Sydney FC, Melbourne Victory and Perth Glory are going to be spending November in Qatar in their bid for Asian success and it may give them an edge when it comes to reaching the final of the AFC Champions League.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has been scrambling around trying to save its flagship club tournament after the spread of coronavirus caused the group stage to be postponed last March.
With countries in the eastern zone unwilling or unable to host the remaining games, the AFC has played the final card in its hand: a ‘bio-secure’ Qatar. The country will host the rest of the stage and the three knockout rounds following that.
It could all be good news for the three Aussie teams who started a little slowly. Instead of travelling to and from Japan, China and Japan, there is going to be one long trip to Qatar. Instead of heading to Beijing or Seoul in the onset of frigid northeast Asian winters, there will be pleasantly warm November sunshine waiting in Doha. With quarantine procedures in place, there will be time for all players to recover from the journey and then focus on the football.
The timing may be the best thing. Assuming that the next A-League season starts in December, the three A-League teams can put all their energies into Asia and warm-up for the new campaign at home at the same time.
Sydney and Melbourne have four group matches remaining and Perth five. If they go through, there will be three more knockout encounters by December 13. With it all starting on November 18, that will leave seven games (or eight for Perth) in just over three and a half weeks –busy but not hectic.
This gives an advantage over Chinese teams who have yet to play a single game-except for Beijing who managed one. The likes of Guangzhou Evergrande and the two Shanghai teams have six group encounters to fit in during the first two weeks in Qatar.
There are bigger headaches for the likes of Ange Postecoglou who will have to deal with a direct clash. The J.League will be approaching its climax by the middle of November with the season-ending in the first week of the following month. Postecoglou’s Yokohama F.Marinos won both group stage games so far but will have to make a decision between the J.League and the Champions League, as will Vissel Kobe and FC Tokyo.
