Page 5 of 5

PostPosted: Sat Oct 26, 2019 1:53 pm
by Recuecn
Mister Minister | Ch. 1 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 2 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 3 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 4 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 5 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 6 | Monsieur le Ministre

Mister Minister | Ch. 7 | Monsieur le Ministre

Jean-Luc was minister of sport now, and it meant he had a lot on his plate--the entire ministry was brand new. But everyone knew what his first priority was. The issue had been the justification for the creation of a new government ministry, and had featured massively in the political campaign. The fact was that organized domestic football hadn't existed in Reçueçn for--well, it felt like nobody knew exactly quite how long. For sports fans in the nation, it had felt like a weird period of limbo; those who marked the passing of time by the sports calendar were thoroughly lost.

The RNFL had ceased operations in the middle of a season. Normally, this time of year, the season would be starting up again, but it took time to finish the sort of preparations needed to get an entire sports league off the ground again. Jean-Luc decided that, in order to waste no time, the league would resume at the beginning of the next year, in the middle of the season, and count it as if they were finishing out the season that had been abruptly cut short.

Reinstating a defunct league was an absolute headache. Jean-Luc had expected that, but he had not anticipated what a mess it was. It turned out that although the RNFL had ceased operations, the RNFA, its governing body, had not closed or shut down or declared bankruptcy. It had just continued along, irrelevant and pointless in the absence of any attempt to organize the sport. Its continued existence in fact made things more complicated than they might have been had Jean-Luc been trying to start things from scratch.

Jean-Luc was quickly coming to almost despise the RNFA. Working with them was an absolute nightmare. The organizational structure was painfully difficult to navigate: every club that had been in the league was represented, and had to have a say in every decision, but at the same time seven teams were 'first among equals,' and each of the seven tried to sway every vote in its favor and influence outcomes every step of the way.

Although the ministry of sport had been formed with the idea that its control and regulation would resurrect Reçuecian football and then protect it from similar disasters in the future, and this idea had been met with widespread support from players, fans, management and ownership of teams, actually working out the details with the league revealed an ugly truth: the teams were in fact not happy when the government tried to "stick its nose into things." Jean-Luc was forced to order that negotiations be kept secret after media reported on one RNFA representative saying, "I don't see how the government thinks that putting a noose of regulations on the neck of the already dead corpse of Reçuecian football is supposed to bring it back to life," and the news also covered equally antagonistic lines from government negotiators, such as, "The RNFA seems to think that cash injections are going to be some magic pill that will revive the sport, but mostly they're just looking to revive their bank accounts."

The truth was it was very difficult for the ministry and the RNFA to see eye-to-eye on the issues, because they were motivated by very different things. The RNFA was, in fact, as was to be expected, motivated by money, and had to be sure that reinstating the RNFL would be a winning venture. Jean-Luc and his team, originally motivated by their passion for the sport and their desire to see its renaissance, were finding it was hard to keep that drive in what seemed like opposition from the very people they were trying to help.

There came a moment in negotiations where Jean-Luc realized that if the RNFA wasn't going to work with him, he was going to have to use the legal powers his ministry had been granted to make the whole thing happen whether they wanted to or not. His jurisdiction over sport in the country was surprisingly large and came with a surprising amount of authority, and he would have to put that to work. It was a very surprising shift at the bargaining table.

The seven executive RNFA representatives came into the room where they'd been having talks with Lassalle and his team on a Monday morning to find things had been totally rearranged. Tables, which had been set up in a ring for a group conference, were now in rows with chairs on one side, like a classroom. In the front of the room, Lassalle had had a podium brought in, and a screen for a projector had been unfurled. Jean-Luc was nowhere to be seen. The representatives looked at each other, confused, but took seats at the tables.

Jean-Luc walked in from the other end of the room, holding a clicker in his hand, as if he would be beginning a presentation shortly. His team followed him in the room, but it was only a clearly scripted piece of political theater--Jean-Luc, taking some documents from one staffer and putting them on the lectern, turned back to his team. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, but I will no longer be needing your assistance with the proceedings." The staffers, unsurprised, turned and left.

