Vikram Enjoys Chocolate
Supporting Cast Sparkle
Grilled's penultimate friendly game of the season had them host Madagascar II.3 strivers Chocolate and vanilla at home, and the affiliates of the Netherlands' It Arsjitektenburo would find themselves swept aside by an unrestrained
Vikram Mudaliar. With Chocolate's key personnel such as Polish midfield strongman Łukasz Otremba, Romanian sweeper Cristian Conache and Thai wonderboy Wasan Thongwiset all not represented, however, it would be non-stop practice for Iranian first-choice custodian Hassan Jamili.
Mudaliar wouldn't wait for Jamili to get bedded in at The Cooking Pot, and with the before-match niceties over, the S-League Golden Boot winner would have it in the net twice in the first four minutes. Few goalies wouldn't have been caught out by Mudaliar's genius behind-the-back lob to begin with, and a more-conventional strike would follow, after he collected a routine pass with Gustavo Furtado pressing against him. Mudaliar might not be getting any younger, but Furtado had crossed the forty-year mark, and it was expectedly a complete mismatch in terms of acceleration.
Chocolate would be mostly disabused of their own attacking ambitions with that double wake-up call, and although they would never quite get on the Birds' level, their trainees would show much promise; homegrown Boniface Rakotoniaina and Paraguay expat Osvaldo Anderssen might both be just eighteen, but they exuded a class that explained why they had been shortlisted for their respective national youth sides. Sadly, their frames had not developed to match, as was shown when
Toma Tamiya bumped Anderssen forcibly out of his way, before sending an assist over to
Prokop Mottl in the 22nd minute.
A fourth goal came with
Kalki Parvathaneni's follow-up on his own woodwork-hitting effort after 28 minutes, which was followed by
Vikram Mudaliar getting slightly selfish, in seeking to finish up his hat-trick. That predictability made it slightly easier for the Chocolate defence to double up on him, and as such it came as a bit of a surprise when he deferred to
Mateja Jeftić after earning a penalty in the 40th minute. As it turned out, Mudaliar might as well have gone for it himself, as the Dutch defender blasted it miserably wide.
Mudaliar's quest would resume where it left off in the second half, and while likely less than optimal, his squaddies were hardly about to get on his back for it. That said, he should really have opted to slide it on through to
José Luiz Velho in the 52nd minute after picking up a run-on pass by
Dante Tran, instead of ballooning it from way outside the box. It all came together in the 75th minute though, and Mudaliar's hat-trick would become reality as he sprang up to nod
Heng Dong Chu's flat lob past a stretching Jamili.
Velho would not be entirely left out either, and he would get his goal following a smooth turn on Philippe Randriamanjaka in the 79th, after which he would be taken off for
Teo Chuan Yong. Osvaldo Anderssen would be booked for a ill-tempered trip on
Bhavya Panigrahi after having his intentions read, and both Mudaliar and
Radovan Jaška then had efforts tipped over by the Chocolate goalkeeper.
