THE 12-man Leylam Football Club will fly to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to compete in the Saigon 7’s International Football Tournament which starts this Saturday.
Leylam FC, the reigning 17th Aboitiz Football Cup men’s open champion will compete in the Nov. 7 to 8 event in what is touted as Vietnam’s biggest football tournament.
The Cebuano squad will be headed by team owner Ugur Tasci along with his brother Gem Tasci and Evren and Baris Tasci. Playing for the team are Virgilio Manayon, Ranulfo Colina, Raffy Llorente, Harris Segovia, Michael Pacite, Rene Sanchez Abelardo Solinas and Edmar Galacio.
This will be the first time the team will be seeing action after their August 13 title run in the 17th Aboitiz Football Cup. They were supposed to represent Cebu Football Association (CFA) in the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) Smart Men’s National Inter-club but PFF replaced the event with an under-22 national tournament.
CFA’s representative in the U-22 division tournament will be the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (CESAFI) college division football champion University of Cebu (UC) Webmasters.
Leylam FC pulled off a stunning upset against defending champions, University of Cebu-ERCO Green Archers United (UC-ERCO GAU FC), 1-0 in the championship match of the 17th Aboitiz Cup.
Leylam FC is not new in joining tournaments abroad having joined competitions in Singapore and last April they represented the country in the prestigious Football Fives World Championship (F5WC) in Dubai, UAE after topping the national finals of the Philippine F5WC championships in Manila.