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| FIXTURE HISTORY |
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| Season 49 | L | 5 - 0 | Tournament (Group Phase) | | Season 21 | W | 0 - 5 | League | | Season 21 | W | 5 - 0 | League |
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In It To Win It
Ling Rings Bell
Grilled bounced back in the Singapore Masters with a commanding 5-1 victory over Tanglin mainstays Tanglin Winners FC, who gamely went for their normal expansive game and got badly outpunched. Worse, Greek forward Alekos Koulos was sent off for them, and can take no part in their crucial third group game against singnet_utd.
Four players in the Grilled starting lineup would remember their embarassing 0-5 loss to Tanglin in the SG Super Cup eight seasons ago, and the forward line and
Zhu Changchun would finally end their wait to cleanse that memory. On Tanglin's side, only backup goalie Raja Azlan Shah bin Mohd Derus was present on both occasions, albeit as an unused substitute.
It was
Dan Seng's turn to deputize for
Wong Tian Han in the Grilled net, but like
Krystian Rykowski before him, he would have little to entertain himself with as the outfielders forced the opposition back. Tanglin's Patrick Rumiz pulled his weight, but was soon relegated to fighting fires as the Birds players interacted brilliantly with sharp passes.
Tanglin's Evert Eeckhout remained optimistic as he motioned for his wingers to make themselves available, but it would not get through for them, with
Wong Ping Shun for one delighting at the space Ludovic Fernandez left behind. Within five minutes, Wong had racked up two assists, with
Chow Ying Lee and
Zhao Jing Wei the beneficiaries of his pinpoint crossing.
Fernandez's exertions were not all for naught, though, and it became his turn to capitalize after thirty minutes, after Wong had been tackled upfield.
Ling Fuquan tried to match his stride, but couldn't prevent him from releasing it to Yiannis Kopanakis, who beat the immature Seng skimming it across the grass.
Alekos Koulos, who had been following it up, snatched it away from Seng's grasp in his haste to get the game restarted, which was not looked kindly upon by referee Domenichino Picciottoli. Picciottoli was still prepared to let it slide, when Koulos turned back and hurled some choice words, gaining himself a pointless yellow card that would soon become significant.
Barely five minutes later, Koulos' temper got the better of him again, after what he perceived as
Low Aik Jia sneakily pulling Nino Polizzi off-balance before leaving it for the overlapping Ling to score. His teammates tried to get him away from Picciottoli, who had allowed the goal to stand, but not quickly enough - it was a second yellow for Koulos.
Now two goals and a man down, it became three as Ling teamed up with Low again to rip the Tanglin right defence to shreds. Grilled's dynamic Number Fifteen had been lingering in the shadows for a bit, but his sweet volley brought back timely recollections of his Cup final spectacular against Random Curiosity FC.
Eeckhout made no changes at half-time, but to be fair, their wing attacks were not much affected by Koulos' absence. This simply meant that Hungarian striker Benedek Görbics had to shoulder more of the weight, which he did by dropping further back to receive the ball more often.
Grilled for their part kept the pressure on, and fine goalkeeping from Mnatsagan Artounyan kept the scoreline respectable as Low and Zhao struck true. Görbics nearly got clear somewhere about this time, only for Zhao to give up a yellow card in bringing him down before he could get up to speed.
Lee Lee Hao made a grand entrance with fifteen minutes left, taking over from
Woon Shun An, and his raw energy finally provided the fuel for the Birds' fifth. Overloading Tanglin's right, Lee sowed enough chaos that Stanisław Szturc lost sight of
Tian Yonghang for a moment, and that was all it took for the Grilled skipper to pounce.
National forward
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim was only too eager to keep his register chiming, but Artounyan would take special delight in denying him repeatedly in the closing minutes.
