Baptism of Fire 44 Everything thread.

[Qazox]

Who is the 44th Baptism of Fire Champion? Find out below

Winner in Gold; runner-up in Silver

BoF 44 CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH @ Qazian Memorial Stadium, Qazox City, Qazox (scorinated tomorrow at 10:00pm EDT)
(6-2-0) Seunem 0-0 (8-1-0) The Golden Tamarind (0–1 AET)


Thank you to all 54 nations for participating.

And I'll be the first to offer congrats to the newest BoF champion: The Golden Tamarind !!!

[Seunem]

“My gentle men… my fairest ladi… uh, I… my ladies, indeed, of parity in gentile… genty… genitals, hm… We are here!”

“Somehow, yeah…”

“Our timekeeping, alas it is so, has not been our finest asset, I do not think it. Nor so our study of sedule. We having hand-in-capped us own selves in returning from Rushmore with but the grace of a day…”

“It’s not my fault people kept trying to befriend me. I had to fight them off with a stick. Excessively friendly folk, your Masconans.”

“I didn’t think they were that friendly…”

“Vik, I’d imagine your view was coloured slightly by your experiences at customs, no? With all the all the ‘Anything to declare, sir?’ and all the clinky-clinky bottles, and the argy-bargy, and the ‘But it’s a renewable source of energy!’, an–”

“Yeah. Soz about that again, everyone. Old habits, y’know? Family tradition, like.”

“Mister Viktor must not foist the blame for our travails wholly upon himself. I, indeed I, yes, have made certain errors for which I must pay peni–”

“Such as thinking we had two days to prepare after the semi, as per the original timetable, rather than just the one, as per the final timetable?”

“Indeed so. I feel your ire, the tiredness in your bones. Travel wearies, so. Finding oneself far from home for so long, I know the ache of this too, indeed… oh, indeed…”

“Getting our excuses in early, then?”

“Not at all, Miss Amy, not the leastest bit. For I’faith, I have faith! Faith in you all!”

“‘Faith… Not wanting to know what is true’…”

“In my many years, Mister Thome, I have come to the learning that truth is a sapling in the wind. That it may be broken, but must be bent also, hm. It is as love and hate and the clouds above, not as… as… a sheep, let us say. Not as sheepies, nor the oak, nor even faith, dear child of the forest. You know this yet, in your soul, I do think.”

“Is this going to last long, only I’m dying for a slash?”

“My friends… My soiled virgins, so new to this world yet laid down with knowledge of’t…”

“Oh gawd, our Hannah’s going t’give me a right thick ear… Don’t you listen to the man, Georgey-lad…”

“…you are Seunem, my children, more than you may e’er know. You have grown together, these nights in a strange land. In two strange lands. Though only one, for the purposes of victory in this ‘Qazox Regional’, and the presenting of the little trophy, even though we certainly do so in the land of Mangolana, which is strange affairs indeed, I do… I do think… Ah. But you were saying, uh…?”

“We were listening politely, gaffer.”

“Indeed, yes. Such as a fine a body of twenty-three, as I… as I can recall, hm… Victory, yes! Yes? This you will do for each other. You will lay down lives, if required, this I know. This I know! Greater love that then than this hath no man than that thet a man, indeed, or woman indeed, bestows his life, or hers indeed, yes, for his friends. And his… lady. Lady friends. Her, yes. You have all served your duty, and will do so one last time. Mister Eirik, Mister Sten, Mister Bogoslav, Mister Austin, Mister Lowis, Mister Tutain, Mister Thome, Mister Andrion, Mister Anthony, Mister Diego… Mister Samson. You will begin, but others may as yet follow. You will hold the line. You will give no inch, you will fight for every inch…”

“One for the purists then, eh?”

“…you will shed blood for this cause. They have experience, your foe. They have grown. But Mister Patricio retains little concentratings after sixty minutes, and may be befused by Mister Andrion taking positions on the right. And Mister Román may fuss and hurry, but if his fellows cannot chase his thoughts they cannot chase his balls. Mister Thome, he is not your foremost concern, however much that may seem. Instead, you…”

“Sam… Sam! Is he actually trying to coach us, d’you think?”

