Same Old Story
Kamel In Wrong
This Emerald Challenger Cup semifinals would be the 30th meeting between Grilled Birds and newbies are newbies, which was surely worth the short commemoration before the game. While the organizers had diplomatically crafted it to be as balanced as possible, however, there could be no denying that the fixture had been tipped in Grilled's favour, especially in recent years - newbies had not managed to win in any of the last eight editions, moreover with but a single draw.
It had been twelve seasons since the clubs last tangled in Division Three, however, and quite remarkably, the cores of both teams had stayed constant over that long decade. newbies' defence of Wong Long Kok, Kwok Wan Yau and Martin Tung had gained a fair number of national caps between them in that period, while for the Birds,
Bilal Mohammad Harun,
Vikram Mudaliar,
Kalki Parvathaneni and of course
Moey Xin Seng were there to be counted.
While newbies' build-up might not have been the most convincing, with a pretty drab 0-3 home loss to The EV on Sunday after scraping past Psyduck FC by the odd goal in the last round, they certainly had enough in their squad to worry the Birds; their redoubtable defensive line aside, 26 year-old international midfielder Wan Wadi Syarif would line up alongside future prospects Ang Keng Jia and Lai Ping Keong - all homegrown - with strikers Vincentis Šnyras and Eduard Kalata both talked of as possible capees. Indeed, most of the speculation had been around how a team of this calibre had not made it to the S-League - although they did win II.3 last season.
Anyway, this argument would best be settled on the pitch, and from how strongly newbies started, the promotion question remained as baffling as ever. Grilled had put out probably the best midfield they could have, with
Teo Chuan Yong alongside Moey and Bilal, and yet it was still getting run over by newbies' admittedly much-younger trio on the regular. More than that, newbies knew how to bring their defenders into it as well, and a sweet cross from developing winger Li Choon An would find Martin Tung with time and space at the far post, in the eleventh minute. Tung should really have done better, than his unconvincing chip into the side-netting then.
newbies always appeared the more likely to reverse their poor record against the Birds, when the script reverted to form all of a sudden. Having struggled mightily to match their opponents for workrate in the first half-hour, the Grilled midfield would finally get to sit in possession for a stretch, and perhaps unexpected, found that newbies weren't quite as assured off the ball as they were on it.
Teo Chuan Yong would make good distance down the right until coming up against newbies skipper Kwok on the edge of the box, but no worries there -
Salah Kamel was streaking in from the outside, and crashed a brilliant first-time effort past Slovenian Number One Ivan Goričanec.
That made one shot on target, one goal for Grilled, and it would only get better. Previously-unseen cracks in newbies' composure would appear, as they had against The EV on the weekend, and their forwards would discover that they were not the only ones with supposedly-slowing legs. It was perhaps just as well that the Grilled forwards hadn't had much to chase early on, and they were able to press the defence mercilessly, as a unit. One such turnover would be nudged on for
Moey Xin Seng, and that was the captain back in the scoring business, after missing out against Ramseille Volliard FC.
To be honest, newbies didn't deserve to be two down, but football does not care about such hypotheticals; Grilled didn't either, and continued kicking their figuratively-and-spiritually downed foes for all they were worth.
Vikram Mudaliar seemed to have lost control in sprinting past Wong Long Kok in the 40th minute, but caught his stride to somehow help it past Goričanec, to keep on where he left off all those years ago. A disgruntled newbies side fed it to Lithuanian striker Vincentis Šnyras from the restart, but even the Birds defenders were up to outdo their counterparts, with
Douglas Carapaica throwing himself at the shot to stop it dead, perhaps a foot from the line.
Three goals had to be a fairly huge hill to climb for newbies, even had they kept their initial dominance, and say to say for them there would be next to none of that in evidence for the second half. Instead, it would be the Birds calling the shots, with Douglas having a particularly chippy reintroduction, perhaps due to his saving block. The defender tried his luck - with full support of the fans - from distance in the 48th minute, and was in truth not far off at all. Ten minutes later, Douglas' diving header would connect in the thick of a crowd, but Goričanec would spot it coming then.
It was then time for another Grilled player to become the main attraction, as
Salah Kamel raised his game to its combative best, in both the positive and negative aspects. With
Heng Dong Chu playing it safe against the tricky Li Choon An on the other flank, it fell to Kamel to take risks - and eat their consequences. Russian Number Seven Klimentiy Kalyuzhin had the skill to fool the best of defenders, not that Kamel ever counted himself within those ranks. Kalyuzhin had given him the slip in the 63rd minute with a little elastico, and Kamel was fortunate not to be sent off directly, for his crude hack from behind.
That said, Kalyuzhin certainly didn't have the upper hand all the time in that matchup, and Kamel would slip behind him more than once, as was done for the first goal. The best of that lot was probably the one in the 70th minute, with Kalki pulling Kwok away for him, but the angle was gone by the time he got clear. There would be no second chance when Kamel slid in uncontrollably on Eduard Kalata with ten minutes left, and he could muster no complaint when young Puerto Rican referee Héctor Arce came up with the second yellow, and then the red.
This delinquency was not limited to the Birds, as a few of newbies' men started to lose their temper too, as their best hope of a trophy for the season slipped irredeemably out of their reach. Grilled were not going out of their way not to rub it in, and there would be protests from the newbies crowd when Kalki refused to stop play for Lai Ping Keong to be looked at, after the latter had been crumpled by a shoulder charge in midfield. Goričanec would ward
Heng Dong Chu's finish off, and the combustible Wan Wadi Syarif would then take matters into his own hands, against
Bilal Mohammad Harun. Arce could not stand for that, which made the second sending-off of the day.
The only question then, was whether newbies would at least manage a consolation, and the answer would be no as Li had a very neat lob get the barest of touches from
Jānis Salmiņš, which was enough to take it onto the goalpost.
Chan Ze Han's loss of touch in front of goal is beginning to get slightly concerning, however, as the previously-unflappable forward failed to reach an obvious assist by Mudaliar two minutes from time, which made this a sixth straight match without a goal for him.
