One Trophy
Heavy Price
Grilled lifted the trophy for the fifth edition of the Insane Hard World Cup, handily seeing off the fourth edition victors, Les piments verts of France, six goals to three on a dreamy New Year's Eve in Switzerland. It was a hopeful end of the year for Grilled, after a troubling season, and as their players lifted the friendly silverware their desire was quite evident.
Grilled took the final quire seriously, and their side consisted of their first-choice goalie and five outfielders. Key among them was
Subri bin Ku Zainol, whose experience really told as he pounced onto the pall after correctly predicting a ball across the defence. Veteran American goalkeeper Sam Rutherford tried to bail his defenders out, but got his hand up too late to stop Subri's chip.
The Birds appeared to cruise along after
Tapesh Chowdhury crossed simply for
Ciro Penati to tuck home, and were rudely awakened as cheeky Italian youngster Silverio Balzani pickpocketed Zoltan Árva when the defender's back was turned. It was an elementary mistake that the Hungarian should be ashamed of, as Valdir loudly reminded him after failing to block Balzani from scoring.
piments might have been better off without that goal, though, as Grilled entered all-out offensive mode, which brought them an additional three goals before the break, through Spirig, Subri again and Mohd Firdaus. Penati came close too, as did the visitors' Vili Bogolin, who should have at least tested Valdir after a fast break. Balzani was up to his tricks again in first half injury time, but this time he went about it rather too forcefully, and tripped up
Sándor Deme to earn himself a booking.
Subri notched his hat-trick in due time, but Grilled were soon to pay the price for their seriousness. Branbilla, who had orchestrated the midfield for Grilled, stayed down after a run-fo-the-mill tackle and couldn't get up.
Lan Tuan-Mu came in as an emergency midfield substitute, and piments swiftly pulled a goal back as Víctor Arandojo met Bogolin's skimming cross with a controlled lunge.
As Grilled tried to reorganize themselves, piments scored again, this time through Irish forward Elvis Cusack, who cut a regal figure as he split Grilled's backpedalling central defence and delivered the ball into the roof of the net. Subri attempted to answer, but ended up slamming his face into an opponent's elbow. With the Malaysian unable to continue too, Grilled defended with Hjortlind in his place, and managed to survive without further incident.
