Alpha Striked
Abd Hadi Revived
The sixth round of the World Battle tourney had the newly-crowned Emerald Challenger Cup holders line up against Tunisian II.3 frontrunners AlphaTauri, who boasted an impeccable lineage. Spun off from former Dutch Smaragden Beker - their Emerald Challenger Cup equivalent - holders Ferrari, they are also junior to UAE legends Toro Rosso, and arguably the successor to former Hattrick International cupwinners, GP2 Engine, Argh!.
AlphaTauri head coach Piotr Świerk certainly understood the reputation he was striving to uphold, and a flurry of transfers from the tailend of the previous season suggests that he is making haste towards replicating his illustrious forebears' feats. While latest major signing, Belgian striker Bastien Lachapelle, would not feature today after starting against Juventus TN in the league, they had former Bulgarian youth international Martin Harizanov rubbing shoulders with Arkadiusz Nagaj in that department. Seasoned Greek international Thiseas Mpletsas would captain this very experienced side, one surely built for immediate impact.
Well, the Birds had one of their own too, and although down to the bones after that draining finals, it was perhaps better-coordinated than their opponents, for now at least. There appear no hard feelings over
Heng Dong Chu leaving the team with ten men for half of that finals due to his red card, it seems, from how he started at left wing again. The starting XI more or less picked itself otherwise, with
Shekar Kannan on the right and
Abd Hadi Taib Mazhud spearheading the attack, as
Hilal Bakhtiar opted not to resort to fielding one of his centrebacks as an emergency midfielder.
He need not have worried on that end, as Grilled utterly dominated the first half-hour. AlphaTauri's three-man backline of Khalaf Masoud, Abdullah Gargawi and Fritz Manuhutu might be uniformly capped at youth level, but they remained just a little naive of how things could work at the professional level, so it looked.
Salah Kamel would be Grilled's machine in the middle, and his unending efforts bore fruit in the tenth minute, with the defence opening up for
Bilal Mohammad Harun to test Gian Maria Entrade from the edge of the box. The Italian veteran got a hand to Bilal's powerfully-whipped right-footer, but not enough.
The Birds had found their groove early, all the worse for the Tunisians.
Kalki Parvathaneni had to be one of Grilled's most-underrated stars from how he resumed the left forward role as if he had never left it, and superb awareness of how to play the offside trap, would lead to his goal in the 22nd minute. Manuhutu thought he had shut Kalki out by stepping up, but hadn't counted on the slickness with which the cunning oldie could change directions north and south. Appeals to the linesman went correctly unheeded, and Kalki would run it marginally past Entrade, before nicking the second home.
That which Bakhtiar was perhaps anticipating the most would probably be Abd Hadi's five minutes later, what with him being expected to tide Grilled's transition over, together with
Chan Ze Han. His form had been patchy, to put it kindly, these few weeks, but he was totally on point when Kannan's looping cross dropped to him. Just a bit later, Kalki would make it 4-0 as Heng obliged from the opposite flank, with AlphaTauri surely out for the count.
That was how it appeared for much of the second half, which began with some fifteen minutes of players leisurely doling it around, with barely any intent to make things happened. This state of affairs gradually changed once Heng went off for
Chu Xin Lee in the 60th minute, and AlphaTauri would get the first shot on target of the half, as former Portuguese youth international winger Modesto Carlos Guia forced a path through on the right, but hit it far too close to
Jānis Salmiņš.
They weren't done, however, and started to play up to their potential. Heiri Brunschwiler would begin asking some pretty uncomfortable questions of Grilled's defence, though the ultimate breakthrough would take time to arrive. That happened in the 74th, ironically after Harizanov got booked for trying to delay
Bhavya Panigrahi restarting from a free-kick. The defender went backwards on the retake, Salmiņš' attempted distribution fell short, and Mpletsas would salvage some honour from Tomas Gottander's resulting penetration down the left.
This was the signal for another change from the Grilled side, and Abd Hadi would come off, for
José Luiz Velho to have his chance. The Birds did seem enlivened at that, and there would be a sudden barrage of chances, that had Entrade having to make spectacular saves off Kannan and then Kamel within minutes. The latter would nearly be turned into another goal for Mpletsas on the counter, but
Sølve Lunde would catch up just in time. The Norwegian defender would shortly afterwards be off himself, as Velho copped a late petty booking in injury time.
