Sun, surf and sandy beaches. Sounds like a dream lifestyle, and former Kyoto Sanga striker has opted for it - sort of.

Tahara was reputedly a target for A-League club Adelaide United, but the temperamental striker - whose athletic physique can sometimes be categorised under the heading "portly" - has turned his back on a potential move to the City of Churches, to sign with J2 club Shonan Bellmare.

The seasiders finished fifth in a 15-team J2 last year, but having added three more clubs to the mix this season, Shonan - for whom Hidetoshi Nakata once turned out - could once again find promotion a tough ask.

Tahara's decision may have had something to do with the fact that Shonan will feature in a gruelling 51-game season in J2 this season, compared to Australia's revamped 28-game A-League. 

More likely, though, it has much to do with a Japanese reticence to move overseas.

Certainly Japanese players are moving abroad in an ever-increasing number. But they're doing so to major European clubs like VfL Wolfsburg, or they're moving at a young age, as Catania striker Takayuki Morimoto did.

The mere prospect of a "nice lifestyle" is unlikely to entice too many Japanese players with little knowledge of English and even less awareness of a culture other than their own.

That's not to disparage Tahara - far from it. Rather it's an illustration that the hopes of Australian fans that Japanese players will use the A-League as a potential "launch pad to Europe" are at best naive and at worst, plain stupid.

Yutaka Tahara was just about the most "un-Japanese" player I've seen ply his trade in the J. League. From his grizzled beard to his bustling style, if ever a player was going to move to Australia, I thought Tahara might be it.

Not going to happen, folks.

If Yutaka Tahara is not up for the A-League... then don't expect too many other Japanese players to be booking flights Down Under any time soon.

On the surface, things look fairly bleak for Adelaide United going into the second leg of their AFC Champions League final clash at Hindmarsh Stadium on November 12. 

3-0 down from the first leg to Japanese outfit Gamba Osaka, missing key men Eugene Galekovic and Angelo Costanzo through suspension and with a 17-year-old goalkeeper in the form of Mark Birighitti between the posts. 

Still, if ever there was a chance for an Australian team to demonstrate the kind of "fighting spirit" they're always banging on about, it is now.

All tickets for this match were snapped up within hours of going on sale, so it will be a disappointment if anything less than a capacity crowd of 17,000 crams into Hindmarsh Stadium. With a vocal crowd behind them - hopefully former United skipper Ross Aloisi has managed to fire up the locals with another impassioned pre-match call to arms - United should at least be able to put Gamba under pressure, whether they can pull the three goals back or not.

Should United lose this game then both clubs will go through to the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan. That will likely herald another showdown between the two, provided United can overcome New Zealand side Waitakere United in a qualifying play-off, and the South Australians won't want to go into a one-off clash with Gamba on the back of another demoralising defeat.

The return of the hard-running Paul Reid from injury is a bonus for United in midfield. It's a cliché as old as the game itself, but if United can pull an early goal back then they can put Gamba under an inordinate amount of pressure. Gamba are not quite from the same stock as a team like Kashima Antlers - able to control possession in midfield and used to the pressure cooker of title showdowns.

The Osakans have choked before. How cool they are under pressure in Adelaide may go a long way to determining whether Gamba chokes again.

Hope springs eternal, so the old saying goes, and if Adelaide United were looking for signs that they can claw their way back into their two-legged AFC Champions League final clash with Gamba Osaka, they may have just found them in Gamba's 3-1 home defeat to FC Tokyo in the J. League at the weekend.

It wasn't that Gamba lost in a match in which neither side looked particularly impressive, but rather the way that Gamba conceded their goals that should pique interest in South Australia. 

Missing tall defender Sota Nakazawa through a back injury, Gamba coach Akira Nishino switched to an 3-4-3 formation that saw former Yokohama F. Marinos striker Roni handed a rare start, with Gamba still harbouring slim hopes of winning just their second J. League crown.

They could have been on their way had ex-Japan international Ryuji Bando not missed two golden opportunities in the first eight minutes. First Bando raced through one-on-one with FC Tokyo shot-stopper Hitoshi Shiota in just the second minute of the match, but as Bando picked his spot, Shiota guessed right and stuck out a lunging foot to deflect his effort wide.

