Winless Day Three
With the remaining matches essentially dead rubbers given that they had already lost twice, the Birds could not get it up on the last day of the Supporter Week Trophy tourney, and suffered a loss and two draws, to finish 4780th of 18906 participants with a 5-2-3 record.
In the morning game against Japanese club PRECURE ALL STARS, who like Grilled had won three secondary national cups, they had no recourse to their opponents' ability at stretching play - fullback Kazuki Kataoka would fire two in from tight angles, with Kunio Eguchi putting in the final touch in the 41st.
Rinor Isufi and
Tian Yonghang actually had a fair number of strikes on target, but Cyprus goalie Sarper Toman was on top of things.
The draws then came against English Divison Three side Patel and Faroe Islands Division Four side FC RIKS 93, with
Ang Leong Kum and
Tian Yonghang scoring in both games - most memorably in the final two minutes to secure an unlikely 2-2 against Patel, after skipper Isidor Arretxea had seemingly locked it up with his gargantuan defensive efforts.
Yuta Nakakita was thrown straight into the side against FC RIKS 93, and clearly outshone
Hoàng Trung Quá, though the latter had a bad day. This was enough for
Djan Bacelar, who liked what he observed.
"Yuta definitely has the potential to make one of the centreback spots his own - nay, be the most outstanding defender Grilled has seen." the head coach said. "We have had a number of good offensive backs, but Yuta's on another level in his all-round defensive game - height, pace, positioning... he has got the lot!"
There would be a trio of one-goal defeats awaiting Farmer Bunnies, who lost in turn to fcjoseno (Swiss Division Five), FC Weihrauch (Swiss Division Six) and FC Bram Brugge (Belgian Division Six).
Enzo Paolo Panzarino and
Wong Ting Yew claimed their only goals of the day.
