Three In Demand
28 year-old Grilled International attacker
Li Xin Chi would be picked up by French Division Five outfit A.S.Bambawa for a round S$14 million today, making it the second time he will be leaving the club, with the first being a year-long stint in Bulgaria with FC Dantes as a teenager. Li had just been hailed as the club's Player of the Season, so that will be one thing off his bucket list - and a huge loss for International.
Didi Reidenbach acknowledged as much, but reiterated that the sale was required, if International were to reinvent themselves. As for teammates
Hardi bin Besar,
Tibor Atzenhain and
Wang Hanxuan, they had attracted some inquiries, but nothing concrete had come of those just yet.
Li thanked the fans for their support, and declared his intentions to return one day. "Lat Tambadou has an exciting project going on here, with top wingers such as Ben Dandy and Berndt Prieler joining up recently. It will be nice to see how far we can go, and after that, who knows?"
There would be a lot more noise at The Cooking Pot over Wings alumni Zainul Abidin Mohd Ehsan and Kamal Jufri Awali, both arguably outside bets for the national youth squad eventually, but who unfortunately could find no place in the Birds' stacked trainee roster. Zainul, a creative forward, and Kamal, a physical midfielder, had scouts come calling even as they strutted their stuff in the U-20 league, and thus it was no surprise that the bids flowed in thick and fast once they became eligible.
For Zainul, his destination would be Romanian VI.936 contestants FC Lazio - 99, with a club record transfer fee of over S$426,000 soon after the high-profile sales of Walenty Tempczyk and Minja Vozila. Portuguese Division Six favourites Lisbon Roughnecks Club were Lazio's stiffest competition, with offers also coming in from FC ARGES_1953 (also Romanian Division Six), Fk Busan (South Korean Division Four), AFC Kollerup (Guatemalan Division Four) and nieusenandgah (Swiss Division Six).
Kamal actually received a greater number of bids, if a lower transfer fee of about S$122,000, as he went to Portuguese VI.388 club RelaESegue. Interestingly, Li's former cultivators FC Dantes of the Bulgarian fifth division were in for Kamal too, together with Bas de Boxer (Dutch Division Four), LesTroisA (French Division Six), Pitarque C.F. (Spanish Division Five), CR.ISPI FC (Greek Division Five), One Morning I Shot an Elephant in my Pajamas FC (Jordan Division Four), NK Harijski Rangerji (Slovenian Division Five), Hanma' (Belgian Division Six), Misisipi F.C. (Bolivian H.A.L Division Seven) and Real Mascarino (Italian Division Six).
Grilled Birds assistant coach Nuh Alawee Ramli admitted that he would have loved it had the duo been able to stay on, but recognized that it would be unfair to them too. "We're short on playing time for the trainees we have already." he confessed. "But we will be keeping an eye on their progress, it goes without saying."
