The Filipino side usually enjoy their trips to the Jalan Besar Stadium.
Loyola Meralco Sparks coach Vincent Santos believes his side have a ‘home’ advantage when they take on Tanjong Pagar United on Sunday.
The Filipino side are still in with a shout of winning the RBS Singapore Cup despite succumbing to 2-1 defeat in the first leg of their quarter final clash with the Jaguars on Thursday at the Queenstorn Stadium night but return to familiar surroundings for the second leg.
But as they are one of the invited foreign teams taking part in the tournament the Sparks have played all of their home games at the Jalan Besar Stadium and Santos is confident it will aid his players in overturning the one-goal deficit to reach the last four.
“I think it’s going to be good to review the tape from tonight [Thursday] for the boys to see what happened,” he told Fox Sports. “That’s the beauty of the two legs.
“We had tapes of Tanjong Pagar but it’s difficult to size up your opponents until you’ve actually played them, but I still fancy our chances.
“There’s a full 90 minutes ahead and Jalan Besar has been nice to us. We recorded some wins there last year and we consider it our home whenever we’re here.
“The artificial pitch is something we play on regularly in Manila and the size of the field favours the way that we play,” he added. “Also, the fact that the fans are closer to the pitch gives a bit more energy to the boys and maybe that can be the difference.”
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