AFC Champions League Two – Matchday 1

[Stuckey]

Adelaide United v Tai Po FC
Thursday, 17 September 2026
7:30pm

Only a couple of weeks away from AU's first ACL2 game against Tai Po. As is the trend this club has a heap of Brazilians littered thru the squad. They finished last season 9 points off Kitchee in first place with none of their players contributing a massive share of their goals over the season.

One player that has caught my eye is new a recruit in Canadian born, Dutch trained, Chinese Taipei international Emilio Estevez. You would have thought hockey would have been this guy's calling!

So far we haven't heard if the club will play any more pre-season matches which IMO is the main reason the club has had such a slow start to the year. I can to an extent understand not going all out on pre-season games before less meaningful matches that have just gone. But since then the club has made mention plenty of times how important being in Asia is to them, so I would expect that from MD 1 they are primed and ready.
Although finding clubs willing to play matches at this moment could be tricky with the NPL season wrapping up, most other AL clubs still over a month away from the AL season kicking off and Adelaide City kicking off in the Aus Championship in mid October as well. Victory still in the Aus Cup Semi the week prior I doubt they are after a game in the lead up to their ACL2 campaign. So I would say the only option would try to line up a game with Newcastle, who kick off their ACLE campaign the same week as this.

Tai Po have at this stage the advantage of their league season having already kicked off so their squad will probably be in a better state physically than AU will be.

Once again we see the pathetically short AL season being a massive hinderance how clubs operate.

[MartinAUFC]

A friendly against Newy would be a great idea, but with both clubs not having two brass razoos to rub together they probably can't agree on a venue.

[Stuckey]

A friendly against Newy would be a great idea, but with both clubs not having two brass razoos to rub together they probably can't agree on a venue.

I guess if that's the case, that probably answers everyone's question around there being more signings...

[Stuckey]

I see Melb City hosted Newcastle in a friendly today. Come on over Newy you're 3/4ers of the way here!