Ben Müller, the RNFA representative for Zimmerich FC, pushed his chair back and stood, leaning with his hands on his table. "Monsieur Lassalle, what exactly is going on!?" Jean-Luc cut his bluster short. "If you will have a seat, Mr. Müller, I can begin." He stared him down as he gave up and resumed his seat. Jean-Luc's signalling was already working. The negotiations had changed, and he was in charge now.

"Since our conversation and attempts to come to mutual agreement had been stalling for so long, I thought maybe we could try something else. You can forget everything we've discussed, because we're starting over from square one. Here is my new proposal for an arrangement to solvent again."

Jean-Luc hit a button on the clicker and a projection appeared on the wall behind him. "Oh, this isn't part of the proposal--this is just a portion of the text of the latest amendment to the Treaties of Alliance and the Reçuecian constitution, adopted unanimously, with which of course you're all familiar." Jean-Luc turned around and read the slide. "Article I, Secion 1, Sub-Section A: 'The Minister of Sport shall have full authority to create, dissolve, regulate and control sporting organizations within the nation of Reçueçn."

Jean-Luc turned back around and hit the button for the next slide, continuing without a break as if unaware of the power play he had just made. "So here you see just a broad outline of my proposal. You will see it is largely the same as what I proposed earlier, before you raised objections to numerous and itemized parts of it. The government of Reçueçn will not be subsidizing the sport of football, but we do expect certain guarantees of solvency from professional teams operating in the country or in one of its leagues..."

The representatives were thoroughly angered, but cowed (although one or two perhaps were also impressed with the young new minister's use of his authority--apparently he was more than just the bright inexperienced staffer they'd expected). The 'negotiations,' if they could still be called that, advanced much more quickly from that point on. Lassalle did wind up giving certain considerations to the RNFA and its teams, points they had raised that he thought seemed only fair. The government did provide financing to cover the resumption of regular league play, but it was clearly a one-time thing. Explicit requirements were put in place for teams to be considered as 'professional' and participate in the league, but they were not impossible to achieve, and they had the desired effect of ensuring that those teams took proactive steps to avoid something like this happening again. In return, the RNFA was endorsed by the Ministry of Sport as the national authority on soccer, which gave the association much more clout than it had had before. League play resumed in January, and after years of inactivity, soccer was back in Reçueçn.
Previous Matches
Reçueçn 3-2 Sajnur
Independents' Cup 8 — Quarterfinals
Carl III Stadium, Reçueçn, Reçueçn

Adams (36'), Lebo (57'), Hebron (89')
Reçueçn line-up: Gerauld Firaut (c), Leo Beck, Ägidius Heissler, Norman Bright, Oliver Spencer, Luc Pélissier, Grégoire Leclair, Maynard Hebron, Hippolyte Lavigne, Franky Adams, Freeman Lebo
Substitutions: Klemm for Spencer (54'), R. Lavigne for Pélissier (59'), Nasser for Lebo (68')
Upcoming Match
Reçueçn vs Drawkland

Independents' Cup 8 — Semi-finals
Stade de la Reformation, Genève, Reçueçn

Predicted line-up: Gerauld Firaut (c), Leo Beck, Ägidius Heissler, Norman Bright, Oliver Spencer, Luc Pélissier, Harold Saunders, Maynard Hebron, Hippolyte Lavigne, Franky Adams, Freeman Lebo

PostPosted: Sat Oct 26, 2019 2:12 pm
by Recuecn
Image


CUTOFF


Will your team be going to the finals? It all depends on what you do and what you don't do tonight.


RESULTS


Semi-finals

Reçueçn
2-1 Drawkland
Stade de la Reformation, Genève
Scorinated by Kita-Hinode

HUElavia 0–0 Squornshelan Remnant States (1–0 AET)
Siegstadion, Zimmerich


Third Place Playoff
Drawkland vs Squornshelan Remnant States
Arena der Alpen, Heldingen

Eighth Independent Associations Championship Final
Reçueçn vs HUElavia
National Stadium, Reçueçn, Reçueçn

PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2019 6:38 am
by HUElavia
HUElavia outlasts SRS in a historic moment en route to the Final!

