Four years ago, when China was awarded the right to stage the 2004 Asian Cup, the event was going to be the first of a new era - after South Korea and Japan had hosted the World Cup the Asian Cup in China was the perfect place to take full advantage of the expected boom in the Asian game.
Four years later, on the eve of the tournament, Asian football is not where it expected to be by now. 'Asia hasn't really exploded after 2002,' admitted AFC general secretary Peter Velappan. 'It's not going to be an explosion. Asia is so complex - the culture, the climate, the logistics - it's not easy to progress at the pace we want.'
Last year the Asian Football Confederation decided to move the next Asian Cup from out of the pattern it has occupied since Hong Kong hosted the first edition in 1956: the next tournament will be hosted by one or more Asean countries in 2007.
It was an admission of defeat, albeit a sensible one. A year after Asia had hosted the World Cup for the first time and produced its first semi-finalist, the AFC quite rightly decided to move it out of the Olympic year, where it inevitably finds itself caught as a thin slice of Asian flavour in a weighty sandwich of European championship football and the Olympiad.
Asian Cup 2004 boasts more extensive TV coverage than ever - 37 countries are taking live coverage - but given the current diversification in the industry it is practically impossible not to increase the television hours for a major event. The digital broadcasting era hasn't spawned the kind of diversification in which Asian sport and the Asian Cup can necessarily thrive. Instead it has produced vastly increased interest in a relatively limited number of events with global appeal, such as Euro 2004.
'It's not fair to compare Euro 2004 with the Asian Cup. That is the leading continental football championship. They're ahead of us in media and marketing,' said Velappan, who was in Portugal for the European championship.