Princ Pasting
Devil May Care
Grilled were whitewashed by Bosnian visitors for the second time this season, as their 0-5 defeat to FC Čelik was followed today by a 0-8, administered by II.1 side Princ Amin. Although
Rashid bin Ahmad started his first full game for Grilled, even he had no answer to Albanian forward Dëfrim Koka, affectionately known as "El Diablo" to his fans; the Devil himself reaped a hat-trick to plunge Grilled's reserves into despair.
In actuality, the Birds started a fairly strong side containing several household names, though they were out of position.
Shiya Shaahee returned from suspension to face off against Joža Domazet on the right wing, with
Tian Yonghang on the other flank. Weekend scorer
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim again attacked from midfield.
The match started on a sour note after
Chow Ying Lee took Rijad Gačanović down from behind in just the second minute, with Gačanović clearly unamused by the reckless tackle. Luckily, their teammates were able to separate the two forwards as they made to square up, and referee Marco Gurrea immediately booked Chow to forestall further developments.
The visitors were quite willing to play rough too, as it turned out, and Grilled soon had a taste of the all-action style of El Diablo. Koka appeared to shoulder
Hilal Bakhtiar out of the way as he bore down on goal in the seventh minute, but the referee saw nothing wrong with some physical contact, and Koka blasted hard and almost through
Dennis Kong for the first goal.
Kong's greenness showed in the 17th minute when he moved the wrong way in response to Vittorio Capitani's free-kick, only to watch helplessly as the shot curled languidly in the other direction and dropped into his exposed goal. A more experienced goalkeeper would probably have noticed that Capitani was left-footed despite his head-on run-up.
Vicente García Castris showed that he could mix it up with the best of them as he bumped
Pompeo Bellamoli into the pitchside hoardings in the 22nd minute whilst clearing the ball, which left Bellamoli limping for a while. With
Dennis Kong already pulling a muscle earlier on, this meant that Grilled's attack was mostly toothless.
Princ Amin were unaffected, and Alija Zrnić made it 3-0 with a sweet volley from Liborio Bello's pass inside in the 24th. Capitani then nearly stole another with an awkward header that Dan managed to tap aside, but he would soon assist Koka from a disguised indirect free-kick that most had expected would be lifted in. Instead, Capitani waited and slid it through on the ground, and Koka struck it through the crowd.
Belle had been carded for a slide in on Tian that the latter thankfully dodged by then, and half-time came and went with the only change being
Liang Liyong entering for
Ling Fuquan. This seemed to help Grilled a bit, as Liang managed to stick to Koka and force his shot wide for once.
Gačanović then tried to fool the referee with a rather scripted fall after deliberately charging into Rashid, drawing only a resigned shake of the head and the fourth yellow of the game from Suo. Chow, who was nearby, could not resist grinning as he went over to help Gačanović up, and to his credit the Bosnian saw the funny side of it too.
This was however followed immediately by another for the visitors, with Joža Domazet nipping in completely unobserved after a sloppy restart by Rashid was intercepted. Koka then finished up his hat-trick in the 73rd minute, with Bakhtiar again unable to slow the striker's wild running style.
Capitani then completed a quite unique treble of free-kicks with successful efforts in the 80th and 81st minute, with the unorthodox bend on his strikes being Seng's Achilles heel yet again on the second attempt. Seng then overcompensated on the third, and was taken by surprise when a simple cannonball went straight over the defensive wall.
Transfer-listed
Walter Ross, not looking particularly happy at all, came on for three minutes with the mostly-outclassed Bakhtiar returning to the bench, and indulged in a bit of keep-ball with Rashid as they played out the whipping.
