WC72 RP Thread

[Alasdair I Frosticus]

OOC - see the Holy Empire roster for a detailed explanation of what's going on here.


World Cup 72
An oratorio by Jorge Handeles


ACT 5, SCENE 1
(The World Cup Dawns)


Recitative - 'And Now, Here in Valanora'
(Andres Daphophates as Juan Tzimisces)

And now, here in Valanora
We come to test our skill
Harken unto my team
As they outline each group


Aria - 'Group A Seemeth the Weakest'
(John Balsamono)

Group A seemeth the weakest
The weakest of all the groups
The weakest! The weakest!
The weakest of all the groups

The top seed holds a rank of twelve
Two teams are ranked below thirty two
I sense a subtle attempt
To improve the co-host's chances
The Quebecois and Vanorians
Should win through

Group A seemeth the weakest
The weakest of all the groups
The weakest! The weakest!
The weakest of all the groups


Aria - 'Here is the Most Glorious of All the Groups'
(Zoe Dalasseno)

Here is the most glorious of all the groups
The group we know as Group B
It is of course our group!
And Felix shall advance with us.

Most glorious, most glorious
Most glo-o-o-o-o-rious
Glorious! Glorious!
Glo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-rius!

It is of course our group!
And Felix shall advance with us.


Aria - 'Pasarga Are A Mighty Team'
(Eustathius Boilaso)

Pasarga are a mighty team
And Apox are strong too
Both should winneth to the second round
And sup on honeydew
Sup, sup, sup, sup, sup
Sup on honeydew


Aria - 'Krytenia Are, Alas, Mismatch'd'
(Maria Chrysoberges)

Krytenia are, alas, mismatch'd
And acteth as this group's bitches
As bitches! As bitches!
Krytenia are this group's bitches!
Bi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-itches!

Nephara and Legalese shall win
The group with practiced ease
But Krytenia, Krytenia
Krytenia are this group's bitches!
Bi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-itches!


Aria - 'Weapons Not Food, Not Homes, Not Shoes'
(Jorge Asones)

Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed the Audioslavian bulls on parade
To the second round
Alongside co-hosts Equestrian States
They rally round the family! With a pocket full of shells!
They rally round the family! With a pocket full of shells!
They rally round the family! With a pocket full of shells!

Bulls on parade!
Bulls on parade!


Aria - 'The Terns Take Flight 'Round Yond Leather Orb'
(Basil Comneno)

The Terns take flight round yond leather orb
And show their skill once more
Turori shall surely join them
Yet bold as in days of yore!

The Terns and Eels! the Terns and Eels!
Te-e-e-e-rns!
E-e-e-e-els!

The Terns take flight round yond leather orb
And show their skill once more
Turori shall surely join them
Yet bold as in days of yore!


Aria - 'Yet, What is Holy?'
(Michael Lascaro)

Yet, what is holy?
Is it this Republican Empire,
Favoured to win the group?
Shalt they be joined by Eura?
Favoured to come second?

'What is truth?'
Said jesting Pilate
And turned w'out an answer...

Yet, what is holy?
Is holiness in this group?


Aria - 'And Here The Champions Once More Desport!'
(Jose Tarchoniotes)

And here the champions once more desport
Prohibitively favourites!
Prohi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i
-bitively favourites

Shall they hold the trophy once again?
Prohibitively favourites!

Shall they at least reach the final four?
Prohibitively favourites!

Methinks Vilita, who make japes o'er flags
Shall very likely join them.

But here the champions once more desport
Prohibitively favourites!
Prohi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i
-bitively favourites


Chorus - 'Glory and Honour'

Glory and honour be unto all teams
That taketh the field tomorrow
Glory! Honour!
Honour! Glory!
Glory and honour be unto all teams
That taketh the field tomorrow

[Sandwich Territories]

*...And it's all over! It's finally over! The Sandwichians have finally triumphed! They are going, for the very first time, to the group stages! It has taken nine attempts, with three of them being so close, but now, all of that is past memory! They have done what none other squad has been able to do! The Sandwichian supporters are going absolutely mad! It's almost as if, a massive weight has been taken off the collective shoulders of the SFA and the fans. For a nation that is so involved in the game of football, such an accomplishment seems almost as if it has taken too long to have been completed. These fans have weathered the storm through the highs and lows of the Royals during qualifiers from the very beginning, and this is the high they've wanted to see for a very long time. The SFA has never experienced success quite like this before on the multiversal stage-*

*Hey everyone back at the studio, just reporting in on the scene down in the street of Waterford right now, as the Sandwichian national team just secured 1st place in Group 20 of the 72nd World Cup Qualifiers. The police have managed to maintain order, but make no mistakes about it, these fans are absolutely jubilant. Heck, I almost started to join in myself, to be honest. Expect quite the delay if you're trying to get into Waterford through main roads, and in fact, unless you have to get through there, don't even bother trying to get into the main part of the city.*

*It's been quite the scene that we've seen unfold over the past few hours here in the Commonwealth. I mean, there's still another game to be played here in Group 20 and yet the celebrating has already taken place. I suspect that can be expected when you've had such passionate fans waiting for so long. They aren't prepared to make anything but the most of it.*

*-and it really is a whole new experience for these players, and the nation as well. This squad deserves it, though. They didn't lose once during qualifiers, downing teams such as the Unified Sunrise Islands and Electrum with solid performances; teams that people thought that the Sandwichians had little chance at beating-*

*The squad, as we've said here on the Chaps in Suits plenty of times recently, is very comfortable with each other. They know each other well and really have good charisma for a national side. That can be a problem as we've seen in the past with other national squads, but it seems to be a problem that the SFA has never had, especially right now. That's going to help them quite a bit moving forward. Effort can and will trump talent if other teams in the group try to play a relaxed game against the Royals.*

*--and, it is true that we are all excited to see our lads move on, but the real question becomes, is if they have what it takes to even show up and demonstrate that they are not horse fodder to the fans in the Equestrian States. I have to be blunt about their chances-*

*You look at their group-mates and wonder, do they really want to bother? Enjoy the moment, no?*

*I honestly believe that this is a side that can do damage to high ranking opponents. But, for them to advance, they're going to need more than effort and their own skill. They'll need plenty of luck. Their opponents are not going to accept being possibly eliminated by a nation that they see as minnows...or lunch.*

*They're gritty...excellent. It still doesn't change the fact that, frankly, the Royals are royally fucked-*

-----------------------

"Hey Guarneri. You're lucky we qualified for the group stages. Otherwise, we might have had to play in the Royal Kingdom of Quebec again. Just ask Kjeldsen or Sergeant how lovely that place is."

The plane erupted in laughter.

"Or anyone here, for that matter."

Laughter at such experiences might seem daft to most, but the squad was a family, one you could discuss even the most dangerous events one may experience about...including the burning down of a stadium and the attacks on Sandwichian players by the Grim Reaper supporters after a 2-1 win for the Sandwichians; the most violent match statistically and literally in the SFA's history. Even the Sandwichian quarter of Quebec City, as small as it probably was, was reportedly attacked with force by arsonists and the type. There were a good number of arrests made that night.

Barukh Kjeldsen slowly woke from the plane as it landed in the Equestrian States.

"We're getting a private breakfast to ourselves, correct?", he muttered to anyone willing to listen.

"Yep, plenty of good shit from back home."

"Excellent." He wasn't thrilled about the idea of having to use protein shakes for the next few days, but hell if he was going to be a complete vegan for a week or so. He steadily regained consiousness to the voice of manager Laurance Blaise, who, as the person that he is, was busy lecturing the group on how to behave.

"I know you are all adults, but for fuck's sake, I don't want to see one god damn person from this team partying. If we win the World Cup, you guys can celebrate then for all I care. Remember, when you are all not footballers on a mission, you are high-attention tourists. Any cocking about will gain the attention of the media and the people around you. I want you all to maintain a quiet, dignified profile. I don't care if you sign some autographs or whatever, but I don't want anyone here making a big commotion out of anything. In fact, if anyone here gets into the local news here, it better be because you did something pretty damn good. Represent your country with pride and respect, lads. This team might be the only thing some people will ever know about our nation. Don't fuck up our national image here, understood?"

Blaise was a true father figure to not only past and current players who worked under his leadership for clubs or country, but to the nation as well. His age showed in his speeches and his actions, as he tried to ensure success to those who put their faith in him. It was for this reason that many were surprised in the fact that he was, on a lowkey note, being put on the hot seat. It had been a long time since anyone but him lead the most popular sports squad in the entire region, not just the Commonwealth, and people still admired him even through rough patches. It was no question, though, to any hardcore supporter, that it might have been getting close to that point. The SFA was looking for group stage action, and not only had the Royals come too close in the play-offs too many times to be patient about it, but the fact was that improvement had to be imminent. Nobody who really cared wanted to watch the team keep coming so close repeatedly while other nations were getting better and better. Everyone involved in the Sandwich Territories' affair in multiversal football, including Blaise himself, was still pretty bitter about the 5th place finish 3-5 qualifiers ago. It was a true warning call, and some felt that it was too long since then for the SFA to have done nothing about it. Had the Sandwichians not qualified for the first time, he might have been trying to find another job right about now. As unfair as that might've seen to some, it would've been the rough, but obvious choice to the more devoted, including SFA officers. With how the squad has been playing recently though, and with the first ever qualification to the group stages secured, his spot was secured for quite some time, it seems. Jokes about him being able to die as the manager of the Royals began to trend online. As long as he was able to keep the squad moving in the right direction, it did not matter how long it took for the Sandwichians to reach the next milestone, he would be staying. It was a matter of having a manager that not only able to keep up with other managers in the multiverse, but was backed by not only the players, or the supporters, but the nation itself for that matter.

Kjeldsen was pretty relieved for Blaise, but for the SFA as well. It wouldn't be easy having a new manager come in, especially with how adored Laurance is. They could just promote another member of the coaching staff to the spot, but then everyone, including the players, would wonder why Blaise was fired in the first place. They could hire another Sandwichian not currently involved with the FA, but he would absolutely be criticized for not only their lack of multiversal experience but the amount of such experience from their rivals for the job. A foreign manager wouldn't be able to gain the same support from the supporters unless they could replicate Blaise's influence and be at least just as successful as him. It wasn't xenophobic, or due to a fear of change, but rather due to a want of reliability and security, like a child feels of their parents (specifically their father in this case, *cough* *cough*).

He is, in a sense, what Don Cherry is to Canada, just with more compassion between him and the people. One wouldn't call Don Cherry a father figure unless they were nuts.

Kjeldsen then stood up as the plane came to a stop. He spoke once more to whoever was willing to listen, but directed it more at the people in front of him. Mentally, he was not in the mood to get direct with anyone, the plane seats were, bluntly, a bit shit.

"Anything on the team's schedule?"

"Just a tour of the capital of the Equestrian States, and a captain's practice scheduled by Guarneri, obviously.", noted the starting goalkeeper Elian MacIntyre.

"Besides that, I haven't a clue, Barukh. Sorry, man."

"Nah, that's enough information for me, mate. I'm fucking exhausted after sitting around for 8 hours."

There was a good bit of chuckling from the two, but Blaise overheard of the conversation and, as the person he was, fathered him a bit.

"That's a damn shame lad. I saw you asleep at let you go in for a bit longer, along with a few others who were still asleep. I wish I could tell you I know how you feel, but hell, I'm a 70 year old man. I don't need help sleeping these days."

"I'm fine, sir. Thank you."

"Well, make sure you're prepared for training and conditioning while we're here. We need to make sure we keep up our excellent form as of lately...especially against the squads we are facing."

He then turned to the rest of the players on the plane.

"You should hear what all of these pundits who can't point out our nation on a map have to say about us. You already know what they think. I want you all to ignore such distractions. Don't read into such reporting and try to limit your usage of social media. You all know that it is distracting and can bring out the worst in us. We're here to represent ourselves, this squad, and our nation. I'll be damned if someone here is baited on twitter into an argument with a....what is you people call them, trolls?"

The group nodded a bit, while a few of them wryly smiled.

"And then wind up not only not focused ons tuff that actually fucking matters, but having embarrassed yourself, your teammates, or even your nation in the process. Once again, you're adults. You should know better than to be out drinking before games or acting like an absolute dumbass to the media."

There was short bit of silence before Laurance started up again.

"But enough of that shite for now, lads. We have some skylines to be enjoying, and, in addition, quite the buffet waiting for us, I've heard.", he stated with an almost relieved smile.

Now that's just what Kjeldsen wanted to hear. The entire squad was ready to go, but ready to enjoy themselves as well.

----------------

Now, it was finally time. The boys were roaring to go in the tunnel. They started to march out onto the field to a sea of excited fans, some of who were there to watch their lads make national history.

*And now, the starting eleven for the Sandwich Territories. MacIntyre will be in net as usual. Capello and Van Haanrade will start as CBs as Riese needs a break after a lot of match time for the 36 year old veteran. Guarneri will be the sweeper once again. Varley, Sergeant, and Mateus make up the mid-field, Kjeldsen and Pavia make up the wingers, and 38 year old veteran Alexander Wolff is the lone striker this evening.*

[Yttribia]

[Valanora]

Everyone starts with their chances up in the air.

Results

[Eura]

The Emplor Summary of Eura's path to the 72nd World Cup
Thompson and company top group unbeaten
Simon Banning reports on Group 4

Qualifiers

Gylias 1-1 Eura
Terneshyk 73 - A. Oslograd 43
The qualification campaign started with a whimper as Eura could only draw against Gylias. Eura were already in fairly dour spirits after the last Copa Rushmori, which had followed a very successful World Cup campaign. Goalless pre-qualifying friendly draws against Eastfield Lodge and Gloriax with rotated lineups had not dampened spirits much, but they certainly had not raise them. Steve Thompson was left fuming after his mostly first choice side failed to break through early on after a host of chances were wasted against the 103rd ranked team in the world. Eura did score their first goal of qualifying and take the lead in doing so in the 43rd minute as Albin Oslograd struck home, but the lead should have been bigger at that stage. Gylias created few chances but they only needed a mad goalmouth scramble to make one of them count. It could of been worse (Osarius lost to Lymantatia elsewhere), but nevertheless this was a poor start to qualifying.

Eura 4-1 Helmon


St Saratoga 1-5 Eura

Eura 5-1 Star United States
Sinclair 19, 36, 40, Spartan 23, Allen 65 - Frietas 81
Every prediction for this group seemed to predict that either Semarland or Star United States (or both) would present the biggest challenge to Eura, so this result represented a bad omen for the other teams in the group and a magnificent night for Eura. They returned to their full strength lineup and took the second seeds to pieces, largely thanks to the masterful Craig Sinclair, taking the lead in just the 19th minute as the Ulsa midfielder skipped between two defenders before driving the ball low past Fernando Spark. Spark was in for a tough game and had even less chance to stop the second goal soon after; he was practically a spectator as Sinclair dashed down the wing and cut in a superb cross from the byline, which was met in perfect synchronization by John Spartan on the volley. Sinclair doubled his own tally with an opportunistic shot with a loose ball from a goalmouth scramble that came out to the edge of the box, turning three quarters of a full 360 degrees on the spot to do so. In the 40th minute Sinclair's first half masterclass was complete, surely one of the best performances by a Euran in recent memory, as he dispossessed Santiago Solo and then sprinted towards the box, before rounding Spark and passing the ball into the net. The Starian substitute Luciano Frietas managed to pull back a goal for his side in the second half, a good one at that as he drove home from 25 yards, but only after Liam Allen had completed their humiliation with a simple volleyed effort when left unmarked at a free kick.

Semarland 4–4 Eura
Labonne 27, Lygaard 33, Simeone 60, Nkuna-Ybangwa 82 – Ashtree 9, 28, 35, A. Oslograd 74
Crushing victory against the second seeds was followed by dramatic stalemate against the third seeds as Semarland, despite collapsing defensively allowing a first half Sam Ashtree hat-trick, recovered on four occasions to rescue a remarkable 4-4 draw. Ashtree had opened the scoring with a rebound goal after Albin Oslograd forced a save from Marco Valbuena. Semarland equalised after a gritty twenty minutes of football followed, when Marcel Labonne bundled the ball into the net in a scrappy fashion after Ben Prince had failed to collect a cross decisively. Somehow Eura took the lead again within a minute, attacking straight from the kick off and catching Semarland half asleep in a classic "going to sleep after a goal" scenario. John Spartan had far too much space on the edge of the box as the attack surged forward, but he was unselfish and laid the ball off for Ashtree to finish. Semarland then fought back again as their national hero Marc Lygaard drilled home a volley from an angle, but before the celebrations had ended Eura were somehow ahead again. This time it took two and a half minutes for Ashtree to ruin the party and complete an opportunistic hattrick, beating the offside trap as the Semarland defenders stood still thanks to John Spartan's deceivingly well timed ball forward, and then toe poking the ball past Valbeuna. In the second half Semarland threw everything they could at Eura and doing so produced a third equaliser; substitute Yannick Simeone came up with the goods, heading in a cross. Eura must have been wondering where their luck had gone by the end, because even though Albin Oslograd had given them the lead for a fourth time with a looping shot from 20 yards, they had to settle for a draw because another substitute for the home team, Amos Nkuna-Ybangwa, scored from yet another goalmouth scramble with minutes remaining.

Kazamatsuri 2–5 Eura
Shikitei 13 (pen), Shiina 69 - Rogers 28, Spartan 50, 66, Campbell 74, Hughes 90
For the third game in a row, Eura scored five, and unlike last time this produced a victory. Kazamatsuri actually took the lead just 13 minutes into the game when they won a controversial penalty, which was converted easily by Yoshifumi Shikitei. It didn't take too long for Eura to even the odds, though the source of the goal this time was not from the midfield or Sam Ashtree, but rather from centreback Mark Rogers, who scored a typically towering and powerful header from a corner. The rest of the first half was relatively dull but the game became much more open in the second half and Eura took the lead via a John Spartan free kick, looped over the wall from an angle just outside of the box. Spartan then scored perhaps the best goal of the first half of qualifying for Eura, taking the ball off Shikitei with a hard challenge before getting up, charging down the ball, and shaping up to shoot 30 yards from goal. Normally this would not be the best time to take a chance, but Spartan is no ordinary player and he was rewarded for his bravery as he watched the ball arc into the back of the net over the goalkeeper Aki Mikawa. Kris Campbell came on not long after this goal, ready to shine once more, but his moment would be delayed by another Kazamatsuri goal as the home side pulled back a goal through veteran midfielder Rintarō Shiina. Campbell restored the dominance of the away side with a well taken strike in the 74th minute, which left Mikawa with no chance, before Lewis Hughes restored the job with a simple tap in.

