Hong Kong Premier League on up but Kitchee face AFC Champions League test against Koreans

Local champions poised to begin continental campaign against Gangwon FC at Mong Kok Stadium on Thursday

Although he cheesed off some of his England players when he accused them of being “sloppy” and committing “lots of technical mistakes” following their World Cup quarter-final victory over Norway this summer, Thomas Tuchel’s angst perhaps stemmed from the knowledge that a much tougher test was around the corner.

So it would prove, the head coach’s team punch-drunk by the end of their semi-final capitulation against Argentina.

For Tuchel two months ago, and indeed Alex Ferguson after the 1983 Scottish Cup final when he labelled his victorious Aberdeen side a “disgrace”, read Inigo Calderon, the Kitchee head coach, last weekend.

It has been a bright start to the local Premier League season, with four-figure crowds increasingly the norm for a regular diet of competitive and unpredictable matches.