Season 91 - Are you ready?

[talisman]

Desert Rats FC played an away League match against the 12th place team, and won 4-0 with goals from Mukhtar Hassan, Patrick Tillmanns, Charlie Howell and Madalin Vlasiu. Their closest challengers drew at home against 3rd place, so the gap at the top has widened to 3 points. Even better news is that the Rats host the challengers in the League tomorrow, and the visitors will be short two vital players due to them being sent off today.

The final Group round of matches of the +1 Level Champions League saw Desert Rats away at the 2nd in Group, the reverse fixture earlier on being a 1-1 draw in which the Rats had to come from behind. This time, there was no recovery, but the Rats had a jolly good go at it. The home side was playing a distorted 4-3N-3 with the defence shifted over to the right and the midfield shifted to the left, so the Management decided to go for 4-5-1V defensive/counter initially to see what the situation was. The real danger wasn't the defence or midfield, but the strike force, and the Rats found themselves 0-3 down after 27 minutes, and floundering. A stiff talking to at half time prodded the visitors into some retaliatory action early in the second half, the wingers combining for Markus Szupper to net a Patrick Tillmanns cross, and Moritz Maiwald punished some foul play by the home defence to reduce the arrears to one, but that was it. The hosts added a fourth goal late on and Desert Rats slumped to ther first defeat of the season, 2-4, but it didn't affect the final Group standings as they were four points clear at the top at start of play.

Thanks to the cheering section for support today, including madflo, and Gert and his Cat.