Good tidings for local club football if Ceres beats Tianjin
LOCAL football club Ceres-Negros FC goes for greater heights today as it shoots for a spot in the AFC Champions League in an away qualifier match against China’s Tianjin Quanjian.
For one football writer and observer, while where Ceres is right now is already groundbreaking for local club football and as is a great achievement, still the possibility of advancing to the group stage of the Champions League could provide more good tidings.
“It is an achievement. No Filipino club has been so near towards the AFC Champions League group stages,” said Lorenzo Del Carmen, who writes and analyze football for local site Tiebreaker Times.
“If they win, then it should be big news because Tianjin is infinitely wealthier than Ceres or probably the rest of the Filipino football community in general,” he added.
Ceres put itself in a position to advance to the group stages when it was able to fashion a major upset over Brisbane Roar, 3-2, last week in their second preliminary round qualifier match in Australia.
Bienvenido Maranon starred in the win, scoring a brace, with Omar Nazari adding another to secure the big win for Ceres.
The “Busmen” said they are going to China determined to make things happen and go for the spot in the Champions League.
But while beating Tianjin is not totally a remote possibility, still Mr. Del Carmen said Ceres has its work out for it against the China club.
“Does Ceres have a chance against Chinese club Tianjin Quanjian? Well, no pressure on the Busmen,” said Mr. Del Carmen.
“They just have to play with no pressure and play their game. A goal will help ease their nerves and strike some questions for Tianjin,” he added.
Meanwhile, as of this writing there has been no word yet whether the game between Ceres and Tianjin would push through as reports have it that the Ceres team was having difficulty securing visas to travel to China.
According to a report in Fox Sports Asia, Ceres applied for visas immediately upon its return from the Philippines on Friday but was told “there wasn’t enough time to process them before the weekend,” and that the earliest they can secure the visas would be yesterday.
Ceres is said to have been asking the AFC Champions League to move the game date if ever so it can compete on an “even” footing.
In the event the game pushes through today, it will be broadcast live over Fox Sports at 3:30 p.m. —