The French Indeed
Leo Outshines
Grilled Birds welcomed Bangladeshi III.4 challengers French West Indies 972 to Singapore for a friendly today, with the visitors indeed boasting of a Gallic connection through French fifth division forebears, 972. Some continental qualities were proudly on show for the West Indies too, with 32 year-old Danish striker Leo Berthelsen a cut above anyone else on the pitch today, and his Turkish partner Oben Hasret no slouch himself. Grilled edged the midfield battle decisively, though, and that was all that mattered in the end.
Chia Kwang Tse would anchor a three consisting also of
Gandhik Chitre and
Hwang Teck Fu, which would be clearly a couple of levels above the multicultural trio that the visitors had assembled. While the Chilean Hamilton, Belgian Pattyn and Omani Al-Salmany had strengths of their own, Chia and pals had a coordination that they did not yet have, on top of largely superior attributes about the board. Chitre put the first real attempt wide against West Indies Number One Adnan Anees in the seventh minute, and Chia would set it right with a better finish in the fifteenth.
It was becoming a torrent on that flank with
Paulino Trindade absolutely dominating against a Abdur Hussain starting just his second senior match, and with Thai defender Kittiphan Junda not able to leave the exceedingly-experienced
Bilal Mohammad Harun by himself for any length of time, Trindade would have his pick of the field.
Hwang Teck Fu and
Mohsen El Khateeb soon had it up to 3-0 with most of the work coming from the left, before Berthelsen tag-teamed with Al-Salmany to pull one back.
There was no telling what Trindade might have racked up had he managed to stay on, but as fate would have it, he would run himself into Junda's knee in the 32nd minute, which forced
Tian Yonghang to put
Damian Hutter on in his place despite Trindade being not entirely willing to depart. Hutter would take over in like fashion, but not quite as convincingly after an initial push; Hwang would take over much of the job of swinging it in from the left, but the opposition defence were able to cope.
Half-time saw
Mohd Marzuki Khairul replace Chia, reversing what had been done against Mayuyu on Sunday, as
Aw Keng Chuan also came on for
Gandhik Chitre. There was little left of the magic that Trindade had been able to weave, with the West Indies' Italian gaffer Uriele Abbà apparently having diagnosed what went wrong, during the break. Pattyn would shift over to lend extra heft, and although that did hobble their advances, it was not like they were attacking a lot to begin with.
The Birds adjusted too as they started fishing more obviously for fouls, and young referee Selwyn Browne did not take too much convincing.
Teo Chuan Yong looked for contact against Roman Kusal and found it, three minutes into the half, and wasn't too far away with his free-kick that got just over the leaping defensive wall. The match would drag a little after that, before returning to life as Hwang was chopped down in the box, twenty minutes on. Teo was onto it again, and had Anees going the wrong way for the penalty.
That was four-one, and Teo would take it easier afterwards, having also overworked his right knee from the looks of it.
Egemen Dinçer Ferzan finally caught on to how much easier it was on the left about then, as he swopped across and almost immediately was able to cut in an drive a fifth past Anees. Kittiphan Junda's torture came to a slightly premature end in injury time then, after he strained his left hamstring, but there was no time for Qabir Mobin to get a proper touch before it was all over.