Paying The Pieper
Vukota Vents
Grilled demolished CharlesCheesePie four-nil to boost their home record to eleven goals for and zero against in three matches so far, with coach
Han Lik-Tsun's masterplan of picking up points at The Cooking Pot seemingly coming along nicely.
Seasonally wet weather made a damp backdrop for CCP's visit, but the opponents for the day had no intention of coming to relax, choosing to face Grilled's eight in midfield and attack with eight of their own. 20 year-old national U-20 midfielder Mohd Ali bin Abu Bakar would be asked to hold it all together, but U-20 colleague Chow De Choon was left on the bench in preparation for Wednesday's Cup game against SnowMan Team.
Grilled persisted with playing their best eleven, and slowly took the game to CCP as the match progressed. 23 minutes on, Chow nearly got on the end of a cheeky free-kick that was hit wide before being played in, but Argentine defender Damian Gustavo Barilari read it well and put himself in the way, allowing Bernie Vollaers an easy take.
The match was calling out for a goal, and it was
Vukota Crkvenjakov who supplied it four minutes later, as he received the ball slightly outside the penalty area, brought it in, and swept it accurately into the top corner. While the old Vukota would almost certainly have looked for a teammate, the goal against seluraralc last week appears to have given him a licence to shoot, and judging from the celebrations that followed, nobody was going to begrudge him that.
Vukota then repeated the trick in short order, as he again found himself with the ball in support of the attack, and also with time to set himself for a shot. Vollaers got his hand to this one, but the soaking wet ball would not be grasped, and continued on its way into the net. Pujolràs, who had embarassingly dribbled forward without the ball for a distance before that, could be observed wryly smiling in sympathy.
The Grilled fans were quick on the uptake, and implored the team to pass to Vukota each time they got the ball.
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim was more intent on breaking his four-match duck, however, and slightly selfishly lobbed both Vollaers and the crossbar in the 39th minute, as several teammates waited in the middle; the crowd refused to be too hard on him, taking his workrate into account.
Bögengang's scoring run would come to an end as
Han Lik-Tsun threw
Tian Yonghang on for the German top scorer at the beginning of the second half, with it being only Tian's second league appearance, the first being his famous captaining of the side against SAS Eagles in his debut season. Other than being armband-less, it was clear that Tian was off his game, and he would pass the remainder of the match rather invisibly.
Grilled rolled on despite that, and
Anders Josefsson's arrival in place of
Kyou-Chull Kim after 55 minutes gave Grilled a second burst of energy. It was time for the midfielders to shine, and Dorogan's half-genius, half-irresponsible shot on the turn flashed just wide.
Yvan Lefébure's more conventional effort in the 77th minute brought a better return, as the Frenchman only had to get something on the ball to knock it past the keeper from three yards.
It was basically game over then, although there was still time for a disgruntled Quirze Sans to get a yellow card for running into the back of
Lin Jungui, who looked as if he was ready to start a fight, but wisely held himself back. There was even time for
Erik Back to pile on a fourth goal from a scripted free-kick, a few minutes before the final whistle.