Eura 5–2 Santaclausisgodistan
Ashtree 25, Adams 31, 45+2, Spartan 47 (pen), Sinclair 60 - Nolan 82 (og), Claus 88
Four games, twenty goals - Eura's defence hadn't been up to much recently but the front line and midfield had been keeping themselves busy. Sam Ashtree was the first to fill his pockets in this game, putting the ball in the back of the net despite apparently being in an offside position. Mike Adams hadn't scored in a fair few games so he was naturally very pleased to double the lead as his luck finally turned, the ball going in off his chest after a bad clearance. The away side must have thought they could get to half time without going any further behind when Gareth Blackthorn went off injured, but Adams was not to be denied, this time earning a goal less fortuitously by beating the left back and slamming the ball home from an angle. Eura won a penalty early in the second half which John Spartan converted, truly putting the result beyond doubt, but Craig Sinclair took home all the plaudits, not only playing superbly but scoring a superb solo effort for the fifth goal, an unstoppable curving shot from 20 yards. However the game ended in a bit of an anti-climax for Eura as they were once again denied a clean sheet due to a bizarre Freddie Nolan own goal and then a well taken strike for the captain, called Santa Claus for some reason.

Eura 2–2 Gylias
Churchilli 62, Sutton 83 - Enns 53, Terneshyk 56
Gylias were the only blot on Eura's record in the first half of qualifying, and they seemed determined to keep up their record of frustrating Steve Thompson's side in the second. Eura found it hard to break down the resolute Gylias defence in the first half despite fielding a full strength side. The away side then took their chance, countering twice brilliantly in five minutes early on in the second half to score. Dietmar Enns scored the first goal, a sublime finish at the end of a flowing move, before Mared Terneshyk came back to haunt Eura again with more of a route one counter attack goal, headed in while running forward at a canter. Thankfully, Steve Thompson has proven to be an adept manager at international level, such is his talent and rising stock in the eyes of world football. He displayed his abilities with a radical change of formation, taking off Craig Gilbert and Albin Oslograd and throwing on both Michael Simpson and Liam Allen. Simpson was mostly anonymous but Allen had an important impact, heading down a Sinclair corner at the back post for Weylon Churchilli to nip in and finish with his feet. He then made a third substitute, Adam's off for his younger likeness Joel Sutton, who saved the day with a dramatic diving header just seven minutes from time.

Helmon 1–7 Eura
Unknown 5 - Robinson 9, Adams 23, Bell 30, Cotra 38, Ainsworth 65, Allen 77, Nolan 83
Eura recovered somewhat from the embarrassment of the near miss at home against Gylias by hammering Helmon away from home. Helmon took the lead, albeit somewhat outrageously five minutes into the game as their centre forward scored from a clearly offside position. This clearly encouraged a mixed Euran lineup to come out all guns blazing, scoring an equaliser just a few minutes later when Ben Robinson was played in by Kris Campbell to slot home from 10 yards. Mike Adams turned the level scoreline into a Euran lead halfway through the first half with a volleyed effort before Rob Bell stretched the advantage beyond the reach of Helmon with a daisy cutter of a shot from 20 yards. Anthony Cotra made it four shortly before half time, whipping a free kick in from 25 yards with his left foot, perfectly placed in the top right hand corner. Cotra turned provider in the second half, putting a dipping corner ball into the box for the towering Ulsa defender Frank Ainsworth, also known as Grant Davis 2.0, to thump the ball in with his forehead. By this stage the game was a turkey shoot, and two substitutes were the last to get in on the goalscoring act. Liam Allen came first with a brilliantly placed sidefooted shot from the edge of the box after he decided not to take on the two defenders in front of him, before Freddie Nolan, like his Ulsa teammate Ainsworth, opened his international account with a headed goal.

Eura 5–2 St Saratoga
Millson 16, Hunter 18, Campbell 30, Rose 67, Hughes 81 - Unknown 47, Unknown 55
After this curbstomping of the bottom seeds, Eura had scored at least four goals in all but two of their qualifiers so far, a run that couldn't last long. This truly second string side had no problems putting away the goals against St Saratoga, starting with centre back Derek Millson who scored during a 16th minute goalmouth scramble. Just two minutes later Eura were seeing double when Charles Hunter turned in a low Lewis Hughes shot. The result was beyond doubt by the thirtieth minute courtesy of Kris Campbell's neat turn past a defender and subsequent finish, but St Saratoga made a game of it anyway and managed to make Eura a bit nervous as a massive shock loomed for ten minutes of the second half, where the away side repeated the feat of Gylias by scoring two counterattacking goals after half time. However Eura's lead was already insurmountable and the game was put to bed for good by Sterling Rose with a spooned shot in off the bar and by Lewis Hughes with a less flukey effort from a very narrow angle.

Star United States 0–1 Eura
Sinclair 71
Although Eura had thrashed Star United States at home earlier in qualifying they were taking nothing for granted in this tie. This was wise on the part of Steve Thompson's side as Star United States put on a much better performance. Yet despite creating a lot of chances, the home side were unable to break down a Eura side that finally looked set to secure a clean sheet for the first time in a while. Of course, this didn't mean Eura had to settle for a draw, and indeed they did not. Craig Sinclair's genius had already been pivotal so far in qualifying but especially in the home tie with his magnificent hattrick. Now he was back to haunt the Starian's again, bagging yet another international goal with a powerful 71st minute strike from 20 yards.

Eura 1–1 Semarland
Sinclair 33 - Lindesfarne 82
There is no doubt that Eura would have much preferred to have won this game at home to Semarland, and they deserved to do so on the balance of play despite a late equaliser for the away team. Even so Eura were pleased to maintain their three point advantage over Semarland that would leave them in prime position to win the group. They had taken the lead in the 33rd minute when Craig Sinclair displayed his skill and value to the team once again with an incredible bicycle kick from 12 yards, set up by Mike Adams cross. Semarland clearly needed at least a draw, let alone to win, and they were given the lifeline they needed by new Ulsa signing Jakob Lindesfarne. Eura could of sealed the deal in stoppage time when Ben Robinson was presented with the golden opportunity to score, but he somehow dragged his shot wide when presented with an open goal. No three points for Eura this time.

Eura 5–3 Kazamatsuri
Ashtree 30, Spartan 42, Sinclair 69, A. Oslograd 76, Allen 90+1 - Shimura 23, Gasai 52, 80
If you want to make money betting on Eura these days it seems the way to do it is to bet that they will score five goals every other game. Kazamatsuri did take the lead via Kazu Shimura's left boot but it didn't last long once Sam Ashtree was given the chance to tuck away a loose ball in the box. John Spartan gave Eura the advantage with the side of his right boot, an improvised finish in the six yard box when he found himself facing sideways away from the ball. Kazamatsuri didn't take this lying down and came out looking like a different team in the second half, quickly finding an equaliser, scored by Tsumiki Gasai from short range. Little could hold back this exceptional Euran midfield though, not least a rather ill-disciplined (albeit determined) Kazamatsuri side. Craig Sinclair certainly couldn't be contained in his form, as he proved in the 69th minute with a curling shot past the keeper. Albin Oslograd probably extended Eura's advantage beyond the point of no return for the away team in the 76th minute by diverting a Mike Adams cross in at the near post but the visitors didn't give up and Gasai netted another goal, although she had quite a bit of luck from a big deflection off of Gareth Blackthorn. If there was any doubt, it was cancelled out by Liam Allen rifling in a shot in stoppage time.

Santaclausisgodistan 3–4 Eura
Unknown 7, 22, 88 - Caffin 34, Allen 35, 83, Sutton 48
Now that the first place position in the group was effectively secured, Eura felt comfortable enough to rotate their team for this game, though they nearly paid dearly for it. They conceded two embarrassingly chaotic early goals as Eura's old defensive errors seemed to continue to creep back into their game. However they were able to stabilise quickly, and get back level before half time. Joe Caffin, the Revolutionaries right back, scored the first goal, which was his first goal in international football, getting a bit of deserved luck during an energetic performance as a hopeful shot from an angle deflected in off the post. Straight after the kickoff, Santaclausisgodistan lost the ball too the Euran's who immediately punished them, Rob Bell feeding Liam Allen with an impeccably timed through ball that allowed Allen to chip the goalkeeper as he rushed out to close him down. Eura didn't let the home side back into the game after half time. Joel Sutton continued his impressive burst of goalscoring form on the international stage, dribbling past two defenders on the left before nutmegging the host's goalkeeper. The home side's goalkeeper would at least get a bit of revenge towards the end by assisting his side's third goal with a long ball out, but this was made irrelevant minutes earlier by Allen's second goal, a well taken header from the region of the penalty spot that brought qualifying to a satisfying close for Steve Thompson's Eura.

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- Gaziel Works to shut for two weeks after industrial incident
- Motherland 2 videogame breaks Euran sales records
- Dozens of indigenous Virabi civilians drown off Sameban Uke Islands
- HEU refuses to attend Endemian Union Conference for third consecutive year

[San Jose Guayabal]

www.elnacional.gu/sjg/tv_stream/fiebre_mundialista/wc_72

You are in: El nacional > SJG > TV Stream > Channel 70 > Fiebre Mundialista > World Cup 72 .

Hosted by: José Correa & Mario Vásquez
Date: Tuesday, 15/6/2202, 21:20 - San Salvador Time

It was one of the programs before the World Cup Finals, two years after San José Guayabal achieved a valuable draw in Ko-oren to them it was enough to make a big step in the group lead in World Cup Finals, José Correa, Mario Vasquez and guests were warned that the program would begin soon, the staff members brought water bottles, the signal is heard in the distance "Five ... four ... three ..." and then signals "two... one" with fingers to avoid interference in the sound environment. "Good evening dear viewers, welcome to another edition of World Cup Fever an edition that has plenty of things to talk about, is not it Mario? Sure, José, we have much to talk about as we approach the World Cup 72 Finals in Valanora, expectations are increasing as we approach awaited date, we are just two days before the event starts and three awaited return to San José Guayabal to the World Cup Finals, after a long wait, I want to present to our guests, Olga Hyvönen and Karl Bilyaletdinov, members of the football analysis agency "Futanálisis" both are considered experts in terms of analysis Football and Tomas Bracamonte, responsible for social relations and marketing of Aerolíneas Guayabalenses, who will also be with us to discuss some of the road that went through La Selecta to reach the World Cup Finals for the first time in eight years, since the 70th World Cup which we qualified as hosts."

Mario spoke and said, "Well, José, there's no better way to start the program by inviting our viewers to discuss your opinion regarding the issues that we will be talking along the transmission in Chirper with the hashtag #FM72enCanal70 so that we can reading your comments with relative ease, feel free to comment what you want in this environment, we are open to any kind of opinions on the issues. "

José started the conversation with a short introduction to the subject, saying "Now, to begin we must talk about the classification of San José Guayabal towards the World Cup Finals, José, 'waiting is over' is the word that summarizes eight years to return to see San José Guayabal in the great international football scene, is not it, Olga?" Olga Hyvönen spoke and said" Sure, they were eight long years when all the fans waiting this long-awaited moment, which came in a rather surprising manner, I must admit, I never expected that La Selecta would finished in first place in the group, still above Ko-oren. "Karl Bilyaletdinov decided to add a thought before Mario spoke, Karl said, "Hello, good night, I thank you for your invitation to this program, with respect to the qualification in itself I expected from the beginning, I had that feeling such as I felt in the World Cup 68, this is our time and I am sure the best is yet to come for La Selecta." With some curiosity, Mario turned his eyes to Olga and decided to ask" Why he was surprised by the fact that La Selecta finished first in the Qualifiers? "Olga thought for a moment, she organized her ideas and spoke "Because of the bad start they had, losing the first game of the Qualifiers for the first time in the history of La Selecta was quite surprising, in my opinion, with the defeat against New Wolfopolis in Matchday No. 4, that's what made me wonder if we actually would recover an uncharacteristically bad start to what we were used to before."

Mario gave the floor to Tomás to say a few words, the activated his neck microphone and said, "Good night, actually I do not really surprised by the performance of La Selecta, perhaps the only thing that surprised me is the fact that he won four six points against Ko-oren in the Qualifiers, these being superior rivals to us in theory and history, now show me optimistic about what we are coming to the World Cup Finals, I think we can achieve something great in this and so excellent opportunity to cement interests in the World Cup for the near future. "Mario agreed with the statement by Tomás and José spoke a little about the playoffs, as a summary of this process.

"Well, were very high expectations on the part of La Selecta after winning the Cup of Harmony and thus have completed a cycle Showed That pretty interesting results in defensive terms and the attitude shown by Paulo Oliveira and Alfredo Herrera, the new coach of San José Guayabal had created a style pretty solid game in defense and up front, although it has had some forgettable games in two of the first four games of the Qualifiers, San José Guayabal seemed I had to raise its head. "Mario answered and said," Perhaps one of the greatest fears from the fans was repeating the ridiculous role by La Selecta as happened in the World Cup 69, where everything was impeccable up the sixth matchday, winning absolutely everything and went 26 goals had been scored in the six games, basically an average of a little more than four goals per game in favor, everything seemed to sweep San José Guayabal achieved with the group but the debacle came, and better I avoid commenting on what everyone here know, just one of the worst potholes performance this national team has ever had. "As a joke, José spoke and said," Best resérvatelo not make us dream nightmares now." Those present burst out laughing, as a signal of approval to José's joke, who continued "Fortunately, those fears did not happen, because after beating Gabbindon and The Liffan Isles, San José Guayabal managed to make an excellent course, that was paused by Sameba on the seventh matchday, that was no big deal, despite only having scored eighteen goals, a somewhat low amount but which allowed San José Guayabal consolidate second place after being in third place a couple of dates. "

Mario spoke and said, "Well, we can say that in the first round, San José Guayabal showed a lot of goals but at least managed to show a great attitude as we refer to games two and three, also the games five six and seven, as these were important points of the tie, perhaps we could say that the game against Ko-oren in Loma Chata was a turning point in the World Cup Qualifiers, because that's where they managed to get three points with which San José Guayabal managed to place in second place and also struck the second straight loss to the Union, which also added another defeat and that was achieved as we referred complicate their chances to advance in the group, apart from that, La Selecta not had his best defensive version, because he scored eleven goals in seven games, maybe not very good at what previously had but it was something that could be seen as fair. "Olga agreed with Mario and said," Yes, totally agree with you analysis, was perhaps the most repetitive training of visitor in this period of time use, I say that because this formation, despite look more defensive than the visitor, has an ironic aspect, that of allowing a greater amount of space in the middle of the field, certainly that's a great weakness if you want to get a good style of play in places where it is very delicate playing, outside of San José Guayabal. "Karl said," As far as my thinking, I think to start the round losing to Abanhfleft was a psychic blow to La Selecta, considering it was the first time this has happened in the history of football in San José Guayabal, but that day I had to come, that was slightly harmful to have a first half in good condition but it was not anything special, much less catastrophic."

José He started talking about what happened in the second part of the Qualifiers, maybe it was one of the interesting parts of the conversation due to the importance of this in the classification of San José Guayabal towards the World Cup Finals "Well, speaking as the second part, well say that the latter does not mean that it is always wrong, no doubt this time had a superb second part of Qualifiers, which started with a lot of goals, basically was a flurry of goals in Melendez was highly anticipated match against Abanhfleft, a party that had the Spicy be an opportunity to avenge what happened in the first game of the Qualifier where we lost by 0-1, now in our own home was the opportunity to cut and distance Abanhfleft and start hunting to climb to first place in the group, at that time we were some distance but not impossible, with a splendid game of Zelaya, in which he scored four goals and also nothing good night for both defenses, it was like we got the win, one of the crucial moments of the tie, won 6-4 to satisfy the desire for revenge on the part of the fans. "Mario continued with saying earlier said" The game against Abanhfleft was the beginning of a string of games where San José Guayabal showed good defensive game and knew as achieving good results by Zelaya and Fraser took advantage of the opportunities they appeared in front, also inspired Rudy Valencia who scored four goals in four games when he was almost two years of not scoring a goal with La Selecta, the other key point was when New Wolfopolis face and beat them 1-3 on Lupinia visit was on that day that Abanhfleft lost to Sameba an away game was a 2-1 It helped Selecta ascend to first place in the group and that's where we stayed but the difference would have been very little between the other teams. "Karl spoke and said" Being in a situation where in the last match anything could happen was not very comfortable, seeing that the three teams were separated by three points, but at least the goal difference made for disposal, La Selecta would have lost by eight or more goals and Abanhfleft get four or five Ko-oren, what which was not very likely. "Mario saw that Karl was ahead a little on the subject and said," I'm glad you came to this point, may be a little faster, but this was certainly the key point of the tie. "

Mario took a few sips of water and continued "The vital point of the whole tie was the party made against Ko-oren in Perselenets, Thaulandi, who lost that game, you would almost lost his chance to win the group and thus classified as directly to the World Cup Finals, the game seemed to have no owner until the 57th minute, he scored Ko-oren goal to La Selecta in a good effort on the front of that selection, San José Guayabal looked really emotionally hit by because that goal early in the game was shown as the ruler of this, opening spaces in the defense of Ko-oren but could not clear opportunities, perhaps less clear but the most decisive was in the last minute of extra time, 94 minutes into the game where Bregoo Leonidas took a focused area but the defense rejected the ball, it seemed that was where he was going to finish the game but Bregoo ran onto the ball and got another pass toward the center of the area, unexpectedly He appeared Jonathan Fana, who had not had a good season of Qualifiers, with just two goals in that instant Faña managed to use a resource that because of his stature was surprising that it has decided to use it and to give good results, a header to the far post the goalkeeper, who was defeated and was how La Selecta rescued a golden point that helped them stay top of Ko-oren also that Abanhfleft had lost the game against New Wolfopolis and that prevented them from boarding the top spot for the second time." Tomás gave his comment, up simply saying "It was not for the faint the end of the game." Everyone burst out laughing and Olga said" As Tomás said, not for the faint hearted is seriously Who would have thought Faña appeared that after having a bad playoff scoring a goal, and mind how? with a header. "Olga laughed when he said that, he added, laughing, "Seriously, since when does Faña goals with the head?" Joseph finished Part saying "And in the last game, we all know what happened, a match which was complicated in the last 10 minutes but Faña knew how to resolve with a class goal to which we are accustomed, make the goalkeeper to look like an idiot, dribble him twice and score with the empty net, an excellent goal to seal the qualification of San José Guayabal to the World Cup Finals for the third time. "

Now with that we end the first half and we invite you to comment on Chirper with hashtag #FM72enCanal70 so that we can read, feel free to comment what you want.

