Red Two
Wong Number One
Grilled Birds had goalkeeper
Wong Tian Han to thank, after the long-serving custodian piled on the saves, to allow them to peel off a 3-1 victory that barely reflected the state of the game. In doing so, the Birds became the first club to hoist a local Challenger Cup twice, being as they were the inaugural winners of the Ruby version.
The buildup had plenty of its own side-stories in tow, with the respective health statuses of
Yuki Irie and Jeremías Ávila thoroughly speculated on. Both men would eventually be cleared to start, but Grilled's
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim would not even make the bench; instead,
Clément Meyer was hauled in to fill a floating role behind the attack, while hot new signing
Gennady Dvorak was relegated to backup.
Still chasing their first national honours, FC Barca Singapore head coach Suradhish Acharya had indicated for some time that lifting the cup would be their priority, and their plan was clear from the start - have Bernard Wu and Mok Tze Seng compress play whenever possible, and battle for every scrap of possession there was.
Their commitment to the latter point could not be faulted, and the Birds found themselves badly out-hustled in the early going. Vikas Alluri sprang on a slightly-unphased
Gene Filippone in the fifth minute, and looked to have made a sure opener with his immediate cross-field ball to Wu;
Wong Tian Han would somehow block the finish with his feet, though, presaging what would be a tutorial in the art of goaltending.
Grilled were also fortunate in that FC Barca's Kwan Kuanzhi was not at his best, else he could conceivably have buried them before they could adjust. The Hong Kong mainstay gave Grilled's backline the jitters with his constant hanging off the last man, but several false starts would force him to be more conservative in trying to spring the offside trap.
And then, the Birds struck. Having hardly ventured into the opposing penalty area all day,
Rinor Isufi saw his big chance when
Ang Leong Kum slipped a through ball invitingly into space. Ávila's split-second of hesitation was enough for him to lose the initiative, and despite going shoulder-to-shoulder with Isufi at the end, Grilled's Albanian wonder ultimately managed to roll it past Edmund Crean.
This was a dagger to FC Barca supporters' hearts, what more with their team having completely overshadowed Grilled in attacking prowess thus far. Indeed, it was almost unreasonable that they were behind after creating so much more, but the scoreboard doesn't lie. Their trying a direct long ball approach probably unintentionally helped the Birds out, with
Wong Tian Han mopping up any that trickled through.
The Birds rode their luck till half-time, and would reemerge sitting deeper, perhaps having figured that they could sit on the lead. Any such thoughts were swiftly dispelled, as FC Barca would finally come into their own. A lightning-fast raid down the middle forced an unconvincing clearance to Benedetto Diletti on the edge of the area, and the little Italian swung in a half-volley that no goalie in the world could reach.
If this was a sign that the pendulum was swinging their way, they would be amplified a couple of minutes later;
Yuki Irie, who had been Grilled's midfield rock once more, aggravated his leg injury from last week in a head-on crash with Hakim Niamuddin. While Niamuddin was only briefly stunned, Irie was not even able to pick himself up, and
Hariharan Prabhu would have to enter the fray earlier than scheduled.
The match was for FC Barca Singapore's taking now, but just when they had grasped the advantage, they found their connections going astray. Kwan was definitely not himself as he mixed his returns up all too often, while his teammates too found themselves becoming all too predictable. Jørgen Ove remained creative as always, but made little headway without ready support.
Still, they were grinding Grilled down, and might well have gone ahead had Grilled not scored first. Against the run of play,
Tian Yonghang got himself in a position to settle for a corner, which
Clément Meyer duly nodded in aided by a huge run-up.
That was it for Acharya, who leapt in with his first tactical sub - Mikhail Smirnov would replace Mok on the right flank, with instructions to run at
Lee Lee Hao at will. Lee proved surprisingly resilient, however, and the gambit was mostly a wash as Lee managed an incursion or two of his own in return.
FC Barca remained very much in line for an equaliser, going by how many times they had brought
Wong Tian Han into play, and Ove might well have found it, had
Wong Ping Shun not saved his defence's bacon with a near-perfect saving tackle. He was a fraction late, however, and was booked. Kwan Kuanzhi then lined up a mighty right-footed rocket straight towards the top corner, but
Wong Tian Han again flew across to tip it over.
Djan Bacelar nearly leapt out in front of the fourth official to get his own sub to go through before the corner was taken, and
Low Aik Jia went in for Lee, apparently as a direct counter to Smirnov. The danger had not yet passed, and FC Barca got another free-kick, after
Clark Won's clearing header accidentally brushed a teammate's arm. Kwan sent it through the wall this time, but Wong somehow kept his torso in the way, to the FC Barca fans' increasing incredulity.
Despite there being only five minutes left, there were no signs that Grilled had it in the bag yet, as FC Barca piled forward with a burning intensity. This left them open at times too, and
Clark Won might have locked it up, with his attempted glancing nod over Crean from a charged-down lob. Crean had not yet committed himself, though, and made the catch look easy.
At the other end, Kwan had his final chance to tie it up, after
Tian Yonghang had caught Bernard Wu's trailing leg on the edge of the area. He opted to lift it in this time, and almost immediately regretted it as
Gene Filippone saw through his intentions, and dashed forward to intercept. At this, Bacelar signalled for Grilled's last sub to be made, and
Zhao Jing Wei marched slowly in, as
Ang Leong Kum dragged his departure out.
The three minutes of injury time went by agonizingly slowly for the Birds, but they would get through it in impressive fashion, with
Ling Fuquan reprising his Singapore Cup feat with a speculative potshot.
