Enchanted And Webbed
Penalty Hat-trick
Hungarian Division Six climbers RekarajoK1 were pitted against the might of the Birds in the Bovag Cup tournament, which was quickly shown up as a complete mismatch; had this been a boxing match, it would probably have been stopped somewhere in the second round, but football being what it was, the luckless contenders would have to suffer a 0-11 whipping.
Head coach Silvester Škerlič had guided his team well in their first full season, with a solid possession-based strategy supported by his astute purchases of young midfield talents such as Yoel Lamas and Paolo Glorioso. What had placed them in good stead in the lower divisions of Hungarian football, however, would not nearly be enough against an S-League tier side, all the more as acting captain
Chan Ze Han was not prepared to pull any punches here.
Lamas and Glorioso did sort of hold their own for the first twenty minutes, with the latter even getting the better of
Teo Chuan Yong more than once, in their one-on-one encounters. This was a lot more down to Grilled going it easy than any inability on their end, though, and with aging forwards Mike Sesle and Thys Wildenbeest comprehensively outmatched by the Birds' defenders, it was hard to see how RekarajoK1 were going to pull an upset. Chan would tire of the pedestrian early pace soon enough, and took it upon himself to declare the match truly open, with his barnstormer of a strike in the 20th minute.
There was no coping with the Birds' forwards for RekarajoK1, once Chan and friends got going, and a breathtaking long pass saw goalkeeper Vladimir Eltsov foul a rushing
Kalki Parvathaneni on the very edge of the penalty area six minutes later, conceding a penalty that
Gilbert Webb stroked home. Chan would chip a third into the net in the 33rd minute, and a fierce Grilled advance after RekarajoK1 tried to rush from the restart, saw Thys Wildenbeest booked for taking
Moey Xin Seng down in the box. Webb went for power for this penalty take, and gave Eltsov no chance at all with his placement to the top left corner.
Grilled were not above a bit of argy-bargy themselves, and there would be yellow cards for Teo and Moey, after they went too far in bullying their opponents off the ball. This wouldn't discourage
Heng Dong Chu from making his way down the middle in the 39th minute, that said, and the winger did his starting chances for the weekend no harm, with a collected finish just as the goalkeeper came out to challenge.
Two hat-tricks would be completed within six minutes after the restart, with
Chan Ze Han fittingly doing the honours first. Never one to relax his game, Chan had been a one-man battering ram through the first half, and it was a wonder that Comoros defender Soufwan Soulé managed to close him down as often as he did. Well, there would be no stopping Chan after León Sanmartín missed the interception on
Salah Kamel's cultured outside-of-boot pass, and Eltsov's fingertips were hardly enough to ward the strike off.
It was gearing up to be a really bad day for the RekarajoK1 keeper, as Webb made it three from the spot in the next minute. Some referees might understandably have wanted to cut RekarajoK1 some slack here, seeing as how badly they were being beaten down, but Lamas' handball was too blatant to be overlooked. The midfielder would not be booked as some slight consolation, but it would still be seven goals for the Birds, as Webb basically repeated his first take.
Moey Xin Seng was next to join in the fun with a heavy strike through a mass of bodies, as RekarajoK1 crowded their box to no avail. Grilled were just passing too well for their defence to keep up, and León Sanmartín would narrowly escape giving up yet another penalty, when he took Chan down just outside the area, after being outfoxed. The free-kick would be spun off the wall and out by Webb for a corner, from which
Bilal Mohammad Harun helped it on for an unguarded
Sølve Lunde; that made it nine-nil.
The slaughter would finally wind down after further goals from
Chan Ze Han and
Teo Chuan Yong, upon which
Wu Jinglong and
Chu Xin Lee were sent on in a double substitution for
Kalle ter Berg and
Moey Xin Seng, with an obvious brief to take it easy. The same went for
Vikram Mudaliar, who evidently felt that overkill was not worth a potential run-out against United on Sunday, after coming on for Kalki with five minutes to go.
