Mousa Marred
Zhao Ready
With promotion back to the S-League at stake, Grilled Birds spared no effort in bringing in a worthy warm-up partner, and former Italian league and cup champions Mar Mousa fit the bill. With their own Serie A qualifier against A.C. Semper Adamas to come, it was only fitting to bill the Lombard visitors as a true tell of the Birds' temper, and this certainly attracted a larger-than-usual crowd to the friendly despite the rain.
As it was, though, Mar Mousa's Czech head coach Ivo Kauer had other ideas, and of their five current internationals, only Egyptian wingback Abdulah Abbas Haj-Amin made the trip down to Singapore - and only to serve in goal. It was left to transfer-listed Englishman Ellis Joyce to try and make something of the contest, but with Grilled parading most of their likely team for Sunday, the Mar Mousa reserves didn't have a prayer.
For that, Mar Mousa had built their reputation on a stifling defence even by extremely exacting Italian standards, and despite the absence of commanding Yemeni national regular goalkeeper Abolhassan Abu-Yousef, they were not about to make it too easy. Other than an absolute sitter created by
Rinor Isufi for
Clément Meyer - who then blew it - after twelve minutes, Grilled made next to no headway against the obdurate Mar Mousa 4-4-2.
It was beginning to get worrying for the Birds' prospects on Sunday, when vice-captain
Zhao Jing Wei took matters into his own hands, or right foot, as it were.
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim's physical decline had been precipitous, but he retained that near-telepathic understanding with youth teammate Zhao that had served them so well; Forty-one minutes in, Mohd Safri delivered an instinctive pass towards the head of the Mar Mousa penalty area, and Zhao needed no further invitation to smash it in off the underside of the bar.
That was it for Abdulah Abbas Haj-Amin, who good-naturedly made way for former Angolan international Vasco Rodrigues, while handing off the armband to Benin midfielder Nwachukwu Dejn, capped 51 times for his country. Rodrigues would get a rough introduction to the game, though, as he had hardly gotten his gloves on when Meyer barged through to make it two.
Grilled were busily trying to make up for lost time, and while Rodrigues managed a praiseworthy one-handed save off
Lee Lee Hao's wild deflected effort,
Rinor Isufi put that right back in, arriving ahead of the held-up Giacomo Rosella. Rodrigues could hardly be blamed, and he would continue to bail his side out in time added on, making first a fantastic reflex block on Mohd Safri's surprise header, before palming
Gene Filippone's free-kick aside.
Kauer wasn't taking it hard at all as he chatted genially with
Djan Bacelar on the sidelines, with the Brazilian looking almost apologetic at times. While serviceable, Mar Mousa's midfield partnership of Dejn and Mikkel Ottosen was unavoidably getting swarmed, to the point that Grilled maintained nearly eighty percent of the possession.
It wasn't going to get better for the visitors after the interval, with the Grilled players after a convincing victory in preparation for the big match. Indeed, there were few more urgent than the 35 year-old Zhao, who was all too aware that it could well be his last shot at the top flight. His sheer exertion seemed less than wise, but it did bring him another goal in the 51st minute, hustled off Finnish youngster Terjo Piippanen.
Bacelar had to order him to cool off, and Mar Mousa coped rather better, especially with an under-par
Low Aik Jia also taking it down a notch. Dejn made a few big tackles that saved the Mar Mousa backline a ton of trouble, and Rodrigues was again unbeatable, punching another excellent Filippone free-kick over - not bad at all for a converted defender!
Given that not coming away with injuries had to be a priority for all involved,
Ling Fuquan's reckless slide on Garry Arkless - which had the South African fall on him - must have sent a few hearts to mouths. Fortunately for Ling, nothing broke for either, and Bacelar looked greatly relieved when Ling sprung up to accept his yellow card.
Rodrigues was a great shout for Man of the Match as he denied Zhao his hat-trick with another wonder off-balance save, but there was still time for one more; Mohd Safri bin Mohd Safri had been less than impressive all day, but he proved that instinct was the last thing to go, when he turned Yasen Iliev inside-out before stroking cleanly into the far corner, in the 86th minute.
The respective head coaches exchanged a glance at that, and ran down the final few minutes with substitutes, by mutual consent.
