Kazan Caught
Li Boom
The reserves learnt how to come good late on, scoring four without reply in the second half after a cracking first ended three-all against Kuwaiti Division Three visitors rubin_kazan. Defender
Hilal Bakhtiar sounded the starting gong for the goalfest in the fourth minute, after he held off Turk Mansoor Al-Nasser on a rare foray and blasted hard past Hadad Turk.
Bakhtiar would be on the receiving end of similarly physical play soon enough, and it came at the hands of large Swiss forward Domenico Rudig, who left him off balanced with a close-quarters tug before scooting off to score unopposed. rubin_kazan followed up by taking the lead for the first and only time, with winger Farook Haj-Kaleel winning out against
Colby Awyong to nudge the ball home from an indirect free-kick.
It didn't look good for the youngsters at this stage, with some of them looking flustered and simple passes going astray, and all looked to be falling apart when goalkeeper
Hovaness Noubaryan, an oasis of calm in an otherwise high-strung side, hit the deck on taking Belgian starlet Bram Martin's rush head-on.
Contrary to expectations, the incident galvanized his teammates as they naturally pushed forward to protect their hobbled keeper, and the Birds ended up pulling ahead within ten minutes as
Hung Wee Li and
Teo Yong Yau profited from good understanding born on the training ground. The team was caught napping by Yardan Ibn-Seif's direct off-the-ball run straight after the restart, however, for which they earned a bollocking from the coaches.
The three thousand who made it down didn't seem to mind too much, as nearly all stayed, lured by the promise of more goals - and goals there were, with former ArseVikings trainee
Li Boon Boon giving a preview of his considerable talent. After pulling off a low-percentage chip beautifully in the 51st minute, he picked the right moment to put the ball betweek Turk's legs in the 66th.
That was just the boost Grilled's impressionable side were waiting for, and their prospenity to attack was finally unleashed in full with the arrival of
Slavcho Tzonkov and
Walter Ross, after stiff rubin_kazan resistance had stopped the rot at the cost of bookings for Farook Haj-Kaleel and Nikola Jurišić.
Mayur Gudivada followed up well to snap up a spilled strike from Li, and Tzonkov's experience guided him to try the near post, successfully, in the 88th minute. In contrast, the underused Ross appeared rusty, but his professionalism was never in doubt, with a piece of intelligent, if completely unnecessary, time-wasting in the final minute.
