Wick Extinguished
Moey To Come
After
Chan Ze Han, it was
Moey Xin Seng's turn to make a statement of sorts, as he led Grilled Birds to a 6-0 rollicking of Scottish third divisioners Wick Academy F.C., that had them qualify for the knockout phase of The Global Trophy. Grilled could not afford any further errors after their loss to Steeple Sinderby Wanderers on Tuesday, and there weren't any in this unbalanced beatdown.
Wick Academy F.C. hadn't had much joy against either the Wanderers or the Bandits in their earlier games, and despite solid quality in all departments, the advancing years of their first-teamers didn't do much for their mobility. An exception might be made for 33 year-old Feliks Sasongko, capped 36 times for Indonesia, and going strong as ever; the same for Romanian striker Emanuel Vereş, a rare under-thirty member, and perhaps Swedish midfielder Leandro Sepúlveda. Goalkeeper was a clear weak spot, though, with converted defender Voldemārs Zakovics selected over league regular Rene Öztürk for some reason.
Zakovics would have plenty of opportunities to promote himself, as the Wicks conceded possession to Grilled without much of a struggle, and he would come up with a superb block against
Moey Xin Seng in the twelfth minute. That was, unfortunately for Zakovics, the high point of his match, not helped by Moey being in the mood for some ass-kicking. Sepúlveda, for all his own merits, was not the one you wanted to shut Moey down, and the Grilled midfielder would rampage into the box to open the scoring in the 29th minute.
That marked the beginning of a goalrush, continued with
Vikram Mudaliar dashing clear and prodding it on for
Teo Chuan Yong to notch home, 34 minutes in. What followed was an advertisement for Moey and
Chan Ze Han, with two assists for the former and two goals for the latter, as they absolutely ran riot against the hapless Wick defence. When the smoke cleared, it was five-nil Birds, and the remainder of the contest was frankly unnecessary.
There was no mercy rule at this level, though Grilled did switch it down a couple of notches as play resumed for the second half. Chan's bid for his hat-trick was foiled by the woodwork in the 51st minute, and following some unwieldy tackling, Daniel Zurita was booked for the Scots. Zakovics was coping about as well as he could, and added another feather to his cap, with a prompt readjustment to keep
Kalki Parvathaneni's deflected header out, in the 68th.
That turned out to be for naught, sadly for Zakovics, as a botched attempt at playing the ball out of the box transformed into Karl Nosek chopping Mudaliar down on the edge of the box. The referee didn't waste too much time in deliberation before giving the Birds the penalty, and with both Moey and Chan modestly turning it down,
Bhavya Panigrahi stepped up to do the honours for 6-0.
This was also the end of Emanuel Vereş' day, with the forward not having managed to engage
Jānis Salmiņš at all, and Raimundo Shapiama probably figured - with much justification - that Vereş' skills were best preserved for another occasion. Serpin would respond with brief cameos for
Wu Jinglong and
Chu Xin Lee, but the game had already been essentially dead by the time they came on.
