Bali: The ASEAN Club Championship Shopee Cup™ will be staged in Bali for the first time when Borneo FC Samarinda will host Kaya FC-Iloilo at the Kapten I Wayan Dipta Stadium on Thursday.
Borneo had made a promising start to their campaign with a win against Lion City Sailors FC but subsequent defeats to Kuala Lumpur City FC and Buriram United means they are in desperate need of three points to keep their knockout stage hopes alive.
The 4-0 defeat to Buriram on Matchday Three was their second successive defeat by the same scoreline, having also lost 4-0 to Persik Kediri at home in the Liga 1 prior to that.
The Dolphins then went on to suffer a 3-1 loss at the hands of bottom-placed Semen Padang following which their Dutch head coach Pieter Huistra was sacked.
Former Brighton, Stoke City and Luton Town assistant manager Joaquin Gomez was appointed as his replacement and he got Borneo back to winning ways in his first match in charge.
A 3-1 victory against Arema FC on Sunday, with captain Stefano Lilipaly starring with a brace, will give them a major confidence boost ahead of travelling to Bali to take on Kaya in the Shopee Cup.
Kaya, meanwhile remain rooted to the bottom of Group B with no points yet from their three games however they did manage to score their first goal of the competition against Công An Hà Nội FC last time out, thanks to a great strike from Mark Swainston.
Following the match, the Filipino champions returned to Philippines Football League (PFL) action recording a comfortable 2-0 success against the PFF Developmental Team to stay four points clear at the summit of the 2024-25 league standings.
Kaya will return to the Kapten I Wayan Dipta Stadium having faced Bali United in the 2022 AFC Cup group stage and will hope for a better fortune than a 1-0 defeat on that occasion.
With Robert Lopez Mendy, Daizo Horikoshi and Park Yi-young all having left the club, the onus will be on the likes of Shuto Komaki and Jesus Melliza to put up a brave fight against the Indonesian side come Thursday.
Borneo FC Samarinda vs Kaya FC-Iloilo
Venue: Kapten I Wayan Dipta Stadium, Bali
Kick-off: 23 January, 8:00 PM (Local Time)
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