Maltanesi Marooned
Chu Checked In
The latest Division Battle game saw a Birds team still riding their highs of their cup final victory put Borussia Maltanesi away. The Maltese II.4 side have finished runners-up thrice in a row in their league, but have been enduring a rocky season thus far, not aided by the sale of their homegrown icon and former national U-20 midfielder, Edward Cardona. This did however allow them to recruit former Brunei international Pan Kunxiang, who started at leftback today, as well as Finnish veteran defender Markus Nikula, who captained the team.
Borussia Maltanesi's emphasis on their backline would probably detract somewhat from their attacking potential, but Grilled couldn't have known that early on, as Simon Grech got a golden opportunity to get them ahead in only the fourth minute, after a marauding run from their English Number Ten, Clayton Clifton-Everest.
Massoud Dob incredibly saw it coming, though, and scooped it across his own goalmouth and out, nearly causing
Bhavya Panigrahi to concede an own goal in the process.
The Birds started to crank out an edge in midfield following that scare, and their supply was put to good use by
Chu Xin Lee in particular, who was positively brimming with inspiration. Maltanesi had been defending very sensibly with Pan and Michael Palata dealing with Grilled's wide threats, but were nevertheless caught out in the 13th minute, after
Bernie Egan squared it to Chu. Chu seemed to be tightly marked by Barbados legend Richie Julien as well as Grech, but he somehow found his way between to duo, to thread it to Kévin Seban's far bottom corner.
Now up by that moment of genius, Grilled continued pushing hard, and it was Seban's turn to flaunt his goalkeeping skills, when he denied
Bilal Mohammad Harun with a one-handed stop in the 18th minute. The custodians were fast becoming the main attractions here, as Maltanesi managed to set up some fairly good openings through calculated application of their forces. Julien fooled nearly everyone with his reversal of a free-kick in the 26th, but the angle eventually became too tight for Michael Palata.
Grilled would extend their lead in the first half, and it was again Bilal who made the attempt. This was not however one of his signature piledrivers from distance, though; instead, the midfielder had made himself useful, coasting in front of Seban right as
Cyril Künzler squeezed a past in, and he would have to survive a video assistant referee's check before offside was ruled out.
For the second half, Grilled withdrew a slightly lackluster
Bernie Egan for
Kalki Parvathaneni, who immediately went into overdrive. Kalki was certainly bursting with unspent energy, if not moderation, and he would be justly carded for bowling Nikula over from behind, in the 67th minute. By then, however, the Birds were already 3-0 up, with
Moey Xin Seng just about beating Seban by skimming a volley into and off the ground.
Chan Ze Han eventually came on as a late substitute for
Chu Xin Lee, as he had done to great effect in the finals just a couple of days ago, although there would be no direct returns on this occasion. Not that there wasn't any action, with Clifton-Everest passing up a likely consolation from an uncontested header with four minutes remaining, and Julien then getting booked for holding
Vikram Mudaliar. This developed into a corner that
Gilbert Webb nodded on to
Neeraj Muthyala at the back post, but there would be no goal as the Number Four wasn't expecting it.
