Green Tara
An Keng Treat
Haitian Division Two side U.D Tarancón were dismantled 1-4 by Grilled Birds in the third round of the World Battle tourney, as they converted a marginal possessional advantage into a shooting fiesta.
Lim An Keng glittered with a hat-trick as he turned inside running from the left wing into a fine art, with neither Dennis Bergkamp nor Elvir Baljić quite knowing what to do with him.
Avoid tournament participants Tarancón were coming off a 0-3 loss to league rivals #THE JOKERS OF HAÏTI # in the Sapphire Challenger Cup, one in which their ultra-defensive gamble failed to pay off. As such, Chinese head coach Xu Renjian went for a basic 3-5-2 today, though he did seem to have some trouble communicating his instructions to his extremely-international lineup. Current Puerto Rico national star Jermaine Suárez was game to help translate from the centre, thankfully for Xu, but
Chia Kwang Tse would soon devote himself to neutering Suárez's influence.
This was an excellent trade-off for the Birds, as it turned out, and a wily
Chan Ze Han placed himself to invite contact on a long ball just four minutes in, which saw him given the free-kick as planned. He scooped it marginally over Pepe Reina's crossbar, sadly, and Grilled would have to wait until the 21st minute to get it in.
Aw Keng Chuan was left to take Bergkamp on after a sweeping offensive saw the first wave of Birds attackers deflected aside, and the Number Four lured the defender slightly outside with a subtle touch, before drilling it into the opposite bottom corner.
That was a strike worthy of any forward, and
Chad Thach was only too anxious to replicate it, as he ran onto
Mohd Marzuki Khairul's measured knock on two minutes later... only to balloon it.
Lim An Keng would prove more successful with his fluid dribbling in from the left, though, and this brought him a rapid brace with Suárez getting booked in between, as he sliced between both defenders each time.
That was three-nil Grilled at half-time, and Tarancón appeared resigned to their fate, despite the wealth of talent they had at their disposal. Suárez's undeniable charisma as a midfield general was shortchanged by the yellow card hanging over his head, to his team's detriment, and an uneventful 25 minutes passed with nary an incident of note. The 70th minute saw
Aw Keng Chuan withdrawn for
Teo Chuan Yong for the Birds, and their opponents responded by subbing underutilized Bosnian striker Meho Kodro off for Jean Delcroix, in an attempt to liven their frontline up.
It was not that simple, and Grilled Birds would end up forcing Tarancón further and further back, with ten minutes remaining. The fans in green knew exactly what they wanted as Lim called for it loudly with
Brian Reddy and
Gandhik Chitre advancing headlong down the other flank through some nifty short passes, and they got it as Reddy bent it across with Jari Litmanen's missing the interception by a whisker. Lim took his time to control it with his left boot, before bulging the net for his third.
This finally had Tarancón respond as they burst through on a brute-force push down the centre, and Miroslav Klose's classy finish probably had their supporters wondering why they had not tried it more.
Tian Yonghang cleverly spoilt their momentum with a drawn-out second sub that had Chan stroll languidly towards
Radovan Jaška, before another that had
Brian Reddy do the same with
Paulino Trindade. This indeed threw Tarancón off from how Trindade nearly scored with his first touch, but his solid left-footed rocket would crash off the crossbar and over.