Taking Back The Glens
Buffery Preys On Tomfoolery
Scottish II.3 fellow strugglers Team Europe at Gleneagles checked out a last-gasp draw against the careless Birds, as the Tayside-based former Tartan Cup winners found two goals in the last eight minutes. The return to form of
Vikram Mudaliar would be a bright spot for Grilled at least, and truth be told a win might have flattered the otherwise pedestrian hosts.
Gleneagles definitely weren't about to hold back much if any, and their homegrown striker - 28 year-old Travis Buffery - would get his first zeroing-in on the Grilled goal in just the second minute, as a brilliant headed first touch from Carlo Zambianchi took him away from
Shekar Kannan. As there were no good options in the Grilled penalty area, it was pulled back to an exiting Buffery, who didn't do badly with his effort on the turn. They would not be denied in the tenth minute, as Matthias Brady slung a toepoke through a forest of legs from an indirect free-kick, with
Jānis Salmiņš unsighted.
The match would turn on its head after the Scots went ahead, with
Chu Xin Lee whipping up more than a few delectable passes from midfield. With him in that kind of mood, there would be no lack of chances created, and Kannan made up for his previous losing out, with a strong run and assist for Mudaliar from the right. That was in the eighteenth minute, and not very long after, Mudaliar would go to ground, if slightly easily, against Croatian centreback Dule Vega. The referee bought it, and the penalty would be left for
Bhavya Panigrahi, who hit it hard and high into the net against Rodolpho Luiz Sueste.
The young Bolivian Number One's day would darken further after Mudaliar appeared to have barged his marker aside in the 36th minute, in the process of sprinting in for the third. Italian captain Franco Cortelazzo would raise the seeming double standards to the assistant referee, but to no avail. Frankly, however, Mudaliar was simply turned on, and there wasn't much that any defender could have done in that position.
With it being 3-1 at half-time,
Hilal Bakhtiar would send
Kalki Parvathaneni and
Gilbert Webb on for
Salah Kamel and
Douglas Carapaica, which would turn out a downgrade on the whole. The first five minutes of the second half were decidedly all Grilled, though, with Mudaliar a whisker away from his hat-trick, with his woodwork-finding sidefooted attempt in the 47th. Three minutes later, Chu would be denied by the crossbar, after a magical reverse pass by
Abd Hadi Taib Mazhud all but begged him to have a go.
Gleneagles would recover gradually, and would be roughly back on par in the general going, if not on goals, soon enough. Their raw quality could not be doubted, and former Norwegian youth international winger Simen Krohn would become a mismatch for Kalki down their right. Kalki might have some pace and wiles of his own to spare, but the near-decade between himself and Krohn gave the latter a decisive physical edge. Krohn would set off in the 64th minute, and there was no preventing his tearing up Grilled's right side, before laying it on for Peter Silverfine's calm finish.
Moey Xin Seng recognized that the match was slipping subtly away, and his loud orders would whip his players back into shape for awhile. The Birds would be somewhat fortunate to survive a couple of big openings unscathed, and went on to attack against the run of play, in the 73rd minute.
Gilbert Webb had no business being in the vicinity of the opposition box then, but he was, and actually managed to pull past Cortelazzo to score on his countrymen.
That was 4-2, and it sure felt safe enough as the game eased into its final ten minutes, with Gleneagles comparatively subdued after Webb's strike. This attitude would serve the Birds poorly, however, as they were then taken unawares, as the visitors made their final charges. Zambianchi had always caused Kanna trouble once he got going on their left, and his off-the-ball dash in the 82nd minute was no exception.
Bhavya Panigrahi had already been tied up, which left the wingman free to pick his spot against Salmiņš, who had to leave one eye on Silverfine.
Still, Grilled retained a one-goal lead, and some pretty ugly defending and cynical time-wasting appeared to have protected the result. Bakhtiar would judge it safe enough to bring
Chan Ze Han off for
Radovan Jaška, not that the Czech sub would do anything other than be another body in the wall. Alas, that would be the sign for the Birds' downfall, as their static backline could only watch as Buffery timed his incursion behind to the split second, to bag the equalizer just as injury time beckoned.
