MANILA – Kaya Futbol Club-Iloilo and United City Football Club are set to kick off their respective group stage matches in the 2021 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League tonight.
Kaya-Iloilo will make its AFC Champions League debut against BG Pathum United at 6 p.m. at the Leo Stadium in Thailand, while United City will battle Beijing Guoan at 10 p.m. at the Bunyodkor Stadium in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
For Kaya-Iloilo head coach Graham Harvey, the football club’s first-ever AFC Champions League stint is a huge milestone. He said: “As a football club, we’ve been in existence for 25 years, and as I said, this is our first opportunity on this stage (AFC Champions League) to show Asia what we can do.”
“We’re here to entertain, to make sure we give our very best. Our team is organized and effective when we don’t have the ball, and when we do get the ball, we need to make sure that we attack and attack well,” he added.
Kaya-Iloilo made it to the group stage after ousting Shanghai Port FC, 1-0, on a conversion by Audie Menzi in a preliminary game on Wednesday evening in Thailand.
Meanwhile, United City star Bienvenido Marañon said their match against the Guoan is an acid test for the squad as they aim to continue the AFC Champions League success of Ceres-Negros FC.
“We have been close to reaching the group stage in the last two years, although we honestly knew that it was very difficult to eliminate Chinese or Japanese teams due to their level, but we have always fought very well,” he said.
We are the same club, but with a different owner and a different name,” he went on. “Our goal as a team is to prepare well, compete as best we can, and above all to learn a lot from this new experience that will serve us for the future.”
United City FC automatically earned the right to represent the Philippines in the league after ruling the 2020 edition of the Philippines Football League.
The 2021 AFC Champions League group stage shall follow a double-round robin format and will be played in a centralized venue that is yet to be determined, same with the 2021 AFC Cup group stage./PN
