Sintered Edge
Lim At The Double
After sitting out the previous week, Grilled Birds returned to the World Battle tournament with a 3-1 win against Senegal II.1 visitors Manchester Sinti, a spin-off of Italy's Pro Secco FC. Sinti had acquitted themselves passably in a narrow 2-3 away loss to Fouta Toro over the weekend, if with their Italian Number Nine Rubens Anderlucci terrorizing the Toro defence with a brace.
Anderlucci looked well up for it today as he played keep-it-up in the centre circle at the head of Sinti's 5-2-3, which boasted two offensive midfielders in Vasil Smakiqi and Miroslav Vladisavljević. German head coach Horst Kranichstein had clearly given up on the middle with his setup today, banking instead on his five-man backline - as led by Armenian international Ararat Shahumyan - to absorb and counter.
This was not exactly foreign to the Birds, and
Hisham Zubari would marshal the Grilled midfield to sit warily just past the halfway line. The match proceeded slowly as the sides felt out each others' positions, with Grilled eventually spreading it out to the wings. This had
Phillip Nagata repelled by Turkish fullback Ahmet Emrah Ulusal in the 17th minute, but his late cross would yet be headed home by
Lim An Keng anyway.
The Birds would return their focus to the middle, having gotten the monkey off their back, but
Hisham Zubari's stunner in the 23rd would only bring reprisal in the form of a free-kick at the head of the box, after
Ananda Hettiarachchi had little option but to block Rubens Anderlucci off. This would be blazed inches wide by Horst Kranichstein, who came no closer in his next attempt three minutes later.
The first half ended 1-0 after
Hwang Teck Fu and Spiros Restemis exchanged decent shots around the 35th minute, and Grilled would play with more urgency after the restart. Most of the action fell to
Lim An Keng with
Hwang Teck Fu's reputation seemingly preceding him, with Hwang being double-teamed for much of the time. This had Lim send a curler narrowly over in the 56th minute, and Hwang booked for running full-tilt into Restemis for the anticipated rebound.
Lim An Keng retained quite a lot more freedom, and he would have few rivals in the air, which encouraged Grilled's wingers to swing them in.
Phillip Nagata claimed a second assist in the 64th minute after placing it nicely for Lim about ten yards out, although French goalkeeper Silviu Marin could really have done better about this header.
A third goal arrived via
Hisham Zubari's stiff right boot in the 79th minute, after which the goalscorers came off for
Jerome Crawford and
Chad Thach. Thach got involved immediately with a tap-on to
Hwang Teck Fu, who however was off-balance for his volley.
Radomil Marcol saved off Vladisavljević a minute later, with Thach himself bulging the side-netting before Ararat Shahumyan got Sinti's consolation on a counter.
