Al-Maashany Injured
Moey Xin Seng found it in himself to acknowledge Real ChamWin F.C's resilience for the most part, although he unsurprisingly bristled at the suggestion that he had done anything wrong with his continual encroachments.
"The referee was okay with that, and I don't understand how I got a yellow card without prior warning either." he complained. "Why should a player have to bust his ass to give his opponents clear sight of the field?"
Grilled's foes in the third round will be Division Two Orchard-based club Singapore Big Dogs, who were founded by the owners of storied Swedish outfit Surte Earthquakes. They had encountered few problems in eliminating two-time cupwinners Edbe FC 4-0, with U-20 striker Chia Feng Wen grabbing a very late hat-trick.
Noubaryan remained confident regardless. "They've a great squad with the likes of Alistair Xiao, as seen in their league win over Joker 9, but a lot depends on who turns up next Wednesday. If they're fighting on two fronts, I fancy our chances."
The Farmer Bunnies were rarely threatened by fellow third division side FC Ragazzo United, but their fairly-comfortable 2-0 win was marred by a serious hand fracture suffered by
Ibrahim Zahran Al-Maashany. The Saudi forward broke his fall very awkwardly some time after a nice opener from
Morgan Hu's cross, and is very likely to miss the next fortnight of action.
Hu himself had to come off after a clash of heads with Salman Yunis, but that turned out to be a superficial concussion. As it is,
Sikong Darong will have his striking options limited against GoonSquad and then Tecos Foreign Legion. If he was worried about that, however, he didn't show it.
"Bentellis and
Daniel Nguyen have been performing in training, and I was just worrying about when to give them minutes." the Bunnies head coach said. "It's jolly bad luck for Ibrahim, but I think we'll cope."
Grilled International too squeaked by in cup competition once more to make it a sweep, with who else but
Micky bin Kadir finding the only goal in their fixture with Finland's PSJJK. A quiet first half saw only
Wang Chu Chi's off-balance shot go on target for either team, but Micky caught Miroslav Reichl out with an instinctive chip straight from the restart.
Ragib Banović could have added another with ten minutes to go, but rocked the crossbar instead.
This was more than enough for
Tajit bin Mohd, who also drew attention to Burung Memorial Stadiums's ongoing S$1.75 million expansion from a capacity of 24700 - fully utilized today - to a new maximum of 37500.
"We're confident that we'll be able to sell the extra tickets, what with our recent promotion to Division Five." Tajit assured. "Slow and steady does it."
