Nine For Science!
Super Positioning
There would in fact be one more trial before Grilled Birds headed into their league decider against Singapore Big Dogs, and they bounced back from their loss against Argentina, with a mauling of a Science Lab XI. This was admittedly somewhat unfair with many of the opponents looking eager to just get the exercise done with, but all of them did stay for the full ninety minutes to their credit.
The most prominent amongst the Science Lab starters was probably Danish physicist Niels Bohr, whose brother Harald had actually represented the country, and who filled in at rightback despite usually playing goalkeeper. That position was taken up by Ernest Rutherford, whose sport of choice had been rugby, due to his willingness to take shots and relative inexperience at tackling with feet. Carl Sagan, once the captain of his college basketball side, took right wing.
It was otherwise not especially encouraging for the Scientists, whose Italian skipper Galileo Galilei appeared to have been placed at left forward less due to any talent for the position, but as it was where he would do least harm. Having apparently analyzed the situation correctly, they entirely abandoned the midfield in a 5-2-3, but some early mistakes had the Birds 2-0 up by the twentieth minute, after good strikes by
Wu Ping De and
Chia Kwang Tse.
Hwang Teck Fu would be able to switch from a casual approach to full-on business at the drop of a hat, as he went from chatting with Nicolaus Copernicus, to charging at Johannes Kepler, who could do little but put himself in the way.
Houssam Belhocine swung that 27th minute free-kick past a slow-moving Rutherford, with Hwang picking up a fourth goal himself from
Wu Ping De's square pass in the 36th minute.
Myanmar midfielder
Hein Thiha Pyae Ko then received the only yellow card of the match for clattering Isaac Newton on a rare Science Lab possession, for which he was suitably apologetic. Bohr's lifting the free-kick into the Birds box went nowhere with Belhocine unchallenged for his clearing header, and it was soon back to
Wu Ping De racing up the left, and feeding
Chia Kwang Tse for 5-0 in the 41st minute.
This was all going as
Dan Alstani wanted, and he made a couple of tactical subs at the beginning of the second half, putting
Lim An Keng and
Mohd Marzuki Khairul on for Wu and Ananda - which had the winger looking hard done by, as he then watched from behind the dugout.
Hisham Zubari then took over with an overlap from the right wing two minutes in, that had him drag a shot into the far bottom corner almost by accident, with Chia apparently his intended target.
They all count, however, and there was barely even the pretense of attacking from the Scientists by now, with them resigned to camping in their own half, and more often final third. This did leave Grilled with less room to operate, but this did not discourage
Hein Thiha Pyae Ko, who eased his way past a couple of half-hearted challenges before laying it on for
Chad Thach and 7-0.
One more substitution was on the way as
Genki Nagano was rested for
Damian Hutter, which had
Hwang Teck Fu take over as Birds skipper.
Houssam Belhocine hammered another free-kick inches wide of the left upright in the 67th minute, but this was soon followed by two goals in swift succession, from Marzuki and then Zubari. Marzuki then ended the game with a bang in added time, by rocking the entire goalframe from a vicious drive from just inside the penalty area.
