Kirins take on Kitchee in HK tourney today
>> SCG Muang Thong United coach Totchtawan Sripan is hoping to use the Lunar New Year Cup tournament as a tune-up for his club’s participation in the upcoming AFC Champions League.
The Thai League champions, who played a friendly game in Laos two days ago, left for Hong Kong yesterday to take part in the exhibition tournament.
Apart from the Kirins, the other three teams participating in tournament, which kicks off today, are FC Seoul, Auckland City, who have replaced the Australian U23 side in the event, and Kitchee FC.
This tournament is arranged annually during the Chinese New Year holidays in Hong Kong where the winners will be rewarded with three million baht.
Totchtawan said: “We are ready for the tournament after playing two matches [against Sukhothai in the Thailand Champions Cup and Laos Premier League All Stars].
“However, we have never seen these three clubs perform at all and they are all supposed to be strong teams.
“We are hoping to do our best in this competition. We will take things on a match-by-match basis.
“It should be a good test for our team before we play in the AFC Champions League.”
Muang Thong United take on local team Kitchee FC in their opening game today, while the other match will be played between Auckland City and FC Seoul.
The winners of the two matches will meet in the final and the losers will face each other in the third place play-off. Both matches will be played on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) has issued the Thai League One February fixtures for the new season.
The match schedules for the other months will be issued later. The 2017 season gets underway on Feb 11.