No Stopping Here
Birds Barge On
With an Emerald Challenger Cup final awaiting them, the Birds would not tarry in the preparations. Ramseille Volliard FC, themselves three-time Sapphire Challenger Cup winners, had not offered much resistance at The Cooking Pot last week, and they wouldn't at HighVolliard Park today either. They would reap a consolation goal to make the totals match, but otherwise it was all Grilled's after a domineering first half.
There weren't all that many changes either way, excepting
Douglas Carapaica starting in place of
Sølve Lunde, and
Shekar Kannan for the suspended
Salah Kamel for the Birds. Yeoh Wei Puay was evidently convinced that the 5-4-1 then was the strongest he could have put out, and the Ramseille head coach stuck with it. They would be lifted by the home support despite its sparseness at the beginning, and there would be a top interchange between defenders Elías Moreno and Leopold Lõhmus from an eighth minute corner; this ended with the Estonian veteran slamming a rocket off the upright, as much a warning as Grilled were about to get.
It was well-heeded, and Grilled would strive to turn the game towards their own strengths as soon as possible. They had been perhaps a little too relaxed and cautious before this, and once they attacked in earnest, there wasn't much to slow them. Douglas would find himself in the strange position of right winger after an extended flowing move, and the Panama defender was game to make the most of it, as he took a struggling Vasil Eliava on from the outside. The shot was good enough given his wide position, but it would be smothered by Giancarlo Buffon without much issue.
Better opportunities would soon arrive for the visitors, and both
Chan Ze Han and
Moey Xin Seng would score in quick succession, before fourteen minutes had passed. Ramseille's backline had numbers and experience but not the mobility any longer, and for both these goals, it was mostly a matter of Grilled's attackers making some room for themselves with sudden accelerations. Of course, the finishes weren't half bad either, with Chan delighting with an exquisite floater, and Moey going the more-traditional route with a simple grounder nestled in at the far post.
Yeoh would quickly have that sorted out from the sidelines, but his team never quite looked like digging themselves out of this hole, with their attempts to break with long runs from defence largely fading before they could get it to Lamm. The Birds were certainly doing their part to peg such efforts back, with
Heng Dong Chu a clear and ever-present threat against Sergio Sonino on the left. Heng would get in some great crosses too, and
Kalki Parvathaneni would turn one of those home in the 34th minute, with a first-time mid-air spectacular.
They were hardly done too with the previously-loud home crowd now mostly sullen, and
Chan Ze Han would pile on the pain with a powerful blast from some eight yards, as he misled his markers with a swift 180 on a slow-seeming pullback. That would turn out to be Chan's - and Moey's - swansong for the day, as both Grilled leaders would be withdrawn at the start of the second half, to save them for the midweek finals.
It would be
Chu Xin Lee and
Abd Hadi Taib Mazhud on for the duo, and it would quickly be apparent as to why these two weren't starting, as Grilled's former fluency in passing took quite the hit. While Chu and Abd Hadi didn't objectively do too much wrong, it was just obvious that they lacked the instinct and confidence that distinguishes winners from also-rans at this level - for now - and this would leave the battered Ramseille side with some lifelines to work with.
The home team got the goal that they had sought so ceaselessly soon, as
Shekar Kannan was slow to recover after an ill-advised attempted to wriggle out of a well-executed two-man press on the sidelines. Carl-Georg Reeperbahn picked the ball out from under his feet, and the perhaps-complacent Birds backline wasn't looking out for Steinar Ramberg springing their offside trap on the opposite wing. It was close, but the Norwegian had timed his run to perfection, and
Jānis Salmiņš was always at a disadvantage with Douglas unable to affect Ramberg much, having found himself chasing from behind.
That was 1-4 for Ramseille, but still very far from earning them a point, and Grilled would in any case have their lead back at four in a jiffy. They might have lost Chan and Moey, but
Vikram Mudaliar had taken over the armband, and the 35 year-old striker was not about to sit on it. Targeting the less-mobile Eliava, Mudaliar would get the best of a dodgy square pass in the 58th minute, and he would pounce with a toe-prod that just about got past Buffon.
It would be misses all around after that, with skipper Sonino giving Heng a run for his money on their right flank, only to have his best effort denied brilliantly by Salmiņš on the hour. Sonino would wind up booked for taking Heng down in the 79th, after which there would be a couple of fine saves by Buffon, off Kalki and then Abd Hadi - the latter of whom was expressedly disappointed with himself.
José Luiz Velho would be Grilled's third and final sub, as he came in for Kannan as injury time loomed.
