KUALA LUMPUR: Selangor are determined to prevent their dream of playing in Asia from turning into a nightmare.
The Red Giants, who finished runners-up in the Super League this year, have secured their berth in next season's Asian Champions League 2 (ACL 2) which is scheduled to kick off in September.
Selangor will need to plan their season well.
The 2024-2025 Super League season is expected to kick off in April.
They will, however, be without some of their key players when they are called up for national duty during the Asian Cup in Qatar (Jan 12–Feb 10) and the Under-23 Asian Cup in Saudi Arabia (Apr 15-May 3). This could affect their pre-season preparations.
Selangor manager Mahfizul Rusydin Abdul Rashid said the key to doing well is to plan their pre-season well to avoid injury nightmares due to the high number of matches their players will play next year.
"The team did well to achieve our target of playing in Asia. We finished second in the Super League and although we aimed to win cup competitions, we could not achieve it," said Mahfizul today.
"We will try to improve on this next season, we have identified areas that we need to fix and want to step up (when) playing in Asia. We need to plan well for it.
"We lost six players to injuries during the start of the 2021 season and this is something we want to avoid with the small squad we have.
"We will probably have our pre-season without these players (who are on national duty), which is tough as we need to expose them to the level of play which is expected in the ACL 2 competition.
"We will need to sign better imports and also look at improving our coaching set-up by bringing in analysts as well. All these improvements will be crucial for us."
The last time Selangor made it to the AFC Cup, now renamed ACL 2, was back in 2016 but they failed to reach the knockout stages, finishing third in their group with eight points from six games.
The revamped competition will see the competition separated to the East and West regions.
Selangor could end up being drawn with East region heavyweights Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, J-League's Sanfrecce Hiroshima and Australia Cup winners Sydney FC.