It took Japanese side Gamba Osaka less than 15 minutes to kill off Adelaide United in the second leg of the Asian Champions League final Wednesday. After winning the first leg 3-0 two weeks ago in Osaka, Brazilian forward Lucas struck twice in the opening quarter of an hour to finish the series at 5-0 overall.
United has nonetheless qualified for the World Club Cup in Japan next month. All it must do to play its fellow United from Manchester in the semifinal is beat New Zealand club Waitakere United, and then get past … Gamba Osaka in the quarterfinal. Adelaide Coach Aurelio Vidmar hopes the ACL defeat will serve as a timely tutorial.
“There are football lessons you can learn but we have done it the hard way,” said Vidmar. “We have spoken about lack of resources and been underdogs in each game. We did exceptionally well to get to the final but obviously Gamba took the game to a different level, a level we are not used to over two legs. We have learnt there are things to strive for, to be better technically, physically to go to the next level.”
Vidmar said Gamba’s first goal after just four minutes “was a real dagger to the heart” from which his team couldn’t recover. “But full credit to our players in the second half, they never gave up. Gamba was the better side.”