Saf-fer The Darkness
Who Else?
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim has spent the past few months scoring in bursts, and his latest spurt came at an opportune time, with progress from the group stage of the SG Super Cup IV at stake. A magnificent hat-trick against heimu XI saw Grilled in the qualification spots, surely a good sign despite it being early days yet.
It was a great surprise given that heimu XI have perhaps been Grilled's biggest bogey team in recent seasons, as they improved from being so often the Birds' preferred opponents, to denying them a single win in their last five matchups, further winning the last three of those by fourteen goals to five.
Even the staunchest of Grilled fans who made the way down were not confident of anything more than a draw, with heimu having at their disposal a largely unchanged side from that which hammered Grilled 6-1 at The Cooking Pot two months ago. That ranked as the Birds' second heaviest home league defeat of all time, behind the 6-0 whitewash by Herron eighteen seasons ago.
German defender Stanisław Babul was out with a knock, but national defender Zhu Aobo, his replacement, could certainly not be said to be inferior, and Grilled's worst fears were realised as they made no headway against the chain-like five-man defence of heimu. The Birds' own backline was far less sound, and it was only fickle fortune that saw Rimgaudas Gilucevičius place a strike off the crossbar from a swift counter.
The players had evidently learnt nothing from this, as they were again slow to react to a heimu push down the left side.
lu Zunwen belatedly tried to pick Willy Hinderdael up as the left winger again set about destroying Grilled's formation, rather too late as he successfully found Raúl Chumbita with a slick pass, and the Argentine once again beat
Dexter Stacey with elan.
Gloom was beginning to settle on the Grilled faithful, but they were soon lifted by Mohd Safri's tantalizing curler from the edge of the penalty area. Not even Vittorio Lo Iacono could quite reach the effort, which bent into his far top corner as though guided, as it indeed was by the foot of a born goalscorer.
Mohd Safri was not the only contributor to Grilled's cause, though, and while his treble will rightfully hog the headlines,
Tian Yonghang incredibly probably had the better overall performance. Freed from an official link-man role, Tian nevertheless meshed clockwork industry with stupendous technique, and seemed to single-handedly keep the opposition from advancing at times.
Grilled still found little joy against heimu's stingy defence for the rest of the half, and it took a restart to shake them out of the zone. The catalyst was Zhu Aobo's aggressive scything tackle that aimed to prevent a corner but ended up taking Tian's feet from under him. Zhu got a yellow card, and to add salt to the wound
Paolo Iten got the ensuing corner to Mohd Safri, who met it with an invincible header for 2-1.
It was exciting times as heimu XI, slightly unwillingly, grabbed for the initiative with the clock ticking down, and they were competent enough at it to force
Lin Jungui and the overworked
Alex Fonseca into giving up yellow cards. However, they would not get the goal they needed, as Grilled captain
Qassem Madaini earned his keep with a bold tackle to deny the rampaging Lee Chao Cheng a one-on-one with Stacey.
heimu's last throw of the dice was their substitution of the evergreen Tobies Turu on for goalscorer Chumbita, but not even Turu could turn things around after the Birds claimed a third, this one a brilliant combination between all three of their young forwards - Tian left one for Chow to chase, and Chow drew two men before threading it between them to Mohd Safri, who did what he does best.
