Lite And Berned
Wu Still Young
Grilled Birds advanced in the third round of the Singapore Cup with a 9-0 dismantling of East Coast challengers frunzelite, as the newly-promoted Division Three side continued to discover how hard life could be in the higher reaches; having won IV.40 at a canter with a perfect record, their first two league outings in III.13 would see defeats to BYZANTINE and CE Sindiket 07, but neither could compare to the thumping that the Birds would deal out.
Benfleet Branch 2's Tarpots Rec. would attract some thirty-five thousand curious - about evenly divided between the teams - despite the pouring rain, with frunzelite pinning their hopes on star South African defender Gatsha Tuli. Excellent against Neo Toxicant and Arrogancae, he would however have his work cut out for him today. Young Finnish goalkeeper Tuulo Halme would be left out for Belgian veteran Reimer De Kegel, though from what transpired, it probably wouldn't have mattered.
Grilled for their part would feature both their true wingers, and also allow
Sølve Lunde and
Bhavya Panigrahi a taste of midfield operation.
Kalki Parvathaneni and
Bernie Egan were provided minutes in their favoured position, and the Irishman was particularly eager to make up for lost time, after returning empty-handed last Wednesday. He took twelve minutes to change that, with a fleet-footed dash onto
Kalle ter Berg's questioning pass across the box.
Appeals for offside went nowhere, but Tuli would be fairly formidable in truth, as he threw himself into a number of risky yet required tackles against Grilled's best. Twenty minutes would go by before the Birds managed another strike on De Kegel's goal, and
Kalki Parvathaneni would play it off a defender, before knocking it home on the second try. The next minutes saw Egan again use his speed to get it to
Wu Jinglong for an easy third, before Kalki blasted into the top corner from afar.
frunzelite had their moment in the sun - or in this case, rain - when
Gilbert Webb had to leave after twisting his ankle in the wet turf, with
Prokop Mottl having little of the defensive nous of the Scotsman. Hong Fu Yau nearly got through as he split Mottl and Ter Berg, but
Jānis Salmiņš was alert to the threat, and it was instead Mottl who would score.
Moey Xin Seng's magnificent lob was barely reached by De Kegel, and the ensuing chaos saw Mottl get the finish right.
Salah Kamel replaced
Kalle ter Berg for the second half with little material impact on the game, as Grilled continued dominating as they had. Kee Jia Lee's entry for Koh Kiong Shi in the frunzelite midfield as a response would make no difference either, and
Wu Jinglong would get the Birds going once more in the 75th minute, with a calmly-placed shot. The 37 year-old winger had endured a long goal drought through the entirety of the previous season, but from the looks of it, he is not ready to coast on his other qualities just yet.
Egan remained just as eager to impress, and he would match Wu with another goal of his own, ghosting down the left on Grilled's next attack. It would be
Kalki Parvathaneni to complete his hat-trick before the duo, however; an 82nd minute attempt would be fired high, but after frunzelite gambled too many men forward on a free-kick given up by Moey - who was carded into the bargain - Kalki would chase a slightly-overhit long pass by Lunde into the net.
This would take a heavy toll, sadly, as the Grilled forward would crash uncontrollably into the goalpost in doing so, and be further hammered from the side by the scrambling goalie. It was obvious that he had suffered serious damage here, as De Kegel wasted no time in summoning the medics to his side.
Vikram Mudaliar would replace the stricken Kalki after extended treatment at the side of the pitch, and frunzelite resumed their quest for a consolation goal, with Hannes Weiss putting it on a plate for Goh Leng Kim, whose mind had unfortunately drifted.
Wu Jinglong had certainly kept his hunger, on the other hand, and he would secure his second ever hat-trick for Grilled, with a powerful cannonball three minutes from time.
