An exciting new era in ASEAN club football is all set to kick off on July 17th when the inaugural edition of the Shopee Cup gets underway with four teams set to battle it out in the play-off round.
Young Elephants FC of Laos will take on Cambodia’s Svay Rieng FC, while Kasuka FC of Brunei DS will be up against Myanmar’s Shan United FC in two-legged ties to complete the 12-team cast for the group stage.
Ahead of the upcoming matches, ASEAN United FC picks one player from each club who could prove key to determining which teams emerge triumphant from their respective matches.
Kydavone Souvanny (Young Elephants FC)
Kydavone Souvanny has gradually emerged as one of the key players in Laotian football after a string of impressive performances for his club, Young Elephants FC, helping them win back-to-back domestic league titles.
The 24-year-old scored eight goals in his maiden professional season in the Lao League 1 in the year 2020 before a stellar 2022 season saw him net 11 goals in 18 matches to guide Young Elephants to their first league title and was duly awarded as the Player of the Season.
Souvanny has also established himself in the national team’s frontline and scored his first-ever goal in Laos colours at the AFF Championship in 2021. Six months later, he was on the scoresheet against Phnom Penh Crown in the AFC Cup and the Young Elephants forward will now hope he can repeat the trick against their rivals Svay Rieng in the Shopee Cup playoffs.
Nick Taylor (Svay Rieng FC)
It hasn’t been a straightforward journey for Texas-born Nick Taylor after having his first breakthrough for UCF Knights in the NCAA collegiate football where he was named the Newcomer of the Year before turning out for Orlando City B in MLS Next Pro.
The 25-year-old only arrived in Cambodia, the country of his mother’s birth in 2022, and got his first taste of international football in the AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup that year, where he went on to score in a 5-1 win against Brunei DS. In February 2023, Taylor permanently moved to Cambodia after Preah Khan Reach Svay Rieng signed him in a bid to regain the Cambodian Premier League title that they had last won in 2019.
It didn’t take him long to endear himself to the fans as his consistent displays on the right wing yielded five goals and seven assists in his first season in Cambodian footbal,l helping Svay Rieng claim the domestic double for the first time in the club’s history. And now with a lot of buzz around Cambodian football’s new-found star, Taylor will aim to continue his upward trajectory in the Shopee Cup playoffs.
Adi Said (Kasuka FC)
A star name in Brunei football, Adi Said became the first player in Singapore Premier League history to reach double digits in both goals and assists when he featured for Brunei club DPMM FC.
In 2019, Adi went on to win the league in a stellar year and then created history by becoming the first Brunei-born player to sign for a foreign club when Malaysia’s UiTM United FC acquired his services.
The pacey front man has since returned to his homeland and, after moving to Kasuka FC in 2022, he has found a new lease of life. Adi will bring his blistering form to the Shopee Cup playoffs after scoring 23 goals in just 16 matches as his heroics powered Kasuka to their first-ever Brunei Super League title.
Nanda Kyaw (Shan United FC)
Nanda Kyaw’s talent was evident at a young age when he captained the Myanmar U-20 national team to a historic qualification for the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2015.
The left-back has been instrumental in Shan United’s four league titles since 2019, tying Yangon United for the most Myanmar National League championships, and in the process he now sits in seventh place in all-time appearances in the domestic league.
Last season, the 27-year-old took the attacking side of his game to a whole new level, registering nine goals and seven assists with the Shan United icon now aiming to show why he is so popular in his homeland to a wider audience in the Shopee Cup playoffs.
Share now
