Jasiu Turn Up Heat
Wrung Through The Cooper
Former English Premier club Jasiu Hotspur stopped the Birds from extending their victory streak in all games to double digits, as they stopped them 2-1 in the final group round of the Penalty-Killer Cup - which was however insufficient to secure their own advancement. While currently floating about the fifth division, Jasiu retained some stars whom would not have looked out of place in their heyday, foremost among of which would be captain and former English youth international defensive midfielder Dwayne Gilmurray, then his fellows Elliot Stewart and Anthony Fitzmichael. They were, in any case, a cut above what Grilled had on offer, not helped by
Chad Thach finally succumbing to some fatigue from his national duties.
The first two group matches had been extremely disappointing for Jasiu, who had failed to score any despite their overall encouraging play; some of this was put down to their relatively lightweight frontline, which had a young and physical but too-easily-read Jacob Bray paired with a far more cerebral but slower Logan Almond. If Jasiu boss Matty White was thinking of a classic big-and-slick partnership here, it had yet to be well established, from the evidence of those previous outings.
Jasiu had hidden depths to them, as it turned out, and Rod Teljeur would successfully push Grilled's strikers out with his intelligent positioning, no mean feat against the likes of
Chan Ze Han. With
Federico Parada and
Egemen Dinçer Ferzan hanging out wide, the Birds would try to stretch the opposition for once, but were instead frustrated by strong fullback displays. Jordan Cooper, himself often deployed in defence, would have more than a few chances to run in behind Parada given this, and a pulsating 26th minute dribble had him cook
Hwang Teck Fu too for 1-0.
Hwang took it in good enough grace, given that he had never been a true stopper by vocation, and socked it right back to Jasiu about nine minutes on. A splendid long pass sprayed diagonally down the right saw
Gandhik Chitre control and then tap it past the want-away Chris Shelby in a single smooth motion, and Hwang was fortuitously slow to retreat after the previous push. Chitre threaded the needle between Teljeur and Israeli custodian Jihad El Dahshan, which left Hwang needing just any contact at all to equalize.
For a comparatively-cautious half, it would end in a frentic fashion, with Jasiu throwing most everything they had into trying to snag the lead before the break. Gilmurray's sheer class had been evident before that, and he would come up with some mesmerizing footwork to wring a spare yard away from
Damian Hutter... only for
Dimitris Germanakos to throw a leg out in time. The ball was then in the other box within seconds as
Aw Keng Chuan pumped it for his forwards to chase, and Chitre would have flipped the script with his excellent drive at full tilt from the left, but El Dahshan had his near post covered too tightly.
The exchange did get the spectators fired up, and the referee would be cat-called for seemingly ending the half early, with barely half a minute of added time tacked on. The fifteen-minute interval did cool the teams off to a degree, and there would be no serious shot on target for quite a long stretch, up until about the underperforming Parada was brought off for a recovered
Paulino Trindade in the 60th minute. Jordan Cooper was a large part of why Parada looked bad for the day, and Trindade would have big trouble keeping up with him too.
Jasiu managed to clog it up in midfield as they had for their previous tourney games, but with a draw being clearly not enough to take them through, they would start taking more risks as the final twenty minutes approached - and found that Grilled's midfield was not in top condition. John Galway might not have been the most productive on the left, but he demonstrated great judgment to play Logan Almond in when he did in the 77th minute, but Almond's unrestrained finish was scooped high over the crossbar.
Given that a tie would guarantee Grilled Birds going through as group winners,
Tian Yonghang appeared content enough to have it end this way, and brought
Kalki Parvathaneni on to protect
Chan Ze Han's legs ten minutes from time. No sooner had the armband been handed over, however, when Elliot Stewart was allowed through by Grilled's defence, after Hutter and Hwang dithered over who was supposed to follow him. That was a gift Stewart had not expected, but was delighted to accept.
Hutter would last five more minutes before
Mohsen El Khateeb came on in a final effort to change the complexion of the match, which took a long stoppage at this point from Cooper's enthusiastic smothering of Grilled's players, which was judged to be too much and brought him a yellow card. He didn't mind, but although this ended as a win for Jasiu, the war had been lost elsewhere.
