Live Another Day
Paolo Play
Grilled may yet have a stake in the game after they unbelievably gassed the new Singapore Cup champions Arrogancae 1-5 at their fortress, although Mauro Bagazgoitia's decision to rest some of his key men after their Herculean labours against Young Tigers might have had a lot to do with the lopsided scoreline.
With the home support sated on their just-acquired national trophy, and the team under no pressure to attain a four-peat of league titles, the visiting Birds were by far the side with more urgency as they badly needed points to keep their head above water.
Slavcho Tzonkov for the suspended
Lin Jungui was the only change made, as they drove forward for the critical opening goal.
It came faster than they hoped, as referee Zé Caires first played the advantage and then awarded the free-kick after
Chow Ying Lee was tripped up taking on defenders with his pace.
Paolo Iten stepped up, and made as if to bend it over the wall, only to spread it wide to
Abdul bin Jantan, who made use of the open angles to pick out
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim charging at the far post.
The referee certainly didn't get into the home fans' good books as he persisted in calling fouls against their team, even if they were mostly justified. Mohd Safri being bundled over by teenager Rudolph Sing inside the box was one of those, and
Paolo Iten made no mistake with the penalty to make it two-nil.
The Grilled players seemed to have forgotten that Arrogancae are always dangerous, especially at home, and paid for it as they neglected to collapse back after losing the ball, leading to Polish winger Kazimierz Urgacz slashing the deficit impressively with a powerful drive. Mohd Safri could have restored the two-goal lead a minute later, but his imaginative lob drifted wide.
There was no indication that the Birds would have it easy as the hosts threatened to equalise on several occasions early in the second half, Mohd Aiman Wong bin Kassim's effort probably being the pick of the bunch. They only began to relax when
Slavcho Tzonkov selected a good moment to score his first ever goal for Grilled, electing to thump the ball goalwards after pressure by the forwards paid off.
Tzonkov was immediately withdrawn for
Alex Fonseca, just returned from injury, with the Portuguese clearly brought in to slow things down with conservative passing. Ironically, this damaged the home side's defence far more than their previous gung-ho attitude had done, as Arrogancae inched forward in search of goals, and Iten blasted in a fourth after Sing had nearly given away a soft one.
Italian goalkeeper Massimo Cazzulati did well to keep the score down as he warded off decent tries by Chow and
lu Zunwen, but finally fell victim to a blow to the knee after taking a hard landing, and was replaced by second-stringer Abdul Nasir bin Yusof, whose only touch of the ball was picking it out of the net after
Tian Yonghang's sharp finish.
