Homegrown Extras
The Bs Have It
Grilled Birds would play a team from the Homegrown League for the first time today, in the fourth season of its inception; as its name suggests, the league allows clubs to field only players they have developed from youth, this by banning any inbound transfers. Despite that handicap, Austrian H.L. II.2 club sc wien 21 managed the friendly win over the Birds, at their Floridsdorfer Sportplatz.
The personnel restriction naturally lead to a vast diversity in the wien players' ages, with 22 year-old midfielder Martin Mikunda generally regarded as the best player in this 4-5-1 setup. It would be a strange-looking Grilled XI that came out, that said, as
Kendell El Khateeb made his senior debut alongside elder brother
Mohsen El Khateeb as part of a midfield three. 39 year-old Finn
Markus Pallas would appear in Birds colours for the first time too, at left defence.
Experimentation was the story of the day then, with
Tian Yonghang likely out to minimize the potential of injury for his first-teamers too. There would be an odd early substitution as 19 year-old Simon Bechter entered for veteran Georg Strebinger in the tenth minute despite no sign that the latter had problems, and in any case Grilled got the first shot on goal five minutes later.
Paulino Trindade revved inside to test Armin Jahn with a drifting effort, which the goalkeeper batted wide slightly awkwardly.
wien were next with a complicated free-kick plan in the 21st minute, that was however too drawn-out for its own good. Grilled Birds were not exactly lighting it up either, with Kendell much too eager for his own good, but they did take the lead in the 32nd minute when
Hwang Teck Fu put Trindade through again. The hosts then saw Axel Delic blast it right at
Khairil Anwar Hashim Mohd Ismail, and although Simon Bechter appeared to have been held up by
Damian Hutter in trying to retrieve the ball, the referee saw nothing wrong with that.
Dahan Bok replaced Khairil in goal for the second half, and his clean sheet lasted all of 23 minutes before a mistake by a clearly unfit
Markus Pallas allowed Sigmund Bliem in to try a finish. Dahan got his body in the way of Bliem's effort, but Hutter couldn't stop Attila Bicski from rushing in this time, and the winger would equalize for wien there.
Grilled remained very strong when they managed to get the ball to their forwards, and
Mohd Marzuki Khairul made short work of his marker in the 77th, as he danced inside to slot it past Jahn. This had wien make a double substitution of Johann Leonhartsberger and Georg Giessauf for Andreas Riedmann and Beppi Jungwirth, with Bechter and Mössenböck swapping places.
The home team got their break soon after, as Marzuki was caught pushing Giessauf in an off-the-ball incident apparently arising from an earlier tackle, which had the Birds man immediately sent off by the referee. Grilled failed to regroup promptly, which had wien win an indirect free-kick inside their box next, and Sigmund Bliem shoved it home after some messy defending on the goalline.
That was 2-2, and after Jahn stopped
Chia Kwang Tse's rising strike, the match was destined to enter extra time.
Darko Andrović and
Paulino Trindade would leave for
Chan Ze Han and
Lim An Keng respectively, with Lim making an instant impact on the game. He had the beating of Robert Haindl on the left, and a delectable mid-height cross had
Toma Tamiya make it 3-2 for Grilled, just two minutes into the third period.
This proved a false dawn for Grilled Birds, alas, as their lack of fitness - particularly at the back - doomed them against wien's far richer reserves. A one-two combination by Bechter and Bicski about the 98th minute turned everything around in a jiffy, and Gregor Moser then set Robert Haindl up with great vision, ten minutes from the end.