Maksimillian Frisk @Maxisk Faña scoding goals is not surprising as Olga said, what it is something like a miracle is seeing how he scores a header, that is just hilarious. #FM72enCanal70 RETWEETSFAVORITE 7270 10:17 pm - 15/06/2202

Ontoria Yrjö-Koskinen @Ontii25 If you would ask me to say which was the best goal of the qualifiers, definitively was the Faña header one, I mean, wtf? how on fucking earth is that even possible? #FM72enCanal70 RETWEETSFAVORITE 230269 10:17 pm - 15/06/2202

Aurelio Méndez @ElJefazo70 Ko-orenites told us that we are bastards, I say that they are a bunch of idiots and losers, they can't stand that we won the group.. hahaha. #FM72enCanal70 RETWEETSFAVORITE 265690 10:17 pm - 15/06/2202

Natasha Barinov @TashaBa447 We were solid at the time to score, our defense needs to improve a bit more, considering our level on CoH and WC 71 qualies, still, a good effort has been made #FM72enCanal70 RETWEETSFAVORITE 9801200 10:17 pm - 15/06/2202

Slavna Castellón @SlavnaLipkin For the incoming WC, defense shall be improved, in case we get offensive rivals, also the strikers of the NT can't do all the work, midfield must be efficient. #FM72enCanal70 RETWEETSFAVORITE 594123 10:17 pm - 15/06/2202

*An advertisement of Defenestration Incorporated appeared on the screen of the Channel 70 just after the World Cup Fever went to a break*

*Then a voice appeared and said*

The voice said "Do you feel sad and you want to suicide? we can make he process easier for you! - Do you want a computer with the best software available? we can do that for you! - Do you have legal issues? We can defenestrate them for you! At Defenestration Inc. we are happy to serve you in your needs, even if that's your last wish, we make your life easier with our products, with innovative services that can even finish it if you want, we make it easier for you, visit the agencies of Defenestration Inc located in every provincial capital of San José Guayabal, call us at +551-DEFENESTRATION and visit us at http://www.defenestrationinc.gu

*to finish, an image like this one appeared*

*World Cup Fever appeared on the screen and the show started for the second part of it*

José spoke and said, "Well, we're in the second part of the program, perhaps the shortest of this but quite hot in terms of analysis and the positions that each of us here may have including those who contact us in Chirper, it is the time of analysis of the qualifiers and starts with the opinion of Olga." Olga began to speak and said, "Well, the qualifier for San José Guayabal was excellent, despite a rough start, with high expectations after won the Cup of Harmony, you say, we won the cup, but two years after winning what is its effect on the team Well, let me say that the effect is mostly mental, plus the pressure from the fans increased, because the first major tournament was won by La Selecta, obviously, people will ask for more than what you can give because that you showed your quality and above, therefore, more pressure is logical that it will come from the fans, and La Selecta met its expectations in good shape, winning a set and overcoming a burst of qualifiers a little loose, to me, the three most important games of the tie were the 1-0 win against Ko-oren in Loma Chata, the 6-4 win against Abanhfleft in Meléndez and the 1-1 draw with Ko-oren in Perselenets, especially the latter as literally cemented the position of San José Guayabal in the standings considering that Abanhfleft and Ko-oren would cause damage between themselves and San José Guayabal had an easy game against Sameba in Santa Ana. "José spoke and said," Now, it turns Karl to give us your opinion of the tie. "Karl spoke and said," Well, La Selecta was not exactly a great group at least by the presence of Ko-oren, who could we get three points or six and complicate much to seek qualification to the World Cup Finals, is why Oliveira and Herrera must have sat his players and say 'we do not have easy but showing the best of each to classify', from the beginning the qualification was priority and an extraordinary second round they were strengthened this and therefore failed to meet the priority raised from the beginning, and that is why major problems were not taken in the development of the World Cup Qualifiers, as the central theme is the three major parties, my opinion is in these games: Ko-oren against the matchday 6 against New Wolfopolis on matchday 11 and the game against Ko-oren in the matchday 13. "Analysts seemed to agree with the both games against Ko-oren for the simple fact of having been the team to beat in the group, perhaps because of his talent and location in the rankings.

It was the turn of Tomáss, though not exactly a great analyst, but his opinion was required in order to include it in the conversation, Tomás said "I will be short, and I will say from my humble perception of ordinary amateur, and what think is that La Selecta overcame some tough games, as were the first four games, maybe it was the period of settlement of the team in the group, feel that settle in the competition for all equipment necessary therefore to achieved this, the team managed to hold much more and therefore the success came at the right time, perhaps for the second half of the qualifiers is the reason that got us into the World Cup Finals, the three most important games were both against Ko -oren and closing qualifiers against Sameba, this is my opinion. "Olga and Karl nodded their heads in sign of approval, Tomás was accurate with his small comment, perhaps the key part was saying that the closure was the last point of the qualifiers final that put the cherry over the cake.

Mario took the microphone and said "I invite you again to post your comments with the hashtag #FM72enCanal70, placing the three most important games in your opinion.

Serguei Saarinen @SergiSaa 1) Ko-oren vs Selecta - 2) Selecta vs Abanhfleft - 3) Selecta vs Sameba #FM72enCanal70 RETWEETSFAVORITE 36255625 10:49 pm - 15/06/2202

Cirilo Toledo @Cito2558 The first one and the most important was against the 6-4 against Abanhfleft, the secon was against Ko-oren at home and the third against Sameba at home too. #FM72enCanal70 RETWEETSFAVORITE 32053358 10:49 pm - 15/06/2202

Nestor Ekdal @Eknex Both games against Ko-oren were decisive, there's no particular order for me, but the third one was that 1-1 at Sameba, a key game. #FM72enCanal70 RETWEETSFAVORITE 22722370 10:49 pm - 15/06/2202

*The program went to another break and an advertisement to the first game of San José Guayabal in World Cup appeared, with a somewhat epic kind music for battle, just to give a bit more of drama to the advertisement, typical of sport ads in San José Guayabal.

La Selecta has finally qualified since eight years of abscense in the World Cup Finals scene, now the wait has finished and this is the chance that La Selecta has been waiting since a lot of time, it is the time when La Selecta can give their best in the field to prove to all the nations in the multiverse that a new football force is rising from the south eastern corner of Esportiva, now it's the time, La Selecta opens the World Cup Finals against Felix at Rose Gardens, Valanora, everything is ready for the match, Canal 70 will bring it you live, with pre and post game coverage, covering all the details from the Vanorian soil, this is our time, La Selecta's time, San José Guayabal vs Felix, this Thursday, June 17th, coverage starts at 16:00, game at 20:00 and post game coverage at 21:55, only in Canal 70.

*A video of Rodolfo Zelaya celebrating a goal was the last picture of the advertisement, and the music finished*

The last part of the program started, this was an analysis of the group with which San Jose Guayabal would face in their participation in the World Cup Qualifiers, Joseph spoke and said, "Welcome to the third part of the program, which will have to be shortened due to a press conference to be given by Queen Margaret I, on the case of Colonel Saavedra and the rise of Colonel Pereira, along with statements by Prime Minister Camargo, who will speak about the trial Saavedra acts against humanity .. Going back to what concerns us, I must say that's a pretty tough group that touch us in this tie. "Olga spoke and said" Definitely this group is quite hard, because we have a world champion and sub also a multiple champion of this tournament, a team that has won four times in the 48th, 60th, 62nd and 69th editions and also a team on the rise. "Karl said," Do you think I do the introduction of the teams? "José agreed and that's how they started talking, but added, saying" We have five minutes for each team, we have to talk a little fast, pardon the limitation."

The Holy Empire: Karl said, "Well, this team is one of those who either want to avoid but we could not do, is just luck, is quite changeable and offensive team play in 3-5-2, a midfield populated and fairly good front, is changing because we never know how they play their players specifically, because in almost all cycles of change are now opera singers who have good talent with their feet, just lost one game against Omerica and tied a game, the other twelve won and had a good offensive record against their rivals, many goals and a good defensive sector, this team will be void to play him to attack then consider to be of those teams that if you attack, the neutralize, play them in the final matchday can be a double-edged sword, I venture to say that a draw is what we will get from this game, nothing more and nothing less.

Kandorith: Tomás answered and said "This team plays pretty offensive, their ability to attack is quite good and have already reached beat Polar Islandstates before, just to give you an idea, they play very well but something that I will highlight and give emphasis it is its extreme confidence and lousy defense, have no notion of how to defend properly and how to avoid goals in large amounts, so I think they must be constantly attacked and force them to make mistakes in order to beat them, just that's how we can achieve a good game against them, I believe we can beat them and thereby give a good step to qualify for the Round of 16."

Felix: Olga spoke and said: "Old foes, Felix knows know how to attack rivals, through kickbacks and a good game for the side, with good midfielders, the priority is to cut off their game circuits around the midfield and this is how we can take advantage of chances to hurt, even though much is not ultimately know them, do not we underestimate and we know how to play them, we must do as we have always done, counterattack and a good defense, is how we can get a result, I consider that a win is not something out of fantasy, but I prefer more of a draw.

Tomás said with the previous permision of the organizers "And with this, we invite you to resere your flights to Valanora in order to see the games live at the Stadium, we have low prices and pay plans in case you want to pay later, from C$ 650 with all the services included, giving you a return flight too, come on, book your flight at http://www.aerolineas.gu now.

José and Mario said "And this is how we end our program, see you in two days with the Selecta Day, in the game against Felix in Rose Gardens, Valanora, have a good night, cheers!

[Audioslavia]

"Ko-oren are familiar opponents" began Alec Kirk, trying not to sigh his way through a question he'd answered seemingly every week. "Two of the previous three World Cups, we've played them - and beaten them - in the first round. They upset us in AOCAF 42 though and, ranking wise, there's very little to choose between the Bulls and the Dragonflies."

"Yes.." Alec continued, predicting then next question he'd be asked, "..I *would* be upset with anything other than victory. You can't wear the claret and green and be content with just a draw no matter who the opposition."

"What about Gregoryisgodistan?" asked another hack. "A good outfit, and no, I don't think they'll be put off by events back in their country. As for Equestrian States" - Alec paused to take a swig of Orca Cola - "as hosts they have to consider themselves favourites for the group. As good as Ko-oren are, it's Equestrian States who we're most weary of. We've seen Molovi, Krystal, Stardust and the like play week in, week out in the LigAnaia in recent seasons, so we're aware of what they can do even on neutral turf. Plus, they've got that 5-2 hind-kicking from AOCAF47 to gain revenge for. It'll be an interesting one alright."

"And what about your strike-force?" asked another journalist, from the back. This one a little wirier and greyer than the rest. His voice sounded familiar.... "You've had to play the last few games with Weverton-Torrejon up front, and he's done well. Now that Ronda Styrn is back, will you be replacing W-T?"

"Eurh..." came Alec's reponse. He tugged at his collar.

--

Styrn Stuns Ko-Oren
Tentative Bulls sneak past opening test

The fireworks from yesterday's opening ceremony, and the victory celebrations for Equestrian States' win over Gregoryisgodistan, had barely died down by the time night fell, and it was the turn of the twice World Cup Champions to take on Ko-Oren for the de;ight of the increasingly drunk masses.

'Delight' might be too strong of a word. 'Entertain' even less so. Audioslavia and Ko-Oren served up a strinker of a second match. They may well have merely offered the locals a chance to get a good night's sleep before tomorrow's festivities.

A drab first half - where the only 'highlight', if any, was the near-redcard challenge from Omaexevarria on Nascimento that left the Dragonfly number seven needing six stiches in his thigh and enforced the introduction of Nalaikh Bagarumir in midfield after just twenty minutes, yet yielded only a yellow card for the Audioslavian midfielder.

Ko-oren, despite the setback, came into the game properly in the second half and provided what little entertainment there was to be had by way of their occasional sorties into the Audioslavian box, with Audrey Leroux having the best chance via a turn-and-shot on the edge of the six yard box that ricocheted off the shoulder of a bewildered Sean Patterick before flying over the bar.

Eregrent had zipped a shot off the foot of the post and a Sutherland overhead kick had been cleared off the line before Audioslavia got their first real opportunity of the half. Weverton-Torrejon - thrown on for full-back Fima Lame as Audioslavia desperately tried to get into the game - fed a through ball in for Ronda Styrn who found herself on the dangerous side of the defensive line for the first time. Styrn hesitated, stuck out a foot and poked a low shot past the onrushing Macedo for 1-0.

Television replays first probed to see whether Styrn had been offisde - she hadn't, just, but the diminutive Audioslavian striker had apparently had a fist of Nanami Aoki's shirt as she'd turned, wrenching the Ko-orenite to the floor at a vital time.

Audioslavia, then, march on without truly impressing, as with so many major tournaments. One suspects that either of an upstart Gregoryisgodistan or the hosts Equestrian States may have it in them to surpass a timid Audioslavia side.

[Equestrian States]

Chop Chop Chop...

Cutoff.

[Nephara]

The World Cup is the perfect time to be a fly on the wall.
To see Riether's team-talk, quiet, measured, patient. It's not the normal Nepharim fare, but the players don't just react to it - they absorb it. Nods instead of cheers and hollering. They aren't out there to have fun. They're there to be professional. To do a job.
The team's been different since Riether's arrival. Confident. Decisive. Here's a stat for you - since Riether arrived at the beginning of Campionato Esportiva 12, Nephara has not drawn a game. Its record reads 26-0-2 in qualifying. There's none of the old nerves, but a quiet, professional confidence as the team walks out onto the pitch.
Hadrian Belfast walks out into the sunlight ahead of the rest, captain's armband on a rippling bicep. Of course he does. Belfast is winning cap number 145 for his nation, four ahead of his nearest rival who has retired from international football (long-standing partner in the centre of defence Tosca Marlowe), the green and black shirts feel familiar on his back, and the number 5 on it wouldn't feel right on anyone else.
Ballard is behind him, the goalkeeper hoping to finally make her mark on the international scene. She's definitely got the talent, but last World Cup wasn't, well, good. If there was a fly on the wall, it would be Ballard with the reflexes to smash it to pieces. The players are in numerical order from there. Christener. Stockinger. Big, dependable Murdoch. Kruse. The heroic Ashdown. Kellard. Cawdor. Bottlegreen. And, in a white headband, Gawain.
Belfast is 33, and the oldest of the squad. But while there's a couple veterans in the squad, it's still young on the whole. Ballard is 30, Murdoch 29, Stockinger 28 and everyone else younger. Not the same philosophy Legalese seems to hold. The Legalites, resplendent in their white shirts, have two 35-year olds in midfield and one in goal, 36-year old Boyle staring with interest from the bench. The fullbacks are 30. Zorich, of the ultimate footballing Cindarella story Bob's Towing, is 30. The baby of the team is Quintus Oxboro - a fresh 26. You can imagine their dour-faced manager Gammal expressing the opinion that "you can't win anything with kids" frequently and often. The team hasn't changed much in personnel over the years. What also hasn't changed is that they keep winning.
You just know this is going to be a tough one from the get-go.

"I'm not afraid of facing Legalese first thing," Diandra Ballard boldly told the press before the match. "A good result here is where we prove we can win the World Cup."
Brave words. She's not alone. Belfast, Murdoch and Quinn have also made similar statements since touching down in Valanora. Riether's letting her players show the bravado. They can talk all the talk they like as long as they can walk the walk.
Oxboro kicks off to Detzler. Belfast has done the first thing he can do early on: win the coin-toss. Nephara will be defending with their own fans behind their goal.
Cyrus Damhan lost the toss and he's not happy about it, sitting forward in midfield. He's the lynchpin of the team, one of the best technical playmakers in the world. No wonder 1830 Cathair shelled out for him even in his early thirties. He tests Ballard with a long, low drive two minutes and thirty seven seconds in. Ballard passes the test with flying colours and stares him down from thirty yards as if to ask, 'are you shitting me? Is that it?'
Damhan tries again a minute later, but with all the momentum of a freight train with studs Murdoch takes him out. Logan Murdoch is a lovely man, renowned for his loyalty, one of remarkably few international players to wait out the Big Freeze in Polar Islandstates. He's been rewarded for this with a move to Northbrook Diamonds, one of the most famous clubs in the world. The Gentleman Logan Murdoch has no room to be lovely when he steps out onto the football pitch because his mandate is simple and it is to destroy Cyrus Damhan.
When Damhan is not being destroyed by The Gentleman Logan Murdoch, bad things happen for the Nepharim defence. One pioneering through-ball is all it takes as Oxboro finds it and with all the lack of team chemistry that defines international football Kruse sees Oxboro and he sees Belfast and he makes the tentative rush that he assumes Belfast wants him to make but that leaves Detzler wide open and it's a good thing Oxboro takes the shot on himself or the Cormorants would be plummetting headlong into the ground. Ballard holds the shot on the full and shouts at Kruse. Kruse has the look of a man with regrets, but a man with regrets has no place in the centre of defence for a national team in the World Cup. Katskalidis, Kruse's like-for-like replacement and some Greek mongrel between terrier and golden retriever, fidgets on the bench. She doesn't look entirely up for this, either.
The Legalite momentum slows. The Gentleman Logan Murdoch is still resolutely kicking the fuck out of Cyrus Damhan, specialising in the sweet spot of challenges where you get the ball and the referee wouldn't quite call a foul but dear god the other player feels it. Damhan is a 35-year old man. Some 35-year olds have mid-life crises. Damhan has The Gentleman Logan Murdoch.
Murdoch takes possession again and puts it up for Ashdown who launches it upfield, seeing the run of Bottlegreen. Praise be, it's an actual club partnership in an international game. An Osarian club, for that matter. Bottlegreen deftly puts the ball past Kaszinski and crosses, low and hard. It's not the cross anyone expects, but Michael Kellard gets onto it and thumps it... a good foot high and wide. From ten yards. He spits on the ground. Kellard is a man with an axe to grind. Continually called the weak link of a squad, hell, even the weak link of a lineage of big Nepharim strikers. Thunder. Rowland. Cathar. All with over a hundred caps. And now it's Kellard's turn in the spotlight. But being less than clinical isn't doing you any favours, sweetheart. Cawdor shoots from distance and it goes precisely nowhere. But she's 23. There's time for her to get a clinical touch, and right now, the fact that she's incredibly fast is good enough.
Damhan finally gives out, and lashes out with a boot at Murdoch after being felled. The referee catches it. Bizarrely, he's given a soft yellow card before his tormentor. Riether just shrugs at that. These things all even themselves out in the end. Damhan takes a few deep breaths, regains his composure. It's been a tight first half, and that's where the Nepharim excel. If Legalese can get comfortable on the ball, they can score. But neither side's created much, and what they have had, they've snatched at.
Second half. One change made for Nephara, and it's... Kurtis Quinn for Rowan Gawain? The ferretty number 10's been waiting for this. Kellard's a big man, and Quinn's there to pick up the scraps. More importantly, the Nepharim number 10 isn't being marked by the Legalite number 10, Cloman. For all that's been said about Murdoch, Cloman's been doing equally tidy work on Gawain, but what does a defensive midfielder do with nobody to mark? Shoobridge and Masters have one more problem on their hands, but the fact that they actually play together gives them a resounding advantage on most other international defences. Chemistry is the key. Kellard kicks off to Quinn.
The second half feels different from the start. More open. The Legalites always go for the throat but now the Cormorants are ready to follow suit. Damhan looks tired. It's understandable.
The referee has let a lot go throughout the match but when Gazitano (a substitute for the veteran Brahm) annihilates Cawdor he would be hard-pressed to avoid giving the foul. Cawdor limps off for Brendan Rivers, a beast of a winger, on the sideline - evidently it's time for the most basic of Riether's tactical switches, 'throw Bottlegreen onto the other wing and see if she has more luck'. Kaszinski's been incredible throughout the game while Cawdor herself has been poor, failing to ask enough questions of Donaldson. Well, Bottlegreen will ask questions, no fear. Maybe find some answers, too.
How's this for an answer? It's 1-0.
Ashdown takes the free kick as she so often does and here is the one place where statistics have crept into the Nepharim game - set pieces, the most innately predictable part of the most unpredictable sport, where finally things really are like chess pieces on a board and you can hurl numbers at it to see what sticks. Riether's Cormorants have drilled the shit out of set pieces. This is why - Belfast, a centreback but, more importantly, 6'4" and a powerful jumper, slips away from his marker (where was the marker?) at the far post and smashes his header beyond a stranded Evan Swales.
Riether allows herself a small fist-pump. Portia Thrift, her assistant, won't be so restrained and it's easy to forget that this is her first World Cup. 78 caps, but they all came at the wrong time, and by the time Nephara qualified for one she was 39. Granted, she'd played the previous year in Campionato Esportiva 8 (which the Cormorants won), but to have quit right before the World Cup... it made sense, but surely it hurt.
But at least she was here now.
The Legalites looked for an immediate answer. They got one. Ballard took an aimless cross and utterly smashed it upfield, up to the left where Bottlegreen casually destroyed Donaldson's career with a single nutmeg before racing onto the end of it. Shoobridge nearly got to it first - nearly. And because Shoobridge nearly got to it, Masters was nearly enough to cover Kellard and as a result Kellard's flick-on (such a weak link) was nearly perfect for Quinn. But Kurtis Quinn was a player who had made a career out of making the best of what he had, and nearly perfect was more than good enough for him. He slotted the ball low past Swales with roughly his fifth touch of the match. The Cormorants had doubled their lead within three minutes.
That was more or less the end of the entertainment. The Cormorants shut up shop again - they were done playing for the time being. The Legalites strove to break them down, but it just wasn't working for them. Detzler and Oxboro showed energy, but Kruse had improved and Belfast was, well, Belfast. And by the time The Gentleman Logan Murdoch was finally brought off for Lundgren in the 82nd minute (which probably had much to do with the fact that he was carrying a yellow card) Damhan looked far from good health, and was pulled three minutes after that.
The final whistle wasn't long after in coming.