HUElavia met against Squornshelan Remnant States in the Semi-Finals at Siegstadion, Zimmerich, where HUElavia was on the cusp of making history with the National Team: Making a Final in a Football Tournament. Los Amarillos went into the match as clear underdogs against SRS, but running on a 5-game win streak going back towards Matchday 3. This streak served as confidence for the team, who felt determined to bring something back for the country, and for themselves. The stadium was packed to the brim, fitting for a match of this magnitude, with a little over half of the stadium being filled with HUElavian support.

The first half kicked off, and the match began to see a very cautious approach from both teams. Passes were made left and right, in attempts to get passed the defense, but both teams played with a more defensive mindset and prevented many passes towards the final parts of the pitch. This did not mean that there were moments that either team could score. HUElavia had two clear moments where they could've scored, one in the 17th minute with Del Horno sending a lobbed cross into the box where it met the head of Petit, only for it to hit the bar and out. Another one in the 38th minute saw Cristiano getting a pass from Gallegos, and trying to slide the ball past Munib, only for the shot to go out by mere millimeters. SRS had their chances in the 20th minute, with a cross from Damot to Ajao, who gave a blistering volley, had been acrobatically saved by Ricardo towards a corner, which everyone in the stadium thought was going to go in. Another shot involved a corner-kick taken by Damot that met the head of Oleb, only to be caught on the line by Ricardo to prevent the opening goal. At the half, the match stood at 0-0.

The second half began, and this time both team began playing more aggressively. In the 50th minute, Del Horno gave out a terrible foul in the box that signaled a penalty kick and he received a Yellow card for the foul over Tambura. Jzvanic stepped up to take the penalty kick, only to shoot it into the bar and head right back out into the box, where Mendieta blasted it out of HUElavian territory. In the 58th minute, a foul over Rossi gave Cristiano a chance to score the opening goal, where he shot the ball over the wall, only to narrowly go over the bar for a goal kick. In the 80th minute, substitutes were made, with Suzuki, Nakata, and Eduardo going in for Rocheteau, Petit, and Gonzalez respectively. In the 88th minute, HUElavia had one final chance, where a one-on-one situation opened between Marchena and Munib, only for the goalie to save the shot and hit it out for a throw-in. The whistle blew and the game was still 0-0.

Extra time came, and fatigue started to become evident in both teams. Sloppy defending and sloppy attacking started to dictate the plays with misses being done left and right. All seemed that the match was headed into penalties, until right in the 120th minute, as a pass by Gallegos met a deflection by Dalso, to land on the foot of Nakata, who took a vicious shot as time was going to expire. The blast was too much for Munib, as it went in and made the score 1-0. The whole team ran and mobbed Nakata, while fans sung and cheered to the point that the stadium rumbled from the jumping. The final whistle blew moments after and HUElavia saw themselves reach a Final for the first time.

With the historic victory, Los Amarillos have only one team to face: The host nation, Reçueçn. While Reçueçn are the massive favorites to win IAC 8, HUElavia has hope that they can pull off one last upset, while being cheered by a sizable section of HUElavians. All of HUElavia will be paralyzed to witness what could be a historical moment in HUElavian Football and for HUElavia as a whole. HUElavia looks to add a Football trophy into their honors, and the team is confident that they could make history, especially after the improbable comeback they have done.

FORCA HUELAVIA! VAMOS HUELAVIA! GO HUELAVIA!

IAC8 Semifinal

PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2019 10:36 am
by Squornshelan Remnant States
Exhaustion and Heartbreak
Baral Karlov, Zimmerich

The Black-and-Reds' road toward the Independent Associations Championship took an unwanted detour, as they were defeated in the semifinal, playing their third straight match that went to extra time. Having now played a full four matches worth of football in the past three matches, the team will have to muster up one last effort, though it won't be for the prize they had in mind. It was a match of missed opportunities for both sides, but particularly for the Black-and-Reds, who saw a 50th minute penalty missed by Jzvanic, and were mere moments from the penalty shootout when Nakata broke the scoreless tie.

