No Place Like Home
Thach Taken Into Custody
Grilled Birds decided to stay in Singapore for this weekend's end-of-season friendly, and were hosted by IV.25 champions, who have just arranged a move to III.8 to join the likes of Laughing Kookaburras and Brotherhood SG. Young Swedish head coach Jan Wennlind put out an U-20 midfield that included 17 year-old Malaysian wing prospect Muhammad Fouad, which made the Birds seem rather unsporting in matching them up against Ananda, Nagata and
Wu Ping De.
There would be more-seasoned players in the other positions, notably Spanish skipper Benedict Martindale, who appeared off to new pastures last week, only to have his transfer rescinded. Italian striker Romolo Quarta, formerly of Rome's pazzainter79, debuted following his S$2.1 million transfer yesterday, and partnered Spain's Raúl Pérez Melgarejo. Another recent signing in Bruno Benvegnù would be their centreback, ahead of 19 year-old Number One, Lai Leng Yun.
If this was a team for the future, Grilled were very much ready in the present, and Lai had to summon all of his concentration to rush out and deny
Lim An Keng just three minutes in - which got him a lot of headpats from his grateful defenders. HomeTeam weren't sparing in the tackle either with current national serviceman Tan Li Da laying a hard but fair on on Wu in the seventh minute, that took the Birds man some time to run off.
Grilled's far more experience midfield would soon take the measure of the hosts, and their practised interchanging between wide and narrow eventually forced holes in HomeTeam's coverage.
Hwang Teck Fu might have been watched by both Tan and Benvegnù through the first twenty minutes, but a sudden pull forward by
Phillip Nagata allowed him to finally lose his markers. That was all the opening he needed, as he first-timed the incoming cross past Lai for 1-0.
The game only opened up further after that, with
Lim An Keng and
Genki Nagano putting two more into the net by the 37th minute, with Nagata giving Vittorio De Anna fits with his free-flowing running on the right side. That brought a booking for the fullback in the 38th minute for preventing Nagano from retriving the ball, and his reaction could be forgiven to an extent from how HomeTeam were sitting on a twelve-match competitive winning streak. Nobody told Lim though, from how he nearly embarassed Lai with an almost-casual lob from over twenty yards, three minutes before half-time.
The second half had
Damian Hutter in for
Hisham Zubari, who had not been involved much to say the least. HomeTeam then created their best chance of the game in the 54th minute, when a press by Quarta on
Hein Thiha Pyae Ko had the Myanmar midfielder square it across his own goal - only for Pérez Melgarejo to slide in a split second too late. Hutter cleared in a jiffy,
Kendell El Khateeb won the free-kick, and
Wu Ping De stabbed it home.
HomeTeam responded by kicking the physicality up a notch, which had Fong Keong Loong put
Mohd Marzuki Khairul out of the match in the 60th minute after running straight into him.
Chad Thach came on, but lasted all of fifteen minutes before collecting two yellow cards himself. He did manage to score from an astounding flying kick in between, however, as befitting a Golden Boot winner.
Thach's second yellow for dissent would see Grilled awarded yet another free-kick after the hosts lost the ball immediately, but Hwang smashed it wide off a deflecting with Kendell then overhitting his half-volley from the corner.
Dimitris Germanakos had a ten-minute stint with
Dan Alstani withdrawing
Radomil Marcol after a slight knock, and
Phillip Nagata closed off a great individual performance with an unstoppable drive to the far corner in injury time.
