Agatians Fall To Chu
Dalisay Unperturbed
The Birds returned to Guam to play newly-promoted II.4 club The Agatian el Greco, and wound up with a moderate warm-up, as the hosts reserved their best players in a 0-7 steamrolling. The likes of Italian captain Bruno Carruezzo were nowhere to be found, and his trusted strike partner Viktor Klammer would remain an unused substitute fiddling with his smartphone on the bench.
Now, it was not that this was an entirely hopeless Agatian XI, seeing as it had star 20 year-old forward Tyson Lumba - if still struggling with match fitness - in the lineup. Up-and-coming Dutch trainee Cas Esch and experienced Trinidad & Tobago midfielder Vijay Mahadik were hardly ones to be dismissed either, without mentioning Victor Okada and Abelardo Maratita, who must be eager to impress, after placing themselves in the shop window.
It was their misfortune, then, to find themselves up against an uncommonly-strong Grilled second team, centered around a returning
Salah Kamel, who's starting only his fourth match for the Birds, and the first since his injury against KingofNoobs over a fortnight back. Kamel's rehabilitation had clearly gone very well, but it was another man who stole the show today;
Chu Xin Lee would strike twice in the first six minutes, as he completely befuddled Quipuha Luck with his unconventional movements.
The hosts were so shaken, indeed, that
Bernie Egan made it 3-0 several minutes on, with the defenders conveniently having hustled over to Chu's right flank. Goalkeeper Edgar Manlapit did well to get a hand to Egan's initial effort, but couldn't get it far enough, and the Irish striker had followed up by the book.
Things wouldn't all go Grilled's way, what with
Jérémy Tarin finding himself carded for getting handsy with Maratita. Frank Libranda couldn't do much with the ensuing free-kick, to the expectant fans' displeasure, and the half would end with the Birds 4-0 up, as
Chu Xin Lee completed his hat-trick from a neat
Moey Xin Seng assist.
Moey would switch positions with
Bilal Mohammad Harun for the second half, not that it mattered too much, as the Birds could afford to be fairly flexible in practice, positioning-wise. Agatian weren't about to be rocked from the outset, as they had been for the previous half, and some heroic interventions by Vijay Mahadik helped them stabilize the situation for a time.
Jérémy Tarin had looked slightly out of place at right forward, but there was nothing funny about his bender in the 63rd minute. Manlapit was well beaten then, and it took Okada's high kick to save the goal.
With twenty minutes or so left, there would be a short stoppage for Tyson Lumba to have his thigh looked at, after he ran onto a painful-looking punt from Moey. That seemed to have unlocked Moey, for some reason, and the Grilled skipper would immediately serve the fifth goal to
Mohd Jafni Abdul Majid on a platter, with his faultless headed flick-on from a corner. A few minutes later, Moey would finish the sixth himself from distance, and Tarin would top it off with a standard penalty take following an unlucky ball-to-hand to a downed Frank Libranda in the six-yard box.
