Felippe Scolari comes head to head with the first woman to coach in continental football

Chan Yuen Ting, a 28-year-old woman will make history on Wednesday 22nd February, 2017 by emerging as the first woman to coach a mens team in a continental club tournament .

She will lead her side, Eastern Long Lions as they face Guangzhou Evergrande, a club coached by Luis Felippe Scolari, the 2002 FIFA World cup winning coach on Wednesday.

On the eve of her side’s opening 2017 AFC Champions League group match against China PR’s Guangzhou Evergrande – one of the favourites to lift the trophy – the intrepid young coach gave an exclusive interview to FIFA.com. Looking ahead to the occasion, she said: “I never thought I’d find myself in such a big competition. Last year was fantastic for everyone here. I didn’t think that the players would take me so far, but we're on the way to making our dreams come true. My job now is to coach the team as best I can in the competition.”

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As well as the Chinese giants, Eastern will be coming up against two other Asian big guns in the group phase of the competition: Suwon Samsung Bluewings of Korea Republic and Japan’s Kawasaki Frontale. Sizing up the opposition, Chan Yuen commented: “We knew before the draw was made that we’d be facing some big teams from Japan, China, South Korea or Australia. I think they’re all stronger than the clubs in Hong Kong. We know that there’s a gulf between us, but we’ll be giving it everything we’ve got. We can’t wait for the group phase to start.

“All the matches will be tough for us because we know that Eastern are not as strong as their opponents. Nothing is impossible in football, though. We’re well prepared and we’re ready