Topped By One
Ferzan Unleashed
The Birds bettered their scoreline from earlier this season by a single goal, as they doled out a 6-2 away mauling, to Clementi stragglers fc.tower. The Towerites do however keep up their impressive record of not being shut out in the league, as they scored - twice at that today - for a tenth straight game.
Actual points were however much harder to obtain for Teo Kian Ping's side, though, which the player-coach readily conceded before the match. Their Maltese falcons of Martin Lucas, Alex D'Amato and Bernard Cascun remained a cut or three above everyone else in the lineup, leading to some rather disjointed play. On the Birds' end, the main change of note was
Egemen Dinçer Ferzan finally starting for the team on the left, with
Tian Yonghang regarding his attacking flair being safe to unleash in place of
Paulino Trindade, for this occasion.
Close to thirty thousand fans had made their way to fc.tower's ground for this fixture, and few amongst them could claim to be very shocked when Grilled took just three minutes to leave a mark, as
Chad Thach shook off converted goalkeeper Joe Szeto, to free himself for a lob in the penalty area. Despite Teo running a tight ship, Szeto's selection in midfield continues being a valid gripe for their supporters, and will surely only come under extra scrutiny with this.
The hosts would always be in the mix whenever they actually got the ball to their frontline, for all their inadequacies elsewhere, and while Bernard Cascun might arguably be the least hyped of the trio, he would be more than deadly in the right situation too. Heading was never Cascun's forte, but when Yasin Kamaruzzaman Omar dipped it right to him from the left in the ninth minute, he would plant himself for a technically-immaculate cushioned header into the top corner.
That equalizer would buoy the stands for some minutes, but with fc.tower still lacking in the other departments, there would be no stopping Grilled from taking advantage where they could.
Lim An Keng's steady improvement was evident as he more than held his own against Italian veteran Paolo Cariolaro, and eluded him to score in the 19th;
Damian Hutter's keeping up his newfound thirst for goals was a little more unexpected, but there was no denying that his hammered drive four minutes later, was more than worthy of getting through.
A two-goal lead was sufficient to what the Birds' appetite until half-time, with Cariolaro also dealing with several possible developments before they could really bloom. Tian would mix it up a little with his half-time subs, with Lim coming off for
Chia Kwang Tse for once.
Chad Thach would also not be able to build on his strike, as he got replaced by
Gandhik Chitre.
That would take the Birds team some getting-used to, and they would create woefully little for the next fifteen minutes, until
Bilal Mohammad Harun took over from
Moey Xin Seng. Bilal's arrival would encourage his fellows to take more risks towards exploiting his fresh legs, and Chitre would flummox Seah How Wei in dribbling through him and into the box, four minutes on. Jeremiah Vuong was prepared, sadly, and that was it.
Grilled's fourth goal would have to come via a more direct route, which was what happened when
Enrique Baena brought it up the right flank at a busy pace, in the 69th minute. The Spanish winger had become quite the team man - some say too much - and his dropping it into the centre of the box after skipping past Poh Su Ming was straight out of the training manual.
Bilal Mohammad Harun flung himself onto the end of it to bulge the net, and made sure to acknowledge Baena the first opportunity he got.
The Birds were really pinging it about now, even with the hosts trying to choke up the centre, and only some excellent anticipation by Vuong got him moving towards Bilal's next attempt, a beefy right-footed blast on a short pass left to him by
Kalki Parvathaneni. It remained in the general area of goal, however, and Hutter went for another pot from distance, only to have it come hard off a defender... and the break was on. D'Amato could not be caught as he took off down the right, and the assist to Lucas made it guaranteed.
fc.tower remained two goals behind, and as they went for broke in search of a miracle turnaround, holes began opening up in their own half.
Aw Keng Chuan made good use of the space on the right to add a fifth in the 84th, with Baena again heavily involved. There would then be some bad feeling on the restart as
Teo Chuan Yong went in hard on his opposition surname-sake, which had the game halted for some minutes.
Teo Kian Ping would eventually be back up on his feet, but the stoppage had merely delayed their conceding one last goal. Bilal had evidently enjoyed his previous flying header, and would execute another one with great form, with three minutes left. Vuong managed to get a hand onto it, but could not recover in time to prevent
Gandhik Chitre scooping it over the line.
