Wednesday, November 14, 2012
A FRESH, young team will power the Philippine side against Singapore in tonight’s friendly at the Cebu City Sports Center at 7 p.m.
Head coach Hans Michael Weiss said he will field what he called the “Peace Cup victorious lineup” and expects Demit Omphroy, Dennis Wolf and Cebuano Patrick Reichelt to shine for today’s match.
“It will be a totally different lineup, young team but interesting. They have shown in the past months that they deserve to start in the team,” said Weiss.
Weiss also announced that Phil and James Younghusband won’t be starting in tonight’s game. The brothers played in Loyola’s 2-1 loss to Global FC in the semifinals of the UFL Cup.
Weiss also said he still have a good feeling about today’s match even without some of Europe-based players like Stephan Schrock, Paul Mulders, Jerry Lucena and Neil Etheridge.
“We will do our best to produce a high-level game,” Weiss said.
According to Weiss, their training camps in the United States, Middle East and the Peace Cup tournament will help them take on Singapore, whom they beat, 2-0, last September.
Aside from Reichelt, Cebu’s pride, reserve keeper Paolo Pascual and defender Ray Jonsson will also be present for the home game.
“It’s going be a big game,” said Jonsson, who spent his first eight years in Liloan.
Singapore head coach Radojko Avramovic will retain 60 percent of the lineup that faced the Philippines and said he will apply “a simple but complicated game plan” against the Azkals.
“There will be two to three players who can’t play because of injuries but we still have the best team. As three-time champion of the Suzuki Cup, we are more under pressure to prove ourselves,” said Avramovic.
For the Azkals, Misagh Bahadoran and Carli de Murga won’t be playing because of an injury and Weiss will also not give clearance for other players who are not fit to play.
Meanwhile, PFF Marketing Manager Ebong Joson commended the efforts of the Cebu Football Association in putting everything together in a short span of time.
“The support and teamwork that CFA have shown has been amazing. There were bumps along the ways but the challenges have been conquered and we are now ready for tomorrow’s game,” said Joson.
He added that the pitch is now level compared to 24 days ago when Weiss visited the field for the first time.
Ticket sales are now 95 percent sold out and a total of 7,000 crowd will assemble in the sports center.
Organizers encouraged the audience to come in early as gates will open at 3 p.m. The group warned the public that parking will be a problem so they advised the crowd to think of other ways of getting in the center.
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on November 15, 2012.
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