It was an emotionally charged and physically exhausting battle, but after more than 100 minutes, the Lion City Sailors emerged victorious from their Asian Football Confederation Champions League (ACL) Two Round of 16 first-leg clash against Muangthong United on Thursday (13 February).
However, the Sailors will have barely three days to savour that hard-fought 3-2 victory over the Thai League 1 side at the Thunder Dome Stadium, as they kick off their Singapore Cup title defence against Tanjong Pagar United this Sunday (16 February) evening.
The match at Bishan Stadium will already be the Sailors’ fourth in a hectic February, with three more still to come. This means that, with seven games packed into just 21 days, the Sailors are averaging a match every three days.
For Sailors playmaker Bart Ramselaar, however, the unforgiving schedule is something he thrives on.
“We’re enjoying this hectic run of games, and it’s something that galvanises us,” Bart said. “Of course, training is at a lower intensity now because of the number of games, but this is why we play football. We’re competing in three different tournaments — we’ve already won the Community Shield, and now we want to win the Singapore Premier League (SPL) and the Singapore Cup as well.”
Indeed, despite playing their third game in a week, Bart and the Sailors showed no signs of fatigue on Thursday as they stormed to a 3-0 lead against Muangthong within the first 30 minutes.
Bart, in particular, was a lively presence down the left flank and scored arguably the best goal of the match — a superb first-time guided volley from Maxime Lestienne’s chipped through pass.
“The ball from Maxime was perfect. At first, I thought about taking a touch, but I decided to hit it first-time instead. Thankfully, it went exactly as I envisioned, and it turned out to be a great goal,” recounted Bart, who has now scored nine goals in all competitions this season.
“As a team, that was probably our best first-half so far. We played really well — everyone was involved, and we were all enjoying ourselves out there, myself included.”
While the Sailors eventually conceded two goals in the second half following Song Uiyoung’s dismissal, Bart believes they can take plenty of positives from their overall performance.
“Obviously, our first-half performance gave us a lot of confidence, and the way we defended after the red card was really good,” reflected the former PSV Eindhoven man. “We fought all the way to the end, and if you had told us before the game that we’d leave the Thunder Dome Stadium with a 3-2 win, we would have been very happy.
“But of course, after going 3-0 up, we hoped to keep a clean sheet. But given the red card and everything that happened, I think we managed to hold it together well.”
The Sailors will look to carry that confidence into both the ACL Two Round of 16 second leg at the Jalan Besar Stadium next Thursday (20 February) and their opening Singapore Cup Group B clash against the Jaguars this weekend.
Having convincingly beaten Tanjong Pagar 4-1 in the SPL just a week ago, the Sailors are the favourites to secure another victory when the two sides meet again.
Nonetheless, Bart has cautioned against underestimating a wounded Tanjong Pagar side, as he said, “Tanjong Pagar are a much improved team as compared to where they were earlier in the season and they’ll want to bounce back from last week’s defeat as well.
“That’s why we cannot afford to be complacent when we face them. Yes, we have another important match coming up with the second leg against Muangthong next week, but our focus right now is solely on the Singapore Cup.
“Defending the cup is a key objective of the team, so we’re going to take this game very seriously.”
