Paradiso Out Of Reach
Jose Escalates
Woodlands club Glory Paradiso got the double over the Birds for the season, as they worked their way to a 3-2 home win today. The match was marked by
Gústav Thoroddsen finally reprising the form that had made him so unstoppable last year, but alas it would not be enough, as the hosts were the more eager in making chances - and taking them on.
Chia Kwang Tse's suspension would see
Gandhik Chitre get his start in midfield, but other than that,
Tian Yonghang appears to have more or less settled on his first XI for the league, made all the simpler by the exit of so many forwards. It was Paradiso who drew all the attention in the opening minutes, though, with a first-minute substitution of Pang Kian Yao for Mah Lee Kim. Whether this threw Grilled off might not be certain, but what is a fact was that former Colombian youth international Jose Andrés Escalante blazed down the right side unopposed from the restart, and his cross would be converted via Idhlan Abdul Fattah's bullet header, just like that.
The Birds' gameplan had certainly not included going down in the second minute, and they were definitely ruffled after Fattah's strike. Put on the defensive, Grilled looked positively unconvincing in breaking down Paradiso's tidy short passing patterns, especially their penchant for compressing play, only to suddenly spread it wide. Eliézer Hermes could only be stopped by
Brian Reddy's obvious shirt-tug in the tenth minute, which led to a yellow for Reddy. The free-kick was then tapped wide to Mah Lee Kim, who came very close with his thirty-yard missile.
Dimitris Germanakos was low on confidence too as he swiped ineffectually at Alex Duncan's speculative forward lob five minutes later, and it was only thanks to the forward thinking of
Ha Qicai, that Ajwad Mohd Raimi didn't have an empty net to slot it into. Still, it wasn't easy for Ha to get himself between Raimi and goal, but his hard work did pay off with the shot going the wrong side of the post. Grilled's hard luck appeared to persist as
Chad Thach was called for a marginal offside in the 33rd minute, and then booked for complaining, but up popped
Gústav Thoroddsen as Paradiso got sloppy on the free-kick for once, as the Iceman raced for Chitre's quick pass up - and equalized.
One-all was as much as the Birds deserved, in truth, as the second half proceeded with Grilled still lacking initiative. Despite not holding the bulk of possession, Glory Paradiso were by far the more incisive team when they had it, with Ong Yeng Eng picking the right pass nine times out of ten. Ong would reverse it to Ajwad Mohd Raimi in the 61st, surprising much of the Birds' defenders, and their delayed reaction was enough to clear a shooting lane for Mah Lee Kim from the right edge of the six-yard box, which made it 2-1.
Gústav Thoroddsen was back to something like his best, however, and he was also beginning to terrorize the Paradiso backline in a way that the Birds' supporters had not seen for weeks. Ong's man-marking was sorely tested several minutes after Mah's goal, with Thoroddsen pulling him one way and then the next, before leaving him behind for good as he set off on his weaker left foot. Yılmaz Bozkan tried to cover from outside, but Thoroddsen shot early and hard, leaving Ang Fu no chance at all.
Grilled were going for the kill now, and there was a surge of anticipation when
Chad Thach was tripped just outside the box in the 70th, leaving
Federico Parada a very-makeable free-kick. It was on target, but clipped Timian Jacobsen on the edge of the defensive wall, and play continued with the Birds besieging. Unfortunately, Paradiso would successfully breakaway a few minutes later, and Jose Andrés Escalante sidefooted it past Germanakos to win it outright.
