Maschina Made Up
Teo Hero
The second team played above themselves in outdoing Liechtenstein Division Three visitors Fc Maschinä, some seventeen seasons after their visit to QCM-Kickers ended in ignominious defeat. Maschinä, whose lime green and black hoops were deemed sufficiently dissimilar to Grilled's home kit for the match to go ahead, promptly catapulted themselves into the lead through 18 year-old left winger Bruno Frommelt, who ran ceaselessly and put himself in the right spot to flick in a cross to the near post by the supporting Alfredo Iliano.
Frommelt, who had remarkably been rejected twice, first by FenerbahceFL and then Maschinä's Rossfeld Juniors youth setup before being accepted by the Juniors on his second trial, made them not regret his perseverance by converting another one in the 22nd minute, in no less stylish fashion as he got clear off the deck to scissors it in.
Hilal Bakhtiar had already gotten himself booked trying to restrain Frommelt before that, and the home fans feared for the final scoreline at this stage.
Grilled had their own firebrands to stoke things, fortunately, and the one who chose this day to distinguish himself was
Teo Yong Yau, who had been unsuccessfully trying to shadow Frommelt up till then. Following shouted instructions from the sidelines, Teo reverted to his own natural offensive game, and it turned out that Frommelt wasn't that hot about tracking back either - Teo drifted in to the middle in the 31st minute without being marked, and got his shot under goalie Sencer 'The Rock' Ergenç easily enough.
More breakthroughs were hard to come by as the inspired Frommelt kept Grilled honest about committing themselves, but that all changed with his unexplained substitution a couple of minutes after the restart. The other winger Yvo Jehle was likewise replaced soon after, and new Dutch entrants Armando van Hilst and Tjerk Laponder, while seasoned, could not lift their performance to quite the same levels.
This was the signal for Grilled to push back, and Teo was the obvious candidate to entrust it to, as he gave the tiring Iliano headaches out wide. The 39 year-old defender was no match for the sprightliness of Teo, who was half his age, and neither did any of his teammates as Teo wound his way around them classily and equalised, to the great delight of the crowd.
The Birds really took off after that, and
Wardi Azhari put them in front for the first time with a strong left foot in the 72nd minute. The visitors were not downed yet, and teenaged forward Edwin 'Sniper' Vogt, recruited from an upper division for S$1.8 million, lived up to his nickname with a frighteningly well-placed drive from way out, that
Hovaness Noubaryan only just got across to stop.
Neo Da Teck was then cautioned for his physical play, but all that harassment probably contributed to Teo finding his first ever hat-trick in due time, as Iliano began to really look his age. It might not have been done in the most tasteful manner, with Grilled playing on despite Iliano being felled by cramps, though in truth the players were certainly under no obligation to stop, with the referee's recognizance.
This did not sit too well with Maschinä, who recaptured some of their earlier flow after
Tang Hengcai's header off a free-kick was warded off by Ergenc. Tjerk Laponder carried on where Frommelt had left off with a good finish after he had pressed the ball off
Neo Da Teck, and Martin Schaedler very nearly tied the game up, but it was not to be.
