Lions Deviousness
Vikram Gets Serious
Grilled Birds might have lost 2-5 to the Al Amiri League's Excalibur Lions in a friendly last season, but with more on the table under the World Battle tournament banner, the Birds would come good against the Dubai club - or so it seemed.
Vikram Mudaliar, who had been largely helpless as captain in that previous meeting, would find the net twice to lead Grilled to the points today... until injury time came.
While both sides made a number of changes over their squads for that day, the Lions' inclusion of new Slovakian Number Eight Alex Csákány, not to mention 22 year-old Bolivian former youth international Iván Yamunaque, could hardly be claimed to have weakened their team. In contrast, there would be no
Toma Tamiya,
Radovan Jaška or
Yuta Nakakita this time, as a measure of national pride was at stake here.
Chan Ze Han resumed the captaincy, with
Gilbert Webb rested in defence.
Excalibur Lions moved from a 4-4-2 to a 4-5-1 as they again sought to pick the Birds apart on the counter, and given their record on this, it was hard to imagine why they wouldn't try. The burden of scoring then fell on target man Valentino Arvanitis, who spent most of the early going attempting to discourage Panigrahi and Jeftić from sticking close by. That would however be mostly a sideshow, as Grilled kept their minds on feeding
Vikram Mudaliar, and the striker would have to score eventually, with such constant service.
It was thus one-nil in the 22nd minute as Mudaliar swept Chan's poke-through home, and the Lions were for the most part kept occupied simply preventing further goals. Grilled continued crowding it in the centre, and it took a fantastic stop by Bruno Giordanengo, to deny
Bernie Egan's snap take on the half-hour. They survived the ensuing free-kick as Cristian Delcea was booked trying to get the ball away, and there seemed no telling how much longer the Lions could stretch it.
And all of a sudden, they were back level. Defence would again prove Grilled's Achilles heel, not helped by their defenders having had next to nothing to do for some minutes, and Arvanitis would rudely remind them of the importance of maintaining focus. There appeared little danger in
Mateja Jeftić's backpass, but for Arvanitis' deceptive pace in chasing it, and
Jānis Salmiņš wasn't decisive enough in his clearance; it rebounded off the Italian forward, and just about eluded Salmiņš' chasing-down.
Well, Arvanitis wasn't about to pass up that goal, though Grilled did come very close to an instant answer through
Bilal Mohammad Harun, essentially straight from the kick-off. They were certainly deserving of being two ahead at least, but instead wound up going into the break behind, as the Lions sprang forward from Mudaliar's bar-shaving in the 42nd. The big goal kick was knocked down expertly by Arvanitis, and veteran Spaniard Fabián Berrocal caught Salmiņš slightly out of position.
This was certainly a bitter pill to swallow for Grilled, who to their credit came back out swinging with no loss of ardour. This had Egan equalize in the 49th minute as he came up with the goods despite Usman Abacha's attentions, and for a time there, it was only Giordanengo's heroics keeping the Lions in it. Observing Grilled's pressure tell, Serpin would put
Wu Jinglong and
Kalle ter Berg on for that change of pace in the last half an hour, and they delivered with
Vikram Mudaliar put through for 3-1, in the 71st.
And that was the story, or so Grilled thought, as their opponents limped tamely towards the final whistle. The ninetieth minute had just come, though, as Arvanitis again anticipated another lazy pass, from Bilal this time, and made it his business to stick it past Salmiņš once again. This drove the Birds into a frenzy to restore the win that was theirs, but it was instead Excalibur Lions who came out tops, as Mahram Loghmani nicked it all with the last kick of the game.
