Less Lax Than Before
Gandhed Down
Having knocked Grilled Birds out of this very competition two seasons ago, frunzelax had cause to be optimistic against a relatively defanged Birds squad, all the more given that they had added stars such as German midfielder Brix Königseder and French fullback Florian Maître since then. Maître had, of course, won the Russian national cup with Irbis Ufa not too long ago, and only embellished a battle-tempered frunzelax team that also saw Juan Carlos Eric and James Gill return in midfield.
Paulino Trindade would be the Birds' main addition to the replay of this fixture, which had frunzelax now going for the extra man in defence with a 3-4-3. Chadi Selawi's clear intention was to stretch Grilled on the wings through overlaps, but that would have to wait, as the Birds pressed all the buttons early.
Hwang Teck Fu dazzled in beating three men from the left in the eleventh minute only to shave the outside of the far post, so it was down to
Lim An Keng to open after Adrian Ceparu's fumbled control of a backpass eight minutes later.
Going behind paradoxically seemed to calm frunzelax down, and they would put together their best sequence of the match by some distance upon restarting. Excellent hold-up play from blossoming teenaged forward Bryan Mian had them earn a free-kick at the end of a dozen passes, and Maître took his time arranging the delivery. This proved more than justified, as Königseder climbed above
Brian Reddy to get a head to it, allowing Eric to get a clean shot skipping off the turf past
Dimitris Germanakos.
Reddy would get involved soon enough as he tried to lob Selawi from some thirty yards the next minute, and the disrespect would be repaid from the ensuing counter, which saw Portuguese wide man Hélder Afonso Silva Novais sidle past
Paulino Trindade, before absolutely taking off. The low cross evaded all defenders - and nearly Li Fu Ze too - but the 18 year-old's flexibility got him a slight touch, which proved enough for 2-1.
It was looking quite bad for the Birds for the rest of this half, with frunzelax recycling the ball between themselves for long stretches. The only deficiency would be their inability to bring it up with any consistency, as their youthful forward line turned out to be rather lightweight. Against this backdrop, Grilled would slowly regain their mojo, and
Chia Kwang Tse found an answer for Maître's commanding presence, by sniping him from outside the box in the 58th minute.
This second equalizer had the tenor of the game swing again, and
Brian Reddy came alive once more, with Emiliano Bastioni's stamina betraying him in time. Reddy's tireless working of the right wing would contribute directly to goals from
Hwang Teck Fu and then
Gandhik Chitre, despite Selawi attempting to get some help on by replacing Novais with Giovanni Guaiana in between. It was only when Guaiana effectively transferred over to the other wing full-time, that Reddy's rampage was stemmed.
The Italian substitute would moreover find time to test Germanakos with a respectable volley attempt after Chitre's strike, but it would be Chitre to demonstrate proper scoring form as he dribbled Ceparu for Grilled's fifth goal shortly after. This had the exhausted Romanian sweeper off for Pili Keter at the next opportunity, but the gap was just too large, and Chua Seng Chang entered for Loh right before an uneventful two minutes of stoppage time.