Nirajan Khakda and Jagjeet Shretha are the national players to be enrolled in Three Star, which is set to compete in the AFC President´s Cup Qualifiers at home from May 7 to 11. [break]Sabindra Shrestha, Saroj Dahal, Prakash Budhathoki and African forward Leonce Dodoz are the other new signings of Three Star.
Khadka, Jagjeet, Budhathoki and Dodoz had played for NIBL Friends Club last season while Sabindra was in Laxmi Hyundai Manang Marshyangdi Club (MMC) and Dahal in Madhyapur Youth Association.
Winger Jagjeet was declared the best midfielder of the league, while Khadka had been out of action since picking injury during the Challenge Cup. Budhathoki and Dodoz had played a key role in guiding Friends to fourth position in the league.
Sabindra, the left-back of MMC that finished second in the league, has been in and out of the national squad. Dahal was a reliable central defender in Madhyapur that got relegated from the top-tier domestic football.
The other players to be registered by Tuesday -- Santosh Sahukhala, Biraj Maharjan, Aditya Chaudhary, Anil Gurung, Bikram Lama, Sandip Rai, Alan Neupane and Sanjiv Shrestha -- were all in Three Star in the previous season.
According to Three Star President Lalit Krishna Shrestha, the club is in the process to register its players from last year´s squad. Shrestha, however, declined to disclose the fees of players.
Three Star had reached the semifinals of AFC President´s Cup in its first appearance in 2005. "We had made it to the semifinals in our first appearance. And we are targeting to cross the group stage in the beginning," said Shrestha. "We have enrolled talented players keeping in view the President´s Cup and we will begin preparations for the tournament from Wednesday."
The top two teams from the group comprising former champion Taiwan Power Company of Chinese Taipei, Abahani Limited of Bangladesh, Erchim FC of Mongolia and Three Star will make it to the final rounds.
Though Three Star has registered only 14 players in ANFA, it has already registered 21 players at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the President´s Cup.
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