By Land And Sea
Chia Pep
Chia Kwang Tse served notice of his ability in Grilled Birds' closing friendly of the season over in Oman, where they were hosted in Zufar by III.14 challengers Arabian Sea(landers), a spin-off of Switzerland's Seelanders. The Arabians had made a very strong finish to their latest campaign under Norwegian boss Hugo Tran, chalking up nine wins on the trot. Tran would test out youngsters such as Mazin Zaid Al-Hinai, Habib Saad Al-Hasany and Yasser Sultan Al-Hadidy today, but the team would still put up credible resistance against the freewheeling Birds.
Given the relative youth of the central midfield, experience would be supplied by wingers Zoubir Boukerche and Kian Fredriksson, who strove to provide outlets whenever they could. Five-time league Golden Boot winner Bo Grubbe remained a potent threat up top alongside Spanish sidekick Iván Gallardo, while German goalkeeper Arne Ursprung had the unenviable task of dealing with Grilled's impositions.
They didn't take long to come either, with eleven minutes on the clock when
Ananda Hettiarachchi surged past Mazin on a sudden change of possession, and slammed a swirling grounder off the outside of Ursprung's right post. This would be a relatively open period as Iván Gallardo and Habib Saad Al-Hasany got into dangerous positions, although
Kendell El Khateeb and
Chia Kwang Tse arguably came closer with their efforts.
Arabian Sea(landers) appeared to have gotten to half-time without conceding, only for Chia to enter the scene with other ideas. He might not have been asked to head up Grilled's front three very often, but he managed to make his new position feel quite natural. Props remained due to
Mason Glendinning for keeping his head up as Chia weaved into the box in the 39th minute, and the Grilled Number Six lumped it into the net upon taking the shot on early.
The match restarted with the home team winning the initiative after raising the tempo several notches, but Yasser Sultan Al-Hadidy finding himself in shooting range often enough, only to not get his efforts off for various reasons. This had him come off for 23 year-old Icelandic star Sófus Hólmsteinsson just after an hour, alongside the teenaged Waqass Fuad Al-Hamadany entering for Mazin, with
Mohsen El Khateeb replacing
Damian Hutter on the Birds end.
Swedish skipper Kian Fredriksson's exit for Mahmood Abdullateef Al-Kleby as their third and final sub also saw Irish fullback Lee Davis inherit the armband, and the Arabians turned out to have more in the bag. Dionys Schneider thrived in his new advanced position - previously occupied by Fredriksson, as
Paulino Trindade struggled to cope with the change of style. One of his crosses found Sófus Hólmsteinsson's forehead in the 67th minute, but
Dahan Bok got down quickly to save it.
Grilled Birds were finding it difficult to hold onto the ball, but got a lucky break in the 74th minute, when
Kendell El Khateeb appeared to have lost the ball to Mahmood Abdullateef Al-Kleby, only for the referee to award the free-kick.
Fu Wenlong strode up with purpose before steaming by at the last moment, allowing
Markus Pallas to knock it short to
Chia Kwang Tse - who snapped it in off the far post in turn. 2-0!
This was maybe somewhat hard on Arabian Sea(landers), who had been doing so well, and it was perhaps only fair that they get a consolation goal at least. The hosts advanced en masse from the kick-off in a clear effort at correcting the record, and the ball would be successfully played through to Algerian winger Zoubir Boukerche on the left. Grilled had numbers back too, however, and Waqass Fuad Al-Hamadany did very well to shake loose of
Ananda Hettiarachchi and get his shot on target.
Grilled would increasingly find openings as the Arabians pushed to level, and it became 3-1 four minutes later, with
Paulino Trindade running onto
Lim An Keng's through pass, with
Chia Kwang Tse heavily marked.
Genki Nagano got to stretch his feet in coming on for Fu as the match came to a close, but there was still enough time for
Mason Glendinning to be booked, for naughtily holding up a late Arabians free-kick.
