Gioele Greetings
Side Shen
Grilled accepted an early offer from Italian Division Six team A.C.Gioele to visit them in Campania, and the two centre-biased teams duked it out on a rather dull Tuesday. Stanton replaced Ju-Hau from the last friendly, while defensive mainstay
Shen Kek-Tjiang found himself at left wing as the outstanding form of youngster
Au-Yong Siu-Yue forced matters in the league. Kek-Tjiang made a statement for himself as he buttressed a thin midfield, while Kolesov ran free and opened the scoring with a well-positioned shot past Belgian goalie Víctor Piñeriro.
Gioele's hopes were dealt a blow when influential midfielder Massimo Paone had to leave after an encounter with Rottman left him with a hurt shinbone. The Swedish Filip Persson came in, but he did not have quite the presence.
Joe Stern cemented his position as Grilled's third striker with a mercurial display of goal-poaching as he simply outpaced the defence for the second and third goals. Had Gioele not had the fast-running Karl Koefod at central defence, it could have been worse. In between,
Chen Chiew-Yen had a great opportunity to score too, but he missed an easy finish which did nothing for his confidence. Resigned to playing go-between, Chiew-Yen passed most balls coming to him thereafter.
Stern and Hobson had a little debate on who had dibs on the corner kick won in the 63rd minute. Stern won out, and Hobson retreated to the box. Stern's corner sailed well over Hobson to the back, and Thai defender
Nui Pakpao sprang up to knock a header goalwards. Piñeriro went down on his knees to smother the dropping header, but Kek-Tjiang was close by and mercilessly attacked the ball, sending it into the net.
Rottman's turn came in the 70th minute when Chiew-Yen picked him out from among a mass of players, and he duly aimed for the roof of the net. Piñeriro got his fingertips to it, and the ball came crashing off the underside of the bar and was cleared by Koefod. Chiew-Yen was not to go home empty-handed, and when Koefod was a little slack in shielding a rolling ball Chiew-Yen had little qualms about getting around him and putting the ball past Piñeriro at the near post for the finisher.
