The Jalan Besar pitch was soaked, but the Lion City Sailors lit it up anyway.
On a rain-drenched day on 9 April, the Singapore Premier League side stunned A-League outfit Sydney FC 2-0 in the first leg of the AFC Champions League Two semi-final.
A crowd of 4,213 at the Stadium watched the Sailors put on a clinical display, one that had heart, grit, and just enough European flair to tip the tie.
Sydney might’ve come with big names, former Brazil international Douglas Costa and Australian regulars like Anthony Caceres but it was the Sailors’ foreign signings who lit up the night.
The Sailors turned up, turned it on, and turned the tide of what many expected to be a one-sided affair.
Bart Ramselaar’s 18th-minute screamer, a curling shot from 20 metres that kissed the underside of the bar before bouncing in, set the tone.
It came off a sweeping move down the right, started by Song Ui-young and finished with a deft cutback by Diogo Costa.
The Dutchman doesn’t often shoot, as Sailors coach Aleksandar Rankovic was quick to point out.
“Of course, with the chances that we had, we could’ve maybe scored even more.”
“I’m happy that Bart started shooting from distance… I keep saying that to him all the time. But sometimes, he just wants to assist, but you can see if he wants to score, he has to take some chances,” he said to The Straits Time.
Sydney had their chances.
Anthony Caceres won a free kick just before half-time, but Costa blasted it into the Jalan Besar flats.
Then came the sucker punch after the restart, Diogo Costa again involved, this time launching a ball for Lennart Thy to bring down and bury into the roof of the net. 2-0.
From then, the Sailors held firm.
Sydney saw 69% possession but mustered just two shots on target from 12 attempts.
For all their ball control, they looked blunt stuck trying to thread passes through a wall of white shirts.
“We had a lot of the ball but were unable to penetrate, they were very deep and it was hard to break down the 10 players they had inside their 18-yard box. The two moments that they had, they scored two goals,” said the Sydney coach Ufuk Talay.
For all their dominance, Sydney will have to overturn a two-goal deficit at Allianz Stadium on 16 April.
Not impossible, but they’ll need more than pretty possession to do it.
The winner of this tie will host the final against either Al-Taawoun (Saudi Arabia) or Sharjah FC (UAE), who are locked in their own tight contest after a 1-0 first-leg result.
A place in the final, US$2.5 million (S$3.4 million), and regional glory are on the line.
The Sailors are now just 90 minutes away from something never achieved in Singapore football, an Asian final.
PHOTO: LION CITY SAILORS