Foreign hopefuls fail to impress – Jelius
More than 10 foreign import candidates have tried their luck with the State senior football squad but so far none were successful in impressing its head coach Jelius A ng.
KOTA KINABALU: More than 10 foreign import candidates have tried their luck with the State senior football squad but so far none were successful in impressing its head coach Jelius Ating.
The search for candidates began last month and while some had shown good potential, Jelius hoped there would be others more worthy of donning the State's colours.
"We have invited a few more candidates to come for trials. I hope they would arrive soon and be good enough to join the team.
"The sooner we can finalise the team the better because time is running out. The Premier League is scheduled to kick off early next month. If possible, we want to start focusing on team training soon and without interruptions so we need to finalise the imports quickly," Jelius said when contacted here, yesterday.
The Premier League kicks off on February 1 but teams have until February 20 to finalise their four foreign imports quota.
"We have no problems with the list of local players. Now we just need to find import players who really meet the needs of the team," Jelius said.
Serbian import Rodoljub Paunovic is still under contract from last season, which means Sabah only need three more players to complete its quota.
From more than 10 candidates that have appeared for trials with Sabah recently, Heo JaeNyeong is the only remaining one still training with the State team. The South Korean midfielder is still trying to earn a spot in the team after playing for Sabah last year.
His contract was not renewed following a string of injuries last season.