PREVIEW-Soccer-East meets West in Tokyo to decide Asian title

TOKYO, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Pohang Steelers and Al Ittihad will contest a classic East against West showdown in the Asian Champions League final in Tokyo on Saturday, with a berth at next month's lucrative FIFA World Club Cup awaiting the winner.

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that this year's final will be the first winner-takes-all decider after the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) abandoned their traditional home-and-away format for a single, sudden-death match.

The competition, expanded to 32 teams this season with a increased purse of $1.5 million for the winner, will reach its climax on Saturday with either South Korea's Pohang or their Saudi opponents crowned continental champions for a third time.

Al Ittihad won back-to-back titles from 2004 while the Steelers lifted the former Asian Club Championship twice in the late 1990s.

Both clubs have been in great attacking form this season and go into Saturday's final at full strength, with no players unavailable through injury or suspension.

Al Ittihad scored 29 goals and conceded nine in their 11 matches, including a 7-0 thrashing of eventual semi-finalists Umm Salal in the group stage before crushing Pakhtakor Tashkent 4-0 in the quarter-finals and Nagoya Grampus 6-2 in the semis.

ALL IMPORTANT

Tunisian striker Amine Chermiti has scored in each of three games since arriving on loan from Bundesliga club Hertha Berlin in August while Moroccan striker Hicham Aboucherouane is the side's top scorer in the competition with five goals.

"This squad is very much a group and I don't want to talk about individual players," Al Ittihad coach and former Argentine international midfielder Gabriel Calderon told fifa.com.