Panned By Pano
Daniel Double
Panoptikum became the first Czech team to visit Grilled in Singapore, and in doing so handed the Birds a stiff 1-6 loss. The Birds had been the designated hosts against Samý_sádlo six seasons ago, but that game was actually held in faraway Tanzania.
Grilled fielded a largely unchanged side from last Wednesday, with the sole exception of Salieri starting in place of Lihai, who enjoyed a spell against LA XI in the league. The problems stayed too, and young midfielder Daniel Velebný, just a fortnight removed from Panoptikum's youth side, the Kaleidoskop, waltzed right through a shapeless Grilled defence to score in the sixth minute.
Feng Darong kept up where he left off, as the Birds posed a legitimate threat down his right flank. His dribbling was frequently too much for attacking leftback Xalvador Cillerero, who was miles away when Darong had the ball played ahead of him in the 20th minute.
Ângelo Cunha Simões used his considerable upper body strength to hold his marker off as the cross came in, and swung a resounding volley into the far end of goal to equalise.
Panoptikum still looked the better team, and quickly put the match out of reach by the half-hour mark. Lubomír Horký took a short pass neatly in his stride less than five minutes after Simões' goal, and while Silvera got to that shot, he could do little more than palm it into his own net. Defender Šimon Palacký then took advantage of a horrible mess-up between Silvera and Mirchev to intercept and score, after Silvera had grabbed the ball from a corner kick.
With the Grilled reserves back to their usual disarray, Velebný took the opportunity to impress in the senior side, as he chipped Grilled's hapless goalkeeper despite being off-balance as he steamed into the penalty area chasing an ambitious through ball from Rozsypal.
The second half was more of the same, with Grilled fortunate not to concede after a smart indirect free-kick set a Panoptikum forward one-on-one with Silvera. An excellent recovery tackle by Mohd Firdaus saved the day then, though Safrinho got booked for a nasty off-the-ball incident on the same play.
Lihai and Torsson replaced the Simões and the ineffective Salieri after sixty minutes, but they were not to have the same galvanizing influence that they had against LA XI. Instead, Rodolf Dohnal made it 1-5 for Panoptikum before they had jogged to their posts, and Spanish striker Diego Cana Galindo finished the contest off with a sharp finish in the 63rd.
