MARGAO
Brisbane Roar take on Dempo SC in their opening group game of the Bhausaheb Bandodkar Memorial Trophy at the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Fatorda on Saturday night.
For Roar new recruits, Ben Warland, Marcus Ferkranus, Hosine Bility, Harry Van Der Saag, Walid Shour, Ben Halloran and Adam Zimarino have all travelled as part of Ruben Zadkovich’s squad with the Roar boss overseeing his first pre-season and transfer window ahead of the 2024/25 Isuzu UTE A-League season.
Youngsters Lucas Herrington, James Durrington and Ivan Ozzi are all in contention to play with the first team for the first time after impressing for Young Roar throughout their 2024 NPL Queensland campaign.
Roar midfielder, Jay O’Shea said there’s a real buzz amongst the group ahead of Saturday’s tournament opener. “The boys are really excited about the opportunity to go overseas and play a pre-season tournament against some top-quality opposition,” O’Shea said.
“It’s a great chance for the group to get to know each other even better and it helps the new signings and the younger players feel more comfortable in the group.
“Dempo will be a tough test for us but we have done a lot of work on the training pitch over the last couple of months so we feel that we are well prepared to go out there and put in a good performance in our first game of the tournament.”
Speaking ahead of the match, Dempo coach Samir Naik termed Brisbane Roar as a difficult opposition. “We will be playing a team that has achieved good results. They are a team that is difficult to beat as a group. They have individual brilliance and have players who can make a difference,” said Naik.
“We know that we will need to play a very good match, we must continue with the same approach as last year in I-League 2. There were moments when the team played well and we showed a strong competitive spirit. We need to continue in the same way in order to compete at a high level against Brisbane Roar,” the Dempo head coach said.
Dempo will rely on S Doungel, Shubham Rawat, Vasim Inamdar, Viraj Harje and new recruits, goalkeeper Ashish Sibi from Sudeva FC and Kenkre FC defender Daniel. Dempo will be without Nestor Dias, who is down with dengue fever and Darryl Mascarenhas, who is nursing an injury.
