Bjeshket Opened Up
Hwang Dimmed
Grilled Birds hosted Bjeshket e Namuna for their first Albanian friendly visitors for some sixty seasons, but were far from generous hosts as they put eight past the III.2 offshoots of Polish club TS Błyskawica. Swiss Number Nine Jed Ignaz Fosco, their latest big signing from over three years ago, would not make the trip down as Italian head coach Gustavo Zavattini brought a strictly trainee squad to Singapore, and they would prove barely sufficient fodder for the Birds' ambitious selection.
Toma Tamiya would have to be accounted amongst those, with the 33 year-old having not lost his desire to work his way into the team's regular rotation, despite his advancing age. His excellent chip in the second minute eluding young Botswana goalie Kgotla Diswai would do nothing to harm his chances, as
Chad Thach burst forward from midfield about five minutes later, to slam another goal past the highly-rated custodian.
Veteran midfielder Lorik Meço would offer Diswai more protection with Auron Bezhani also tracking far from his intended range, which had Bjeshket crowd the Grilled players more closely. This worked until the 29th minute when
Mohd Marzuki Khairul guessed which side
Lim An Keng's through ball would come, but it wound up to be a downer for
Hwang Teck Fu; he would first squeeze
Damian Hutter's intended assist narrowly wide, before landing hard on his right ankle in the 39th, whilst contesting a hanging
Paulino Trindade cross.
Chan Ze Han might have recently celebrated his 42nd birthday, but his eye for goal had scarcely diminished, from how he then scored on his first touch upon replacing Hwang; the free-kick was sprayed back out wide for Trindade to try again, and Chan cleverly ghosted ahead of Naum Bulku at the last moment, to get late contact. The header appeared to also come off Bulku's raised arm, but since it went in anyway, the referee let that slide.
The second half saw more of the same from an energetic Birds side with the Albanians still unable to find their footing, with
Mohd Marzuki Khairul capping a deserved hat-trick by the 76th minute. His second came just five minutes after the restart as he took on both of Bjeshket's central defenders fearlessly, before he attacked
Ha Qicai's long free-kick with all he had. There would be two more as
Lim An Keng elbowed his way inside in the 80th, before
Chia Kwang Tse polished off another splendid
Toma Tamiya delivery.
