Anything But Dullius
Bernie Egan rightly got his fair share of attention after a stellar brace in this local friendly, which he modestly downplayed. "It's nice to score, but a lot of it was down to my teammates. I'm looking to feature more in the S-League for the coming season."
At Carrot Field, the Farmer Bunnies whitewashed Iranian II.1 side saegheshargh by six goals to nil, with Amir Ata Boushehri suffering a knee injury futilely attempting to prevent
Llamil Vener from scoring the first of those, in the 21st minute. Former Rabbit
Sunil Patel would then find the net on his senior debut with a beefy header, before goalie
Vivian Grubenmann demonstrated his penalty chops.
Ibrahim Zahran Al-Maashany would be wasteful overall, but did finish competently in the 40th; the final goals would come from
Tham Leng Teck and
Daniel Nguyen, in the final few minutes of standard time.
Tham reckoned that Boushehri's leaving the game so early adversely affected saegheshargh's strength. "It's a shame, he was perhaps the best performer on the pitch when it happened. The match would have been much closer otherwise."
The most enthralling fixture of the day would be International's against former Copa Consuelo Hilario Vargas winners Dullius, over in Paraguay. After being alternatively 2-0 up and 2-3 down,
Tibor Atzenhain seemed to have won it for International in the 82nd minute, upon poaching a second for himself. Fernando Zaracho would however level it with a magnificent dribble, before sensationally getting sent off for shoving an International player during his celebrations.
Extra time beckoned, and International would once more take the lead, as
Hesky Atmanegara threaded it in from within a packed box. Dullius however came back to take it despite being a man down, as Rolando Villasanti and Miguel Alzamora scored within three minutes of each other.
Skipper
Wang Hanxuan was disappointed at not being able to maintain their goal cushions, but conceded that it had been a fine game for the fans. "Two games rolled into one, in fact."
