MANILA – Kaya Futbol Club-Iloilo is strengthening its line-up ahead of their upcoming competitions here and overseas. It has introduced three more new recruits.
The Iloilo City-based football team unveiled Curt Dizon, Mark Swainston and Akito Saito to complete its seven free agent signees ahead of their title defense in the Copa Paulino Alcantara and in their AFC Champions League.
Among the three, it is Filipino-English Dizon who has the experience of playing in the Philippines Football League. He previously played for Ceres-Negros/United City FC, Global Cebu FC and Loyola FC.
Prior to returning to the PFL by way of Kaya-Iloilo, the 29-year-old attacker-left winger played overseas with Ratchaburi FC of Thailand and Penang United squad of Malaysia.
The Filipino-English midfielder Swainston, on the other hand, is playing in the Philippines for the first time after spending the early part of his football career in Hong Kong-based tournaments.
The 23-year-old defender-center back Saito, for his part, is joining Kaya-Iloilo as one of their foreign players after previously playing as import in Azerbaijan and Iran football tournaments.
Dizon, Swainston and Saito thus join other Kaya-Iloilo new recruits in veteran midfielders Ricardo Sendra and Justin Baas, defender Abou Sy and experienced goal keeper Henri Bandeken.
The new arrivals more than made up for the departures of the Iloilo City-based football club in Tamon Horikoshi, Milad Behgandom and Dylan Nobiraki, who is set to play in Cambodia.
Now that his squad is complete, Kaya-Iloilo head coach Colum Curtis said it is now time for him to put in his system of proactive, aggressive, and ball-dominating style of play.
“I like to win, I like to win games,” Curtis said in an interview with Kaya-Iloilo. “Domestically, I’ve been quite clear with the players that my expectations are high. I want my teams to be aggressive.”/PN