Then Bando ran on to an excellent chip over the defence, only to turn and volley his effort straight at Shiota, with the former Japan international looking rusty in front of goal after missing most of the campaign through injury.

Those misses proved costly as FC Tokyo took the lead with the first attack of the game. There appeared little danger when winger Naohiro Ishikawa floated an innocuous looking cross deep towards the far post, but powerful Brazilian striker Cabore had only the diminutive Yasuhito Endo as his marker, and the ex-Gyeongnam FC striker Cabore simply shrugged the midfielder off and headed the ball back across the face of goal and into the far corner.   

FC Tokyo scored again with practically their next attack of the game. A long throw seconds after the half-time interval was aimed at the 192cm tall Sota Hirayama, but with the ball sailing over Hirayama's head and the Gamba defence paying far too much attention to the former Heracles Almelo front man, Naohiro Ishikawa dashed in behind the defence to side-foot a half-volley passed Yosuke Fujigaya for FC Tokyo's second.

Sota Hirayama was proving a real handful in this match, vindicating coach Hiroshi Jofuku's decision to leave top scorer Shingo Akamine on the bench, and Hirayama then scored the goal his dominant performance warranted. With his back to goal Hirayama used his powerful frame to shield the ball from Gamba midfielder Tomokazu Myojin, before turning and firing into the far corner of the goal.

The hosts pulled one back in front of a disappointing crowd of just 13,515 at Expo '70 Stadium, with Lucas Severino flicking on a chipped assist from Takahiro Futagawa to register a goal against the club he left in January. Yet Gamba never looked like winning this match, and it was FC Tokyo - and not the Osakans - who kept their faint hopes of winning an unlikely J. League title alive.

Three things stood out from the defeat. One is that Gamba missed Sota Nakazawa more than they would care to admit. While Michihiro Yasuda and ex-FC Tokyo man Akira Kaji are adequate in attack, they struggle in defence - particularly when Gamba are being put under pressure, and particularly when that pressure comes in the form of crosses into the box.

The second is that chipped passes over the defence are very much the modus operandi for Gamba's attack. Several times Gamba caught out the FC Tokyo back four this way, indeed that's how Lucas Severino scored his goal, but cutting off the supply line from midfield and in particular from Endo and Futagawa, seems like a sensible option in halting Gamba's forays forward.

Most importantly, Gamba tend to struggle under pressure. Since lifting their one and only J. League crown thanks to a dramatic final day in 2005 (ironically it was a stoppage-time FC Tokyo equaliser against Cerezo Osaka that saw Gamba win the title), Gamba have been involved in three subsequent title races. They've choked in all three of them.

Admittedly the J. League is as tough a domestic competition as it gets. But there's no doubt that pressure seems to affect Akira Nishino's team, especially when they're away from home.

Food for thought for Aurelio Vidmar then. He could do worse than demand a red-hot atmosphere from the home fans at Hindmarsh Stadium, while instructing tall timber Robert Cornthwaite and Sasa Ognenovski to get amongst it at set pieces. Overly simplistic it may seem, but that might be all that Adelaide United have to hold on to having been comprehensively outplayed in the first leg of this tie.    

Wow. After my tirade against Adelaide United's technical skills, I sure hope no other Australians saw tonight's Shizuoka derby. 

In what will surely rank as one of the worst games of the season, Jubilo Iwata beat local rivals Shimizu S-Pulse 1-0 thanks to a Ryoichi Maeda goal barely twenty seconds after the half-time interval.

Persistent rain kept the crowd in Fukuroi to just under 25,000 but the fans who stayed home were the lucky ones, as Jubilo and Shimizu turned in an error-fest of embarrassing proportions.

The highlight - or lowlight, depending on which team you were supporting - came just after the restart when S-Pulse defender Naoaki Aoyama, under no pressure whatsoever, attempted to pass the ball to his goalkeeper from the kick-off, only to stumble and trip, presenting the ball to Jubilo striker Ryoichi Maeda who dutifully dispatched a skidding low drive passed a perplexed Kaito Yamamoto.

