Late Goal Gains Road Draw For FC Tokyo---And Places Gamba Osaka's Top-Flight Status In Jeopardy

At Suita, Japan:

Kazuma Watanabe's equalizer in the 84th minute---along with Yuhei Tokunaga's earlier tally (21')----lifted FC Tokyo to a 2-2 Saturday J.League road draw with Gamba Osaka, both of whose goals came courtesy of Akihiro Ienaga (37', 62').  Gamba blew a chance to climb out of the drop zone with the draw and must defeat Jubilo Iwata or else, in all likelyhood, be relegated to J.League 2. for next season.

FC Tokyo Back On Winning Track

At Chofu, Japan:


Lucas Severino scored twice in the first half (17', 44') as FC Tokyo snapped their two-match J.League losing streak on Saturday with a 3-2 home win over relegation-threatened Gamba Osaka.

Rafinha Sinks Antlers

At Suita, Japan:

In Thursday J.League action, Rafinha scored the lone goal of the match in the 58th minute as Gamba Osaka found themselves in second place in the league standings (two points in back of front-running Kashiwa Reysol with three games remaining) following their 1-0 home win over Kashima Antlers.

Sagging Antlers Embarrassed At Home

At Kashima, Japan:


Heun-Ho Lee scored twice (80', 88') as Gamba Osaka broke open what had been a deadlocked contest on Wednesday and defeated struggling Kashima Antlers 4-1 in J.League action.

Lucas Is The Man As Gamba Osaka Claim Asian Club Title

At Adelaide, Australia:

Lucas Severino's early first-half goals (4',15') provided all the scoring on Wednesday as Gamba Osaka blanked hosts Adelaide United 2-0 in game two to win the AFC Champions League final two-match series 5-0 on aggregate. Here's Cool Hand Luke, seen here, scoring one of his two goals in this Rob Griffith photo from Associated Press.

Gamba Osaka will now move on to next month's FIFA Club World Cup tournament, which will be played in Japan.