Lublin Jazz
Sparkling Wit
Polish V.127 leaders Honda Lublin bested Grilled's reserves 6-1 at the Municipal Stadium Lublin today, as
Hoàng Trung Quá and
Kalki Parvathaneni made their unofficial debuts. Neither brought much excitement exactly against a tough Honda Lublin XI, whose homegrown striker Ignacy Wit instead stole the show with a classy hat-trick.
With nine wins and a draw in their league thus far, if with a relatively restrained approach, Lublin had regular wide pair Dariusz Trzcionkowski and Zygmunt Baprawski get some offensive practice in. Thirty-nine year-old player-coach Jan Feder gamely captained them at centreback, as first-team keeper Stanisław Smoła waited on the bench.
As it turned out, his understudy Dobrociech Gąbka would not have much to do either, with the pace in Lublin's back three proving more than enough to cater for Grilled's disjointed attacks. One of those would be a foot in the mouth for
Leong Wan Kang, whose clumsy attempt at simulation would be returned for the opener via Dariusz Trzcionkowski; to rub it in, he was further booked as the hosts were celebrating.
Leong's fortunes did not improve as he made a hash of the inexperienced Paweł Ukleja's suicidal backpass in the 31st minute, and Lublin soon found themselves with a second. Again, it was with Grilled having overextended, and this time it would be
Remco van der Ban who could not find a way past Gąbka. The clearance was long and true, and Ignacy Wit saw off the attentions of
Rashid bin Ahmad to put it through
Krystian Rykowski.
Rykowski did have some good-natured banter with Wit as the latter retrieved the ball, though Grilled's Polish goalie would have several more to concede. The Birds would finally answer thanks to
Colby Awyong, from a corner, but teenaged playmaker Kamil Bonder would outrun
Moey Xin Seng to make it 3-1 immediately afterwards.
With Rashid not exactly distinguishing himself in the first half,
Hoàng Trung Quá must have thought that it was his turn to shine, when he replaced the former youth international. Tellingly, they exchanged but the briefest of nods, which might not bode well for Grilled's squad unity.
Hoàng would quickly be embarassed trying to drive the Birds forward - failing to find an open man, he lingered a second too long, and had the ball nicked from beneath his feet by Dominik Biszczanik sneaking up from the back. Hoàng spared no efforts in trying to recover, but Lublin passed it around swiftly, and Zygmunt Baprawski would crack it past Rykowski coming up the middle.
This probably caused the Vietnamese newcomer to overcompensate, and although Grilled's defence solidified appreciably, they never made much headway, and the normally-calm Moey made a schoolboy mistake in the 66th minute, hitting a short pass right at Marcin Pach. Fortunately for him, Pach was as surprised as anyone, and Awyong managed to handle it.
The next swap involved
Pompeo Bellamoli coming on for the mostly-ineffective
Kohei Okuya, but it made no impact in the grand scheme of things. Jan Feder continued coping with Grilled's advances distressingly comfortably, considering his age, and even put in a blistering fifty-yard through pass that Ignacy Wit converted, after 77 minutes.
Wit then prodded in the hat-trick goal four minutes later, following some bad reading from
Remco van der Ban, and Lublin cruised to the finish barely breaking a sweat; fullback Jan Krzak would however pick up an ankle strain after missing a step, and would be replaced by Mirosław Bińczycki.
