Chemistry Reaction
MacKinnon Message
Grilled's first competitive meetup with Chemistry in seven seasons lived up to its billing, it being very close as usual - the last seven games between the teams have been decided by at most one goal. The home side were slightly too strong for Grilled this time, though, and prevailed after an action-packed first half.
Rotteveel missed his late fitness check, so it was left to Subri to lead the line alone again. MacKinnon was moved from support striker back to central midfield, but this somehow inspired him to bag his first brace in eight seasons, the last of which was scored in a 6-0 win against United Warrior Team.
Chemistry had additional incentive to perform as they were knocked out of the Cup by s1an in midweek, and displayed no fear in utilizing an attacking 3-4-3 despite the less than ideal weather. They were proven right, though, as Grilled's defence didn't quite have the understanding required to clamp down on their three quality forwards - Meinhart Gehberger cracked the first goal in after veteran winger Damiano Giorgini opened up the left side.
It was two soon enough, but it could have been three as Giorgini again burnt Darong for pace but ended up missing by a foot. No matter, as the Chemistry midfield ran Grilled's ragged, and homegrown star Fung Kong Wai clipped the second goal past Valdir. Tiberiu Atanasie then received his third yellow card of the season for a silly foul, which will see him suspended for their next league match.
It looked to be curtains for Grilled, since they had usually depended on racking up the goals early to get something from games, but this time they displayed some steel after going two down so quickly.
Fan Chuancheng more than held his own on the left flank, and after 20 minutes, one of his crosses was met on the fly by Subri, who banged his 150th competitive goal for Grilled high past keeper-coach Brúnó Lantos.
Valdir then did his bit as he denied Kálmán Géza, who had a clear shot, and then Grilled's wingers shone once more.
Ciro Penati twisted and turned as he kept the ball safe from two defenders, and somehow managed to hold the ball until several of his teammates got into position. Penati then picked out MacKinnon quite magnificently with a thirty-metre pass, and the Scotsman instinctively sidefooted it into the bottom corner to put Grilled on level terms.
Unfortunately, Grilled suffered a lapse in organization, with the defence being at sixes and sevens as the players vacillated between holding their ground and striking while the iron was hot, as it seemed to be. This proved costly as Gehberger put Chemistry in front yet again as he held off Behr to open up an angle, while Géza made up for his earlier miss with a classy strike that bent in at the far post.
Back down by two again, Grilled were just thankful for half-time, and might have struck back three minutes into the second period after Subri sent a dangerous free-kick into the outside of the left post. Several players got bogged down by the rain, and Grilled profited more from these mishaps as Han Kok put in a snap shot that agonizingly hit the crossbar, after a slip-up by Giorgini gifted him possession.
Chemistry had their moments too, with Fung Kong Wai striking the woodwork from a half-chance. The match then got very interesting as MacKinnon's uncompromising header in the 63th minute reduced Grilled's deficit to one goal, but the Birds were able to get no further, and crashed to their third league defeat of the season.
