Baddrol Bakhtiar has assured fans that his Kedah side will not habour any extra emotional baggage in seeing Liridon Krasniqi appear for the opponent.
It is well known that between 2015 to 2018, current Johor Darul Ta’zim midfielder Liridon was an ever-present figure for Kedah and have played many a games in tandem with Baddrol. Relationship was undoubtedly built between the two, as can be seen by how the two understood each other perfectly in a football sense and dovetailed brilliantly on the pitch.
But all that will be put aside when Kedah take JDT at Sultan Ibrahim Stadium in the Super League opener on Friday as points becomes the main focus for the evergreeen Baddrol. With the match also billed as the Charity Shield, there’s a trophy on offer come the end of the night in Johor.
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“I do not only about Liridon alone but the JDT team as a whole. Pre season has gone well but of course we continually look for improvement. The pitch that we will play on is the best and the stadium that we will play in is the best, so of course we are looking forward to play.
“Anything can happen in football, what is important is that we try our best and then with a little bit of luck maybe we can get a positive result to start our season,” said Baddrol in Thursday’s pre-match press conference.
Kedah have already gone through two competitive match this season, both coming in the AFC Champions League qualifying stage where they won one and lost the other. Aidil Sharin remains the head coach and he has brought about plenty of change for the 2020 season.
With only Farhan Roslan missing due to injury, Aidil will have a lot of options to choose from and all eyes is on the striking duo of Kpah Sherman and Tchetche Kipre. The duo is seen by many one of the best strike partnership in the league and Aidil is challenging them to live up to their star billing.
“It is an honour to play in the first game and the boys are looking forward to it. It is a challenge for us to play against a team like JDT but we want to have a good season and we have prepared well not only for this but for the season. We’ll only be able to train there tomorrow but if there’s any changes, we have to adjut to it. We cannot use it (the pitch) as an excuse.
“Football is very realistic, not on paper or on history. If come the end of the season, they score a lot of goals then we only we can say we have the best strikeforce,” said Aidil.
Read Kedah’s season preview here.
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