Fifth In Fact
Not Fourth Or Sixth
Defeat at the champions meant that Grilled are safely ensconsced in fifth place, behind the Warriors in fourth by five points, and ahead of L1verpool in sixth by four, with just one last match remaining. The Birds didn't hold out much hope against the might of Arrogancae, who despite the injury to key midfielder Gilberto Corbella were still too hot to handle.
It was Grilled who took the game to the hosts though, as Arrogancae appeared to take their time getting going, with good reason. With five minutes gone, Grilled gained their first corner following good effort by Subri down the middle. Rotteveel stroked it purposefully to the near post, where it was headed blindly over by MacKinnon to the unmarked Árva at the back. Arrogancae would have regretted not placing men on their posts, but Grilled's Hungarian defender could only sidefoot onto the woodwork anyway.
The rain began coming down harder, and Árva's day got worse as he flailed wildly in a struggle for the ball, and ended up catching Valiardo on the chin with his elbow. That was an easy yellow to give, and gave the Spanish winger even more licence to roam down the left, where he nearly scored with a rising strike. Penati tried to help out, but had problems of his own coping with the wet surface.
Grilled came close to surviving the half, but Einar Hansen finally got behind their defence in the 41st minute to beat Valdir with a precise lob. Valdir had to rescue his defence once more in the very next minute, batting away a seemingly unstoppable drive from Dorrepaal, before Subri got himself suspended for the final league game against seluraralc with his sixth yellow card of the season in his eagerness to outrun a defender.
Árva never looked comfortable, and Arrogancae found success directing their attacks down his side of the field. João Ferreira gave him the runaround with a classy feint, and tried a shot despite his forwards screaming for the ball in the middle. Ferreira was justified in that decision, as the ball took a wicked bounce in front of Valdir, who could only claw the ball away after it had crossed the goalline.
Dorrepaal closed the game out with some fine finishing six minutes on, but Rotteveel combined well with Penati down the right to collect a consolation goal for Grilled before the end.
