Zhou In Demand
Grilled International fullback trainee Zhou Shizhou enjoyed the rare distinction of being named as an official national U-20 prospect right out of the academy, and this certainly boosted his market value significantly - ending in a S$406,000 transfer to Spanish VI.968 club Prades United 3.0. Pedro Beitia had recently laid out over half a million for veteran striker Edgar Cervello, but there should be no doubt as to who should have the longer future at the club.
Zhou had always been regarded as a top talent in his time with the Busy Bees, with scout Daud bin Radiman immediately taken by his deceptive speed both on and off the ball, clearly a great asset for modern ball-playing wingbacks. Zhou's development continued steadily with the youth squad, although not many expected him to be rated that highly by the national setup.
There would be an early approach by Spanish seventh divisioners ViggoFC, swiftly followed by Barcelona outfit of the same level Woonkly, and then Dutch III.14 high-flyers Kelderklasse FC and German VII.292 side Der Uni's II. RUC 96 (Canadian H.A.L Division Seven), Philip Morris Jrs. (Argentine Division Six) and Vitto94 (Italian Division Six) came in with official bids too, but the main run-in would be between Prades and H.A.L Division Seven hopefuls Snoopy Fc. This drove the price up quickly, before Snoopy Fc finally bowed out as it crossed four hundred thousand.
Zhou was over the moon at all the attention, and promised to repay Beitia's faith with hard work. "And if the national coaches are thinking so highly of me too, well, I can't let them down, can I?"
There was good news too for Grilled Birds, with
Lim An Keng,
Chia Kwang Tse and
Chad Thach all getting letters from the Young Lions setup too; with the coaches apparently experimenting, Birds fans are hopeful that they will get some U-20 caps under their belt. Even if that doesn't happen, however, they might yet have great careers before them, if the examples of
Moey Xin Seng and alumni goalie Raghavan Dugyala - recently teasing another move for over S$20 million - are anything to go by.