“Shh! I want to savour the moment…”

“Mister Samson, Miss Amy, if you are wishing to unload yourselves of your thoughts on the encounter…? I am trusting indeed, my captain, in a repeat of your display against Euskirribakondara. Two fine finishes…”

“One of them was a penalty…”

“Indeed. We appear to receive a great many penalties. Blessings be to dear Mister Diego, the mighty oak and the sharpest saw wed as one. And on that notion, your attentions, dear boy, must be on Mister Anibal. I remain unconvinced…”

“Dear God… Nine games in and he chooses now to start being a manager?”

Sam nodded. “Looking on the bright side, though… I suppose there’s just a chance they might turn up late…”

***

“Packing already, Tuu?”

The Kytlerian declined to look up, and offered his captain only a grunt of acknowledgement.

“No doubt Ranford and Willsbrook will be glad to have you back.”

“Of course,” the midfielder shrugged.

“Not sure how time passes over there, but… You’ve got the date in your diary, right? Torreón, pre-qualifying training camp. Our Mister Thomas clearly has thumbs in non-playing pies too, if he can wangle that one. Nice surprise though, for some of the lads. That’s proper facilities, that. An’ mountains, and…”

“Ruins.”

“Mm. Ruins. He was quite big on the ruins, wasn’t he?”

“Sam… I’ve got a nice early flight to catch, so if there’s anything you want…?”

“Tuu, mate, look… I know your club sounds more Seunemi than you do, and not everyone will appreciate the deception, but God knows if Tony Finnegan can pull on the ol’ red-and-white…”

“The ‘old red and white’…?”

“…then there’s no reason why you can’t. I mean, I don’t know how the locals’ll take to you, but…”

“I’ve got an inkling…”

“All I’m saying is… We need you. You’d’ve been man of the match if they hadn’t caught us on the break. If we don’t have your bite in midfield even the proper dregs of the world are going to saunter past us home and away, no worries. The laws are pretty flexible, aren’t they? If our FA doesn’t mind, then I can’t imagine any foreign authority’s likely to kick up a snit just because we’re playing some random Kyterlian, an–”

“Whoever said I was Kytlerian, Sam? I just play there.”

“Um. Oh,” said Sam, temporarily wrong-footed. “I just thought, ‘cause of the name…”

“Mister Thome, Mister Tuu, brother, sweetheart, daddy, ‘you boy!’, barbary… What’s in a name, eh? Names’re like the truth. A man makes his own truth. His own names…”

“Soo… We, um. There’re, there’s…?”

“Seunem has its abbos? Oh yeah. One or two. Not as many as there used to be, maybe. But yeah… I should think the ‘locals’ will be most taken with me… Don’t worry, cap’n. I’ll be pulling on the ol’ red and white again. Wouldn’t miss it for the world…”

“Good. Great! And, um, you’ll… If you still have contacts who…”

Tuu laughed, and turned upon Samson a face the striker had never quite noticed before. He didn’t seem quite the amiable thug he’d come to know this past month. There were shadows you couldn’t see in daylight.

“Well that only took you three minutes… I thought you got a proper henpecking the last time?”

“Well… She was wrong. You saw what happened without… that stuff.”

“We lost. By a single goal, in extra time. Fair enough, on balance. They’re better than us.”

“Maybe… Maybe I didn’t sign up for this stupid lark to lose.”

“Wow. Was that the sound of you developing a character trait, there?”

“Will you supply us or won’t you?” Sam asked shortly. “I’m sure there are plenty of other places…”

“If you think you need, Sammy. Personally, I reckoned we were doing pretty well without.”

“Oh come on, we wouldn’t’ve so much as gotten out of the group stages if it wasn’t for… for the jabs and that…”

“You never thought to really ask what was actually in ‘em? You Candelariasians’ve become right cynical bastards since all that stuff went down haven’t you? Still just as naïve, though.”

