CHAMPIONS
CAGAYAN de Oro City — It was after all a walk in the park for United City Football Club coach Frank Muescan after his powerhouse team destroyed the strong Stallion Laguna FC side 7-1, Friday night (Nov. 6, 2020).
It was their fourth match in the Philippine Football League (PFL) Qatar Airways bubble tournament held at the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) training center pitch in Carmona, Cavite.
The win was enough for United to capture the 2020 title with one more match to go in the six team competition. The win assured them a place to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League qualifying tournament set next year in Qatar.
From the start, UCFC with its powerhouse line-up was expected to breeze past its opponents en route to winning the title. And that was what exactly they did. They won all their matches so far allowing their opponents to score only one goal, that was from Stalllion-Laguna Friday night.
UCFC is at a different level. The team is made of veteran players mostly carry overs from the now defunct powerhouse Ceres Negros FC.
Coach Muescan, who started his football coaching career at the Marist School in Marikina City has been an assistant coach with Ceres for a long time now.
He has been with this players for at least four years now. Everyone knows everyone and their moves. They don’t rush their attacks and they are very organise in their defence.
They scored their first goal against the Stallions early in the 4th minute from Mike Ott but then Senegalese striker Ibrahim N’ dour equalised for the Stallions in the 11th.
It was Stallion-Laguna’s last push as United went on to dominate the match and scored six more goals to complete the carnage. Spanish striker Bienvenido Marañon scored another hat-trick in 58th, 66th and 74th minutes, while Mike Ott scored his second goal in the 54th and Takashi Uddawara and OJ Porteria scored one goal each.
United had only one tough night during their first match against the young but very talented ADT squad where they scored only one goal. But they were in control of that match from start to finish and managed to break ADT’s defence only once.
After that win, United breezed forward scoring six goals against Mendiola FC, and ten goals against Maharlika FC. They will play their last match against chief rival Kaya FC on Monday (Nov. 9, 2020).
According to coach Frank Muescan, they are now preparing for the AFC Champions League qualifying tournament in Qatar in January in January and the club may bring in their new coach English coach Trevor Morgan.
Muescan has been acting as interim coach of United for the PFL. The 64-year-old Morgan has a successful coaching career in India was about to come to the country to take over UCFC.
However, because of quarantine issues due to the COVID 19 pandemic, Morgan did not make it to the Philippines.
“The AFC Champions League is a different level and Morgan will be a great help for us in Qatar,’’ he said.
For their match against Kaya FC, Muescan said that he will use some of his seldom used young players particularly Pocholo Bugas, formerly with Far Eastern University.
“He is a very good player. He has the skills, and he is built for football. He just needs a little seasoning,’’ Muescan said about the striker from Maco, Davao de Oro.
The Azkals Development Team will play Stallion-Laguna FC at 9 a.m. on Monday while Maharlika Manila FC will meet Mendiola FC at 4 p.m. UCFC will clash with Kaya Iloilo FC at 8 p.m. (l.biantan@gmail.com)
