Wooden Go In
Chow Fluffed
The Birds failed to beat heimu XI despite all three of their forwards finding the net, and now face a do-or-die trip to Changi Genius Arena next weekend to retain any hope of staying in Division Two. Grilled were bent on milking their midfield advantage for all it was worth, but defensive lapses at the beginning badly hobbled their drive.
In a sidenote to the fixture, Grilled entered with the Singapore Unofficial Championship and heimu with the Singapore Unofficial Competitive Championship, both freshly taken off Arrogancae, and the draw means that each will get to keep the trinkets for a little while more.
Having set a target of three wins in the last four games, and having collected an unexpected one against Arrogancae, a confident
Han Lik-Tsun again trusted in his 2-5-3 to engage the opponents in their own half, and even inserted
Alex Fonseca in
Slavcho Tzonkov's place in defence. heimu XI, having been held by newbies last week, changed to a defensive 4-5-1 in anticipation.
It was the visitors who enjoyed the first breakthrough, which came after Grilled had advanced too far ahead in the hopes of grasping the initiative. Fonseca had moved into his accustomed position behind the strikers, when his pass was suddenly picked off and hit down the left side for Jérôme Vagner to chase. It was no contest as Madaini tried to cover that completely open flank, and Vagner sidefooted a simple inbound pass for lone frontman Tobies Turu to score for the first time against Grilled in four meetings.
The always entertaining Turu was in his element, and came close to embarassing
Dexter Stacey with a rocket from all of thirty-five metres that swung just past the far post. For the most part, though, it was Grilled who were toiling tirelessly to get back into it, but in another cruel twist, heimu XI doubled their lead through former seluraralc youth winger Xue Ruoqing after an excellent
Paolo Iten free kick was predicted and caught by Vittorio Lo Iacono.
It might have been too much for the Birds to recover from, had
Tian Yonghang not worked his way perfectly between the centrebacks to pick the heimu lock for 1-2; unfortunately, heimu would pull further ahead as they exploited Grilled's extremely weak left side, with neither Fonseca nor Iten known for their defensive sense, with Arnošt Konupka finishing from close up.
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim nearly made a fight of it with a brilliant solo rush that sadly ended with a mediocre shot.
The original sixty thousand in attendance had dwindled somewhat by the time the second half began, and there were few signs of a Grilled revival as heimu XI repelled wave after wave of determined-but-static assaults without their four at the back being troubled too much. They even looked more likely to score, until
Chow Ying Lee further bolstered his reputation as a home court specialist by nicking the ball off a slow-turning Triebenbacher to put in a mostly-undeserved goal.
That shook the visitors some, and Han sensed it. He quickly threw
Lin Jungui on for Qaseem Madaini in a gambit to get some points out of the contest, with instructions to harry as much as possible.
Paolo Iten probably took it a bit too far with his sweeping tackle on the unlucky Ljubomir Grgurović, who had to be replaced in midfield by veteran defender Lee Chao Cheng.
What had looked impossible now appeared a distinct possibility to the remaining fans, who upped their voices as cracks began to show in the previously imposing heimu edifice. There was no stopping Grilled's young trio of strikers as they cut through all comers in the 79th minute with clockwork-like short passing, and Mohd Safri could do no wrong with his scintillating finish after faking one last pass to Chow.
A comeback to remember looked to be on the cards, and might have come off in the 86th minute when
Chow Ying Lee was put clear through by Iten on a broken offside trap, but to the dismay of most in present the speedster guided his grounder right into the torso of the goalkeeper.