"We're happy with the result, and the performance," Theresa Riether tells the press after the match. It's a tiresome ritual, to pull aside a mentally drained and exhausted player or manager after the match and immediately pummel them with questions. But there was no escaping scrutiny, sometimes.
Riether's answers were direct and clear-cut. "We did what we set out to do, and beat a very strong side convincingly. A very professional job from all the players out there. Now it's just a matter of taking out Krytenia the same way."
Wouldn't it be okay to take your foot off the gas a little? Rest a few players? "Take them a bit lightly, you mean? Why don't you ask their qualifying group how that turned out for them?"
In two hours, you'd be able to add Falcus to that list - brought down 5-4 by a side that was unranked a year ago.
Somehow, Murdoch is passed over for man of the match. Possibly because brutalising a veteran playmaker for eighty-two minutes doesn't quite get the credit it deserves amongst the purists. Had Murdoch not been man of the match, Damhan would have, and Legalese would likely have won. Belfast gets it instead - a worthy enough winner in his own right, and he did score. But it forces him in front of the cameras, too. You just want to push the cameras back yourself - he's just come off a football pitch! Drenched in sweat and blood and you want him to form coherent opinions that will be held against him? But Belfast's used to it, and rattles off an uninspiring sequence of soundbites.
It was a hell of a start. But it was just that - only a start. If they don't kick on from here, use it as a platform to leap from rather than a laurel to rest on, well... the World Cup dreams of Riether, of Thrift, of Belfast and all the rest might as well be strangled in their cradle.

[Osarius]

Ultimate Teams: Osarius Edition
We ask various Osarius legends to construct their dream elevens...
...For no real reason, to be honest. But it's fun.


So, second instalment of our Ultimate Teams series, wherein we ask Osarius legends to construct dream elevens. We let them pick any players eligible to play for Osarius, in any formation they like, but they must include themselves as one of the players. Last time, we got the living legend that is the gaffer, Jermain Lewis, to tell us his picks. His Firewood-heavy selection was perhaps skewed toward offensive prowess -- colour us unsurprised -- and would no doubt be a stiff challenge for even the best teams in the world today. The gaffer claims his side would "trash Benni's at least", so... we've put that to the test. The aforementioned Benni -- as in former Firewood City and Osarius captain, and current Hastmead Diamante manager Benni Watson -- is up today. Our other selection this time around will be from another former Firewood and Osarius captain -- we're three for three on that dual role so far, actually -- and the only Osarian captain we've ever seen lift the World Cup; Roque Acosta.

Let's get to it.

Benni Watson playing for Pareille Seniors.
He still had the moves, though...

First up this edition will be the older man. Five time Osarian Player of the Year, and a bunch of other trophies as a player. Now twice winner of LigAnaia as a manager, Benni Watson. We find it hard to believe there are many of you out there who need a primer on our golden boy of the 2180s, but if we did one for Jermain Lewis, it's only right we do one here too. Factfile time!

Benni was born in Carbonia, in 2153, where he wasn't really much of a footballer to be honest. He'd tell you this himself. He "accidentally" ended up getting a trial with Trothwands Evolution at age nine, but didn't make the grade. A few years later, he was picked up by his hometown club, Hastmead, and played in their youth academy team for five years -- eventually captaining them to youth cup glory, in a team containing both his younger brother Ashley, and future national team goalscoring record holder, Rene Wilson-Ouaddou. He didn't however, break into the first team at Hastmead before Benedict di Corradi spotted him and tried to sign him for Firewood, a "dream move" as Watson tells it. Though di Corradi left to manage Osarius before the deal could be completed, he ensured that Watson's move would be finalised, for the sum of two million Osarian credits. Watson would never move clubs again [as a professional - Ed.], making over six-hundred and fifty appearances for Firewood City, and setting a record for most caps with the national team before retiring.

Much like his predecessor as Osarius captain, Watson's international career was perhaps disappointing, in terms of trophies. Though Firewood's dominance was in no small part due to the flying winger's contributions. Watson still to this day holds Osarian league records for most assists in a season, and most goals from direct free kicks -- an aspect of his skillset he claims to have worked on every day throughout his career. Five Golden Phoenix awards -- given to the consensus best player in Osarian football every year -- saw him surpass Benedict di Corradi's record of four, and establish himself as the best player of his generation, before injuries and advancing years took their toll on him, forcing him to retire at age thirty-five.

The transition to coaching and management was a natural one for Watson. Upon retirement, he took a coaching role back at Hastmead, in the youth academy -- while turning out for Pareille Seniors, his local over-35s team. "I already had my badges," he reveals. "And I wanted to go back to where it all started, so as much as I loved Firewood... it was a no-brainer." Within three years, he rose to Head of Youth Development at Hastmead, before leading the youth team to silverware in each of the next five seasons. When the manager position became available, Watson was shortlisted, along with close friend Sean Dore. The two served as joint assistant managers for one year before taking the reins. In his second season, Watson lost Ezio Grassi to the United Hoofball League, but was able to apply his tactical insight to guide Hastmead to their first league championship in almost a decade. From there, he has only seen them progress.

While Hastmead's UICA record leaves a bit to be desired, their domestic record -- both in OLAF and LigAnaia -- is enviable. Two LigAnaia championships in five years have significantly boosted Watson's credibility as a manager, and there were rumours of him being a potential candidate to replace Jermain Lewis, should the gaffer step down. He denies the claims, though, insisting that he has no desire to coach at national level. "I'd miss the day-to-day stuff, if I'm honest." He says. "Better scouting too, so I can prepare better." Watson's tactical awareness is something that has been spoken of in positive terms since his early playing days, and he'll no doubt be relying on that to make a strong selection here...

The Selection

Benni Watson's Ultimate Eleven
A focus on squad chemistry, it seems. Bold strategy.

GK - Orlando Florian

"Okay so fun fact, I used to be a goalkeeper. And this guy was my idol. I remember scoring past him in training and celebrating wildly, it meant that much to me. He's just so...long. And he has these huge hands, too, so if he can reach the ball, he's catching it. You have to put the ball right in the corner to beat him. When he got older, he positioned himself better too. His last couple of seasons, when his reflexes had dulled... it wasn't any easier to beat him."
LB - Jordan Simpson

"Georgie won't like this, but I have the stones to tell her I didn't pick her. Unlike some people... In all honesty, though, I just can't look past the J-Man. Yes, Georgie was amazing, but she also played for Greeningham *laughs*. No but seriously, it's easy to forget that Jordan was the most expensive Osarian player of all-time for... quite a while. That move to the Han Empire did great things for him, and when he came back to Hastmead later, he was twice the player he'd been before. It refined his instincts. I'm not sure there was a position on the pitch he couldn't play, if you'd asked him."
CB - Conor Kinsella

"I remember describing Conor once as a cross between Tay Gidds with pace and Jermain Lewis with a better first touch. It pretty much sums him up. He read the game well enough that he could prevent himself being exposed by all but the quickest forwards, but he could get forward too, bring the ball down and just settle everything. You know how people talk about cars going zero to sixty in however many seconds? Conor did the opposite. He'd slow the game down, calm everyone's nerves, by putting his foot on the ball and bringing it from sixty to zero, just like that. Shame he never played for a really good club..."
CB - Juan Pablo Rodriguez

"Have you spoken to Jermain yet? Because I can tell you what he'd say to. This young man is quite possibly the single most talented defender I have ever seen. And I played against Yafor 2 and Rejistania, two of the most karelan nations in the multiverse. Rodriguez is like Kinsella in the sense that he reads things and keeps things calm at the back. But he also has this something else about him. He's faster, he's sharper. It's almost like he has some kind of psychic ability sometimes, because to calculate what he must need to calculate, as fast as he does... it doesn't seem human. And he's still so young. He'll almost definitely go down as one of the top Osarian footballers of all time when he finally calls it a day."
RB - Jay Jay Anderson

"Jay Jay was... he was sort of like taking Jermain Lewis, and putting him at right back. But with better crossing. *laughs* I should probably stop making digs like that about the gaffer, I've got to see him tomorrow! But with Jay Jay... I loved getting forward, knowing he'd be thundering up the pitch behind me. He always knew which way to go, too. Those underlapping runs, they used to get him into a more central area where he can apply pressure. Let me stay wide where I had space to cause trouble. I just think we really linked up well. He might not necessarily be the best right back, but he was my favourite."
CM - Ayanna Barca-Carthy

"Oh I love Aya. She's fantastic. I wish we'd played more games together, when I was younger and quicker, because her vision was incredible, and she rarely misplaced a pass. If I'd had her pinging balls out to me on the wing, I could have done a lot more. She had this air about her that just commanded respect, too. As my vice-captain I felt like she was perfect. If I needed to be called out on something, she'd do it. Very strong character. Something that most people overlook about her too, is the fact that defensively, she was actually really astute. Her skillset was... she was predisposed to attack, but if you needed her to defend, she was one of our best at that too, at the time, because she could read things so well. You don't often find players with that kind of balance."


Star Player: Toby Drummond
Watson laments not having the backing of his board some years ago...

CM - Jermain Lewis

"Do I really need to explain this? You've met the guy, right? You've seen him play? You have a player as powerful and imposing as the gaffer in the middle, and that's a massive edge in the midfield battle. Not just that but he has this ... power. He could pick the team up and put us all on his back if necessary. Just a really great guy to have in your team. And every team needs that one absolute beast of a player, right? Like Aya, I think his ability to defend gets overlooked sometimes, too. Because we all got so used to seeing him power forward, we all got excited every time he got the ball and decided to drive up the middle, we all focused on what he could do with that tree trunk of a right leg of his. But he had this... range. It's hard to dribble past him because he could reach you even when you thought you'd beaten him."
AM - Toby Drummond

"Not many people know this but I tried to sign him for Hastmead. When he was still at Rockbridge. I went in for him when he was nineteen and had won Young Player of the Season, but they were asking more than I could convince the board to give me. I knew from back then, though. He was going to be a top player. If you watch him on the ball, you can see how everything he does is calm, calculated. He's never under pressure, always just so... relaxed. And some of the things he does are nothing short of magic. The man is a wizard or something. There's a decent case, I think, that he is actually the best Osarian player of all time, as much as it stings me to admit it at times."
LW - Ashley Watson

"You're gonna accuse me of bias again, aren't you? No but we really work well together. I always felt he was a little underrated if I'm honest. He can do it all. He can get forward and terrify right backs, or he can shut down a right winger -- I would know, I've been on the receiving end of a few of his tackles over the years. I'd trust my little bro opposite me. We didn't play alongside each other often enough at pro level, I think. And I call him little bro, but Ash is... pretty strong. That left peg of his, too. Lethal."
ST - Rene Wilson-Ouaddou

"I can't not pick The Wren. He pulled us out of the fire too many times to count. He had everything a striker needs, and I imagine he'd be considered one of the best players alive if he'd been lucky enough to play in the current Osarius side. The game has changed, you know? But there's not much difference between Ren and Ezio Grassi, in my eyes. Ren might not have been as clinical, but he was faster though. And knew where the X button was. *laughs* It's a chemistry thing again, maybe. I always knew where he would go, considering how well we knew each other from youth level."
RW - Benni Watson

"You said I have to be in the squad, so here I am. You're gonna make me justify that? But I didn't pick me, you did! Okay, okay... well, I think there is an argument to be made that a couple of players might be better choices here, but it would be a close-run thing... and they wouldn't have my chemistry with the rest of the squad, anyway! Yeah! That's why I should be here. That's my argument and I'm sticking to it!"

Next up, El Gran Capitan! No other Osarius captain has lifted the World Cup (yet!) and certainly not twice. Following his recent retirement from international football, Roque Acosta can rest assured that he will almost certainly be remembered forever as one of Osarian football's greatest. "I wasn't actually born here, though." He reminds us, sheepishly.

Roque Acosta in his (much) younger days

Born in Ampliamirada, on the southern coast of Aquillian, and emigrating to Osarius at age two -- Acosta spent almost the entirety of his childhood living in the affluent Firewood suburb, Pareille -- the dynamic youngster was assimilated as one of our own years ago.

Acosta, much like his predecessors, spent an immense amount of time at Firewood City -- no doubt helping to cement that oft-spoken notion that the Fourgian club are indeed the greatest Osarian club of all-time -- having been signed as a seven year old, and remaining there until his sale to Nepharim giants AFC Treason at age twenty-nine. His time at Firewood was less... silverware laden, than it had been for the previous generation, but he would laugh at the idea that he could have won more.

"I was done. It felt like I'd run so much my legs would fall off, and we were about to lift the World Cup for the second time." Acosta joked. "It was surreal. But easily the most magical moment of my life."

The Aquillian-born Osarian midfielder has long been renowned for his seemingly endless stamina. Nicknamed "the Dynamo" in his younger years, age was kind to him, not quite slowing him down until the last couple of years of his career. "I moved into a deeper role for Treason, and the gaffer obliged me with the national team, which was nice. He could have dropped me." Acosta admits.

Still considered the beating heart of a strong AFC Treason side, Acosta grins sheepishly at the notion that he was an integral part of his adopted nation's back-to-back world titles, but the proof is there in the numbers. Acosta covered more ground than any other Osarian player at World Cup 70, and at World Cup 71, only Toby Drummond completed more a higher percentage of his passes. "Numbers don't mean anything sometimes, though." He retorts, still refusing to accept his part in it, like they'd committed a crime.

His selection is perhaps more emotionally driven than either of his predecessors', which hints at the kind of player Acosta is. "I can't help it, I'm still Aquilliano in some ways I guess." He laughs. "I still feel so lucky that I got to come over here, and that I was... taken in, you know? If it had been the other way around, there's no way I could ever have captained Aquillian, but Osarius? It was never really a problem. I feel a strong sense of pride, knowing that I represented such a great country."

Before he can launch into a rendition of the national anthem -- and he definitely belted it out louder than almost everyone else during the World Cup, game after game -- let's get to his team selection.

The Selection

Roque Acosta's Ultimate Eleven
Unable to shake his Aquilliano tendencies,
Acosta's selections are clearly emotionally driven.

GK - Orlando Florian

"Maybe it's because I'm a Firewood fan, but I just can't pick anyone else. He's a legend, and rightly so. Maybe if we had a decent amount of quality footage of Enzo Corradini, I could be persuaded to pick someone else, but we don't. For me, Florian is the best I've seen. Incredible 'keeper."
LB - Azarai Robinson

"The boss lady [Georgina Carsley] won't like that I've left her out, but this is a personal taste thing rather than ability. Azza is someone you can link with when you press forward. I was lucky enough to play alongside him a few times, and I remember we had an understanding whenever I wanted to press down the left. You can't overvalue a good attacking threat from fullback, in my opinion."
CB - Emanuele Riviello

"Manu is a great guy. He's my favourite player to travel with when we're abroad on international duty because nobody wants to mess with him! And I know he'll put his body on the line for his friends, his teammates. Some will say he's a little hot-headed and this is fair, but when that's the only real criticism you can have of a guy..."
CB - Juan Pablo Rodriguez

"I can't ignore J.P. I'm glad he's taken over from me as Osarius captain now that I'm retired from international football, because I don't think there is a better choice. He's great at reading the mood of a game as well as the flow, and where the ball is going next, so he's not only superb tacticall, but also mentally, you know? He's someone you can rely on to keep a team grounded when it gets a bit crazy."
RB - Susana Grana

"Bet nobody saw this coming. 'Sana is a bit unlucky in a way. We had some really athletic fullbacks come through at a bad time for her, and she never really made it back up to national team regular status. But we had a good understanding, and I can rely on her for an easy out when we're under pressure for Treason. She knows where I'm going, and makes sure I'm covered. Does the dirty work so I don't have to sometimes. Really underrated."
CM - Roque Acosta

"Honestly, I wouldn't pick myself if you weren't making me. There are better central midfielders who have come before me, but these are the rules, so here I am. I know I'm good enough, I believe that... but there are better players. Technically, athletically, mentally. But here I am. In this selection I would probably have to hang back, like I tend to for Treason these days, but that's okay. Look who's in front of me!"


Star Player: Juan Pablo Rodriguez
Acosta is very impressed with his successor's leadership qualities...

CM - Jermain Lewis

"I've always wished I could have played alongside El Comandante. Always. I watch clips of old games, and I can see why people compare us, but he just looks so much more dominant than I've ever been. He'd have to be in there with me in the middle, I think. He'd make me look good, maybe. *laughs* He's probably better at all the leg work these days, too."
AM - Alessandro di Corradi

"Ale was a special player. I was still just a kid when he retired, but he was one of my favourites. He could perform miracles with the ball, and I was devastated when he retired. As I've gotten older, I've felt that pain for him even more. I can't imagine a world in which I couldn't play football. Especially if I was even half as good as Ale was. He'll always be one of my idols. Always."
LW - Wesley Kane

"I wished harder than anything for a while that we would sign him for Firewood, but he went abroad. Wes is amazing, he can use both feet, he can take a defender on, cross accurately, score from wide... everything. I'm not sure we've ever had a better left winger. Or right winger, for that matter."
ST - Ezio Grassi

"I feel like I've been extremely lucky to play alongside Ezio and win two World Cups with him. He's so reliable. You can put the ball in the right place and just count on him to do the rest. That was why it was such a big deal when he got that injury at World Cup 70. It really affected us all, mentally. I think there are a lot of really talented forwards in Osarius but no-one else is really like Ezio."
RW - Maria di Corradi

"Yes, I know she mostly played in the middle, but people often forget just how effective Maria could be in a wide position. The key for Maria was Ale[ssandro], as long as she could connect with him, she was lethal. Those two were a really good combination and she wasn't the same without him. I don't think he would have been the same without her either, though. You need to have them both, I think."

