Semipro Schooling
Younglings Thrashed
With nothing at all riding on the concluding dead rubber, Grilled decided to let the apprentices have a go against Team of Semipro, who did not pass up the chance to record their first victory of the tournament. 18 year-old
Dan Seng was thrown into the deep end after
Niculae Stanca decided to promote him from the Chicken Wings as stand-in, and had his character built up in a hurry after conceding eight, mostly not by his own fault.
The loudest cheers from the Grilled end were however reserved for English legend
Tim Hobson, now 53 years of age, who pulled on the Number Eleven jersey that he had kept since arriving decades ago. He might have been rather heavier than when he was a regular, but judging from his keepy-ups, he had been keeping in training.
Not that that helped much against such strong opposition. The signs were there as early as the fourth minute, as Team of Semipro's Mohd Supian bin Musa planted a bullseye strike into the top corner.
Lin An Chu, making his senior debut, and
Dennis Kong were well in over their heads, but not for want of trying as Kong tugged one jersey too many and got carded.
By this time, Semipro were two up as Romanian winger Octavian Babeş got in close, and Lin nearly caused a third when he was naively late in tackling, but was fortunate to have only a free-kick awarded against him.
No such luck for Lin later on, however, as his wild lashing brought on a penalty, duly converted by Mohd Supian. In any case, the Birds had let in two more, from Fang Ruojin and Jordan Lachaux, by then, so it was not as if the mistake made much of a difference.
Seng did have his moment in the sun as he prevented Mohd Supian from getting his hat-trick eight minutes into the second half, with some nimble footwork to move himself into a position to save his curling effort.
Grilled then earned a brief reprieve, as aggressive Polish forward Grzegorz Mokwiński got sent off for a second yellow, after pressing his hand into Lin's face. It didn't last long, with Lachaux making it 6-0 with a confident drive from a tight spot, but Seng again prevented a treble with an instinctive punch from Lachaux following a corner.
Semipro did increase their advantage further to eight goals by the end of the match, through Abd Aziz bin Jamaluddin and a slightly debatable Babeş goal, though the Grilled players were not too intent on contesting it. The Birds instead made two more honorary substitutions, with
Cheung Huel-sheng and
Shan Orien making very rare appearances in the 85th minute.
