Tue, 30 Nov, -0001
Coach Nenad Bacina has backed Tampines Rovers to bounce back in the AFC Cup in 2013 ahead of Wednesday’s meeting with Vietnamese Cup winners Saigon Xuan Thanh at Jalan Besar Stadium after the S.League champions failed to qualify for the knockout stage for the first time last year.
Having reached the knockout stage in their first four AFC Cup appearances, the S.League champions flopped in last year’s tournament and bowed out at the end of the group stage with just one win from six games.
And while the Stags’ task is not likely to get any easier in this year’s tournament after Bacina’s side were placed in a tough-looking Group H alongside I-League giants East Bengal and Malaysian side Selangor, Bacina (pictured) believes that his side can rise to the occasion this time.
“Tampines Rovers have a lot of experience of playing in the AFC Cup and the team has generally done quite well in the tournament until last year when we did not qualify for the knockout stage for the first time,” said Bacina, who took charge of the club at the start of this season.
“However, we are ambitious to do well in this competition. We are expecting to play good football and to compete well against the other teams in our group. It is one of the strongest groups in this year’s competition but we will try to play our part in this group and progress to the next round.”
The Tampines squad appeared thin at times last year but they were strengthened during the off-season with the addition of Argentine midfielder Martin Wagner as well as Singapore internationals Shaiful Esah, Shahdan Sulaiman, Firdaus Kasman and Khairul Amri who were all part of the Lions XII side that took part in last year’s Malaysian Super League.
“I think that last year was the first time that we didn’t qualify for the knockout rounds and it was a good lesson for us,” said captain Fahruddin Mustafic.
“We have good motivation now to do better as we believe that we should always be there.
“We are playing in a stronger group this year and it will be very difficult for us to progress, but with the addition of Amri, Shahdan, Shaiful and Firdaus, I think that we now have stronger squad with more depth and we can definitely come back stronger and try to at least qualify for the next round.”
While Tampines are competing in the AFC Cup for the sixth time, Saigon are making their first appearance in the tournament after their 4-1 victory over Hanoi T&T in last year’s Vietnamese Cup final.
The Vietnamese side were trounced 4-0 by league champions Da Nang in the Vietnamese Super Cup last month, but after a 1-0 victory over Binh Duong in their opening league game on Saturday, technical director Lu Dinh Tuan insists Saigon are ready for the challenge of the AFC Cup.
“This is our first time in the AFC Cup and I think that it will be hard for us because all of the other teams in our group are strong, although we have still set ourselves a target of trying to go to the second round,” he said.
“We lost heavily in the Super Cup when the attitude of our players was not very good, but we got a good result in the V-League last weekend against a strong team and now the players have come back in high spirits and they want to prove themselves in the AFC Cup.”
Last week, India’s East Bengal opened the campaign in Group H with a 1-0 win over Malaysia’s Selangor.
Photo: Tampines Rovers