Halloween Hangover
Penguin Power
November got off to the worst possible start, as Grilled were thumped senseless by a rampant Pudgy Penguins side. What made the Birds' park-the-bus strategy even more painful to watch was that they were barely equipped to administer it, having never replaced Sid, and thus being left with three ageing stoppers.
Nevertheless, individual skill gave Grilled a two-nil lead at home, but the Igloo Dome was a completely different proposition. Liehner's gameplan called for Grilled to hold and frustrate the hosts, but Alejandro Luis La Salvia put paid to that before five minutes were up, as he flashed by a static backline to crash the opener in off the post.
Grilled tried to keep up the defensive pressure, but the Penguins players were technically too good for such a tactic to be effective. Subri did contribute somewhat as he gamely chased defenders down and made them waste time stroking the ball about in their own half, but he had to cool down after a booking for catching Geosits late.
It was all one-way traffic, and Grilled were not helped by Valdir's abrupt dip in form. The Brazilian former youth international suffered the disgrace of having the ball put between his legs after committing the basic error of planting them too wide in the first place, with Luo Tze Sian only too happy to score against him again.
Things could have gotten nasty when Markus Idriss positioned himself perfectly after Grilled's entire defence was caught ball-watching after Mowat took a potshot after a corner, but he followed up with a cautious shot that had no urgency behind it, and Valdir recovered in time. Árva was at fault as Kyle Mowat turned him to make it 3-0 before half-time, and it might have been four had Valdir not gotten a grip on himself and bashed another effort away from the on-fire Scot.
The second half was continued damage limitation by a subdued Grilled team against a Penguins team content to go through the motions, but Doron Berman still had Valdir bothered by a dipping effort despite his side clearly playing off the boil. Grilled did at least muster a shot on goal through the speed of Penati, who came up with his obligatory moment of magic, but Branbilla hit it right at You De. Geosits finally applied the finishing blow in the 64th minute to put the Birds out of their misery.
