Soccer fans today can tune in to cheer on several stars from the Taiwan men’s national team as Tainan TSG (Taiwan Steel Group) represent Taiwan at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup qualifiers in Hong Kong.
Competing with their Tainan TSG teammates are five national squad members — including midfielder Wu Chun-ching, goalkeeper Pan Wen-chieh and defender Chen Wei-chuan — who arrived in Hong Kong last week after concluding Taiwan’s run in Asia’s group stage of the FIFA World Cup qualifiers, where they had a narrow 2-1 defeat to hosts Kuwait.
Wu — last season’s Most Valuable Player in the Taiwan Football Premier League — Pan and Chen led Tainan TSG to capture the league title and are expected to start in the Group J opener against Mongolia’s Athletic 200 FC at the Tseung Kwan O Sports Ground.
The Tainan TSG players were inoculated against COVID-19 before their flight to Hong Kong, where a “competition bubble” has been set up, with each team moving as a group from hotel meals and accommodation to the training ground and back to the hotel.
After today’s opener, Tainan TSG are to face Hong Kong’s Lee Man on Saturday and the territory’s Eastern Long Lions on Tuesday next week.
Fans in Taiwan fans can watch broadcasts of all three matches on ELTA TV, HamiVideo or Chunghwa Telecom’s MOD Channel 202.
Since their return to Taiwan last week, the rest of the Taiwan men’s national team have been in quarantine, but the Taipei Times asked manager Henry Von for his assessment of their performance in Kuwait.
Team Taiwan have potential, but still face many challenges and need more international experience, Von said.
“The squad as a whole lacked time playing together in matches,” he said. “This was one of the key problems. We worked extensively to build up their confidence.”
Asked about the first match, a 0-2 defeat to Nepal, Von said that Nepal had played five to six friendlies, as well as a warm-up game against Iraq a few days before facing Taiwan.
“They got used to the high level of intensity in game conditions,” Von said. “I think we were a little unlucky in that game, but life goes on — and overall, I am happy with the devotion and effort shown by the players during this intense period.”
The players had to adjust to challenging conditions — Kuwait is hot and arid, even for night matches, which made breathing difficult when running, Von added.
“In a short period, we had to train to get better organized defensively and try to avoid conceding goals, while on offense, we worked on fast counterattacks,” he said.
“We tried to keep a winning mentality, to never give up during a game, to make them play more aggressively and to have a fighting spirit — to represent the nation and the people back home,” he said.
“I believe the players understood the message very well and they had a fantastic spirit during the three-game campaign,” Von said. “The players fought valiantly to put on a good display, to show their commitment to Taiwan and earn the respect of our coaching staff.”
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later