Bringing It Home
Mudaliar's Bonus
The edge had been taken off today's home game against Sarcastic Fringeheads, what with Grilled Birds having already secured the championship last weekend. There remained, however, plenty of pride to play for in front of their adoring fans - and with Fringeheads dignifying the occasion with the traditional honour guard as the Birds filed in, they were surely owed a honest effort too.
Now, the Birds were certainly not eager to let the attendance of over 90,000 down - their second-highest of the season behind only the critical decider against Haha - and most of the usual suspects would feature in the starting lineup.
Sølve Lunde would make a glitzy official debut alongside
Mateja Jeftić, with
Kalki Parvathaneni returning to left wing ahead of
Heng Dong Chu. The spiciest reception had been reserved for former Fringeheads man
Wu Jinglong, however, and there was more than a bit of ribbing as he passed between his former teammates in coming onto the pitch - most of it good-natured.
Fringeheads would be slightly more adventurous as they transitioned from the 5-4-1 that had fared so poorly at the beginning of the season, to a 4-5-1. Two new faces were to be seen, Fiji playmaker Mel Vayeshnoi and Swiss fullback Angelo Longari, though the old faithful such as captain Zaki Taleb, defender Andrej Apatič and midfielder David Koppensteiner were present. That last would have an eventful if painful day, to say the least.
The visitors were definitely eager to avoid a repeat of the overrunning that they had suffered in the reverse fixture, and with a very active Vayeshnoi now charging about the middle, they had what it took to challenge the Birds in that department... for a while. The first ten minutes were relatively balanced, but the balance would then begin to tip, due to
Chan Ze Han's tireless link-up play. Mudaliar would ring the crossbar with his first shot of the day, but that move would end with Chan being unable to breach the reinforced Fringeheads backline.
It had never been easy to break Fringeheads down, but
Kalki Parvathaneni appears to have discovered the right formula against the defending champions; a more subtle approach had worked wonders, and with his default position wide left, Kalki was well poised to pounce on any miscommunication between Apatič and Huang Jianming. That would come to pass in the 33rd minute, and despite Huang's last-ditch nudge in the back, Kalki would elect to stay on his feet and get his drive off - brilliantly past Artur Rosa Gomes Oliveira, as it turned out.
That mental block dealt with, there would be a second Grilled goal within two minutes, this coming from
Vikram Mudaliar, who ripped Angelo Longari for pace. The commentators had been well-briefed on the race for the Golden Boot, and would make it known to all that this was the Number Nine's ninth league goal of the season, leaving him just one behind Haha's Simon Mazlov - who, by the way, had not started against Club Dinosauria.
Fringeheads could give as good as they got, though, and the Birds' growing smugness would be rubbed into their faces on their next push upfield.
Wu Jinglong was perhaps just a bit too lazy in running to receive
Chu Xin Lee's pass, which was quite unlike him, and he would have it picked off by a hardworking Vayeshnoi. Taleb knew that a big counterattack was on when he saw one, and a couple of slick passes later, Heine Andreassen would walk it past the exposed
Jānis Salmiņš.
The visitors would then be back level even more quickly than they had conceded twice, as Grilled got way too cute on the restart, and lost it to David Koppensteiner just outside their own penalty area. The Austrian considered his options, fanned it out to Taleb, and got it straight back leading to a clean finish. Grilled at least kept their heads about them, and retook the lead though a Mudaliar rush soon enough.
Mudaliar getting a share of the Golden Boot was all the fans wanted, with the actual result having no impact on the destination of the S-League title, and one sensed that the club's technical team had been well-prepared with their montage of Mudaliar's highlights through the interval. Unsurprisingly,
Wu Jinglong would be taken off for
Heng Dong Chu after he had been less than lively against his former club, while
Teo Chuan Yong would also enter the game in place of Chu.
Fringeheads were not exactly in a hurry to press for an equalizer, which arguably served them well with the Birds still looking well capable of giving up good counter opportunities. Grilled, indeed, could not very well ignore their supporters' demands to attack, not in such circumstances, and they perhaps went about it rather more loosely than they might have otherwise.
Bilal Mohammad Harun hit one hard from about twenty yards in the 54th minute, but Oliveira met it with a solid save.
Much of Fringeheads' impetus had been transferred from Vayeshnoi to Koppensteiner, and the Austrian veteran had a particularly noteworthy run in from the right side in the 61st, showing Jeftić a clean pair of heels;
Sølve Lunde had been watching for that, fortunately for his partner. Koppensteiner kept on trying, but would last only five more minutes before being mowed down by
Moey Xin Seng at the end of a chase. That did a serious number on Koppensteiner's left ankle, and Moey was perhaps lucky to be able to stay on.
Fringeheads and Koppensteiner would get some measure of their own back, though, as Latvian substitute Ivan Borichev found another equalizer about ten minutes after that incident. Grilled had been bruteforcing their way down the middle without much success, and Zaki Taleb would make the most of a rare distribution to his flank, skipping past
Heng Dong Chu with his receiving touch. With Andreassen and Borichev ahead of him, Taleb feinted a pass to the former and knocked it to the latter, who made no mistake.
Indeed, the visitors looked the more likely side to steal a win, as they proved to have the deeper reserves; Grilled would be forced on the defence for the last ten minutes against an aggressive Fringeheads, who had Andrej Apatič booked for downing Kalki, and
Salah Kamel's coming in for
Kalle ter Berg would hardly affect the new direction of the game.
Jānis Salmiņš had to be on his toes against Longari in the last minute of injury time, or the fullback might well have won it otherwise.
