San Siro Dominion
Blom Flowers
Marine Parade Kings got Grilled Birds back at home for their earlier defeat, as the Birds nursed their Cup final hangover. Dutch striker Alex Blom climbed to joint-top of the league scoring table with his fifth career hat-trick, as the Birds barely challenged in a lethargic first half.
The Kings have had an excellent season thus far but for a pretty big trip-up against the Legends, which Swedish boss Lasse Ericsson had addressed with the purchase of Stefan Rahmby and Sascha Weinzierl, both of whom started again today. It was otherwise much the same 3-5-2 as well, if with Sebastiano Benigni replacing Tiziano Lauri as Blom's strike partner, and Enrique Zavala having a go in midfield. It was more than enough, as it happened.
Jerome Crawford appeared overwhelmed for once as Alstani's allowing
Hwang Teck Fu a rest could not hide how much his players had expended on Wednesday, and Grilled had to rely on several great escapes to stay level in the first half.
Phillip Nagata was a particular liability on defence as he allowed Zhang Qiyao past him quite cheaply in the 22nd minute, which was followed by Sascha Weinzierl swinging a fifteen-yarder off the crossbar, four minutes later.
There were no signs of the Birds lifting their game, and Marine Parade Kings went ahead shortly after
Johann Schwietzer's yellow for a late tackle on Benigni in the 29th minute, which had the quick free-kick launched across to Alex Blom, who first-timed it into the top right corner. Weinzierl had the hosts two goals up about three minutes on, as
Ananda Hettiarachchi's assistance was not enough to prevent the free-ranging Weinzierl from getting his sights on at the head of the box.
Radomil Marcol made a fine dive, but was again too slow.
It was 3-0 at half-time despite Grilled Birds making the most of Arlindo Unas's 35th minute slide in on
Phillip Nagata to regroup, which unfortunately resulted in seemingly contradictory instructions from Crawford and
Genki Nagano as the Kings crossfielded it to American winger Gael Delgado, once they recovered the ball. Ironically, Unas got the assist after calling for it wide, and Blom applied the finish.
The Grilled fans looked as glum as they had all season when Vietnamese referee Trương Nghiệp blew for the restart, but
Mohd Marzuki Khairul put some smiles back on their faces, as the Birds were a changed team for the second half... at least for the first few minutes.
Hisham Zubari lost Zabala with an explosive run up the middle, before György Aradi got it off the shielding
Lim An Keng with a timely extended foot. Lim got a hasty touch off, right to Marzuki who needed no second asking.
Alex Blom would continue to be the Kings' biggest threat bar none, and he could have completed his treble early, had his excellent 62nd minute effort not come back off the far post. There was understandably much concern when he reared up upon tweaking his left ankle soon after Benigni left for Pierpaolo Cavilli in the 72nd minute, but the home team's medic would soon have back him up and running, to much cheering from the gallery.
The match then got interesting as Grilled Birds pulled within a single goal, admittedly somewhat against the general run of things. There didn't appear to be much threat when
Phillip Nagata underhit his low cross in the 77th minute, but this had the unintended side effect of leaving the several Kings defenders in the vicinity unclear as to who should handle it.
Chia Kwang Tse had no such compunctions, and raced in to thrash it past Ahmad Al-Arab by a hair.
That had Ericsson put Manuele Capirossi on for the flagging Stefan Rahmby to revive his flagging midfield, with Rahmby meaningfully handing his armband over to Blom. Blom would not let him or the fans down, as he assisted Cavilli from the left flank in the 80th minute to re-widen the margin, before completing his hat-trick six minutes later after taking Schwietzer for a ride.
