Palta Dispossessed
Vikram Flourish
Chilean II.2 frontrunners Palta Hass didn't make it easy for the Birds, who toiled for an hour making barely any headway against Lautaro Jimenez's impressively-solid 4-5-1 system. Helmed by beloved one-club-man leftback Alamiro Ilabaca, and bolstered by his longtime right-sided international counterpart Roldán Thomson and ex-Liechtenstein U-20 midfielder Ulf Banzer, Palta Hass made for a very compact unit, that could burst out of defence with a fearsome explosiveness.
Their opening goal would lend little of that, though, as they managed to control the direction of the match early on, by keeping the ball going along the sidelines. Grilled's wide men were not particularly eager to close down in that area, which would be their downfall as Ilabaca overlapped Indian winger Sumanth Methukupally essentially unopposed, in the seventh minute. Methukupally wasted no time in positioning himself for the return cross, and indeed stabbed it past
Massoud Dob with a disarming simplicity.
The first half-hour basically belonged to the Chileans, as Grilled were at a loss on how best to manage this behaviour of Palta Hass, with their players generally more than technically-competent enough to handle individual pressing. Erhard Reiners would draw a stupendous save from Dob off his diving header in the 15th, and it hardly improved for the Birds after that, with them being fortunate that Josías Zerega shot wide after a very promising counterattack straight down the right side.
Grilled were at least starting to get themselves involved inside the opposition box, and
Bilal Mohammad Harun would have his brutal effort painfully blocked by Mónico Huenchumán next. This fed into a literal end-to-end exchange, with Methukupally again going for goal, but with Dob more than prepared on this occasion. The Birds then came back with a breakaway of their own, but
Moey Xin Seng's touch failed him, on
Salah Kamel's urgent cross bent in behind from deep.
Hovaness Noubaryan's response was to switch a striving but not overly-effective
Chan Ze Han out for
Vikram Mudaliar's raw speed at half-time, and it soon looked like he had read the situation properly. That extra edge to Mudaliar's movement would make Palta Hass' defence appear slightly vulnerable for once, and Moey would drill a grounder in the 55th minute that would have gone in, had Arístides Daudet not stationed himself at the post. Grilled's equalizer would finally arrive after seven more minutes of trying, as
Kalle ter Berg's shot was one too many for Dominik Szymuła to react to.
Palta Hass would not be shaken, however, and they would go straight back in front, as Grilled pressed their point perhaps slightly too excitedly.
Vikram Mudaliar should probably have laid it off after surging past two men on Grilled's next attack, but wound up getting isolated on the periphery; Ilabaca stepped in with the tackle, and a few expansive passes later, Ulf Banzer would be wheeling away in celebration at angling a perfect finish past
Massoud Dob from the right.
However, Grilled were really beginning to enter their own, as Mudaliar's speed dimension stretched the tiring Palta Hass backline every this way and that. Their previous indominatibility was wearing thin, with avoidable mistakes beginning to pop up, and
Moey Xin Seng would test the waters by ramming it from outside the box. While a fair effort, he wasn't about to beat Szymuła from that range... at least until a distracted Daudet stuck a boot out, and sent it past the waiting goalkeeper. Moey would be credited with the goal despite that, after his overt claim.
A draw might have been a reasonable approximation of how the proceedings had gone, but with the final twenty minutes swinging their way, Grilled weren't about to settle just yet. Their industry would lead Palta Hass into foul trouble, with Reiners and Billaud being booked one after the other for bad challenges, and a thriving Mudaliar would then zoom through for the winner that he had been building up to.