Caribbean Closed Out
Woodwork Worked
The Birds marked their return to the S-League with a 3-0 romp over Barbados cupholders PZB Caribbean, who trialed a narrow 4-3-3 after agonizingly finishing runners-up in their Premier League. Coincidentally, Grilled played against Real Kingsland, whom were in the exact same position, in their only trip there so far, but this time the ending would be different as
Chow Ying Lee spearheaded a rampage right before half-time.
An offshoot of German club PZB Thuringia Piesigitz, PZB Caribbean had enjoyed steady success after a couple of teething seasons, and were tearing up the top flight despite undergoing straight promotions. Their activity in the transfer market meant a constant turnover of players, but their current marquee star is without doubt Fabian Heimerl, a German control tower at the heart of the team.
Kylian Collège and perhaps Macit Özerol aside, though, it was a pretty relaxed PZB side captained by 43 year-old coach-in-waiting Erasmo Martín. Martín had been a forward of some considerable pace in his youth, but those days are long behind him, and
Rashid bin Ahmad could well afford to take it easy.
It was not that the visitors posed no threat at all, and following Chow finding the crossbar with a sharp angled strike, they returned it through the middle with eagerness. Örnblom did fairly well to hold it until support arrived, but one-club man Jerome Lipman could only replicate Chow's effort.
Remco van der Ban broke formation as usual, but the crowd didn't mind as he entertained with sometimes-doubtful but never boring decisions in attack. Lone striker
Pompeo Bellamoli found both goalposts in succession, while Remco himself wowed in beating Roland Morales down the opposite flank, only to the shot to shave the crossbar once more.
It was looking like one of those days, until a crazy random pass from
Hilal Bakhtiar fell right to
Chow Ying Lee in the 39th minute. This was just what was needed to bypass a stubborn PZB defence, and Chow wasn't going to risk putting it into the frame, as he carefully stroked it exactly between French goalie Farouk Bokri and his left upright.
That mental block broken, there was no stopping Remco from blasting it in immediately after, while Chow didn't miss a beat in upping it to 3-0 straight from
that restart. The fans certainly enjoyed that blitz, even if Collège wasn't pleased at all with what he perceived as lax marking.
The Birds were not in a hurry to run up the score on this occasion, with half-time substitutes
Clément Meyer and
Leong Wan Kang seemingly obeying instructions to keep the heat down. Meyer couldn't resist sliding in on Heimerl midway through the half, however, for which he was rightly booked.
Kim Örnblom was replaced by Hektor Schwenk about this time, and the Swiss immediately began involving the Birds' central defence a lot more, with his stop-start runs. Still, it was Grilled who came closer to scoring, but
Colby Awyong hit - what else - the crossbar after a neat sweeping move in the 75th minute.
PZB remained determined to keep Grilled out, and with the Birds' players mostly having the S-League opener foremost in mind, it was probably unsurprising that there were no significant developments before a double substitution from PZB head coach Erwin Pellissier concluded the meeting.
