto "to die;" the entire Oita Trinita team refutes that claim, and Nishimura focused the attention of the world's sporting media on the J. League for a good, solid week.

Shimizu S-Pulse scouts

Alright J. League, now it's personal! Not a single club in Japan has been immune to the "bad Brazilian" syndrome. This crippling affliction strikes when a club signs one - or even worse, a host of useless Brazilians who would struggle to get a kick in during a game down on Copacabana beach.

In Shimizu S-Pulse's case, their signings extend to the utterly useless Marcos Paulo Alves and Marcos Aurélio. Last weekend - that being Round 14, mind you, the two started together for the first time in the league this season. Neither man lasted the distance.

Not content with simply signing two useless Brazilians, Shimizu S-Pulse then decided they could do without the services of Fernandinho - their one useful Brazilian. The club explained that he had been loaned out to Kyoto Sanga because a tally of one league goal and no assists wasn't helping the team, particularly when the mouthy Fernandinho was prone to berate his terrified team mates at the drop of a hat. Well, Fernandinho has now doubled his goal-scoring tally for the season. Predictably, he scored against Shimizu S-Pulse in just his second game for Kyoto.

Whoever thought that replacing the 185cm tall Cho Jae-Jin with the 167cm tall Marcos Aurélio was a good idea might get somewhat of a shock should they ever decide to watch a football match, but then S-Pulse fans won't be surprised to hear that Marcos Aurélio was signed sight unseen. Hey, at least if he doesn't work out... we can always blame those pesky gaijin for our problems this season!

Phew, all that and we're only a third of the way through season! No doubt the J. League will throw up plenty more to rant about over the long, hot summer months. Yet while there has been plenty of eye-catching action on the pitch this season, so far 2008 has truly been an annus horribilis for a league that, perhaps more than anything else, craves uncritical and unobjective scrutiny off the pitch.

It's all gone pear-shaped for Avispa Fukuoka. Relegated from J1 at the end of 2006, the Kyushu side were expected to make a swift return to the top flight under the auspices of former Sydney FC coach Pierre Littbarski. The German World Cup winner knows the J. League well - he was a star at JEF United in the early nineties, before going on to coach the inaugural Yokohama FC in the lower reaches of the Japanese game.

Things have gone horribly wrong since the appointment of Littbarski, however. Fukuoka only went down after losing the promotion/relegation playoff on away goals to Vissel Kobe at the end of 2006, but despite signing experienced Australian international Alvin Ceccoli, the southern side could only finish seventh in their thirteen team league last season.

This season the J. League welcomed two new additions to J2 in the form of FC Gifu and Roasso Kumamoto - making a tough league even tougher to get out of. The result is that after fifteen rounds of action, Avispa Fukuoka are currently struggling in twelfth place in the fifteen team league.

Ever the innovator, at the start of the season Littbarski decided to do away with Fukuoka's Brazilian gaijin and replace them with players that he became acquainted with during his time as a coach in the fledgling A-League. It has been a "verkorksten" strategy. After scoring 26 goals in 45 games from midfield last season, Alex has gone on to become a key player at J1 side Kashiwa Reysol. Lincoln scored sixteen goals in 39 games for Fukuoka last season before he was shipped out to Shonan Bellmare, who are very much in the race for promotion to the top flight next season. That's a position that Avispa Fukuoka can only dream of.

In their places came Sydney FC duo Mark Rudan and Ufuk Talay to line up in defence and midfield respectively. Following the departure of Alvin Ceccoli, Australian international striker Joel Griffiths was signed on loan. Fukuoka also brought in the likes of Mike Havenaar from Yokohama F. Marinos and veteran Teruaki Kurobe from JEF United. They have all failed to impress.

