Gutted Thoroughly
Sørensen Distinguished
Grilled hogged possession but wound up well-beaten by Norwegian Division Four visitors gtguttene in today's friendly at The Pot, as their young-and-learning midfield was given a valuable object lesson in the value of proper ball usage. Much of it was down to the 32 year-old Johnny Holtenborn, who entered after half an hour, and promptly went on to show just what the game had been missing.
gtguttene hadn't had too much luck in their recent friendlies, having lost their last five straight, while hanging solidly in mid-table in their league. With Lebanese forward Haydar Rihani having just left after six weeks, likely due to wage concerns, things were not quite going right for the Norwegians.
And indeed, they displayed little enough endeavour from the kick-off, which saw Grilled's juniors far more worked-up.
Moey Xin Seng and
Kalki Parvathaneni, playing only his second senior match, were all over their opponents from the opening whistle, and had Cape Verde defender Leonardo Lino scrambling to undo their damage.
This flurry of activity had to bring about something sooner or later, and Parvathaneni made the first serious attempt on the opposition goal in the fifth minute; Wilhelm Bentsen appeared to be in trouble after a clever dink by
Zhao Jing Wei found Parvathaneni as several possible targets scattered about gtguttene's area, but the teenager didn't realise how much time he had, and struck an off-balance first-time shot that nevertheless skimmed just inches wide.
The visitors continued to be in trouble, but held out thanks to a combination of intelligent defending, and exceptional shot-stopping by Bentsen on the few occasions that a Grilled player got through. They would find salvation when former Ugandan international David Balam had to go off after striking his kneecap against Moey's heel, as this allowed Holtenborn in to set them straight.
Pulling on the armband, Holtenborn instantly demonstrated an air of intent that Balam never quite possessed, and the gtguttene frontline suddenly found themselves with some service, albeit intermittent.
They had to survive a fierce
Leong Wan Kang drive, again through Bentsen's magic hands, but then took the lead - exhibiting a knack for terribly quick thinking, Holtenborn wriggled past several coming up the middle, before clipping a lob behind
Rashid bin Ahmad. Svein Hansen was the only one who saw that coming, and raced in to knock it past
Dan Seng, who was noticeably slow coming off his line.
The second half began with
Rinor Isufi clearly not his usual self, as he looked downright sluggish going up against Daniel Hestvik, who would blow by the Albanian as if he weren't there on a 50th minute counter. No-one on the Grilled team quite knew what to do as Hestvik bore down on goal, and after a fortunate bounce following a half-baked challenge, he would slam it in against the near post for 2-0.
The Grilled bench appeared more concerned at Isufi's condition than the score at this point, and the Birds would concede another with Isufi retching on the sidelines. Playing on as was their right to, gtguttene needed no invitation to attack Grilled's abandoned flank, and Hestvik opted to center it this time; aptly-named teenaged striker Tor Hammer went for power over control when it arrived, but it didn't much matter given it was only ten feet out.
Although there was nothing riding on the result, the younger Grilled guys were still riled at being so far behind on a supposedly-dominant performance.
Hariharan Prabhu vented by cutting down Sverre Grøn as the youngster tried to skip by him on the inside, and referee Angus Garvey had to deliberate before letting Prabhu off with a yellow.
It didn't get any better, all the more as their earlier energy expenditure caught up with them, and
Neeraj Muthyala was caught out of gas when the nippy Øyvind Sørensen snuck up in the 73rd minute. A tired and ill-advised stepover was embarassingly foreseen by Sørensen, who then exchanged a one-two with Georg Vigerust to elude
Rashid bin Ahmad, before making it four.
With how it was going,
Gennady Dvorak didn't look at all displeased to hit the showers early; the few remaining Grilled faithful did find enough in them to give the incoming
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim a rousing welcome. Sadly, it was soon apparent that the Grilled legend had lost more than a foot of pace, although he did manage to create an opening for Isufi soon after coming on... which was hit straight at Bentsen.
There would be much concern when Sørensen went in heavily on
Kalki Parvathaneni as the game wound to an end, which saw the Grilled newcomer roll several metres in agony. Fortunately, there was no lasting damage, either to Parvathaneni or to gtguttene's numbers, as Sørensen too escaped with a booking.
