Hecken's Green Wins
Enache Bout
Grilled touched down in cloudy Alsace, France and had a smooth trip to Hecken Aerodrome where illustrious Division Three French club Hecken FC were waiting. Over eight thousand five hundred locals turned up to watch their team in action against Grilled, which must be a friendly attendance record for the away team. The hosts didn't wait for their visitors to get dug in, and the lightweight backline of bin Che Lah and
Kau Siu-Cheung was cruelly exposed by Romanian striker George Enache, who tricked bin Che Lah with ease before hammering past acting player-coach
Cheung Huel-sheng.
Joe Stern didn't do his chance of rising in Bakunin's esteem any good when he couldn't score from a penalty after the fast-running Åhsten was tugged in the area. Frankly it was less due to any failing of his than the ability of Hecken's goalie Mickaël Estrine , who leaped just right to deflect Stern's properly hit waist-high shot to the right post. Grilled did level six minutes later, when
Tim Blissenbach read the game best as he ran onto a fast counterattacking pass by Thai sweeper
Nui Pakpao. Estrine did not have a prayer this time as the German lad curled the ball into goal from eight metres. Hecken FC's captain Peter Flamdahl restored their lead from a good lob from American forward Kong Kok-Siong, as he wisely waited for the ball to bounce once before putting his shot neatly over Huel-sheng.
Attacking right winger Emmanuel Beylau sidefooted into an empty net right from the restart, as the ball went from one flank to the other with no-one in the middle getting to young prodigy Hubert Rosset's cross from the other side. Huel-sheng looked disgusted at his defence for that.
Li Ze, who got into the starting eleven as a winger only after
Asher Stanton had been called on as a sub in the qualification match on Sunday, got booked for foolishly refusing to give up the ball after a minor foul. The Green Dragons of Hecken put in a fourth from the head of George Enache, who connected firmly with a high cross from Beylau. The 76th minute saw the comical side of soccer when Hubert Rosset first tried for a free kick by running into
Nui Pakpao in front of Grilled's penalty area after he had pushed the ball a bit too far in front of himself. Rosset bounced off like a rubber ball, perhaps too much like one for the referee who was having none of that and booked the youngster. Pakpao blasted the ball up in course, and
Chen Chiew-Yen was there to try the same thing after his cushioning failed him. Chen made it look like Bjärnsson had done a judo throw on him the way he went up and over, but the bewildered Swede did not even have to protest as the referee, smiling, flashed a yellow card at Chen for his pains.
