Overseas-based Lyana and Azurin to beef up Tigress

PETALING JAYA: The national women’s football team will be powered by two overseas-based players Nur Lyana Sobri and Nurul Azurin Mazlan (pic) for their international friendly tournament in Saudi Arabia.

Lyana, 24, and Azurin, 23, joined KFF Presingu in Kosovo’s Women’s Super League on Aug 25 and made their debut against KFF Llapi on Aug 31, helping them to a 3-2 win.

Given their European experience, the duo are expected to play key roles for the Malaysian Tigress.

The team will be captained by experienced Steffi Sarge Kaur, 35, who plays for LMS Tigress in the Malaysian Women’s League.

Coach Soleen Al-Zoubi has retained 14 out of 20 players from the SEA Games squad in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and called up 11 new players for centralised training camp.

The international friendly tournament will also feature five other teams namely Laos, Pakistan, Bhutan, Lebanon and hosts Saudi Arabia.

Malaysia are drawn in Group A and will play Saudi on Sept 18 and Pakistan on Sept 21 at the King Fahd Sports City Stadium.

Based on the format of the match involving these six teams, the group competition will take place as a round-robin league where the top two teams will qualify for the semi-finals on Sept 27.