Only former Kashiwa Reysol man Tetsuya Okubo has shown any kind of form, and he is the club's current top scorer with five goals in fifteen games. The rest of Fukuoka's high-profile signings have struggled. After spending most of Sydney FC's championship-winning season on the bench, Mark Rudan looks set to do the same at Fukuoka. He has struggled with knee injuries for most of the season, but his 92-kilogram frame has also made him an easy target for some of J2's more nimble-footed attackers.

Ufuk Talay's expansive passing game has been stifled by the quicker pace of Japanese football and his explosive temperament has at times riled some of J2's nit-picking referees - who must rank as some of the most pedantic in world football. Only Joel Griffiths has shown glimpses of his best form, but injuries, suspensions and international call-ups have limited his productivity to just three goals in nine games. 

After a succession of embarrassing defeats - including a humiliating derby day home defeat to J2 newcomers Roasso Kumamoto, Littbarski was given three matches to turn things around. He failed to do so. Yet the German has been spared the axe by an admission from club officials that they cannot afford to sack him! Indeed, so dire are Fukuoka's financial straits that J2 officials are nervously hoping that Fukuoka don't go under.

It's a world away from the top flight, and Fukuoka will need a miracle to get back there any time soon, given that they are already a massive twenty points behind league leaders Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Their struggles will also vindicate those who claimed that the tried-and-tested method of signing Brazilians to fill the three foreign squad places available was the only way to guarantee success. In a traditionally conservative country like Japan, the fortunes of Fukuoka's three Australians - not to mention Eddy Bosnar's JEF United, who are struggling in last place in J1, means that J. League teams are likely to think twice when it comes to signing Australians in the future.

That's the least of Avispa Fukuoka's current concerns. Unless they can generate some cash flow... let alone start to win some games, they could become the next Japanese team to crumble under the weight of financial strain. Far from walking in a Litti wonderland, Avispa Fukuoka seem to have found themselves in a nightmare of their own making.

Twelve years after Arsene Wenger left Nagoya Grampus bound for Arsenal, and seven years after the French tactician convinced Junichi "T-Shirt" Inamoto to swap the J. League for life at Highbury, the question arises... could Arsenal be about to raid the J. League once more? The answer, according to my sources, is no.

In slightly unrelated Arsenal news, the fourth matchday of Japan's League Cup group stage takes place on May 25, and the afternoon kicks off with a mouth-watering clash between bitter local rivals Shimizu S-Pulse and Jubilo Iwata.

These two sides met in the league back on May 3, with Jubilo outplaying their hosts in a 1-1 draw at Nihondaira Stadium. The stakes are different when they meet again at the hill-top venue, with Shimizu currently leading their League Cup group on seven points, while Jubilo trail three points further back. With only the group winners guaranteed progression to the final eight, there's bound to be plenty of passion on show at Nihondaira, with matches between these two rarely dull affairs.

The return fixture is set down for the final matchday on June 8 at Yamaha Stadium, by which time Shimizu S-Pulse will hope to have sealed their place in the knock-out stage. With the two best-placed runner's up also joining AFC Champions League participants Kashima Antlers and defending League Cup champions Gamba Osaka in the last eight, there's still a chance for Jubilo to progress even if they fail to win tomorrow - although things are looking bleak with their goal difference currently standing at 0.

Both Shimizu and Jubilo have been hindered by international call-ups, while Shimizu's current injury woes are well documented over on the S-Pulse UK Ultras site - with Arata Kodama and Fernandinho looking set to join the similarly injured Daisuke Ichikawa and Teruyoshi Ito on the sidelines. There'll nevertheless be a cracking atmosphere inside Nihondaira as two of Japan's most bitter rivals slug it out in the quest to progress to the quarter-finals of the 2008 League Cup.

57,050 fans turned out at Saitama Stadium on May 17 to watch the high-profile J. League clash between Urawa Reds and Gamba Osaka. Not all of them liked what they saw.

