Crying Father
Romanenko Ripping
Grilled were sent crashing out of The Global Trophy tournament without undue ceremony, after being skinned 0-4 by FC Trinidad & Tobago. Again, while competitive in midfield, they had no way past FC Trinidad's competent three-man defence, and continued defensive fragility doomed the Birds.
FC Trinidad were running away with the III.11 title, and it showed in their extremely assured approach to the game;
Hariharan Prabhu was arguably the top creator during the initial stages, former national team sweeper Chandan Patnaik stood firm, and made keeping Grilled's forwards under wraps look almost easy.
That said, he wasn't able to reject Grilled's advances fully, and it was only bad decision-making from
Clark Won, that spared them in the 24th minute.
Rinor Isufi was calling for it as he sidled in on the far side, but Won instead tried to win a penalty off Mario Valentín Moreira, entirely unconvincingly. Two minutes after that deserved booking, Isufi would get his shot on, but dropped it onto the bar.
Working even those out had taken quite a lot out of the Birds, and they were in disarray when Clyde Hedley put
Yuta Nakakita on his bottom in the 33th with a delightful juggle, before seeking out Ukrainian striker Anton Romanenko by accident. Hedley would go it himself two minutes later, and was no less successful, with
Valentin Batâr slow to react.
The Birds were not about to give up the ghost so easily, and
Rinor Isufi for one had a point to prove. Relishing his newfound status as Grilled's undisputed target man, he would test Antti Nikumatti with a blistering strike towards the end of the half, but the Finn was up to it. Right winger Rodney Watkins would get in an altercation with
Neeraj Muthyala as the duo walked off for the break, and received a yellow card for that, to his incredulity.
57 minutes in, FC Trinidad would more or less put the game beyond Grilled's reach, as they profited off a flash of makeshift brilliance from Keith Nguyen. The attacking midfielder somehow chested the ball some fifteen feet to Romanenko, who did the rest of the work, slashing past
Gene Filippone before taking Batâr out with a disguised shot.
Rinor Isufi wasn't happy to come off in the 70th minute, though he had indeed been hogging the ball unproductively for a while before that. Enter
Tian Yonghang, who however had yet to make an impact, when Watkins got his own back on Muthyala. Stripping the Grilled player of the ball after he got mobbed in his own six-yard box, the FC Trinidad winger would swivel and plant it into the net in one smooth motion.
Grilled's best hope for a face-saving consolation followed immediately after, but Nikumatti was in an unbeatable mood, not that
Hariharan Prabhu's effort was all that challenging to begin with.
