Smeg 1 - 5 Grilled Birds
Smeg Smash
Stern's Signal
Grilled Birds visited the metropolis of Tokyo and achieved a 1-5 victory that should go some way towards placating a furious Bakunin after the first team's 0-3 surrender against Geylang Eagles United on Sunday. Grilled wasted no time in attacking the opposition goal, and new youth revelation
Leo Linh-Nam showed off simple but effective dribbling skills to be able to feed
Joe Stern with a through ball. Stern didn't miss, tucking it cooly away. Two minutes later,
Chen Chiew-Yen saw acres of space behind attacking wingback Suguru Sasakawa, and managed to pull away from his marker to put the ball away. Grilled's third came on the half-hour, as German youngster
Tim Blissenbach displayed some vision in spying Smeg's veteran goalkeeper Hideaki Matsuya off his line. Blissenbach caught him off-guard with a disguised flick that dropped nicely into goal. Smeg threw Dane Kenneth Ludvigsen into the fray when their captain Itsuki Shiotani went down, and Ludvigsen imposed himself on the game with youthful vigour, stemming Grilled's free-flowing attack and even supplying winger Hiroyuki Yagani with a chance to pull one back. Yagani couldn't beat
Cheung Huel-sheng, unfortunately for Smeg.
Nor Suhaimi bin Che Lah hadn't played for a long time, and his rustiness showed when he allowed himself to be distracted into giving Makoto Inoguchi a free shot on goal, but Inoguchi totally miskicked. Stern put Grilled further ahead with a beautiful free-kick that curled over the wall, then Smeg finally staked a claim on the scoresheet with Inoguchi making no mistake from the spot after he appeared to have bumped into Blissenbach. The decision left many in the stands scratching their heads.
Joe Stern wasn't satisfied with two, and notched a hat-trick in the 73rd minute when Yuki Sato took his eyes off the ball, making the final score 1-5 to Grilled.
