One Sided Torrent
Velho Introduction
The Birds' advancement from the second round of the Ruby Challenger Cup was never in doubt after the first few minutes, but Serangoon III.7 leaders PS Toraja Muda led a charmed life, despite their comparative staticness leaving Grilled with almost free run of Olympic Lyons Park.
Toraja had come into the match ready to take it to Grilled, bolstered by their 15-0 aggregate score in their most recent two games. Further, on paper, they had the personnel to back it up. Cult hero Nah Chao Cheng, whose Number Ten jersey was sported by a large proportion of their supporters, was a capped national player with well over a century of goals since coming up the ranks of Toraja Kid; a real threat, even without taking into account his perfect foil in Chilean skipper Alain Paillamanque.
Their
modus operandi was hardly a secret - long balls for Paillamanque to knock down, leaving Nah to outrace opposing defenders. The Birds weren't about to allow them to practice it today, though, with
Hoàng Trung Quá singularly determined to breathe down Paillamanque's neck.
Chu Xin Lee as his partner was definitely a head-scratcher, but it turned out mostly irrelevant, as Grilled won the fight for midfield dominance handily.
This was something of a rude shock to the Toraja fans, but perhaps not unexpected, given that the Birds had fielded almost their strongest available lineup. Swede Otto Gustavsson, their thought leader in the engine room, found himself smothered by the pair of
Yuta Nakakita and
Neeraj Muthyala, with the effect that next to nothing got through to his strikers.
A first goal seemed all but confirmed after Jan-Hein Schut took
Kalki Parvathaneni down in the box in the 21st minute, but the Birds' hadn't banked on
Cyril Künzler going off the boil. The Polish wingman had been next to infallible for the past month or so, and it was thus jarring when he made a complete hash of his run-up for the penalty, and ended up knocking it well wide in a panic.
The funk extended to his general game, and his young Faroese counterpart Amariel Østergaard enjoyed the rare distinction of looking good despite being pitted against Künzler. Still, it was about the only bright spot in Toraja's formation, and Grilled wound up going ahead from the right side anyway, as
Chu Xin Lee found himself taking over Künzler's duties.
The Birds really came alive as the first half drew towards a close, and
Islom Davlatov would be disappointed with himself, as he fired over both times after being presented with two straightforward turn-and-shoot placements. Toraja appeared to have weathered the storm, after Parvathaneni was booked for snapping at Schut's heels once too often, but then came
Mohammad Ramli Saliman's show-stopping strike after bursting through the middle, out of the blue.
Toraja's Danish head coach Uffe Refsgaard had a problem with that, and exchanged some choice words with referee Walerian Durka over restarting the game, when Schut was still down and out. Nothing came of that, and Toraja would find themselves 0-3 down soon after the break, as
Florus Romijn fought his way up the left to supply
Yuta Nakakita in a convenient spot. That was also Romijn's last action of the day, as
Djan Bacelar sent an eager
José Luiz Velho on in his stead.
Künzler, who had been slowly finding himself, would gradually improve to something close to his usual state, as he was brought into play more out of necessity with Romijn's departure. It would still not be one of his better outings however one defined it, as exemplified by Rami Reggev's fabulous save from what would have been his compilation-worthy free-kick in the 59th.
With a reversal nowhere in sight, Toraja were striving in vain to create something, anything. There was a brief glimmer of hope when Nah Chao Cheng flitted away from Chu to get onto Moritz Otten's hopeful diagonal pass, but he hadn't counted on
Mohammad Ramli Saliman catching up from behind - or nearly catching up, at any rate. The tackle brought howls of outrage from the Toraja diehards, after it caught Nah in mid-stride, but Saliman would get away with a yellow card.
Not willing to risk his most important player for a lost cause, Refsgaard withdrew the limping Nah for trainee winger Richard Appleton, effectively accepting defeat. This left
José Luiz Velho to bag his first senior goal, to his great delight, while
Neeraj Muthyala had to endure his effort in the next minute coming back off the post.
