Near To Cubed
Ferzan Forward
Viachers Cuba had been reconstituted after their previous incarnation, Beirão FC, had just been promoted from the Cuban III.8, and it showed in the comparatively lackluster unit put out, for all of head coach Juan Lugo's best efforts. Slovakian teenager Miroslav Tvrdík had been Lugo's only buy since taking over, and his start at fullback today after being tried at forward against Perttelin Sepot a fortnight ago, seems to indicate that his deployment remains up in the air. It was his bad fortune, then, to be match up against an
Egemen Dinçer Ferzan eager to impress.
25 year-old
Cameron Law would feature in goal for the Birds, with
Tian Yonghang indicating that
Manuel Vadalà would be phased out as he nears forty and a likely retirement, though there was scarce little for Law to enforce today in any case. The ball would spend most of its time in the visiting half, with Viachers holding fast to their 3-4-3 even as they leaked goals, beginning with
Bilal Mohammad Harun pulling a fast one on a slightly-surprised Arnoldo Cabeza, after four minutes.
That presaged a steady stream of free-flowing vintage soccer by Grilled, with the Viachers team still learning how to click with one another; Félix Lindano and Gil Matamoros were uncertain about who was supposed to pick up
Paulino Trindade when he advanced up the left in the 13th minute, for example, which made an easy conversion by
Atang Mangoye once he offered himself up.
The red shirts would hustle to deny the Birds too simple a rout, until their stamina went near the end of the half, which had
Teo Chuan Yong, Ferzan and Bilal all strike in the space of four minutes, against the badly-exposed Tadeo Franceschi. Tvrdík would be booked for taking Ferzan down late about then, with
Enrique Baena also cited for trying too hard to make a penalty out of nothing much.
The half ended with an interesting cross by Bilal headed off by Esteban Arroyo right before
Teo Chuan Yong could get onto it, and the next half began with
Gilbert Webb and
Hwang Teck Fu off, replaced by
Mohsen El Khateeb and
Aw Keng Chuan respectively. Mohsen would not spend too much time dallying about in defence, and made a good charge in the 59th minute as the Birds forced their way through the middle, only to have his feisty drive ping off the goalpost.
Grilled gave the impression of holding off a tad here, with their midfield content with trying to walk it in almost; this attitude was not wholly shared by Ferzan, who kept up his non-stop needling of the unlucky Viachers defenders, and robbed Tvrdík after the youngster turned blindly into his path about the 65th minute. It was straight at Franceschi after the coup, and Ferzan would take it coolly around the goalkeeper, after feinting convincingly to the outside.
It hardly got better for the visitors, with Fabian Ugarte fouling Mangoye out of irritation in the 65th resulting in a needless yellow card, followed by Greivin Ramos landing heavily on his right foot seven minutes later, which had Lugo electing to take him off for Wilfredo Campollo. Tian took the opportunity to bring
Teo Chuan Yong off too, with
Moey Xin Seng receiving quite the welcome from the close to five thousand Grilled faithful, as he ambled on.
One more goal was in the offering, as the Birds pushed up via Trindade in the 79th, which ended with
Enrique Baena's close-range attempt being deflected into the side-netting. The corner would be cleared by Arnoldo Cabeza, who would be left wincing at straining his left calf for the remainder of the match; it wasn't enough to keep Aw from scoring on the putback, anyway.
