Fizzing Out
Trojnara Takes Two
The reserves arranged a friendly with German Division Six side Fizzer FC after an unfortunate misunderstanding with their previously arranged opponents, and were promptly taught a lesson by the no-nonsense Teutonics, who fielded an all-European XI.
Grilled were still reeling from last Wednesday's beating by Sohaji, and soon discovered that Fizzer were cut from the same cloth. They had precious little say in the proceedings as the visitors put their simple but brutally effective short-passing game on display, and Polish forward Zygmunt Trojnara got the ball rolling with a stiff grounder at the far post, after
Hovaness Noubaryan made an ill-advised late dash out.
Colby Awyong was the next culprit as Fizzer became adept at punishing the slightest mistakes, and Awyong's was attempting to find an open man instead of just putting it out of play. Crowded by two men, his panicked pass was predicted by hometown boy Kasper Theres, who weaved past Bakhtiar to make it two.
The third came a minute later as Gianfranco Taricco hit a beautiful volley on the fly, for which Grilled were blameless for once, and Fizzer could well have run up the score before the 30th minute with both Egon Bennemühlen and Philipp Küster inches away from connecting with sure goals; the youngsters were happy to troop off at half-time only three down.
Luis Alcántara tightened things up for the restart, and Grilled did look more assured, if still nowhere near turning things around. Theres spun and let loose a twisting attempt in the 52nd minute that was well met by Noubaryan, while Awyong covered competently for his partner Bakhtiar after the latter repeated his mistake of dallying on the ball.
Alcántara had seen enough by the 70th minute, and put
lu Zunwen on to spark the team to greater efforts. The introduction took time to pay off, but Grilled did get a consolation goal through
Teo Yong Yau, who had taken to the field with a bandaged knee, after Pencho Rangelov had extended Fizzer's lead. There was a suspicion of handball by Teo in the build-up, but the officials ignored it.
There were no implications on the final result as Trojnara got his second of the match with a real bullet from the edge of the penalty area, and
Tang Hengcai then missed a one-on-one before
Qassem Madaini made his accustomed last-minute appearance to usher the team off.
