Buoyant Babes
Nine Scorers
Enduring the thermostat was not enough for the Birds against Icelandic team Busby-Babes, who took Grilled to extra time to secure a win. Bubsy forced Grilled back immediately, and the inexperienced midfield yielded far too much ground. Patrik Brandman didn't have a notable game overall, but he was the man of the moment with eleven minutes on the clock as he lifted the ball over
Cheung Huel-sheng easily.
Joe Stern took it upon himself to even the scores, and he did so in fine fashion with a thunderbolt of a shot. Busby's local boy Gunnar Sveinn Örn Hilmisson threw away a golden chance as he put the ball over the bar from close range, but Busby must have thought they had confirmed a half-time lead as Patrik Yngvesson turned and fired. Swiss midfielder Mike Previtali more than made up for hopeless Singaporean bumbler Bai Boon-Sing for Busby, but
Asher Stanton made a brave show and helped wipe out Busby's advantage with a visionary ball out wide to Kolesov, who didn't bother to bring it in but instead struck it low and hard some twenty metres to equalise.
The second half proceeded at an even more frantic pace, which saw Örn Hilmisson throw a tantrum to get booked.
Joe Stern broke past Busby's defenders on winged feet to send fellow striker
Ma Dai-Lin clear, but the poorly-deployed winger blew his chance as his awkward shot was was batted aside by Rikardsson. Mike Previtali, the second half of Busby's impressive Swiss midfield pairing, capitalised fully on Alcántara's lapse in concentration by weaseling to the by-line and beating Huel-sheng at his near post.
Siu-Yue didn't take long to level things up once more as he placed himself in such a good position for a pass that all Kolesov had to do was to find him with the ball for him to do the rest. Kolesov blackened his record by making a totally unnecessary tackle on Örn Hilmisson that drew derision from the crowd, but fortunately the Icelandic striker was on his feet in minutes.
Kau Siu-Cheung put Grilled in the lead for the first time when he nodded in
Joe Stern's corner with grace, but it would have taken a foolhardy soul to count on that winning the game and true enough up popped the unlikeliest of saviours in the form of Bai Boon-Sing.
Boon-Sing latched onto about his only pass for the day to head past Huel-sheng unmarked. An even more dramatic end was to come, as Rottman put in a well-timed tackle on Örn Hilmisson which aggravated his earlier injury, forcing him to limp off. In came Swedish prodigy Jonas Sanding, all 19 years of age, and he took five minutes to finish off the game with a cool tap-in.
