The Matekkipper Citizen
Matthewsiania's Number One Newspaper
Matthewsiania's Number One Newspaper
A fitting track loudly played through the halls of the hotel that the Figs were staying at. Even though they had to stay at Cloudsdale for no good reason beyond the fact that whoever administrated the tournament just really had to hate us. Or at least, it does seem like that when you consider we were the only national team staying at Cloudsdale. Figs are meant to be either at the ground or at a tree. And Cloudsdale's clearly far from both, thank you. Alas, the Matthewsianian national football team tried their best to bring their culture up to the sky as Bressinho himself mentioned that Equestrian States was, by far, the least-developed country he ever played at. And when you consider that he only played at two countries (Manechester City's Equestrian States and his good ol' Matthewsiania), that meant... well, not a whole lot.
First, we couldn't bring our automobiles. The team isn't exactly rich by any means and only five players had an actual vehicle, which range from the two Lanzano 89' Superioris (known as one of the fastest and most expensive cars from Northern Sunrise) to a good old van that Hugo Centopéia had bought for his family to sell hot dogs at the city plaza back at Patópolis. Yes, football doesn't pay a whole lot at Matthewsiania and the fact that these players aren't really the richest ones the country had brought a lot of questionable practices. Either way, even Hugo's old van wasn't allowed into the borders because of how the country was very... well, green-loving. Our good old Matthewsiania isn't bad at that regard, but it allowed cars with a rather compassionate train and subway mean of transport that also involved a good amount of buses and even vans, most of these running illegally but when compared to Equestrian States, they were pretty much eating frozen oil with a glass of gasoline.
Second, Harmonism sucks. No, not as in it's a terrible religion (and may I say sorry if it somehow offends people), but the fact that these people have grown for quite a while under their own religion causes people like us, fully Christians, to be a bit left off. Not that it's bad or anything, but we have been avoiding going to their Christian-like churches for fear that we might end up on some sort of confusion regarding what we think of our saviour. Alas, it doesn't suck on its' own. But it does suck on this particular part that really affects us.
Third, Meat. Equestrians truly dislike the idea of eating meat. Which we can understand when your country depends heavily on vegetables but, thankfully, there are some exceptions such as some restaurants that are owned by humans. That's a good thing. The bad thing is that humans are pretty rare here. So yes. Stuck eating vegetables. It's not bad, but we should've gotten more freedom. Anyways, guess it doesn't hurt to just eat green, but we could use some chicken meat.
Fourth, this city is unstable in all means of the word. It's high on the sky. We wished the name was just some joke, but it turns out Cloudsdale is in the clouds. It's funny that a weird name actually has a fitting name. Patópolis doesn't have ducks, Lokomotiv isn't a big train that serves as a city, Vesper doesn't have Wasps... the list just goes on. So when the team heard about Cloudsdale being in the skies, they thought it was a joke. And it's not hard to see it that way. Until Bressinho commented that it wasn't a joke. Equestrian States is just like that. Our arrival at the hotel was kinda nice, to be fair. Though it was more on our own than what the Equestrians prepared for us. It was almost like they didn't expect us here...
Our talented forward Werdickley Safadão seems pretty content with being at Cloudsdale, though.
Oh. And the Group. Yes, Matthewsiania is at Group C. A brief look at it reveals five unknown names to the World. Granted Matthewsiania's also an unknown name to the world, at least we featured on some Heritage Cups. And there's nothing the snobs at the World Cup can take that from us with. The names of Vermark, Velstaende, Flardania, Eupheos Anetus and Kazirstan are... somewhat weird, but some proper analysis might reveal what each team hides.
Let's start with the one that makes most of the noise. Eupheos Anetus seems like a good team and the fact they have been spending a good while playing friendlies as preparation for the Baptism of Fire either shows a team that truly believes they have a lot of field to grow over or a team that really doesn't expect stamina to be their problem at the Baptism of Fire. There is a lot of word from their media regarding some of their starters, ranging from Bishop's defensive skills or Reed's Sunrisian-like dribbling and what not. A loss might shut them up, a win might make them talk a whole lot for the next years. We'll be facing them for Matchday 4 at Ponyville.
Another team with a whole lot of backbone has to be Flardania, the Japanese-et-French Kitsunes that most likely sleep with a picture of their coach tucked at their arms. Granted, he seems pretty sympathetic from what we could gather but for some reason, they seem a bit familiar at that... What's the name of the other country this tournament's being played at? Ah, yes. Mizuyuki. For some reason, it seems like the Kitsunes would be an awful lot at home if they played there right from the start. Considering they sound like the love children of Mizuyuki-jin with Sunrisians from Jaunepont, it only seems fitting. The one good (and bad) thing that we could gather from the Kitsunes is how they clearly do have a best player in Joseph Yabuta, whom should start looking into a foreign club career after this event if they do perform well enough. We don't know what a loss could do to them, but a win would make their manager even more sympathetic and we clearly can't afford that. Matchday 3 at Cloudsdale is where and when we'll play them.
The Hounds from Vermark are one team that doesn't really need to talk for itself. The Varish squad, backed by an Euraleague player in Samuel Salquist (from the National Cup champions of Eura Old Boys Club) and unsurprisingly spearheaded by Erik Hjamar, currently playing at Semarland with Molsbik Arkjet, though it seems that the players that are currently at their league seem to be where it's at. Names like Henrik Stevensson, David Isacsson, Emanuel Clausen and Reid Sorensson could easily take this group with a halt. Oh. And having Ronald Dinlund at the net seems promising enough. We're playing them first, so you can all assume what win or loss means here. Three points or no points.
Velstaende's Mountain Lions (or how we prefer to call them, the Mountain Nords) seem like a good team to face at this point. A team based heavily at their own league's market, we would love to say that they're one of the favorites, but even though this tournament lacks actual favorites, the Velstaende team seems like a could-be background character of this group, even though they don't deserve such fate. Hopefully, they'll play more than what we expect. A loss could make them fulfill our expectations, but if they win... they might change, who knows.
Kazirstan. Good chaps. A loss for them keeps them as good chaps. A win for them makes them not-as-good chaps. Good chaps still. And very good chaps at that.
"Er... Mago, sir?" asked Lavina, the unicorn sent by the Equestrians to help the team around.
"Yes?" asked Mago, the team's coach.
"I think you were actually supposed to stay at Ponyville."
"...Well, screw it. We already paid our stay here anyways. Bring the damn Broccoli."
