Victorious Return
Incomplete Comeback
Grilled Birds marked their II.1 return on a winning note, some thirty-eight seasons after they had promoted on the back of a 2-4 loss to early rivals FC GBR. Opening day opponents Charis FC nearly made them pay for dozing off following their best starting half in some time, but the four-goal gap proved too great to overcome.
Charis FC had last clashed heads with the Birds in the S-League several seasons back, and hold the unique distinction of both having scored at least four goals, and contributed to a total of at least nine goals, in their three previous meetings. Since Grilled won two and drew one of those, they are still chasing their first win in this fixture.
They certainly do have the required firepower, with forward and wing partnerships that wouldn't look out of place at any level. David Ternero will need no introduction to Grilled fans, having struck a hat-trick against them, which Hong Kong sidekick Cheng Yuanyu had much to do with.
For all that, Charis FC were still best known for their proficiency down the wings, the happy hunting ground of club favourite Ang Leong Kum. Bearing the same name as Grilled's own Ang, who would be an unused substitute, Charis' Ang has well and truly stepped out of Samuel Lazo Garcia's shadow, with seven caps for the national side already.
With this glaring vulnerability staring them down,
Djan Bacelar opted to once again keep
Low Aik Jia under wraps, instead tasking
Lee Lee Hao with tying Ang up on the left. Lee was barely coping with his mammoth assignment, when
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim earned the Birds some slack with the most classic of headed centre-forward goals, off a no less old-fashioned
Wong Ping Shun delivery.
The duo took their time posing for the cameramen, but Charis FC were undaunted and in fact looked the more likely to score next. Ternero was perhaps too eager, firing when he could have closed the distance, and their advantage would evaporate in the 24th minute when Finnish sweeper Peter Voipio crumpled in agony after getting caught between
Tian Yonghang and Oh Wei Wei.
Referee Anthony Prévost determined that nobody was at fault, but Voipio's arm remained fractured nonetheless, which meant that Lee Kuan Yew had to replace him. Formerly known as Li Li Yao, the Charis FC veteran briefly made news with his slighly overblown tribute to the nation's founding Prime Minister this April, and he would prove to be rather less effective than his namesake.
Lee had been on the pitch for barely two minutes before Mohd Safri got his second, breezing straight through a slightly confused Charis backline. Some had predicted Chow Ying Lee's absence to be a blow to the Birds' renowned triple threat, but
Rinor Isufi hinted that he had the chops to take over from Chow, with his smart blindside run that pulled two men aside in haste.
Charis FC's German head coach Tronje Isegrimm was not amused from how he began shouting from the sidelines, but his team were not exactly responding.
Lee Lee Hao would shortly make it 3-0 through another sprint down the middle, and when
Tian Yonghang increased that to four in like fashion, it was clear that Lee Kuan Yew required some assistance.
This came in the form of the half-time whistle, blown right on the stroke of forty-five minutes by a sympathetic referee, and Charis FC came out for the second half much more compact at the back, and with a mission to defend by going on the offensive.
The visiting supporters might well have wondered why they hadn't gone straight to this plan, after it brought them one back within minutes. If anybody was going to drag Charis FC out of this pit, it would be Ang Leong Kum, and he did it in his signature style, polishing Garcia's long cross off by applying a scissors kick.
This lifted the Charis contingent's spirits, and it was Grilled's turn to be wasteful. They had the openings to shut the door on the visitors permanently, only to have them go a-begging far too easily. Chief among these was a beautiful through ball that
Tian Yonghang allowed to run across him, when any touch would probably have been a goal.
Punishment came in heavy-handed fashion through the elder Lee. Grilled made the mistake of thinking him over the hill in the 73rd minute, only to discover that while he might no longer be at his physical best, his mind remained as sharp as ever. Ang bedazzled
Gene Filippone down the right, and when the Birds defenders gravitated to Ternero and Cheng, Ang simply picked Lee out, and he duly dealt a merciless finish.
The rally was well and truly on two minutes after that, as Grilled tried and failed to come to terms with Ang's incredible dynamism. Nobody quite knew what to make of it when he turned up on the opposite side of the penalty area all of a sudden, least of all stand-in defender
Hariharan Prabhu, and it was all too easy for him to set David Ternero up for 4-3.
That made it a goal and two assists under Ang's belt, after a breathtaking Man of the Half, if not the match, performance. Despite Grilled still hanging on to a slender lead, it looked Charis FC's game to lose at this point, as fifteen minutes seemed more than enough for them to overhaul the Birds.
They would up running out of steam about this time, though, having played the last half-hour at near top speed. Grilled wound up almost sneaking it from a counter, but
Rinor Isufi didn't get it on target. He didn't look too sad when he made way for
Leong Wan Kang in injury time, though, with the three points beckoning.
