Rosaria Daily Herald | Sporting Section
Give Me Those Goals Baby
Give Me Those Goals Baby
Rolling into the match against Boring Paradise, the Echani team had to feel at least halfway decent. We had finally returned to our winning ways, putting three past Buyan in the previous matchday and escaping with three points; now we faced an essential match against Boring Paradise who sat one point ahead of us in third place. Important match, with a lot on the line, and the Echani team rose to the challenge in a spectacular way.
Playing in our traditional attacking passing style, the Echani dominated the entire ninety minutes of game, and got off to pretty much the perfect start. Well temporarily the perfect start; Magnum Cerelius hit an ambitious shot at goal from about 24 yards out, which the Boring Paradise keeper managed to push back behind the goalline for a corner kick in the 6th minute. Jean-Marie Bentacur hit a inswinging kick, with Samper Markovic rising gloriously like an eagle and headed it home with powerful conviction to make it 1-0. Helllllll yee. That’s a great start for any team, goals change games if you would believe that.
Buttttt unfortunately our joy was short lived when the ref blew the whistle for restart, the Boring Paradise striker rolled the ball back to a midfielder, who pinged it way up the sideline for one of their wings to retrieve, who crossed the ball into the box and it was slammed home to make it 1-1 in the seventh minute. Realllllllly not the way you want to celebrate scoring an early goal; go ahead and literally immediately concede an equalizer, I mean that is some booty I will tell you what. But the Echani took it in stride and didn’t lose their minds afterwards and just kept playing their game, pass pass pass, attack attack attack, and eventually it paid off.
A nice long spell of possession allowed the Echani players to string together a nice round of 36 passes from defense to midfield to goalkeeper to wingers to striker to Marco van Ciavatinni to Magnum Cerelius running in on goal for an easy tap in, 2-1 in the 19th minute. Eshan was in form, and looking ready to totally dismember the team from Boring Paradise.
And that is precisely what we did. Mercilessly attacking, with shot after shot and offensive movement after offensive moment, I’ll tell you what folks, the Echani were really giving Boring Paradise the business, always looking to attack and score. And that is precisely what we did right on the stroke of halftime. A pretty simple goal here, with Marco van Ciavatinni taking a freekick and chipping it into the box, Magnum Cerelius got his head to it and nodded it into the path of Marshawn Mercury, who really could have just swung a peg leg at it and it would’ve gone it. 3-1 in the 44th minute, and the ref blew for half right afterwards.
Total Echani dominance of the first half, in shots, in possession, in goals, in everything, and that’s really reassuring to see after our poor run of form that we seem to have worked out way through it. Either way, Eshan went into the half feeling extremely confident and ready to keep piling on the pain for the national team of Boring Paradise.
Which is pretty ironic and funny because it was the away team who were the next to score, and I have to admit it really was a beautiful screamer of a goal. Artemis Montanari gave away an absolutely ludicrous foul, hacking down one of their players for no reason like a total idiot, and was lucky to escape with just a yellow card. The freekick was about forty yards out; the Boring Paradise player took it and just passed it short on the ground to one of his teammates, who ran up and hit the ball first time from just about 35 yards out. The lad absolutely leathered it, I mean he really threw his purse at is, pretty sure he left an imprint from his laces on the ball he hit it so hard. Anyways, the ball screamed past Aurélian Gautier into the net to make it 3-2 and instantly Echani fans everywhere clenched and said “ohhhhhhhhhhhhh fuck”. But fortunately our national team players are a little bit more mentally strong and capable football-wise, so the players knew they could hold onto the lead, hell maybe even expand it.
Which they did thank god. Marco van Ciavatinni came off for Marcelo Ramos in the 56th minute looking a little tired, and Ramos immediately made a contribution. An extremely intelligent player, Ramos got the ball out on the right wing and passed it between himself, Steven Tadeo, and Artemis Montanari for a little bit, before Ramos made a great cut in on goal and Jean-Marie Bentacur picked him out with a laser pass. Marcelo Ramos was literally open in front of goal with just the keeper to beat, but for some reason he held up the ball for a couple of seconds while the Boring Paradise defenders rushed back and millions of Echani around the world screamed at their TV, only for Ramos to play a brilliant no look pass over to Magnum Cerelius, who was lancing in from the left wing, ran onto the ball and took a touch to stabilize it, and then slotted it past the keeper into the net. 4-2 in the 58th minute.
5-2 came in the 69th minute, when Jean-Pol Roland (who came in for Artemis Montanari in the 62nd minute) was fouled and a freekick was awarded. Jean-Marie Bentacur stepped up, hit a smashing shot that arced up and over the wall before dropping back down…and blasted back off the bar. Fortunately, the rebound went right to Roland, who simply tapped it in. 5-2 and that was game. Alexio del Nieran made his final change, bringing in Adnan Cynac, who plays abroad in Eura, for Jean-Marie Bentacur.
The Echani certainly took their foot off the gas after going ahead 5-2, there was zero shot the team from Boring Paradise was going to mount a comeback, so our lads were totally fine with just passing the ball and winding down the clock, and that’s how the game wrapped up, minus and penalty kick in the 84th minute. Fed through on goal by a superb long pass from Jean-Pol Roland, Marshawn Mercury burst into the box and was brought down by one of their defenders. Up stepped Jean-Pol Roland, who verrrrryyyyy cooly, calmly, and with ice water in his veins hit a neat little chipped paneka that kissed the underside of the bar as it bounced into goal. 6-2, game entirely over.
