Milan Ganking
Chia Kwang Tse, who had held the middle excellently throughout, admitted to being stunned at the margin of victory, if not the win itself. "I went into this with the pressure off - I mean, the entire Tampines team is like a who's who of former national stars - but it was soon clear that we could, in fact, take this. Some of us were looking forward to meeting Heng Dong Chu again, before realizing that he's in Spain with Tronquinhos FC now."
Two-goal hero
Mohd Marzuki Khairul thanked
Tian Yonghang for trusting him for the day, and promised of more to come. "Truth be told, their defence was tighter than it might have looked - there were really very few good openings today. But we made the most of what we got."
The loss may have seen its first casualty, with Tampines putting Guan Wen Jin on the transfer list immediately afterwards, while the Birds move on to face Galactic Eagles CF in the semifinals. The Eagles had ground out a 1-0 win over Phantasm Hotspurs thanks to an early Quek Kim Chuan free-kick, in much the same style as the Phoenixes, which was encouraging to Tian. "Well, we have now beaten one strong defensive team. Why not another?"
The Buns would restart the friendly circuit with a trip to Belgian VII.2631 leaders MilanGenkies, and succumbed to Giovanny Dalle's rush in the fifth minute of extra time. Before that,
Mauro Fau had put them ahead in the 39th minute dancing in from the left as the Buns owned the first half, but the departure of Fau and
Ho Ah Kian at half-time allowed MilanGenkies back in, and Sybrand Demol equalized from a messy corner aftermath.
As for Grilled International, they scalped Azerbaijani II.4 visitors United Mixter 6-0 at Burung, with Mixter bringing their second-stringers, other than Polish Number Eleven Mikołaj Bruzi and acting captain Elyar Abbasov. Young hotshots
Umut Koza and
Phua Li Kong lit it up with a brace each, with
Redhuan bin Mohd Aleshahfezan and
Mohsen Zeynali making up the remainder. Striker Tapdıq Əliyev would be sent off in the 83rd minute in what was only his second professional appearance, after he bowled
Tamit bin Said over in spite.