Black Despair
No End In Sight
Grilled equalled their Season 44 record of starting off with three losses, but look unlikely to pull through as they did then, with Arrogancae visiting next. They may take comfort in that a stint in Division Three could see them refreshed, seeing as to how current leaders heimu XI dominated them at Blackwood Field.
It was probably the worst place at present to go to and break a losing streak, with heimu XI on an astonishing fifteen straight wins in all competitions. A lot of that has to go down to their midfield tandem of Sido Leemans and Ljubomir Grgurović, but perhaps the largest contribution on the day was by German Zeynel Uraz, who scored twice from the hole.
Uraz didn't wait to impose his will, having ended last season with his 100th career goal against G0DSpeeD, and took advantage of Grilled's flat four-man backline to inch ahead of
Lin Jungui and get to Marcello Petracchini's snap cross.
Dexter Stacey flew out of his position to try and get a fist to the ball, but missed by inches.
One up as early as the third minute, heimu XI relaxed into their usual game, which has proven deadly for opponents. Uraz, certainly not lacking in confidence, tried to lob Stacey out of the blue from forty metres, but ended putting it closer to the corner flag.
That didn't detract from the overall quality of his play, however, and Grilled's central defenders got fits trying to decide whether to track him into midfield. It was damned if they did, and damned if they didn't, as they found out just before the hour mark. Madaini followed Uraz towards where Roger Ricart took a free-kick, only to watch Xue Ruoqing ghost into the space left behind and lift a shot into the roof of the net.
The disappointing thing was that Grilled had chances enough of their own to get back into it, especially towards the end of the first half, when the hosts let their guard down.
Seytek Djekshenkulov alone had two great opportunities, but one was expertly dealt with by Dmitry Smaev, and the other sailed into the sky. Mohd Safri likewise got it wrong after
Paolo Iten put him through, while Uraz showed everybody how it was done with a brilliantly simple feint to throw Seytek off balance, for 3-0.
Han could do nothing but watch in horror as his team was taken apart, and not even a half-time pep talk could rouse them, with
Vukota Crkvenjakov giving away an unnecessary penalty, promptly converted by Ricart. It was just as well that heimu XI took their foot off the pedal at this point, having already seen cards to Lee Chao Cheng and Zhu Aobo and an injury to Safri bin Mustapa, otherwise a repeat of last season's ArseVikings humiliation - or worse - could have been on the cards.
