Kitchee Seeks to Defend FA Cup Trophy by Taking on

Riding on recent domestic and regional successes, defending FA Cup champion Kitchee will embark on this year’s tournament by facing off against arch-rival Kwoon Chung Southern in the quarter-final. The match will take place in Tsing Yi Sports Ground on Sunday afternoon and kick-off time will be 5:30pm. Defending FA Cup champion Kitchee and Kwoon Chung Southern have to be one of the bitter-rivals in this year’s top flight football. The two sides have already met for a staggering five times this season in all official matches. While Kitchee might be enjoying a slight upper hand with two wins, two draws and one loss in those five encounters, the close head-to-head record also shows how evenly matched the two sides actually are. With FA Cup aspirations firmly on the minds of the two sets of players, Sunday’s FA Cup quarter-final battle, like all previous Kitchee-Kwoon Chung Southern clashes, should be a dandy for the Blues supporters. Born with blazing speed, Kitchee’s Christian Annan points out that Kwoon Chung Southern head coach Ricky Cheng has a good understanding on Kitchee’s camp and therefore the Blues need to come up with a solid game plan against the district side. “Kitchee and Kwoon Chung Southern are two evenly-matched teams. And the opponent’s coaching staffs really have a good understanding on our side, our personnel and our playing style. Therefore we might need to come up with a special game plan so that we can catch them by surprise,” suggested the jet-heeled Annan. “Having said all that, the Kitchee camp is full of positive energy these days. We need to capitalize on that and try to sustain our recent good run for as long as possible.” Midfielder Matthew Lam believes the side’s recent good form will be a tremendous boost to its FA Cup aspirations. “We have done reasonably well in the League Cup and the AFC Cup recently and that is going to be a great help in our fight to retain the FA Cup trophy,” Lam explained. “Our form was a bit up-and-down when we played Kwoon Chung Southern earlier in the season and now that we are meeting them once again in the FA Cup, I am quite confident about our chances of winning.”