Vishnu Ascendant
Weitzer At The Double
Grilled remained mired in a rut, and two-time Sri Lankan cupwinners ER Vishnu were somewhat more than they could handle, in their diminished state. There was only ever one team that looked like triumphing in this Hattrick Elite Tournament clash of the Ceylonese and Singaporean league leaders, and it was a shame that the Birds were unable to run their foes closer.
For once, Grilled were arguably not favoured in midfield, with Vishnu's trio of Ion Zamfirache, Xavier Guillotte and Sören Ränzelgasse rated as a match for anything they could put out. Scoring against Cape Verde goalkeeper Isidro Ferreira was always going to be a chore too, and while already 34 years old, the evergreen Ferreira has only improved since his younger days, and is now a contender for a spot in his national team.
The defining relationship of the game would be Romanian centreback Iulian Stanciu being assigned to man-mark
Vikram Mudaliar, a task that he went about exceedingly diligently. While it might have been imagined that this would make switch-ups possible, fullbacks Guilera and Mazziotta were more than educated in the intricacies of such an arrangement, and neither
Moey Xin Seng nor
Kalki Parvathaneni were able to make much headway inwards, despite frequently trying to bring Mudaliar into the picture.
Unlike some of Grilled's recent conquerors, Vishnu were happy to press the Birds under their own initiative, and they were quite excellent at it too; they would exemplify what the 3-5-2 could achieve under near-ideal conditions, and Grilled were done in at their own game of crowding the middle; after a series of pretty triangles, Guillotte poked it through for Philipp Weitzer in the 29th minute, and the Austrian forward gleefully whipped it around
Massoud Dob.
That goal swung the game behind Vishnu, and it was all the Birds could do, to fend them off at this stage.
Gilbert Webb might have won his starting spot back from Jeftić, but from the looks of it, the team's defensive issues went much deeper than that. Webb did well to trade Ejgil Rokstad's incursion for a corner, but nobody contested Sören Ränzelgasse when it went short, and the German flicked it in a practised manner back for a waiting Weitzer to drive home.
It wouldn't get better either, as a rare response from the Birds only dug them deeper in the hole.
Moey Xin Seng, playing right forward, floated a first-class cross for
Salah Kamel, who alas glanced it inches wide. The goal-kick was taken in a blink, and Greek wide midfielder Haris Toulikas was now free to slide it across for Vishnu's advancing bank of attackers, with the ball eventually falling for Ion Zamfirache to finish at the back post.
Being 0-3 down at half-time did very little for Grilled's battered self-belief, although they did continue to improve. They were closer to their previous selves when they made it a priority to retain possession, and wound up creating a great opening for
Chu Xin Lee in the 64th minute. Ferreira stopped it, however, and Vishu were again impeccable on the break, with Ejgil Rokstad upping their lead to four goals.
Eren Serpin had seen enough, and he would present new signing
Teo Chuan Yong with another chance to prove himself with twenty minutes to go, replacing a largely-ineffective
Bilal Mohammad Harun. That did seem to be the shot up the arm that the Birds were crying out for, and they would have their consolation goal some five minutes later. Chu bent one into the penalty area for Moey, who rose majestically over Mazziotta to nod an expert header beyond Ferreira.
That brought a couple more shots on targets from the Grilled set in quick order, but Ferreira would not be cowed by either Chan's or Kalki's aggressive approaches. Indeed, they might even have punished the latter, but
Massoud Dob was likewise unflappable against Sören Ränzelgasse's awesome curler to his top corner.
