Zero Against Zenit
Pot Packed
The reserve side went down with barely a whimper against Lebanon juggernaut =FC Zenit Spb=, newly-crowned national league champions who have appeared in the last six editions of the Hattrick Masters. They have dominated their local scene with ten major trophies in the past seven seasons, and while the fans gave Grilled's youngsters little chance against such excellence, they turned out in droves anyway - the official attendance of 7380 blew away Grilled's previous home record of 6382, which had stood for an amazing 28 seasons.
To be fair, Grilled's longstanding preference for traveling abroad meant that the figure stood as only the nineteenth highest overall, but for the supporters who packed the grandstand, it was still a seldom-seen weekday spectacle, one not experienced since the Birds' home defeat to FC ~ vile in the Cup six seasons ago, when the club was languishing in Division Three.
That memory only served to show how much had changed, with departing head coach
Han Lik-Tsun the only player to participate in that game still at Grilled; their replacements, with an average age of barely over twenty, were suitably overawed at facing the toughest opposition of their career so far, with Zenit, clad in all blue, fielding Masters veterans such as Lebanese international Ovagem Balmanoukyan, quickfooted German winger Werner Clement and Italian advanced playmaker Ettore Soddu.
Soddu, who scored the opener against Belgian champions Clover avenua in Zenit's third-round exit this season, was in particularly fine form as a withdrawn forward, something the in-training back two were never able to come to grips with. Dutchman Vurnon van Hoek got things going in the third minute, channeling former Grilled cult hero Maikel Rotteveel as he zoomed in from the left.
There was no indication that the starstruck trainees would be able to hold out, nor indeed much expectation, and Zenit kept on at a steady goal-every-ten-minutes clip through the first half, with Turkish wingback Erkin Gündüzhan again coming through on the left, then Bulgarian Stanislav Daskalov swinging around the right, and finally Hungarian mainstay Kristóf Eszes blasting a cracker of a volley past Noubaryan straight down the middle.
The flood subsided after the restart, presumably as the visitors took things easy, which led assistant coach Luis Alcántara to grant academy teenager
Rauf Khairul Akmal his first senior appearance in the 70th minute. If he had hoped that Zenit would soften Rauf's introduction to the big time, he was wrong, with Gündüzhan placing his shot smartly after the nervous debutante hit a pass blindly.
That reawakened the Zenit stars, and van Hoek, who had been unlucky to miss out on the Masters through injury, made a statement with his blazing pace as he overtook Bakhtiar over twenty metres despite starting five behind. Viliusis Tirylis raided the shattered backline immediately, and there was a brief respite before a clumsy shirt tug in the area brought a penalty decision, easily put away by Balmanoukyan.
Grilled's
Walter Ross and
Vukota Crkvenjakov didn't look particularly eager to get on the pitch with two minutes to go, while the badly-beaten duo of Bakhtiar and Awyong were only too eager to come off, and for good reason - van Hoek completed his hat-trick with a wonderful overhead kick, and Balmanoukyan slotted the tenth in just as the belated final whistle put a stop to the massacre.
