After a spate of injuries in the Warriors' camp, there was finally some good news ahead of Wednesday (10 Mar)'s AFC Champions League match against Suwon Bluewings.

Uruguayan forward Federico Martinez (above) has been cleared to play. His availability was in doubt after picking up a yellow card in the ACL game against Henan Jianye. Earlier, Federico had also been booked in the ACL qualifier against Sriwijaya. Under last year's rules, he would have been unavailable for Wednesday's game.

However, after double-checking, Warriors coach Richard Bok has received confirmation from AFC that under new rules this year, Federico would be available. The same applies to Noh Rahman, Daniel Bennett and Taisuke Akiyoshi, who have all been booked in the qualifiers and will all start on a clean slate.  

Said Richard: "I checked with AFC. There was an additional rule to the playoffs which wasn't there last year.

"It states that single yellow cards in the playoffs wouldn't be carried forward into the group games, which means Federico (Martinez) will now be able to play.

"It's good news for us, especially since we have a couple of injuries."

The latest casualty in the Warriors camp is Noh Rahman, who joins Shaiful Esah and John Wilkinson in the treatment room after hurting his knee in the national team's 1-2 loss to Jordan.

With his fullbacks out, Richard is likely to turn to Hafiz Osman and Razaleigh Khalik. Prime League boys Hanafi Salleh and Azfar Zainal Abidin are also in contention. 

Said Richard: "It's going to be tough. Suwon are a big team in Asia. Hopefully the weather and the pitch will be to our advantage.

"We already have one point in the bag, matching our record for six games last year, and we have five more games to go, three of which are at home. I'm looking forward to these three games and hopefully we can collect points."