Cabine Drawn
Caryl Prospect
It would be a draw for Grilled Birds in the World Battle tournament this week, as they were held 2-2 by Northern Irish II.1 club Cabine Zone. The two-time Northern Ireland Consolation Cup winners gave Grilled headaches aplenty with their take-no-chances 4-5-1 formation, and the contest would stay on tenterhooks right until the very end.
Cabine Zone certainly had the credentials to bother the Birds: aparti from former Omani youth international Saif Raed Al-Fazary in the middle, 26 year-old hometown darling Kevin Caryl had been identified as a possible recruit of the Green and White Army in the near future, with his academy senior Oscar Coyle one of the top defensive stoppers in the land. At the back, the local duo of Quincy Deng and Vernon Bracher provided professional cover for Turkish goalie Renan Teren, with team captain Paul Mack still very inspirational, if mildly slowing.
Grilled for their part would start
Kalle ter Berg and
Salah Kamel alongside
Chan Ze Han in the middle, with the latter taking on skipper's duties for today. The Webb-Jeftić partnership would again be given a run-out, and
Wu Jinglong - whom the fans couldn't quite get enough of - featured at right wing once again.
It would quickly become clear that this wouldn't be an easy game from any perspective, as Cabine immediately withdrew into a compact counterattacking stance. The first few minutes generally hinted at how Grilled would fare against such a tack, and from how their attacks were repelled without too much fanfare, they were always going to have it tough. Even more suggestively, it would be the Northern Irish who managed the first real shot at goal, as Mack chased down a long pass in the 16th minute, and sent a respectable effort within a couple of yards.
The Birds were waiting for errors, and they might have thought that they had finally found one, when Coyle lost
Chan Ze Han in the 22th minute. Chan would blaze onwards and to the outside of Bracher, only to hit his lob too high. Teren wasted no time in sending the goal kick long for a breaking Grzegorz Sitnik, and Cabine duly demostrated that one didn't have to keep the ball for very long at all to be effective, as the Polish wingman's cross was met by Mack's perfect glancing header.
Being ahead only further encouraged Cabine's conservative approach, and it was looking to be an extremely long day ahead for Grilled. They did have time on their side for now, and the assured interplay in midfield, particularly between Ter Berg and Kamel, would calm their spirits somewhat. Still, there would be precious little progress, and it would take a flash of wizardry by
Wu Jinglong to level the match. Many seemed to have forgotten what the former Chinese youth international could do with his right foot if given space, but Teren surely won't forget how he bent a humdinger into the top corner, anytime soon.
Grilled's celebrations would be cut short, however, as Cabine answered straight from the restart. This could hardly be seen as anything other than an unforced error from
Massoud Dob, who had no business being as far off his line as he was, when Benjamin Hudson came forward as part of a packed advance. All he had to do was to get the weight right on the ball, which he did.
The Birds would endure fifteen minutes with few inroads made, for the second half, before
Eren Serpin made his changed: Wu and Jeftić were off, and Muthyala and Panigrahi in. This would quickly look like an inspired move by the head coach, as Muthyala's fresh legs took some getting used to, by Stephan Bebb on their left; within six minutes, both Kamel and Ter Berg had worked their way into excellent shooting positions, only to fail at the last hurdle.
Emboldened by those close shaves, Grilled's attacks would eventually come to a head in the 74th minute - but not before a hair-raising exchange. It began with
Moey Xin Seng seemingly clear on through the keeper, only to be denied by a last-ditch Quincy Deng tackle. Paul Mack was waiting for the counter, but was himself outmuscled at the critical juncture by Webb. The action was back in Cabine's danger zone within seconds, with a free-kick awarded for a calculated foul against
Kalki Parvathaneni, and
Chu Xin Lee got on the end of
that to tie it up again.
It remained entirely unclear as to which of the teams would take it home, and the final answer was: neither.
Chan Ze Han demonstrated his usual killer instinct to go for a chip in the 78th, but was slightly off-target. Stephan Bebb came even closer on the response as he rocked the crossbar, which had Serpin spend his last substitution on
Bilal Mohammad Harun, to shore Grilled's defenses up. There seemed a slim chance that the Birds would steal it in injury time, but Cabine just wouldn't open up, and Panigrahi was reduced to firing from forty yards as the referee made to end the match.
