Pride Confronted
Mottl Reminder
The Birds would regain their status of having travelled to all extant Hattrick territories, with a trip to Zambia's ULTIMATE STAR TEAM Arena to face the ZAMBIA LIONS. Formed under the same conglomerate as Danish club oneDreamteam and the Congolese CONGO PANTHERS, the LIONS have had an indifferent campaign thus far, landing ahead of only the semi-pro sides in their Division Three league. This was not for want of recruitment either from head coach Alfred Simulambo, who had just inducted seven newcomers in the month of February alone.
With the exception of Mexican reserve goalkeeper José María Madrid, these fellows would not make today's starting eleven, which was mostly composed of their original local set, peppered with foreign veteran outfielders - Brazilian Justo Xavante in defence, Dutchman Jacob Baart in midfield, and the pair of Marko Backić and Hassan Bin Tamim Al-Thani up front - all at least 37 years of age.
Grilled Birds didn't bring their strongest side either, with
Toma Tamiya for instance not able to help being a little out of place alongside
Salah Kamel and
Teo Chuan Yong, but the stars they did field were still comfortably several cuts above their hosts by reputation at least.
Wu Jinglong would assume the captaincy in the absence of Moey and Chan, and would be his usual hardworking self on the right wing.
Having just endured an 0-5 league defeat to Livingstone Buffaloes several days ago, the LIONS evinced no evidence of having either recovered or learnt from the match, with central midfielder Kenny Chipeta soon to be revealed as the only one barely keeping pace against their Birds opponents. This would quickly have the look of a monologue, with Wu being particularly active after being endowed with the armband. Moses Banda couldn't contain the former Chinese youth international, not under these conditions, and a penetrating seventeenth minute dribble brought forth an opener from
José Luiz Velho.
There would be a yellow card eight minutes later with Jones Kunda flattening
Teo Chuan Yong, which would be the prelude to a couple more goals, from Kalki and then Wu through the middle. There was no need for excessive embellishment given the possession advantage held by Grilled, and the first half would end 4-0 with
Gilbert Webb's cheeky sneaking in around the back, in the 38th minute.
Toma Tamiya could have gotten one too abit later, but whiffed at
Kalki Parvathaneni's tempting cross.
Heng Dong Chu and
Leonard Nguyen would replace Kalki and the largely-anonymous
Radovan Jaška over the break, and the match would soon light back into life with Wu doing his stuff on the right. The Number Eighteen might not have all of the legs he once had, but he remained one of Grilled's hardest individuals to handle when at full stamina. Justo Xavante would be thrown off by Wu's lateral feints despite his experience, leading to the ball being served on a platter to
Prokop Mottl in the 53rd minute.
That made five, and
Dante Tran would be the Birds' third and final substitution, following
Salah Kamel's strong but ultimately unsuccessful run in the 69th minute. The outgoing
Yuta Nakakita had been mostly untested alongside
Gilbert Webb, but the commentators agreed that he would probably not be elbowing his way back into Grilled's defensive rotation, from what they saw. In any case, a buzzed Tran would earn a free-kick five minutes after coming on, and
Prokop Mottl would claim his second goal on the setup.
One more goal would come as Mottl pushed for his hat-trick, which wound up having Velho blast it into Madrid from point blank. The brave goalie would finally be outdone when
Salah Kamel knocked it home, while he was still trying to recover on the ground. The LIONS defence would appeal to referee Kutluhan Yılmaztürk to disallow the goal, but he found nothing wrong with the build-up on review.