
Grilled Birds 4 - 0
Lógre 
A Piece Of Manila
Bok Toked
A day after Hong Kang Leong had headed for the Philippines, a team would come the other way, as II.2 former Pilipinas Consolation Cup holders Lógre accepted Grilled Birds' invite for a friendly. Unfortunately, the weather did not agree, and referee Matt Swinburne appeared to be seriously contemplating calling the game off, despite the close to five thousand who had turned up. There would be a respite in the rainshower ten minutes before kick-off, which nudged him to allow it to go forward.
There could be no expectations of sophisticated play given the conditions, and indeed, Grilled would resort to lumping medium-to-long range passes despite their home advantage. Lógre for their part had brought most of their stars, if with Bulgarian attacker Tzvetan Lozanov deployed at left wing instead of leading the line as usual, a task which was left to the multi-tasking Israeli Guy Kalman... who had just handed in his transfer request.
The visitors held the line bravely for nearly half an hour before Grilled managed their first strike on target, which came courtesy of
Paulino Trindade. That the management had turned down the opportunity to welcome Federico Parada back was a sign of how the São Tomé e Príncipe wingman had grown! That shot hit the bar, sadly, and there would be further bad news for the Birds two minutes later, as French fullback Jean-Benoît Boucherit could not control his slide on the wet grass, and careened straight into debuting goalkeeper
Dahan Bok - who was definitely not expecting that.
Dahan had very clearly been caught on his left thigh by Boucherit's studs, from the evident gash, and his first outing would thus end in the 29th minute. The match officials would wisely direct an admittedly apologetic Boucherit away from Dahan's angry teammates, but he would get to stay on as Swinburne flashed the yellow. The match then resumed with
Cameron Law in goal, and after a near miss from a corner by
Chia Kwang Tse,
Aw Keng Chuan would finally put Grilled ahead with a solid hoof from the head of the penalty area.
Canadian custodian Mathias Boutin would be beaten a second time about four minutes later as Lógre's fatigue began to show, which saw
Brian Reddy finally charge clear of Boucherit, who had to shore up the centre as
Mohd Marzuki Khairul burst through; this led to
Chad Thach finding space for a low drive past Boutin. Trindade then put a fine cross in just before half-time, but Romanian sweeper Mădălin Constandache got himself in between it and intended target
Gandhik Chitre.
The second half began in earnest with a terrible mistake by
Chad Thach in the 56th minute, that saw him in two minds as to whether to pass it back to Law. He would first try to dribble himself out of trouble, then revert to the conservative option after being closed down... only to overhit it right into the path of Spanish forward Luis Francisco Gayón.
Ha Qicai saw the possibility, thankfully, and managed to intercept the ball.
A sheepish Thach acknowledged Ha's save, and the game continued with Grilled rather more prompt in advancing the ball out of their own half at least. This brought a third goal after 61 minutes, for a deserving
Chia Kwang Tse who had been involved in most of Grilled's attacks this half.
Gandhik Chitre then lofted it just over on a rapid combination, which also saw
Brian Reddy hauled up for a bad foul on Guy Kalman. Kalman would have to hobble off with an ice pack on his left knee, with Serbian Marko Tomić his replacement.
It was Lógre's turn to show their displeasure, but they would not have long to express it, as the Birds pressed hard from the ensuing free-kick, and had
Lim An Keng blast it uncomfortably close to the left upright. Tian would take a visibly-affected Reddy off for
Toma Tamiya soon afterwards, which presaged
Ha Qicai grabbing a fourth for Grilled, after an extended spell of possesion had left him lurking in the left side of the box.