Mayhaps Not
Zhuang Rejection
Grilled Birds might be flying high in the S-League, but they would be reminded of their very real vulnerabilities in today's 0-2 elimination from the semifinals of the Pacific Cup tourney, by Chinese second divisioners Karamay FC. Entirely unlike yesterday's trip to UDNTK FC, the finishing gods had entirely turned their back on the Birds here, and they would not be able to put it past Ukrainian goalie Claudiu Tocileanu despite seven clear chances.
Tocileanu, of course, was another thing altogether; with 110 caps combined for his national side at all levels, there was nary an active custodian as experienced as him alive. While some had decried his transfer fee of over S$27 million from former Israeli cupwinners C.F.C-United excessive at the age of 33, the three seasons since his arrival at Karamay FC saw the Xinjiang club capture their first-ever Division Two title, and while they narrowly missed promotion to the Dragons Elite to a late winner by tianying's Li Yuanyi, it could hardly be denied that they came that close largely due to Tocileanu's unflappability - as Grilled were about to discover.
What made this game only the more meaningful was the return of Islom Davlatov, who had also transferred to Karamay FC from Grilled Birds about the same time as Tocileanu, and also played a big part in their title-winning campaign. Very productive with 36 goals for Karamay thus far, the 35 year-old Davlatov was not shy about expressing his desire to remind Grilled what they were missing out on, in the build-up. The flame certainly hadn't gone down in this one, from how he is suspended for Karamay's next league match, due to disciplinary reasons.
Now, the Birds had done their scouting, and they would gear their lineup towards compressing Karamay's 4-3-3 into their own half, as much as they could. Davlatov - alongside usual strike buddies Felix Gyebi and Jung-Man Park - were certainly capable of doing damage in that configuration, but at least none of them were especially renowned for offside trap-tripping sprints. Karamay's trademark counters had generally been of a more-sophisticated kind, which called intermediaries such as former national winger Jian Kuanxing, to stretch opponents before the telling blow.
Grilled would soon discover that they might have underestimated how much trouble their foes could give, as their strikeforce of Chan, Mudaliar and Egan soon found themselves swallowed up from all directions. Not only that, Karamay knew well the art of area denial by positioning, and while the Birds had most of the ball, they would also be responsible for some of the most desperate chasing.
Kalle ter Berg would for example be harried into bringing Kalsang Lhak-pa down upon losing possession in the ninth minute, which brought an instant yellow card.
The Birds' first attempt on target would arrive in the 28th minute, but
Bhavya Panigrahi's free-kick didn't even make it past the wall, and Davlatov would leap at the opportunity to substantiate his own words - only to put his shot straight at
Jānis Salmiņš. The remainder of the half would largely be composed of wary circling, though there would be a couple of additional notable moves; Tocileanu did extremely well to bat the ball away from
Vikram Mudaliar's feet without giving away a penalty, and Salmiņš further upped his stock with the Grilled support thanks to a magnificent one-on-one stop against Felix Gyebi.
There somehow felt like there had to be goals in this one, however, as
Chan Ze Han started to strut his stuff, but this would have to wait for the second half. Chan was, without doubt, Grilled's premier threat throughout all this, and it was his ability to convincingly pivot in either direction - without going into his passing and shooting threat - that gave Karamay's backline the most pause. Thus was it in the 50th minute, when he gave Zhuang Weiliang the slip in reaching the right touchline, only to bend his strike just shy of the far post.
The Birds were not done yet, as
Bernie Egan ran the miss down, only for their hard work to conclude in tragedy. Egan did everything right in setting
Bilal Mohammad Harun up for the hit, and Bilal could hardly have done much better than his screamer to the crossbar. Unfortunately, all this gave Grilled was a counterattack up the right side by wingback Temur Temujin, and Jian Kuanxing would punt Karamay into the lead, as their forwards crowded the box.
Karamay head coach Nicola Di Sabatino had been waiting for just that, and Kalsang Lhak-pa would be directed to explicitly sit in front of the defence to protect their advantage, not that the midfielder had any problems with juggling that role before that. Grilled, while shaken, kept up their ball circulation confidently, but were simply unable to seriously threaten Claudiu Tocileanu in the opposition goal. As such,
Eren Serpin would turn to his wide players, and the Birds fans would be greeted with the rare sight of
Wu Jinglong and
Heng Dong Chu on the pitch at the same time.
That left half an hour for the pair to make their mark, which was sadly much more difficult than it appeared. Karamay FC were well-accustomed to dealing with pressure across the full width, and there was hardly any perceptible improvement in the effectiveness of Grilled's forays. Their best creation of the entire match, and perhaps the only occasion on which Tocileanu was truly beaten, came in the 67th minute with
Vikram Mudaliar's backlift-free strike off
Moey Xin Seng's telepathic through pass. Even that wasn't sufficient, as Mao Zhichao had covered the back post - and as replays showed, at Tocileanu's behest.
One had to give it to the Karamay defence for that, and Grilled's flickering drive would be largely extinguished, once the Chinese team got their second goal. The Birds would unavoidably eventually overcommit in trying to break Karamay's solid barrier down, and Felix Gyebi wouldn't even need to complete his run into Grilled's penalty area, instead firing past Salmiņš from some yards outside.