Thor's Hammer
Scoreless For Once
Grilled's twelve match winning streak came to a grinding halt thanks to a fine showing by Thorocozzieq FC, who incidentally became the first club to hold Grilled to less than two goals this season. Second-half strikes by Italian defender William Pessina and local midfielder Mohd Atiq bin Ali settled the quarterfinal in Thorocozzieq's favour.
The stress of the season finally began to tell on Grilled's regulars, as weeks of playing two high-octane games with just three days of rest in between took its toll.
Dani Spirig looked dry out of ideas when he lofted a harebrained pass under pressure from the leftback position. American forward Stacey Canales met that with a thumping header, but Valdir saved his teammate's blushes by springing up to save.
The pendulum swung back Grilled's way as
Lee Jie Siong drifted inside from the right flank and set Rotteveel off on a race down the channel with a cheeky sidefooted pass. The Dutch striker expertly cut inside his market with a great first touch, but his finish left something to be desired as it clipped the outside of the far post on its way out of play.
The last clear chance of the first half fell to Thorocozzieq's Antonio David Antolínez, as Grilled found themselves undermanned on the right, allowing young American Chinese winger Xie Guangyun to take his time and size up the situation. He intelligently picked out onrushing Spanish striker Antonio David Antolínez with a layoff that Antolínez brought past Talib in one fluid movement, but when confronted with the looming figure of Valdir he lost his composure and badly overhit his chip.
The height in Thorocozzieq's squad began to pose unanswerable problems of Grilled's defence, and finally proved decisive when Lik-Tsun simply couldn't soar as high as William Pessina when the Italian defender flung himself at a inswinging corner. Valdir had come out early but was prevented from reaching the ball through the crowd, and could only watch as the ball flew past him into the back of the net.
Thorocozzieq intercepted the ball from the kick-off as the Grilled players showed signs of frustration at going behind, and the defence inexplicably parted as Canales ran at it with the ball. The invited shot came soon after just inside the penalty area, and although it whizzed over the crossbar it was apparent that Valdir was not happy at his centerbacks hanging him out to dry.
Grilled's hopes were extinguished when
Lee Jie Siong was sent off for the first time in his career, perhaps slightly undeservedly. Lee might have been a bit petulant with his push into the back of Berthold in mid-air, but Berthold had been backing into him perhaps illegally before that. The Dutch midfielder made the most of it as he collapsed like a dying swan, conning the referee into flashing a straight red card. The fact that Berthold was back on his feet before the medics arrived was hard on the travelling support.
The game was decided when Mohd Atiq bin Ali scored from another header as Thorocozzieq played to their strengths and bombarded the Grilled penalty area with an assortment of lobs, though Canales should really have put more gloss on the scoreline when he shrugged free of Sid in the 82nd minute to direct a precise shot at the bottom corner. Valdir just about maintained a lack flicker of hope with his magnificent diving save, but Grilled were in no position to mount serious attacks and bowed out in short order.
