Milan Dig In
A Game Of Spots
Grilled wound up sharing the points with the exuberantly-named Milanosiamonoi!!! in their Worldwide Allgäu-Guests III clash, after the Liechtenstein Third Division club gave a good account of their counterattacking 4-4-2. The match was marked by the Birds' players taking turns to impose themselves in spurts, with their opponents capitalizing well on several glaring mistakes.
First to get going was former youth international
Rashid bin Ahmad, whom has all too often had to field questions about his relative lack of appearances with Grilled. He has generally left it to his feet to do the talking, as with his classy little dink on a second-minute corner to help it on to defensive partner of the day,
Remco van der Ban. The Spaniard was alert, but not accurate enough.
Rashid continued being heavily involved in Grilled's attacking play, and even forced a fine save out of Joel Wharton; the absence of Dutch regular Arvid Zwagemaker meant that Milan would be more vulnerable than usual in central defence, however, and in a duel between former national representatives,
Mohd Safri bin Mohd Kassim shook the 37 year-old Moritz Schindler off for a rough-and-tumble opener.
It was then
Lee Lee Hao's turn to hog the videocameras. The 29 year-old has always been known as something of a free spirit, and certainly nobody knew what he was doing when he all but kicked the ball out from under his goalie's feet, which led Timofey Losev mopping it up. Lee didn't wait to ask for forgiveness, and made up for that temporary insanity by rushing the Milan goal by himself from kick-off.
The fans were definitely being entertained, and they got promised a heavily-contested second half after the Liechtenstein side equalised on a counter on the dot of half-time.
Chow Ying Lee had his ambitious midair strike knocked aside by Wharton, and Ralf Frick ran it half the length of the field before getting it through to French winger Olivier Beauquis coming inside.
The Grilled fans got their anticipated substitution after the interval, as new signing
Clark Won replaced
Lee Lee Hao, who had already done more than enough for a full game;
Woon Shun An accompanied Won out on his first match in Grilled colours, with vice-captain
Zhao Jing Wei making way too.
Won did not quite live up to the admittedly very high expectations, with the match commentators noting that he had come on nursing what looked like a slight knock. It was thus left to his comrades to carry on, and
Wong Ping Shun raked a couple of inviting crosses in early from the left. Mohd Safri was well covered by Schindler, unfortunately, and nothing came of them.
Milanosiamonoi!!! then took a shock lead, after
Low Aik Jia was legally flattened by Louis Biedermann trying to advance down the touchline. His calls for a free-kick were ignored, and Finn Ville Nakko took it in the other direction largely unopposed, and big Gait-Jan Stouten hammered the ball in slightly gracelessly, but extremely effectively.
The Birds again replied as quickly as they could, and after some well-worked passes up the middle,
Tian Yonghang got into a scoring position, only to be blocked by Frick.
Wong Ping Shun was lurking downwind, though, and he would impart just enough bend on his effort for it to elude Wharton's long reach.
With it all up for grabs in the last half-hour, it was Grilled who looked the more likely to ring up a winner.
Woon Shun An wasted what would be their best chance by trying a chip when he should just have put his foot through it, however, and the introduction of
Leong Wan Kang for
Rinor Isufi to try and shake things up paid no dividends either.
