|
| FIXTURE HISTORY |
|
| Season 83 | D | 2 - 2 | Tournament (Group Phase) |
| |
|
|
Blackbirds Spring
Karl Lords It
The Birds might have held German V.114 leaders Stormarn Blackbirds to a two-all draw in the last edition of the Golden Trophy, but it was a much improved Blackbirds team that took to the field today - and it showed. Grilled had advanced too, of that there was no doubt, but their opponents mixed a plainly better midfield, with a highly-customized 3-4-3 designed to feed Bertil Lerche - sent off in that last meeting - on the left, not that their front three needed much help.
There would be far fewer veterans for Grilled today, with Moey, Kalki and Bilal all not making a return, but their composure would be missed before too long. It wasn't all gloom for the Birds, that said, as Turkish wide man
Egemen Dinçer Ferzan rose to the challenge early on. With Lerche stranded high upfield, Ferzan would skip past first one man, and then two as he bore down on Joerg Gsödl's goal from a tight angle, only to pound it into the roof of the net somehow.
This wasn't the sort of finishing that any team had a right to count on, though, and the Blackbirds would reply in their own calm fashion, with Henrik Hösel almost at a walk as he breached Grilled's backline in the 16th. The Birds were still managing to hang with their rather more accomplished foes at this time, and
Joe Reece roused the crowd with a madcap dribble two minutes later, and nearly ran past Gsödl into the bargain. The German goalie would sweep the ball out from under him, however, and appeals for a penalty went unheeded.
Karl von der Osten would suffer the same fate as he got bowled over by
Aw Keng Chuan in the Grilled box about the 30th minute, with the referee again deciding that he had gone down way too easily. The Blackbirds turned out to be strutting to spread their wings in any case, with Hösel again picking exactly the right moment to plant himself in the right spot for 2-1, before Dietmar Armbruster executed a neat chip on the sprint for three. Reece was getting visibly irritated at Grilled's lack of output at the away end, and would be booked for trying to contest a free-kick that went the other way.
The 54% possession stat in favour of Grilled could only be considered as misleading, from how many more chances the Germans had created in the first half, and there would be more of the same to come.
Chad Thach would be next to fall afoul of the match officials for responding badly to the Blackbirds fans' taunts, which only intensified as bright young forward Karl von der Osten converted a clever free-kick routine afterwards.
That would be the day for Thach and
Bhavya Panigrahi, the latter of whom was close to his last legs, when substituted off for
Gilbert Webb.
Chia Kwang Tse however marched on just in time to watch Von der Osten wow the watchers with a magnificent overhead kick off Lerche's delivery, with the winger starting to dominate a slowing Ferzan. His second assist for İsmet Öztan would also come from the left, with Ferzan eventually retiring to allow
Enrique Baena a fairly undistinguished ten minutes on the pitch.
