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| FIXTURE HISTORY |
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| Season 55 | W | 5 - 0 | Tournament (Group Phase) |
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Eddies Smoothed
Wong Does It All
Grilled Birds picked up only their second tournament triumph, the other being the SCC (Individual) cup, in the sixth edition of Worldwide Allgäu-Guests III. True, there wasn't that much drama in the finals as they repeated their 5-0 group stage pounding of Lebanon's paris saint germain eddy, but it will still be fondly by a Birds team that is smarting from their weekend league stumble.
U-20 defender Salim Assaf, who was sent off in the group stages, was unable to make it after a draining one-all draw representing his nation against Honduras, while Cătălin Fântâneanu was also dropped as eddy went for broke with an attacking 2-5-3. To this end, the redoubtable Walery Trociński featured as a false nine, a role he has excelled in for eddy this season.
Unfortunately for the other finalists, Grilled maintained an insuperable advantage where it truly mattered, as even despite the unavailability of
Clément Meyer, they retained a full complement of midfielders to depend upon. eddy tried to build on the lessons then with an extra man, but it would remain woefully insufficient as skipper
Tian Yonghang applied pressure with a third-minute opener.
While that was born of individual speculation, with Tian uncharacteristically driving at the heart of eddy's backline, Grilled's possession game meant that they continued to be the more likely to score. Nassar Hadad was a legitimate worry, though, and both
Ling Fuquan and
Chow Ying Lee got their yellow cards closing the Lebanese legend down.
eddy's successful resistance had them grow in confidence, and they were mounting serious attacks towards the end of the half. This proved their undoing, though, as Ludolf Laurent lost the ball to
Wong Ping Shun trying to dribble it up the flank. Wong made straight for the opposition goal, and gave Hadi Khatib no chance with his powerful right boot.
Wong was in the thick of it again immediately after the restart, as he hit a long, diagonal cross that
Chow Ying Lee stretched himself to get his head onto. Khatib inexplicably let the rather soft effort in, but recovered himself in time to deny Wong a second from a well-hit free-kick just a minute later.
paris saint germain eddy were clearly not in an ideal position, which could partly be attributed to a slightly discouraging recent run that saw them exit the national cup and fall six points behind leaders =FC Zenit Spb= in the Al Dawry. If there was a bright spot, it was Trociński, who crafted more than a few fine moves despite being heavily guarded by
Gene Filippone.
With Grilled's only clear chance for most of the second half being
Zhao Jing Wei's overhit effort in the 61st minute, conditions were ripe for eddy to make them pay. However, it somehow simply didn't work out for them in front of goal, and after even Trociński could do no more than hit it tamely to
Wong Tian Han in a must-score situation, their fate appeared to be sealed.
The Birds were themselves eager to put their seal on it, and
Woon Shun An dug a fourth goal out in the 83rd minute to that end.
Low Aik Jia then signalled the start of celebrations with a rare header five minutes from time, with
Wong Ping Shun delivering his second assist of the night.
