Safe Unsound
Vikram Bust-up
Georgian Division Three leaders Catalan saw their plan to grind Grilled down backfire, as the Birds managed a miracle start to go four up by half-time. It would be Grilled's first win here, with their only previous official visit ending ignominiously with a ten-nil thrashing by Fiorentina Tbilisi, the season of their oh-so-close S-League campaign.
It was a whole new era now, though, not discounting Catalan's 5-0 thumping of French visitors SimiacoBulls in their latest friendly here. Young head coach Gabriel Bălăcescu had them playing particularly cautiously today for some reason, which was evident by their players cloying to their Grilled targets from the starting whistle.
The Birds could have been stifled on another day, but the fortune was all theirs this time. Trainee playmaker Giga Melishvili had not the time to regret his over-eager takedown of
Chan Ze Han, when the instantly-taken free-kick restarted the Birds' attack to their advantage. More than a few jostled for position in Catalan's box, and it was
José Luiz Velho who edged in front of the goalkeeper to put it in.
Catalan showed little appetite to take the game to Grilled despite this blow, and they would be punished by
Iman Eshrafi's one-two in the fourteenth minute. His first was a gift from Elguja Mogeladze, who didn't look behind him before trying to square the ball; Catalan had barely regained their places for the kick-off, when
Jérémy Tarin blocked an attempted hoof in midfield. Of all people, the ball would arc straight back to Eshrafi, who didn't need reminding of what to do.
Now clearly quite confused at how to proceed, Catalan suffered a further setback, when their Turkish centreback Arto Soysaltürk had to hobble off with a badly strained thigh after about half an hour. Luigi Maria Salvioni was an experienced replacement, but he couldn't keep Eshrafi from a glittering hat-trick, poached after Dimitri Idukashvili had done well to ward off
Moey Xin Seng's missile the first time.
To be entirely honest, the hosts would probably have done much better had they just stuck to their attacking instincts, but they were now up the creek without a paddle. The half-time swop of
Prokop Mottl for
José Luiz Velho went largely unnoticed as Catalan stuck grimly to their guns, much to the disagreement of their gathered supporters in the stands.
Their German captain Adlef Huebler was one to follow instructions to the tee, as he never stopped hollering for his teammates to continue pressing, come what may. They did manage a couple of interesting balls aimed in his general direction under that handicap, but the nicely-relaxed
Rashid bin Ahmad was up for those.
It became a question of when Catalan were actually planning to spring their trap, and it took until the 81st minute for them to have their first serious shot on. Tsotne Muladze had just been booked for a cringey if understandable attempt at earning a free-kick, but a chance was born out of this as their swarming finally influenced
Neeraj Muthyala into a mistake. Sergio Maraver overlapped promptly to put it past
Dan Seng.
The build-up saw
Vikram Mudaliar take an elbow to the face, and the Grilled Number Nine made to take justice into his own hands, by slicing the offender down the next time they made. Referee Eray Salahi decided to give one final warning with that, as Catalan went on to score from the free-kick, with Huebler getting on the end of the weirdly-swirling delivery.
It was clear that there was something off with Mudaliar, though, and although
Hovaness Noubaryan tried to buy time to handle him, taking Eshrafi off for
Leong Wan Kang, it was too late. Manole Rogoz appeared to jibe about their goal in Mudaliar's face, which led to fisticuffs. It took several men from both sides to separate the duo, by which time the referee's patience had run out. Mudaliar was off, and Rogoz got his yellow card.
The Birds would make it 5-2 in a chaos-filled last five minutes, as substitute
Prokop Mottl raced onto a clean break through the middle. This was however a match that had overstayed its welcome by then, and Noubaryan for one evinced great relief when the end came.
