Nine Qua Kwa
Teo Close
With the Hattrick Anniversary League winding to a close, Grilled Birds would not have many more chances to play clubs from that organization, and thus greatly appreciated the invitation of Tanzanian VI.395 side FC Kwa Masha to play them in Mwanza. They would be far less complimentary when they got down to business, though, and showed little mercy in tearing apart Masha's lightweight defence.
Croatian veteran striker Duje Tudorović would be Masha's biggest draw by far, with nearly four thousand locals turning up despite it being a wet and cold afternoon. Brazilian centreback Pedro Godói Alves was emotional as he captained the team out for what might be the last time, but he would have to snap out of his sentiments to block
Lim An Keng off in the third minute. Botswanan referee Ofentse Mogorosi felt that Alves had put too much bodyweight behind that, however, and
Chad Thach clipped it past Kennedy Chikawe from the resulting free-kick pass.
Masha were not going to be able to hold against the Birds for long keeping their usual playstyle, and after
Lim An Keng and
Mohd Marzuki Khairul had punished them in turn before the tenth minute, German head coach Hauke Hannover would throw in the towel and command them to sit back. This was mostly just stemming the bleeding, and
Brian Reddy razed their left defence for the fourth in the 20th minute, then supplying
Chad Thach for 5-0 eleven minutes later.
It could not get much worse for a club facing imminent dissolution in any case, and the two sets of players would get along swimmingly, when Mogorosi blew for half-time.
Lim An Keng wasted no time in aggressively running at Elisha Masilingi after the restart, but could not keep control after beating the defender. It fell to Marzuki to put it into the net 53 minutes in, as he collected a driven through pass by
Ha Qicai with grace, before cutting back across himself sharply to shoot.
There remained but a question of how many more goals there were to be, with the ever-hustling
Gandhik Chitre racing through for a seventh in the 64th minute, and
Chia Kwang Tse claiming an eighth from a quickly-taken free-kick, following Elisha Masilingi's foul out of desperation in the 74th. That appeared to be it as Grilled used up their subs with
Teo Chuan Yong taking over the armband from
Ha Qicai in the last minute, but that turned out to be long enough for Teo to knock a perfect penalty in off the right post!
