Jumbos Trounced
A Second Coming
As they had eight seasons ago, Grilled kicked off their Cup campaign by defeating the White Elephants of Changi, with the hosts having dwelled in V.197 for the entirety of their Hattrick life since then. Of the eleven that started against the Elephants then, only Valdir did the same again for Grilled, while Li Jingwei, Lai Keng Feng, Tajudin bin Shahrum and Ha Yixiang returned for another go for White Elephants.
The outcome was not expected to be much different, and while the Elephants lasted over twenty minutes the last time against an arguably stronger Grilled side before conceding, Bögengang bent in a free-kick by the third minute this time; he celebrated with an airplane impersonation, likely dedicated to the outgoing Rotteveel.
Grilled displayed no sign of letting up, and Safrinho got a clean finish off after he was delightfully put through by Mohd Safri's intelligent dummy. The young forward then fell over after a slight shove by Anzhou in the penalty area, drawing a penalty from the referee, which Bögengang shrugged and converted.
The home side took their time getting over that apparent injustice, and English defender
Ronny Behr was decidedly unsympathetic. Behr took his scoring touch into the new season as he first got up to pluck the ball out of the air and redirect it past Puay Choon, and then crashed a second in from point-black after Bögengang's floating free-kick was knocked on by Mohd Safri.
Five up and cruising, Grilled took their foot off the pedal, at least until Han Kok, Bögengang and Safrinho were taken off in a triple substitution at the start of the second-half. Torsson, who has made something of a name for himself as an impact sub, took all of five minutes to find the net thanks to good work by Penati down the right.
The Elephants struggled to leave a mark, but midfielder Tajudin bin Shahrum couldn't be accused of a lack of trying. While well into middle age now, his fire had not diminished, and he was booked for arguing the award of a foul for Han Kok and against him.
A six-goal deficit and non-stop rain can take a lot out of a game, and there was precious little thrust by the Birds for the last half-hour, until the 85th minute when South Korean
Kyou-Chull Kim summoned his reserves of stamina to dart through and collect a debut goal to embellish an otherwise bland start.
Gleb Dorogan then made it a lucky eight with some determined plodding.
