Rams look to shatter Glass Rabbits
W.Ng
info@sleague.com
2008 Singapore Cup runners-up Woodlands Wellington begin their 2009 campaign with a match at home to Thai Premier League outfit Bangkok Glass FC, and coach Nenad Bacina believes his side could not have been drawn with a more difficult opponent.
“It’s definitely going to be a tough match for us, and I think of all the opponents (we could have been drawn against), I think we were unlucky to have got the toughest in the Cup.”
If current form is anything to go by, the Croat’s worries are anything but unfounded.
Sitting pretty atop the Thai Premier League, “The Glass Rabbits” are far from the fragile image their nickname conjures: Bangkok Glass’s draw with Samud Songkhram helped them preserve a proud unbeaten record with five wins and two draws from seven games, including impressive wins against Provincial Electricity Authority and Chonburi, last season’s top two.
They boast the best attack in Thailand, with Nantawat Thansopa leading the Thai goalscoring charts and Nigerian Ajayi Samuel, who appeared for Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Empire between 2006 and 2008, just a goal behind him.
Interestingly, the team coached by German Hans Emser only began to exist as an entity this year, when parent firm BG FC Sport Company bought over last year’s sixth-placed finishers Krung Thai Bank FC in January, and took that team’s spot in the 2009 Thai Premier League season.
The majority of the team, however, remains unchanged from last season’s Krung Thai side, a fact that Bacina is well aware of even as he admitted to knowing precious little about his next opponents.
“I don’t know very much about them, but they are currently on top of the Thai league.
“I got some information from a friend in Thailand, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank him for it. He's someone who’s also familiar with Singapore football.
“(Bangkok Glass) are a hardworking team, and have been playing together for a few years. Their coach is a German guy, and they are certainly a good team, with five wins and two draws in the Thai league.
“Thai football is quite different from that of other teams in the region, and I have experience from my playing days with SAFFC against Thai teams. They are very mobile, they play a passing game, and Thai players have excellent ball control. It’s different from how we play in the league.”
Apart from having already taken the Thai Premier League by storm, the pedigree of Bangkok Glass, who are making their debut in this competition, is undeniable: the team represented Thailand in the 2008 edition of the AFC Champions League, although they did bow out in the group stages.
Woodlands, meanwhile, will go into the game on the back of a loss to Sengkang Punggol that left them third from bottom in the league, but Bacina maintains that his side are eager to make a real fight of the tie.
“Of course we will try to win, because last year Woodlands played in the final.
“But we cannot compare the two because it’s a different coach and different players – but we will still do our best to go as far as we can.”
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