Hot on the wake of the big real-life national team shake-up and media concerns about the poor depth of local talent, Grilled bucked the trend by welcoming seventeen year-old forward Fan Xiuyu back home from Italian Division Eight club Swindon Athletic, for a sum of nearly S$1.8 million.

Fan had graduated from the Isle of Sparks, the academy side of two-time S-League champions Isle of Flames, and moved to the coincidentally named Spanish club, Gines Sparks, after that. He found it hard to break in and was soon moved on to Athletic after a week.

"We will likely be moving Simões on with Fan's arrival." head coach Han Lik-Tsun said, revealing that this transfer was the main reason for his departure from the Maldives. "I knew that we had to sign Fan once he was made available, and had I not been personally present in Italy, he could well have gone to Dutch side The Denders, who were bent on snagging him."

Apart from The Denders, Pinguinii conpet Stefan cel Mare (Romanian Division Five), SC Vorwärts Berlin (German Division Ten), AC Björkås (Swedish Division Six) and ZXC XI (English Div Six) were reportedly also after the physically imposing forward, who has a couple of friendly goals, but as yet no competitive appearances, from his stint in Europe, not that the Grilled coaches are worried about that.

"It's clear that what he needs is time - and perhaps a spot of rain." Grilled youth coach Raymond Thng offered. "He won't have to spend as much time in the gym as most kids his age need to, so he can invest the time on his ball skills instead."

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