Lion City Sailors aiming for success in Asean Club Championship as SPL title contenders

The Lion City Sailors are setting their sights on regional dominance as they prepare for their first appearance in the Asean Club Championship, kicking off with a journey to East Kalimantan, Indonesia.

The Singapore Premier League side will kick off their Group B matches against hosts Borneo FC on Aug 22 at the Batakan Stadium, where a sizeable crowd is expected.

While the Sailors have been dominant in the SPL and also notched several remarkable results in the Asian Champions League, the Asean Club Championship will, as their coach Aleksandar Rankovic put it, be a chance to “benchmark ourselves against South-east Asia’s best”.

The competition, which is also known as the Shopee Cup, will feature 12 teams in a single round-robin format, with the Sailors also facing Vietnam’s Cong An Ha Noi, Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur City, Thailand’s Buriram United and the Philippines’ Kaya FC-Iloilo in Group B.

The top two from each group will progress to the two-legged semi-finals.

Borneo have won both of their opening matches in their domestic Liga 1, which kicked off on Aug 9, but the Sailors also have cause for optimism. They are coming into the clash in good form, having won their last three matches, scoring a total of 16 goals.

Furthermore, Dutch midfielder Bart Ramselaar is available for selection again, after recovering from a hamstring injury that kept him out of the past four games.

The 28-year-old said they are up for the challenge against Borneo, adding: “The intensity is quite high and the level of competition is quite good, so we have to be at our best to reach the further stages.”

Rankovic, a former assistant coach at Dutch Eredivisie club FC Utrecht, said: “I expect a competitive game, especially because the coach is also Dutch, so the way of football is something I’m used to.”

The Serb was referring to Borneo coach Pieter Huistra, who had also coached Dutch top-tier clubs FC Groningen and
De Graafschap.

Besides having watched clips of the Sailors’ matches, Huistra will also be relying on his knowledge of the Sailors’ Dutch connection.

The 57-year-old said: “Fortunately because I’m Dutch, I know some of the players and also the coach, and how they want to play so that makes it a bit easier, probably.

“We always want to win our next game and it’s a simple philosophy, we try to stick to it and so far it’s gone quite well.”

They will be banking on their star midfielder Stefano Lilipaly, a former Dutch youth international, and their home crowd, given how Indonesians are known for their fanatical support of football teams. 

Ramselaar said: “We know that Indonesia clubs have big fan bases, so we’re expecting a full crowd, so that’ll be different. 

“But we’re looking forward to this game, it’s a very important one for us to prove ourselves that we can compete with different countries.”