The Birds' addiction to duking it out with no thought to defending hadn't subsided after the midweek madness, so it seemed, and they would drop points after going toe-to-toe against a motivated SingaStyle side at home. This would be the downtown club's first meeting against Grilled, despite having two Challenger Cups and a Division Two title already, with Dutch head coach Lukas Hameleers making clear his ambition to finally break through to the S-League, having won III.16 thrice in a row before promoting last season.
SingaStyle had certainly spared no costs in this effort, having made blockbuster individual signings at or in excess of S$30 million, in each of the last two years. Both Italian wing star Procopio Dagnino and former Mongolian youth international goalkeeper Suhe Tegus would feature today, together with their latest signing from days ago at "just" S$11 million, Romanian defender Petronel Paneş. Paneş had actually been a doubt to start, having gone off late in his debut friendly versus Turkey's BLACK EAGLE TR with a thigh concern, but it was clearly less serious than it looked then.
Having started the season strongly, SingaStyle had hit a series of roadblocks in the previous weeks, which likely caused Hameleers' recruitment of Paneş; successive cup defeats to Marina Sailors and Leeds Celts would be followed by a first league defeat against the Ang Mohs, but the fact was that they retained one of the most solid all-rounder midfield units in the country. This included, of course, national regular Neo Ting Feng and Austrian ex-U-20 tower Erwin Küng, with adopted son Umberto Benveniste providing the muscle.
Grilled would find themselves on the wrong side of that soon, despite Bilal Mohammad Harun soaring in his first league start of the campaign. Hard work by the Number Six won the Birds a corner in the 14th minute, which was in turn slipped through by Heng Dong Chu to Vikram Mudaliar, who embarassingly had it taken off his feet by Benveniste as he was figuring it out. It got real bad real quickly as the enforcer released Küng, who took it most of the length of the pitch, before bringing Roman Mullens in for the expert finish.
That was a total letdown for the home fans, who however kept their faith in the team with their defiant chants, and Moey Xin Seng would repay them just three minutes later. There would be another corner, and this time Moey would go direct past Tegus, from Bhavya Panigrahi's delivery. The next event of note would be a glaring positional error from Douglas Carapaica, that allowed Neo Ting Feng in to score. Neo had to pay a price for it, however, as he twisted his left ankle badly in carving out space for the shot, and would be replaced by Brazilian striker Tomas Cosio.
This unavoidably upset SingaStyle's previously-immaculate balance in midfield, and Grilled would regain the upper hand after some hard work, especially from Bilal and Teo. They would retrieve the ball and feed Abd Hadi Taib Mazhud in the 33rd minute, but the forward's love-hate relationship with the woodwork continued. Vikram Mudaliar then called out Paneş' thigh concern with a straight sprint to equalize again, but Benveniste answered immediately as Luxembourg wingman Fernando Tomás Soares charged down the left. Moey and Tomas Cosio then had further great chances to add to the score before the break, but the goalkeepers were on point for both those attempts.
On balance, SingaStyle had to be accounted the more confident side, and they would restart the match with a plan to stall it in midfield as much as possible, whether with or without possession. This played right to their biggest strength, and they would engage only having identified especially promising openings. One such would open up in the 71st minute as Grilled's backline found themselves drifting upfield, and Erwin Küng showed off his underrated technical abilities by killing Cosio's lob over the top dead on the first touch, before lifting it over Salmiņš too for 2-4.
It was looking really down for the hosts now, and Moey Xin Seng's booking for running Mullens down from behind, had the feel of an outmatched veteran letting off steam the only way he could. The 36 year-old skipper would dispel those notions in short order as he was first to respond to the reversal of the free-kick, as Chan Ze Han obliged with the supporting run. However, Dagnino's immediate reply after another Douglas mishap left SingaStyle still with a two goal lead, and less than fifteen minutes remaining.
Hilal Bakhtiar would finally settle on the overdue substitution of Douglas for Sølve Lunde with that, as Grilled battled against the clock - and to remarkable success, as it happened. SingaStyle had undeniably gotten a little too comfortable, which was always a bad attitude to take at The Cooking Pot. Most of the supporters hadn't given up yet, and their loyalty would be treated by Moey Xin Seng running onto Teo's swirling forty-yard pass for his hat-trick. This was only Moey's third in a long, long career, and his first in the league since Joker 9, some nine seasons back.
The job was hardly done with the Birds still losing, though, but another man would step up for the needful - Bilal Mohammad Harun. Having scored in three of his previous five starts already this season, the ever-present midfielder would not let up on his constant running, and found himself in just the right place when Salah Kamel got the better of Soares on the right, in the 85th minute. There was nothing too spectacular about the tap-in with Kamel driving the low cross hard past Tegus, but it did mean a valuable point for Grilled.
The Birds weren't home free yet by any means, with SingaStyle having proven that they could turn it around at short notice, and Bhavya Panigrahi would have to give up a yellow card with Daniel Salaun threatening to get past him, as the visitors fought back. Salaun's free-kick would go comically high, however, and Bakhtiar seemed to have settled for the result, as he used his remaining subs to expend a few extra seconds towards the end.