Donnell elected to call on some of her veterans for this match, starting Damot and Jzvanic, and reinserting Ajao, while Vladcik, Takala, and Verhulst sat. Some critics have already questioned the wisdom of removing Takala from the starting lineup after his excellent play in the quarterfinal against New Lusitania. To be fair to Donnell, however, Takala had played 240 minutes of football in just a few days. Though players are always loathe to admit when they need rest and recuperation, a part of Takala may have been grateful for the opportunity. In any case, this was not a match won or lost by lineup or other tactical decisions. The team and tactics Donnell chose had opportunities to lose the match, and simply failed to make the most of them.

In the other semifinal, the hosts prevailed over IAC6 champions and frequent runners-up Drawkland, two goals to one. Accordingly, the Black-and-Reds will now face Drawkland. The winners will head home with the consolation prize of a third-place medal, while the losers will have only regrets to remember their time in Reçueçn by.

SRS IAC 8 Schedule and Results:
MD1: SRS 1-0 Kurovija Stade de la Reformation (cap. 27,000) Genève
MD2: SRS 0-1 New Lusitania and the Algarves Arena der Alpen (cap. 20,000) Heldingen
MD3: Port Ember 0-2 SRS Sporting Field (cap. 22,000) Renwyll
MD4: SRS 2-0 Lisander Arena der Alpen
MD5: Silver Beach 0-1 SRS Arena der Alpen
R16: SRS 1-0 Space AET (0-0 AFT) Sporting Field
QF: New Lustania and the Algarves 2-3 SRS AET (2-2 AFT) Sporting Field
SF: HUElavia 1-0 Squornshelan Remnant States AET (0-0 AFT) Siegstadion (cap. 25,440) Zimmerich
3PP: Drawkland v SRS Arena der Alpen

PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2019 1:23 pm
by Recuecn
Watching their team make it all the way to the IAC final--the furthest they've ever been in any international tournament--would have been a crazy experience for Reçuecian fans even had they not been able to attend all the games at home. Every game the RNFT played was in a sold out stadium. The intensity over the course of the tournament was unreal, and ramped up with each victory. First, an undefeated group stage--then a confident victory over Bliuji, followed by a matchup against Sajnur that looked tighter on paper, but which the Unicorns still pulled off. Then, in the semifinal, when drawn against Drawkland, a higher-ranked opponent, Reçueçn still managed to push through to the delight of its fans.

The media cycle in Reçueçn has done nothing but cover the games, interview players, make predictions--any non-football news was chased right out of the news, receiving next to no coverage. Reçuecians, usually a reserved people, decorated their houses and yards, and celebrated in the streets each time the team advanced another round.

Now, the team is drawn against Huelavia in the final game. Huelavia has also had an incredible dream of a tournament, upsetting opponents such as Lisander, Kelssek, and the SRS to get here. No matter the outcome tonight, they will be proud of their results and happy about the tournament.

This is not true for Reçueçn. During the IAC 7, the Unicorns' supporters were almost surprised each time the team won another game, taking nothing for granted. In the end they were more than pleased with a third place finish. This time, even second will not be enough. After qualifying for the World Cup, and then hosting the IAC on home soil and coming this far undefeated, winning games against Abanhfleft, Sajnur, and Drawkland, losing to Huelavia in the RNFT's home stadium would mean heartbreak and dejection. Only winning first place--Reçueçn's first first--will be enough for the fans. Will they be happy tomorrow? Only the game can decide that.
Previous Matches
Reçueçn 2-1 Drawkland
Independents' Cup 8 — Semifinals
Stade de la Reformation, Genève, Reçueçn

