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When Lion City Sailors were birthed at the start of 2020, from billionaire Forrest Li's takeover of Home United, it was stated in no uncertain terms that the goal was for the new club to eventually become a footballing powerhouse. In Singapore, and then in all of Asia. By winning the Singapore Premier League last season, the first target was achieved and the pathway to the second was charted -- by virtue of automatic qualification for this year's AFC Champions League. On Monday evening, three days after their debut in Asia's premier club competition ended in a sobering 4-1 loss at the hands of two-time champions Urawa Red Diamonds, the Sailors emphatically announced their arrival on the continent's biggest stage with a 3-0 win over South Korea's Daegu. And it was by no means a fluke. Granted, goalkeeper Hassan Sunny was at his usual best with a handful of outstanding saves and the woodwork did come to the rescue on a couple of occasions.  But from the opening whistle, Lion City looked to take the game to their opponents -- who only just last season reached the Round of 16 - and more than matched them for most parts of the contest. It was fitting that Song Ui-young opened their account in the competition after 21 minutes. The longest-serving member of the team from the time he made his debut for Home United in 2011, Song arrived as a teenage South Korean prospect but is now a veteran of the team and a Singapore international to boot, following his naturalisation in 2021. Yet, taking the team to previously unchartered waters was always going to require an injection of extra quality and that is where the Sailors hierarchy have never been found lacking in ambition. The appointment of Kim Do-hoon -- the coach who masterminded Ulsan Hyundai's ACL triumph of 2020 -- at the helm last May was seen as a real coup. At the start of this season, his compatriot Kim Shin-wook, a two-time ACL champion with Ulsan and Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, followed him through the entrance.  The Sailors' recruitment policy has had a clear target of signing players with extensive high-level experience, with the trio of Diego Lopes, Pedro Henrique and Maxime Lestienne all having featured in Europe before. On Monday, Lopes and Lestienne combined brilliantly on the counter for the Lion City's second goal before Henrique headed home the third. Singapore's Sailors dreamt big and believed, and now they have achieved becoming only the second Singaporean team to record a win in the ACL. With two very winnable matches against an understrength Shandong Taishan to come before their return encounters against Urawa and Daegu, Lion City could very well already be dreaming of, believing in and setting out to achieve a place in the Round of 16.
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