Gibbo Hold
Lovell Blinder
Dorset-based English V.35 side Gibbo Utd kept Grilled Birds to a 2-2 draw in their Golden Trophy opener, in a display that hardly boded well for the Birds' upcoming league curtain-raiser against Sarcastic Fringeheads. The main architect of the result for Gibbo would be former England U-20 keeper Ben Lovell, big performances by Dagbjart West Nielsen and captain Vladan Ljubinković notwithstanding. Although he would be beaten twice, Lovell's brilliant goaltending in all respects kept his team in touch, and they would make the most of the few chances they created, to take a point.
This should have been a clear win for the Birds on paper, what with Yemeni midfielder Adnan Al-Kelabi all but set up to be overrun in a 5-3-2, with Gibbo's defenders being decent enough, but hardly up to what Grilled have had to deal with in the past seasons. Worryingly, however, Grilled found getting through tougher than it looked, and it was instead the English club that took the lead in the eleventh minute. True, nearly none could have thought Ragıp Canser capable of dropping it on a dime under such smothering pressure by
Moey Xin Seng, but he did to Nielsen over half the field away.
Bhavya Panigrahi found himself suddenly overloaded, and the Faroese winger took it upon himself to put it past
Jānis Salmiņš.
That woke Grilled up a little, but it would still take some minutes of struggling against Gibbo's marking, before
Abd Hadi Taib Mazhud could wriggle into some space to set
Bilal Mohammad Harun up for an open shot - and even that indirectly led to a counter from the goal-kick, that Panigrahi and Webb combined barely kept Ljubinković from scoring from. It would thus be down to
Chan Ze Han again, as he dipped in classily from the right side in the 25th minute, took young Harold Lampard out with a little half-step at just the right instant, before lashing a powerful strike that even Lovell had no hope of reaching.
The equalizer lasted but four short minutes, though, with Lovell actually second-order assisting in Gibbo taking the lead for this; Grilled were thumping hard at the gates as they shifted the ball from side to side at will, only for Abd Hadi to break through... and be wiped out, ball and all, by Lovell's uncompromising charge. The midfielder's wide-eyed plea for a penalty was not considered, though, and all Lovell wanted was to get the evidence away as quickly as possible... right to Ljubinković. Allan Fink was on the prowl as the kick went out too, and scooted right onto his captain's knockdown, for 2-1.
Well, the Birds were not about to let that stand if they could help it, with Abd Hadi in particular raring to add his mark here. He would have his fair share of shooting opportunities as Grilled's primary attacking midfielder, and one of those would have Lovell flying across to barely bat it aside for a corner, in the 36th minute. That would be cleared too, but the Birds would string together a sequence of just-so short passes in the aftermath, culminating with
Heng Dong Chu applying the finish to cap a great team goal.
With it back level by the break, this game had to be Grilled's not to win, but they managed it. They had attacks aplenty, but few that ended in clear-cut chances, such as
Chan Ze Han's rare botch in the 51st minute that was turned into a crossbar-rocking response from Ljubinković. Heng would be withdrawn for
Kalki Parvathaneni with half an hour to go, likely to confront Gibbo with a different style down the left, but this didn't faze them either.
Grilled's best shot by far would arrive in the 73rd minute, as
Vikram Mudaliar earned a deserved penalty, after getting unambigiously brought down by Brian Quinn following some slick shuffling. Lovell became the hero as
Bhavya Panigrahi tried to get too cute with his run-up, and wound up betting on the goalkeeper moving aside with a soft kick down the middle. Well, Lovell wasn't falling for it, to Panigrahi's utter embarassment.
Moey Xin Seng would then volley inches wide as he propelled himself forward with the Birds' momentum beginning to stall, and
Salah Kamel then entered for
Chu Xin Lee, as
Hilal Bakhtiar made one last change towards victory. Instead, Nielsen would nearly steal it after another forced Mudaliar effort went into the side-netting, and despite some interesting late free-kick choreography by Grilled, this would end all evens.
