Vaped By VPA
This edition of the Trophy of Legends saw a mostly-serious Grilled Birds side being outplayed as they have not yet been through this entire season, as Finnish Division Three champions FC VPA punished some very lackadaisical defending from the Birds. Grilled were not helped by a walkover against Belgian V.8 representatives 't Groenveld, who appear to have had to sit out the tournament to handle other concerns.
But back to FC VPA, the 2-6 loss would have to be regarded as an indictment of both
Sølve Lunde and
Mateja Jeftić, who had gaping weaknesses exposed by former Finnish international Jouni Mäki-Tulokas and company. Jeftić, never the quickest over open ground, would find himself simply outraced on more than a few occasions, while Lunde had the legs, but was all too often successfully teased by Ville Kättö. All in all, it seems that a strong understanding remains to be built between Lunde and his new teammates.
Kalki Parvathaneni did score twice to brighten up an otherwise disappointing outing, and the Birds then took it out against Romanian Division Five climbers REAL SARANDY, who conceded into the double digits in an outright slaughter. S-League Golden Boot winner
Vikram Mudaliar would be subbed off soon after his hat-trick, with
Moey Xin Seng and
Mateja Jeftić getting a brace each.
Farmer Bunnies plodded along in their opening 1-3 defeat to Hungary's Tarquinius Imperator FC in the Heroes of 2014 Trophy, as the fourth division club ran up two goals towards the end of the first half. Milán Czopf made it three in the 66th minute, before
Richard Agyei cleaned up a goalkeeping mistake off a corner kick.
A 2-0 win over Finnish Division Five side Potkupojat followed, as Indonesian wingman
Djoko Tambusai demonstrated some hope for next season, with a powerful run and strike from his right wing in the eighth minute.
Lim Su Liang busted a lung to reach Tallapaka's free-kick delivery to the post in the second half. This would build into a pretty dull nil-all stalemate against Dutch V.126 club, FC Bébé 2.
Grilled International had the same experience as the Buns in their Heroes of 2017 Trophy campaign, as they began by being comprehensively outdone by Chilean fifth division winners, Club Atlético San Franco. Granted, SanFranco left lone striker Samuel Veselka without much support for most of the game, but they didn't need to as International basically self-destructed from their own impatience. Fruitless attacks met by competent reversals saw International downed 0-4.
It got better as International then dug out a 4-4 draw versus Italian VI.735 outfit Luciopolaikos, who seemed to have come back from
Sazwan bin Hj Muhd Salleh's brace; International did show great fighting spirit in the closing ten minutes, and fully deserved
Hardi bin Besar's injury-time equalizer. This probably helped lift them to a 5-0 thrashing of Danish fifth divisioners mini me, with Hardi also scoring alongside a rare
Tommy Dongelmans double.
