Ceres No.1 club in Southeast Asia

MANILA, Philippines — Ceres Negros FC’s star continued to shine in the international scene as the reigning Philippine titlists emerged as the highest ranked club in Southeast Asia.

The Busmen, who came to within a victory of qualifying to the prestigious AFC Champions League, dislodged Thai heavyweight Buriram from No. 1 position among SEA outfits in the latest Asian club rankings released by the Footy Rankings.

The website put the Bacolod-based outfit at No. 25 in Asia with 40.75 points, leap-frogging Buriram which toted 40.67 for 26th overall.

The Busmen gained six ranking points from their victories over Myanmar’s Shan United (3-2) and Thailand’s Port FC (0-2) in the first two stages of the ACL Qualifiers en route to climbing to the Asean summit.

Buriram got only three points from its ACL Qualifiers campaign off a 2-1 win over Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh FC in the second round.

Both Buriram and Ceres bombed out of the top-flight Champions League after suffering losses to Japanese giant FC Tokyo (0-2) and Chinese Super League biggie Shanghai SIPG (0-3), respectively, in the playoff.

This marked the second time for Ceres to get the top view in the rankings after briefly holding the position in May 2019.

Ceres, which next competes in the second-tier AFC Cup, is joined in the list by Filipino sides Global Cebu FC and Kaya Iloilo.

Global ranked No. 66 in Asia and eighth in the Asean region despite its absence in international play in recent years. Kaya, the other Philippine representatives in the coming AFC Cup, sat at 95th overall and No. 18 in SEA.