Three's A Crowd
The Grilled Birds clubhouse would be nominated as the venue for this season's celebratory dinner after their capture of the Sapphire Challenger Cup once again, and there would be little doubt as to who would be their Player of the Season, after
Raúl Himadas bust out a goal return that would make any striker proud. This was slightly unfortunate for
Chad Thach, who would otherwise have had a good shout with his national team exploits - which included a hat-trick versus Qatar.
Thach would gamely wave such talk aside. "Raúl deserves it twice over. It's been a fine scoring year, with Chitre, Lim and Marzuki all getting ten too, which is probably for the best - the opponents won't know who to mark!"
The Young Player of the Season award also yielded few surprises, as
Kendell El Khateeb snagged it after several promising first-team appearances. He professed to be happier to finally play alongside his brother Mohsen, though. From the Chicken Wings, Ling Beng Soon earned a scattering of nominations after his long service for the team, with the latent potential of Teo Kong Choon and Josh Hwang also widely recognized.
For Farmer Bunnies, former American national team regular
Gabriel Priebe would be their outside pick, after his consistency from free-kicks won the Buns more than a few games in an otherwise barren term. This was exemplified by joint top scorers
Dušan Václavík and
Koushan Khatibi managing but three goals each, which had to be something of a downer for the fans.
There would be no lack of talent in the Rancher Rabbits, and Number Eight Kavi Chakraborty secured the youth award with his terrific all-round talent, which has had some scouts describe him as a generational pick. Impressively, it was not even that obvious a choice, with contemporaries Richard Okazaki, Santosh Ramanathan and Anas Zulfadhli Yazid all close to Chakraborty's level.
Head coach
Vishnu Tallapaka did hint that he might not be around to watch them develop, however. "It's been, what, eight long years in charge?" the 51 year-old commented. "Perhaps it is time to let somebody else have a go."
Grilled International had an easy choice too, as
Egidius van der Duin got his first POTY after his Hattrick International Sapphire Challenger Cup Golden Boot. He would have been the favourite even without that - 26 goals in 26 games speaks for itself - even if
Snæbjörn Sigfússon and
Chua Jun Long came close with their hauls.
Khosrov Danelyan and
Ghanem Ben Mimoun got some votes too, but it wasn't really a contest.
The Busy Bees' Hj Tarip bin Hj Gillen obtained the U-20 honour for his ability in midfield, with 16 year-old Chow Han Dong his closest competition for some utterly-dominating defensive performances, although perhaps too few for the judges. As for high school forward prodigy Nabil bin Mohd Zulkhairi, his star has maybe waned a little after arriving to some of the loudest fanfare for an academy player ever, and coaches have warned that he is a long way to even approaching his own hype.
