IAC-12 SONNEL SUFFERING!Written By: Craig Bakker and Natalie Dawson
We have good news, and we have bad news. The good news is that, as expected, Drawkland topped their group. We had four victories, one loss, and that one loss was to a Sonnelian side. All things considered, it's the ideal cycle for us! This is where the good news ends. For starters, this tournament was expected to be a coming-out party for Sonnel in the IAC. Unfortunately, this didn't come to pass. Only two of the six Sonnelians to enter IAC-12 have qualified for the playoffs, which is unfortunate. Still, it's cool that we're not the only ones anymore. Further bad news occurs when we consider who we're playing the first round of the playoffs. All that and more further in the article!
My name is Craig Bakker, defender for the Elite Eleven Kick Corps, and I've been asked to author most of this article. Enjoy.
vs SQUORNSHELOUSBeing the top team in our group, the chances of advancement were very high. Our second pot side in Squornshelous were our biggest threat to advancement. Juvencus and United Pink States, two Sonnelian nations, were also in our group. We were hoping that the Squornish would take a couple too many upsets and maybe another Sonnel squad would sneak through in the second slot in the group, but ultimately our priority is for us. Our first match would be our hardest, taking on Squornshelous to open the play here in Muralos.
I'm not going to pretend to have any idea on what Squornshelous's deal is, but one of their players, Tyra Volam, knelt while their anthem played. According to the information we were given pre-match, we were led to believe Volam would be starting the match in the midfield, but after the "stunt" she pulled in the pregame, she was apparently pulled from the game. We couldn't see her on the bench or anything. Weird, and a little alarming, but it's not our place to deal with that shit. Anyway, that seemed to have the entire Squornshelan squad on edge, and we were able to capitalize. Both our teams are quite offensive in nature, and their defense was the weaker link.
Over the course of the match, our defense was on-point, especially thanks to yours truly. Our lowest point came in the 68th minute, when an impressive blocked shot by their goalie Hege Vogdahl went into the feet of one of their defenders, Dorthe Storvoll, who cleared the ball quickly. This flipped field and threw them into the counterattack, which we were a bit to slow to catch up to. Lucia Krupin ended up with the ball down the middle with an extra step on Nick Kingston, and she managed to net the shot past Septimus Xander to score. By then we were already up (Mike Rodney 14', Jaxon Madison 33'), so this just made the score 2-1. When play restarted, they seemed to be a little more confident now that they were on the board. In my opinion, they were a little overconfident, and I took advantage of that by managing to disrupt a pass by their offense and we had a counterattack of our own, punctuated by the final goal of the game (Madison, 74'). It was a very good win to start the campaign, and set the stage for things to come.
SONNEL DOUBLEHEADERAfter the big matchup against Squornshelous, we got to play two Sonnel nations in a row, which was a great treat. The first of these two matches would be against the easier opponent, that being the relatively "newer" nation of the United Pink States. I must convince, I'm not really what you'd describe as a "geography expert," so I can't tell you a whole lot about the UPS as a nation. I know they're on the Tuncalp continent, which is pretty close to us if you go by the Navis Ocean. You could also go the other direction across the entire rest of the planet. I'm not sure why you'd do that, but I guess if you believed in the Flat Sonnel Theory then that'd be your only option.
One thing I do know about the United Pink States: they
really wanted to beat us. It feels a bit egotistical to say it, but we truly are the top dogs of Sonnel. Taking points off of us is a point of pride for probably everybody on the planet that isn't us. It's cool to be the most important team in the region, but it also puts a big target on our back. The Couriers only had one win in their IAC campaign, and that win came against us. Their team is normally pretty balanced, but they employed a rock-solid defense for this match that made life hard for us. Byron Smith, their captain, was the only player to score all game. Halftime we were deadlocked at zero, and in the 71st minute he benefitted from a pretty assist by Ava Brookdale to cash in and score. From there, they managed to hang on for the remaining 20 minutes and come away with the upset victory.
At the time, I was pretty salty about the loss, especially because our campaign was in a bit of jeopardy, but now that we've advanced, I don't mind the loss. Plus, does anybody remember the Pinksters' victory over Eura last qualifiers? That was the straw that broke the camel's back and relegated Eura to the CoH. The United Pink States may not have a truly elite team (yet), but damn if they don't have the ability to show up for big games. Hopefully we'll see more from them someday, because that's the makeup of an elite team, if they can start getting the results against weaker opposition.
The second half of our Sonnel doubleheader was a renewing of the Revoda Sea Rivalry. Juvencus, our brothers to the south, had been in a slump for a few years. However, they've recently come back with more fire, looking to make a name for themselves again. This would be the first matchup in a meaningful setting against Gli attacanti since Baptism of Fire 64, and the first time us in the Elite Eleven have gone head-to-head with them. We were pretty hyped for the matchup, and knowing our offensive-leaning tactics, we figured it would be a high-scoring game.