How the fans must have wished that had been a golden goal, as S-Pulse in particular turned in a performance totally bereft of inspiration and creativity, so much so that the beaten League Cup finalists were booed off the pitch at the end, despite receiving good support from the S-Pulse faithful throughout the ninety minutes. 

As far as J. League games go, this was as bad as it gets, and how Shimizu hammered Gamba Osaka 3-1 the other day I'll never know. Forget the AFC Champions League. If Adelaide United want to restore some confidence right now, they should challenge Kenta Hasegawa's misfiring team to a duel. 

"Mike Tuckerman has a massive problem with the A-league.

And is always making comparisons. Ignore any article he writes, I could fill this forum with his anti-aussie diatribe.

That said it is ridiculous to compare the J league with the A league, and many Australians need to stop doing this, it just gives idiots like Mike the ammunition they require."

That was just one of the responses posted on the message board of a well-read Australian football website, after I wrote this suggesting that perhaps Australian football doesn't have as much in common with the J. League as we think.

Well, after watching Gamba Osaka demolish Adelaide United in the first leg of the AFC Champions League final, the suggestion that the J. League is the current benchmark of Asian football seems about right to me.

What have we learned from Gamba Osaka's astonishing 3-0 thrashing of Adelaide United in the first leg of the AFC Champions League final? 

The first thing is that Gamba should have won by a wider margin. If I were a cynic I might suggest that referee Bashir Abdul Malik looked suspiciously like he was trying to keep the score down, by not sending off Adelaide keeper Eugene Galekovic for a blatant professional foul and then ruling out Yasuhito Endo's "goal" after he subsequently curled his free-kick past Galekovic and into the top corner. But that is to miss the point. 

The point is that Gamba Osaka proved that Australian football is light years behind the Japanese game in terms of technical skill.    

How this fact has been overlooked by so many in Australia, I'm not really sure. But I have some idea. I caught the intro to Adelaide station Fresh FM's otherwise excellent radio coverage of the game - and bravo to the station for sending a team over to Osaka at considerable expense in the first place - but when presenter Dom Rinaldo told guest reporter Andrew Montesi that he wouldn't ask for his opinion on Gamba Osaka, I had to ask myself why.

If Lucas Neill can "google" Pim Verbeek, then why can't Andrew Montesi "google" Gamba Osaka? Is it acceptable that a paid sports reporter is not expected to present an opinion on the opposition? How hard is it to look up even the most cursory information in an age where this kind of stuff is supposed to be available at our fingertips?

To be fair to Fresh FM, at least they were at the game, and there have been more galling oversights from other media outlets.

How often do we have to put up with the following cliché?

"Aurelio Vidmar leads his team into the unknown."

You what? Isn't this the same Aurelio Vidmar who spent a season at Sancrecce Hiroshima in the late 90's? Wouldn't that mean that he himself has played at Expo '70 Stadium in Osaka? And wouldn't that make him a decent judge of Japanese football? Leading his team into the unknown! Sounds like he's taking his team to Osaka via Mars.

The build-up and subsequent crushing defeat prompted the usual round of soul-searching from the Australian blogosphere and message boards. Some of it exposed the total naivet'e of Australian fans. One proposal had the A-League playing an All-Star game against a J.League XI. A great idea - except for the fact that the J. League already plays an All-Star game against the K-League.

Other suggestions include implementing "free player loans" between J. League and A-League clubs. How does that work? After a J. League team thumps their Aussie counterparts, they then take some Australian players "on loan" to teach them the basic skills that are drilled into Japanese players from the age of five? Why on earth would the J. League agree to that? And why would the J. League want to develop Australian players in the first place? The J. League is a business, not a charity.

Everywhere I turn, I see myth reported as fact. Gamba Osaka as a "giant" of Japanese football. The crumbling Expo '70 Stadium as one of "the best" in Japan. Even the incredulous descriptions of Gamba's "wonderful chanting fans" leaves me irate. How hard is it to look this stuff up? I can't help but feel that if the Australian football community hadn't approached the AFC Champions League final with eyes wide shut, it wouldn't have been so surprised by the level of Gamba's play.