OSN Ultimate Team: Osarius Edition

---

Jermain Lewis | Roque Acosta | Benni Watson
Ayanna Barca-Carthy | Jayson Dhanda

[Krytenia]

OOC: Falcus player names from the last roster they posted (WC69).



FALCING HELL!
by Trevor O'Carroll in Everlin, Valanora

A LITTLE under two years ago, the Krytenian Football Association approached a former writer for this organ with an idea; that despite his complete lack of managerial credentials, he was the man to lead the Aces' return to the international fold. Everybody, to a man, thought they were completely insane to do so. After yesterday's performance, however, that thought has been banished to the distant corners of the collective memory. Not only are Krytenia here, they are here on merit after winning their group - and now, they're on three points in group D after a thrilling game off football at the Aranfield Bridge stadium.

Falcus may have qualified with little fanfare, and may have been only the group's third seeds, but they too are here on their own merits. Both sides knew that to have a chance of reaching the last sixteen, they'd have to be on top of their game, and so it proved in the early stages. Krytenia, as they had done throughout the qualifying campaign, started with a confidence that did not suggest they were only the world's eighty-sixth best team. Their opponents, meanwhile, started in a more calculating fashion, closing down the men in red shirts and keeping possession well. Chances were few in the early exchanges with both sides breaking down their opponents' attacks well; it may not have been spectacular football, but it was an interesting game for the purists.

All that changed on nineteen minutes. A mistimed Joel Scott chance allowed Falcus to break dangerously, and a quick one-two allowed striker Spyridon Jovanovic in to place the ball past a helpless David Heaton. The travelling Krytenian fans, who'd been a bouncing mass of sky blue up to this point, were momentarily silenced. But, such is the Krytenian way, when someone punches you in the gut, you stand up straight, stare them in the eye, and ask "is that all you've got?" Certainly the fans were taking this to heart, as straight from the kickoff they were back in full voice. Twenty thousand fans in a foreign stand chanting "Super Rami's Cyan Army" in full-throated voice is a sound to behold; it seemed to lift the players on the field, too, as Falcus' lead lasted less than five minutes. Sam Alinas was the architect, a looping pass nodded by van Rijn straight into the path of Valrauncion, who buried it magnificently. Scoring on the world stage is, after all, something that comes easily to the two-time World Cup winner.

The game, once again, turned to close exchanges, with both teams looking for that go-ahead goal which so often proves crucial in games like these. There was fire and fury in the eyes, a few slightly wilder challenges, good saves from both Heaton and Chris Lockwood, and agonisingly for Krytenia, when Lockwood was beaten by a van Rijn fizzer, the Avenida Victoria man was (rightly, sadly) flagged for offside. It looked for all the world that the game would be coming to the break on level terms; but the Krytenian story begs for a twist, and it came, agonisingly, for the Falcons in first half injury time. With Michel Demetrius nodding a dangerous cross out for a corner, Falcus crowded the box, and Stanislava Hertz' whipped cross met the head of Yvonne Gyuappo and from thence the back of the net. Darren Radcliffe, who'd lost Gyuappo when the cross came in, looked at the ball like he wanted to be sick all over it, and Krytenia barely had time to restart the match before the half time whistle blew.

Whether losing his marker had affected Radcliffe's psyche, or whether he'd picked up a knock in the jostle, we may never know. All we do know, though, is that he didn't take the field for the second half. Instead, it was the photogenic Fernando Reyes who lined up behind the front two. Krytenia needed the next goal to get themselves back into the game; alas, they didn't get it. Falcus, buoyed by their stoppage time smash and grab, were on top and scored again, with Vinny Frenz slow to close down the dangerous Jovanovic before he could get his shot away, leaving Heaton no chance. It was about to get worse, though, as three became four within a few minutes. This time, it was the electric pace of Hans Elliot which opened up Krytenia's vulnerabilities. He cut inside, and laid the ball on a plate for winger José Abelló to tap home. Krytenia one, Falcus four, and that, surely, was that. Right?

Right?

Wrong.

With the Falcons deciding to sit on their three-goal lead - and who can blame them? - Rami Niblick surmised that this was indeed "all they've got". He made a daring change, bringing Will Oss on for Scott, and set their stall out to throw the proverbial kitchen sink, worktops, and oven at Falcus. Time ticked past. Oss hit the post. Valrauncion saw a thundering strike turned over the bar by the impressive Lockwood. Then on seventy-one minutes, Reyes burst into the box, Atticus Koenigsted grabbed his shirt, the Avidia United man fell in a heap, and the Euran referee whistled for a penalty before revealing unto Koenigsted the scarlet card of doom. Valrauncion buried the penalty, sending Lockwood the wrong way, and a chink of light appeared in the Krytenian collective psyche.

With their opponents missing their defensive fulcrum, and with the momentum of a goal, Krytenia began to do what they had done to the likes of Panem, Bears Armed, and Valladares in the qualifying campaign; stamp their authority on the game. With the clock ticking eighty, Niblick rolled his final dice, laking off Alinas and bringing on Robert Persson, effectively moving to a 3-2-1-4 formation. If they gave the ball away needlessly, this would be suicide. They had no intention of doing so, though, playing the ball in front of the Falcons' defence, overloading the front third and waiting for the inevitable gaps to open. With seven minutes to go, that's exactly what happened. With van Rijn and Persson both running across Gyuappo in opposite directions, the big defender was caught in two minds, and the Avenida man was in the perfect place to receive Marco Angelo's pass and slot home past an exposed Lockwood. Falcus, now, knew the only thing on their hands was time. Jovanovic was hauled off for Sergey Grzeskiewicz as the Falcons tried desperately to hold their shape; Reyes, meanwhile, was relishing being the centre of attention and created more headaches. The equaliser came late, but it did come, and it was only fair that Reyes was the man to get it, jinking past two defenders before beating poor Lockwood with an audacious chip. The Krytenian fans behind that goal went absolutely mental; with one minute left, somehow the Aces were level.

There is an old saying that turnabout is fair play. Not one Krytenian would complain about how this manifested itself on this particular occasion. Deep into stoppage time, Krytenia won a corner after yet another top-drawer Lockwood save. Liam Larsson curled it in, Lockwood was caught in two minds, and Valrauncion met the ball perfectly, heading just inside the far post (an advert for putting a defender on the post if ever there was one) and completing his hat-trick. The elf immediately disappeared under a heap of red shirts, with David Heaton's yellow goalkeeper kit providing the icing on a strange human cupcake of victory. The final whistle soon blew, with the vociferous Krytenian fans barely having time for a chorus of "we want six"; the sound capped one of the greatest fightbacks that Krytenia had ever seen.

In all the elation, it's easy to forget that group seeds Nephara are next. They were businesslike in their victory over Legalese, and are playing like a team who are gunning for wresting the trophy from the Osarians. Surely, then, an Aces victory is impossible. But this is a Krytenian side who feel the day is wasted if they haven't done at least three impossible things before breakfast, and if they win, and Falcus take any points off Legalese, the Aces will be in the last sixteen.

If that happens, the city of Emberton might just spontaneously combust in sheer joy.

KRYTENIA - 5
Valrauncion 23, 72, 90+3
van Rijn 83
Reyes 89

FALCUS - 4
Jovanovic 19, 53
Gyuappo 45+2
Abelló 55

[Ko-oren]

Audioslavia's best player: referee Leão Soares

Two key moments defined Audioslavia versus Ko-oren, and both were forced by the same person, on par with the bad guys in history (think of 16th century serial killer Stanimir Yashkin in Thaulandi, or Émile Boutroux, responsible for the deaths of thousands by burning down public buildings - including orphanages - in the southwestern Bay area of Ko-oren). Leão metaphorically murdered thousands (spoilt the evening of thousands in the stands, at least) by not acting as he should.

Claims that referees protect the bigger teams from the smaller teams are easy to make, even though we haven't been affected by bad calls lately (most likely because we are one of those bigger teams now). In the World Cup, however, Ko-oren is occasionally the smaller team of the two, and events like yesterday fuels these claims as in the old days (say, the late 50s in terms of World Cups). So is Ko-oren really that much smaller than Audioslavia? Well, they have the three points, even though we would like to assert that it should have been a 0-0 tie. Many 'experts' around the multiverse have ranked groups before the first kickoff, and on all of their lists, Ko-oren appears second, behind Audioslavia (except for one list, where Ko-orenites ranked their own team behind Audioslavia and the Equestrian States). So for all intents and purposes, we are the small team here, and the bigger team was protected by the referee.

Exhibit #001: 36 minutes and 29 seconds into the match, Omaexevarria, G., assaulted Nascimento, H., to such an extent that the latter was substituted for a third party, Bagaurunir, N., by means of such a challenge that Mr. Nascimento needed stitches. In fact, the gory act was so terrible that we can honestly say that people have been sued for less. Luckily, the stage of said attack was a football pitch, which means there was a specifically appointed judge, Soares, L. on the premises. Where many looked to him for guidance in the situation, Soares, L. failed to follow up the assault with an adequate punishment, eg. a red card.

Exhibit #002: 71 minutes and 54 seconds into the match, Styrn, R., scored a goal for her nation. While there were clues that she was, indeed, offside, the referee did not call offside and later investigation proved that it was not offside. However, Ms. Styrn did commit another foul: Ms. Aoki, N. was in a perfect position to stop Ms. Styrn from scoring. To prevent Ms. Aoki from preventing her, she wrestled her down to the ground in illegal fashion according to the rules of the establishment (for which we refer to a document called 'Rules of the Game', issued by the 'World Cup Committee (WCC)'). Again, the specifically appointed paladin of justice, Mr. Soares, failed to take notice of this or of his assistant referee who told him of the foul play, and he awarded the goal, which turned out to be the only goal in the whole WCC-sanctioned event.

Other than that, the Bulls and the Dragonflies did not try to entertain the crowd in any way. Only the points mattered, and Audioslavia have three of them now. Then again, anyone who did expect a great, open, attacking game between Team Park-the-Bus and Team Park-Five-Buses was deluding themselves. However, we would be lying if we said that Ko-oren had no other way of getting back into the match: Eregrent hit the post, Sutherland came dangerously close with some of his acrobatics, and possession was evenly divided among the teams. There were no further goals though, so the Dragonflies are still empty handed, and desperately need a win against the hosts next game.

The Equestrian States have beaten Gregoryisgodistan in the other Group E match, as was more or less expected.

Starting XIs:
KOR: Macedo - Aoki, Davenport, Juliasterinthen, Bahvahnin, De Jong - Nascimento, Heilyn, Wakefield, Eregrent - Chuluun
AUD: Patterick - Lamé, Goicoechea, Intxausti, Corbijn - Omaexevarria, Jovellanos, Landhuis, Hufschmied, Vengochea - Styrn

Overall performance: B - We worried that maybe the team wasn't good enough after all for a World Cup. They proved us wrong: when it matters, everyone stands up and plays their guts out. The result didn't go our way, but otherwise it was a performance that we can work with.

Defending set pieces: C+ - It wasn't too great in this department, but we are also playing against better opponents now. More practice against the better national teams of the world wouldn't hurt, and might have prevented some tense situations. Overall however, not a bad start.

Attacking set pieces: D- - This is probably the lowest grade ever given in this context, and all because the Dragonflies managed to create a grand total of zero scary situations from the few corners and free kicks awarded. They were techically decent though, they just failed to create any kind of shot on goal.

Defence overall: B+ - One goal conceded against the two-time World Champions and current top 10 team in the world? Not bad. Unfortunately not enough to get any points, but the defence hasn't suffered from stage fright at all. Solid performance, as we are used to of them, and we look forward to more from them.

Attack overall: B- - Several shots on goal did not make it too easy for the Bulls, despite the lack of goals. We're throwing all the good passes and possession under attack overall though, because otherwise there isn't much to go on: it wasn't really a match that warranted the 'oh my god this is going to be great' after all.

Coaching decisions: B - Another good game by Antonescu. He was pretty invisible, and for now we are accepting that as a good performance. He did try to force some more attack near the end of the game, and the players responded well to that (two late shots on goal), but it was not enough to best the Bulls.

Refereeing: F - For the first time ever, a grade for our dear referee. Unsurprisingly, it's an F for Failure to call oFFside, a clear Foul leading to a goal and not dishing out a red card when needed.

---

Henrique Nascimento pursues legal consequences for Omaexevarria foul

The Ko-orenite midfielder has said in the press conference following the World Cup match that he is looking to sue Omaexevarria. "What he did wouldn't be allowed anywhere, I believe he would be arrested if he tried something similer out on the street. Then why would it be ok if he did it to me on the pitch?" Details of the case are unknown as of yet, and it is also unclear which legal system should oversee the case. Depending on this, Nascimento is expected to find a lawyer. He has enough time for this, as he is ruled out of next game because he needs time for his thigh wound to heal.

[Apox]

Many Apoxian players looked utterly done at the end of the game against Pasarga. As opening games went, it had been a pretty brutal one.

That's not to say the team hadn't been outclassed, for a game of the 25th ranked team against the 2nd one, it wasn't an annihilation. It's just, well, Pasarga were better than them. At the end of the day, the Apoxian team hadn't played badly. But they'd still lost, which was a hard pill to swallow. Especially for some of the younger players. James Fowey had been run rugged by Jorit van Kruistum all game, the Hastmead Diamante winger causing him trouble all game and generally being a menace to the Apoxian defence.

Even Solomon Etezadi, usually the calm presence which held the team together, look exhausted after the game, patting his international and domestic teammate, Kaj Aurora on the back as they walked off the pitch. Tolgus Tregajorran, a late substitute for Adnan Zozula, just looked frustrated as he went off - he'd had a couple of chances but they'd all been difficult to execute, so not scoring wasn't necessarily the Apoxian legend's fault.

However, all these signs filled their manager, Gavin Hughes, with pride as he walked over to shake his opposing number, Jullian van Setten, hand. The fact that they were so exhausted showed that they'd left nothing out on the field at the end of the game. They'd all, each and every one of them, given their all, and as a manager he couldn't really ask for anything more. If anything, the fact they'd lost lay entirely with him. The players had done all they could.

Sure, he didn't want to lose any game, ever. But if he had to pick a way in which to lose a game, well surely it would be with his players having giving him everything. Now was not to the time to mope. Farfadillis up next (how the hell had the NT never played them before?) and Kirisaki after them. They had to look at how to improve and then give the same level of performance in the next two games. If they did that, it would be two wins in both, and that would be enough to see them through to the Round of 16.

Musing all this, Gavin turned towards the tunnel, sure to repeat what he'd just said to the players. This fucking thing was still on, goddammit.

[Northern Sunrise Islands]

Season 6, Chapter 22: Tomorrow Never Dies

As they finally reached their location, Dainer went to knock the door, being met by a black-haired man, with a sandwich at hand.

Dainer: ...Wrong time?
Kry: ...A bit. Also, who the hell are you?
Dainer: I'm Dainer.
Kry: Well. You seem fun. Now, what do you want? I'm having breakfast, you see, Dinner.
Dainer: Dainer. And I need your assistance. There's a part of town that only a few people know, such as yourself per example.
Kry: Joltopolis?
Dainer: ...Actually, yeah. How did you know that I was asking you about it?
Kry: Took a good guess.
Dainer: Cool! So that means you're going to help?
Kry: ...As long as my interests are reached, Dinner.
Dainer: Dainer.
Kry: Whatever. It's nothing too picky.
Dainer: Name your price.
Kry: A bottle of orange-strawberry mixed soda.
Dainer: That's odd.
Kry: A pile of fresh lettuce.
Dainer: Even odder.
Kry: So... guess you can't pay me?
Dainer: Oh, no. I can.
Kry: ...Seriously?
Dainer: Yup. Just a sec.

Dainer opened up his cellphone, calling a number, showing little worries.

Dainer: Kitsunia.
Kitsunia (via phone): Oui?
Dainer: I need a bottle of orange-strawberry mixed soda and a pile of fresh lettuce.
Kitsunia (via phone): How many litres?
Dainer: How many litres, sir?
Kry: ...Two, I guess?
Dainer: Two.
Kitsunia (via phone): Consider it done. Though I don't truly know why you need those.
Dainer: Payment. I'll explain it to you later.
Kry: Oh. One more thing.
Dainer: Tell me while I can still have Kitsunia to get it.
Kry: ...I think you don't need Kitsunia to do that. Unless she has something to take out an helicopter.
Dainer: ...Oh, you mean that helicopter?
Kry: Yeah. Familiar to you?
Dainer: Yeah! It's my helicopter!
Kry: So.
Dainer: ...
Kry: GET THAT OUT OF MY LAWN BEFORE IT CUTS THE GRASS!
Dainer: ...Follow me, then.

Dainer finally carried up his new associate.

Dainer: So, any updates from the hospital?
Ytt: Sunrise's still recovering himself. They said his brain is damaged.
Sarian: Well, of course it is!
Ytt: ...More than the usual.
Sarian: You're no fun.
Kry: ...That lady looks weird.
Sarian: I'm a man.
Kry: You fellows aren't those kind of people that dress weird and have strange parties, right?
Ytt: Why would you say that?
Kry: Exhibit A.
Sarian: ...Why do people think this is so weird?
Dainer: Because it is. Now shut up.
Kry: So... what do these buttons do?
Dainer: They're the radio system, see?

Dainer turned on the radio system of the helicopter, blasting a rather classic tune.

Sarian: Oh, come now.
Dainer: What?
Sarian: My mother listened to this when she was 10 years old!
Kry: Classics never die.
Sarian: Yes. They get old.
Kry: Don't think that just because you wear a dress, I'm not going to tell you how it is.
Sarian: Psh, whatever.
Ytt: So, how long until we get there?
Dainer: Until next episode.
Kry: Until next what?
Dainer: ...You'll get used to it.

[Gregoryisgodistan]

Lord Almighty Gregory's Speech to the People

"Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, and slaves. I speak to you today for victory is near in the so-called Holy Republican Empire. Our troops, in combination with Legion of Lucifer and Quebecois troops, are rapidly nearing the capital city of Republica. Reports show we are within approximately 50 miles of the Republica border and moving closer every day. We continue to cause chaos wherever we pass through, burning churches of the Church of Saintland and killing those who refuse to surrender their belief in the False Church of Lies. We are, meanwhile, assisting Legion of Lucifer in raising their flag throughout the soon-to-be former Empire. They are taking over every town and city we pass through and we are helping them. Soon, we will seize the capital and capture Consul Kulseth himself. We will then show no mercy for the Devil Satan Wicked Heathen Evil Doer "Man." We will slice him slowly and painfully with the Brownie Cutter of Death, slicing him into hundreds of pieces while he shrieks in pain, then slowly bleeds out after excruciating pain. After he is dead and sliced, we will cover the pieces with pancake batter and deep fry them. Our troops, together with Legion of Lucifer and Quebecois troops, will eat them. It will be the greatest meal we have ever enjoyed, for it will be the taste of victory. Or, Legion of Lucifer can choose a different way of killing that horrible man if they want, though I would discourage them from doing so. Kulseth is a gruesome man and should be killed in a gruesome fashion. Kulseth, you are dead. And while I do mean disrespect by that, it's not just because I'm not using 'thou' because that's a stupid word. If you weren't soon to be dead, we'd send you to a Grammar Reeducation Camp. But death must come first. If we use the Brownie Cutter of Death, we'll keep one piece from being eaten and have it sit in a Grammar Reeducation Camp classroom for 28 days, learning that 'thou' is not proper English and has not been for several hundred years. It will sit there in the classroom for 23 hours a day, and a slave will carry it to its cell for the remaining hour to sit in stupidity and evilness. After the 28 days, the Grammar Reeducation Instructor will eat the now-stale piece of Kulseth, or, if it is too stale and moldy, the slave will eat it. That shall be the fate of Kulseth the wicked heathen man.

