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| FIXTURE HISTORY |
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| Season 57 | W | 1 - 5 | Tournament (Group Phase) | | Season 49 | L | 5 - 0 | Tournament (Group Phase) | | Season 21 | W | 0 - 5 | League | | Season 21 | W | 5 - 0 | League |
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Through Tanglin
Muthyala Massive
The Birds reached the Ruby Challenger Cup final for the second time, defeating former cupwinners Tanglin Winners FC 3-1 to qualify. An injury to prime mover
Yuki Irie right after Tanglin had equalised, could have adversely affected Grilled's mojo. As it was, the remaining players - most notably among them the 20 year-old
Neeraj Muthyala - pooled their strengths to compensate, and Grilled romped convincingly to the finish with two second-half goals.
Like Grilled, Tanglin were coming off a rocky patch in the league, suffering consecutive 1-2 defeats to Sheares H. Still, they had made it thus far with fine camaraderie arguably making their midfield more than the sum of its parts. Tino Glaue had come up with a couple of nice finishes in recent matches, while Roman Głowienka was his usual domineering self.
The biggest issue, then, was over their Finnish partner Sampo Meskanen, who had been ruled out of the fixture no thanks to a soft yellow card on Sunday. Head coach Evert Eeckhout decided to place his faith in homegrown reserve Chandramouli Revuri, but this would turn out badly for them.
Revuri, who had additionally clocked most of his minutes at wingback, was clearly out of his element in the middle; although he wanted not for energy, it was not that hard for the vastly more experienced
Ang Leong Kum and company to move him into some pretty untenable positions with their practised passing patterns, and
Neeraj Muthyala would slam his eighth Cup goal of the season in, after eight minutes.
Tanglin were not quite keeping up at this point, and they were let off when Georgian custodian Mnatsagan Artounyan contorted himself to keep
Yuki Irie's brave diving header out in the 17th. Things still looked bad for them, but they would inexplicably level with their first shot of the contest, with Swiss right winger Ludovic Fernandez waltzing in stylishly before crashing a rising strike high into the far top corner.
The Tanglin support were barely done feting that beautiful goal, when their chances further improved markedly -
Yuki Irie landed heavily on one leg after challenging for a header, and proved unable to proceed after trying to place his weight on it.
Zhao Jing Wei would replace him, but some of the vigour that had characterised Grilled's play would be conspicuously reduced.
They were further encouraged with Artounyan playing a blinder, cutting out
Gennady Dvorak's dangerous cross-shot despite having next to no warning. With Seeti Kivivirta growing in confidence as he scooted around the Grilled penalty area, it was hardly inconceivable that Tanglin might find a second sometime.
It was tough to fault Eeckhout from appearing a little smug as half-time came around, but that was about it as far as their hopes went; Revuri's deficiencies ultimately ran too deep for his club to maintain a toehold, but while Erich Prantl or Dominic Crăcan might have filled in in a pinch, Eeckhout decided to stick to his guns.
The expected happened as the Birds began applying the screws, with Muthyala offering himself as a dynamic point of attack. With Dvorak's propensity to find himself in slightly odd locations, this was immensely helpful, and Grilled found themselves up again after 61 minutes.
Rinor Isufi took the ball off Muthyala quite selfishly, but more than made up for it with a blazing dash-by shooting that had Artounyan outdone.
Ten minutes later, and with Tanglin straining hard for another equaliser against the run of play, Grilled finally put the semifinals away.
Tian Yonghang brought a forward lob down gracefully, then cut to the inside of Stanisław Szturc, before slotting home. Tian's exemplary close control might even have gotten him one more soon after, with Szturc's pace over open ground again rendered irrelevant, but he pulled it wide this time.
Tanglin continued struggling to break out, but were less than successful at getting the ball to their strikers, and by the time
Rashid bin Ahmad entered just before injury time, he had little to do other than stroll along the halfway line.
