A Monday Eclipse
Lim Casts Spell
This AFC ASIAN CUP Group I opener saw Grilled Birds meet Myanmar IV.4 participants Amon-Ra B, and it was a bloodbath in the rain with the Birds ripping into their hosts at an accelerating rate.
Lim An Keng recovered much of the invention that had seen him claim the Golden Boot last season, as he became the only player in the competition to score a hat-trick in this round.
The Slovak spin-offs had just been founded little more than a month ago, to be fair, and none of their five free transfers would make it into the squad for this game. 30 year-old winger Kyaw Thein Tun would captain the team from central defence as Finnish head coach Olli-Pekka Kaketti tested a 4-4-2, which had right winger Wai Wai Yan Soe being the obvious focus of their offence. Not much of that was in evidence for long as Grilled hogged the ball, and
Brian Reddy's 20th minute strike was already a long time in coming.
Amon-Ra were still showing some fight at this point, and reserve forward Tun Lin did well to eke out a corner about the 27th minute, from which they won two more with the Birds defence taking no chances. The third delivery saw it come off Nyein Thu's back nicely for Kyaw Thein Tun... who however was not expecting it.
The dam burst in the 35th minute with a penalty given for a handball with one of the Amon-Ra defenders leaving his arm out when grounded, and after
Raúl Himadas beat Wai Than Soe confidently at his right post, the Birds would add three more goals in the next four minutes.
Lim An Keng,
Mohd Marzuki Khairul and
Gandhik Chitre scored in succession, as the previous exertions caught up to the Myanmar side.
Kaketti did get their heads back up for the second half, and they would keep Grilled bogged down quite admirably, despite being objectively doomed. This again lasted only until many of their legs went out, as when Kyaw Lam Mang's inability to follow Reddy any longer opened the whole right side for the Birds wingman. He sought Marzuki out with his first low cross, but Pyae Lin Aung blocked it right back at him, and the second try saw
Lim An Keng bundle it home for 6-0.
Hwang Teck Fu was off soon after for
Toma Tamiya as
Tian Yonghang rewarded the latter for his recent exploits, and this was immediately followed by
Gandhik Chitre lashing it home from the left. Marzuki then skied from a promising setup, before
Lim An Keng got his hat-trick from a perfect Himadas corner in the 74th. There would well have been more, but Wai Than Soe would save well from Himadas and Chitre in turn.