Saunders (14'), Pélissier (37')
Reçueçn line-up: Gerauld Firaut (c), Leo Beck, Ägidius Heissler, Norman Bright, Oliver Spencer, Luc Pélissier, Harold Saunders, Maynard Hebron, Hippolyte Lavigne, Franky Adams, Freeman Lebo
Substitutions: Leclair for Saunders (60'), R. Lavigne for Pélissier (71'), Kayserling for bright (90+1')
Upcoming Match
Reçueçn vs Huelavia

Independents' Cup 8 Final
National Stadium, Reçueçn, Reçueçn

Predicted line-up: Gerauld Firaut (c), Leo Beck, Ägidius Heissler, Norman Bright, Oliver Spencer, Luc Pélissier, Grégoire Leclair, Maynard Hebron, Hippolyte Lavigne, Franky Adams, Freeman Lebo

PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2019 1:52 pm
by Recuecn
Image


CUTOFF



For the outro to this tournament, I couldn't help using another Vulfpeck song for cutoff.



RESULTS


Third Place Playoff

Drawkland 1-3 Squornshelan Remnant States
Arena der Alpen, Heldingen



Reçueçn 3–1 HUElavia
National Stadium, Reçueçn, Reçueçn
Scorinated by Zwangzug


The RNFT wins its first international tournament, and at home, to boot. Congratulations to everyone for a well-played tournament, and commiserations to those who didn't make it as far as they might have liked. See you all in the next edition!

PostPosted: Sun Oct 27, 2019 3:26 pm
by HUElavia
HUElavia Fall Short against Hosts Reçueçn in the IAC 8 Final

HUElavia had a historical run that fell short in Reçueçn, in the National Stadium against hosts Reçueçn. Los Amarillos played valiantly, having come back from losing their first two group games to making it to the Final. Three first half goals in the 18th, 27th, and 40th minute by Hebron, Lavigne, and Bright respectively were too much for the HUElavians, each being a vicious strike from over 20-30 yards. Cristiano scored one in the 69th minute, with a low shot making it in. With this, HUElavia come home disappointed, but proud for their performance filled with confidence and bravado.

It is expected that a parade will be held in Curumba for the runners-up, and it is expected for new stadiums to be built in order to give new and fresh venues for Clubs to play in, as well as new venues for the National Team to use during the upcoming World Cup Qualifiers. Despite the result, this is a great stepping stone for the sports scene in HUElavia.

FORCA HUELAVIA! VAMOS HUELAVIA! GO HUELAVIA!

Reçueçn Wins!

PostPosted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 5:14 pm
by Recuecn
It's a bit of a weird feeling when you're winning a football match three-nil and the opposing team scores. It's a bit disappointing, despite the fact that you know you're winning. You tell yourself you should be happy, but sometimes you still get that sinking feeling.

Such was not the case for the Reçuecian fans at the National Stadium for the IAC final. This was it. They were at home, and they were watching their team win its first ever international tournament. No one had ever won the IAC at home, despite the tradition (broken by Reçueçn holding the eight edition) for reigning champions to host.

The only other silverware Reçueçn had ever taken home was from the Teikei Tournoi, a two-nation affair years ago that was little more than a friendly match, and the bronze medal from the last IAC. Now, finally, they had gold, only one cycle later. A fancy new IAC banner would be printed to commemorate this tournament, and Reçueçn's name would be on it twice. After their World Cup run, this was an encouraging sign that things were still on the up and up. The team sang as they did a victory lap around the stadium, My future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

The fans celebrated long into the night, but already the team began to look forward to their next games--it was time to go back to the World Cup.
Match report
Reçueçn 3-1 Huelavia
Independents' Cup 8 Final
National Stadium, Reçueçn, Reçueçn

Hebron (18'), H. Lavigne (27'), Bright (40')
Reçueçn line-up: Gerauld Firaut (c), Leo Beck, Ägidius Heissler, Norman Bright, Oliver Spencer, Luc Pélissier, Grégoire Leclair, Maynard Hebron, Hippolyte Lavigne, Franky Adams, Freeman Lebo
Substitutions: Leclair for Saunders (60'), R. Lavigne for Pélissier (71'), Kayserling for bright (90+1')