International soccer comes to Taipei as Taiwan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Guam battle it out over the the next five days in AFC Challenge Cup qualifying Group A games.
The Zhongshan Stadium plays host to the teams in what on paper appears to be a tournament any one of three sides has a chance of winning.
Taiwan open their campaign against Pakistan at 6:30pm today, fresh from a 10-day training camp in Thailand. They played two professional teams and the Thailand Under 20 side while there, and although all three matches resulted in narrow defeats, Taiwan earned a 3-0 victory on Saturday against BML champions Taipei City in their final warmup match for the Challenge Cup tournament.
The team will be coached by Andy Chen, who took over from previous head coach Toshiaki Imai earlier this year. A former international, Chen coached the Under 23 side from 1999 to 2000.
Pakistan lost 2-1 to Nepal in a friendly on March 25 before gaining revenge with a 2-0 win two days later.
The "Greenshirts" are capable of providing the home side with a stiff challenge, having held Asian Cup winners Iraq to a 0-0 draw in a World Cup qualifying match last October.
Fans of English soccer at Zhongshan Stadium today may recognize Pakistan midfielder Adnan Ahmed, who plays for Tranmere Rovers in England's League One. Ahmed, 23, was at the Manchester United Academy before making 42 appearances for Huddersfield Town prior to joining Tranmere last year.
Sri Lanka are not to be taken lightly, having reached the final of the AFC Challenge Cup when it was last held in 2006. They defeated Taiwan 3-0 in the quarter-finals and earned a 2-1 win on the only other occasion the two sides have met, in Colombo in 2003.
The only team which would appear to have little prospect of qualifying are Guam, ranked by FIFA at 202 in the world, only four places ahead of bottom-ranked Montserrat.
Taiwan have beaten the Pacific islanders on all four occasions they have played each other, scoring 35 goals in the process and conceding only two. On the last occasion the two sides met, at the East Asian Football Federation Championship tournament in Macau last June, Taiwan ended up recording their best-ever result, a 10-0 victory.
The winners of this week's tournament will join seven other teams in the finals to be played from July 30 to Aug. 10. Hosts India, North Korea, Turkmenistan and Myanmar qualify automatically, along with the winners of Groups B, C and D, being played in the Philippines, Kyrgyzstan and Nepal respectively.
The overall winners of the tournament will qualify for to the AFC Asian Cup 2011 finals in Doha, Qatar.
Tajikistan won the inaugural edition of the AFC Challenge Cup in 2006 by defeating Sri Lanka 3-0 in the final in Bangladesh.
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