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Gamba beat Adelaide to claim ACL title

Adelaide United players look dejected after losing the second leg of the AFC Champions League final to Gamba Osaka in Adelaide yesterday. Gamba Osaka won the match 2-0 to win the final 5-0 on aggregate. PHOTO: AFP

Gamba Osaka striker Lucas shattered Adelaide United’s dreams of becoming the first Australian winners of the AFC Champions’ League with two early killer goals in an anti-climatic final leg in Adelaide yesterday.

The home side’s already flimsy hopes of an improbable come-from-behind victory at home after being trounced 3-0 in Osaka last week evaporated in the first 15 minutes of the deciding tie when the classy Brazilian struck twice.

It gave the Japanese side a 5-0 aggregate win.

Accomplished Gamba were in little bother from then on despite some desperate Adelaide attacks to become the second successive Japanese outfit to win Asian soccer’s premier club crown following Urawa Reds’ triumph last year.

It was a deflated sellout home crowd who groaned at their team’s impotency as Gamba Osaka clinically inflicted the Reds’ first home defeat in this year’s ACL on a balmy Adelaide evening.

Gamba effectively killed off the tie in just the fourth minute when Lucas fired home after Adelaide’s goalkeeper Mark Birighitti partially saved Hayato Sasaki’s stinging volley from outside the box.

Gamba Osaka captain Satoshi Yamaguchi holds the trophy aloft after they defeated Adelaide United yesterday in the second leg of the AFC Champions League final in Adelaide, Australia. PHOTO: AFP

The goalscoring chance came after a weak defensive header from Sasa Ognenovski set up Sasaki’s shooting opportunity.

Birighitti, deputizing for suspended first-choice goalkeeper Eugene Galekovic, kept the volley out but only presented Lucas with an easy task to strike the volley into the net.

It was a hammer blow for Adelaide, roared on by a capacity 17,000 red-bedecked home crowd.

DESTINY

If there was any doubt, Lucas made absolutely certain of the destiny of the trophy with another killer strike in the 15th minute.

The Brazilian was put through on the left by an incisive pass from Takahiro Futagawa and he had the time and space to score and put Gamba two up and effectively five goals to the good.

Adelaide gave their stunned fans some hope, but only briefly, when Brazilian striker Cristiano headed home in the 27th minute, but it was disallowed for offside.

The Adelaide players’ heads dropped as Gamba controlled possession and found several more scoring chances, urged on by their pocket of a couple hundred blue-shirted fans assembled in one corner of the ground.

Lucas, on a hat-trick, headed just over the crossbar as Adelaide’s frustrations boiled over with defender Michael Valkanis yellow carded for chopping down Michihiro Yasuda.

Adelaide screamed for a penalty midway through the second half when Cristiano was brought down in the box by a Yasuda tackle only for the referee to wave play on.

PRESSURE

“I’m really happy. There was lots of pressure and to win this title makes us feel very proud,” Gamba coach Akira Nishino said.

“We started smoother than I expected, I expected a lot of pressure but our team was very aggressive and handled the pressure well and we were able to decide the match in the first half,” he said.

Adelaide coach Aurelio Vidmar said there had been no chance of coming back after conceding the early goals.

“That was the one thing that we didn’t want to happen,” Vidmar said.

“But unfortunately it did — and it happened twice. From then on it was just backs to the wall,” he said.

Despite the loss, Adelaide qualified for the Club World Cup against the likes of Manchester United next month because host Japan was guaranteed of having a team in the competition. Gamba earned a spot as Asian champion.
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