Valjean 3 - 4 Grilled
A brilliantly sunny day had enticed a crowd of 7462 to
Jean Valjean United Arena.
Kent-Jesus Mellholt was the appointed referee with assistance provided by
Magnus Pettersson and
Thorleif Khan. For some players the sunny weather was bad news. It made Powerful and Quick players a bit sluggish. For Technical players, it was instead an advantage, allowing them to shine on the pitch. They fielded:
Cuerla -
Nystedt,
Kremer,
Ruhala -
Austbø,
Grustán,
Rychlica,
Friis,
Nilooban -
Kalelov,
Bäckvall.
The following players had been chosen:
Serpin -
奥谷 (Okuya),
Abdul Majid,
Tarin -
Parvathaneni,
Mudaliar,
Xin Seng,
Ze Han,
Davlatov -
Mottl,
Velho.
As the teams prepared to start the match, they both lined up in a 3-5-2 formation. Grilled seemed to prefer attacking in the middle, taking advantage of their divine level with that tactic. The visitors could have taken the lead from a free kick after 4 minutes, if it wasn't for the jaw-dropping save by
Jesús Cuerla.
Vikram Mudaliar had a good try after 21 minutes, coming in on a fine move from the left, but the ball went wide. The visitors' central defence should have had no trouble clearing the pass to
Stephen Friis, but the Valjean player managed to shrug them off and fired a low shot past the keeper to give his team the lead. 1 - 0! The opposing supporters gave the referee an earful when he only gave
Chatpangon Nilooban from Valjean a yellow card after a mistimed challenge from behind 29 minutes into the game. That was far too lenient! Grilled players heard their coach's words ringing in their ears and steered their wing attacks to the middle instead. The visitors kept the pressure on to tie the game when, after 36 minutes,
Vikram Mudaliar broke through the centre and found himself alone with the keeper.
Jesús Cuerla made a great block, though. Valjean put themselves up 2 - 0 when
Ole Jacob Austbø broke through on the right, leaving the entire defence trailing in his wake. Grilled were desperate to get a goal back and pushed forward through the middle 41 minutes into the game. After a scramble in the box, the ball dropped to
José Luiz Velho, who smashed it home to make the score 2 - 1. Halftime score was 2 - 1. Grilled claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 56 percent.
46 minutes into the match, the referee signalled for a Grilled substitution.
Bernie Egan came on for
Islom Davlatov. The home team will be cursing
José Luiz Velho for weeks; he finished off a great pass from the left, knocking it past the keeper without a problem. The match was level at 2 - 2 after 52 minutes.
Moey Xin Seng came close to putting the visiting team one up 57 minutes into the match, following a solo raid down the middle, but
Jesús Cuerla managed to tip the ball to a corner.
Johannes Bäckvall caused the crowd to go mental with his goal up the middle after 63 minutes. This gave Valjean the 3 - 2 lead. After 67 minutes, the visitors levelled the scores after
Prokop Mottl made it through the middle and struck home to make it 3 - 3.
Mohd Jafni Abdul Majid would have preferred to play on, but his coach decided otherwise.
Dante Tran entered the game for Grilled as the match clock showed 70 minutes. Grilled's
Jérémy Tarin managed to lose the defenders as he advanced down the right wing and scored, putting the visitors ahead after 71 minutes. 3 - 4. 80 minutes into the game, Grilled wanted to bring some new energy to their game.
Prokop Mottl gave
Leonard Nguyen a quick hug as he left the field. It was announced by the referee that he estimated stoppage time to be around 3 minutes. This meant there could still be an extra attack or two left in the match! The match ends 3 - 4. Possession in this half belonged to Grilled, who controlled the ball 55 percent of the time.
Valjean's top performer was clearly
Francho Grustán.
Chatpangon Nilooban was a disappointment, however.
Moey Xin Seng performed admirably for Grilled.
Eren Serpin on the other hand, had a terrible day.