21 And Counting
Egan Recovery
Grilled Birds advanced into the last sixteen of the Singapore Cup with their 3-1 result over the East Coast Warriors, who had given Grilled a hard time in both their previous clashes. The latest one, of course, came last season in the Ruby Challenger Cup, where they held the Birds to the very last minute of regular time; it took an intelligent lob by
Moey Xin Seng then, to prevent Grilled from having to endure another thirty minutes.
Possibly rightly encouraged by how close his team had cut it, the Warriors' head coach Rudolf Kempff would try the same counterattacking tack, this time with Italian national hopeful Patrizio Nastasi between the sticks instead of Estonian international Gerthard Asi - and the scary thing was, Nastasi was the better goalkeeper on form. The multi-talented Asi would play central defense instead, with Nazir Mohd Umar withdrawn from attack to wingback. Up front, they would have Dutch forward Ricardo Hamerlinck, signed about a month after that fateful defeat.
Warriors moreover had taken the lead both times before, as caretaker head coach
Hilal Bakhtiar would allude to in a special pre-game joint statement made on the pitch at Tarpots Rec., with Kempff also honouring the history of the fixture. The attendance of almost seventy-five thousand certainly made a suitable audience for the occasion, which saw
Kalki Parvathaneni and
Gilbert Webb both remain on the injured list. With them unavailable, Bakhtiar's selection task become somewhat more straightforward, and
Bernie Egan would be a major beneficiary in reclaiming a starting spot.
East Coast Warriors would live up to their supporters' expectations for their early encounters, as well as their namesakes in contesting near every Grilled pass with a savage determination. Mind, this was hardly alien to their style of play, if turned up to eleven against what was on paper a far superior midfield. Franjo Marčić and Julien Gallard might have been further outnumbered in that department, but they were never short on heart.
The stadium commentators were getting deep into the Warriors' penchant for taking the lead after twenty very exciting minutes, with in-depth discussions on the relatively long odds of it happening again, when it did.
Heng Dong Chu would fly in from the left side having eluded the close attentions of Umar, but his attempt to slip it under Nastasi would be foreseen by the custodian. Donald van de Steeg would collect and wing it back out to Fynn-Paul Drelles - now with a clear run on goal with both Heng and
Mateja Jeftić having overcommitted - and the German winger would smartly cross over to a scrambling
Sølve Lunde's inside, before stroking it to the far corner before
Jānis Salmiņš could follow him across.
It was a classic finish, but it also served to fire the Birds up. Kempff had identified his team's downfall as due to their comparative passivity after scoring, in both previous meetings, but it appeared that they had not quite managed to counter that tendency. Their midfield would retreat seemingly automatically into an even lower block, but they hadn't counted on
Vikram Mudaliar's magical close control at pace. The forward would weave through a Warriors crowd of defenders with ball all but stuck to feet in the 27th minute, and demonstrated a rare awareness in offloading it to
Bernie Egan, who was in a far better position.
Egan wouldn't let Mudaliar down, and the Birds fans could hardly begrudge the Number Nine, for going it by himself on his next attacks, which were coming thick and fast. Mudaliar would test Nastasi no less than twice in the succeeding minutes, the second being an angled rising strike, that was barely tipped over for a corner. Said corner would be cleared by Esa Pursiheimo, but not very far, and
Bernie Egan would knee it right at the goalkeeper after Lunde put it back in the box.
Bernie Egan would not be denied again three minutes later, as he was again the happy recepient of some very unselfish play from a teammate.
Moey Xin Seng would do all of the hard work as he slipped it between Frank Simonsen's legs to create a transient man advantage, and Egan merely had to take up the right spot, to complete the tap-in. The Warriors would stun Grilled's midfield from their zero-to-hundred restart, only for Julien Gallard to lift the finish over the bar.
With that, Grilled Birds took their one-goal lead into the interval, and it would be doubled soon after the match resumed. Warriors again looked the more up for it, but for once this would be to their detriment, once Lunde managed to play his way out of an aggressive full-on press. The Warriors' usual organization would be shot to pieces from that, and Donald van de Steeg would not be able to disguise his cynical holding back of Mudaliar, just inside the penalty area.
Mateja Jeftić would be given the responsibility of converting it, and he did so after waiting for Nastasi to commit to his right side.
It wouldn't get easier for the Birds despite that, as the Warriors were if anything even more eager to work their way back into the game. There would be come very physical if technically fair challenges by their players, one of which had
Salah Kamel grimacing and apparently legitimately unable to stand, in the 57th minute. A time-out would have to be forced by his comrades for him to receive treatment, but he would still hobble off in the 75th minute clutching his left thigh, in any case. Bakhtiar would take the opportunity to withdraw Jeftić too, and let both
Wu Jinglong and
Bhavya Panigrahi get some gametime.
Kalle ter Berg would be the next victim, but in this case it was more on himself, as he pulled out of an ill-advised tackle quite awkwardly; this was perhaps good for his disciplinary record, but less so for his calf muscle. Anyhow, the Warriors would not be able to express themselves as the match wound down, with Wu coming close on a sneaky effort with four minutes left. Kempff, recognizing his team was beat, would replace his midfielders just before the end, and
Sølve Lunde's parting gift would be a powerful header off the foot of their goalpost.
