That Sinking Feeling
Vrubelevsky Gets Through
A full-blown crisis is now brewing at Grilled Birds, after they fell to a second successive league defeat, this against Robbie Football Club. RFC had, of course, just terminated a long drought versus the Birds late last season, and stuck to much the same tactics for another home win. German midfielder Jonas Vrubelevsky, who had gotten them off and running then, would again be Grilled's nemesis.
Hilal Bakhtiar had won the S-League regardless then, and he would attempt to counteract the hosts' predilection for distance shooting by stationing
Sølve Lunde in midfield - or so he claimed; one had to suspect the ongoing thigh concern of
Bilal Mohammad Harun to be a bigger factor in his decision there. As for RFC, Antti Ravi mostly stayed with what had worked, and what had been keeping them competitive, from how their five league games thus far had been decided by a single goal. Ominously for the Birds, RFC had won both their home fixtures, albeit against Crypto Moon and Random Curiosity FC.
The main story on RFC's end was Hungarian playmaker Patrik Gulyás getting the nod ahead of Ally Chappell despite only just recovering from a concussion in their midweek cup loss to Deinos, which has Chappell reportedly angling for a move. Otherwise, this was again hardly about to be a pretty affair, if at least without Grilled conceding prematurely as before.
Moey Xin Seng made it a point to track Vrubelevsky particularly closely, after his second-minute strike the last time the teams met.
It was a bit of cat-and-mouse here with Grilled having to uncharacteristically press from the centre line, to shut down RFC's shooting lanes as early as possible. This left Grilled with few opportunities despite their slight possessional edge, with their sole free-kick lofted into the box in the 16th minute all too easily cleared by Jens Petur Jakobsen. Probably realizing that they weren't about to be mastered in the air,
Kalki Parvathaneni broke out his trademark dribbles from wide, but his best effort would be swatted away by Dennis Koenigsegg in the 33rd.
Then, disaster. Robbie Football Club have not had an especially high conversion rate, but with them accustomed to unleashing from ridiculous ranges, almost no sides have managed to keep them from testing the goalkeeper. Bülent Algüzar had moreover gotten the better on
Shekar Kannan on their left, and his exaggerated crossing motion was enough to beat the new signing a second time, in pulling it back for Artur Forestier to have a go. The French winger's barnstormer took a wicked turn right before it reached
Jānis Salmiņš, which was enough to force it through his gloves.
Taking the lead injected new vigour into the Robbie players, and Jakobsen would lay
Chu Xin Lee out immediately after the restart, by leading with an elbow into the Grilled playmaker's back on an aerial duel. That was it for a woozy Chu, who had to be helped off to be replaced by
Salah Kamel, even as a furious Bakhtiar refused to be mollified by referee Bor Kurtušič eventually booking Jakobsen. A brawl then threatened to break out when Pier Giuseppe Licciardello clattered
Abd Hadi Taib Mazhud right after he had smashed one off the post on the restart, and it was only with great difficulty that more-level heads on both teams restored order.
The breathless intensity would only be cranked up into the dying minutes of the first half, with the travelling fans outraged when Kurtušič unwittingly blocked
Douglas Carapaica at a critical moment, as Bonifacy Fiks jinked his way into Grilled's penalty area on the transition. Salmiņš turned that around the post, but the ensuing corner kick saw Ernesto Noguera with a free header that Salmiņš struggled to reach, which had him at the mercy of Vrubelevsky for 2-0.
There would be a desperate surge by the Birds from kick-off that had
Bhavya Panigrahi fire it hard to the bottom left, only for Koenigsegg to get a big hand out. The Grilled set definitely felt hard done by, and approached the referee
en masse led by team captain
Moey Xin Seng, once the minute of added time was up. It was unclear whether this persuasion had any effect, but there would be a mutual pat on the back between Moey and Kurtušič at the end.
The second half restarted with the Birds the more eager to make an impact, and it would be
Shekar Kannan to get their first shot on target for the half, after neat interchanges with Kamel and Mudaliar. RFC's defence would finally be laid bare on the flawless exchanges, and it must surely have been the reducer had it not been for Koenigsegg's immediate rush off his line. The hosts would even manage to turn this into a great counterattack, and it took similar craft from Salmiņš to deny Vrubelevsky a second goal.
Grilled's day would improve by foul means not fair, as Koenigsegg - who had stopped everything thrown at him - would be put out by
Salah Kamel's follow-through on a fifty-fifty ball, on
Chan Ze Han's genius scooped pass behind the last man. It was the RFC players' turn to feel aggrieved as Koenigsegg writhed on the grass clutching his groin, and Kamel would at least defuse the situation somewhat by accepting his yellow card without complaint. Jan Paradysz was always ready to serve, and the match would soon resume with a switch of custodians.
An unrepentant Kamel would waste no time breaking through to a chorus of boos, and perhaps the loudest cheers of the day would be heard when his wild finish went ridiculously high.
Hilal Bakhtiar, looking even more stressed than usual, made his remaining changes soon afterwards - Heng for Kalki as expected, and
Teo Chuan Yong on for
Sølve Lunde. Actually, Lunde had done a fairly fine job as a defensive midfielder, but what Grilled needed now was goals, and at least two to be exact.
Said goals would remain fiendishly hard to come by, with Robbie Football Club holding their formation admirably well, and Pier Giuseppe Licciardello would go as far as to try and lob Salmiņš almost from the half-way line, in the 70th minute. Grilled would come good after this, though, as
Vikram Mudaliar's flirting with the offside trap paid off handsomely. With 72 minutes on the clock, Mudaliar successfully stole a march on Arturo Brettoni, and Bonifacy Fiks was unable to close down before the Number Nine had chipped Paradysz for 2-1.
That breathed new life into the game, if not for very long, as Paradysz made some amends with a spectacular flying stop on
Chan Ze Han's attempt a couple of minutes later, after the Grilled star had slipped inside. Try as they might, the Birds would be unable to manufacture any additional clear chances until the final minute, when Mudaliar confronted Paradysz one final time, with Ernesto Noguera on his tail. Mudaliar went for the textbook sidefoot to the far post, but the goalkeeper had read his intent correctly, and preserved the win for Robbie.
