Primed And Verified
Returnees Pumped
Hungarian Sixth Division leaders Primavera Juve F.C. got on the wrong end of a 0-7 wipeout at their Juventus Stadium today, as the nearly five thousand local fans could only watch as Grilled outmatched their reserves. Then again, Primavera head coach Andrea Canà made it quite clear that it was but a glorified training match with his selection, which featured only Knudt Badtke and Steven Tepper, and at a stretch Iván Piñar, from their rather more formidable cast of regulars.
After sitting out the league fixture against Claseek due to suspension and coach's choice respectively,
Tian Yonghang and
Wong Ping Shun started upfront today, with Wong filling what was an unfamiliar wide forward role.
Hoàng Trung Quá, who remains awaiting his competitive debut, returned to the defence.
There remained a good distance between Tian and anyone else on the pitch, and despite Badtke's almost-undivided attentions, it was quickly apparent that the match would revolve around the Grilled captain. Young upstart
Moey Xin Seng might have been handed the armband for the friendly, as is usual practice, but there was no question who was calling the shots out there.
Primavera managed to hole up for nineteen minutes, but would then yield a free-kick wide right, that
Rinor Isufi delivered, and Tian swept in. This did not push the hosts towards attacking in return, however, and they continued running a gritty siege defence; Badtke and Isufi would exchange yellow cards around the half-hour mark, following some slightly petty tit-for-tat nipping tackles.
There would be two more before the half ended, with
Wong Ping Shun also clearly the better for his enforced rest. He latched onto Iván Piñar's lazy attempted pass upfield before slamming it beyond goalkeeper Steven Tepper, who would concede another to Isufi's sterling direct run in the very next minute.
An especially-sprightly
Tian Yonghang continued where he had left off, and brought a chip by Moey down with exquisite balance, in the 50th minute. 39 year-old Venezuelan defender Ramón Carvajal tried to preempt Tian's strike, but wound up totally caught out by Tian turning the other way, before scooping it in at the far end.
Grilled's young midfield began to impose themselves about now, as they saw the opportunity to wash the stink of two heavy losses off themselves.
Neeraj Muthyala had been quietly building up his influence behind the front three, and he would find
Hariharan Prabhu with a neat assist in the 57th. Tepper did have the scant consolation of a big save off
Wong Ping Shun's world-class lob, before he was taken off for Romanian trainee Cezar Coacă.
Unexpectedly, that substitution led to what was Primavera's top chance of taking something from the game. Markedly less collected than his senior, Coacă blasted a clearance as far as he could without regard for positioning, but this turned out to be the makings of a rare opening, after Muthyala misjudged the wild bounce after letting it fall. Botond Köles launched what would be his only on-target effort, and
Krystian Rykowski had to scramble back in double-quick time to protect his net.
Coacă would not quite succeed where Tepper had not, in the end, and he lasted nine minutes before conceding. The scorer this time was
Kalki Parvathaneni, who thus procured his first goal at professional level, with a thunderous left-footed swing from several feet outside the penalty area.
It was still the 71st minute when Prabhu upped it to seven thanks to
Leong Wan Kang kindly selling Guillaume Miroux a dummy for him, and although András Csapliczky scouted his turf patiently, there would be no consolation in the end for the Hungarians.
