The Hong Kong Football Association has produced, as promised, a Cantonese-dominated squad to take part in next week's Carlsberg Cup, but only just.
Despite an appeal by head coach Kenny Lai Sun-cheung to field the Hong Kong national team, after the promise they showed in last year's Asian Cup qualifying tournament and the East Asian Championship, eight foreign players have been brought into the 22-man squad that will today begin preparing for next Thursday's game against Honduras.
'We've got most of the best players, both local and foreign. We're happy with the positions we've strengthened,' said FA technical consultant Kwok Ka-ming.
'To be honest we did well at the East Asian Championship, but we needed a stronger team for the Carlsberg Cup. We played the national team [in the Hong Kong-Guangdong Cup] against Guangdong, which is good preparation for the World Cup qualifiers, but it's important that we are competitive for the Carlsberg Cup.'
The foreign legion is most noticeably strong in the striking department when Happy Valley's Ambassa Guy, Kitchee's Indonesian international Rochi Putiray and Sun Hei's gifted Brazilian Marcio Anacleto will vie with Hong Kong internationals Kwok Yue-hung and Wong Chun-yue for the right to lead the line.
But while the attack might be entirely made up of overseas stars, Kwok Ka-ming insisted that the Cantonese players would feature strongly in the starting lineup. 'We'll try to keep the foreign players to a minimum on the field,' said Kwok.