"Three days until Republica shall be overthrown, that is my word, and the Word of the Lord! But all who repent and join forces with Legion of Lucifer or convert to the Church of Gregoryisgodistan shall be spared from death. For I am a merciful Lord who spares those who join forces against my enemies. For said enemies, there shall be no punishment but death. Anyone who continues to maintain faith in the Church of Saintland shall be killed. All Churches of Saintland shall be burned. We shall pillage and ransack the city, then kill Kulseth. Then the whole world shall realize that I am the Lord Your God, who delivered the Republicans out of wickedness and into the Legion of Lucifer. I long for the day when all nations recognize me as the One True Lord, but until then I will accept the Legion of Lucifer as a good Republican government.

"In fact, within 48 hours of Legion of Lucifer gaining control, I plan to travel to Republica (under heavy guard, lest any lone rebels try to assassinate me, though they will fail for I am immortal), to negotiate a historic peace treaty with Mr. Nicholls and the other leaders of the new Republican government. My goal is that we will establish full diplomatic relations with the Free Republics, complete with embassies in each other's countries, we shall remove them from the Enemy List, and we shall form a lasting partnership against any remaining bastions of the Church of Saintland, the False Church of Lies. We shall fight together against the Sanctii-backed programs of gender inequality, homophobia, ridiculous dress codes, stupid grammar rules, and failure to spell the name of their false prophet correctly. They will not need to recognize me as God, only as legitimate sovereign of Gregoryisgodistan, which they will recognize as a legitimate nation. How could they not, after all the assistance we have provided them? I have no doubt that this negotiation will go off without a hitch, and perhaps we will open an embassy in Republica as soon as mid-August, with the Republicans reciprocating in the Capital District. That will be a historic day, one nobody ever believed would come. A Republican-Gregoryisgodistani peace treaty, and I look forward to signing it with Mr. Nicholls just as soon as they gain full control and we kill Kulseth.

"But now, we must wait patiently back home for our military to do their job. They will continue to push further into the Empire towards Republica, and will soon breach the border of Republica. From there it is not too far to the center of government offices, and we will destroy Kulseth, kill him and his allies, and raise the flag of the Legion of Lucifer in the town square. Within a week or so, it will fly at the IR Bureau (OOC: International Relations Bureau, analogous to the State Department) as well, along with the flags of all other governments with which we have relations. But first, we need to get that peace treaty started. The work of a God and Head of State never stops, and that will be my first priority once the Legion establishes itself in Republica. Right now, let us pause and reflect on how far we have come in this war. Soon, a friendly government will be installed in our greatest enemy land. Republica shall fall! Surrender now or prepare to fight!"

[Kandorith]

---

Beaten But Not Broken


The Though Road Ahead

---

Kandorith had a difficult road towards the World Cup and it became even more difficult when the group draw was announced. The Red Dragons face a very tough opposition and have to do anything to stay at least second in the group. The fans will not give up, neither will the team, but the first match was a big loss. Kandorith tried to defend the best they could but the defensive play from Huangzhou eventually succumbed to the attack from The Holy Empire. Kandorith went 1 - 3 down, a huge blow to the Kandorese World Cup dreams, but the feeling among the fans and players remains unshaken; they're here to play in the World Cup and perform for nation and empire. Although it is looking uphill for Kandorith from here, the team has certainly been in tougher situations not only throughout the current qualifiers but through the years. The believe is strong that Kandorith can once overcome their challenges and shine on the world stage once more, for the glory of the Kandorese nation.



Kandorith has been a rising force in the world football for a long time now, but still has not managed to really shine on the world stage. Huangzhou promised the Kandorese fans a football team they could be proud off, they have improved a lot, but they will have to do better in the upcoming matches. The Kandorese won't settle for anything less than second place in the group, and with the toughest match out of the way; they can start focusing on playing their game, instead of trying to keep out as many goals as possible. The Holy Empire beating Kandorith was almost certain, but Kandorith has stood their ground against an overwhelming force. As the Emperor has already announced to be watching the upcoming matches from within the stadium; the morale had a massive boost. Could divine intervention become a part of Kandorith's success again, or will they be eliminated early in this World Cup. Kandorith being eliminated this early in the World Cup would be a massive drawback from the performance they gave away in the previous run. The Red Dragons managed to reach the round of 16, against all odds, this time however they will have to fight for it. the next upcoming match is against San José Guayabal and after that Felix, two must win matches for Kandorith. The fans are prepared for these big games, the players are prepared too and Huangzhou's presence is inspiring to the players. Combine these factors with the Emperor and Empress themselves being present, and Kandorith finds themselves basking in good confidence.

[The Royal Kingdom of Quebec]

When Maurice walked out of Chanerworth Hall, Charles was the only person by the doors. Isolated yet [bright], he was still smoking the cigarette he had lit earlier in the seminar room. It was already dark- already everybody had headed back to their dormitories, and wind was the only thing that's been blowing over the streets. Maurice asked Charles where Glenn and Julie were. His response talked of them heading back to their hometowns, resting with welcoming family, sleeping well and silent on their beds. With that, Maurice felt separated from them: Boundaries drawn between him and his students.

'Guess that's what everybody's been up to.' Maurice sighed as he lit his cigarette. He could hear her voice: over-invested, dynamic but ringing, it struck and ran over his mind as he fell into an usual sequence. He wished he could head home sooner: It's still few months from now until he'd be back, where he'd back looking into her features and fucking her hard. But for the Winter break, he's stuck here.

Whether it be a frowned relationship didn't matter to him. As Danielle Artois once wrote, age was only a state of a mind, and he had no time to care for his age. That's what made him so polarised: Unlike his colleagues, he lived a foolish life without care nor conformity expected in a man his age. While his university friends were busy seeking advancement in their workplace, he taught and researched without worrying for anything else. Whenever he was tired, he could just rest back home and read for hours, which he had found lifelong pleasure in doing so. And if he's bored, he could always find solace in discussing with his senior-level students and people back home, where Anna was waiting for him to come back to that side of the world.

If only the planes can take me so near, Maurice thought as he slowly inhaled the cigar. The Casavant 18, the classical definition of a Bourgeois cigarette, allowed him to really think deep into the lights and relax in presence of others. Slowly watching over the distance, he kept the joint and smiled to the girl walking across him that made her laugh all the way from the other side of the Lumley Boulevard. When he had finished his PhD, Maurice was 27 and optimistic. He had searched a job and after a period where he had spent money off his lifetime savings, found one as the lecturer at University of Yucaiquin, a well-known Guayabalense institution. He never made it past 4th semester, citing high taxation rate and overly radical academia: Swaying into various zones of nowhere is banal. Then he had drifted into various positions before 34, teaching at City of Jan Mayen University and Samseonryeong College before ending up at Mount Ester.

Haley, surname Calavance, has been the lecturer on their History Department and they had, surprisingly to his like-minded colleagues, got along very well. Haley was a good McCoy to him, a philosophiser whose favourite activity was writing her novel while drinking a Moonshine by the riverside. She, though bizarre and syntaxed in nature, was also a great teacher and researcher, something that he was impressed especially because of how young she was. Most people her age, he thought, could never do something like that- and he knew it.

After the year Maurice was offered a 2 year contract, to which he, after few years working from places to places, graciously took. He had since discovered that he enjoyed the quiet, academic environment of Mount Ester. Located 50 kilometres off Bathurst, he had found true solace in his office where his ideas took off without too much flab or any other unnecessary distractions from his life (sans Anna). With time he did works after works and was offered better positions and opportunities on the field. He now sat on the podium serving as one of most well-profiled professors who could both research and teach. He had become the 'permanent', and his fellows were with them.

'Hey Maurice.' Gentle breeze of her voice snapped Maurice out of the induced calmness. Haley slowly walked towards him, her eyes wide open and bright. Maurice was startled by the ever-glowing eyes of her colleague. Once facing each other, they gave each other a peck on cheek as greetings.

'Hey again, Haley. What's up?'

'Nothing much. Thought this might worth something for you, before I forget,' Haley then gave Maurice a light package consisting of various sheets of paper. 'Some travel package I got from my cousin who operates a hotel up Santa Marta. I can't go because I already paid everything for a trip with Benny to Farfadillis. Since I am running outta people to offer this, because they already were busy with their vacation plans, I may as well give it to you.'

Maurice hesitated, then agreed.

'Sure why not?'

[Turori]

A New "Settlement" Rises in the Forest
Tropicorp Officials offer first glimpse of new Cocoabo Forest development

KIONAO, TURORI :: With the majority of the planning and preparation for the Cocoabo Preservation Society's vast Cocoabo Preserve completed, there was some time for Cocoabo Preservation Society president and former Turori National Team player Noa-Isinao Wioauoi to relax.

As much as he tried to relax, however, he couldn't stop thinking about whether he'd bitten off more than he could chew. The amount of land handed over to the care of the Cocoabo Preservation Society by the Atlantian Oceania Regional Defense Organization (AORDO) was double the size of Turori itself. Not only was it ample land for the Cocoabo to roam - it was probably ample land for all the Cocoabo that had ever existed. No one could accuse Wioauoi of not planning for the future.

Then, of course, there was Tropicorp. They were responsible for a lot of the designs, donating the hours of some really good engineers and planners at no cost to the Cocoabo Preservation Society. The only concession required was continued access and rights to maintain the employee village and transportation routes within the Forest, presumably allowing Tropicorp to conduct small amounts of research as well in concert with Cocoabo Preservation Society specialists.

Wioauoi had just finished a meeting with Dr. Hamonii, the lead of Tropicorp's Cocoabo Forest efforts. Dr. Hamonii was more of a visionary than a functional manager, always thinking about the future and not terribly concerned with the day-to-day - which is likely why he was in Kionao talking with Wioauoi and not on site in the Cocoabo Forest.

That said, Dr. Hamonii invited Noa-isinao Wioauoi to come to the section of the Forest to see what they had been up to.

After taking some time to relax, Wioauoi met up with Dr. Hamonii outside the Cocoabo Preservation Society headquarters where they boarded a flying transport and set off for the Cocoabo Forest.

The flying transport itself was a tri-blade 3-seater with no room for additional passengers or cargo. It was clearly emblazoned not only with the Tropicorp colors - Navy Blue, Orange and just a touch of white, but the "Tropicorp" wordmark prominently along the top of the craft, just under the blades; and the instantly recognizable tri-dart emblem adorning the tail just above a stabilizing rotor.

Inside the craft, spaces were cramped and, taking the middle seat, which was recessed from the pilot and co-pilot seat - the co-pilot seat being occupied by Dr. Hamonii, the view was somewhat limited to what was in front and at reasonable elevation.

It wasn't a long trip from Kionao to the forest, but along the way the two discussed something that had been on both of their minds for some time. What if the Cocoabo Forest was more than just a place for scientists and researchers to monitor, understand and preserve the Cocoabo? What if the Cocoabo Forest was also accessible to the general public?

To Dr. Hamonii's delight, Wioauoi was receptive of the idea. While there would still be smaller Cocoabo preservation areas throughout the Island Emirate, including one right at the Cocoabo Preservation Society headquarters, it would likely make it a more inviting and comforting environment for the on-site employees, researchers and scientists if they got he occasional visit from family, conservationists or just the touristy enthusiast type.

Dr. Hamonii, perhaps with something more grandiose in mind, referenced that the transportation authority of the Kingdom and United Provinces of Krytenia had already agreed in principle to the construction of a passageway between towns on the Krytenian Border and any settlements inside the Cocoabo Forest - a potential upgrade to the dirt road and flying transport methods currently required for access.

As they approached the Cocoabo Coast, the excitement in Dr. Hamonii's voice was evident. Wioauoi strained his neck to see if he could get a better view. With the added range of motion and a little loosening of his belts, Wioaoui could just make out a settlement that he hadn't seen before. It was far more developed than the others within the Forest.

"You've been busy, haven't you Jon?" speaking informally to his colleague and friend.

"Spared no expense", Dr. Hamonii retorted.

...To be continued...

[Vilita]

World Cup 72 Finals: Group C

KIRISAKI

Best Feature: The wings of the bird

Worst Feature: The head of the bird

Most Notable Feature: The bird.

One Change To Make: Give the bird a more ferocious head.

Could Also Pass As the Flag of... Stvoto Latoli before applying paint-by-number

Amakra's Final Word: The phoenix rises powerfully from the ashes! Well, there's no flames. The phoenix rises through a dark wall! No, not a phoenix. Is that the head of a swan? Is this a show of power, of relentlessness - or of submission? The questions about the modern Kirisakian flag remain.

PASARGA

Best Feature: Golden Arrow

Worst Feature: Transition between the Crescent and the Field

Most Notable Feature: Golden Arrow

One Change To Make: A thin yellow outline on the crescent

Could Also Pass As the Flag of... 8-bit Vilita

Amakra's Final Word: This flag is not overly complicated, instantaneously recognizable and scales well. The deep red of the crescent sometimes gets lost in the field of forest green, but with the right contrast settings, this one is a keeper.

APOX

Best Feature: The "Raging" platypus

Worst Feature: The "Timid" platypus

Most Notable Feature: The flag is the platypus. It is the good, the bad and the ugly of Apox. Yes, there is a field and a cross behind it, but if this flag were just a platypus on a transparent field, it would still be Apox.

One Change To Make: I would enhance the Platypus; either by making it larger or distinguishing it from the field with a deeper shade.

Could Also Pass As the Flag of... Saintland

Amakra's Final Word: Its a simple flag and it has a critter as its centerpiece, good solid flag design plusses. But it doesn't really stand out and the critter is hard to distinguish, firstly because it uses the same colors as the field and trim of the flag, and secondly because its a non-traditional critter - which is both a minus and a plus. The real question is can this newly-elected WCC Presidential nation focus in on the energy of the Raging platypus, or will the Timid platypus reign supreme?

FARFADILLIS

Best Feature: Bold, bordered, Neon green stripe slashing through the field

Worst Feature: Triangular Red Corners

Most Notable Feature: The one thats missing. Where did it go?

One Change To Make: The flag used to be darker which helped emphasize the neon-ness. Reduce the red corners with some more black.

Could Also Pass As the Flag of... Gloriax

Amakra's Final Word: Ok, what happened here. I know this flag used to be more interesting than what I'm seeing here. The Farfutian flag I remember was more resemblant of the FFF logo of their football federation. This just looks like a pattern meant for a tie that you get on clearance at 90% off because it wasn't a big seller. Oh well, its still unique enough to make "Could also pass as..." assumptions tough.

World Cup 72 Finals: Group D

NEPHARA

Best Feature: The left-most dark triangle

Worst Feature: The top-most dark triangle

Most Notable Feature: Green Cross design

One Change To Make: If we're keeping the base design I'd experiment with adding something of national identity to overlay the field in one of the 4 triangular quadrants.

Could Also Pass As the Flag of... Arcantova

Amakra's Final Word: Simplicity is always good, and the flag stands out, if for nothing else, its simplicity and lack of contrast. Nothing has to change, but one thing is clear, the only way to go here is in the direction of more detail.

KRYTENIA

Best Feature:

Worst Feature: The inverted pentagon formed by the white stars in the negative space between the points of each of the primary stars

Most Notable Feature: Field of Cyan

One Change To Make: Get rid of the Stars (Aren't those reserved for Champi'uns?). The field of Cyan would be sufficient anyway.

Could Also Pass As the Flag of... Nova Sarzonia

Amakra's Final Word: All fun aside, its a good flag, but I never realized how much I wanted to connect the dots on those stars to form a pentagon until it was time for this flag to be featured on "Fun with Flags". Also, because the entire centerpiece is aligned centrally - including the white stars - the more noticeable (and larger) navy blue star is, itself, not centrally aligned.

FALCUS

Best Feature: Triangles

Worst Feature: The Sun

Most Notable Feature: The Red Triangles, pointing at each other

One Change To Make: Make the sun more prominent, less realistic

Could Also Pass As the Flag of... Ceni

Amakra's Final Word: This flag has two themes going on. 1) Simplicity in Geometry. It uses simple shapes - Triangles, everywhere. There are 10 individual, 12 compounded triangles on this flag. Then 2) Raging Natural Sunlight. They go from a simple shape to a realistic portrait of the solar being. And they put it on a white background, so you can't really see it. It may be the desired effect, but it doesn't analyze well.

LEGALESE

Best Feature: The contrast between the field and the primary element

Worst Feature: As fun as they are, the curls are distracting

Most Notable Feature: Sleepy Mustache Man

One Change To Make: In order to get rid of the Mustache man, just remove the curls. But Mustache Man is fun, so why would you do that to us?

Could Also Pass As the Flag of... Kirisaki, considering we haven't entirely figured out the ambiguity surrounding the primary feature of that flag either.

Amakra's Final Word: This is a timeless flag. Simple, two-tone, reflecting instantly the nations namesake. Also, possibly, serving as a self portrait of its citizens. Overworked, Tired, curly-mustache men.

[Free Republics]

Noburu Taiyou, until now, had been the one place where the Holy Republican Empire wasn't crumbling. Admiral Theriault's forces had crushed the revolt by the elected Taiyouese government and had driven the leader of said revolt to suicide. Taiyou was back under Republican control, yet for some reason, the Taiyouese always seemed to act suspiciously whenever Holy Republican troops entered a room, as if they were hiding something.

During the occupation of Taiyou by Theriault's fleet and the Navy WHALES, there had been an epidemic of food poisoning in quite a few Taiyouese restaurants. Seemingly on a daily basis, more of Theriault's men were having to receive medical attention for food-related illnesses. Yet, he couldn't prove that it was anything deliberate, so he couldn't do anything about it. Pierre Theriault wasn't about to take action when it was possible that it had all been an accident. He needed to win over the hearts and minds of the Taiyouese and if that meant possibly allowing some of them to deliberately poison his men, then he had to take that chance.

Besides, Theriault had more serious problems to concern himself with. The electricity at the reclaimed bases was unreliable for some dubious reason even though the power was still reliable on the rest of Taiyou. For some reason, his military communications were constantly dealing with interference from civilians who were using the same frequencies to transmit computer-generated pop music to one another. Text-to-speech singing software had become a big hit in Taiyou ever since it had been introduced and the Taiyouese competed amongst themselves to make the "best" songs with the software, though all of the songs sounded exceedingly obnoxious if you didn't speak their language.

