This S.s.c.u.c.
Kendell Souvenir
This midweek friendly brought Equatorial Guinea IV.10 winners S.s.c.u.c. Africa to Singapore, which was small relief for a Grilled Birds club that had spent most of the past week either in the air, or playing matches. Nevertheless, the Birds didn't have to dig too deeply to run the two year-old visitors over at The Cooking Pot, with
Aw Keng Chuan and
Chad Thach all but deciding it in the first half.
Affiliated with the original and venerable Rome-based S.s.c.u.c., S.s.c.u.c. Africa had racked up a very impressive ten straight competitive victories to end the latest season, with Spanish boss Cesc Solà-Sagalés prioritizing immediate results in this project. He had made his first million-dollar signing in former Curaçao youth international striker Angelo Bonevacia just earlier this month, though the 34 year-old would not be in his squad today, to the local fans' dismay.
It would be essentially a youth team to feature in Jurong today, with 29 year-old domestic attacker and captain Marcelo Ela by far their oldest player. The team did not want for promise for all that, with no less than four members - midfielders Ricardo Biyogho and Joseph Mitogo, central defender Luis Ondo and goalkeeper Aitor Eyangui all recognized as official prospects for the Equatorial Guinea U-20 setup.
Of course, it remained that they were all but seventeen years old, and the phrase "
men against boys" would seldom sound as appropriate as when
Chad Thach ran at the slightly-built Ondo in the fourth minute. Faced with no recourse, Ondo had to try his fortune at a sneaky takedown, which he however had not developed the ability to disguise sufficiently as yet.
Aw Keng Chuan stepped up for the penalty after a brief discussion with
Hisham Zubari, and buried it past the early-jumping Eyangui.
Aw would otherwise look a bit out of place at left forward, all the more with
Kendell El Khateeb an eager runner but not so good at positioning, but what was there to worry about with Thach in the mix? The Lions star was a one-man goal machine, first flying onto
Hwang Teck Fu's half-blocked lob in the 29th minute for 2-0. Four minutes later, there was no getting the ball off him after he received
Lim An Keng's pass with back to goal, and he twisted his way past not three, but four players before spinning it beyond the fast-approaching Eyangui.
The visitors were not entirely passive, and Ondo would give a sneak preview of his magic touch a bit later, with a visionary thirty-yard ball floated over for Joseph Mitogo.
Damian Hutter was left completely stranded by the exquisite flight path, but Mitogo didn't even test
Dahan Bok with his rushed effort. The ball quickly found its way over to the other end, and after
Mohd Marzuki Khairul rammed it off the post from just inside the six-yard box, it would be
Aw Keng Chuan to sweep home a sitter, in the 42nd minute.
Grilled would moderate their output in the second half, but this was still sufficient to give Eyangui fits, despite S.s.c.u.c. Africa's switch to sitting back in their 4-4-2. While lacking obvious vulnerabilities, their rendition of this foundational formation remained too orthodox and thus simple for the Birds to unlock, and it was only numbers that saved them from
Hwang Teck Fu's 51st minute cross.
That brought a twenty-minute period in which the visitors held on to it more, and Grilled's next real chance had to wait until the 72nd minute, when
Lim An Keng allowed Eyangui to raise his stock with a world-class one-handed save on the back foot. The match would then be briefly stopped for
Aw Keng Chuan to have his right wrist looked at, after getting it squashed between two defenders, and fortunately it was nothing serious.
The drop ball would be sportingly given back by the visitors, and
Chad Thach showed his appreciation with a long range effort that sailed several metres over the bar.
Kendell El Khateeb had his moment with nine minutes left as he somehow emerged from a crowd of players with the ball before nicking it past the goalkeeper, with big brother
Mohsen El Khateeb then pinging it off the crossbar in added time.