“But… if…”

The clasps on Tuu Dufu’s suitcase snapped shut. He pulled the heavy holdall from his hotel bed with ease and walked smartly past the striker. “And on that note… See you in Sargossa, Patris. Start of a beautiful friendship, eh? And Sammy?” added the aborigine’s retreating back.

“I… Yeah?”

“Remind me to yer mum, eh?”

“I… What…?”

***

Harding Steavan-hall and Brown shut the dressing room door quietly behind him.

“Um…?”

“Yes, Mister Harding? You had departed yet, I did think.”

“Yeah, in a minute. Tubbers sent me to get George’s inhaler.”

Thomas Merrytent and Paschal raised the offending object in the right hand, and remained bouncing the ball expertly on the toes of his left foot. Harding puffed out his cheeks, impressed.

“Guess you must’ve been some player, back in the day. No surprise that they picked you, is it?”

“Mm.”

“Only… I do wonder, y’know, who it was doing the picking… ‘Cause you and me understand each other, don’t we? We can talk, man-to-man. ‘Cause qualifying’s coming up, and we’ll be having home games, that’s how it works, and I just wonder… How, Tommy? How do we play football, in a country where football’s illegal?”

“A conundrum indeed, hm.”

“Made you blink, though. Shows I’m right. I did just wonder, when you dropped in on Esca the other month, like the bloody avenging angel. Got me hopes right up, you did. But it’s not true, is it? All of this, this ‘Seunem national team’, it was bollocks right from the start, wasn’t it?”

“Do silence yourself.”

“Who’s head of the FA, Thomas? Who’s organising our home games? When was the last time you even went home!?”

“Enough!”

“Who’s paying for all this? Who is your little friend, Maxim? And who the fuck are you, really, Mister Weights-and-Measures? Finding a use for a lifetime of bribes? Actually,” Harding yawned, “You know what? Don’t answer that. Any of it. Don’t care. I’ve got a runners-up medal, that’s nice. I can get that melted down, or auction it off to some dirt rich completist somewhere. Some parts of Esca, that could pay for a little house, that. So thanks. You’ve done me a nice little service. And now I can wash m’hands of this damned stupid little end–”

“It began with you.”

“Wot?”

“This… rot. This disease. You soured us, from the moment you arrived. Victory… Victory was in our grasp! And your little words, your venom… It sapped their strength, their faith. They could not trust in us, in me, in the flag… And so they lost. It was you that did this, Harding. It was you who defeated us…”

The midfielder shrugged. “You, yeah, are a prize pillock.” He skipped forward across the room, swiped Thomas’ gently bouncing ball from above his foot, and clasped it in his arms. “You’re a pitiful excuse for a manager, and the way you’ve got them kids’ hopes up, filled their heads with all this crap, you’re a pretty pitiful excuse for a man, t–”

“No!” Thomas shouted, leaping to his feet with deceptive speed for an old man.

“Oh, I reckon so! Pathetic! All the advantages in the world, and look at you! As bent as any noble. I’ve spent a life down the mines, mate, Seunem and Mytannion, and that can do funny things to a fella’s head. But prancing about in high society, in your big Cove houses? Sends you all… bloody posynoggins, mate! If there was any sense back home, we’d all’ve turfed you over to the Lallimuts an’ locked you all in the Peace! Aw, what’s the matter, Tommy? Want yer ball back?”

“NO!”

“You don’t? Oh, I’ll jus’ keep it then, ‘cau–”

“NO! NO-ONE TAKES MY BALL AWAY FROM ME!” the manager screamed, tearing towards Harding. “No-one. Ever. AGAIN!”

***

“Maxim? No… No need to say anything, old friend,” Thomas sighed. “It will not happen again. Mister George’s aspirational device. Take it to Mister Kyle, he is anticipant for its arrival. And… It will not happen again, Maxim. I promise you this. Indeed, hm.”

And the little assistant manager shook his head sadly, and went to fetch a roll of bin liners.