Loony Tunes
Kengster Prevails
Kaloons might be familiar to Farmer Bunnies - with their latest match over a season ago ending with a lone
Dušan Václavík winner - but today's Singapore Cup clash would be their first meeting with Grilled Birds. The Pasir Ris side did better than many might have thought, running the Birds close before finally going down, 3-5.
The hosts were bouncing after their 3-0 victory over Really McCoys, as evidenced by a bumper crowd of nearly fifty-six thousand - which was indeed slightly more than for the league match on Sunday. Erol Kuloğlu would moreover pick an entirely unchanged XI for this, perhaps a measure of how seriously they were taking the game. The Birds for their part were not going to be lax either, as
Dimitris Germanakos started despite barely passing a late fitness test.
Raúl Himadas at left wing was something of an eyebrow-raiser, but it was otherwise a strong cup lineup from
Tian Yonghang.
Fifteen minutes would pass before the match started boiling over, with the uneasy balance finally disrupted by Jérôme Decaen's electric pull forward, let down only by his shooting straight at a rushing Germanakos. There would be no break in the action as
Aw Keng Chuan blasted it down the right channel, where
Brian Reddy carried it nearly all the way before releasing
Mohd Marzuki Khairul for the first goal. The Birds would not have time to rejoice properly, though, as kaloons broke from kick-off through Bolivian winger Timoteo Abastoflor, which had countryman Diego Cruz slide it in at the near post for an instant leveller.
This goal had the hosts cast off any remaining pretensions at pressing, which however did not serve them too well. The storm rose with Grilled proving themselves rather more adept at a freewheeling exchange, and by the time the proverbial dust had cleared about seven minutes later,
Chia Kwang Tse and
Hwang Teck Fu had breached Antonín Kubr's net in turn for 3-1.
Raúl Himadas got the set-up he wanted after
Hwang Teck Fu was tripped just outside the kaloons penalty area in the 24th minute, but all the anticipation brought was a miscued delivery.
Grilled were willing to tone it down having racked up a two-goal cushion, and the rest of the half had them pointedly playing kick-ball interspersed with a few rapid pushes, with the tacit approval of their head coach. They might have regretted not driving themselves a little more in the 67th minute, though, as young local forward Masafumi Takayama dove in bravely to make it 3-2, after Marzuki had clanged a low drive off the foot of Kubr's left post some twelve minutes earlier.
The Birds looked quite vulnerable now as kaloons surged, with Harold Griffiths in particular requiring Aw to get bailed out by
Ha Qicai a couple of times. Seow Yi Leong would tweak his calf setting Decaen up for another flashy dribble in the 78th minute, but in a twist of fate, Decaen's miss would merely thin his own half out for
Lim An Keng, with too many of his mates joining in hoping to score the equalizer. All
Gandhik Chitre had to do was to pick Lim out from forty yards, and it was 4-2.
This was the signal for Tian to take a panting
Raúl Himadas off, with the Spaniard obviously not used to covering this much ground.
Paulino Trindade was a bundle of energy as he high-fived Himadas sprinting on, and within a minute, he would contribute to a second for
Lim An Keng. Greek captain Fotis Liras had yet to recover fully from the knock he picked up against Crescent Royale Kelab Di Raja, and while he had hidden it well up to now, Trindade would expose the weakness with a fearless direct challenge.
Injuries would not cause either Liras or Seow to sit back and take it, granted, as Seow threw himself full-bodies into a marginally late tackle on a turning Reddy after 83 minutes, with only the minimal contact made saving him from a red card by Liechtenstein referee Sigi Thöny. Aw was far too casual with the free-kick, however, and after the turnover, kaloons would hold it up smartly until they had the numbers, with Liras ghosting in late to make it 5-3.
