It was a chilly November night in the Syrian city of Homs when Jeonbuk Motors won the 2006 Asian Champions League. One of the questions asked of coach Choi Kang-hee was regarding his next target. This most taciturn of tacticians, who never smiled in public, actually did and said that their new goal was the world championship. All knew he was joking.
Nine years on, Guangzhou Evergrande and Luiz Felipe Scolari are deadly serious about lifting the FIFA Club World Cup after defeating Al Ahli of Dubai in the AFC Champions League final on Saturday. A global success would be another chapter in an already remarkable rise of these giants of China.
In 2010, Guangzhou were relegated to the second tier of Chinese football for matchfixing. There was no silver lining in this -- it was all gold -- as Evergrande, a large property developer, took over and started pumping money in, buying superstars such as national team captain Zheng Zhi.
The first target was promotion to the top tier. That was achieved at the first time of asking and Guangzhou were back in the top tier though almost unrecognisable to the version that had dropped -- or been shoved down-- the trapdoor just a few months before. More stars, both foreign and domestic, arrived. The next target was the Chinese Super League (CSL) title. That came in 2011 and has been repeated every year. It is now five domestic crowns and counting.
With CSL success becoming routine, it was soon all about the AFC Champions League, a tournament never won by a Chinese club. In 2012, Guangzhou hired World Cup and UEFA Champions League winning coach Marcello Lippi to replace Lee Jang-soo, partly to win in Asia and partly to lift the worldwide profile of his new employers. The Italian delivered in 2013 with a thrilling run to the continental title. Now Luiz Felipe Scolari has repeated that feat, leading the Reds to glory with an aggregate 1-0 win over Al Ahli of United Arab Emirates. Along with Al Ittihad of Saudi Arabia, Guangzhou are the only team to have won the tournament more than once.
Asian success then is not exactly a given, but the giant continent is not the limit of the ambitions of a club who have invested over $150 million on players and coaches over the past five years or so. Even as the celebrations in the third biggest city in China were still ongoing, officials were talking about how the club wants to be a world force. Since 2014, Guangzhou Evergrande have been partly owned by Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba one of China's biggest e-commerce companies. They now want to transcend Asia and become the first from the East to have a global profile.
In a meeting at the start of the year, it was decided that the ultimate target is to be one of the world's top 20 clubs. In the long term, this will be done partly by having the largest football academy that has ever existed. In the short term, it is winning the FIFA Club World Cup. That does not have to be next month but the sooner Guangzhou are champions of the confederation champions the better.
There are certain elements in their favour. It takes place in nearby Japan, although given the fact that the season is now over, travelling anywhere in the world would not have been a problem. Scolari will use all of his pragmatic powers to at least surpass Lippi's fourth place in 2013. The team will be well-rested, at full strength and utterly motivated.
To beat Lippi would go down well with Scolari. Despite the recent league and continental double, it can be argued that much was not of his own making. When he arrived in June he found that Italy's 2006 World Cup-winning captain Fabio Cannavaro -- Lippi's short-lived successor -- had left the house in fine order. The Reds were battling with Shanghai SIPG at the top of the Chinese Super League and had progressed to the quarterfinals of the Asian competition. Scolari may impressively have overseen a half-season without any defeats, but Guangzhou were already on the right track.
Compared to Lippi, the Scolari version is less expansive and exciting, ironic given the long-standing stereotypes of Brazilian and Italian football. 'Big Phil' does what it takes to win. Guangzhou were marginally the better team in all three of his Asian ties only did just enough to win each time. Under Lippi, the Reds often steamrollered the opposition, scoring 22 goals in the knockout stage in the 2013 title campaign. Under Scolari it was just 10.
Big Phil's finest hour actually came on the domestic stage in a September title showdown with Shanghai SIPG, led by old coaching rival Sven-Goran Eriksson. The Swede was sitting on top of the table and victory at home would have meant going four points clear with just five games left. Guangzhou produced a champion's master class -- drawing the sting from the Shanghai attacks and hitting with a number of ruthless killer blows. It ended 3-0 and when that third goal went in, the title was staying on the Pearl Delta.
In Asia, it has been more a case of keeping things tight at the back and hoping for a moment of magic. With some of the talent at Scolari's disposal, he doesn't usually have to wait for long. In the quarterfinal win over Kashiwa Reysol, Paulinho produced one of the best free-kicks of the year, anywhere. And then in the final, it was Elkeson's turn. His turn and shot for the goal was Bergkamp-esque.
Scolari now has time to build his own team. There are going to be comings and goings. Robinho is on a short-term contract that will end after the Club World Cup and there are rumours in Brazil that Paulinho could be on his way out. Such is life for an Asian team with stars that are in demand elsewhere.
The challenge for Guangzhou is to become the kind of club who can not only attract big names but can keep them too, the kind of club with a world profile. That is Scolari's challenge and if successful, that really would be something. His next chapter starts in December.