Eagles Be Awed
Safri Suffers
The Birds dispatched their last friendly opponents of a very satisfying season, awe bahrain, five-nil, but the cost was an untimely knee injury to
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim, who will now almost certainly sit out the two showpiece games to come. Otherwise, Grilled dazzled at times against their Bahraini guests, who defended gamely but were unable to impose themselves.
awe bahrain, who were founded as an overseas complement to Romanian Division Four club aiel waste eagles, were positive that their homegrown stars Adel Samaan and Mujahid Al Jalahma could work something out, while Bulgarian captain-coach Bener Vakkas inserted himself into the thick as a defensive midfielder. Unfortunately, they were up against Grilled's regulars, and it was the Mohd Safri-
Zhao Jing Wei connection that again paid dividends in the eighth minute, Zhao again picking his spot well.
However, that would turn out to be Mohd Safri's last contribution of the match, as he sat himself gingerly onto the pitch after pressing Turkish defender Derya Vahid. The visitors kindly put the ball out, and new understudy coach
Djan Bacelar anxiously accompanied the medic out to examine his prized asset. It was determined that Mohd Safri had better not continue, and
Leong Wan Kang entered in his stead.
Leong immediately got involved with an optimistic curler that came about after
Wong Ping Shun's excellent run down the right, and
Zhu Changchun's stunner was then kept out by Egyptian goalie Hadad Salih Farisi.
Low Aik Jia was on to the loose ball in a flash, however, and his sharpness led to
Tian Yonghang scuffing it past Farisi from close up.
Zhao and
Chow Ying Lee missed further excellent chances, as Grilled placed awe bahrain's defenders under severe scrutiny. They mostly acquitted themselves favourably, and Vahid earned some applause from the home fans when he bravely picked himself up after a wayward
Tian Yonghang tackle. Leong would later follow Tian into referee Szabolcs Czunyi's book for petulance.
Rashid bin Ahmad replaced
Ling Fuquan over the break, and shortly afterwards,
Wong Ping Shun thundered a free-kick past Farisi. The burly winger has been almost inhumanly productive in the preceding months, and if feedback from the coaches is to be believed, he is not even operating at his full capacity. He will certainly be one to watch for the coming season.
Wishing to shake things up, Vakkas signalled for Pouya Tohidfar to take over from young Italian playmaker Giovanni Agostinelli, with Agostinelli having found it difficult to pick out passes in the circumstances. The more defensively-minded Tohidfar was probably a better fit against this Birds team, but his added coverage was still not quite enough, as
Zhu Changchun made it 4-0 in the 57th minute with a singularly penetrating dribble.
Another second-chance effort sealed victory for Grilled, as
Chow Ying Lee followed up with an opportunistic header when
Woon Shun An's lob came back of the bar, but judging from Mohd Safri's morose expression as he held an ice pack to his knee in the dugout, he probably thought that it was not worth the sacrifice.
