rofa Rocked
Low Downed
Grilled emerged after their battle with Omani Third Division side rofa66 battered but triumphant, as primary forwards
Tian Yonghang and
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim recorded a brace each to see off the visitors. El Salvadoran wingback Severo Canto briefly got rofa66 on equal terms with a gritty goal, but the Birds' overwhelming possession advantage told towards the end.
Joan Cisquell and
Remco van der Ban appeared in an experimental asymmetric defence for Grilled, with
Gene Filippone playing twenty yards up and to the right of his usual spot, as
Niculae Stanca repeated the
Ling Fuquan test with the Swiss. roja66 meanwhile assumed a very expansive 4-3-3 that was chock-full of threat, but with only Santiago Pinilla holding the middle by himself, they were never going to keep much of the ball.
Well,
Tian Yonghang seemed not to have let the loss of his Golden Boot at the last moment affect him, as he dictated play with increasing authority from the centre, interspersed with occasional bursts forward. One of those paid off in the 7th minute, as
Pompeo Bellamoli's clever short knock-on into space gave Tian the yard he needed to bang it past young goalie Laith Sameeh Al-Ziyady, who was playing abroad as a professional for the first time.
Grilled flirted with going further forward as Bellamoli went it himself and put a lob slightly over, shortly before Mohd Safri nearly found
Chow Ying Lee with a glorious cross, only for Antoni Swider to mitigate the danger with the top of his head. That sparked a rofa66 push down the middle, and Canto equalised after Cisquell's barely-legal harrying failed to put him off.
The visitors nearly went ahead in the 33rd minute, after a
Djan Bacelar near-miss was put back into play quickly by Al-Ziyady, and Jan Czuma smelt it coming to the back post from Pontus Martinsson's solo breakaway down the left. Had he stretched a foot further,
Dan Seng must surely have been beaten by that effort.
rofa66 had managed to stay abreast largely due to Pinilla's Herculean exertions, and as the hour mark drew closer, it was perhaps inevitable that even the supremely fit Spaniard began to falter. First to leave was however
Low Aik Jia, who came out the worse off from a clash of shins with Pinilla, and in a fit of petulance flung his jersey to the ground as he was led off.
Tian then put Grilled 2-1 up from a magnificent move by
Chow Ying Lee down the sidelines, with Chow demonstrating good understanding of what it takes to be a winger. Immediately after that, however, the Birds had to make yet another substitute, as
Gleb Dorogan might have ended his career ignominiously by tearing a hamstring on a late challenge. The former captain has been a shadow of his prime, and it is frankly hard to see him ever having a major impact on this Birds team again.
The changes didn't affect the big picture much, and
Leong Wan Kang brushed the crossbar with his lob, even before
Colby Awyong had made it on. Mohd Safri wound the event up with two goals in the space of three minutes, but by then roja66 were finding it hard to get out of their own half.
