Mad, Mad Win
Safri Runs Riot
It becomes harder to set records the more established a club gets, but Grilled showed that there was yet space for them to explore with the first 12-0 victory in their 34-season history. The unfortunate victims were Division Five Pasir Ris semi-professional side GILA fc, whose middle-aged footballers were basically overwhelmed by a hungry Birds team.
GILA fc Arena saw an undeniably solid side line up for Grilled, who had first-teamers populate the midfield and attack, with
Seytek Djekshenkulov a notable absentee after his tournament hijinks on Monday, and his usual left-wing spot was filled by
Abdul bin Jantan. Paolo Iten's departure meanwhile opened up the right wing for
Shiya Shaahee to claim, while new boy
Ling Fuquan had to wait his turn on the bench.
Noubaryan had little opportunity to parade his leadership abilities, though, as the ball barely ever got into his penalty area, with all that was worth watching taking place in the other half.
Tian Yonghang took just three minutes to put the first, chipped, goal away, before
Chow Ying Lee clobbered a cross from Shaahee first-time on the fly for 2-0.
GILA were sinking without a trace by now, not helped by Auyong Tse Chu, one of their better defenders, pulling a muscle and having to be taken off for the less positionally-aware Chew Chi King.
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim didn't particularly care, and got two goals to his name by the half-hour mark.
The excellent
lu Zunwen made it five before some bad blood erupted between the two sets of players over a robust tackle by
Woon Shun An. In the chaos that followed, GILA skipper Chua Wai Yui was sent sprawling backwards onto the ground, which had referee Nicolau Pacheco and his assistants rushing in to maintain order. After some questioning, Chu laid out his verdict - a yellow for Woon, and a red for
Chow Ying Lee.
Abdul bin Jantan managed to quell further protests by his teammates, and to be honest Grilled's performance hardly suffered, which was less a knock on Chow than a reflection of the gulf in quality. Woon immediately struck the sixth goal in reply, with Shaahee again providing the assist.
Luis Alcántara made his changes during the interval, restoring
Seytek Djekshenkulov to the side for bin Jantan, who passed the captain's armband to
Hovaness Noubaryan.
lu Zunwen was also caught in the shuffle, but was all smiles as he clasped hands with
Ling Fuquan, who settled in a defensive midfield position on his official debut.
Despite being down to ten men, it was as it nothing had changed, and Woon started the half as he ended the last, with a piledriven goal. It was then Mohd Safri time, with the forward flaunting his versatility as he nicked in his hat-trick in the 66th, lobbed Syamsul bin Yub Abdul Majid in the 70th, and finally glided in to glance his fifth goal in the 73rd minute off his shoulder.
This was the first time that Mohd Safri had bagged five in a game, with his previous high being four against Shining Lights and beyond, and it looked very likely that he would join the hallowed company of Maikel Rotteveel and Ola Martinsson as the only players to score more than five in a single game the way he was carrying on.
It was not to be, though, as the GILA defence began to really concentrate in stopping him, but this left gaps for Bakhtiar and Djekshenkulov to exploit as the Birds ran up a record scoreline.
