Out Of Our Hands
Niculae Stanca gave each of his victorious warriors a pat on the back as they filed off the field, as he kept the knowledge that it could all be for naught bottled inside. Rapala FC remain two points ahead at the summit, as they overcame Yao Erfu's third minute opener for JUtd and Gerardo Senesi's equaliser to make it two-all, while newbies never looked like stumbling against CCP despite the latter's strong home record, racing to a 4-1 win with Yue Haoping posting a brace.
Either of the two winning next Sunday would destroy Grilled's chances at the title, and with no disrespect to their respective opponents SpartanSG and TTTNW, both of them getting a result seems extremely unlikely, all the more as SpartanSG have to prepare for their qualifier, and TTTNW have nothing to play for.
"I'm not throwing in the towel, but let's just say that there won't exactly be champagne on ice in the locker room." Stanca admitted. "But, I do have my favourite supplier's number on speed-dial, just in case!"
When reminded as to
Tian Yonghang's four-goal lead in the top scorers' chart, Stanca brightened visibly. "How could I have forgotten about that? The lad's been our best performer this season by miles - on current evidence, he gets on the teamsheet ahead of Safri and Chow, and I'm sure they would agree with that."
It has been a good season for strikers at Grilled in general, but a dampener was thrown on Santosh Manik's scheduled unveiling on Tuesday, after the youth standout suffered a fractured leg in the 19th minute of his farewell game against Jeon Ji Hyun FC. The Wings did win that 5-2 for their departing buddy, and the bad news was further dampened by the scoring debut of 15 year-old Chew Long Lai, whose discovery could hardly have come at a more appropriate time.
"The fans will definitely miss Manik - I for one surely will - but Chew could take a lot of the edge off. He's quite raw, but has all the tools to make it, and at a minimum Fang won't have to carry the scoring burden all by himself." scout Mok Feng De said.
The only remaining question is whether Manik will sign his professional forms on his birthday as planned, or wait until his foot is healed, but few expect him to be passed up in either case.