As for me, suggestions that I'm "anti A-League" are well wide of the mark. I was a season ticket-holder when Sydney FC lifted the inaugural toilet seat, and was at all three of Australia's group stage games at the World Cup in 2006. I missed the second round clash with Italy because I was getting married. Even then, it was a close call.

I am just as proud of Australian football as the next fan, but it seems to me that unless we begin to embrace Asian football there are going to be plenty more nasty surprises in store. We could do worse than starting to pay some attention to the J. League.

"At one of the press conferences, I said it was imperative that one of the Japanese teams become the champions, but I lied," said Gamba Osaka coach Akira Nishino to the Yomiuri Shimbun ahead of his side's AFC Champions League first leg final clash with Adelaide United.

"I know deep down inside it has to be Gamba." 

Gamba coach Nishino may have his wish come the end of the two-legged AFC Champions League final, but in the build-up to tonight's clash at Expo '70 Stadium in Osaka he has highlighted the different physiques of the two sides.

"I think it'll be them in the air, and us on the ground," Nishino told the Shimbun, and in a press conference ahead of the clash Nishino singled out Adelaide's defence - which houses 197cm Robert Cornthwaite and 195cm Sasa Ognenovski - as one of the keys to the clash.

Their height could nullify the attacking threat of full-backs Akira Kaji and Michihiro Yasuda, who are unlikely to bomb forward and rain in crosses with Gamba relatively weak in the air in the final third of the pitch. 

Instead Gamba will rely on talismanic midfielder Yasuhito Endo to drive the team forward with his short passing game and Gamba's strikers will expect to do plenty of off-the-ball running as Endo looks to slip incisive balls in behind the defence.

Nishino expects Adelaide to play for a draw at Banpaku, but United coach Aurelio Vidmar is likely to field goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic and midfielder Diego, despite both going into this clash under serious injury clouds. 

With the first of the winter winds having hit Japan temperatures are slowly dropping across the country, with this match expected to be played under cloudy skies and a temperature of around 15°C in the west of Japan.  

There was an excellent piece by SBS football analyst Scott McIntyre last week that managed to put Gamba Osaka's upcoming two-legged AFC Champions League final with Adelaide United into perspective.

In it, McIntyre rightly rubbishes the myth that Japanese clubs have merely "bought" success in Asia, pointing out that clubs such as Gamba Osaka have run fully-fledged youth academies for years that have promoted countless numbers of youngsters into the ranks of professional football.

Just as alarming a myth being perpetuated in Australian football circles suggests that Gamba Osaka have already qualified for the upcoming FIFA Club World Cup. While "fact-checking" seems to be a byword for "time-wasting" within certain sections of the Australian media, the reality is that Gamba Osaka have certainly not qualified for the Club World Cup.

With Gamba's chances of winning the J. League looking increasingly remote, they need to win the AFC Champions League to qualify for the Club World Cup, which is precisely why Scott McIntyre claims that Gamba Osaka have much more to play for than Adelaide United, who will take part in the Club World Cup whether they win the Champions League or not.

Certainly Gamba will be looking to take something back to South Australia from the first leg of this clash at the dilapidated Expo '70 Stadium in Suita City on November 5, however Akira Nishino's side may not go into this match brimming with confidence after being smashed 3-1 by a rampant Shimizu S-Pulse in their last match in the J. League, while Gamba's weekend Emperor's Cup clash with J2 side Ventforet Kofu has been postponed until November 16.

Nevertheless having beaten Adelaide's A-League counterparts Melbourne Victory twice in the group stage of this season's AFC Champions League, Gamba will be desperate to become the second Japanese side to lift the current incarnation of the Champions League following Urawa Reds' success last season.

