Falcons Down
Olsson On It
Grilled's reserves continued being the saving grace of a flagging season, as they saw off UAE Division Three visitors AC Falcons in extra time to seal their fourth straight friendly win on the trot. This feat was all the more impressive given that AC Falcons had won their previous ten matches, with an aggregate goal difference of sixty-two goals to nil conceded.
20 year-old wingback
Chua Qiang Dong got a break at rightback, joining an experienced trio of Olsson, Ross and Mausisa.
Anders Josefsson would be playmaker for the day, with
Niculae Stanca captaining the side from the left of midfield.
The Falcons, in their change strip of red top and white shorts, boasted of a strong defence in Lithuanian Denis Brokas and German Martin Alexander Bund, with Swedish attacking midfielder Nenad Spasić sewing their play together. Fortunately for the Birds, their homegrown forward line was pretty raw.
The Falcons had the more possession, but could not find a way past the canny Grilled defence, which was always a step ahead. Grilled's own batch of young strikers were the more dangerous of the two, and soon forced Falcons central defender Luca Toffanin into a late tackle. Italian winger Edoardo Sicolo then followed Toffanin into the book, after the notoriously inconsistent
Tian Yonghang bamboozled him with some nifty footwork.
The honours would be done by Safrinho just before the end of the half, as he rushed past a rooted Bund, and then a hesitant Toffanin, before guiding the ball in at S$8.6 million Spanish goalie Imobath Maura's near post, something that no one had managed for some time.
It was always going to be a tall order shutting the Falcons out completely, and the Grilled backline finally came undone when Finnish winger Hannu Tarnanen shrugged Chua off while advancing down the left flank, before threading an inch-perfect low cross to Thabet Al-Alawi. The nineteen year-old forward gratefully sent the ball past Silvera to tie the game up.
Alvaro Silvera then showed his worth, as he swatted away two excellent efforts, from Bund and Al-Alawi respectively. Out-of-favour
Walter Ross, who appeared to have played himself into form in the first half, saw his sharpness deteriorate rapidly after that, and was nearly responsible for gifting a goal; seeing that, acting player-coach
Niculae Stanca signalled for a substitution, getting
Quah Han Kok on for Ross.
Old warhorse Quah gave Grilled an extra dimension down the right, and Grilled more comfortably took the game into extra time. The first period was coming to a close when Mourão was hacked down just inside the penalty area, and
Björn Olsson stepped up to convert the penalty to claim victory.
