Leave It To Beavers
Counter Control
Grilled Birds' final game going into the Sapphire Challenger Cup would be a 2-3 defeat to Canada's Beavers FC in the Dominion International Cup, but few could have thought that the loss to the II.3 leaders reflected poorly on them. Continued rain kept the teams from playing at their best, and there was the perception that the Birds were holding something back too, what with the big game coming up.
Nothing should be taken from the Beavers for all that, what more with their record of having won every national-level trophy in Canada once, and still being in contention for this edition of the Royal Cup; Romanian head coach Evrim Seden had established a wonderfully-solid 4-5-1 skippered by Curaçao international defender Romero La Crus, and backstopped by ex-Jordanian national U-20 goalie Hussein Abd El Nour. La Crus' countryman Clifford Schmidt would be their attacking focus down the left, with 28 year-old local forward Glen Asshurst their target man.
On his end,
Dan Alstani fielded a lineup very close to what is expected for the final, making this a rehearsal of sorts. This necessarily also involved plenty of hold-up play from
Hwang Teck Fu, who appeared to be trying almost too hard to justify his inclusion on Wednesday. He did come off the better against Norwegian centreback Agaton Kihldahl for
Phillip Nagata's dipping cross in the tenth minute, but was off-balance for the final touch.
Things were only heating up, and the Beavers found the breakthrough five minutes later, after Belgian playmaker Gerard Lebée cut a swathe through a horde of Grilled midfielders, with
Aw Keng Chuan committing to the tackle too early. Glen Asshurst timed his run perfectly, and clipped it past
Radomil Marcol in mid-stride. Grilled responded with a bombing raid from kick-off, only to be caught short as the Beavers countered handily; fortunately for Marcol, Asshurst couldn't keep his shot down on his second attempt.
It was difficult to tell which team were dictating terms at times, as the match became a complicated game of bait-and-switch - with Grilled playing it all the way back into defence from advanced positions several times. Nagata remained the Birds' best offensive outlet as he challenged Portuguese ex-U-20 fullback Pedro Rui António whenever he could, which brought an assist to
Hwang Teck Fu in the 31st minute. Hwang had a lot to do as he received the pass with back to goal and two defenders still on him, only to shake them off with a madcap dribble that would have done Messi proud.
Beavers FC hardly wanted for their own chances, and were back pushing into the Grilled half in earnest from kick-off.
Radomil Marcol spread himself well to deny Slovenian midfielder Art Ipavec just two minutes after Hwang's equaliser, but his defence couldn't get the ball away. Gerard Lebée chased the clearance down before it went into touch, and a couple of quick passes later, Kihldahl was there to loop a chip over Marcol into the net for 2-1.
The second half had the Beavers look the more productive side as they held their lines without too much difficulty, and they should have gotten a third on a salient counter-thrust down their right flank in the 54th, that had Lebée crash a wicked curler against the crossbar.
Hwang Teck Fu didn't look entirely pleased as he was withdrawn for
Lim An Keng on the hour, alongside Agaton Kihldahl for the Beavers for former Brazilian international Aldão Pavan.
Despite two of the three goalscorers now out of the game, there always felt like there would be more for some reason, in particular Beavers FC's ability to pick the Birds apart when in possession. The Grilled defence kept their wits about them for La Crus' tricky free-kick setup 72 minutes in, but were a lot less organized when Ciro Gugliandolo came flying up the right side, four minutes on. Both
Wu Ping De and
Genki Nagano thought it was the other guy's responsibility, which concluded in the Italian winger gleefully putting it low past
Radomil Marcol into the far post.
This had the Grilled custodian pointing fingers, and
Lim An Keng urging his teammates forward as the Birds saw the ball on the centre spot for the fourth time today. They did have the number of the Beavers for the last ten minutes with
Ananda Hettiarachchi doing his bit, and this led to
Chad Thach's successful strike in the 82nd minute, as Pavan got forced wide to deal with the Sri Lankan's incursion. The equaliser just would not come, sadly, and Grilled's bringing on of
Paulino Trindade and
Kendell El Khateeb for the final minutes had no concrete impact.
