So that’s decided then…
Preliminary round vs Kaya Iloilo (H, 8 March)
Play-off vs Changchun Yatai (A, 15 March)
To try to qualify for Group H with
Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors
Yokohama F. Marinos
Hoang Anh Gia Lai FC
Trivia: We’ve been drawn in Group H for six of our seven ACL campaigns, and we were also meant to be in Group H last year before we withdrew. The only time we weren’t was 2007, when we were in Group E.
Feels like we play Jeonbuk and Yokohama every year.
I’m only guessing but this qualification route seems a bit easier. Doesn’t really matter as I doubt we will get out of the group stage anyway
That assumes we actually make it that far
I think that’s mostly Covid making the last two years feel like a decade.
We had both of them in our group in 2020, but never before that. We were drawn against Jeonbuk again last year, but that never happened…
Getting the exact same ACL group two separate times years apart was the crazy one.
Correction going around today… it seems Sydney’s social posts (“if we win the Cup” vs otherwise) were not completely right:
If Wellington wins the FFA Cup, since they can’t qualify for ACL, we get promoted into Australia’s seed 2 instead of 3 (with seed 3 going to CCM, who finished 3rd in the league last season). That would mean we go straight to the play-off with Vissel Kobe (to qualify for Group J, with Shanghai Port, Chiangrai & Kitchee), with the Myanmar team having withdrawn from the preliminary round.
So we potentially threw the semi final for nothing?
That’s the genius of the dodgy penalty call. Throws doubt on the Sydney favouritism conspiracy, while still giving us a shot at the shorter path to qualification and arguably easier group.
…while saving us a potential fortune in trophy polish, trophy cabinetry, real estate footage (for trophy room) etc etc etc
Don’t see why we need to bring race into this?
So the AFC announced that Group H will be played in Vietnam between 16 April – 1 May, when we have four A-League games scheduled.
Who knows how that will work, but apparently we are going to try to qualify, starting with the Kaya–Iloilo game at Kogarah on Tuesday 8 March:
https://www.facebook.com/events/3101050030224677
(Not sure why they put the Shan United logo there)
Heard a rumour that Changchun Yatai have or are in the process of withdrawing from this year’s edition of the Champions League. Which, if true means we go directly through to the group stage if we beat the Philippines team.
I heard the same, but I’m not sure where it came from (this says DT).
I found this Vietnamese article from yesterday saying that the Chinese sides were planning to send U21 teams:
And City and possibly Victory will be in Thailand for the same period, so guess ALeague schedule is going to have to shift again, packing more mid-week games into March and April.
They’ve fixed the logo on the FB page as well.
So we have a fixture in 8 days? With no venue or time, let alone tickets? Not even listed on the club website so that people could know that it’s coming?
There is a venue (Kogarah), time (7:30pm) and tickets (here). I got a members email last Wednesday about the pre-sale and a discount code.
There is a little banner on the club website which links to the tickets, but yeah not much promotion & we are surely looking at an all-time-low crowd.
sydneyfc.com/fixtures has nothing and Wikipedia still has TBD. My bad, I didn’t pick up the little banner on the right.
Didn’t you get the email?
