Liontamers
Shared Spoils
No hat-tricks in Grilled's traditional preseason warmup, and their unlucky semipro opposition this season are the Young Lions who have been placed in administration. Amazingly there were no hat-tricks despite Grilled not giving up more than a whiff of the ball, but there was some splendid team-bonding as all joined in the fun.
This also happened to be Liehner's debut for Grilled, and the assistant coach threw off all pretence of being a nice guy on the pitch with a crippling challenge that escaped the referee's eyes in the second minute. Young Lions faithful supporters knew that their team was in for it, but never let up on the volume.
Their hearty songs were a far cry from the rather inept play of the players on the grass, in part as van Liere was in an unrelenting mood. His acceleration and balance didn't really belong here, and he cut past swathes of defenders easily to feed Spirig with the first goal of the new Cup run.
Bad news was to come, as Borup had to take his leave after Lions' midfielder Kuai Kwan-Shing stamped on his toes half-accidentally. Paullin undid his tracksuit eagerly enough to take over, injecting yet more pace into an already fast game. It was all one-way though, and Martinsson lifted a ball over Keng Seng for a second that effectively ended the hosts' slender hopes.
Lions' veteran Abdul Halim bin Mat Jusoh seemed beaten by then, and he made the error of underestimating Langeland's speed when passing the ball into space to his partner. Langeland slid in immediately and knocked the ball from Chu Wan's feet, before shielding the ball from Halim almost all the way to goal. Three-nil.
Martinsson had a good laugh at himself when he delivered another beautiful curler to the far post, only for captain Lin Keng Seng to abandon his near post as if by prescience and grab the ball handily. He had to be content with an assist, backheeling cheekily into the path of substitute
Lorenz Paullin for him to whack it in without fanfare.
The second half continued in the same vein, and had it been a boxing match it would have been stopped some time ago. Langeland and Kek-Tjiang ran through to up the score to six, and
Nui Pakpao had a seemingly legitimate penalty claim dismissed for simulation.
Han Kok finally came good as he went flat to intercept the free kick out of the opponents' penalty area, and seeing Keng Seng unrecovered went for a chip over the retreating captain. The ball dropped just out of the goalie's reach, allowing Han Kok to finally go into the books as a scorer, a feat which he celebrated as if it had won the Double instead of just being a wholly inconsequential seventh goal in a no-contest.
After Han Kok had got his clothes back on, van Liere made it eight as he leapt to whip in a half-cross from Kek-Tjiang's high pass. The ball was too fast for any of the outfielders to approach, but it ended up too speedy for Keng Seng too and duly buried itself into the lower corner.
Martinsson helped send the crowds to the exit gates when he appeared out of nowhere to attack Paullin's wishful pass out to the flanks, and ignored the van Liere option to dribble straight at goal. A delayed feint won him that extra second needed for a good backlift, and his flighted strike finished matters off.
