Edbe Bested
There were handshakes exchanged all around as the margin of victory perhaps made the result slightly easier to bear for UDNTK, and
Eren Serpin rounded the match up as another excellent demonstration. "Kalki, Kalki he was a monster out there." the head coach praised. "Together with
Heng Dong Chu, we always looked like scoring, each time we came down that left wing."
As for
Chan Ze Han, Serpin thought that he had taken one for the team, in drawing Mezheiko's attention for the bulk of the game. "You know he's good, when teams are increasingly man-marking him. It was maybe their loss as much as ours, however - they really missed having that target man up there."
The Grilled clubs' good cup record was also extended by the Farmer Bunnies, who likewise found a hat-trick, through Russian striker
Nurlan Ablaev. Together with
Brendan Leung and
Aswad Mohd Jafni, this was enough for a 5-1 victory over two-time cupwinners Edbe FC, who could reply only through Miroslav Bar; this sets up a quarterfinals against Bunnies bogey team, Arrogancae.
Much of the buzz about the Buns would be directed instead at their rumoured bid for young English potential international Scott McNulty, but these hopes were dashed, when Division Five team FC Olimpique Rakia announced that they had acquired him for near S$18 million.
Dalibor Kostadinović confirmed the interest after this, and added that they remained actively in search of new talent, what with 19 year-old
Aitykul Zaripbekov possibly on the verge of an U-20 call-up.
On the other hand, there was nothing but more gloom for Grilled International, who were sent crashing out of the H.I. Sapphire Challenger Cup by Italy's Avaninter, with injuries to
Tommy Dongelmans and
Arcadi Sansalvador to boot; International had actually taken the lead on three separate occasions, the first through
Hardi bin Besar in the very first minute, but completely collapsed after Christian Klauzer put Avaninter in front for once, at the end of the first half.
Roar Olaisen had to admit that something was very wrong with the team right now. "It's in the head." he managed. "I'm not sure how exactly we're going to get out of this funk, but our psychologist will have his schedule filled, that's for sure."