Up a notch

The activity surrounding the AFC President's Cup picked up a notch today with the arrival of the three visiting teams, with Neftchi and Don Bosco arriving this morning and Abahani after lunch. This afternoon, at the Tuol Kork headquarters of Phnom Penh Crown, the home team went through their training routines under the watchful eyes of the television cameras, before the Neftchi team arrived, for their first session. The team from Kyrgyzstan had endured an eight hour road journey from their hometown to the country's capital of Bishkek to board their plane for the seven hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, before connecting onto Phnom Penh. So it was time to stretch their legs and work on a few things ahead of their training session at the Olympic Stadium at 7am tomorrow morning, where each of the teams will have an hour's work-out. It's the hot season in Kyrgyzstan but they admitted that its definitely hotter here in Cambodia and a much different type of heat. Just at that moment, the rain clouds appeared overhead and it began drizzling, as well as some lightning flashes in the far distance.
In the latter part of tomorrow morning, the teams will have the pre-competition team manager's meeting with the AFC officials, which is to explain to everyone the rules and regulations for the competition, such as only 2 foreign players allowed in each squad, only three substitutes allowed per match, all the usual stuff. After that finishes, a press conference with the head coach of each team and maybe the captains, will be held with the local press at Phnom Penh Hotel. Then its back to training sessions for the teams ahead of Saturday's opening matches.