Broken Birds
Demirdgiyan Dominant
Grilled's first trip to Armenia ended quite unsurprisingly in utter defeat, though they at least managed to breach the Armenbrok defence, and kept the opponents from reaching ten goals, unlike last week. Other than that, there were few positives to be taken even as
Ciro Penati, suspended from Sunday's league game, strengthened Grilled's reserve side.
It appeared to be an improvement as Grilled doggedly held on for nearly half an hour, with the energy and guile of Penati on the left a big help, but there was simply not enough stamina in the central defence to hold out for much longer. The home team's veteran right-back Arshak Demirdgiyan, who at 31 has just three career goals to his name, would replicate that in this game. He bagan stylishly enough, as he left Tingfeng off-balance coming in off the wing, to catch Bao-Tam out with a delicate lob.
With Grilled hardly providing any bite up front, Armenbrok felt free to attack, and Demirdgiyan spent more time in Grilled's half than his own. Two minutes after his first goal, the defender found himself free in the middle after some slick off-the-ball movement by his forwards, and he unhesitatingly smacked it wide of Bao-Tam's reach for his second.
The game slowed down for a while, but picked up again as half-time approached. Experienced Portugeuse striker Pedro Dinis swept the ball home after a determined run by Carino for 3-0.
Demirdgiyan then completed his unlikely hat-trick with a spate of dribbling, after Seng-Huat was cautioned for a desperate tackle, and Timo Knuutti nearly had to be substituted in an unrelated incident after he knocked his knee on the ground. There was even time for Armenbrok leftback Karsten Hilscher to get himself dismissed for a crazy assault on Mirchev, but even that was not enough to stop his team from grabbing another goal in injury time, this time through Vahan Gagigyan.
Some polite applause filtered through the stands after Firdaus bagged the opening goal of the second half, thanks to his natural goalscoring instinct as he hit Chuan Heng's tenative pass first-time. Armenbrok were threatened for a short while, with Pedro Dinis booked for a saving tackle on Penati to prevent a Grilled counterattack, but it didn't last long - Dinis was soon engaged at the other end, and only the woodwork prevented a goal from him.
He would succeed later as Carino took full advantage of Penati overextending himself to boss the right wing, with a running leap that Tuan-Mu simply couldn't match. Timo Knuutti, who looked fully recovered from his first-half accident, then contributed a brace of his own, before the young central defender Odabashyan closed the game with a spirited strike right down the middle that whizzed straight by Bao-Tam.
