New wrench in Rhinos’ prepara on plans
Sabah has gone back to the drawing board a er plans to have friendly matches in Manila failed to materialise.
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah has gone back to the drawing board after plans to have friendly matches in Manila failed to materialise.
Team manager of the state football senior squad, Datuk Juil Nuatim, said they had been given the nod by the Sabah Football Association to play friendly matches against AFC Philippines in Manila this month.
“That plan, however, has been scrapped because it turns out that football in the Philippines is in the off season right now.
“Therefore, we are still trying to arrange for some friendly matches for our preseason before the league begins early next month,” he said when met during the team’s training session at the Kota Kinabalu Sports Complex in Likas here yesterday.
According to Juil, the team needed to play friendly matches outside the state to complete their preseason for the Premier League.
“Aside from the need to play some matches outside, there are also five vacant slots that still need to be filled, including one for the foreign import quota, if we want to have the maximum number of 30 players.
“For this (matters regarding players) we leave it to our head coach Jelius Ating to handle. He is very thorough when it comes to selecting players because he knows what is best for the team,” Juil said.
He added that aside from efforts to complete the squad, preparations for the coming season were generally on the right track.
Meanwhile, Jelius revealed that the remaining quota for foreign import players would only be filled if they could find a suitable candidate.
“There is still one more slot because so far, all the players who have joined our trials failed to meet our expectations.
“Time is ticking but we still have to choose carefully. Our target for the remaining slot is for a striker,” he said.
“If we do not find anyone else, there is a chance that we might call on (Rodoljub) Paunovic to rejoin the team,” Jelius added.
The Serbian forward played for Sabah last year before being released after his contract has lapsed.
Sabah FA only retained three imports from last season and they are Croatian defender Igor Cerina and Koreans Heo Jaenyong (defender/midfield) and Lee Gil Hoon (striker/ centre forward).