Unfortunately for Theriault, there was absolutely nobody under his command who actually spoke the Taiyouese language and his superiors on the mainland had too many problems to deal with to worry about the pacification of Taiyou at the moment. The only people he had who could provide him any intelligence on what was going on were some Taiyouese collaborators and he couldn't trust that they were providing him with accurate information. He had sent a young Taiyouese girl out on the streets of Tohoko to find out whether any restaurants were deliberately poisoning food. She had reported back to him that there was a large food poisoning epidemic among the Taiyouese population as well and that most people on the street believed that it was caused by the ongoing war. On an island where fish was a staple, people were apparently wondering whether fish was safe due to the aftereffects of the nuking of Hicana.

Of course, all of this was a lie, a charade to fool the Republicans. The girl's name, unbeknownst to Theriault, was Maruko Takahashi and she was the niece of Wakiko Takahashi. She was a spy posing as a collaborator who was deliberately leading Theriault astray. In fact, almost all of the collaborators were actually spies and those who weren't knew that the spies would turn the Republicans against them if they undermined their efforts to sabotage the opposition at every turn. The food poisoning and power outages were deliberate and the software was only able to send out music on those particular frequencies with a special patch distributed by the resistance.

However, with the Holy Republican Empire falling apart and with the secret arrival of Legion of Lucifer fighters under the command of Eleanor Welch, the Taiyouese were preparing to move from passive resistance to active resistance. They were preparing an all out assault to drive the Republicans from their islands once and for all and secure their independence. Soon, it would be time for Taiyou to claim its independence...

---

Meanwhile, in the Equestrian States, the Holy Republican National Soccer Team was distraught after being shocked by the Sandwich Territories on the first matchday of the World Cup. Many analysts had predicted an overwhelming Republican victory, with one highly respected expert on international soccer even predicting an 8 to nil Republican win. Yet, they had lost 3 to 1 against a team that was ranked far lower than they. Other than their loss to Vilita in the World Cup 68 Final, this was the worst loss they had ever suffered in a World Cup finals.

In the end, it was Koby Theodore who rallied the team, explaining to them that this was just one match and that they were still the #4 ranked team in the multiverse. Theodore, once the young backup striker who had allowed peer pressure to talk him into doing things that he knew were wrong, was now the team's unquestioned best player. He took responsibility for the multiple scoring opportunities he had squandered during the match and rallied his teammates.

The Holy Republicans had come into the World Cup with their highest ranking ever and expecting to walk over the Sandwich Territories as the first stepping stone on their path toward a World Cup title. Now, an overconfident Holy Republican National Team had met defeat on the pitch just as their nation was falling apart from within and their leader's days appeared to be numbered. Indeed, some observers wondered whether some of the players were intentionally putting forth a lackadaisical effort to help their beloved former manager Rule Theriault get his property back once Consul Kulseth inevitably fell. If so, putting forth a terrible performance at the World Cup finals was certainly one way to get Kulseth's hand-picked manager fired by the new government...

[Valanora]

Valanora Times
How The Marauders Got Their Groove Back

Let us all be honest here for a moment, when the groups where announced, perhaps even when it was announced that the Marauders would be hosting the World Cup, a lot of us expected that the squad would fail to win a game. There were some us who said a draw or victory over Semarland would be possible but the most common expectation was a frustrating record of no wins, no draws, and three losses by the time that the group stage was over, making it so that the Marauders would be last and have had a short stay in the Cup they were hosting. Given the way that the Marauders had fared in WCC matches the last six years, it was not a tale that seemed exaggerated in the least especially with their current ranking at its lowest point since World Cup 32.

However all that skepticism and negativity can be washed away in the afterglow of a wonderful performance against the default first seeds of the group in Quebec to start the tournament. Quebec, ranked twelve in the current iteration of the WCC rankings, were expected to hand the Marauders their worst ever defeat in a home World Cup Finals match, with the Marauders have never lost by more than two goals at home in the Finals before. With their high tempo offense that rivals the likes of Bettia of old and our Glorious Southwest neighbors in Farfadillis, it was expected that they would be blitzing the Marauder backline and putting the goals in by the bucket load. It seems that we all were quite foolish to underestimate the temperament and pride of these Marauders, as they rose up to the occasion in a way only the most die hard of fans and The Navy Wave could have predicted.

Playing in their green kits, the Marauders took to the field in the Battleground and through the opening ceremonies looked as stern faced and concentrated as they have ever been. Once the opening whistle was blown, they were on the attack from the get go, with the hero quartet looking to prove that this Marauder side is worthy of their presence, that this side was not about to disgrace the shirt and all the history that came with it. Seven minutes in and it would be a nifty one-two combination between va Drake and Soldarian on the flank that would free up the Yuba United winger to make a dashing run into the box. Cech did well to save the initial shot but the power of the close range blast was to much as he spilled the effort back into the six, where Fresco tapped it in for the early lead and to a roar of applause from the home support.

"Fresco, Fresco, he's our striker man
If any elf can do the dirty work
Only our Fresco can

The Quebec side looked a little stun and startled that the hosts had come out with such vigor and were struggling most of the first half to keep up with the crisp and clean passing of the Marauder midfield. It was display of tactical genius from Vanauraiiel Nardironel, getting her side to play the possession game to try and keep the Quebec side from getting chances and tiring them out chasing the game. With a goal to the good at the half and looking on even footing if not better than their competition at the half, it was working exactly as the manageress had hoped that it would. All that progress though seemed to come unraveling when Quebec took the opening kickoff of the second half and scored within fifteen seconds.

With both sides now going hard into every challenge and fifty-fifty ball, Nardironel knew that a change was needed if the squad was going to pull of the upset. Dûrdur Celetholtinu was brought off at the hour mark and replaced by the not often used Héra Teltholsyr, adding even more control of the midfield and allowing Laborious Hawk to play more as a withdrawn striker. That move for Hawk would be the ultimate dividend as he found space between Jeong and Shin to take one of his trademark thirty yard bombs. Cech had no chance of stopping it and was hoping that it would take a deflection off the crossbar and out, instead it dived inside the bar and into the netting putting the hosts up once more. With the stranglehold that the Marauders had in the midfield, Quebec never got a chance in those last twenty minutes in the Marauder half, as the side stepped on the ball until the final whistle.

"Hawk the glorious,
Hawk the great,
Only Elune can compete!"

With the top ranked side in the group now defeated and behind them, the Marauders can look on in hope towards the rest of the group, with the folks from Semarland up next. It is a bit of a Calania flavor to the group, with Semarland and Quebec, perhaps the minnows of the group looking to get revenge for their continental brothers from that opening game and the destruction that the Marauders put upon all of Calania three years ago as they won their second AOCAF. A win here would do wonders as it would have the Marauders going into the last matchday of the group as the group leaders and against a Mertagne side that may be ripe for the taking. However Semarland is no slouch, as they showed by advancing out of the group with Eura and erasing a Buyan lead in the playoff with a drubbing of the excellent side in Buyan to earn their spot in the final 32. Once more the Marauder defense will need to show that they are not as poor as both foreign and home media make them out to be, while the hero quartet continues to shine above the rest. That combo may very well see the Marauders coming once more back to the elite of the elite in the world of football, but at the very least, winners of their group!

[Saintland]

The Sanctii National Team arrived in the Equestrian States once again. Their opponent at Diamond Park in Stalliongrad before a crowd that loathed them was also a familiar one: the 2-time World Cup champions from Vilita. Saintland had never beaten Vilita before, though officially they had 3 draws against them in 5 previous matches. 2 of those draws, however, had involved the team from Feministvs Sanctvsterra. Despite their inability to beat Vilita, the Sanctii had still won their qualifying group 4 World Cups ago due to the Vilitans suffering a series of draws.

The biggest difference from the last time these 2 teams had met was the change in philosophy of the Sanctii team. Once an attack-minded team, the Sanctii had shifted to a more cautious style of play during Rule Theriault's short-lived tenure as their manager and King Andreas had decided to largely stick with Theriault's tactics even after he fired Theriault.

As the match began, a group of Feministvs Sanctvsterra activists sitting just behind the Sanctii bench began holding up signs and jeering at the Sanctii National Team. The single largest of those signs was a sign that read "Andreas is a Usurper! Petrus is the True King!" While King Petrus wasn't popular either in the Equestrian States, Feministvs Sanctvsterra was now supporting him because he had tried to legalize their organization and establish parliamentary democracy in the Kingdom. They were intent upon taking him up on his offer to return home, start a political party and compete in the elections for Parliament but then the Patriarch and King Andreas had removed the King from power, leaving them still unable to return home safely.

While a few security ponies watched to make sure the Feministvs Sanctvsterra ladies didn't jump the railing and try to streak across the pitch, as they had done so many times before, King Andreas was infuriated by their presence and took out his anger upon the Jungle Cats. The King of Saintland stole the ball away from Tripate Falcon in the third minute and passed it ahead to Stephanus Vagionius. Vagionius took a shot at the goal, which would connect with the right post. Josephus Flaccus charged forward and put it into the net to give Saintland an early goal to nil advantage.

As the match continued, it became more and more clear that the Sanctii were in remarkably strong form on this day and the Jungle Cats looked a bit off of their game, as is usual for them in the first match of a tournament. This combination led to an unusually one-sided match between two relatively evenly matched teams on paper that saw the Jungle Cats struggle to get anything going offensively all day long. The second Santii goal would come just after the half-hour mark. This time, King Andreas received a long Lucas Aufidius pass and immediately took a deep shot at the Vilitan goal. Zelkki Milaki leapt for it, but jumped a split-second early and had to watch the ball sail through his hands and into the back of the net. Petrus Mamilius would score the third and final Sanctii goal off of a corner in the 73rd minute, as Saintland beat Vilita for the first time ever, by a 3-nil margin.

Elsewhere, Yttribia had played 2-time defending champions Osarius to a draw, allowing the Sanctii to win the group by defeating Yttribia on the second matchday. The World Cup had started out perfectly for the Sanctii National Team...

---

King Petrus XX watched the match on Quebecois television and felt disgusted as he watched his brother, who had stolen his throne, dismantle Vilita. Petrus wanted his Throne back and he knew that he had to make his move before the World Cup was over. However, to do that, he had to get the Quebecois government to send troops into Saintland to help restore him to the throne.

Fortunately, the Euran Navy had intervened, preventing Gregoryisgodistani troops from being the ones to liberate Saintland. A "liberation" at the hands of the Gregoryisgodistanis would, assuredly, be worse than continued rule by his good-for-nothing usurper of a little brother. It was time for the King of Saintland, the Legitimate King of Saintland, to make his move and regain his throne.

The only problem was the question of how to get Quebec to declare war against Saintland. Andreas and the Patriarch still maintained plausible deniability that they had anything to do with the Christian State. There was simply no justification for anybody to intervene in what was an internal dispute between 2 brothers. If only, the King told himself, somebody would find evidence connecting them to the Christian State terrorist group. Then, it may be easier to get somebody to take action and restore him to his throne...

[Polar Islandstates]

OOC: With a cheerful nod towards The Holy Empire's RPs...

Aria - 'The Terns Take Flight 'Round Yond Leather Orb'
(Basil Comneno)

Only, that particular flight round yond leather orb was anything but an aria. I'm fully aware that Rasmussen's sides are capable of playing football as expressive and as beautiful as an aria, or the finest works of art, but last night we also saw how they can play when they have to knuckle down and get dirty. If one end of the spectrum is an aria, then this was a monster truck rally.

From the very start, it was a twisted hymn to the warped metal and shredded rubber that only the most hardened of destruction derby fans could appreciate. Football? This wasn't football. It was a battle. And it was fantastic.

There are lots of teams that the Terns consider themselves rivals with or have grudge matches against: Astograth, Eura, the other VU nations, Audioslavia, Saugeais, Erathore, Darmen, Krytenia, Pasarga, The Weegies, The Archregimancy... but since the international retreat of Astograth, none have been quite so much fun as our tussles with Sargossa. They're the pantomime enemy, the team you love to hate. There's some pretty serious hatred for some of the other nations out there that spouts forth from the mouths of Twitchers from time to time, but none of it is delivered with quite so much gleeful zeal as when we spout it about the Ol' Pointy Bastards. Mainly, this is because we know they'll give it as good as they get it. We love to it. We love to stare each other in the face, full on, and proudly say mean things about each others' mothers. It is a hatred that you could build chapels to. In some ways, that's exactly what Külmsaar is these days.

The players' handshakes at the start of the match seemed to say it all, anyway. With the clumsy and awkward shuffle the politicians are making towards some sort of détente - like six year old cousins at a wedding being goaded into dancing with each other by overbearing camera-touting grandparents - it feels less and less like all it would take is one bad tackle to spark a diplomatic crisis. And by the looks of the sparks in the players' eyes, they knew it. It was an unburdening of responsibility. No longer would they have to hold back for fear Soluca would send a warship aggressively into Terra Scotian waters. No longer would they have to keep their studs down for fear Franz Josef City would send another series of trade sanction proposals to the governments of Oygruppen.

As the rain fell in sheets over Manehatten, the shackles were well and truly off. Each player seemed to enjoy each handshake a little more than the last time they played each other. There seemed to be an extra squeeze there, a lingering half a second accompanied by an expectant leer in the eye-language. You and me. Us and them. Let's go. Right now.

And that's not just rhetoric, either - it took only twenty seconds for the first foul of the match. Bjorn Konigstein was, as ever, a likely culprit for a rush of blood to the head, and he didn't disappoint, sliding in through the back of Devesa without the Terns even having touched the ball yet. It would take two minutes for the Terns to get a touch in fact, as Sargossa played an intriguing game of keep-ball so early in the match. For all the apparent gulf in quality between the teams, the head coach Carrasco had been making a lot of noise about not wanting to try and fight us off the ball, but to match us in our ambitions for a clean and attractive style of football.

It's a shame, then, that nobody told us that that was the plan. Because we apparently came for a fight, and with the old adage proving true, Sargossa's plan never stood a chance of surviving first contact with the Terns.

The tackles soon started flying in both directions. Players were tumbling and going to ground on the rapidly muddying Derby Field pitch, with the first yellow cards being brandished before the half-hour mark for Konigstein, Holzhauser, Strauss, and Devesa. Holzhauser's card in particular was the most amusing one of those, as he drifted 'innocently' across the mid-air follow-through of Federico Noyola, who, having just taken a shot that whizzed over Ulsletten's crossbar, was vulnerable to being easily popped off balance. Holzhauser obliged the laws of physics, and Noyola did a neat hundred and eighty degree spin before landing on his arse. It was poetry.

Of the yellow cards, in fact, only Strauss' was perhaps justified. Sliding in to prevent Noyola from breaking through into a one-on-one with Ulsletten, only the rapidly covering figure of Bjerregaard stopped Strauss from being the last man and getting himself sent off. It's not the first time Bjerregaard's pace has saved a team-mate from getting sent off like that before, and it probably won't be the last, but at only twenty minutes into the opening group stage match of a World Cup against Sargossa, you'd be hard-pressed to suggest there will be many more crucial occasions than that.

But despite the hearty tackles, here's the thing; none of them were mean spirited. None of them were overly aggressive. Not a single one was underhand, or done with the intention of tricking the referee into getting away with it. There weren't any dives, there wasn't any shirt-pulling, there wasn't any feigning injury or reacting to tackles angrily. There was just two teams of eleven players each, relishing the chance to get dirty in a physical battle under the torrential rain.

Whenever I'm in Manechester, it seems to rain. I have no idea why that is the case, but it made for a great football match on this occasion, I can tell you. Such was the mud, in fact, that a couple of players came out for the second half with a new jersey on at the request of the referee who needed - after all - to see shirt numbers. Otkupshchikov in particular had made several trips onto the turf when challenging players in the air, and it wasn't long until he'd got his replacement jersey muddy as well - sliding in to block Noyola's long range shot from ever reaching the penalty box.

Sargossa were reacting in kind to everything the Terns did at this point, with the form book well and truly thrown out of the window. It wasn't so much a World Cup match in appearance as a first round Latitude Cup tie between two minnows trying to out-kick the other side on the way to a high profile second round tie. There was heart, so much heart. But not a lot else, really. The flair players started to quickly look a little lost, in fact. Bickermann's natural tree-trunk power came to the fore just as Kirkkegaard's rather more lightweight technical advantages got swallowed up by the nature of the play. Bjerregaard's pace started to get more and more bogged down in the - well, bogs... and Luar Dardan just looked lost full stop.

A petulant yellow card for Dardan earned when he kicked the ball away was the final straw for Rasmussen, and he was soon hauled off in favour of the rather more grounded Mateusz Wolff. It also seems apt that the only yellow card earned for anything that wasn't a good, honest, tough-natured tackle was given to the player who isn't really Sargossan or Polarian. Kirkkegaard soon followed Dardan in being subbed off, with Victor Larsen's abilities perfectly suited for the slug-fest the match had become.

Cards for Ibarra, Zacarías, and Merino brought the Sargossans level on cautions with us, before Bjerregaard made things tip in our favour again with a high challenge that winded Sola and forced him off. After, of course, a handshake from Bjerregaard.

Concern that the Terns were now a little too light on attacking flair saw the slightly limping figure of Eidur Gunnlaugsson get replaced by Sim Lefebvre, and with ten minutes left of the match, the Terns pressed on with the atmosphere in the stadium reaching fever pitch. The rain, still falling, caught the glinting of the floodlights beautifully as it fell, giving the whole performance the nature of a theatre production. Or, just maybe, an opera. And operas feature arias. So it was that the full metal thrashfest of the last eighty-five minutes were concluded by a work of art.

There were three acts.

Act I: Aria - Lo Did Close Control Retain Possession (Mateusz Wolff)
As the tackles from Sargossa bit back, it fell to young Sim Lefebvre to provide the spark that ultimately led to the downfall of the opposition. Turning on a pfennig, the Surtsey midfielder out-manoeuvred Merino and played the ball backwards to Wolff to ensure the Terns kept possession. Desperation was in the air, with the seconds ticking away with every raindrop, and Wolff had to chip the ball over the onrushing legs of the superb Noyola - who never stopped running all night it has to be said, far exceeding his expected defensive roles as a poacher - with his first touch, and then bring the ball out of one of several puddles of standing water before he could play the ball up to Victor Larsen. Chesting the ball down in a glorious burst of spray, Larsen was promptly cleaned out from behind by Lucena, and the Terns were awarded a free kick.

The temperature dropped as the weather front moved over, but the volume rose from both sets of fans.

Act II: Aria - Perfect Arcs Drawn in the Night Sky, Leaving an Absence of Rain as would a Comet cast a Shadow (Moses Luc Bjerregaard) - Counter-Melody - Not on My Watch, Sunshine (Rafael Molino)
There was a small tussle over ownership of the free kick from the Terns. Given the weather conditions, and the nature of the match, the usual pecking order in these situations seemed to disappear, and with Dardan and Gunnlaugsson both off the pitch, two of the regular set piece takers were already out of the running for the chance to take it. Moses Luc Bjerregaard, normally first choice in these situations, finally wrestled the ball away from the other suitors - Victor Larsen and Bjorn Konigstein, and lined himself up for the shot. After four attempts at getting the ball to sit right, he stepped back. Looking up at the goal through the sodden figures that made up the wall, the rain dripped down his matted hair and dribbled leftover specks of mud into his collar. Taking two steps forward, he crafted the ball delightfully through the air and around the wall, requiring the most impressive of leaping touches from Molino to tip it over the bar.

