Weather conditions were fairly good for football, and
The Cooking Pot saw a crowd turnout of 74008.
Salijan Egemkul Uulu was the appointed referee with assistance provided by
Aleš Vetršek and
Vyacheslav Griko. Fans of both teams had been eagerly awaiting this
Jurong derby and were doing their best to outshout their opponents.
Grilled's lineup was:
Marcol -
Himadas,
其材 (Qicai) -
Reddy,
Teck Fu,
Kwang Tse,
Khairul,
Trindade -
Thach,
Chitre,
An Keng.
newbies's starters:
Gasparroni -
Gibson,
Eutiner,
Gardner -
Chu Chao,
Zakwan,
Kang Su,
Meng Heng,
Choon An -
Kim Tse,
Kong Su.
Grilled Birds started the game in a 2-5-3 formation, whereas
newbies are newbies lined up in a 3-5-2 formation.
Grilled clearly preferred using their
divine (+7) ability to attack in the middle. The visiting
Li Choon An was booed thoroughly by the home crowd 2 minutes into the game, after he broke through the middle and scored, resulting in the visitors taking the lead. 0 - 1 was the score. The home crowd was not impressed when
Lam Kang Su came in from the right, shooting hard to score after 4 minutes.
newbies were now up 0 - 2. After 8 minutes,
newbies's
Li Choon An burst through the central defence and let loose a cannonball of a shot, scoring for 0 - 3. The home crowd cheered when, after 12 minutes,
Kevin Gibson's charge up the middle resulted in the keeper making one of his best saves of the day.
Chad Thach did everything he could to get one back for his
Grilled, but keeper
Romeo Gasparroni denied him with a spectacular block. It was 0 - 3 at the break.
newbies had most of the ball, with 58 percent of possession.
46 minutes into the game,
newbies's
Romeo Gasparroni surprised the visitors with a raking cross-field pass to
Au Kong Su who easily found the back of the net, making the score 0 - 4.
Grilled's
Chia Kwang Tse found himself alone on the left side 63 minutes into the match and laid down a perfect shot - right into the arms of the keeper!
Kevin Gibson came close to extending the visitors' lead when he found himself completely unmarked in front of the goal after a pass through the middle. He tried to lift the ball over
Radomil Marcol but overcooked it and hit the bar instead. After 74 minutes a combination in the middle resulted in a through ball for
Chen Meng Heng who increased
newbies's lead to 0 - 5. All credit to
Tan Chu Chao for that clever assist.
Grilled's fans were urging them forward as they tried to get back into the game, and their vocal support was rewarded 75 minutes into the match as
Mohd Marzuki Khairul ran onto a beautiful ball played through the visitors' defence and slotted it past the keeper to reduce the deficit. 1 - 5. The visitors'
Tan Chu Chao took advantage of a misunderstanding between the home side's goalie and centre backs 76 minutes into the match. 1 - 6 for
newbies. After 80 minutes, the
Grilled coach wanted to see a new face on the pitch, waving
Hwang Teck Fu off the field.
Aw Keng Chuan took his place. As the 89 minute mark approached, the
Grilled coach decided it was time for a substitution.
Raúl Himadas reluctantly made way for
Damian Hutter on the pitch.
Raúl Himadas was coming off, and had placed his last free kick for the day. That meant that
Aw Keng Chuan got the chance to showcase his dead ball skills. It was announced by the referee that he estimated stoppage time to be around 2 minutes. This meant there could still be an extra attack or two left in the match! It was obvious that team
Grilled had instructions to attack in the middle instead of on the wings. The home side worked hard to get through the middle and as a result, had a good chance of getting one back as
Gandhik Chitre tried lifting the ball over keeper
Romeo Gasparroni. Unfortunately, the ball went just over the bar. The match ends 1 - 6.
newbies claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 58 percent.
The most dominating
Grilled player was without a doubt
Mohd Marzuki Khairul.
Li Choon An performed admirably for
newbies.