Philippines professional football league champions Ceres la Salle FC are scheduled to arrive in Dhaka tonight ahead of their second AFC Cup encounter against Bangladesh top-flight champions Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi this Tuesday.
AFC Cup debutantes Ceres, champions of Philippines’ United Football League, will set foot in the capital’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport at 8:20pm.
The Philippines club made a solid if unspectacular start to their AFC Cup campaign, drawing 2-2 against formidable Malaysian outfit Selangor FA, who boast the experience of playing in this tournament 10 times before.
Keeping the AFC Cup in mind, Ceres roped in a new German player in Stephan Schrock, who recently played in the second tier of the Bundesliga. Schrock repaid the faith instantly by scoring the opening goal against Selangor and bagging the player of the match award.
Ceres coach Ali Go said in the club website that he expects a strong performance from Shafiqul Islam Manik’s charges. “It’s not gonna be an easy game. They lost to Tampines [Rovers FC] 4-0 but I think they just made key mistakes. I scouted their team. They have at least five-six good players who can really play. The foreign players are very good. We have to play our best to win the game,” said Go before adding, “I rested a few players from the last game just to make sure that some of our players are gonna be fit, but we’ll see. I think some of our players are also a little bit tired and injured. Also, we have only two training sessions before the game. We have a nine-hour flight to Bangladesh but hopefully everyone will recover. Then, we have to play one hundred percent to win this game against Bangladesh (Sheikh Jamal).”
Sheikh Jamal, on the other hand, started their mission with a below-par 4-0 loss against Singapore outfit Tampines on February 23.
