Pitted Against
Bileski Bossing
Macedonian national star Vlado Bileski led top division club Pitaci to a heart-pounding 7-4 win at The Cooking Pot, where the over 7300 who had the good fortune to attend had nary a dull moment to bemoan. There were goals all over as
Zhao Jing Wei returned to the fray as sharp as ever, but not even he could prevent the Bileski-led visitors from claiming victory.
Zhao's return meant that
Chow Ying Lee was again pushed to left wing, but from the passes he dealt out from the first minute, it was well worth the while. Pitaci were not intimidated, however, and attacking midfielder Damianos Patselas lifted a tasty diagonal ball that the lurking Šimon Hrzán opened from.
The Czech forward's celebrations were muted after he realised that his follow-through had accidentally taken
Qassem Madaini in the kneecap, however, and it was evident by how the normally-stolid Saudi defender thrashed about that it was a bad one. The match took some time to be restarted as medics hustled around Madaini, who eventually had to be administered oxygen before being wheeled off.
Remco van der Ban stepped in, and for all of Hrzán's apologetic demeanour, it was right back to business as he slipped Riku Sunila through right away. Sunila however put it wide, and it was
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim who scored the next one, after he wound his way through the Pitaci defence in the 12th minute.
There was a strange early substitution in the 25th as Dutch youngster Wubbo de Wilde was taken off for Goel Gozlan for no apparent reason, but Remco wasn't about to dwell on it, putting Grilled into the lead with a very positive run onto Zhao's long throw-in.
Pitaci then turned on the heat, and the Birds were unable to cope with their extremely aggressive play, with Bileski getting away with a barely-legal bump into
Rashid bin Ahmad to make room for his 35th minute equaliser. Yellows followed in quick succession for Fred Hamada and Antonio Méndez Mercado, but the calculated roughness did pay off with close-ranged conversions from Mercado and Patselas.
Luis Alcántara was clearly unhappy at this turn of events, although it was hard to tell whether it was directed at the opponents' tactics, or Grilled's surrender. The Birds did start out the second half willing to give as good as they got, only to go further behind on the hour mark as Remco played Pavle Madzirov right onto goal.
Grilled were not doing too badly before that actually, and soon worked themselves back into contention, starting with a beautiful feint-and-shot by
Tian Yonghang. Two minutes later, Zhao marked his recovery with a classic centre-forward's header, climbing high above Madzirov, and the rally looked to be on at 4-5.
Unfortunately, it was not to be, but if the Birds had to lose, it might as well be to a strike the quality of Bileski's bicycle kick in the 74th, which even some sections of the home fans had to grudgingly applaud. This X-factor has been why he has already featured for the senior national team after being a feature in the U-20 side, and from how he held his own against Zhao for much of the match, there will be more caps to come.
Sunila then put the match to bed with a super hit from way outside the box that Rykowski couldn't quite get ahold of, and despite
Nicola Vandeneynde and
Colby Awyong going at full tilt in the last ten minutes as fresh subs, the Birds would get no closer towards narrowing the gap.
