Losing Undeservedly
Swindle of the Season
All the bad karma that was ever accumulated by Grilled came back to haunt them, as they were picked off by Winning Eleven despite commanding possession throughout. Grilled sank down the table as the visitors racked up a 0-3 lead by half-time, then had the audacity to add to it before Rottman repaired the injustice somewhat.
Winning Eleven had mauled Titus Titanium IV 4-0 last week at home, and Grilled took the warning to heart as they spared no effort in fielding their strongest XI. The legendary Nikos Avramidis mocked Grilled's defensive efforts though, as Vincent Grunder slashed by, creating a mix-up between Harlow and Bona for Avramidis to open the scoring in the 19th minute, just as he did against Titus.
Kek-Tjiang collected a rather routine yellow after a succession of tackles on the edge, before van Liere in full flow supplied Martinsson with a spinning ball to race. Winning's goalie Tom Pinchetti was onto it, to the dismay of Martinsson, who saw the ball gathered into Pinchetti's arms a second before he could get a boot in.
Local ex-international Zang Kai-Chung, with thirty caps for Singapore, put away an international-class goal two minutes later as van Liere stumbled and lost the ball on a dedicated Grilled push. Winning's defence made a diagonal pass upfield, where Grunder had been biding his time. In the ensuing two-on-two, Kai-Chung brushed off Paullin to hit a powerball just over Harlow.
Rottman got his cleats into Jimmy Nederwald after the latter had gone to ground, and for that he deserved his booking. Grilled again dominated the middle of the pitch, and were yet again undone by ten seconds of imagination by Winning Eleven. Ex-Team Singapore midfielder Yin Van-Phuoc volleyed after eight successive passes, and to the horror of the home crowd the ball hit the inside of the back post and flitted in. A true nightmare was unfolding.
Van-Phouc's corner in stoppage time was lifted on by Reinold Mönkhof, all the way to Mathias Jacobsson who rose for a free header on goal. He got only poor contact as Falkbo braced himself to spring at the shot, so the ball trickled out of play to end a torrid half.
The second half brought more of the same, as Winning counter-punched almost apologetically.
Clair Harlow was on hand to save two on-target attempts by Nederwald and Mönkhof, but fell to defender Joon-Ming in the 74th minute. Harlow had just parried a long shot, but thought his defence would come to spirit the ball away. Instead, the Winning No. 21 got in to slide the ball past a surprised Harlow.
All pretense of a fightback was long since gone, but Rottman salvaged a little pride for the heartbroken home fans, some of whom had vacated their seats unable to stand the sorry sight.
Dani Spirig's outrunning two defenders was encouraging for the future, but Rottman's clever curler did little to correct the footballing travesty that had occured.
