NPC is placed alongside Tajikistan´s Regar Tadaz, Taiwan Power Company (TPC) from Chinese Taipei and WAPDA from Pakistan in the tournament, which is a premier football tournament held for the eleven third-tier footballing nations in Asia. The tourney features league winners from these countries.
Police, the national league winner of 2006, are also the runners up of the third edition of the Presidents´ Cup held in Pakistan in 2007 and the semifinalist of the last edition held in Kyrgyzstan. NPC have been representing Nepal in the tournament since 2007 even as the first division league has been obstructed for the last three years. The winners of three groups and the best runners up among them will qualify for the semifinal.
Three Star Club and Manang Marsyangdi Club had represented Nepal in the first and second edition of the tournament in 2005 and 2006, respectively. Out of nine matches played so far in the Presidents´ Cup in the last two editions, NPC have won three, lost three and played a draw in three matches.
Taking advantage of home ground and home supporters, Police will aim to win the match against physically taller and stronger opponents.
"We are the strong team in the tournament and we will play to win the match and all our injured players except Deepan Shrestha have recovered," said police coach Birat Krishna Shrestha. "We are psychologically stronger than Tiepei."
The police team will go to the ground with the 4-4-2 format.
Taipei team, however, are a serious opponent for the NPC. The Taipei Power Company is studded with 10 national players. Taipei coach expressed confidence of beating the home team. He said, "NPC are a good side but we are confident of beating them."
Meanwhile, all three squads of the group arrived in Kathmandu on Wednesday. WAPDA squad consists of 24 members including the officials while
Taiwan Power Team consists of 32 members along with the officials. Likewise, Regar Tadaz has a 26-member squad.
Two matches will be played every day on May 14, 16 and 18. In Thursday´s first match, WADPA will take on Regar Tadaz at 1pm.
NPC playing XI (probable): goalkeeper: Ritesh Thapa; Defense: Rakesh Shrestha, Suman Subedi, Rabin Shrestha, Deepak Poudel; Mid-field: Bhola Silwal, Ananta Thapa (C); Parbat Pandey, Yogesh Shrestha; and Forward: Jumanu Rai and Chetan Ghimire.
Taipei team observe field
Team members of Taiwan Power Company observed the ground condition on Wednesday. All 32 members of the squad came to the Dasharath Stadium to observe the ground. They spent about 15 minutes in the ground. They carefully inspected the length of the grass on the ground and the ground quality.
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