Guayaquil Gunning
Second Team Blasted
The very friendly exhibition match at CF Guayaquil's invitation drew nearly seven thousand to their Chimborazo Arena, though the spectators appeared slightly disappointed at Swiss boy
Lorenz Paullin's absence from the squad.
Dani Spirig expectedly received the loudest applause of the visiting players, as Grilled surrounded the quality midfield trio of Spirig, Han Kok and Jie Siong with less heralded players.
Grilled's reserves didn't put up much of a fight against the sprightly Division Five club's men, whom were clad in a rather confusing technicolour strip of red, yellow and blue. Tuan-Mu certainly looked dazzled when the strong centre forward Santi Sabata gave him the slip in the ninth minute, with Bao-Tam having no chance at stopping his hard-rammed grounder.
It was a field day for Guayaquil's attackers as Grilled's pensionable backline simply did not have the energy to track their movements, and Hungarian winger Erik Nadzon scored what must have been one of the easier goals of his career when Grilled's synchronised appeals for offside were pointedly ignored by the linesman. Local defender William Neurauter followed up with a decent strike to make it three for the home team.
Sections of the very good-natured home crowd were by now cheering the Birds' efforts on, and there was sportsmanlike clapping when Mirchev strolled onto a long pass down the right channel and clipped a stylish lob over young Brazillian goalie Rinaldo de Assis, who cost Guayaquil a respectable $4.4 million.
After a rather strange yellow card for Nadzon, who sincerely appeared to have hoofed the ball away more by mistake on a soaking wet pitch, Grilled's Quah was similarly embarassed when his first attempt to take the free-kick resulted in him landing on his back. Certainly the conditions did not bode well for his technical abilities, and were more suited to the likes of Thielers' direct thumping header a few minutes later. That was palmed over by Bao-Tam, though.
The second half also belonged mainly to the home side, with Sabata particularly active as he knew he had the beating of any of Grilled's defenders. With the match threatening to slip into plain boredom, Gil Elvas livened things up with a frighteningly fast shot from afar that Bao-Tam only just managed to punch back. There was then a roar of approval as Spirig was first to Bao-Tam's counterattacking punt down the field, and the Swiss took just one touch before lifting it over Rinaldo to make it 3-2.
The game was still very much in the hosts' hands, and indeed Romanian midfielder Petre Brânzan earned them their two goal advantage back, thanks to a very static Grilled backline. Felix Zeytuni probably meant to kick the ball away when he earned the game's second and last caution, but that bit of petulance did nothing to mar the great atmosphere in which the friendly was played.
