Matchday Six of the 2024/25 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) club competitions ended on Thursday, December 5 with three ASEAN Club Championship Shopee Cup™ teams in action this week.
Lion City Sailors FC and Kaya FC-Iloilo concluded their respective group stage campaigns in the AFC Champions League Two, while Buriram United continue to battle in the league stage of the AFC Champions League Elite.
ASEAN United FC provides a recap of everything that happened this week.
Song nets stunning hat-trick to help Sailors finish top
Lion City Sailors faced a crunch contest with Thailand’s Port FC with their qualification hopes on the line heading into the final matchday. It was a tightly contested Group F, which also included China PR’s Zhejiang FC and Indonesia’s Persib Bandung, with all of them having a chance to go through.
The Sailors knew that only a win would be enough for them and they made a dream start when Song Ui-young opened the scoring after just 42 seconds! The Singaporean midfielder went on to score two more goals, completing his hat-trick with an acrobatic volley that lifted the roof at Jalan Besar Stadium.
This was the Incheon native’s 23rd AFC club competition goal in 34 appearances, while the 31-year-old also became the first Singaporean to score a hat-trick in AFC club competitions since Khairul Amri’s treble against Yangon United in 2019.
Shawal Anuar and Lennart Thy also got on the scoresheet to make it 5-2 in one of the most memorable nights in the club’s history. In doing so, the Sailors leapfrogged Port FC to finish top of the pile with 10 points and became the first Singaporean club to reach the knockout stage of an AFC club competition since Home United in the 2018 AFC Cup.
The Sailors will now take on either Australia’s Sydney FC, Vietnam’s Nam Dinh FC or Muangthong United of Thailand in a two-legged Round of 16 scheduled to be played in February 2025 with the knockout stage draw to be conducted on Thursday, December 12.
Meanwhile, Filipino champions Kaya FC-Iloilo bowed out of the competition after succumbing to a 3-1 defeat in Australia against Sydney FC. Robert Lopez Mendy got a late consolation for Kaya who finished third in ACL Two Group E.
Buriram hold JDT in feisty ACL Elite clash
Thai League 1 champions Buriram United took on Malaysia Super League champions Johor Darul Ta’zim at Sultan Ibrahim Stadium on Matchday Six in the East Zone of the AFC Champions League Elite.
It was a battle between the only two Southeast Asian clubs playing at the highest level of continental club football with the game ultimately finishing 0-0 but not without drama as Theerathon Bunmathan from the visitors as well as Murilo and Park Jun-heong for JDT were all sent off.
The draw ensures Buriram now have eight points from six matches, staying eighth in the table, the final spot to reach the knockout stage while JDT, with the same number of points, are above them on goal difference. The league stage action will resume again in February 2025.
Photo: Lion City Sailors FC
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