Were It Not So
Safri Misses Start
The luck of the draw once again pitted Grilled against werwinner, just like the season before, and the amateur side in turn managed to improve from going down by eleven goals, to going down by nine; the game cost Grilled their marquee player
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim this time round, unfortunately, as he was stretched off in obvious distress 21 minutes in.
Niculae Stanca's introduction to management kicked off on on a promising note, as his team took only eight minutes to collect their first goal with the Romanian in charge. Fittingly, it was Mohd Safri who skipped through werwinner's backline near-effortlessly and knocked it past a stretching Choy Chin De.
werwinner were completely unchanged from their last meeting with the Birds, while Grilled made several changes in their mostly-unworked defence, handing the trio of
Hovaness Noubaryan,
Hilal Bakhtiar and
Colby Awyong their competitive debuts. They were hard-pressed not to maintain a clean sheet as the hosts managed not a single strike on target, being subjected to a relentless barrage the pick of which was
lu Zunwen's long-range looker.
Tragedy then hit the heart of Grilled's team, as Mohd Safri pulled up sharply midway through the half. He tried to run it off, but soon sank to his knees and waved for medical attention.
Tang Hengcai eagerly scuttled on for his sixth appearance for Grilled, right as
Seytek Djekshenkulov skimmed another past Choy.
Tian Yonghang then stepped up, his vein of form seemingly unmined. The flavour of the moment orchestrated the attack brilliantly in his withdrawn forward position, more than compensating for Tang's immature runs with his developed sense of when to release the ball. By half-time, Tian had bagged two exquisite goals for himself, while almost putting Chow through only for Zailizam bin Mansor to stop the rush with a superhuman sprint.
Mindful of how further injuries could scupper Grilled's hopes, Stanca withdrew
Abdul bin Jantan and
Paolo Iten at half-time, with
Li Boon Boon and
Teo Yong Yau eager to make an impression. Teo didn't have long to wait, as he found Choy out with a disguised chip in the 53rd minute and engaged in a slightly exaggerated celebratory routine.
The game's only booking went to
Zhu Changchun for a snide trip, but there was no question of which way the wind was blowing, as
Chow Ying Lee profited from a difficult pass from Teo that somehow made its way through a forest of legs.
Tang Hengcai then kept up his goal-a-game record, collecting Djekshenkulov's through pass neatly and sending it through Choy's feet.
Tian Yonghang capped a superb warmup display with his hat-trick in the 71st minute, while Chow, not willing to concede the limelight without a fight, completed a brace coming in from the wide, with a stiff right-footed finish.
