Luis Garcia has promised that Johor Darul Ta’zim will give Xabi Alonso’s side a stern test in what he describes as a difficult final overseas friendly, insisting: “I can assure you on Sunday we will compete.”
The former Liverpool teammates, who spent three seasons together at Anfield between 2004 and 2007, have remained close friends since their playing days. Garcia recalled a memorable early moment in their relationship at their unveiling press conference. “He told me he didn’t speak English too well,” Garcia told BBC Sport. “I answered the first question in Spanish, as we had a translator present, and he answered in perfect English and I thought: ‘Why you little?!'” The pair had crossed paths in the Spanish football ecosystem before, but Garcia revealed that day at Anfield was the first time they properly met.
Garcia described the upcoming match as a monumental moment in JDT’s history and for Malaysian football as a whole, and his confidence in his side is backed by remarkable recent form. JDT have not lost a domestic match since 2021 and are currently on a world record-equalling 108-game unbeaten run. In a recent training camp in Alicante, the club drew with Rangers and Spanish second-division side Elche before beating Cartagena.
The club’s ambitions stretch beyond domestic dominance. JDT reached the quarter-finals of the AFC Champions League last season, and Garcia believes continental success is becoming a realistic prospect. “Hopefully in the first game of the season we’ll break one of the most incredible records in football, that is the domestic unbeaten run,” he said, with the Malaysian season set to restart in August.
Garcia credited Crown Prince Ismail Tunku for driving the club’s transformation. “He has taken the club on an amazing journey. Top-class stadium and training facilities that people will be talking about,” Garcia said, noting that the facilities are based on Real Madrid’s training base. “We don’t have a limit, and that motto of ‘the sky is never the limit’ is something that we repeat quite often in the dressing room.”
Image credit: BBC Sport / BBC Sport
