Once you've retired, you're no longer an active player. Therefore your income isn't necessarily dependent on not upsetting the bosses.
HKPL Wofoo Tai Po 3:1 Dream FC 2,000 fans attended the match, filling the main stand completely. The club was awarded the HKPL Champions' trophy and they went on a open top bus parade in Tai Po district after the match. Igor Sartori was also awarded best player of the month for April and May. Will he stay at Wofoo Tai Po? Dream FC confirmed they will remain in the HKPL next season. Eastern Longlions 2:0 Kitchee Kitchee had a man sent off early on and the players were clearly too tired to cope with the fitter Eastern players. Hong Kong Pegasus 2:3 R&F FC R&F FC finished second in the end. They will become a full member of HKFA from next season. They will have to play with the same foreign player/local player restrictions as all other clubs, but they will remain in Guangzhou. KC Southern District 1:7 Best Union Yuen Long Huge defeat for the HKFA Cup finalists. Coach Cheng Siu-Chong apologized for the poor performance, he thinks his players are already thinking about the HKFA Cup final next week. Hoi King 1:0 Lee Man Surprised win for the relegated club. Final HKPL table:
https://www.scmp.com/sport/article/...ague-success-open-top-bus-parade-future-hangs Igor Sartori is rumoured to leave Wofoo Tai Po for R&F FC, who are offering HK$300,000 / month. That's an offer no Hong Kong based player can refuse.
So it seems that new coach Mixu Paatalainen named his preliminary squad which will be reduced down on 6th June. Overall, I'm a bit surprised by some of his picks in which there some that I did expect such as Yuen Long's CHAN Kwong-Ho who had a tremendous season and deserve a chance to shine for the national team whilst there are some that I did not expect to be named in the squad. In a statement made on the HKFA website, Mixu said: "It is a large squad for me to see the players training under my own eyes, and also to give the players opportunity to show what they can do for Hong Kong. I believe the squad has a good balance between young and more experienced players. Unfortunately we cannot have all the players we wanted in this squad due to some of their other prior commitments."
This is good news but what is more important is that they pay off their arrears. I would've called in either Lee Ka Ho or Brian Fok seeing as we're short at RB.
If you were to shorten the preliminary squad from list down to 23 players, who do you expect to be named in the final squad?
GK (2): Yapp, Yuen DF (7): Russell, Cancela, Lau, Tsui, Leung, Fung, Law MF (8): Chan Kwong Ho, Yue, Wu, Chan Shinichi, Huang Yang, Tan, Philip Chan, Wong FW (6): Akande, Lam, Sun, Yuen, Cheng, Chung Focus on youth, since it is a friendly match with plenty of subs available.
I doubt they would leave Sandro out of the squad and I really would've called up Giovane and James Ha to the list. Whilst I do believe that Jordan Lam Lok-Kan and Cheng Siu-Kwan have shown potential, I'm not entirely sure on Yuen Chun-Sing or Sun Ming-Him.
The HKFA Top Footballer Awards Ceremony took place today and here are the winners of each category: Footballer of the Year: Igor Torres SARTORI (Tai Po FC) Womens Footballer of the Year: WONG Shuk-Fan (Happy Valley) Coach of the Year: LEE Chi-Kin (Tai Po) Young Players of the Year: WU Chun-Ming (HK Pegasus) & CHENG Siu-Kwan (Lee Man) Player's Player of the Year: Igor Torres SARTORI (Tai Po FC) Most Favourite Player: Igor Torres SARTORI (Tai Po FC) HKFA Top Goalkeeper: TSE Tak-Him (KC Southern) HKFA Top Defenders: Eduardo PRAES (Tai Po), LEUNG Nok-Hang (R&F HK), FUNG Hing-Wa (Tai Po) & Fabio Alcantara LOPES (Yuen Long) HKFA Top Midfielders: CHAN Siu Kwan, WONG Wai (Tai Po), James Stephen HA (KC Southern) & FERNANDO (Kitchee) HKFA Top Forwards: Igor Torres SARTORI (Tai Po) & LUCAS Espindola da Silva (Kitchee) Goal of the Season: LAW Chun-Ting (Yuen Long) Save of the Season: LEUNG Hing-Kit (HK Pegasus) Best Dressed Award: SANDRO (Tai Po)
A little disappointed that Yuto Nakamura was not included in the NT squad as well... By the way - the conclusion of this season means Sean Tse will have just finished his 7th consecutive year in HK. Does this mean he will be available (possibly) for qualifiers beginning in Sep?
Yes. He's stated his desire to represent Hong Kong once he receives his passport as well as to use it to test himself at a higher level.
Crazy how time flies. I still remember the buzz and excitement when he first signed with South China. At least he came at such a young age that he'll still be able to represent HK for many years to come, provided he stops getting injured so often...
In addition to Sean Tse Ka-Keung, Eastern Long Lion's Diego Moreira Eli should also become eligible to represent Hong Kong this year as well. We could possibly see the likes of Kitchee's Fernando and Matt Lam, Tai Po's Michel Lugo and KC Southern's Wellingson de Souza all have the opportunity to represent the national team when they should become eligible next year. Anyways in other news, R&F HK signed 16 year old Adriel Demian Chan from the Central & Western club whilst Offside.hk had reported that Mahama Awal and Eugene Mbome have both been released by HK Pegasus. In addition to the possibility of Igor Sartori's rumoured transfer to R&F HK, there were other summer transfer rumours flying around.
Last week, the LCSD announced that Aberdeen Sports Ground will be "temporarily closed from 10 June 2019 to 31 March 2020 for rooftop reinstatement works at west spectator stand." On Tuesday, Southern confirmed that they will apply to use Mong Kok Stadium as their home ground next season. It's unclear whether this means that only they and Kitchee will be at Mong Kok next season or whether they will only be there until March. In the same article, Southern president Matthew Wong, who is running unopposed as a Club-Linked Director position at the HKFA, stated bluntly that he has no particular plans on how to advance football in Hong Kong.
I think they have tried more or less everything they can within reason. I think the only way to advance is to allow local football gambling as Steven Lo suggested. It is already happening and the stakeholders just pretend it is not or they don't want to do it because it will cause even more problems than they want to handle.
FT: Kitchee SC Vs KC Southern: 2-0 Heartbreak for KC Southern as they lose out on a place in the AFC Cup play off spot to Kitchee SC who took the HKFA FA Cup silverware. There were numerous opportunities made by both teams in the first half, but it was two late goals made by Lucas Espindola da Silva and Fernando which sealed Kitchee SC's victory.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2486311844929344 HK FA Cup final Kitchee 2:0 KC Southern District Hopefully Kitchee will find a bigger and strong squad for the 2019-20 season and the 2020 AFC Cup.
Couldn't think of a more Hong Kong way for a team to win a trophy. One completely avoidable mistake at the back and a lucky deflection.
Recio, Jordi Tarres and Matthew Lam will all leave Kitchee in the off season. Kitchee are likely to go through big changes in the summer. Coach Chu said he will need to talk to the 3 players' new clubs about featuring them in the two remaining AFC Cup fixtures.
Tho the Chinese title suggests 3 old players, Lam is only 29 and in his supposed prime. But I haven't seen enough of him this season to comment on his performance. Only thing I know is that he is about to qualify for the HK team, so hopefully he isn't on the decline...
R&F are going all out for the 2nd straight summer... adding Sartori (from Tai Po no less) and Lam will surely propel them to the top, given it is unlikely Tai Po can replicate their performance this year.