Oto Outdo Birds
Tjaard Total Bro
Georgian II.4 club OTO FC might have a qualifier against Dinamo-1925 lined up, but they were still good enough to defeat a strong Grilled selection in their warm-up today in Singapore. The wet weather did probably work to the advantage of their defensive gameplan, which had head coach Pierre Wauthier go for safety first, second and last with a 5-4-1. That left room for a lot of unorthodoxy when they advanced, admittedly, and Dutch captain Tjaard Broeren took it home for them, from left wing.
The 35 year-old would have to spend the first fifteen minutes or thereabouts bailing out his backline whenever he could, that said, as the Grilled reserves pressed the initiative with proper hunger behind them.
Ibnou Balde won a corner when he really had no right to in the fourth minute, and
Chan Ze Han found
Aw Keng Chuan at the head of the box with an outswinger; the header went astray to
Mohsen El Khateeb, who should frankly have gotten it on target at least, from five yards.
Grilled took that miss in their stride, and had little reason to mourn it from how they were creating chances aplenty at this point in the game.
Paulino Trindade made good headway up the left in the twelfth minute against some half-hearted tracking from Savle Lashkhia, and lashed it narrowly over. The opener felt closer and closer as Grilled turned the screws, but when
Gandhik Chitre flicked his glancing header short in the 17th minute, little could he have known that it would lead to Connor Caffrey breaking through wide right, before centering for Tjaard Broeren to nip in just ahead of
Radovan Jaška.
That goal will not look the best on
Cameron Law's resume, given how he might have stopped it had he not reacted overly instinctively to Broeren's movements, but the Birds could not be faulted for taking it lying down. They would have two big opportunities in the next three minutes, both falling to
Chan Ze Han, who had just bailed the team out against Los Gatos United. The first would be inches high after a mazy run, while the second was struck hard and true towards the far corner with Amiran Gogishvili out of the picture, only for centreback Archil Onophrishvili to fly in with the clearance off the line.
This had Onophrishvili mobbed by his peers, and Chan double-teamed for the rest of the half, effectively taking him out of play. OTO FC were satisfied with treading water against the rest of the Birds, and half-time saw
Tian Yonghang give Chan a break, replacing him with
Teo Chuan Yong. While that did spread the visitors' attention back out, Grilled were still finding it tough going up front, with their forwards impeded by the increasingly-soggy ground.
There would not be much to write home about until the 72nd minute, when
Gandhik Chitre kept up stride-for-stride with
Egemen Dinçer Ferzan's rare dribble up the right side, with Broeren missing in action for once. Ferzan would think about going it himself, before sliding it across to Teo, who did the unselfish thing in placing it at Chitre's stronger right foot. Chitre still had to find the gap between Gogishvili and his near post, which he managed in fine style for 1-1.
OTO FC would be prodded into taking the game into their own hands at the equalizer, and they would prove quite potent at moving the ball upfield at speed, when they wanted to. This was probably aided by the Birds' growing complacency in recovering, from how OTO FC had seldom committed more than a few men going forward before this. This was not true any longer, and
Cameron Law would struggle to block a solid effort by Archil Onophrishvili, before failing to prevent Broeren from making the conversion on the second try.
