Cards, Turns, Flop
Doug Sees Red
Scenes at Ang Moh Arena as their first league meeting with the Birds turned out a right banger, though they did improve on the 2-7 sustained in the Emerald Challenger Cup semifinals last season. It was also
Chan Ze Han's 300th appearance for Grilled, and while he didn't score, he would be the team's best player as they made to stay atop the league table.
The Ang Mohs would make five changes from that first encounter, among them Argentine midfielder and club captain Jonathan Federico Rivas, who had stayed on the bench that fateful day. His tenure would be as explosive as it was short, as he carried the ball stylishly to the edge of the penalty area, before setting it up for young Italian striker Vincenzo Arosio. The cost, however, would be getting his ankle accidentally stamped by
Douglas Carapaica as he released the final pass, for which he would have to be replaced by Samuel Felix Schütte in just the third minute.
The home fans were definitely not pleased that Douglas had managed to stay on after what was admittedly a rash act, although referee Franck Cardon may have taken his getting a brush on the ball into account. Either way, the match carried on with Grilled easing into the ascendancy, and yes, it would be
Moey Xin Seng to score again, his eighth in the league already. The attacking midfielder position seemed tailor-made for him, as he saved his surges for when they would be most effective, and rifled home in the 14th minute after the defence made the mistake of opening a gap in front of him.
There would be more complaints and booing from the stands, as another of their players got clattered in the 21st minute, with Amani Mokhtar elbowed in the chest as he tangled with
Gilbert Webb to a through pass. The homegrown Number Ten refused to make a meal of it, however, and the Ang Mohs would enjoy going ahead again in the 27th, after a Kalki-Mudaliar partnership went awry at the end. Schütte had been very active since coming on, and after countryman Haiko Ascher made headway down the right, the veteran midfielder would invite the pass for a good finish from the middle of the box.
Cardon's popularity would take a further dive as he went on to make a couple of controversial decisions, that swung the match in Grilled's favour. First up was his booking of Carmelo Virtuani after 32 minutes, as the lad went over after light contact by Webb. This would probably have just been ignored by most referees at worst, but Cardon would reserve a yellow here for Virtuani.
Worse, the quick restart had
Kalki Parvathaneni sneak through to equalize at the other end, and Norwegian winger Kurt Zacho was particularly incensed, having stopped to contest what he felt was an iron-clad shout for a free-kick, for the earlier incident. The discontent would finally be unwisely released in quite purposefully bumping
Salah Kamel over as the latter shielded the ball out, and there was nothing for it but to send Zacho off - not that the Ang Mohs support wouldn't take it as further evidence that the referee was biased against them.
The rest of the half would be uneventful, but if anybody thought that the match would peter out tamely, they would be mistaken. The heat was back on, and if anything raised, after the Ang Moh Arena's Public Enemy Number One
Douglas Carapaica broke through on the right side, as the Birds built up from kick-off. Douglas' cheeky tongue out - even if directed towards the visiting section - served only to further incense the crowd, and it was probably just as well that it hadn't been caught on camera.
If temperatures were running high amongst the some fifty thousand home fans, however, it did little to boost their team on the ground, and might even have contributed to some tactical overreaches as Grilled continued to direct the game. Goalkeeper Nani Rosário would pick the ball out of his net a fourth time in the 63rd minute, after
Kalki Parvathaneni shamed Darius Ionescu with his speed, and
Teo Chuan Yong's outrageous thirty-yarder flashing just wide would finally raise alarm bells for real. Ascher, who had replaced Rivas as captain but contributed less than expected, would be off, and the armband would go to Schütte, with Laurin Étienne Zrost replacing Ascher in turn.
Not that it moderated passions, with Teo booked immediately after the stoppage, for trying too hard to regain possession immediately with a telegraphed tackle on Naim Öztan from behind. The mob would finally be mollified to an extent when
Douglas Carapaica got sent off for a second yellow card some seven minutes later, and frankly given the circumstances, this might have been for the best - for Grilled as well.
The focus would finally be back on the football at ten on ten, and in that respect the Birds were not about to let themselves get beat.
Gilbert Webb would have Moey and Teo drop back very responsibly to help out, and the defender would do his bit, by dropping a free-kick in just under the crossbar, from just right of centre in front of the penalty area. That had Bakhtiar feel secure enough to make a double sub of Chu and Kannan on for Mudaliar and Kamel, with Teo then drawing a big block by Rosário.