Played in a tinderbox atmosphere, the match exploded into life - and controversy, a minute before half-time. Under pressure from Urawa defender Yuki Abe, Gamba's Brazilian striker Bare seemingly played the ball into touch adjacent to the corner flag. Ever the quick-thinker, Bare simply picked the ball up and threw it to the feet of Takahiro Futagawa. While Abe and his fellow Urawa defenders protested to referee Masayoshi Okada, Futagawa fed Masato Yamazaki to nonchalantly sweep the ball home in front of the Urawa home end. That handed Gamba a 2-0 half-time lead.

The record books will show that Gamba eventually went on to win 3-2, thanks in no small part to a majestic third from Yasuhito Endo that helped the Osakans to break their Saitama hoodoo. Yet few were talking about the result come the end of the match.

That's because in a fit of childish petulance the Urawa players demanded that Gamba halt their post-match celebrations, which consisted of nothing more than jumping around inside the centre circle. Gamba's decision to celebrate in front of the away end at the behest of the enraged Reds did little to reduce the tension. Indeed, it seemed to fuel it.

It's difficult to single out individual Urawa players when the entire squad seemed take part in the scuffle that ensued, yet two players should come under particular scrutiny. They are Urawa goalkeeper Ryota Tsuzuki and defensive midfielder Marcos Tulio Tanaka. Above all else, the actions of these two players endangered the lives of fans packed into the goal at the away end.

Tsuzuki is an ex-Gamba player, yet he was infuriated by the loss, and was repeatedly restrained by his team-mates from seemingly trying to attack his former colleagues. Marcos Tulio Tanaka is renowned as one of the most passionate players in Japanese football, yet he too overstepped the mark, although in Gamba's Bare he for once found an adversary who was not afraid to back down from a fight.

By now the action on the pitch was a mere sideshow to the chaos taking place on the terraces. The boorish behaviour of Urawa's spoilt fans has long been a bone of contention for fans of rival J. League clubs. However the Reds fans went well beyond their usual jeering, as several of them attempted to tear down the fence that separated the two sets of supporters. Some Gamba fans responded by raining projectiles down on their counterparts - not the smartest of moves, as the police watched on helplessly.

In the mayhem that followed one Gamba fan was reportedly injured attempting to scale the fence, while the Reds fans themselves managed to tear down a section of the partition and were only held back by a desperate line of police. One Reds fan lobbed what appeared to be a steel flagpole into the Gamba section. The footage was eagerly seized upon and broadcast all over the nightly news.

It's not a good look for the J. League, which is precisely why in their English-language round-up there is not a single mention of the fan violence. Any hopes that the J. League had of keeping the crowd disturbances quiet are dashed by the fact that an army of savvy fans filmed it from a variety of angles and duly uploaded it to YouTube.

The irony is that when quizzed on the topic of hooliganism, most Japanese football fans will quickly link it to English football. Yet hooliganism was all but stamped out of English football twenty years ago. While clashes between rivals fans still occur, they are generally staged events that take place away from football stadia. They are not the kind of incidents that endanger the general public in front of a police force that has little experience in crowd control.

While Gamba fans are not blameless in this incident, the J. League should throw the book at Urawa for the actions of their fans. Even after the incident had died down, some 5,000 Urawa fans waited outside the ground for up to three hours for the beleaguered Gamba supporters to emerge, before police finally convinced the Reds fans to disperse.

Having offered Urawa favourable treatment for so long, the J. League must now reckon with the monster that they have created. The Reds players and a large section of their support consider themselves above the J. League. A home defeat is now cause for a mini-riot. Opposition celebrations are tantamount to a declaration of war. How did this happen?

Urawa Reds may be lauded for the size of their crowds or their sizeable profits, but unless the J. League treads very, very carefully, then the Saitama club could soon become the straw that breaks the camel's back. No one can say that the J. League hasn't been warned.

JEF United have hired former Rangers star and Liverpool first team coach Alex Miller to take over as coach of the J. League's bottom club.

Presumably United have kept Miller more up-to-date than they did the departed Josip Kuze, who claimed that he was unaware United had sold their five best players before he took over as coach in January.

