Ejected From Saloon
Tian Yonghang would end the day rather less complimentary with Arrogancae boss Tim D'Agostino than he had begun it, as the veteran could not maintain his usually-positive mask for once. It seemed that the heavy defeat had shaken Tian quite badly, from how he railed against perceived injustices. "Fair play to Arrogancae, but that was never a penalty, and we had too many calls come out of nowhere. We will take this in stride and improve."
This loss to old rivals dropped the Birds to third, with Joker 9 replacing them at the top thanks to a 7-0 away thrashing of The Sing Tigers - who already look destined for the drop - and newbies are newbies taming Tampines Phoenix F.C. 3-0. Queenstown MZKs had a good day, as Adem Boğ led them to a 3-1 win over Glory Paradiso despite national youth prospect Phua Jing Wee suffering a dislocated shoulder early on.
Farmer Bunnies suffered defeat too, as they were taken out by Harold Griffiths' 27th minute stunner, with Pasir Ris club kaloons staying atop III.9. This was however not wholly unexpected as Tallapaka debuted his new 5-5-0 formation, that had newcomer
Dušan Václavík captain his new team in a competent, if unremarkable, central midfield outing.
Amaya Ravula nearly stole a point with a powerful header five minutes from the end, but it dipped a yard wide of the far post.
"It was sad that we didn't get a draw at least, but the players followed my instructions to the letter." the not-displeased head coach revealed. "There may be some harder times as we transition and continue to build the team up, and I hope the fans wait it out."
Kaloons would be trailed by Really McCoys, who demolished Pasir Ris Warriors 8-0, and then FC Jurong Rovers, who were held to a three-all draw by a spirited FC Phondle; Rovers had to wait till the 87th minute for Khalfan Al-Mukhaithi to equalize a third time, and that after Spencer Bryan had been sent off. Mangrove Pittas got a 5-0 win over Livernuts, but too suffered a red card, this one for Wojciech Owocki.
That left Grilled International to fly the flag with a comfortable 4-0 away win at the Stade de Nice, with
Umut Koza marking his 23rd birthday with a 28th minute goal. It was a bad day for
Leri Bezhanishvili, who missed a couple of free-kicks while being carded, but the slack would be picked up by
Remond Bergervoet,
Chua Jun Long and
Safari bin Hj Jali.
International look set to emulate the Birds' perfect season, then, although Dentinhos Int. and Elefanten der Wüste did join them on six points, with a 2-0 over Ponyhof and 1-0 on Baboon Show St. Pauli respectively. Once-proud AC Rabissale fought to a 1-0 victory over SFK Ajaks, but were a shadow of their former selves, as they had to rely on Andri Saeger's lucky goal.
