ChAmPzz Checkmate
Kauppi Conquers
After losing at home, Grilled abandoned all hope of getting a result away at ChAmPzz Arena and put out a mixed team to slug it out. As expected, ChAmPzz steamrolled the mostly untried midfield, and Grilled were lucky to escape with an identical 0-2 loss.
Grilled sent out three old legs in defence, stuck Kek-Tjiang in the middle to try and knock some shape into his young comrades, and overall tried to force a slow, tactical game. It went well for the first twenty minutes as Grilled put their shoulders to the mill and imposed a grinding style, until a second's loss of concentration by Bona.
Ex-Finnish national striker Eero Kauppi got onto the ball immediately as it bounced off Bona's shin, and cut to the outside of the covering Falkbo before swinging a lob over Sulaiman. That goal came out of absolutely nowhere, leaving the culprit shellshocked.
Grilled could only serve as a punching back for the half, with Jiang Yah-Lin and Koen Gulpen spurning excellent chances. There was outrage from the Grilled bench as Kalle Hägerflod took out Han Kok with a crippling tackle from behind. Thankfully the young dynamo recovered quickly, while the referee hesitated and then flashed a yellow card at Hägerflod.
Grilled appeared to have been given some advantage, as Hägerflod was booked for the second time in the last minute of the half for repeated infractions. A striker down was quite a handicap, but ChAmPzz carried on attacking as if nothing had changed.
Just three minutes after the restart, Koen Gulpen sent pulses racing as he tumbled inside the penalty area with Bona by his shoulder. It looked a fifty-fifty case for a penalty, but the fall was too exaggerated for the referee's tastes and Gulpen received his yellow card disbelievingly.
Gulpen had a good response in him, as he ran Liehner ragged on the sides and struck a low cross right to Kauppi. Despite being the only forward left, Kauppi was distressingly unmarked, and could comfortably trap the ball and choose the top corner to bang the ball in.
With little hope of an upset, Grilled's point man Wai-Kin vented his frustrations with a mean challenge that merited the fourth yellow card of the day, before Per Hasselskär and Zhao Jong-chih wasted opportunities to consign Grilled to a probably deserved greater defeat.
