The 2008 Asian Player of the Year will be crowned tonight at a ceremony in Shanghai. Nominations have been cut down to five and a Japanese midfielder is favourite to take out the award.

Yasuhito Endo is a major player for the award after stepping out of the shadows of fellow midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura from Scottish club Celtic.

Endo led his team to victory in the Asian Champions League and would be a worthy winner but he has to compete with four other Asian players.

Ismail Matar (Al Wahda and UAE), Server Djeparov (Bunyodkor and Uzebkistan), Yuji Nakazawa (Yokohama F Marinos and Japan) and Sebastian Quintana (Qatar Sports Club and Qatar) are Endo's competition which will be named this evening, Shanghai time.