Chris Greatwich: The home crowd gives us an edge Chris Greatwich believes home field advantage will be the difference in Sunday's semifinal against Stallion Laguna.
The mindset of the team heading into this game is, we know we have home advantage, which is something from the beginning of the cup competition that we wanted because we know we’re formidable here. So having an opportunity to play in front of the home crowd gives us an edge.
But Stallion has had a strong finish to the season, they came out of a very tough group to qualify. They’re going to be an extremely tough opponent. We’re certainly not looking past this game and thinking about the final. We’re just focused on delivering a good performance on Sunday, and know that if we play to our full potential in front of our home fans then it should hopefully be enough for us to qualify for the final.
We’re expecting a reaction from them on Sunday (after losing 4-0 to Davao Aguilas in midweek). Coach Ernie certainly has his players always motivated to play against us, so I really don’t think that result has any real bearing on whether or not they’re going to come into the game confident or not. It’s a cup game at the end of the day and anything can happen.
All four teams have come off of lengthy breaks and in those types of scenarios you can get games that conjure up obscure results. But I think heading into the semifinal we won’t pay too much attention to that scoreline, and I don’t think they will either. We’re going to be prepared for the reaction that I know Stallion are going to have based on that result and concentrate on our own game.
In the two home games we played against them, we played extremely well and won the games with really good performances, so I’m hoping that’s a good omen for us going into this semifinal matchup. We had our troubles in Biñan against them (two losses and one draw), and we know they’re a strong side. But hopefully being in front of our home crowd will give us that advantage and that we can continue with our really good home form that we’ve had all season (9 wins, 2 draws, 1 loss).
