Draws On Down
The sadly-reduced Grilled Birds squad would fare poorly in the latest edition of the Trophy of Legends, which saw them winless on the opening day. Indeed, they were even unable to field a full lineup for the first match against Spanish sixth division side Larvas F.C, which ended 2-2 as their Hungarian Number Nine Sándor Pásztor bookended goals from
Bhavya Panigrahi and
Moey Xin Seng. Panigrahi's set-piece productivity might be the only bright side to the fixtures, with the veteran also scoring in the 2-3 loss to German VI.108 opponents SC Thusnelda 03, and a 1-1 draw to Chilean Division Five club Albo Hospicio F.C.
This less-than-outstanding start has the Birds 5412nd of 6776 participants, to which head coach
Tian Yonghang handwaved as well within expectations. "We have got to give the kids as many minutes as possible, and how better than this?"
Well, the "
kids" have definitely not been lacking in fighting spirit, if sometimes misplaced.
Chia Kwang Tse would be fortunate to escape a sending-off for his 19th minute scything challenge on Thusnelda's Stanislovas Dingilevskis, and
Enrique Baena would not be so lucky in the next game, though he lasted nearly the full ninety before his red card for some off-the-ball pushing and shoving on Ricardo Garay. Tian was decidedly unimpressed. "Baena will have to cut that out, if he wants to thrive here."
There would at least be some heartening news from elsewhere, as Heng Dong Chu linked back up with Kalki at Tampines Phoenix F.C., after a month in Sweden with Nobike. "There's no place like home." the returning winger commented. "It was just too cold up there!"
The Farmer Bunnies actually fared little better, with their only win being a walkover in their third match, after Swiss VI.160 side Fetzenfische sent their apologies. It began with a drab nil-all against American Phoenix-based Division Four club Eporedia Suns, after several close calls by
Vitaliy Efendiev and others, on counterattacks. The Kazakh Golden Booter would however come good to salvage a 1-1 against Spanish sixth divisioners Vonbeelzebub Malaka next, two minutes from time. This remarkably had the Buns as high as 859th, in contrast to the Birds.
Grilled International handily outperformed their predecessors for once, with six points and a 781st place standing in the Heroes of 2017 Trophy. It began with a 6-1 thrashing of Canada's La Bête Noire, which had
Tibor Atzenhain and
Safari bin Hj Jali on braces against a sole Gerald Enrile consolation. Italian Division Six club Bomber Team FC fared little better in going down 6-2, although they did equalize in the 35th minute through Rashawn Petrella for a few brief minutes.
Dutch III.8 runaway winners wilwel were a cut above, however, and raced to a 2-0 lead after an early blitz, with big centre forward Walt Wennink bullying his way to two more by the 26th, against
Wang Hanxuan's defiance in the eighth. International then mounted a sustained rally, culminating in their levelling at 4-4 thanks to
Osertz Indurain's header after 63 minutes, but they ran out of steam after that. Adib Razi and Django Lodeizen took advantage to make it 6-4 for wilwel, who then held on.
