Full-back Strives for Continuous Improvements in F

After five seasons away from Kitchee, full-back Tong Kin-man finally returns to the Blue Wave family. Despite being away from the club for quite a long period of time, Tong should not have any problem adapting to Kitchee’s playing style, as the full-back last played for Kitchee when former head coach Josep Gombau first took over the club and introduced a slick-passing, ball-possession playing style to the side. Although Kitchee failed to pick up any trophy during that particular season, the foundation laid by Gombau had no doubt helped set Kitchee on course to the nine major domestic trophies in the next five season. The veteran full-back looked back on his previous Kitchee stint with a lot of fond memories. “Gombau introduced a playing style to Kitchee that was previously non-existent in Hong Kong football. We were focused on retaining possession, controlling the opponent and pressuring them immediately once we lost the ball,” Tong recalled. “Although success on the pitch did not come immediately, but over a period of time, players finally got hold of the tactics and that became quite influential to Hong Kong football in general.” Spending majority of his career as a journeyman, Tong kept his head down, worked on his game and showed great improvement after signing on for Sun Pegasus in 2012, first being named as vice-captain and eventually putting on the captain’s armband. “You need to keep striving for improvements as a professional footballer,” offered Tong. “There are great players and facilities over here in the Kitchee training ground and they will all help me to become a better player, I have no doubt about that.” “The turf that we have in the training ground is very close to the natural grass that we have in Mongkok Stadium. Having a training facility that we can utilize without worrying about being kick-out is definitely a luxury for us Kitchee players. As players, there is no better way to repay the club’s faith on us by working hard every day on the training pitch,” declared Kitchee's new full-back.