In midfielder Yasuhito Endo, Gamba possess one of the shining stars of Asian football, and the talismanic Japan international is well rested having sat out Gamba's defeat to S-Pulse through suspension. Indeed the entire Gamba squad is well rested - their last competitive match came on October 26 - and there is plenty of experience within the Gamba ranks as captain Satoshi Yamaguchi approaches 400 professional appearances, while long-range shooting specialist Takahiro Futagawa has played more than 250 times for Gamba.

What Gamba will come up against is an Adelaide side that has made winning the Champions League their mission. Aurelio Vidmar's side have played with obvious passion and constant grit throughout this tournament. Unfortunately for Vidmar he comes up against a Gamba outfit synonymous with precisely those qualities.

With Gamba forced to subsist in a baseball heartland in which J2-dwelling city rivals Cerezo Osaka have far more potential to command popular support, an AFC Champions League title would do nicely for a club looking to increase their popularity throughout the Kansai region. Moreover with Gamba having announced ambitious plans to build a 35,000-capacity "English style" stadium on the site of their current Expo-land home, the Champions League final has suddenly taken on "must-win" proportions for the club that started out a modest existence as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Soccer Club in 1980.

Still, Adelaide United will be just as desperate for victory in this continental showpiece final - particularly after their most recent 3-2 home defeat to Melbourne Victory, and with full houses likely to pack into Expo '70 Stadium on the northern fringes of Osaka on November 5 and again in Adelaide's Hindmarsh Stadium on November 12, all eyes will be on East Asia for this mouth-watering clash of Asia's best in the 2008 AFC Champions League final.

The 2008 AFC Champions League will feature a final showdown between Japan's Gamba Osaka and Australia's Adelaide United. 

Gamba saw off fellow J. League outfit Urawa Reds in their two-legged semi-final fixture, winning the second leg 3-1 in front of 53,287 baying fans at Saitama Stadium thanks to goals from captain Satoshi Yamaguchi, a rare strike from Tomokazu Myojin and another from influential midfielder Yasuhito Endo. 

Adelaide United qualified for the final despite a 1-0 defeat to Uzbek side Bunyodkor in Tashkent, with the South Australia's 3-0 home win in the first leg of the tie enough to propel the A-League club into the final. 

The victory marks a double coup for United, who will go on to represent the Asian Football Confederation at the upcoming FIFA Club World Cup in December, where they will be hopeful of winning through to a money-spinning semi-final clash with reigning European champions Manchester United at Yokohama International Stadium on December 18.

Whether United can overcome Gamba Osaka in the AFC Champions League final is another matter, but history would appear to be on Aurelio Vidmar's side after United knocked out the highly-fancied Kashima Antlers in the quarter-finals.

Gamba, meanwhile, beat fellow Australian side Melbourne Victory 4-3 in Melbourne and 2-0 in Osaka in the group stage of the competition before knocking out defending Asian champions Urawa Reds in the final four, despite many claiming the Kansai side to be the weakest of the Japanese representatives in this season's tournament.

The first leg of the final will take place at Expo '70 Stadium on the northern fringes of Osaka on November 5, and club officials will be hoping for even more than the 17,166 fans who packed into the compact ground for the first leg of their semi-final clash with Urawa, while Gamba's Emperor's Cup clash at home to J2 side Ventforet Kofu has now been pushed back to November 16.

Adelaide United chief executive Sam Ciccarello has ruled out moving the second leg of the final - set down for November 12 - from United's 17,000-capacity Hindmarsh Stadium, claiming that his side does not wish to give up "home advantage" by playing away from the boutique, purpose-built football stadium.

Both the AFC Champions League final and the FIFA Club World Cup will mark a financial windfall for United, with the Asian champions awarded $AU860,000 in prize money - the runner-up is guaranteed $AU575,000 - while the minimum amount earned for participation in the FIFA Club World Cup is $AU750,000.

Talk about redemption! If ever a man was in need of it, it was Adelaide United defender Robert Cornthwaite. His own goal in the first leg of United's AFC Champions League quarter-final clash with J. League champions Kashima Antlers was just about the best in the business. But it could have been a fatal blow for his side's chances of progressing to the final four of Asia's premier continental showdown.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man as they say, and who else but Cornthwaite should pop up to head home the winner in Adelaide's epic second leg victory over a ragged Kashima Antlers? It's a wonderful story that made for gripping drama, and Adelaide now march on to face Uzbek side Bunyodkor in what will be another money-spinning tie for the South Australian club, after seeing off Kashima 2-1 over the two legs.