That simply wouldn't be on the cards, though. At first it seemed like it, as Ross Hunter cashed in his first goal of the game early, just in the 12th minute. From there, though, both our teams were just a little out of sync. The defense did our job, and so did Juvencus's. Our strikers weren't really clicking on all cylinders, and neither were theirs. It was simply not an ideal game for either of us, but at least it ended in a win for us!
FINAL STRETCHWe'd play two newcomer nations to end the group stage, which was ideal since we needed points to stay ahead in the race. We'd likely be playing one of HUElavia or Omerica in the Round of 16 thanks to the bracket, so we'd prefer to have the easier draw by finishing first in the group. Thus, these two games to end the group stage would be vital to come away not only with points, but with wins. The first of these was our easiest match, that being against Galimencia. We didn't have any scouting information on these guys, so we didn't know what to expect, but we figured they'd probably be a middling squad with little cohesion.
That would end up being the case, and our offense ran rampant over them. We had three goals in the first half (Rodney 21', Garnet 36', Apollo 44'), and in the second half we did some of our signature fancy shot attempts, since that's what we like to do in blowout games. Mike Rodney managed to cash in one, getting a solid bicycle kick goal in the 69th minute (pretty sure he did that on purpose) to make it 4-0. Later in the game, essentially camped on their half of the pitch, we had a long possession where nearly everybody got shots in. Who else but I, Craig Bakker, came in to score the last goal of the game? As a defender, scoring goals is rare, but it's so sweet when I manage to net one.
That win confirmed our spot on the top of the group. We were tied with Squornshelous on points, but our MD1 victory gave us the head-to-head advantage over them in the table. The only thing standing in the way of our potential qualification was the new nation of Lorrana, who sat at 7 points compared to our 9. As long as we didn't lose this game, we would advance. If we lost but Squornshelous lost as well, we'd advance in the second position behind Lorrana, while a draw compared to a Squorn win would have us advance in second position under Squornshelous instead.
At that time, HUElavia had just confirmed their advancement to the playoffs in Group G, so we wanted to be in first place for the group to avoid having to take on the perennial runners-up. A win against Lorrana is just what we needed, though it felt a little bad eliminating a new team who'd been having a breakout cycle. Technically they weren't new to international soccer, but this was their first IAC tournament. Unfortunately for them, their dream run would come to an end. Their team put up a solid fight, and for the first half, their defense was doing a good job at keeping the pressure up and making life difficult for our forwards. Their quick build-up was difficult to adjust to at first. While we got the first points on the board in the 17th minute thanks to a penalty shot by Apollo, Lorrana struck back quickly. Their midfielder Kiyon was one we knew we had to watch, but their set piece was executed to perfection, and Kiyon struck gold in the 21st minute, and the score was tied. The pressure was working, but on occasions a bit too well. Apollo would get another penalty opportunity in the first half, and he'd cash in again in the 40th minute to make it a 2-1 game by halftime.
This is where the game started to turn around in our favor. Lorrana had a good, strong start, but their defensive pressure was starting to wear our their defenders more than our forwards, and they began to lose a step. On top of this, our defense managed to catch on to their schemes and interfere before they could get plays going. From there, we managed a couple scores on counterattacks (Hanson 62', Hunter 78'), and the last ten minutes of the game was spent mostly with us surrounding the Lorrana goal, as their defense was too gassed to keep up. The final score came in the 86th minute, with Dominic Southers hitting the net to make the final score 1-5. It was a well-fought game by Lorrana though, and we're excited to see what kinds of things they can achieve in future tournaments.
SONNELIAN PERFORMANCEAs far as Sonnelian nations are concerned, this was a pretty disappointing outing. It's true that the odds were a little stacked against us to begin - half the Sonnelian nations were in the same group, and two were in another group together. While this was cool to foster some of those regional rivalries, it was sad that the friendly fire would result in some of the teams would definitely miss out on the playoffs. At best, only 5/6 Sonnelian nations could possibly make the playoffs, and after a few games into the group stage, it was clear that it would be even fewer. Plus, only half of us even got to play in Sonnel! Muralos is a great nation and I'm glad we made the trip out here, but I wish we were playing in Almuzahara right now. Oh well!
Oscioru and United Pink States were both low-pot nations that weren't expected to advance. They both ended with a 1-1-3 record and finished fifth in their groups. Something to build on perhaps, but we don't really expect them to do anything for another couple cycles at least.
