The True Perono
With the win, Grilled Birds join the Farmer Bunnies in the last thirty-two of the Singapore Cup, as the Buns continued their clean sheet streak against III.11 leaders Sporting Singapore. Sporting had won all four matches thus far this season, adding on to nine undefeated games, but it would all be for naught against a humourless Bunnies lineup.
With
Namdar Zarar and
Morgan Hu shielding what was already a superb defence, and
Aswad Mohd Jafni man-marking Connor Beard, the only question was soon whether Sporting could drag it to penalties. Sadly for them,
Tham Leng Teck would grab the opener after 65 minutes, which was followed by
Kwek Yun Jie's free-kick second chance, and
Vishnu Tallapaka's penalty conversion.
Mushtag Al-Nameeri would come up dry again, but he was arguably unlucky with Adrián Ascanio's reflexes.
The Buns will now face Dragon Devil's, who narrowly lost 1-2 to the Birds, at the semifinals of the latter's successful Sapphire Challenger Cup bid last term. Grilled Birds' own opponents will be II.1 club Olympic Sentosa, who had won out against Bukit Regency through Iman Baba Reza's late strike.
Grilled International dusted Indian H.I. semi-pros Tamil Nadu United 9-0, a rout in which
Fausto Perono was back to his best. The Italian forward was relentless from start to finish, and collected four well-earned goals.
Didi Reidenbach and
Wang Chu Chi had two each, with
Ragib Banović scoring the pick of the lot - a 64th minute bicycle kick.
Tommy Dongelmans recognized the old glint in Perono's eye. "It scares me sometimes, but we need this side of him."
