Outgunned
Dominant Daniel
Daniel Tellskär's pulled the strings on a resounding 4-1 win over a cautious YoungGuns_United squad, himself getting on the scoresheet. Even without that, he was a dead ringer for man-of-the-match, as the full house at The Cooking Pot must agree.
YoungGuns disconcerted Grilled by denying space from the whistle, and the callow Rottman panicked when caught in possession in defence and tried to shove his way out of a tight spot, getting a yellow card. YoungGun's central defender Ouyang Kai-Wen must have thought that a light punishment, as the 33 year old took a knock on the ankle which could take a month to heal. Mexican Julián Peris came in as his replacement, just in time to watch a fiercely-contested freak handball call as YoungGuns' goalie Ibrahim Yusuf restarted the game with a free kick right into a defender's arm.
Johan Dewilde for one was not complaining, as he did his duty by collecting on the gift, hitting the penalty to Yusuf's right.
YoungGuns seemed shaken by that, and Grilled pressed their advantage. In the 12th minute,
Wilson Kearney lost his marker to put Grilled two-up, before
Daniel Tellskär ran straight at goal with nary a pass to swipe a third. YoungGuns now defended their goal with fervour, dedicating the next few minutes to total destruction of play, booting away balls in an effort to steady the game. They were helped by Kearney pulling his achilles tendon ironically as he was avoiding a hard challenge, but the American waved off
Joe Stern who was limbering up in anticipation.
Grilled had one other good chance in the first half as erstwhile defensive midfielder
Shen Kek-Tjiang looked to start a scoring habit, but his rawness in this department told as he didn't even try to feint Yusuf in a one-on-one, allowing him to clear his lines.
YoungGuns held up the game successfully with their defence looking more and more convincing as the game wore on, with Hjortlind too eager to score. The quality of Zhan King-Wah shone through on the left, but without any support worth the name and a determined Rottman, he failed to make a concrete impact. It was left to the seasoned Erik Bengtsson to prod at the Grilled backline whenever he could, and he chose just the right second to break Grilled's offside trap and get a consolation goal.
Dewilde could have gotten another goal from a dead ball as his effort was an inch high, coming off the bottom of the crossbar. Hjortlind finally got booked in the 76th minute in his eagerness to hold Burguete off the ball. That did dampen his ardour for the remainder of the game, which ended 4-1.
