Bedste Defence
Tight Dane Performance
Grilled Birds took on Danish Fifth Division side Livgardens bedste drenge in front of almost three thousand spectators at home, with the experience of the previous weeks' 1-3 loss to German team Wolke Sieben still fresh on the players' minds.
The wing and defence positions had been reshuffled, with
Xing Hua and
Bert Persson in for Seng-kar and teenaged winger Koo Man-Kit on the flanks.
Nor Suhaimi bin Che Lah moved into the leftback place left vacant by Hua, and the overworked
Lan Tuan-Mu was relieved by
Kau Siu-Cheung. Shung-Tat made it clear enough that his motive was to throw Grilled's developing attack against continental 4-4-2 formations, but the final evaluation was vague indeed.
Grilled stunned even the most fanatical of their supporters with a very early lead, before the visitors had settled in on the heavy pitch. Livgardens' Bregnsbo gave away a routine free kick by clipping Yunos' heels some distance from the edge of the penalty box, and a four-man wall was constructed to block out the tight angle where usually two would have sufficed.
Dead ball specialist Hobson still elected to take the short route to goal rather than square it across for Persson to his right, and his pinpoint shot took the line between the outside of the wall and the inside of the post. Livgardens' keeper Oersnaes never moved.
Livgardens thereafter practised a conservative short passing game to steady the tempo, but seldom got to deliver to isolated forwards Jacob Hancock and Per Andersson. Measured aggression showed in both sides' earnest running, which required a couple of yellow cards to cool down play, as Magunsson pushed Madsen off balance and 19 year old Smidt had to resort to jersey tugging to contain old dynamo
Bert Persson.
Tim Hobson enjoyed two chances born of his own vision in the early part of the second half, but skied the first and was unlucky against Stefan Oersnaes' reflexes for the second. By then Grilled were noticeably less vigorous not least due to toned-down movement by Ong Tan, already on one caution, and a slight knock suffered by bin Che Lah. This led to concerted pushes by the Livgardens wingers, and former Linnéstaden BK player Roger Nisssjö, already into his fourth professional season, had a golden opportunity to even things out. He hesitated with the goal looming only metres ahead, and this allowed Spanish goalie Balencia a few precious seconds to hustle him off the ball.
Play resumed with Livgardens even more methodical in their moves, and it was against the run of play that Yunos rewarded the spectators with another goal off a blindside run to close the game.