Both sets of benches and thousands of fans held their head in their hands. A full spectrum of despair to relief etched on their faces.

Act III: Duet - Cosmic Dances of Ball and Water, Met by a Thunderbolt (Sim Lefebvre and Olaf Strauss)
Sim Lefebvre trotted over dutifully to take the corner. The rain lashed down, the wind blew hard in the direction of the Sargossan goal, and thunder rumbled in the distance. Players crowded the box, mud seeping up their socks as their studs churned the turf to dirt. Arms aloft, players called for the ball. Barking orders, Molino organised his defence. Lefebvre weighed up the strength of the wind, took two steps, and cleared a high corner well out towards the edge of the box. With the wind picking up, the spin of the ball effortless drove the corner swinging in towards the goal, where the figure of Olaf Strauss had somehow found enough purchase on the soft ground to leap high into the air and meet it with his forehead. Straight and true, the ball cannoned into the top corner, leaving Molino no chance whatsoever.

No sooner had Strauss landed, than lightning flashed and thunder boomed. Manechester's weather system was punctuating the drama. And how odd, in a match characterised by the grit and muscle that both teams had to offer, that the game should be decided by three outrageous feats of footballing ability by the three most technically gifted players the Terns had on the pitch at the time. Plus, Strauss' forehead, I suppose.

Sargossa fought hard, of course, and in those final few seconds there was still time for them to sting the palms of Ulsletten one more time, as well as for Kruse and Noyola to pick up yellow cards. In the end, though, it was those telling few moments from the Terns that made the difference. Otkupshchikov had captained his side to a victory at the World Cup for the first time, and he celebrated just about harder than anyone else when the final whistle blew.

It may "only" have been a one-nil victory over the "lowly" Sargossa, but under those conditions, and because it was against Sargossa if nothing else, it was the nature of the way the Terns went about the victory that will have sent a message to the rest of the Multiverse as much as anything.

"Hey guys. Yeah, I know you're used to seeing fast, technical, counter-attacking football with an emphasis on a strong defence and a lethal attack, but hear this: we can push you around just as easily as we can out-play you."

Or something like that, anyway.

All in all, it was one of the most entertaining football matches that I have ever watched, and it was made all the sweeter by the fact that come the end of it we had another win over Sargossa to put in the locker. And if that's a sign of things to come in future matches against Sargossa, then I am so on board with that idea. After the prissy "oh I wonder if we can go to tournaments cos its so cold"-ness of The Big Freeze, the years of trying to win things with an attractive football philosophy with various levels of success, and decades of trying not to start a war each time we play the Ol' Pointy Bastards, it feels so good to know that in the future we can just relax, roll our sleeves up, and have a good old scrap and roll around in the dust and dirt of the alleyway outside the local boozer. Why bother trying to win legal points in international tribunals when you can put on a bit of warpaint and settle things like rival high schools? I know which one is more fun, anyway.

There's a mean streak to this Rasmussen side that hasn't been evident before, and I like that. Judging by the way Unified Sunrise Islands almost went about toppling Turori, we're going to need it in the last two matchdays, too.

Heia Terns!

Eff.

xx

p.s. Oh Thor, Krytenia are actually going to win the World Cup, aren't they?

---

Niko Marek

Another one-club man in the list of players I've been meaning to get to, Niko Marek recently topped the list of managers the Twitchers would like to see replace Rasmussen when he finally leaves the Terns. As a firm fan of Tuulari, I'm not sure whether to be optimistic or offended that he didn't make the top three in the list. On the one hand, I never want him to leave. On the other, he'd be a great national team manager.

But anyway, Tuulari never had much of a playing career, so he won't be getting in this list.

Marek, on the other hand...

We all know how good he was for Jan Mayen, and we all know how good he was for the Terns. He is, in short, a man who needs absolutely no introduction. A near-legendary defender for club and country, who captained the Ospreys to league titles and was the first ever armband-wearer for the Terns. But what does CFM reckon he'd have gotten up to in the RLstates universe? Well, let's take a look.

First of all, choosing a place for him to be born was a guessing game, basically. Marek isn't a very common surname in the Federation, but in the RLstates area of Europe there are any of about seventeen nations that it could be from - many of which used to be part of the same nation. None of which had particularly strong leagues, disappointingly. In the end, I just went for a team with a decent chance of reaching the end stages of the international tournaments, because, let's face it, that's more fun for us on this end of the simulation. Bite me.

So, Croatia it was.

No surprises initially see him signing up with the youth team from his home-town, but quite a few surprises when he wasn't noticed by any of the big teams during that time. In fact, despite the quite obvious potential I loaded his attributes up with when I started the simulation, he managed to play a whole seasons for Hadjuk Split before he was signed for $13m by Atletico Madrid.

Immediately getting loaned back to Hadjuk, Marek diversified his role in the squad by making an equal number of appearances from both the right-back and the right centre-half positions, scoring five goals cumulatively over his three seasons in the Croatian league, finishing as league runners-up twice and reaching the Europa League group stages once. This is a role he never played in for the Terns, and never to my knowledge for Jan Mayen either, though Ospreys fans may wish to comment below and correct me on that if I'm wrong.

After that, his parent club called him back and declared him fully fit and ready for football in the big leagues. Starting with the first team straight away, his first action with Atletico was to help keep a clean sheet as his side won the European Super Cup in extra time against Manchester City. Following that, he would play every minute of the first ten leagues as Atletico scored the maximum of thirty points to give them a lead at the top of La Liga. All at the age of just twenty-two. He scored his first goal for the club in the Madrid derby in the next match, though he presumably left the pitch on a stretched half-way through the one-all draw as the records show he spent the next four months out with a broken leg. Rough.

Overall, though, his spell at Atletico was a tremendously successful one. Not counting his loan spells at Hadjuk, Marek became club captain for Atletico during his ten seasons there, scoring over thirty goals in the league and making nearly four hundred appearances. A hero, and a legend, every Jan Mayen Islander fan out there reading this will understand absolutely everything I'm describing, I'm sure. He won three league titles during that time, despite the strength of the OP Real Madrid-Barcelona rivalry that dominates the Spanish league in RLstates (completely ridiculously, if you ask me), and won a further three Spanish Cups. Atletico would go on to defend the Champions League they won in the season before Marek arrived, though he was an unused substitute in the final having been injured earlier in that season. One Europa League win towards the end of his career remained, however, the only time he would get to lift a piece of international silverware as captain.

By this point in his career he'd lost the pace that made him an option at right-back earlier in his career, and when Atletico let him more for $3m to Koln, it was clear that his role at his new club would be as a centre-back only. He spent two enjoyable seasons at mid-table Koln, and captained them as far as defeat in the German Cup to Borussia Dortmund in his first season there. Dortmund's subsequent qualification for the Champions League meant Koln earned a qualifying spot for the Europa League, too, but another injury for Marek meant he was nothing more than a spectator as he watched PAOK of Greece knock his side out.

One final move on a free to Lokomotiv Moscow was the final footnote to a long and distinguished career, and after retiring from playing the game in 2032 he went on to earn his coaching badges and join the staff at the Russian club. Four years as assistant first team coach there led to him being offered the caretaker managerial spot when the board ruthlessly sacked five coaches and the manager at once thanks to a disastrous start to the season. He accepted, and when the board could find no other replacement they deemed adequate, his role became a permanent one. Easily guiding the side away from relegation in his first year, he then raised eyebrows be securing a spot behind Zenit Saint Petersburg as league runners-up the following year. Beating the other Moscow sides - Dynamo, CSKA, Torpedo, and Spartak - in the process, always a source of pride for the fans.

One more season as league runners-up eventually gave way to Marek taking them to the league title in his final year at the club, that piece of silverware being the last bit of persuasion other clubs from across Europe needed to start offering him positions. Finally, he accepted the role at Sevilla, back in Spain.

Two high finishes in the league and a run to the Champions League quarter-finals was well above Sevilla's traditional weight class in Spain, and all the signs pointed towards a long and increasingly successful domestic managerial career in the league he understood so well - even including a home and away double over his former club Atletico in his first year in charge.

All signs, that is, until the Croatian manager was sacked following a poor start to qualifying for the 2046 World Cup. Naturally, Marek was the first choice, and naturally, he couldn't resist.

During his playing career, he had risen to the role of national team captain pretty quickly, and was first choice centre-back even before that, though a dearth of talent at right-back during his career meant he was often deployed there as well - which still only partially explains the impressive twenty-two goals he scored for his country during that time. A third placed finish at the 2030 World Cup in Mexico and a quarter-final appearance at the 2026 World Cup in Australia would be the best finishes his nation achieved during that time, though intriguingly they also went eight whole years without losing a match at the European Championships - drawing all three group stage matches in both Euro 2024 and Euro 2028 to get eliminated each time.

Advocates of the "Marek for the Terns" campaign will note with interested eyes that he just about guided his national team to qualification in 2046 through the playoffs, and he took them to the final of Euro 2048 where they were beaten by France. Come the end of the simulation he was about to start the process of taking Croatia through a group at the 2050 World Cup in England that includes hosts England, Uruguay, and New Caledonia.

I could run the sim a little longer to see how they got one, but... well, that'd be cheating, wouldn't it?

Besides, how else, then, would I have had the time to give you all an EXTRA SUPER SPECIAL BONUS SIMULATION!

Yes, to celebrate the fact the Terns just played Sargossa (booooo) and won the three points (yaaaay) against our old foes - what a great match that was, by the way - I've done a little simulation for one of their most notable players: Ernesto Farías.

Even the most hardened Twitchers would have to admit the force of nature that was Farías, having seen the Terns come up against him both on the pitch and in the dugouts. He had a notable career in Cafundeu back in the day, and curiously, his CFM equivalent had a very similar early career. I mean, I loaded him up with high potential stats but low current stats to replicate the fact he dropped a decision in real life, but I certainly wasn't expecting almost the same thing to happen in the simulation.

Born in Mexico, Farías spent some youth time with Mexican club Atlas, before moving as soon as he could sign a senior contract to Argentinian giants River Plate. Now, I'm not going to even try to pretend to understand the weird two-part league season that they use in RLstates across many of the countries in South America, so I'm just not going to tackle it, okay? I don't know why they decided to do something so odd, but it's like nothing you'll ever see in modern UICA affiliated leagues, and I just don't get it. What's wrong with one round-robin tournament a year, anyway? One home match, one away match. Easy. No quibbles.

But, anyway, they don't do that down there, and in his first two... years, at River Plate, Farías did pretty poorly. Only three appearances and no goals whatsoever must show that the stats I loaded him up with were pretty accurate, as he dropped a division to player second tier football with the delightfully named Guillermo Brown. Whoever came up with that name deserves a medal. It's brilliant.

A prolific spell there lead to him moving back home to Mexican giants Guadalajara, scoring lots of goals in the process as his exploits led him to grab the attentions of former club River Plate. Perhaps realising what a mistake they made, they signed him back up and the poor man shipped his arse back down to Mexico. Well travelled chap, clearly.

What I can only describe as 'some' games, 'some' goals, and 'some' trophies later - there were lots, okay, I don't really know which ones counted towards what, but I'm just running with this, he was brought to the attention of Getafe, in the rough area of Madrid, in Spain. One breakthrough season there saw him attract the attentions of many larger European clubs, and in the end it was a Lazio side that was - believe it or not - regularly making appearances in the Champions League knockout stages that eventually signed him for $19m after only one season at Getafe.

Three seasons and thirty-eight goals for Lazio saw Farías receive a host of award nominations as well as winning the Champions League in his second year there. By this point though, the man was getting old in the legs despite being relatively new to Europe, and Lazio cleverly gleaned $12m from Porto for him just before he turned thirty.

Porto, perhaps realising his best years were behind him, played him economically in the leagues, giving him time between matches in order to remain at his most potent when he was playing. Two loan spells back to the wonderfully named Newell's Old Boys and then subsequently Mexican champions Santos Laguna were an entertaining swansong for the striker, before finally moving to MLS club Chicago Fire for a bit of a run around in his old age.

Coaching wise, after an incredibly success international career that saw him score the winning goals in three consecutive Gold Cup finals, it should come as no surprise to see the former Sargossan manager take up the reins of his CFM RLstates nation, Mexico. Via spells as a coach with Cruz Azul and Lazio, he moved on to the Mexican u21s side, eventually returning to the u21s after a brief and not very successful period in charge of the senior side. Mexico have, interestingly, won two u21s World Cups under his watch, so, perhaps that was where he was better off all along.

The End.

And yes, I've a bit of a cult favourite lined up for after the match against Unified Sunrise Islands: Mateus Carvalho. I might do a player from Turori after our match with them, too, but I don't really know any. So, I could go for a certain Laborious Hawk, from one of the co-hosts, or Kristofer Kilpter, from Vilita. I know, he wasn't from Turori, but he does have the advantage of having played for the Spires, so, there is that...

Pip, pip.

Henrik.

Part 1: Kohev Küngas-Vaga
Part 2: Alexsandr van Sorensen
Part 3: Felix Saarinen
Part 4: Jean-Eric Villeneuve
Part 5: Tolgus Tregajorran
Part 6: Lee Sharp
Part 7: Henning Blonqvist
Part 8: Steffan Pekarik
Part 9: Petter Bielsen
Part 10a+b: Niko Marek + Ernesto Farías
Part 11a+b: Zacharias Juul + Mateus Carvalho
Part 12a+b: Timo Skye + 'Laborious Hawk vs Valrauncion'

[Pasarga]

The Apox players had looked fatigued when the final whistle blew between the Wanderers and the Apox side, a sign of the effort that Apox had put into this fixture to try and unseat the number two team in the world and favorites to win the group. That effort was commendable but perhaps a bit wasted, as the Wanderers merely looked a bit tired, as one would expect after having just played a ninety minute match. There was no true signs of fatigue from the Pasargans as compared to the very visible fatigue of their foes for the match and that was quite telling for all who stuck around to the end of the match. The results between the two had never been in doubt, it was always going to be a Pasargan victory and given Osarius slipping up against Yttribia in their opener, made some wonder if the Wanderers were not the best team in the world at the moment.

That attitude however was not allowed in Jullian van Setten's lockeroom, as that was how teams that were good found a way of dropping points when they should not have. Not letting his players get too big for themselves was how he had guided Pasarga into last World Cup's Final and how they had finally shaken off the regional curse and won the Copa Rushmori. No, this was not the best team in the world right now, that was Osarius and would continue to be the Firebirds until someone knocked them off their perch from where they cast their eyes down upon the rest of the footballing world with their back to back trophies. What this Wanderer team was was not the second best or the best team in the World, it was simply the best Wanderer team that they could be at the moment.

He grinned as he watched the players with their laughs and smiles as they came off the pitch in Miner's Haven, they were confident and happy, content at having won the game and now had three points to the good. Kirisaki would be next, a side that bothered him because of how unpredictable they were, unlike the last match with Farfadillis. You could always expect a Farfadillis side to be high octane in attack and be petrid in the back, so as long as you could get your chances and convert them, they were able to be beaten in a fairly easy way. Kirisaki though, their qualifiers had made them hard to pin down, just what sort of style they actually preferred and whether or not they were among the good sides in the footballing world.

It gave him pause but only until he saw Dominik Mauer rip off his jersey and fling it to the crowd, but it was the shirt underneath that make the manager chuckle. On the white undershirt in big, bold scarlet and gold letters where four simple words "We Do Not Bow", an odd choice but perhaps one that reflective the young stiker's aggressive attitude. Jullian often wondered what made Mauer such a powerhouse, why he was so relentless in the attack. Unlike his predecessor who was more of a poacher taking the goals from being in the right place at the right time, Dominik seemed more like a bulldog looking to smash through the backline to get the goal. Maybe that was how it was in Eura, though Mór's majesty in the midfield suggested something different. Whatever was the cause, it would be that sort of spirit that would help solve the riddle of Kirisaki, as even the most enigmatic of foes would have a trouble with a bulldog nipping at their heels.

[Alasdair I Frosticus]

OOC - see the Holy Empire roster for a detailed explanation of what's going on here.


World Cup 72
An oratorio by Jorge Handeles


ACT 5, SCENE 2
(Kandorith at Donna Cathedral, Mar Sara)


Chorus - 'Oh Mighty Cathedral of Mar Sara'

Oh mighty cathedral of Mar Sara
Where today we play Kandorith
Let us here raise a hymn of worship
To quality footballing play
Let us here raise a hymn of worship
To quality footballing play
A hymn, a hymn
A hy-y-y-y-y-mn of wo-o-o-o-o-or-ship
To quality footballing play


Recitative - 'Huangzhou Yu is Surely Far Too Young'
(Miguel Lebournes)

Huangzhou Yu is surely far too young
To match himself against wily Tzimisces!
I fear for his team today


Duet - 'Let Us Break Their Defence Asunder'
(John Monachuso and Zoe Dalasseno)

Let us break their defence asunder,
And cast away their tackles from us.
Let us, let us, let us
Bre-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ak
Their de-e-e-efence asunder!

One great ball should nicely do
To send [Zoe/Me] straight through
To score as [she/I] will surely do

Let us break their defence asunder,
And cast away their tackles from us.
Let us, let us, let us
Bre-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ak
Their de-e-e-efence asunder!


Chorus - 'We Take No Pleasure To See Them Struggle So'

We take no pleasure to see them struggle so
After Dalessano's opener
A dreadful error from Jianjun Tuan
Hath seen Strategopouloso make it two

Alas, alack, alas, alack
We take no pleasure to see them struggle so
No pleasure, no pleasure
We take no pleasure to see them struggle so


Recitative - 'At Last a Spark From Brave Kandorith'
(Michael Lascaro)

At last, a spark from brave Kandorith
Hath seen Méng Zeijí pull one back
Here now in the second half
Though it was much against the run of play!


Aria - 'We Shall Break Them With a Rod of Iron'
(Michael Lascaro)

We shall break them with a rod of iron
And dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel
Break them, break them
With a r-o-o-d of iron
And dash them in pieces, in pieces
Like a po-o-o-o-ter's vessel.
We shall break them with a rod of iron
And dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel


Aria - 'My Time at Last Has Surely Come'
(Eustathius Boilaso)

My time at last has surely come
Few goals do I get the chance to score
My time
At last
Has su-u-urely come.

A floating corner into the box
A header doth now seal the win

My time at last has surely come
Few goals do I get the chance to score
My time
At last
Has su-u-urely come.
Has surely, has surely
Has surely, has surely
Has s-u-u-u-u-rely come.


Chorus - 'Mighty Is Our Victory'

Mighty is our victory
Here at the Donna Cathedral
Fear do we strike into opponents
Who hath seen this match today
Mighty is our victory
Mighty is our victory
Mighty, most mighty
Mighty is our victory.