The Curse Strikes Again
Over ninety thousand home fans were left to quietly contemplate Lights' wild celebrations at the final whistle. Although the Grilled players did to a man trudge off the pitch with some dignity, supported by the fact that they were in fact not even behind Lights on points, the unspoken agreement radiating about the stadium was that Grilled had blown it yet again.
Head coach
Djan Bacelar looked a very tired man as he addressed the press alone. "The guys tried - maybe not quite their best, but they did. We aren't conceding anything, but we can hardly deny that Shining Lights have to be the favourites now."
Refusing to point any fingers, as the gaggle of reporters eagerly threw up possible excuses ranging from
Chow Ying Lee's yellow, to Tian and Mohd Safri's exertions for the national team on Friday, Bacelar concluded the interview by insisting that the Birds were not giving up. "At the end, it's still down to us. We can definitely score against Pearl Divers. Other than that, there's not much to say."
What made the loss all the more painful was that a win would have secured the title outright, given United Warrior Team's impressive 3-1 win against Pudgy Penguins. New S$3 million signing Libor Rychtář gave glimpses of his technical ability, and big Scotsman Jordan McCleary's dominance with headers sealed victory against Penguins' massed defence.
The loss means that Penguins need an extraordinary combination of circumstances win the league, in addition to beating Be Champions FC on the final day. BCFC for their part gave themselves a slight chance of defending their title, with the ever-dependable Benoît Pouderoux getting a 24th minute winner against singnet_utd via a classic wing breakthrough. The result also condemns the Singapore Cup winners to relegation, despite some eye-catching upsets in the middle of the campaign.
Isle of Flames are also in real danger of having their record twenty season-long stay in the top flight ended, after they were outgunned by Pearl Divers, whose Georgian Number Ten Rashid Postnikov was in red-hot form. Postnikov's hat-trick put Flames in a nigh-unwinnable position before 38 minutes, and the loss of Ervin Lakatos and Bronisław Zolich to injury puts them in bad stead against singnet_utd.
There was some little consolation as Farmer Bunnies picked up a comfortable 3-0 win against the newly-established WeGoAgain, and with the 47500-seater Carrot Field almost packed, the Bunnies administration have declared that they are looking into expansion proposals.
