Auckland City v. Jeonbuk FC, 15/12/06

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Koreans Condemn City To Sixth-Placed Finish

by Jeremy Ruane

Asian champions Jeonbuk FC headed off Auckland City 3-0 in the fifth place play-off at the FIFA Club World Cup Finals in Tokyo on December 15, clinching the additional $US 500,000 prize-money on offer to the victors.

After Hyeung Bum Kim warmed Ross Nicholson's gloves with a rasping second minute drive, the South Korean champions were on the back foot as the only amateur team in the competition took the game to their professional rivals.

In the fifth minute, Grant Young and Keryn Jordan contrived an opening which culminated in the former picking out Liam Mulrooney with a measured cross to the far post. The midfielder's volley flew across the face of goal, a chance which, at this level, needed to be taken.

Four minutes later, Young won the ball in the centre circle, and Neil Sykes played a precise pass into the path of Bryan Little, who had yards of space in which to work. Sadly, the accuracy of his pass didn't match that of his captain, earning Little a glare and an earful from Jordan, who was perfectly placed to put City in front had he been supplied quality ball.

In the twelfth minute, Jeonbuk failed to clear an Auckland raid, allowing Young to let fly from twenty yards. Sun Tae Kwoun plucked this goalbound effort from the sky, then looked on as his defenders twice scrambled the ball to safety, following corners from Mulrooney and Sykes.

City kept up the pressure, Nicholson sending a raking clearance downfield in the seventeenth minute. Young Sun Kim won the aerial duel with Jordan, and instantly Auckland found themselves outnumbered on the counter-attack.

You Hwan Lim pounced on his team-mate's headed clearance, and threaded a ball into the path of striker Hyun Seung Lee. He stepped over it, and angled his run so Brazilian team-mate Zecarlo could angle a pass in behind the defence for his young front-running partner. Lee took the ball in his stride and thrashed a fifteen yard effort low past the diving figure of Nicholson - 1-0 Jeonbuk, and totally against the run of play.

The goal knocked the confidence of the City side asunder, and within six minutes, the free-wheeling Korean combination, whose players regularly interchanged positions on the park to make life even more difficult for their amateur rivals, twice came close to doubling their advantage.

Moments before pulling a great scoring chance across the face of the target, Hyung Bum Kim fired a free-kick to the far post which was turned narrowly past his own upright by the outstanding Chad Coombes, who did his chances of progressing in the game no harm with his energetic, eye-catching displays in this tournament.

Hyung Bum Kim wasn't to be denied, however, and in the 31st minute unleashed a candidate for “Goal of the Tournament”. Cutting in from the right, he let loose a thirty yard thunderbolt which ripped past

the unsighted Nicholson and into the left-hand corner of his net before the `keeper had even moved - a stunning strike, the type for which you simply cannot legislate!

City's `keeper made a great save at close quarters to thwart the goalscorer five minutes later, after Ji Hyun Jang and Hyun Su Kim had combined to put the latter's namesake in on goal once more.

For a tournament of this magnitude, one would think that there should be enough referees of top level international calibre involved so that the situation whereby the same official being appointed to both matches played by one team could be avoided.

Not so, it would see, as Auckland once again had to endure Saudi Arabian whistle-blower Khalil Al Ghamdi in this match, as well as in their clash with Africa's Al Ahly. (Why an Asian confederation referee was in charge of a match involving the Asian champions is another issue arising from this state of affairs).

In fairness to Mr Ghamdi, he was consistent in both matches. He gave the Aucklanders nothing but a host of yellow cards on both occasions, and blew fouls galore against them, but very few in their favour.

And while he missed the chance to send Jordan off for a second bookable offence late in the match as the striker concluded Jin Cheul Choi's participation in the match with a nasty challenge, he didn't even change his tune to reward Auckland when a clear-cut penalty offence occurred four minutes before half-time, as Young, weaving between defenders, was tripped in the area.

City were, quite rightly, miffed by this, but ended the half on attack when James Pritchett, who was to produce an eye-catching second half display, combined with Coombes on the right before whipping in a cross to the near post for Jordan. His header flashed over the angle of bar and post, leaving City's coach, Allan Jones, with some well-chosen words to issue at half-time.

The Kiwi team clearly heeded them, for they looked to get back into the game at every opportunity. Sadly, a combination of sloppy passes in the attacking third of the park, and falling foul of both the offside trap and their whistle-happy nemesis, meant a lot of what they did which was good in defence and midfield came to nought.

It wasn't for the want of trying, however, especially in the 55th minute, when a strong contender for “Miss of the Tournament” came to pass. Nicholson's clearance downfield was flicked on by Jordan for Young, who outmuscled his marker to get to the by-line in the penalty area and pull the ball back for the incoming figure of Paul Seaman.

With the goal at his mercy, the midfielder will dine out for months on the tale of how he contrived to direct his effort wide of an open goal from six yards, a glorious chance which, if converted, would have made the score 2-1, and given the amateurs

new-found zest.

Instead, it served to stir the Koreans, who conjured their first chance of the second spell in the 63rd minute. Jung Kwan Chung and Zecarlo worked a one-two which saw the Brazilian end up with the ball once more, deep in City's penalty area.

Nicholson tipped his angled shot to safety, but could do nothing about Zecarlo's next shot at the target, which came from the penalty spot in the 72nd minute after Jonathan Perry had mistimed his challenge on Hyeung Bum Kim as he raced downfield on receipt of a throw-out from Kwoun.

That made the score 3-0 to Jeonbuk, a deficit which Auckland, to their credit, never stopped trying to reduce. Four minutes before the game's last goal, City's Japanese substitute, Teru Iwamoto, lashed a twenty-five yarder narrowly wide of the mark after working a one-two with Seaman, who slipped Jordan through in the 74th minute, only for the striker to be thwarted by Hyun Su Kim's timely tackle on the edge of the area.

Nicholson then battered a Hyeung Bum Kim free-kick to safety, before Coombes' vital covering run denied Zecarlo in the penalty area, after Lee had worked an opening with his striking partner.

The introductions of substitutes and the interventions of our whistle-happy Saudi Arabian friend hampered the flow of the game in the last fifteen minutes, much to the disappointment of the 23,258-strong crowd, although both goals survived stoppage time scares.

Perry headed clear as Zecarlo looked to pounce on a Chung cross, an intervention which prompted a Coombes-led counter-attack and culminated in Jordan being forced away from the target by Kwang Huan Jeon once in the penalty area, the striker's attempt to find a team-mate in support foundering on the massed ranks of Jeonbuk defenders who were determined to deny the tiring Aucklanders a goal by which to remember their first venture to the FIFA Club World Cup Finals.

They return home with $US 1m and memories aplenty from a tournament which served to emphasise the gulf in quality between amateur and professional football, and even within professional football itself, levels to which New Zealand's best players can, realistically, only dream about reaching, but thanks to the way in which the FIFA Club World Cup is set up, at least have the opportunity to experience at first-hand as a reward for being crowned Oceania's champion football club.

Auckland: Nicholson; Coombes, Perry (booked, 72), Uhlmann, Pritchett; Mulrooney (booked, 58) (Hayne, 79), Seaman, Sykes (booked, 73), Little (Iwamoto, 59 (booked, 90)); Jordan (booked, 42), Young (Urlovic, 77)

Jeonbuk: Kwoun; I. Kim, Choi (Shin, 88), Young Sun Kim, Jang (Young Sin Kim, 76); Hyeung Bum Kim, Hyun Su Kim (Jeon, 81), Lim, Chung; Zecarlo, Lee

Referee: Khalil Al Ghamdi

Auckland City