Žepče Spurn Edge
Ten Is Enough
Grilled Birds returned to the Dominion International Cup having to start with ten men after registration paperwork for Aw Keng Chuan had failed to be updated, but this proved not to be a problem against Bosnian III.16 leaders NK Žepče Limorad, who the Birds dealt with decisively anyway. Žepče were not short on stars, starting with capped Sri Lankan goalkeeper Samith Hathurusingha, fullback Dilshan Ranaweera and winger Nipuna Dissanayake, going through Nepalese central defender Dinesh Dang, and hardly ending with captain and former Mozambique international midfielder Luís Chinita.
Žepče would appear less comfortable in their 3-4-3 than Grilled were in a 2-4-3, quite remarkably, and one could only wonder at what possessed Bulgarian head coach Hristo Zhekov to abandon the 3-5-2 that had seen off F.C.Masha over the weekend. The Birds proceeded to start asking the questions, with Myanmar playmaker
Hein Thiha Pyae Ko creating chaos in the opposition box barely three minutes in, after cutting between Ranaweera and Dang on the left.
Hwang Teck Fu tried to fight his way to the ball, and was only held off by Malik Ćesko's utmost exertions.
The proceedings had to be something of a disappointment from the purists' point of view, as errors both tactical and personal cropped up with regularity. Grilled probably had the better excuse here with Žepče looking totally lost at times, which had
Chia Kwang Tse not believing his luck as he flipped a free header home after 13 minutes. It was not as if Grilled didn't have their own howlers either, but the Bosnians were unable to take advantage, and it was down to Hathurusingha to save at essentially point-blank from
Hwang Teck Fu, 28 minutes in.
Hwang's disciplinary issues revealed themselves again, as he failed to pull out from his follow-through against the goalkeeper, which had the referee deliberate about what card to show there. To the great disappointment of the Žepče fans - and perhaps in consideration of Grilled already being a man down - it was yellow.
Wu Ping De took it upon himself to try and calm an agitated Hwang down, and
Chad Thach's finish five minutes later from a great Hein assist allowed the Birds to take it easy for awhile.
Half-time was mostly spent going over positions and formations, from how the players behaved at the beginning of the second half, and Grilled moreover had
Lim An Keng on for
Chia Kwang Tse. Žepče had not figured out how to best exploit their personnel advantage, and it was the Birds who continued putting them in tricky positions.
Chad Thach wriggled free on the left flank following a premature advance from Žepče's defence on that side in the 54th minute, but he could not find the gap between Hathurusingha and his near post.
It was just not the teams' day for sound football, but Grilled continued to make the best of it, and they perhaps undeservingly went 3-0 up after 65 minutes thanks to
Lim An Keng's seizing upon some less-than-ideal coordination between Dang and his fellows. He would then fire over the bar in the 75th right after
Mohd Marzuki Khairul's entry for Hwang, itself coming right after Wu had pinged one off the woodwork. Malik Ćesko was shortly afterwards booked for an ill-tempered late trip on
Ananda Hettiarachchi, which was as far as it went for Žepče.