The Chiba side are already ten points adrift of safety even at this early stage of the season, and they need a drastic change of fortunes if they are to climb out of the J. League basement.

While the question remains as to just how much Miller knows about Japanese football - and why he would even give up a comfortable job with Liverpool to take over an outfit that look destined for the drop, a more pertinent question has been raised over at the always amusing Soilent Green. Just how responsible is the JEF United front office for the Chiba club's current plight? The answer appears to be 'very.'

Verdy fans more than most might question JEF United's hiring policy. Yet more than poor player recruitment, it has been some baffling off-field decisions that have seemingly crippled the 2005 and 2006 League Cup champions.

Tadashi Karai's reward for dragging the once-mightiest club in Japanese football into the depths of J2 in his role as General Manager, was to seal a move from Tokyo Verdy to a JEF United side that was once touted as genuine title challenger.

Yet United's most damaging move was surely installing the inexperienced Amar Osim as coach, following his father Ivica Osim's decision to take over as coach of Japan after the World Cup in 2006. When Osim Jr took United to within an inch of relegation last season, he was stoutly defended by the United back room staff - to the point that defender Ilian Stoyanov was sacked for speaking out against the hapless Bosnian. But after defending Osim Jr for months - and even seeing him keep the Chiba Dogs in the top flight by the skin of their teeth, United then chose to sack Osim Jr after the final game of the season... just two weeks after his father had suffered a life-threatening stroke.

Then came the bizarre post-match interviews after United's most recent 3-0 loss to Urawa Reds, with new coach Josip Kuze insisting that JEF United had pledged their full support to him. Kuze, at least according to his version of events, had even been lining up reinforcements for his struggling side. Yet less than 24 hours later the Croatian was shown the door.

It's a sorry state of affairs for a club that enjoys some of the more passionate support in the league. Unless Alex Miller can pull the proverbial rabbit out of his hat, he could be the next high-profile foreign coach to take the fall for the Chiba Dogs' bumbling bureaucrats behind the scenes.

Tokyo Verdy. Kawasaki Frontale. Gamba Osaka. Not the biggest names in Japanese football, but they've all beaten Nagoya Grampus in the past fortnight.

Dragan Stojkovic's unbeaten run was always bound to come to an end, but few would have expected it to end against Tokyo Verdy. The promoted side were awful over the opening rounds of the season, but their first victory coincided with Nagoya's first defeat, and it catapulted the Toyota-backed club to a run of three straight losses - including a narrow 2-1 defeat at home to Gamba Osaka in a marquee fixture watched by 34,436 fans at Toyota Stadium.

Nagoya bounced back with a1-0 win away at Ajinomoto Stadium in front of 30,825 fans on May 6, although they were fortunate to do so. FC Tokyo substitute Yusuke Kondo had the chance to open his account for the season from the penalty spot in the 81st minute. Going with the tried-and-tested method of closing his eyes and simply blasting his penalty into orbit, Kondo watched in horror as it smashed on to the top of the crossbar and presumably deflected into the streets of Chofu. It's like that for some players.

Nagoya's defender Milos Bajalica is another for whom absolutely nothing has gone right. He was signed by Stojkovic himself from Red Star Belgrade, to fill the decidedly large boots of departed Slovakian defender Marek Spilar. Current PSV Eindhoven coach Sef Vergoossen once labelled Spilar "the best defender in Japan." It's not a label that will be applied to Bajalica any time soon.

Bajalica's J. League career got off to a less than auspicious start when he gave away a converted penalty on the opening day against Kyoto Sanga. Things have gotten progressively worse. His personal nightmare reached a new peak when the shaky Serb encountered Gamba Osaka's monstrous striker Bare. The lumbering front man looked like Baryshnikov against a defender who seemed to be treading on quicksand, with Bare scoring twice - both goals coming because he'd managed to shake off the bewildered Bajalica.

