Coup At San Siro
Rahmby Defiance
Grilled Birds entered the final straight of the campaign with a resounding 5-1 away win at San Siro Singapore against hosts Marine Parade Kings, with
Hwang Teck Fu grabbing a double on this slightly hazy but otherwise ideal day for soccer. The Kings' shift towards counterattacking would yield an early equalizer, but this could not avoid a fifth straight league defeat for them, after the Birds had stopped their bright start to the season with a 6-2 thumping in Jurong.
There were only a couple of changes for the Birds compared to that fixture, with
Chia Kwang Tse selected instead of
Lim An Keng at left forward, and
Houssam Belhocine replacing the departed Johann Schwietzer in defence. Likewise for the Kings, Pierpaolo Cavilli stood in for the out-of-favour Tiziano Lauri as their main striker, with Enrique Zavala in for Manuele Capirossi in midfield. German defender Johst Heidekorn would also take the centre instead of György Aradi today, with Aradi apparently specifically targeting
Wu Ping De.
That previous clash of course saw Johst Heidekorn and Tiziano Lauri stun the Birds initially, a fate that
Dan Alstani was eager to prevent here. On this, acting captain
Hwang Teck Fu took matters into his own hands with an intelligent run in the fifth minute, in which he used
Phillip Nagata as a decoy before cutting his way in between Zavala and Heidekorn, neither of whom wanted to risk a card so early. Their indecisiveness was Hwang's gain, as the Number Nine duly took his shot on, sending it past Iraqi custodian Ahmad Al-Arab.
The home team's Swedish skipper Stefan Rahmby was not idle either, and he would be seen loudly exhorting his troops as Cavilli prepared the restart. Play would be cautious until
Hisham Zubari twisted his right ankle in the 17th minute, which gave Marine Parade Kings time to set up a full-spectrum offense on the throw-in. Pier Francesco Olei swung it over to Rahmby from the right, and the playmaker did not disappoint with a superlative dribble that left the entire Birds backline in his dust, to tie the game up at one-all.
Lim An Keng had not even entered for Zubari then, having been finishing up his stretches, and he might have regretted not being present to try and stop that advance. The match was getting slightly tetchy with
Chad Thach booed for tripping Krisztián Kolozár up near the corner flag next, for which he got the game's first yellow. Ivory Coast referee Issa Dindane was next to earn the home fans' ire for calling a contestable foul by Al-Arab inside the box, and
Houssam Belhocine had apparently taken his friendly miss to heart, from how he kept his spot kick simple and ground-bound today.
That 27th minute conversion had Grilled Birds back in front, and they would set the pace for the remainder of the half too. Marine Parade Kings did not look entirely comfortable with their counter stance, with Heidekorn and company naturally pushing upfield even when not in possession. That left space for the Birds' forwards to exploit, and
Hwang Teck Fu for once needed no second invitation to get in behind after 32 minutes, where he found the target with a fifteen-yard screamer.
The second half kicked off to a rather more calm Kings side, as they faithfully followed head coach Lasse Ericsson's vocal instructions to stick with the plan. This did have them make a number of advances up the wings, which however resulted in nothing too serious for the Birds to deal with. Grilled were for their part content with allowing the Kings to linger on the ball - as long as it was in their own half.
Half an hour would thus pass with little to report, until
Lim An Keng hit the go button with a fourth goal from nowhere. There seemed no danger when
Ananda Hettiarachchi's ball over the top fell tamely behind the last man, but the problem was that he jogged away from it, expecting his goalkeeper to take care of the situation. This did not account for
Lim An Keng's trigger-hair reflexes, and the substitute would get his toe to it first, on a finishing slide.
The Kings support let out a collective groan at the mistake, having recognized that their hopes for a draw were all but gone. Some of their players were made of pretty stern stuff, it had to be said, foremost among those Stefan Rahmby, who never stopped running. He even got on the end of Pier Francesco Olei's searching pass in the 82nd minute, but this was returned upfield by
Radomil Marcol after his save.
Lim An Keng forced a flying block by Ahmad Al-Arab as Grilled arrived in force, and the goalie could do nothing when
Chad Thach thrashed it into the top corner, after the ball hung about the perimeter of their penalty area.
Grilled Birds were not fully satiated yet, and they would assemble one last attempt, after the hosts' efforts at a second consolation was warded aside by
Houssam Belhocine's towering headed clearance. It was
Ananda Hettiarachchi who carried the final leg of the move on this instance, and the very busy Ahmad Al-Arab would have to make another flying save, before
Mohd Marzuki Khairul and
Virgil Huang entered as last-minute subs.
