Knights Rally
Manomaitis Tips It
Newly-founded Hattrick Anniversary League side FC Vilnius Knights - an offshoot of Lithuanian III.11 contenders FC Gladiatoriai - would have cause to be proud, as they dealt with the visiting Birds reserves through patience and grit. Admittedly, Grilled had self-sabotaged no thanks to the combustible
Enrique Baena getting himself sent off just before half-time, but with the hot-headed Spanish youngster, one had to take the bad with the good.
Grilled would rest all of their regular veterans for this one, with Czech forward
Prokop Mottl perhaps the de-facto outfield leader on the pitch, though
Atang Mangoye retained the captaincy.
Hwang Teck Fu would start alongside a just-turned-eighteen
Chad Thach, with Chia, Baena and
Toma Tamiya making up the rest of the midfield. Against this, Vilnius would match like-for-like with a largely-homegrown 2-5-3 of their own, of which left winger Kasparas Gudžunas had gotten the best reviews, in recent months. It would be the strikers to distinguish themselves against indifferent defending, though.
There would be few hints at how this friendly would turn out early on, as the young Birds absolutely dominated the initial going.
Yee Jian Hui might not have sold many shirts in his time here, but he looked like a world-beater for some minutes there, storming from fullback to lash a grounder just past Mantrimas Rudnickis's left post. The hosts were shook, and never seemed convincing in their marking.
Toma Tamiya nearly got it in with a lob from ten yards in the 24th minute that came off the bar; it would be decisively rescued to the outside by
Prokop Mottl, played straight back in by Baena, and polished off this time by the Number 27.
It was a wonder that the Birds went only 2-0 up at
Chirag Thevar's effort in the 40th minute, so prolific were they at shifting it about Vilnius' territory, but that would also be when the game turned. They did have some success on the wings, such as when Finnish winger Pekka Paukku barged past Baena in the 42nd to supply Liucius Macis, who had just about edged ahead of Yee. Baena clearly felt that he had been fouled, and took matters into his own hands - or feet, as it might be - at the next opportunity. The vicious stomp towards Paukku had to be a straight red, and so it was.
Tian Yonghang looked furious as Baena averted his eyes in coming off, but there was nothing for it but to forge ahead with the usual, as Chia came off for
Lim An Keng after the break. Vilnius would press their man advantage straight off, and equalized just two minutes from the restart. Gudžunas made good distance down the left flank, but Manomaitis' off-balance strike appeared to be going nowhere... until Thevar stepped in with a neither-here-nor-there intervention, and merely redirected it past
Manuel Vadalà.
Manomaitis would be credited with the goal with Thevar not interested in challenging the attribution, and the match carried on with all to play for. Grilled resumed some of their former imperious attitude, and were further boosted when
José Luiz Velho entered for Mottl, 65 minutes in. The Brazilian wasted no time in creating trouble for the home defenders, and Grilled would be ahead once more three minutes later, as
Hwang Teck Fu found himself gifted with a tap-in by Lim, as a free-kick got played inside.
Toma Tamiya would soon have to exit after an unfortunate late tackle from Jazminas Jurevičius, which was
Paulino Trindade's ticket into the game. A Grilled victory still appeared highly probable at this point, with Vilnius players losing their positions quite frequently, but for a terrible mistake by
Chad Thach. The trainee somehow tried to square the ball across his own penalty area, which had Macis crash the gimme straight back off Vadalà. The brave goalkeeper would not be able to prevent his follow-up try, which made it three-all.
Well, Thach would try to make up for it at the other end, and to tell the truth, he wasn't all that far away with a venomous drive parried by Rudnickis into
Radovan Jaška's path, only for Jaška to send it to the opposite wing. Thach was not done yet, and went down heavily going shoulder-to-shoulder with Justynas Pleskis in the chase, but the referee wasn't impressed, and showed him the yellow card for simulation.
It soon got a lot worse for the Birds, as Manomaitis exploded at the other end, to complete what had been an unlikely hat-trick. Mangoye, for all his virtues, was simply not a great sweeper, and he left the striker far too much room for himself, as Vilnius immediately got the game on after Thach's booking. Three minutes later, it would be much the same story, as the Birds went in search of an equalizer of their own.
