After a hiatus of two decades, Southeast Asia’s leading football clubs will once again lock horns in official competition when the ASEAN Club Championship kicks off on Aug. 21.
The tournament originally debuted in 2003 and was to be held biennially but was cancelled after its second edition due to several major obstacles, including clashes with the wider Asian Football Confederation calendar and a failure to gain traction with sponsors.
Plans for a restart following a prolonged absence were first mooted by the ASEAN Football Federation in 2019. And while it was initially hampered by the coronavirus pandemic, the ACC will finally return this year and run through to the middle of 2025 when the two-legged final takes place on May 14 and 21.
Given the Thailand national team’s status as one of the region’s leading lights over the past decade, Buriram United — Thai League 1 champions of the past three seasons — will head into the tournament as one of the heavy favourites.
Unwilling to rest on their laurels, the Thunder Castle have reinforced heavily in the offseason and one notable arrival who will be familiar to Southeast Asian fans is Philippines captain Neil Etheridge.
Now 34 years old, the goalkeeper made history by becoming the first player from the region to play in the Premier League and was also Cardiff City’s Player of the Year in 2018-19.
After a four-year spell with Birmingham City, Etheridge opted for a new adventure when he signed for Buriram at the end of June and made his league debut last week in a season-opening 4-0 win over newly-promoted Nongbua Pitchaya.
And while Buriram’s priorities for the new campaign are likely to be retaining their league crown as well as making an impact in the newly-revamped AFC Champions League Elite, Etheridge — who has only featured at two AFF Championships since 2010 due to his previous club commitments in Europe — is also looking forward to more regional rivalry in a new capacity.
“I think it (the ACC) is going to be fantastic,” said Etheridge. “It’s brand new and it’s going to be exciting for us to be involved in it.
“I think with it being new, and with the teams in it, it’s going to be professionally run and will be very competitive.”
“For me it’s going to be a very good competition to add games to the roster. It’s going to be like the ASEAN (Championship), which is a competition I’ve played in before but not for a long period of time.
“I know the (Buriram) president (Newin Chidchob) is looking forward to it and so are the players. It adds a few more games to the schedule and a lot more travelling. The players are embracing it and we know it’s a competition we want to be extremely competitive in.
“The ASEAN Club Championship will be an extremely competitive tournament for ASEAN (football).”
Having been drawn in Group B, Buriram will begin their campaign next Thursday when they visit Cong An Ha Noi of Vietnam, while also eventually locking horns with Kuala Lumpur City (Malaysia), Borneo Samarinda (Indonesia), Kaya FC-Iloilo (Philippines) and Lion City Sailors (Singapore).
Group A features another Thai team in BG Pathum United, along with Terengganu (Malaysia), PSM Makassar (Indonesia), Dong A Thanh Hoa (Vietnam), Preah Khan Reach Svay Rieng (Cambodia) and Shan United (Myanmar).
