Bitcoin Shock
In Just Two Minutes
Omani II.3 table-toppers The Bitcoin Boys Club defeated Grilled Birds 2-1 in the seventh round of the World Battle tournament, if with all the buzz limited to a tiny span midway through the first half. The hosts exemplified the skill of threatening without the ball as they dwarfed Grilled in their number of chances created despite losing possession, and there might well have been quite a few more for them if not for
Radomil Marcol.
The Bitcoin Boys had been seeking their next big win since capturing the Sapphire Challenger Cup three seasons ago, and look set for a return to the Al-Dawry Al-Omani, considering their undefeated league run at the moment. German head coach Klaus Detlef Lagler has been focused on development with his laying out of almost S$4.5 million for the seventeen year-old pair of Giancarlo Bonvini and Claus Christoph Gottwald over the past weeks, but there would be no shortage of older heads in their ranks.
35 year-old Latvian playmaker Ainārs Niķels started having just been made available for transfer by Lagler, with the long-serving strike pair of Ville Kärjä and Luís Fortunato just two years younger - as is former Venezuelan youth international centreback David Otero. Cult icons Tariq Qassim Al-Hajry and Abdulraheem Abdulkar Al-Adawy took right wing and leftback respectively, with Hungarian goalkeeper Norbert Sziklai between the posts.
Grilled fielded
Mohd Marzuki Khairul in attack with
Chad Thach very much in rehabilitation, as
Hein Thiha Pyae Ko lined up alongside
Hisham Zubari and
Ananda Hettiarachchi in a fresh midfield configuration. This would certainly show cracks later on in the game, but their practised composure would be enough to shake the opposition early on. Zubari shone with a flashy swivel into a through pass for the onrushing
Genki Nagano in the fifth minute, for which Sziklai had to be near his best to deflect the low strike.
Al-Hajry got his team back up to scratch after that, and the Bitcoin Boys improved significantly after more contemplation in possession. Their first serious foray got going about the twelfth minute, when Abdulraheem Abdulkar Al-Adawy overlapped strongly up the left flank, leaving
Phillip Nagata behind with Abdulrafee Nidhal Al-Flaity. Ville Kärjä lost
Johann Schwietzer right as the pass came in, but couldn't get enough behind his shot to trouble
Radomil Marcol unduly.
The Bitcoin Boys were just getting going, and after stopping several pushes mostly led by
Hwang Teck Fu, it all came together for them in the 27th minute. Portuguese forward Luís Fortunato did very well to claim and shield a long ball forward out of defence, deftly dodging Ananda's attempt to strip him of the ball. Not only that, Fortunato managed to spy Tariq Qassim Al-Hajry steaming inside out of the corner of his eye, and the subtlest of taps set his captain up for the drive into the bottom corner.
Midfielder Giacomo Zanellati then doubled their lead some twenty seconds after the restart, as Grilled were left embarassed after throwing half their team into a badly thought-out charge. David Otero hit a fifty yard cross-fielder that Kärjä chased down ahead of
Genki Nagano, who did well enough to prevent the Finnish striker from simply cutting in. Kärjä turned smoothly back out of the box, however, and slung in a cross with his left foot that Zanellati headed off
Hisham Zubari, fooling Marcol.
Props to the Birds, they had the gumption to repeat their failed mass incursion, which was definitely not what their opponents were expecting.
Hein Thiha Pyae Ko did much of the approach work as he somehow went past two defenders despite apparently not moving at more than a stroll, with
Chia Kwang Tse suddenly reversing course to provide support. That freed Hwang with both Pedro Ulises Espert and Yuan Hongping stepping up for a moment, and the Grilled Number Nine went on to coolly lift it past the oncoming Sziklai.
The rest of the first half was rather quiet, what with
Hisham Zubari and Yuan Hongping mostly engaged with neutralizing each other, and with the teams otherwise reluctant to venture much. In contrast, the second half began with a bang as Bitcoin Boys seized the moment.
Jerome Crawford had hardly warmed up as he came on for Hein, and few expected Al-Flaity's ferocious effort from the right side of the box.
Radomil Marcol barely saw it either, but was quick enough to first it barely over.
Grilled Birds won the midfield battle in a way, but would be cursed with poor attacking output as Zubari and Crawford got in each others' way only too often. It was left to the much more settled Bitcoin Boys to generate the chances, with David Otero clipping Grilled's left upright in the 61st minute after another top-class carry from Yuan. Luís Fortunato got the first card of the match six minutes later, for downing
Johann Schwietzer from behind - which the Swiss defender nearly retaliated for.
The referee paused the game for players on both sides to calm down, and the game restarted with Rudolf László and Ainārs Niķels on for Borzou Haji Gholi and Yuan Hongping. Niķels nearly made an immediate impact too, as he threaded a twenty-yarder between the Birds' defenders for Abdulrafee Nidhal Al-Flaity, after they had regained the ball. The left winger couldn't sort out his feet, unfortunately, and merely clipped it straight to a thankful Marcol.
Grilled's shot for an equalizer finally arrived four minutes on, as
Mohd Marzuki Khairul raced up the left side. Espert got enough in the way to have the otherwise-quiet forward not put enough on the strike, as Norbert Sziklai was happy to acknowledge. The Birds made their own substitution right after, allowing
Lim An Keng to have his fifteen minutes, but he looked a shadow of his usual self.
It was the same for
Chad Thach, who came on for Marzuki with about a minute remaining, and he would not even touch the ball before the final whistle. Rudolf László nearly put Bitcoin Boys further ahead in added time after another excellent dribble by Ville Kärjä pulled
Genki Nagano away, but his finish was awful this time. Kärjä then courted controversy with an entirely unnecessary takedown of Crawford after the latter had released his pass, and the match officials took the opportunity to end the friendly straight after booking the unrepentant forward.
