Weather conditions were pretty good for football today. Starters: Koutsivitis - Pel, Buonagura - Kaczkó, Calidoni, Spee, Rentsch, Nykiel - Kúrtev, Blanchard, Dechant.

Lineup: Salmiņš - Panigrahi, Jeftić - Chuan Yong, Xin Seng, Mohammad Harun, Kamel, Parvathaneni - Mudaliar, Ze Han, Egan.

A 2-5-3 was the choice of the day for both coaches. Juniors saw most attack opportunities on the wings by using their divine (+7) (27) ability to push the attack in the right direction. Grilled mostly ignored the flanks in favor of their divine (+7) (27) ability to attack in the middle. Grilled's Chan Ze Han managed to lose the defenders as he burst through the right side and scored, putting the visitors ahead, 0 - 1. A defender managed to keep the ball from crossing the goal-line after a curling shot from the right by Moey Xin Seng beat the keeper with 15 minutes played, preventing Grilled from going up another goal. After 18 minutes, a mistake by the home side's left defense allowed Chan Ze Han to get through. He outclassed the home side's keeper, adding another goal for the visitors. 0 - 2. Grilled's Kalki Parvathaneni had a good first touch on the flank, but was quickly closed down so he crossed to Chan Ze Han who somehow managed to curl the ball wide. The ball was in the back of the home team's net yet again after 25 minutes, but this time the referee called the goal back because Mateja Jeftić had knocked a member of the opposing team to the ground while the play occurred down the middle of the field. Grilled's Kalki Parvathaneni was shown a yellow card after 26 minutes for slicing down an opponent. Halftime score was 0 - 2. Grilled did a good job holding on to the ball, with 59 percent of possession. We'll be back after these interminable commercial messages.

Juniors's Vince Dechant took an excellent free kick and was already celebrating when the keeper just managed to push it off the post and out. Grilled were determined to attack in the middle, even their wing attacks ended up coming through the center. The visitors' Vikram Mudaliar took advantage of a mix-up between the home side's goalie and center backs 56 minutes into the match. 0 - 3 for Grilled. It was showtime for artist Chan Ze Han who demonstrated his technical mastery when he dribbled past Nicola Buonagura and finished with a goal for Grilled to bring the scoreline to 0 - 4. That made three goals for Chan Ze Han. He'll be taking the match ball home with him having scored a hattrick! 60 minutes into the match, the referee signaled for a Grilled substitution. Gilbert Webb came on for Bhavya Panigrahi. After 61 minutes, Vikram Mudaliar sprinted between the opposing defenders and laid the ball off to Chan Ze Han, whose shot was saved by the keeper. Juniors had a good opportunity to attack in the middle, but remembered their instructions to go down the wing instead. 73 minutes into the match, Juniors's Levent Rentsch chased down a ball sent down the right and put it into the back of the net, narrowing the score to 1 - 4. After more pushing and shoving than a pack of helicopter moms trying to get the last appointment for their snowflakes to see the Easter Bunny, Grilled's Bernie Egan finally got himself booked for a foul. Grilled's Teo Chuan Yong made it through the home team's defense on the right hand side 78 minutes into the match. After rounding the keeper, he only had to place the ball in the unguarded net when a defender slid in and cleared the ball off the line. 80 minutes into the game, Grilled wanted to bring some new energy to their game. Kalki Parvathaneni gave 吴 (Wu) 敬龙 (Jinglong) a quick hug as he left the field. After 80 minutes, the Grilled coach wanted to see a new face on the field, waving Bilal Mohammad Harun off. Kalle ter Berg took his place. It was announced by the fourth official that he estimated stoppage time to be around 2 minutes. This meant there could still be an extra attack or two left in the match! The match ends 1 - 4. Looks like Nate Silver was right again - his prediction that Grilled would have 57 percent possession in this half was spot on!

Juniors's top performer was clearly Vince Dechant. You can tell it was nickel beer night yesterday at the local bar because Miel Pel seemed to stumble all over the pitch. Chan Ze Han performed admirably for Grilled. I can't remember Teo Chuan Yong ever having a worse night than he just had.