The group stage matches of the AFC Champions League 2015, which is to compete for the No.1 club championship in Asia, kicks off on Tuesday 24 February. This year, four Japanese clubs which are Gamba Osaka, Urawa Reds, Kashima Antlers and Kashiwa Reysol, compete for this Champions League. For the 1st section match, Gamba Osaka, the winner of three biggest Japanese titles, comes up to play against Guangzhou R&F from China at their home stadium Expo’70 Commemorative Park. Head coaches and players from both teams joined in the press conference which was held a day before the match.

Comments

HASEGAWA Kenta, Head Coach（Gamba Osaka）
I regard Guangzhou R&F as a very organized and solid team. It will be our first match at this Champions League and I expect that it will be a very difficult match for us. We will need to maintain our level of play for the entire 90 minutes and we definitely want to give our supporters the victory at our home stadium.

ENDO Yasuhito（Gamba Osaka）
For us, this will be our first match in this Champions League and also the first one in this season. I expect that we will have some difficulties, but we have prepared ourselves well. We want to show our supporters good football by winning the match tomorrow.

Cosmin Contra Head Coach（Guangzhou R&F /CHN）
We got through playoffs experiencing 2 challenging matches. Now we are here as a representative club team from China. At the match against Gamba Osaka, we will try our best in the match.

Wang Song（Guangzhou R&F）
We have come here after winning two matches in playoffs. We know that Gamba Osaka is one of the strongest and most consistent teams. It is our first time as a team to compete in this Champions League, but we do have some players who have already experienced this championship. We have had good training sessions, so tomorrow we want to have a good match with good performances by the entire team.

AFC Champions League 2015
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