Stratton Stumped
No Problems There
Grilled Birds wiped the floor with English H.I. side Stratton, who thus exit the tournament with twenty-four goals scored against them, and none for; in this, the Birds were merely average, contributing eight of those.
Stratton might have won their last eleven competitive matches, and a perfect record of 39 points and a +101 goal difference in their VI.199 league, but this availed them not against a tetchy Grilled selection. Back-to-back defeats against first Kim Tae Hee FC and then Playboys Us hadn't gone down well with many of the players; Noubaryan did make a couple of changes though, shifting
Bernie Egan into the forward line, and handing reserve goalie
Eren Serpin a start.
Serpin wouldn't answer many questions about his ability today, though, as he didn't have a single real save to make. Stratton had been beaten 0-9 and 0-7 by the Playboys teams, and Grilled would get the same treatment. To be generous, they had some up-and-comers - such as 20 year-old Swedish centre forward Östen Österhult - but none where it might have made a difference.
Chu Xin Lee might have endured some low points in recent weeks, but found that he didn't need to be in tip-top condition to find the net here. He would score two goals in the first half running onto the ball in space, which was matched by two insistent headers by fellow midfielder
Moey Xin Seng.
Chan Ze Han flubbed his 41st minute shot in contrast, a rare occurrence for the gifted lad.
Moey's hat-trick hopes would be lost with his replacement by
Islom Davlatov at half-time, and the Uzbek's first act would be to power a header at Stratton keeper Bill Billson from a corner. Billson probably couldn't be faulted too much for dropping that one, having been afforded little protection by his defence, and
Florus Romijn shouldered his way past the ball-watching Agostino Agosti for the fifth goal.
Stratton tried to improve their fortunes by introducing the doubly-named Aurangzeb Aurangzeb for Tymon Tyabin in defence at that, but that surely didn't have the intended effect, as Aurangzeb duly conceded a penalty for obstruction, that Künzler hammered home. Two more subs were made before a busy five minute period, in which Künzler and Nakakita missed good chances that were then taken up by Muthyala and Chan respectively.
