Feathers Doused
The Other Face
In a great disappointment for the close to ninety thousand fans who had gotten tickets at The Cooking Pot, Grilled Birds could not take enough of their many chances despite dominating the first hour of their match against Phantasm Hotspurs, who admittedly also made their own luck in large part to claim the title. There were silver linings for
Evandro La Face, who was finally able to parade his value with an excellent brace, and
Joe Reece, who would pick up the Golden Boot uncontested despite not scoring.
For all that, this remaining a match that the Birds were heavy favourites to win, and with good reason. Hotspurs had divested themselves of superstar goalkeeper Sidqi Ghani for S$14.9 million a month or so ago, with incoming midfielder Harley Arakaki not having even broken into their main rotation. While the likes of Muzaffar Fadhlurrahman, Jermaine Tang and Koh Ping Beng remained battle-tested, few expected them to line up favouribly with the Birds' rising playmakers. None of that mattered, though, as Masyhur Zulfadhli pulled off an absolutely filthy bit of footwork to leave
Ha Qicai swinging in the wind, to open space for an inch-perfect grounder past
Dimitris Germanakos in the fourth minute.
That was the sort of confluence that comes perhaps a few times in a lifetime for most players, and as such it was hard to place too much blame on either Ha or Germanakos for not dealing with it better. It did leave Grilled with a bit of a headache, as Hotspurs were a good enough team to drag out any leverage they had. With their players practising keep-ball smartly, the Birds were unavoidably getting a little flustered, until
Mohd Marzuki Khairul made a bombing run of his own 22 minutes in, to slip it past young Looi Beng Ze in the Hotspurs goal.
The restoration of the status quo was short-lived, though, as the visitors again defeated terrible odds, when fullback Tan Meng Hock put his foot through the ball after it was blocked back to him on the left wing, as Prince Huang's attempted cross got blocked. That sort of effort would have gone nowhere much more than nine times out of ten, but this went straight to the far post, subtly curling as it did to close the final yards. Germanakos could only shake his head in disbelief having nearly gotten to it, as Tan realised it had gone in.
Grilled were at least starting to prove their general superiority in attacking as their offensive statistics piled up, if with the questionable tactics of squeezing play that somewhat marginalized
Brian Reddy and
Federico Parada out wide. The visitors were mostly succeeding in clogging it up, and it was clear that it would probably take something special, to achieve another equalizer. As for that,
Evandro La Face delivered in the 35th with a very cultured banana kick from the edge of the box, for his first goal for Grilled.
Before that, La Face already had a piledriver painfully blocked around the post by Lee Kong Siong, and with the teams now back on level terms, the Spaniard's teammates would be looking to find him much more often, with
Joe Reece and
Gústav Thoroddsen's reputations having preceded them - and having them doubled-up on when it mattered. That left more breathing room for the rest of the Birds, and after Looi got a hand to
Chia Kwang Tse's close-ranged touch after 42 minutes, it was
Evandro La Face to throw himself at the ball, to put Grilled Birds in front for the first time!
That was exactly what a script written by the Birds supporters would have demanded, and the stands were bouncing through half-time, as they sang of the title. Alas, there would instead be a great twist in the tale, as the usual heroes misfired disastrously.
Joe Reece was the first to have his moment on stage, as he found himself free with the ball on a
Federico Parada cross, with Jermaine Tang having missed the intercepting header. His touch failed him, sadly, and by the time he sort-of regained control, Lee Kong Siong had hacked it to touch off his feet.
There was hardly any time to bemoan the passing of that chance, as Zulfadhli was back at it again with his keen killer instinct; Hotspurs right winger Eng Chi Wei had been on the defensive against Parada for most of the game, but he remained well capable of torching it up when called upon. Koh Ping Beng's creative running had opened up the flank for him with Parada lured inside, and when Eng saw Zaulfadhli making his move, he threaded a pass for the forward to level it 3-3.
A kind of panic set in for Grilled Birds as Hotspurs went up 4-3 right before the hour was done, seeing as a draw would still have done it for them.
Brian Reddy had been desperately unlucky to smash it into the crossbar before that, having done everything right with his approach work, and Hotspurs took strength from that latest escape. With little to lose, they were markedly composed as they pushed up the right again, and Muzaffar Fadhlurrahman swept it home with
Dimitris Germanakos's view partly blocked by his own defenders.
Tian Yonghang would then make an extremely unpopular tactical change, as he removed
Evandro La Face - then on a hat-trick - with a slightly-sheepish
Orest Tokarz, who understood well how the switch would be taken. Tokarz would not shortchange the team on his aggression, that said, and neither did
Brian Reddy, who didn't pull out of his challenge on goalkeeper Looi Beng Ze three minutes later. Reddy might have been fortunate to stay on with Hungarian referee Ince Doszpoly figuring that he had a possibility of winning the ball then, but had Looi been forced off, the verdict might well have been different.
In any case, all the savagery did not advance Grilled's cause by much, partly as it was antithetical to their usual style. It was hard not to notice that their players were running out of gas too, which left Phantasm Hotspurs a relatively easy task in playing out the clock.
Lim An Keng and
Hwang Teck Fu would enter for a last throw of the dice, only for Hotspurs to end it through Mak Hao Heng's injury-time strike, which also left
Federico Parada out until next season after pulling his hamstring.