Nagoya will be spared Bajalica's so-called defending for their upcoming fixture at home to Vissel Kobe - the Serb is suspended, but the temperament of the volatile Stojkovic could be tested to the limit by the antics of the forever niggling Kobe. It may have been legendary Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger that introduced the pitch side tirade to Japanese football, but the combustible Stojkovic is yet to lose his rag on the sidelines. He has, however, reputedly come toe-to-toe with Nagoya's high profile off-season signing Magnum, who was stunned by his 63rd minute substitution in the loss to Gamba Osaka. Watch this space.

Things could be worse. Nagoya could be JEF United, and Stojkovic could be packing his bags just like Josip Kuze is currently doing. He was handed his walking papers today, following an abysmal start to the season that has seen the Chiba Dogs pick up just two points from their opening eleven league fixtures! The writing was on the wall for the 2005 and 2006 League Cup champions when five of their best players left during the off-season, and while there's still a long way to go, it looks like it will take a miracle for JEF United to stay up. Still, stranger things could happen. Milos Bajalica could become a competent J. League defender. It's that's kind of league.

I read an interesting piece from that redoubtable authority on South American football Tim Vickery the other day, suggesting that derbies are an over-rated aspect of the modern game. While it's difficult to disagree with his assessment that derbies are all blood-and-guts football with very little culture in between, there's no doubt that local rivalries continue to stir the passion of football fans the world over.

That's something that the J. League understands, and in what must rank as part of a policy of instituting just the one good idea per season, the league schedules a number of crackerjack local derbies during 'Golden Week' - when a string of public holidays gives the average worker a much-needed few days off.

Football fans use the opportunity to pack J. League grounds across the country and so, exactly a year to the day since they last met at the picturesque Nihondaira Stadium, the next installment of the fabled Shizuoka derby gets set to rock the port city of Shimizu on May 3.

Last season Jubilo midfielder Fabricio's badge-kissing antics in front of the S-Pulse fans produced a positively nuclear atmosphere, and while Fabricio is long gone, so too is Cho Jae-Jin; Shimizu's hero from their two derbies last season, with the Korean wracking up all three of his side's goals against their bitter prefectural rivals.

In his classic book on Japanese football "Ultra Nippon: How Japan Reinvented Football" (which somewhat bizarrely depicts a Jubilo fan on the cover, despite the fact that it's an account of S-Pulse's 1999 season), Johnathon Birchall paints a vivid account of Shimizu's excruciating loss to Jubilo in the 1999 championship playoff.

Having won the first stage of the 1999 season, Jubilo saw their Shizuoka rivals storm back to be crowned second stage champions. A two-legged playoff ensued, and after both teams played out 2-1 draws away from home, the 1999 J. League title came down to a penalty shoot-out. Jubilo won the shoot-out at Nihondaira, and that's something that the Shimizu faithful have never forgotten, adding extra spice to an already heated affair.

These days the J. League has reverted to a single stage season, and after several years of playing the derby exclusively at Ecopa Stadium - a 2002 FIFA World Cup venue, Shimizu now schedule their home leg for Nihondaira Stadium. That makes perfect sense to S-Pulse fans, since the town of Aino lies some seventy kilometres down the Tokaido line from Shimizu. Rather conveniently for Jubilo fans it's just a short hop from Iwata, and while Jubilo still play their home fixture at Ecopa, gone are the days when they can command fifty percent of the support in both derbies.

As such Jubilo will be up against it when they travel to a seething Nihondaira Stadium, and to complicate matters these two teams have also been drawn together in this season's League Cup group stage. They'll meet again in the Nihondaira foothills on May 25, and both teams will be looking to get the upper hand this weekend, as Shimizu braces itself for another edition of the Shizuoka Clásico.

