GieKSa Wait It Out
Velho Sees Red
This would be a meeting between the current league favourites of Azerbaijan and Singapore, with GieKSa Internazionale Katowice five points ahead in the Güclülər Dəstəsi, and on an eight-game win streak. They would eke out a 4-3 result at the Stadion im. Adama Ledwonia against the Birds too, who would have to play the last half-hour or so a man down, after
José Luiz Velho got sent off.
With one national league title and two Challenger Cups in their trophy cabinet - one of the latter captured by new Polish head coach and star midfielder Sebastian Skiba, barely a fortnight after assuming control - GieKSa undoubtedly have bigger ambitions for the near future. To that end, they had hired veteran defensive pair Arnaud Clément and Demétrio Leopardo for a combined total of near S$24 million, with Skiba himself having arrived from Rhuidean United for over S$20.3 million. None of them would be involved for this friendly, and their lineup would have Irish skipper Mattie Whelan and former national star Eldar Məhərrəmov as their biggest names.
The weather wasn't conducive to a good game either, given the all-day rain, and GieKSa would commence their press with some relish. Grilled's usual friendly lineup was all but tailored to make
Kalki Parvathaneni look good, and the off-form forward would make the most of the help, when
Wu Jinglong sloshed his way up the right and teed him up in the 24th minute. Despite the windy conditions, Kalki would manage to keep his strike well on target, and hard enough that young goalkeeper Turxan Mahmudov's touch wasn't going to stop it from going in.
There would be no lack of individual creativity from the hosts either, and on this unpredictable pitch, everyone had a chance to come out on top. Former Bahrain international Abd El Rasheed El Kafrawy profited from such five minutes after Kalki's opener, as he completely wrongfooted Wu on his dribble. Whether he meant to do that was up to debate, but there was no questioning the power he put behind his equalizing strike, that went right through
Manuel Vadalà's gloves.
Grilled's slipping about was not done for the moment, and their defence would turn comedic on GieKSa's next advance, which saw Panigrahi and Webb collide with each other in their haste to get at Konrad Oskierko. They did collectively manage to take the ball off the central striker, only for it to get loose to Zaur Bünyadov, whose hacked effort bounced low off the turf, fooling Vadalà.
Bookings for
Radovan Jaška and
José Luiz Velho followed, the first for a late sliding tackle, and the second for simulation. Igor Deneffe's 43rd minute finish for 3-1 appeared to put GieKSa firmly in the driving seat, but the Birds would then have fortune fall their way.
Douglas Carapaica would be at the centre of both following goals, as he chipped it in quite stylishly in the next minute, before contesting a corner kick that then fell perfectly for Kalki - impossible to miss from.
Oskierko would try to restore his team's lead right before the half-time whistle went, only for Panigrahi to pull out an acrobatic overhead kick to block, which had the fans from both sides buzzing through the interval. For the second half, Bakhtair had both Wu and Jaška go off for
Chu Xin Lee and
Moey Xin Seng, which saw a warm moment where Moey refused the armband that
Gilbert Webb tried to pass on to him from Wu. Thus nominated, Webb would take on the responsibility for the second half.
GieKSa would resort to a full press by this stage, for some reason, and Grilled's play would only be further hampered, when
José Luiz Velho get booked a second time in the 54th minute. The midfielder quite inexplicably reached out to control the ball with his hand, after it took an unpredictable bounce in the middle of the pitch, and only seemed to realize what he had done full seconds after the deed. Referee Mathis Köfner didn't exactly have much leeway there, and Velho would hit the showers early.
It wasn't as if he would miss much, to be entirely honest, as anti-football dominated much of the remaining time. The Birds did much of the attacking, but would have little end product, other than Webb's forced but still effective effort in the 75th minute, that was punched aside by Mahmudov. Webb himself would go off for
Chirag Thevar - handing the armband back to Moey - in the last minute of the ninety, only for Elşən Qəmbərov to steal it at the death.
