Marine Expedition
Cyril's Class
An extremely new-look Grilled XI withstood both sealion and difficult weather conditions to claim their third league win on the trot, with Polish arrival
Cyril Künzler already demonstrating signs of being worth every last penny. Künzler's blend of old-school wing running and considered floating inside befuddled the visitors, and he wound up with two goals and an assist in a very enjoyable outing for the home fans.
Now, while the Birds were not short on positive vibes, having won their last five games, there was still a palpable sense of uncertainty as the lineups were announced at The Pot. Künzler was one thing, but there were no fewer than three other fellows making their home debut:
Florus Romijn on the other flank, and seventeen year-olds
Iman Eshrafi and
Prokop Mottl.
Combined with
Mohammad Ramli Saliman hardly being a noted striker, this rather ad-hoc collection of attackers hardly inspired much belief. Although this was an understandable selection, given the big Singapore Cup fixture against Claseek in midweek, the absence of the likes of
Ang Leong Kum from even the bench meant that
Djan Bacelar was definitely not leaving the team a fallback.
If they did not have a connection just yet, however, the newcomers had raw energy to burn. Romijn for one took just four minutes to have his return to Singapore sink in - quite literally in fact, as his studs bit painfully into Boris Canales's leg. Only plausible deniability from the wet surface kept Romijn from maybe the shortest debut in Grilled history, as Nicodim Dinulescu contemplated his choice of card.
The challenge did set the tone for what would come next, as sealion were worn down more by sheer industry as anything. Gone was Grilled's usual measured passing game, with it being replaced by long, winding dribbles, which if not immediately effective, certainly threw the visitors off. The visitors' midfield general Hayri Eryılmaz attempted several field redeployments in response, that turned out to confuse his men more than Grilled.
sealion's veteran Romanian captain Mihai Cristică did menace
Hoàng Trung Quá constantly, but the opening goal would belong to the Birds. 27 minutes in, a clumsy push on the surging
Kalki Parvathaneni got them a free-kick right outside the box.
Cyril Künzler set it, and despite slipping slightly during his run-up, nevertheless swung it up and over the wall, and across Pan Jing Chao.
The crowd went wild saluting their new hero, and might have gone into overdrive had
Iman Eshrafi managed to put his strike some inches lower, two minutes later. As it was, it pinged off the crossbar, and sealion made a determined push through the middle, with Norbert Feczkó carrying it up to within twenty yards. Nobody had picked up Canales in the meantime, and the Peruvian winger equalised with a superb first-time grounder.
This proved but a brief respite against Grilled's onslaught, with Eshrafi quickly asserting himself as the spearhead. The Iranian teenager definitely was not shy about pulling the trigger, and he turned David Kennedy with stunning audacity as another cross came in from the right, in the 34th minute. Pan was closing the gap quickly, though, and Eshrafi's volley would be forced wide.
The Grilled support were certainly liking what they saw, and the second half began on an uplifting note, to their delight. Künzler had been close to undefendable in stretches as he melded clever movement with superior pace, and he would beat David Yitzchaki yet again in the 47th, swinging a low ball at the waiting
Prokop Mottl. Mottl didn't pass up the opportunity to make his pro debut a scoring one, as he batted it straight in at the far post.
The grandstand was bouncing at that one, as an ebullient Mottl threw himself into the corner flag. After
Chu Xin Lee's abortive solo ingress, sealion's best period of the match would follow, with Cristică claiming their best chance of the second half, after a jersey tug by
Moey Xin Seng was spotted. His attempt to emulate Künzler failed, however, as he fired the free-kick a few feet too high.
Gene Filippone would continue having trouble with sealion's forwards, and for all his experience, he could not escape giving away a yellow card in the 72nd minute.
Valentin Batâr saved in the aftermath, and Künzler would then find the third goal that Grilled were searching for, pouncing on a split-second's distraction to Yitzchaki.
The fans responded in kind, and were again denied a double serving from Eshrafi, who had done everything right but score on the day. It would once more be the crossbar that would be his adversary, as he blasted it almost automatically against the woodwork, after a fine one-two with Moey.
It wasn't that huge a deal in the bigger picture, given how sealion were being contained by this stage of the game. Hardly the youngest of sides, they were reduced to enforcing a zonal defence in their final third, and the 35 year-old Alessandro Poschung's dearth of stamina told, as he was beaten to a long ball down the left by Künzler, despite the latter starting some ten metres behind.
An injury-time substitution of
Gene Filippone for
Rashid bin Ahmad was the signal for the fans to serenade their new champions, whom they have taken to quite strongly indeed, given the volume on display.
