Uppercut Exchange
Paulino Salvation
It was a day of many milestones for Grilled Birds, with captain
Ha Qicai making his century start for instance, and
Dahan Bok his cup debut. It would end satisfactorily for them against III.14 challengers Shoryuken FC too, although the Woodlands club could take heart in their improving over each of their four meetings with Grilled thus far.
Some eighteen seasons had passed since their last clash in II.4, that said, with
Chan Ze Han the sole common element as he sat on the bench today, having skippered the Birds then. Shoryuken FC had dealt sparingly in the transfer market over the last five seasons, with a total of seven official transactions over that period. Of those, Polish midfielder Piotr Moczała was the only major buy, and he started on the right of midfield with former national striker Jimmie Yen heading up a 3-4-3.
The Birds were playing relatively narrow too, with
Aw Keng Chuan an unfamiliar sight in defence, as
Raúl Himadas was shifted to left wing apparently in an effort to protect from his lack of pace. This proved a clever adaptation from
Tian Yonghang, as the Birds were more than able to bludgeon their way through the middle in a straight-on battle.
Gandhik Chitre beat Dutch goalie Christiaan Bolwerk in the 13th minute with a running header from
Chia Kwang Tse's lob over the top, and Himadas gleefully came in three minutes later for an easy second goal.
Shoryuken FC's back three were getting found out as they struggled to control their width of coverage, as
Hwang Teck Fu and
Mohd Marzuki Khairul piled on the discomfort with pulls to the outside that dared the defenders to follow. Kjetil Hagen elected to stay behind in the 28th minute as Hwang made his move, which proved a mistake when
Chad Thach barged in. Jimmie Yen's class was evident as he split Grilled on a brilliant dash next, but Marzuki's accurate finishing from a sneaky free-kick variation had the Birds 4-1 up by the 31st minute.
This was how it stayed at half-time, and
Gandhik Chitre further extended the lead to four, as he took
Lim An Keng's floated pass on the volley in the 49th. There would be some movement towards the exit, which was halted in a jiffy as the nominal hosts struck back almost immediately. No-one tracked Russian winger Andrey Khvorov as he came around the back, and slippery feet from Nat Choe opened the way for a beautiful assist.
Aw would be replaced by
Damian Hutter on the hour, which did not have much of an impact on the game at first. Indeed,
Lim An Keng was the next to enjoy a clear chance, but Bolwerk went down swiftly to smother his powerful drive in picture-perfect manner. Shoryuken FC took courage from their goalkeeper's feat, and after some involved interplay between their forwards in the 80th minute, Nat Choe came good with an improvised effort off his knee, that caught
Dahan Bok off guard.
That was 3-5, and things got extremely interesting after Lim's next attempt was countered wholesale, and saw Irish veteran Aaron Meehan shrug Hutter off to take his team within a single goal. Jani Konttila would be booked in his eagerness to recover the ball in the 86th, and after the quick free-kick was inexplicably swung across his own goal by Kjetil Hagen,
Paulino Trindade slid it home after the ball flashed past
Brian Reddy.
