Perrera Ponder
Safri's New Experience
The Birds stretched their winning streak in friendlies to eight, as they controlled their match against Nicaraguan Division Two club Perrera FC from start to finish, which was down to the pent-up industry of their rested players.
Grilled had at least five top-quality midfielders who had not featured against seluraralc, and five of them were unleashed against the visitors, with Olsson and Stanca filling up the back.
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim made only his fourth start in a friendly game, and was clearly raring to go.
Perrera, decked out in a flashy white, red and black number, went for an asymmetric 5-3-2 with American winger Marco Tulio Aguilar wide on the right. Grilled now faced the dilemma that they had presented their league opponents with during the weekend, but faced little of note in the first fourty-five minutes.
They should have gone ahead, but Perrera's Czech captain Oto Šátek was imposing in front of goal. He kept out
Gleb Dorogan's improvised attempt despite being out of position, and closed down Mohd Safri quickly enough to force a miskick out of the U-20 forward.
The visitors were the more satisfied team going into the break, and emerged from it a snappier side. Grilled found it hard to cope with their upped pace and counterattacks from deep, and Aguilar supplied German left-sided midfielder Leon Potzel with a neat through ball for him to shock the home crowd by putting Perrera ahead against the run of play.
Han Lik-Tsun had seen enough, and pulled Dorogan off to allow the ever-reliable
Quah Han Kok to work Grilled back in. The homegrown legend had an immediate impact, winning a corner a couple of minutes after coming on, from which Grilled equalised as
Yvan Lefébure sought Mohd Safri out at the edge of the box, just like that. It would be Mohd Safri's first-ever friendly goal.
Grilled then continued to batter at the door, and
Tian Yonghang was extremely unlucky to have a peach of a shot rattle the crossbar in the 70th minute. The team continued plugging away as Perrera began to leave holes in their defence, and Lefébure would put Grilled in front with ten minutes to go, as he bent a free-kick low past Šátek.
That was hard on the visitors, and matters came to a head as Waldemar Ziembla tripped Mohd Safri in an off-the-ball incident. The two faced each other off as teammates ran to intervene, but could not stop Ziembla from getting a parting shove off. This was seen by referee Per Lönnhult, who immediately sent the Polish teenager off.
Now a man down, Perrera found it even harder to contain Grilled's energetic forward line, and
Tian Yonghang had a glut of chances in the final minutes, and converted one of them to confirm the result.