For now Adelaide are basking in the glory of a superb Champions League win, and over the 180 minutes of football no one would dare suggest that they didn't deserve it. Any allusions that Kashima dominated possession or Shinzo Koroki missed a hatful of chances is a moot point; the business of football is putting the ball in the back of the net, and one might point out with a hint of irony that Adelaide managed to do that three times.

They can also thank a superb performance in both legs from goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic. It's a testament to the quality of Australian keepers that he could not dislodge Michael Theoklitos from the Melbourne Victory starting eleven, but in the kind of form he's in, surely no one would be surprised if Galekovic replaced Ante Covic in Pim Verbeek's Socceroos squad.

The big shot-stopper was outstanding again at Hindmarsh Stadium, pulling off a pivotal one-handed save to keep Koroki out after just eleven minutes. That save seemed to calm United nerves, and roared on by a capacity crowd of 16,965 United grew in stature, with veteran striker Paul Agostino proving a menace up front in the first half.

For their part Kashima clearly missed talismanic midfielder and captain Mitsuo Ogasawara - out for the rest of the season after picking up cruciate knee ligament damage in an incident-packed clash with Kashiwa Reysol last Saturday. Yet Kashima's bullish mood before the match now seems hopelessly optimistic. A glance through the team-sheet suggests that the Antlers shouldn't have missed Ogasawara as much as they did, but once again his Japanese team-mates appeared to be struck by a case of stage-fright, with Masashi Motoyama - making his return from injury - turning in a forgettable display.

Australian media headlines that Kashima would field a "$4 million Samba Soccer Trio" at Hindmarsh Stadium no doubt prompted howls of laughter in Japan. Danilo seems closer to the exit door than the starting eleven at Kashima, and last season the former Sao Paulo man was unable to dislodge Takuya Nozawa from the run-on team. He's been given more opportunities by coach Oswaldo de Oliveira in 2008, but the fact is that he never was and never will be a key player for the Antlers.

Another of Kashima's Brazilians in the form of Marcinho spent the grand total of zero minutes on the pitch against Adelaide, with only Marquinhos - now in his eighth season in Japanese football - expected to contribute anything of note against the Reds. How that less than illustrious trio is supposed to comprise a "$4 million Samba Soccer Trio" is anyone's guess, but the lack of attention to detail shown by the Australian media is irksome.

Indeed the constant failure of Australians to acknowledge the strengths of their opponents is a worrying trend. This obsession with Brazilian players in Japan is grating. The key players for Urawa Reds, Gamba Osaka and Kashima Antlers are Marcus Tulio Tanaka, Yasuhito Endo and Mitsuo Ogasawara respectively - all Japanese. So too is the obsession with "money" in the J. League. The real money in Asian football is in the oil-rich Gulf States, and now, Uzbekistan. Whatever money J. League clubs possess, it's because they have earned it. A more salient point is that all three of the clubs mentioned have promoted countless numbers of professional footballers through their youth ranks.

None of that should take away from Adelaide's momentous achievement, however, and surely Kashima Antlers will likewise have learned some lessons. The half-heartedness with which the Ibaraki side seemed to approach the quarter-final fixture stood in glaring contrast to Adelaide United's eagerness. If Japanese clubs continue to approach the ACL with such reticence - hedging their bets by holding back key players for their domestic campaigns - it is their loss.

Adelaide United couldn't care less. It is they who will face off against Rivaldo's Bunyodkor in the semi-finals, it is they who can bank another sell-out crowd at Hindmarsh Stadium for the first leg of that tie, it is they who are marching onwards to continental glory, with the highly-fancied Kashima left to rue what might have been, and it is Aurelio Vidmar and his team who deserve all their plaudits after a gripping, and truly deserved quarter-final win over Kashima.