The Furia And The Power
Safta Settles
The S-League would be given a sense of their place in the wider world with a first-round World Battle tournament matchup against the Romanian II.2, in which all five participants emerged winless, garnering but three draws and two losses. Grilled Birds were one of those left undefeated, at least, as they negotiated their way to a draw against Bucharest club Furia Ros-Albastra.
Furia had done well to climb back from the sixth division to the second, as they underwent another of their interminable cycles, moreover with enough bandwidth to found an offshoot - Safari Blue - in Tanzania this time around. The star Aussie midfielder Brock Eaves would remain on the bench, for whatever reason, as they flaunted a largely-native core led by Claudiu-Mihai Giurgincă. Chinese expat Deng Zihang would be a curiosity at rightback, while Cătălin Sandu had evidently been instructed to shackle
Chan Ze Han as best as he could, which was hardly unwise in the circumstances.
With a table-top fixture and a Hattrick Masters entry looming,
Hilal Bakhtiar's team selection for the final run-up would be highly scrutinized, and it could hardly not be noted that
Chu Xin Lee had been chosen as the Birds' central attacking midfield, perhaps the most coveted role on the team, ahead of a host of competitors. The dominant force in the middle today would however undeniably be Furia's homegrown enforcer Elian Safta, who yielded nary a quarter regardless of who he was up again. That the first half nearly ended goalless was down to his Herculean efforts, as he applied his considerable heft successfully whenever Grilled's passing slowed, and left a player hanging without good options.
Nearly but not quite, as Grilled managed to score before the break.
Kalle ter Berg had possibly the best opportunity of the half in the 39th minute, having ran onto a clever forward ball from
Bilal Mohammad Harun, but his choice not to take it early - and then go over easily as Antonio Cervati inserted himself in the way - brought him only derision and a yellow card.
Vikram Mudaliar wasn't about to repeat that indignity, and fired on Márk Dörögdi's first chance he had, once he shook free of his marker three minutes later. That did the trick, as the shot just about evaded the goalkeeper.
The second half restarted with
Chan Ze Han out to reassert himself, and he would get a clear step ahead of Sandu for perhaps the first time in the match, soon after kick-off. Grilled would draw out their attack with several rotations out wide - which all came to nothing - but this did thin the crowd in the middle a little.
Moey Xin Seng was waiting for this, and a brief look at Chan was enough to set it up just outside the penalty area for his junior. Sadly, this very well-worked attempt would shave the crossbar.
Instead, it would be Elian Safta to cap a titanic day in midfield, with an equalizer on the counter. Moey had lingered too long on the ball, a trap that to be fair most of the Grilled players had fallen into this day at one time or other, and his belated attempt to rid himself of it would see it cleared some distance by Josef Kuntoš. He probably didn't intend for it to land so neatly for Ionuţ-Gabriel Darabont, but that was what happened, and
Salah Kamel would not be able to catch the Furia winger, once the latter had gotten a headstart. Several Furia players, sensing their chance, would break into the Grilled box about in parallel with Darabont, and Safta's strength again prevailed as he outmuscled
Kalle ter Berg - himself no weed - to earn his header.
This would be one of the most exciting periods of the entire affair, as Grilled attacked with rediscovered urgency, but were again disappointed on the finish as
Chu Xin Lee somehow tried to dribble past Dörögdi, instead of simply taking the shot. That poor decision would birth another dangerous breakaway for Furia, who parlayed it into a free-kick about twenty-odd yards out. Cătălin Sandu tried to bend it around the wall and succeeded, but couldn't bring it back on target.
Bilal Mohammad Harun would work himself to the forefront next, as he laid upon the Furia goal with cracks from afar, but nothing to really test Dörögdi. Bakhtiar would switch Moey and Jeftić out for
Bhavya Panigrahi and
Bernie Egan for the final twenty minutes, and Kamel out for
Heng Dong Chu for the last ten, but none of these did the trick against Furia's stern resolve. That did waver in injury time, as they made a series of unforced errors, which however was too late for the Birds to truly capitalize.
