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Zero Kickz
Comedy Of Misses
While the club management were adamant that they could cope without main striker
Chan Ze Han, the 36 year-old star ended up cutting a forlorn figure in the VIP box with a heavily-wrapped left leg, as the Birds conspired to drop two points against an obdurate but eminently defeatable KickzFC. Few could have faulted the East Coast arrivals from going all-in on defence at The Cooking Pot, but it was a lot more astounding that ten clear chances went begging, from the home side.
This was a KickzFC that had let in two against Offshore Haven's rather less reputed attack last Sunday, recall, and although they did pack five in at the back, the fact that 39 year-olds Espen Elstad, Catalino Hurtado and Per Eckby were its mainstays, should have said something. A far-younger and more-vigorous
Orest Tokarz had declared his intent to live up to the Number Ten shirt before the game, but he wound up making little headway against the central defenders' combined experience, and was reduced to reinventing himself mid-game as a provider - and not very successfully at that.
Tian Yonghang had not skimped on the gunpowder today, knowing what he was likely up against, and had two out-and-out wingers in
Federico Parada and
Egemen Dinçer Ferzan, together with an offensively-oriented midfield. KickzFC's Romanian boss Saul Turcin would abandon that contest completely in response, banking his hopes on swift counters down the wings. While there was little of that in evidence as Grilled took potshots at Ole Zabel through
Joe Reece and
Damian Hutter early on, it was not like the Birds were getting in close either.
The volume began to rise as Grilled got settled into position about the visiting box about the 23rd minute, and the breakthrough goal seemed on as Parada finally gave Swiss wingback Zeno Tresch the slip with a torrid switchup, only to run smack into
Gandhik Chitre as he cued up the shot. Not only that,
Orest Tokarz would be booked for slicing down Elstad down in a misguided attempt to regain the ball, which made it a thoroughly humiliating fiasco, for all the Birds forwards concerned.
There was still a good chance that the half would end with a goal at least, with Grilled all but camping out about KickzFC's penalty area, and
Damian Hutter looked to have done it as he powered a wildly-swerving worldie in the 41st minute that had Zabel well-beaten... only for it to come down off the goalpost. Eugénio Sertório wasted no time in trying to clear it, only to possibly run it over the line himself before managing to dig it out, and then only to
Gandhik Chitre, who clanged it into the crossbar again!
The Birds supporters could not believe what they were looking at, as acting captain
Federico Parada and several of his teammates ran over to Spanish referee Luis Rubalcaba to demand that both the initial Hutter shot and Sertório's touch be looked at, which they were; unfortunately, the ball had not fully crossed the goalline in either case, which meant that this match had inexplicably stayed goalless, despite Grilled coming close to an incredible ninety percent of the possession.
It seemed as if Grilled's time had to come, with forty-five minutes at least remaining, but they continually lacked that little extra bit of creativity to fully unlock the visitors' horde at the back.
Chia Kwang Tse tried to brute-force his way through in the 56th minute, which went very poorly for him, and resulted in KickzFC's only official attempt for the game as Avtandil Prastashvili latched onto Sertório's early cross from the left.
Dimitris Germanakos need not have worried, as it sailed safely over.
Turcin would withdraw an exhausted Per Eckby for Abel Gualter about this time, right before an electric few minutes that the Birds again, somehow, failed to capitalize on. Parada had been their most effective outlet by far, and he would cause Catalino Hurtado to twist his own left ankle with a sharp dodge around the defender, only to try too much in seeking to overrun Ole Zabel as well. Zabel threw himself over the ball as Parada then made to swing this into a penalty, but it was an easy enough case for the referee to ignore.
Grilled's strikers were noticeably getting slightly panicked now, and
Joe Reece did his reputation for choking at critical junctures little good, when he brought the ball down very neatly indeed on the next possession right after Parada's incursion, only to stroke it tamely to Zabel. Parada continued working that left flank diligently, but
Orest Tokarz had nowhere to go after being played forward in the 69th minute. His lob to the other flank nearly found Chitre, though, and it took some risky defending from Gualter to head it away then.
KickzFC only wanted to see the game through at this point, and the double substitution of Andrzej Szelejewski and Ignacio Estrázulas on for Elstad and Sertório, was obviously towards this end. They did have a moment of indecision when Zabel flapped at a Hutter cross two minutes after their arrival, but Tokarz could not get to it in time either, and the visiting defence cleared to touch as soon as they could - which was the story of the remaining twenty minutes.