The excuses were flying thick-and-fast in the aftermath of Gamba Osaka's thrilling 4-3 AFC Champions League victory over Melbourne Victory at the Telstra Dome in Melbourne on April 9. They were mainly flying from the mouths of Melbourne apologists, who were quick to point out that Victory were missing Australian international Archie Thompson, that the salary cap had cruelled their chances of beating a "rich" club like Gamba Osaka, and that, given that the A-League is currently in the midst of its long off-season, Melbourne were lacking match fitness.

Some of these statements contained an element of truth, but they masked the fact that Melbourne were beaten on the back of making elementary mistakes. It's notable that for all of the Victory's pre-match claims that they had been "scouting" Gamba games - they were apparently unaware that Yasuhito Endo always looks for captain Satoshi Yamaguchi from corners (which is how Yamaguchi scored in Gamba's clash with Shimizu S-Pulse just three days earlier), or that Takahiro Futagawa is one of the best long-range shooting specialists in Japan.

Perhaps the most irritating claim, however, was the one made by Melbourne fans claiming that their team had been beaten by a "full strength" Gamba line-up. Pardon?

A cursory glance through the Gamba team-sheet for the match at the Telstra Dome reveals that the Osakans were missing defender Akira Kaji and striker Ryuji Bando. Kaji has won over 60 caps for Japan. Bando has seven, but would surely have more had he not been struck down by a series of injuries over the past couple of seasons.

Their replacements were Hideo Hashimoto - an experienced player, but nominally a midfielder, and ex-Oita Trinita striker Masato Yamazaki. In over 250 league appearances in Japanese football, Ryuji Bando has scored more than 80 goals. Yamazaki has made about 80 league appearances. He's scored just three times. Full strength line-up? Not quite.

It's notable that Melbourne fans were so quick to highlight the absence of Archie Thompson but were oblivious to Gamba's own injury woes. Not only does it suggest a lack of grace in defeat, it also highlights that when it comes to Asian football, Australians remain - on the whole, fairly oblivious to the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents. That's not surprising - Japanese fans would be hard pressed to name a single A-League player. Yet their fans are arguably more circumspect when it comes to assessing an opponent in the aftermath of defeat.

Now, as both teams prepare for the return clash at Expo '70 Stadium on the northern outskirts of Osaka, it's Gamba who hold all the ready-made excuse cards. Not only is first choice shot-stopper Yosuke Fujigaya injured, but so too is his deputy Naoki Matsuda. That means that 23-year-old rookie Atsushi Kimura will feature between the posts for the Panasonic-outfit, for what could be a nerve-wracking Champions League debut.

As for Akira Kaji and Ryuji Bando, both were expected to return from injury towards the back end of April, but with Gamba set to play five J. League fixtures over fifteen days at the end of the month, it's unlikely that either man will feature against Melbourne. Indeed Gamba will no doubt have an eye on their upcoming regional derby with Vissel Kobe - a club that seems to exist merely to irritate their Kansai cousins from down the road.

Melbourne captain Kevin Muscat has already proclaimed that his team can't offer any excuses, with the Victory's AFC Champions League campaign hanging in the balance. Noble sentiments from the fiery skipper, but only time will tell if they ring true.

So, it has come to this. Six games played. One victory. One draw. Four losses. Shimizu S-Pulse are in a bit of a slump. It was bound to happen.

Several months ago I hypothesised that Shimizu S-Pulse's new Brazilian signings Marcos Paulo Alves and Marcos Aurélio might struggle in an S-Pulse jersey. The former was signed despite the fact Shimizu already had a player in his position - the inimitable Teruyoshi Ito.

The latter's signing was even more puzzling. In Korean striker Cho Jae-Jin, S-Pulse once possessed a reliable goal scorer. He took a while to get going in Japanese football, scoring just nine goals in 29 league games in 2005. The next season was more profitable, as he found the net 16 times in 32 league games. Last season he scored 13 goals in 28 games - a decent return in an injury-blighted season from a player who suffered personal disappoinment at the Asian Cup.

Most importantly, Cho Jae-Jin was exactly the type of player that Shimizu neede