Ledrense Double Take
A couple of Singaporean lads will be based out of Northern Italy for awhile, as Trento side Ledrense recruited Grilled Birds' Wan Loong Chang and Farmer Bunnies' Phua Keong Kim, in a coordinated deal. Both had made their reputation as budding midfielders, though Phua had been known to be a handful at centre-forward as well.
Birds scout Mok Feng De, who unofficially oversaw the transfers, noted that the pair going to the same club eased their families' worries somewhat. "It's not bad to have somebody you can click with, but of course I'd also advise them to mingle about more."
Mok revealed that they had been targeting this outcome from the start, with another Trento outfit Fùtbol Club de PUR coming up with an initial offer to take both as a package, an arrangement that Moyanos FC (Argentine Division Six) quickly matched. Neither were willing to go head-to-head with Ledrense, whose final bid of near-S$200000 for Phua and S$66000 for Wan was peanuts to the S$17 million that they had just obtained for French starter Jean-Michel Bourgue.
This was not to say that there weren't tempting individual offers either, of which Arsenal School City's for Phua had him seriously considering it, after decent feedback from Rancher Rabbits buddy Alex Duffy. This was alongside approaches by Moruga Scorpion (Italian Division Seven), Kurzemes Dūre (Latvian Division Five), Scorp (Israeli Division Five), A.C Lagodigarda 2 (Kyrgyzstani Division Three) and A.C. Siena 1979 (Italian Division Six).
Wan wasn't short on options either, and he admitted to looking very closely at just-promoted Polish second division club AC^^Milan; otherwise, Red BSK (Italian Division Eight), Fc Libotov (Czech Division Four) and 1.FC Kühnitzsch (German Division Four) had also made formal inquiries to the Birds.
All's well that ends well, though, and the duo are set to become best mates at Ledrense. "We've seen each other around." Phua said, "Wan's easy to get along with, but I don't think he feels the same about me."
