AFC Cup MD2:”Our ambition is to get a good result”,says Makhlouf

Safa are keen to bounce back from their heart-breaking opening loss to Kuwait SC when they host Syrian league champions Al Jaish.

While the Lebanese club will not have Senegalese midfielder Sy Cheikh available after he was handed a suspension for his red card against Kuwait SC, coach Theo Bucker is in confident mood.

 “We are looking forward to making a good comeback after our opening defeat in Kuwait,” said the German. “We learnt a lot of lessons from that match and we gained good experience which can help us to achieve our first three points in the competition tomorrow.

“Our opponents will be playing without any foreign players but this doesn’t mean that they are a weak team. We watched some of their matches and they have decent players who have good physical abilities and they are a strong team.”

Al Jaish arrived in Beirut on Sunday with coach Anas Makhloufruing the difficulties that his side had faced in preparing for the game.

Makhlouf was quoting by the AFC web site as saying:”We had difficulties in preparation for the match due to the condition back home. We look forward for the match especially that we will be playing against one of the best teams in Lebanon and hopefully we can get a positive result”.

 “We hope to have a good performance in Lebanon especially that we will be playing all our matches away from home. We rely on our local young players and our ambition is to get a good result in order to reach the knockout stage of the competition.”

Meanwhile, despite concerns over the fitness of his players in the wake of their recent busy schedule, Kuwait Sporting Club coach Marin Ion is expecting no let-up for their AFC Cup clash on Tuesday against Omani side Fanja

Winners of the AFC Cup in the past two seasons, Kuwait SC began their 2014 campaign with a somewhat fortuitous 2-1 victory over Lebanese side Nejmeh as Waleed Ali’s stoppage-time shot took a cruel deflection off Abdul Nasser Hasan to find the net.

It put them two points clear at the top of Group B after the other opening game between Fanja and Syrian side Jaish in Muscat ended goalless.

“We came to Oman in order to win the match and to continue on top of the group. We are looking to achieve the victory against Fanja but we respect them a lot since they are one of the good Omani teams,” said Ion.

“We watched Fanja’s first match and studied them well. Our main problem is that we have a heavy schedule and the players will be tired but this doesn’t mean that we will not give our best in order to claim our second victory in the competition.”

Fanja, who defeated Al Nasr 2-1 in the Omani league last Friday, are hopeful of taking a point off the defending champions.

“Despite the fact that the match against Kuwait SC will not be easy, we are ready for it,” said Fanja coach Hicham Chazouani. “I hope that our players will achieve full points from the match although it will not be easy against such strong opponents.

“I’m really optimistic that we can achieve our first victory in the competition. We watched the first match of Kuwait SC against Nejmeh and we studied their weaknesses and strengths which will help us tomorrow.”

M.Daoud