No Fuss No Muss
Chan Regains Groove
Grilled Birds qualified for the next round of The Global Trophy, with their 2-0 victory over Romanian VI.1018 side TSV Ottobrunn Fussball. Ottobrunn's registration issues continued as they were only able to start nine men, as they had against Grognards de Paris, and as such this might be accounted a courageous enough effort by them.
Their defensive powers remained undoubted with young Hungarian sweeper Dominik Bojás to put in his usual diligent shift, and in strike pair Roberto Zerbo and Frederik Drya, they had a partnership capable of springing a surprise on the Birds - if the ball got to them. In exchange, Ottobrunn all but gave up any pretense at holding possession, with Albanian veteran Edi Asllani free to roam, but largely limiting himself to his favoured right wing.
Quite embarassingly, it would actually be Ottobrunn to claim the first shot on target, with Drya gaining that honour with a very hardworking run through the middle - maybe helped by the Birds' players sitting on their numerical advantage. There would be quite a bit of yelling by Chan and Moey at that, but it was evidently not enough to wake their teammates up yet; two minutes later, Dominik Bojás would take it up half the length of the pitch on a lightning-fast breakout, and
Dimitris Germanakos would have to get down quickly to save it.
Even that required the Romanians to play beyond themselves, since contesting with two men short was no joke. They appeared to retain enough numbers to stay safe, and it would take a set-piece for Grilled to break them down. A strong drive by
Enrique Baena down the left won them a corner kick in the 39th minute, which had
Kalki Parvathaneni's final touch bravely snuffed out by Swedish defender Robert Blad.
Chan Ze Han was watching out for something like that, however, and flew in with a flamboyant flying backheel.
That was nothing that Ecuadoreon custodian Franklyn Perazo could be expected to stop, but he did very well to deny Kalki a second time as the Birds mobbed from the restart, which led to a decent counterattack requiring Germanakos to take it off Drya's feet. The end of the half saw
Aw Keng Chuan booked for a rough challenge on Zerbo, but it would up to Ottobrunn's detriment as their free-kick emptied their defences.
Gandhik Chitre played for the free-kick, and
Bhavya Panigrahi swung it home via deflection.
Two it was then at the stroke of half-time, and
Lim An Keng would again replace Kalki for the second half, this time with express instructions to tire the opposition out as he could. There would be much busy running towards that goal, but the only big chance until the final ten minutes would turn out to be Leon Sommer's entirely-unexpected inside-out pass over sixty yards, that inserted itself beyond
Gilbert Webb for Roberto Zerbo. The Italian striker wasn't fully ready for it either, thankfully, and Webb could recover before he got it under control, to force a weak strike.
There would be much hammering at the gates for the Birds but precious little actual danger for Ottobrunn here, at least until
Chia Kwang Tse took over from Moey for the final ten minutes - and it would actually have the Romanians come close from a sharp counter. Grilled, having not been on the defensive for a long time, were caught unprepared when several opposition players sprinted at them in unison - but young Gabriel Flood's final ball was poor.
It should really have been three, as
Chan Ze Han won a late penalty after getting tangled up with fellow captain Milan Los in entering their box, but
Bhavya Panigrahi slammed it just wide of the left post. Fortunately, it wouldn't matter by then.
