Antlers' success lifts J-League gloom

After a season that could easily have finished in disaster, Japan's J-League ended on a triumphant note on Saturday after a scintillating finale saw Kashima Antlers crowned champions for the second consecutive season.

After a season that could easily have finished in disaster, Japan's J-League ended on a triumphant note on Saturday after a scintillating finale saw Kashima Antlers crowned champions for the second consecutive season.

Kashima, Japan's most succesful club, beat Jubilo Iwata 1-0 with a sudden-death strike from the midfielder Mitsuo Ogasawara in the 10th minute of extra time. The deciding goal, from a 25-yard free-kick, capped a game of rare excitement. Relentless end-to-end attacking saw plenty of near-misses at both ends before Kashima deservedly won. The veteran Scottish referee, Les Mottram, called the game – his last in Japan – the best he had refereed in his five years here.

The dramatic clincher was just what the J-League needed after a nerve-wracking last few weeks. The 1993 launch of the J-League sparked a nationwide football frenzy but average attendances slumped to just 10,000 by 1997. This year average gates recovered to 16,500 as popular teams built improved stadiums. But all the good work nearly came undone as two of Japan's most popular teams, Urawa Red Diamonds and Yokohama F Marinos, came perilously close to relegation. Relief was almost tangible when the less popular Cerezo Osaka and Avispa Fukuoka went down, instead.

Verdy, who were J-League champions in its first two seasons, avoided the drop on the last day of the season. The side who played Yokohama Marinos in the J-League's inaugural game have fallen a long way since the heady first years of professional football here. Once adored by the Japanese, Verdy found themsleves discarded like last year's fashion when the J-League craze faded. Humiliation followed when they were forced to quit Kawasaki for Tokyo, as locals refused to support a team that had neglected their home base while they revelled in national adulation. Demotion would have dealt a deadly blow to Verdy's efforts to rebuild support at its superb new Tokyo Stadium home.

Many pundits say it is time for the J-League to ditch its unusual format. The season is divided into two halves and the two winners play home-and-away matches to decide the champions. This year, Kashima secured victory by drawing 2-2 away and winning 1-0 at home. The critics point out that this year Jubilo Iwata totted up 17 more points over the two halves of the season than Kashima. But there can be no doubting the excitement the championship clash adds to the end of the season. The games invariably sell out.

The problem of low crowds obscures the fact that the J-League has improved massively in its eight years of life. Japan will co-host next year's World Cup; pitches and stadiums are world class; fans now understand the game intimately; promotion and demotion between the J-1 and J-2 divisions has been introduced; the rule that all games must have a winner, by penalty shoot-out if necessary, has been dropped; and Tokyo, which inexplicably had no top-flight team, now has two: FC Tokyo and Tokyo Verdy.

But the J-League's greatest transformation is that its biggest stars are now home-grown, rather than ageing foreign superstars such as Gary Lineker and Zico. Indeed, the J-League's youth training programmes have helped produce Japanese players good enough to play abroad. This year's success story has been midfielder Shinji Ono, who has thrived at Feyenoord, while Junichi Inamoto and Akinori Nishizawa are at Arsenal and Bolton respectively.

Japan has yet to televise English First Division games, but that may change now that Japan's goalkeeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi plays for Portsmouth. Pompey could find themselves bigger in Japan than, say, JEF United, who played one home game before 4,300 fans.

The sad fact for the J-League is that, after doing so much for Japanese football, many fans freely admit that they have little interest in their domestic product.