2014 Singapore League Cup
The 2014 Singapore League Cup was the eighth season of Singapore's premier club football tournament organised by Football Association of Singapore, and also known as the 2014 StarHub League Cup for sponsorship reasons. For the second year in succession, National Football League clubs will participate in the tournament. Unlike the previous season where NFL sides had to compete in play-offs to earn the right to represent the league against the professionals, the representatives in this edition qualified through the league positions from last season. The 2014 Singapore League Cup plate final was played between  Tampines Rovers and Balestier Khalsa at the Jalan Besar Stadium in Kallang, Singapore. Miljan Mrdaković, who scored a hat-trick in the semi-finals against Police Sports Association, reproduced another hat-trick to clinch the plate for Tampines. He becomes the first player in history to score two hat-tricks in the tournament, and consecutively. The 2014 Singapore League Cup final was played between Tanjong Pagar United and Brunei DPMM at the Jalan Besar Stadium in Kallang, Singapore. Brunei DPMM eliminated Tanjong Pagar United by a score of 2–0 to lift the League Cup trophy. Teams. The top ten clubs  from 2013 S.League were divided into three pots based on their final league positions. Developmental sides Harimau Muda and Young Lions have opted out of participation in this year's edition as they will be on a training tour in Austria. League positions of the previous season are shown in parentheses. Round and draw dates. The schedule of the competition was as follows. The draw took place on 20 June at the Jalan Besar Stadium, during which the teams were drawn by various club representatives. Format. The preliminary phase was a competition between the 12 teams divided among four groups  of three, where each group engaged in a round-robin tournament within itself. The two highest ranked teams in each group advanced to the knockout phase. The third-placed team in each group entered the plate knockout phase. Teams were awarded 3 points for a win and one for a draw. Tie-breaking criteria for group play The ranking of teams in each group was based on the following criteria: The knockout phase involved the eight teams that qualified from the preliminary phase of the tournament, while the plate knockout phase involved the four teams that finished third in the  preliminary phase of the tournament. For the knockout phase, there were three rounds of matches, with each round eliminating half of the teams entering that round, whereas for the plate knockout phase, there were two rounds of matches, with each round eliminating half of the teams entering that round. For each game in the knockout phase, a draw was followed by thirty minutes of extra time (except the final); if scores were still level there would be a penalty shoot-out to determine who progressed to the next round. Preliminary phase. The preliminary phase began on 7 July and will  conclude on 15 July. There were some changes to the fixtures released. Changes to fixtures "All times listed below are in Singaporean official time ()." Group A. <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> Group B. <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> Group C. <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> References.