Blizzards Entertain
Ten On Show
All Canadian side Canadian Blizzards Rostock certainly caught the eye at The Cooking Pot with their shocking ensemble of mostly-navy top and green shorts, and hometown boy William Faulkner ensured that they kept eyes on them with a quicksilver double. It was then all over to the home side as forwards
Pompeo Bellamoli and
Leong Wan Kang, as well as the always-lethal
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim replicated Faulkner's feat, leaving Grilled 7-3 winners.
Rostock had shot back to the top division after garnering twelve straight wins while in II.2, but would again finish eighth with new goalie Jimmie Welsh not making as large a splash as was hoped, with Love Eriksson out due to his age. Former Estonian national winger Deivi Ninassarvik's departed too a week or so ago, as they look to prepare for life in Division Two.
All that was, of course, not any indication of what the Birds had to deal with, as Rostock played a full reserve side against them. That said, Danish right midfielder Niels Christian Gaardsøe might be on the verge of the first team, looking at how he outthought
Ling Fuquan constantly in the duels down the touchline. Gaardsøe sure knew how to use the boundary lines to his advantage, and got a deserved assist when his probing cross in the eleventh minute was clipped home by Faulkner.
Grilled were looking vulnerable on the counter, though
Rashid bin Ahmad did prevent another similar goal when he arrived just in time to boot out a ball that was headed for the waiting Panos Karasimos. They would still concede from the corner, though, as Bryan Mead swung it in and Faulkner simply put his full weight behind the header, barging
Dan Seng aside in the process.
Mohd Safri didn't waste his time protesting as a few of his teammates did, prefering instead to respond in a more direct manner.
Liang Liyong revealed his rarely-displayed attacking side as he pushed a furious pace down the right, and Mohd Safri juggled the chip past Mead before firing into the roof of the net.
That inspired the trainee strikers, and
Pompeo Bellamoli equalised three minutes later, from another nice drive down the right side by Liang. 18 year-old Uri Romano was having a nightmare as his ponderous turning was caught on to by Grilled's attackers, and
Leong Wan Kang would exploit it by pretending to go to the outside while taking it inside instead, then thrashing it past Belgian backup keeper Geert Derwa.
The start of the second half had Benjamin Merchant coming in for Karasimos, but it was again the Grilled three who hogged the limelight. It was not as easy as before with transfer-listed Dutch defensive winger Cor Eyer helping out, but a slip-up in the 60th minute gave
Chow Ying Lee plenty of space to run into. He put in a decent cross too, allowing Bellamoli to put a bad couple of weeks behind him with a skilful header across Derwa.
Mohd Safri then ran right through to claim Grilled's fifth, which was the sign for
Djan Bacelar to come on for a slightly-unwilling Bellamoli. One could understand that, with goals still in the offing, and a fresh Bacelar created one for Leong immediately after coming on, backheeling it with just enough pace for him to snap it up between two Rostock defenders.
Probable Player of the Season
Tian Yonghang then embellished his Golden Boot with a strike down the middle, after which visiting coach Francesco Meneghetti figured that it was time to give young Richard Rosales some match time. Wlaaeldin Mahdi soon followed, and the shake-up actually did them a world of good, with Rosales' energy resulting in a two-on-one down the right, and Lionnel Roy putting a third in for Rostock.
Gleb Dorogan and
Alex Fonseca were Grilled's final substitutions, and they had little to do but to see the time out.
