Warangal Warred Upon
Triple Doubles
Grilled concluded the season by wailing upon Indian Division Two champions Warangal FC as the Birds tested their first-string in the friendly, with the forwards coming through with flying colours. Each of
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim,
Chow Ying Lee and
Tian Yonghang captured braces, while the defenders chipped in too,
Lin Jungui following up his tournament goal with another cute finish.
Despite the scoreline, the Warangal team that came out in their away yellow and black stripes were far from pushovers, led by the likes of Ajitkumar Kapoor and Teemu Välipakka up top, with their most glaring weak link probably 40 year-old forward-turned-goalkeeper August Adolfsson, and perhaps the fast but inexperienced Apurva Sayani in central midfield. Unfortunately, both of these turned out to be critical positions, as Grilled wasted no time pointing out.
There was some give-and-take to start off with as Grilled ran through the gears, and despite several long shots they never looked threatened right up to when Mohd Safri shoved his way to an awkward bounce and knocked a quite savable attempt past Adolfsson a little too easily. That realisation had the Birds becoming far more trigger-happy, to the visitors' disadvantage.
They were not well equipped to face a
Chow Ying Lee eager to get into range come what may, and
Qassem Madaini polished off the penalty given after Aharpati Manohar tripped Chow accidentally. When the defence stood off the next time, Chow happily banged it in himself, and he always looked a menace until an unwise challenge on Slovakian defender Richard Novisedlák saw him booked and Novisedlák off.
Lin Jungui was however unaffected, and climbed all over the newly-arrived veteran Curt Hinko to reach a cross from
Shiya Shaahee. Adolfsson looked to have had the weak attempt covered, but Hinko rushed at it to make up for his earlier failings, and inadvertently hit it with his shoulder past his goalkeeper to both players' dismay.
Tian Yonghang then struck the fifth between Adolfsson's legs after more magic by Shaahee down the right, with the visitors then flirting with going down to ten men after Manohar sent himself crashing into Mohd Safri with two minutes to go in the first half. Referee Mao Baotian was understanding, and let him off the hook with a yellow card.
The Birds made a triple substitution to start the second half with, with
Seytek Djekshenkulov,
Paolo Iten and
Walter Ross coming on for
Abdul bin Jantan,
Shiya Shaahee and
Lin Jungui. That didn't slow them much, and
Chow Ying Lee got his second in the 66th minute, with Hinko simply unequipped to handle Chow on his own.
Iten then worked a tricky free-kick in for
Tian Yonghang to poke in, and after
Woon Shun An's lucky escape from a tackle from behind, Mohd Safri rolled in the eighth and last before
Qassem Madaini struck the crossbar in a vain attempt to join the two-goal club.
