Penguins Foiled
Ciro Hero
Grilled's fans had something to cheer for, as the Birds emerged from a see-sawing home battle with all three points. Despite being without the suspended
Nawaz Talib, the inclusion of
Feng Darong at wingback saw Grilled gain a seldom-seen vitality down the right flank.
Title-chasing Penguins needed a win to chase down Thorocozzieq FC, and their eagerness to get forward showed. Well aware that Talib was out, they bombarded Grilled's backline with a barrage of long balls, but Lik-Tsun and Árva held on grimly. Han Kok couldn't stop Su Sun Nee dashing by him to get on the end of a particularly inventive through ball, but no harm came of that thanks to Valdir's superb stop.
Darong's willingness to overlap, contrasted to Talib's defensive focus, made Grilled's right side a constant threat, and Doron Berman found himself outflanked by Darong in the seventeenth minute. Caught in two minds, he raced to cover Penati who was cutting inside, but was too slow to prevent the Italian from sprinting onto Darong's square pass and slipping it under Wang You De.
Grilled were still mostly on the backfoot, but were far better than the Penguins when it came to capitalizing on stray chances. Rotteveel thought quickly when he got the ball with his back to goal with two men on him, and a blind backheel deflected off one of his markers and nicely to Subri. Subri, hungry as ever, held off the last man for long enough to rifle his shot into the roof of the net.
The Penguins had reason to be aggrieved as most neutral observers would have agreed that they were the better side, and should have pulled one back through midfielder Arkadiusz Lubawski, who buried the ball into the side netting with Valdir grounded. Lik-Tsun booted it back at former Europe-based winger Ashaari bin Husin, who then struck a real rocket from afar that Valdir could barely palm onto the underside of the bar. The ball looked to be trickling over the line, when Darong slid in astutely to poke it to his recovering goalie.
Grilled were riding their luck, though their good fortune hadn't quite deserted them; a searching cross from
Ciro Penati was just too high for even Levente Geosits to get to, leaving Han Kok with a solid free header that he unhesitatingly sent downwards to the bottom corner. Now three-nil up, Liehner must have felt it justified to shut the game down for the remaining half-hour. He was almost proven wrong.
Seeing their championship hopes dwindle, Penguins began throwing men into the Grilled half with scant regard for defence, in response to the home team drawing back. The invited pressure was too much to bear for Grilled's makeshift defence, and German striker Hennes Kronabether undid the masses in the box with a smart lob into the far end of goal.
3-1 was quite acceptable to the home fans, who were in full voice for the first time in ages. Player-coach Fredy Rincón replaced Doron Berman in the 85th minute, and the home support weren't too upset even when striker Kyle Mowat outfoxed Zoltan Árva to assist Kronabether for his second goal in the second last minute of regulation time. They were however stunned as Grilled proceeded to lose the ball straight from the kickoff, and gift Su Sun Nee an open run to score the leveller.
Sensing that they could snatch it, the Penguins went into overdrive in added time, with Ashaari bin Husin hacking Spirig down in his haste to get the ball. That foul proved their downfall, as Grilled reversed the roles by packing the visitors' penalty area. The ball was then played short to Branbilla, who was unlucky to find the crossbar. Penati leapt onto the rebound, though, and turned Su magnificently before curling in the winner that would send The Cooking Pot into rapture.
It was not quite over as Arkadiusz Lubawski hammered a venomous strike right at the death, but Valdir punched it around the post for a corner. There was no time for it to be taken as the referee blew the final whistle immediately, to the joy of the Grilled fans, and the consternation of the travelling ones.
