Bear Beating
Rijnders Roar
Grilled Birds sank to their first defeat in fourteen games, friendly or competitive, as a reserve team without Siu-Yue was taken to the cleaners by a confident Ural Bears. The Russian side were more physical than most of Grilled's players could take, and the direction of play was shown when $1.2 million-rated Riny Rijnders of the Netherlands scored on his first foray into the Grilled half.
He showed Pakpao a clean pair of heels before outpacing Tuan-Mu to his own knock-on.
Frank Öhmo was in two minds whether to rush out, but Rijnders made the point moot when he picked out the corner of the goal. As a team, Grilled's men were more slight than their European counterparts, and lost most of their challenges. English sweeper Gerald Hughes brought down Chiew-Yen hard and got booked, but a few minutes later put his height to good use as he buried Estonian youngster Karl Angerjas's passable cross into goal over the top of bin Che Lah.
Midfield hard man Magnus E. Larsson showed his displeasure when he got a verbal warning for a questionable tackle soon after, and had his punishment increased to an official caution.
Frank Öhmo showed why he is one of the premier veteran keepers plying his trade in Singapore when he made a save off Erik Trubin that would have made a younger man proud.
Grilled showed some character as Rottman and Stanton started a mini-revival, but were beaten back easily. Pakpao made a hard task nigh-impossible when he pressed his head into Trubin over a disagreement, totally unacceptable behaviour which got the beleaguered Thai sent off.
Grilled were more organised in the second half as Stanton took on the role of big brother to the juniors, producing solid if unspectacular play which kept the game in check. Grilled's
Joe Stern bamboozled Hughes for a moment in the 59th minute, and as Hughes and Pettersson both went for him sidled to the left and played Chiew-Yen clean through. Chiew-Yen did not disappoint, beating American goalkeeper Ivan Eastman with aplomb.
Grilled's defence was badly stretched against a three-pronged attack from the Bears, and
Nor Suhaimi bin Che Lah got booked in a hopeless situation when he was up against two men. Bear's third striker got his turn in the sun when he simply dashed straight through the undermanned defence, hitting the ball cleanly with his left foot to give Öhmo no chance at all.
The Bears slowed the game down as both sides saved their strength, but with only ten men Grilled were always vulnerable and Larsson gave no chances when he got the ball in front of goal after a magnificent run from Rijnders down the left. Bears got their third booking of the match when defender Kenneth Pettersson took Stern down, on hindsight a reasonable move as the Canadian was preparing to pull away.
As the game wound to an end, ill fate struck again as
Nor Suhaimi bin Che Lah pulled up suddenly seconds after being kicked accidentally on his overworked hamstrings. It was soon clear that he could not last the final minutes, and
Weng Seng-Huat was given a run-out to prevent the Birds from playing with just nine men.