Great, great, great game for the Echani team, the result sees us leapfrog Boring Paradise into third place. With Chromatika’s surprising defeat at the hands of Banija, the group has been blown wide open again. We sit three points behind the group leaders Chromatika, two behind Eastfield Lodge, which is some bullshit if you ask me cause we smacked them down, and we sit one point ahead of Banija, two ahead of Boring Paradise, and four ahead of Bostopia in 6th. So the group could really unfold in a myriad of different ways, which I don’t really care about so long as Eshan finishes in one of those top two spots. We’re still very much in the race for qualification, obviously cause there’s like 30 points left to play for, but it wouldn’t be Echani football if a single loss meant that we were OMG LITERALLY ABOUT TO NOT QUALIFY. We are quite a reactionary people in that way. Anyways, we play Bostopia in our next matchday; if we can grab a win and have some results go our way, we might sit tied for first as the first half of qualification comes to an end. We can hope, we can dream.
#Eshanrising.
Revan was looking forward to his state visit to Mercedini, he wasn’t entirely sure when it would come to pass, but playing diplomate and representing Eshan overseas was something he was always more than up to doing. He was happy at the press coming out from the Mercedinian, with the country seeming to be very excited for him to come visit. As far as he could tell, Revan would be the first foreign head of state to visit the country; that’s a nice record to ensure him a(nother) space in the history books.
The Echani had a lot to offer the Mercedinians, from military hardware to green energy, endless amounts of marijuana to the multiverses best LSD, and countless more things that the nation had available to trade. He was interested to see what the Mercedinians would bring to the table, but in all honesty it really didn’t matter to Revan what they offered. He was happy to just build a relationship with another nation, to bring another country into Eshan’s sphere of influence, to continue to generate a positive image that the world was recognizing. Financial services, empty land, whatever it was, it wasn’t as important as the intangible part of ally-building.
Revan also didn’t have an entirely clear idea of the outcome he would like. A trade deal would be nice, military training would be good, but again that wasn’t what he was primarily concerned with; Revan knew that with his personality and political skills, a meeting with Dimitry Larmee would be a great step towards having a reliable ally. Nominally he was going there to build a bond between Mercedini and Eshan, security in the realm, and to hammer out a trade deal of sorts. But Revan was adaptable, whatever was thrown his way he would deal with, and would make sure that Eshan got the best deal out of it.
He should go on a state tour, visiting Echani allies like Ethane and Quebec, meeting potential allies like the Mercedinians, perhaps stopping by nations he had had recent diplomatic talk with, like Starblaydia and Valanora (who he had cabled in recent weeks with regards to the death of the Lord Protector and the Calling respectively), just a global world tour to help spread the Echani name out there and generate positive press and feelings towards Eshan.
Something to consider, especially as it seemed the current rush of international events was starting to peter off. The South Covello situation was certainly contained, with only a small number of Echani forces there to keep the peace. Nuevo Caracas continued to wind down, with Echani soldiers working well with the Quebecois to hunt down any last remaining pro-Immaduran forces. That was effectively the extent of current Echani operations abroad, our holdings of South Yerfilag and Ovskovyk were safe and contributing to the Republic, our base in Ethane was secure and held 15,000 Echani soldiers and various air and naval forces ready to deploy into Esportiva at a moment’s notice, and the arms deal with Ethane had been signed and completed smoothly.
Thinking on his home region of Atlantian Oceania, Revan had to confess that he wasn’t entirely sure what was going to happen next. The situation with Starblaydia…well Revan had no clue what would come out of that as those proud folk adapted to having a Lady Protector for the first time in many, many suns; the country wasn’t collapsing or revolting or doing anything insane that required action, so Revan assumed things were going just fine and that there was a peaceful transition of power underway.
The other thing of note going on in Atlantian Oceania was the Calling in Valanora. Or the fake Calling, Revan wasn’t entirely sure what was going on on the account of him not being an elf residing in Valanora. If he was that, undoubtedly the whole Calling would be more clear, but the basics of the situation were very very obvious to him. The Calling was an essential event the elves that only came every once in a long while, with the result of elves disappearing to……well he didn’t know that. The last Calling had come roughly forty years ago, so for this one to come again so soon was undoubtedly confusing to the Echani’s south-western neighbors. Anyhow, this potentially real, potentially fake Calling required extremely astute political navigation from Tobias; while Tobias certainly presented the evidence well that this was a fake calling, how would the elven population react? Would they believe Tobias and deny that instinctual (Revan assumed it was instinctual at any rate) need to answer the Calling and leave Valanora? Would they say he’s full of shit and push him out of power? Would some support him and some disagree, setting the stage for a conflict or civil war? What if this was a real Calling and none of the elves answered it? Would some crazy elf gods descend into Atlantian Oceania, because if so that would seriously cause a lot of problems for both Eshan and region. Either way, Revan was very interested in monitoring this situation, and he had mobilized Echani military forces to prepare to intervene if need be. Which Revan really couldn’t stress to himself enough that he very, very highly doubted that any sort of conflict would break out in Valanora, or Starblaydia, or really any other nation in Atlantian Oceania. Revan chuckled to himself, of course things seemed alright in AO compared to the rest of world, because unlike those regions Atlantian Oceania actually had their shit together and wasn’t plagued by wild international actions. For now at least.
So in summary, things seemed to be going well for Eshan in an international/diplomatic/military conflict sense. The two conflicts Eshan was in, in South Covello and Nuevo Caracas, were winding down in fantastic wins for the Echani forces. The Echani colonies were safe and sound and happy members of the Republic. Our allies were great, a state visit to Mercedini was on the horizon, so friendly things were going quite well. And the homefront of Atlantian Oceania seemed to be quite strong and stable, albeit with some uncertainty in Starblaydia and Valanora, but those did not seem to be, or even threaten to evolve into, situations where Echani action was needed.
It was a good time to be Echani.
