Sabah to face Sarawak in pre-season friendly

The Sabah football team is pulling no stop in their quest to emerge as ‘King of Borneo Football’ by sending one of their strongest squad in years to face-off with the Sarawak football team in their Pre-season football friendly at Stadium Negeri, Petra Jaya on Dec 20 and Dec 22.

According to Sabah Head Coach Justin Ganai, he now has a lot of good players at his disposal and the squad is more balanced with abundance of choices to field in his first-11.

The squad list for the Borneo Derby clash includes defender Ronny Harun who played regularly with the Terengganu team and was also a member of Malaysia’s under-23 team during 2003 until 2006.

He played in 2006 Asian Games, 2004 Olympic Games qualifier, 2003 SEA Games and 2005 SEA Games. The return of hit man Bobby Gonzales to Sabah, a former Croc, has also added impetus on their strike force.

Brendan Gan and Michael William Baird are Sabah’s foreign signing this season and possessed impressive credentials.

Described as an opportunistic goal-poacher, Gan began playing football when he was twelve years old and came up through their youth grades to make his senior debut for the club in 2008, while Baird is an accomplished striker in the Australian-Hyundai League.

The Sabah team signals their scoring prowess by netting more than 30 goals in three local matches against club sides recently.

For the Borneo Derby in Kuching, Sabah is sending their full 27-men squad for the 2012 Super League campaign of which five are new faces, including two foreign imports, striker Michael Baird and midfielder Brendan Gan, while another four former players are returning into the team. They are Bobby Gonzales, Ronny Harun, Mohd Fariss Azlan and Mat Isa Irwan Jamil.

The rest of the players that will be on the team-sheet for the Kuching clash include those have been retained from this season’s squad; Syed Adney Syed Hussein, Azizon Abd Kadir, Mod Reithuddin Emran, Mafry Balang, Rosdin Wasli, Sumardi Hajalan, Alto Linus, Zuraindey Jumai, Radzi Mohd Hussin, Shahrul Azhar Ture, K. Thanaraj, Zainizam Marjan, Julamri Muhammad, Leopold Alfonso Otong, Sabri Sahar, Mohd Safuan Ibrahim and Razlan Oto.