Green Purgatory
Valdir Defiant
The Birds puttered to a second consecutive nil-all draw in the league, a result that suited hosts Beat of Angel much more than Grilled, as they are now safe from auto-relegation going into the final round. Amazingly, it was also the first time that Grilled had repeated a 0-0 in consecutive competitive games, and only the seventh such scoreline in 553 such games.
Beat of Angel had done away with Grilled pretty comfortably the last time the two met at The Cooking Pot, so it was not a stretch that Grilled's small but active contingent of fans were apprehensive about the derby.
Maikel Rotteveel scored in the second minute in that match, but this time it was Angel's centreback Zenón Freituxe who contributed the early flash. None of Grilled's defenders had thought Freituxe a threat, and the 33 year-old Spanaird deceived Árva with a simple stoop and turn of pace. Valdir was relieved to see the incoming effort blaze over.
The home side had most of the possession, and local forward Tan Yin Eng, who is in something of a slump having scored just two in the eleven league matches since his brace against the Birds, looked like getting another when Gregorio Arenile spotted him yelling for the ball after a short corner. Valdir made up ground quickly, though, and put Tan's header sufficiently off.
Little came of Grilled's optimistic counter-attacking plans, and the Angels applied constant pressure throughout the match. Valdir was called into action once more in the 51st minute after his defenders failed to clear their lines after Argentine forward Alan Carballo's lob into the box, and ended up absorbing Tan's point-blank effort with his torso.
Valdir's resistance appeared to be all for naught when Beat of Angel broke through definitively in the 72nd minute, as Tan timed his offside trap-springing dash to perfection, and saw himself one-on-one with the Grilled custodian. Tan struck early and Valdir couldn't stop his piledriver, only to watch it skip past his post.