Juvencus were a little disappointing this time around. They went 1-2-2, with a loss to us (I can't complain) and a draw to United Pink States (ideal). They lost to Squornshelous on the final matchday, which was unfortunate, but it was expected. By then they were already eliminated, thanks to an earlier draw to Lorrana which took too many points off the board for gli attacanti. Had they won that match against Lorrana, they would've been sitting at 7 points instead, and their match against Squornshelous would've been decisive for who advances to the playoffs, rather than our match with Lorrana. We know Juvencus is a quality nation that can produce a World Cup-level squad, and I hope we see that from then again sometime soon.
Silver Beach and Almuzahara, newly-minted rivals thanks to last cycle's 7 Nation Cup, were drawn together in Group A. This was a situation where, despite Almuzahara being only one cycle removed from their debut, and Silver Beach not achieving much in the IAC lately, we could realistically see both teams advance. Almuzahara, being hosts, acted as the Pot 1 team, and Silver Beach were a decent Pot 3 side. The main nation in the way of this dream? Reçueçn (those bastards that rigged IAC-8). Silver Beach sat at 3-0-1 going into the final matchday, with qualification ensured. Almuzahara had a worse start, being 1-2-1 going into the final match. With Reçueçn sitting a point above Almuzahara, and set to face Silver Beach, all Almuzahara had to do is win against bottom pot Britonisea and pray their Sonnelian rivals could take points off of Reçueçn.
Unfortunately, this didn't pan out, and the dream of both Sonnelians escaping Group A fell through. Silver Beach still qualified, though they were now in 2nd place thanks to being tied on points and losing by head-to-head against Reçueçn. You reap what you sow, Silverians!
Ultimately, Sonnel's citizens had a little less to cheer for by the end of this group stage as opposed to the start. Maybe next year, fellas, maybe next year.
PLAYOFF PROJECTIONSo, we managed to capture first place in the group thanks to our final matchday win over Lorrana and our first matchday win over Squornshelous. Our reward?
Playing HUElavia in the first round of the playoffs. This is the exact matchup we were trying to avoid by getting first place! Given the choice between HUElavia and Omerica, I'd rather play Omerica. Sure, "we" lost to Omerica in the IAC-7 final on home soil, but that was the old Kick Corps, not us. This game is a big matchup, and not one we hate to play in general, just one we hate to play so early in the playoffs.
The story of Drawkland and HUElavia in the IAC is interesting. Over two thirds of IAC championships have had either Drawkians or HUElavians playing in the final, despite the fact that we've never played each other at this stage. The Old Corps was renowned for choking in the IAC final, making the final four straight cycles (4-7) and only coming away with one victory (IAC-6 against Omerica). As we took over for them in representing Drawkland on the international stage, we took it a little less seriously and have had more subpar results in the playoffs. In our stead, HUElavia has gone on to make the final four times, but they've never lifted the trophy.
This is a game that I think everyone would've loved to see in the championship, a Championship of Chokers if you will. Sadly, one of us are going to go home early. The most twisted part of the joke is that, no matter who wins, we'll also have a gauntlet in the second round. We'll be facing either the madly underrated Tequilo, or the hosting Muralos on home soil. The other side of our bracket features Omerica vs Squornshelous, and "Ginadjkrum vs. Sannyamathland". No offense to these nations, who are clearly skilled enough to make the IAC playoffs, but this looks like my dog just attacked my keyboard and threw it on the floor. The fact that one of these nations is guaranteed a semifinal berth, and only one of Drawkland/HUElavia/Tequilo/Muralos are, is just too ridiculously depressing to me. The Almuzahara side of the tournament is only slightly better, but at least the Round of 16 matches are relatively tame (with the exception of Reçueçn vs. Poafmersia, which is like Drawkland vs. HUElavia but against teams who are actually good at winning).
As far our game against HUElavia, it will likely be a very exciting matchup. Like I said, it's sad one of us will be going home this early. Whoever wins will likely have to play Tequilo (our only meeting with Tequlo was them eliminating us from the quarterfinals of IAC-10, so I'm not really excited at the prospect of playing them against in the IAC quarterfinals), and whoever wins that matchup will probably go on to win the semi and play in the championship (likely against whoever comes out of the Reçueçn/Poafmersia/New Lusitania/Squidroidia piece of that bracket).
The dream of a Sonnel vs Sonnel IAC championship is still alive, though. The only possible option is Drawkland vs Silver Beach, and the chances of that are very slim. Really, it's entirely possible neither of us even make the quarterfinals. Either way, we'll be fighting our hardest for this dream, and maybe, just maybe, it'll happen.
Fat chance! Enjoy the Show of Suffering, the Play of Pain, between Drawkland and HUElavia. For the Elite Eleven, I'm Craig Bakker. On Corps, baby.