Original Script
Aguazul’s retirement lasts only a cycle, but rules are rules. *Whether temporary or permanent*. They get to keep their Lineal Championship until they return, but an Interim champion is crowned at the final of the World Cup that they miss. In the final of World Cup 60, held at the Ijak-Nash Stadium in Paris, The Babbage Islands, The Holy Empire beat Eura to win the Interim Championship, and Aguazul return with their lineal belt soon after.
The Unofficial Title will be split into two, but not for long. The Unification happens early in cycle 62.
Okay. Stats break. You’ve been sitting there wondering about the ten most lop-sided victories in the history of the Unofficial World Championship. I can tell. Here they all are.
First, in joint seventh place, a group of seven-goal victories. Here’s lineal champions Squornshelous running roughshod over Coocoostan in the qualifiers for World Cup 33.
Seven cycles later, Manhattan Prime smash their master-nation Commerce Heights 8-1 in the AOCAF Cup in the middle of their unlikely run as Lineal and Atlantian Oceanian Champions.
Later, Kinitaria thrash the beloved Queer Poco el Mono Ara 8-1 in World Cup 64.
In more recent history, Vilita defend their Unofficial title by beating Bysantia 8-1.
Even more recently, Equestria defeat Hapilopper by the same scoreline in cycle 84’s AOCAF Cup,
There are four eight-goal wins, three of which are 8-0 bear-downs that we scrolled over in the last chapter.
Starting the top three is The Holy Empire, defending the Interim belt they won after Aguazul’s hiatus by beating West Zirconia by nine goals to one.
In joint first, we have Vilita’s nine-goal demolition of Maldunia that we covered in the very first chapter of The Idiot Project.
As you might expect, every one of these thrashings has been administered to a challenger by the reigning Unofficial World Champion.
Except one.
Here, it’s the reigning, defending, Lineal, Unofficial Champions of the World that are thrashed - obliterated - by nine goals to nil. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The champions had gone into the game as favourites for the match, ranked 30 places above their opponents in the KPB rankings. Those opponents… had *also* gone into the game as the reigning, defending, Unofficial champions of the world. The holders of the Interim world championship.
This record thrashing is the second of the two unification matches in the history of the Unofficial World Title.
---
To say the scoreline is harsh on Kiryu-shi is a massive understatement. The Unofficial titles were only split for just over a cycle, but in this short era of uncertainty, Kiryu-shi had been the team to watch.
This graph shows each team to have won the UWC at least twice. It plots opposition strength - specifically how many UWC championships the losing side of a title match had held throughout their history - against total title wins. Here at the bottom, The Weegies and Europa Britannia won a few titles each, but did so by beating relatively unsuccessful teams. As we scroll up, Kiryu-shi aren’t at the *very* top, but they’re close.
The team at the very top is Nedalia, a capable yet limited outfit from the Jolt era. Look what happens to this graph when we replace this Strength of Opponent metric with Win Percentage in UWC title matches. Nedalia were the undisputed kings of losing in title bouts. It just so happened that, when they *did* win, it was against the two biggest teams of the Jolt era.
First Starblaydia and then, some time later, Bettia.
When Brazillico returned in cycle 10 they brought with them an aura of invincibility that only lasted three games. When Aguazul returned with the lineal belt in cycle 61, they proved to be more resilient. This team had a record to protect. They’d been defeated only once in their previous forty-seven competitive matches, a run that saw them win an unprecedented three World Cups in a row, and they started their comeback with a run of fifteen consecutive matches without defeat. The one cycle break had not harmed the side who have the utterly inarguable claim to be the greatest team of the 50s. They seemed as powerful as they’d ever been.
And yet Kiryu-shi destroyed them 4-1.
When The Kiri lost the belt themselves, it was to The Holy Empire, according to SRS rankings the number two side in history. When they won it back, it was from Valanora, the number one.
By the time of the unification bout, this 9-0 demolition, Kiryu-shi had just reached the second round of the World Cup and were 24th in the KPB rankings at the time. Audioslavia were 58th, would fail to qualify for the World Cup that cycle, and would be knocked out of the Cup of Harmony by Cuboneland. Yeah. Cuboneland. It’s a match I remember fondly.
Kiryu-Shi Nil, Audioslavia Nine is a freak result. A farce. A match that would have been meaningless in the story of world football had it not been played for the Unofficial World Championship.
This was Audioslavia’s first Lineal title win since World Cup 29. Their luck would continue throughout the next few cycles, racking up 30 successful defences over four championship reigns until cycle 68.
In World Cup 68, the nature of international football would change. The Unofficial Championship would no longer be contested solely in the AOCAF Cup and official NSWC games in the World Cup and Cup of Harmony. From World Cup 68 onwards, another of the multiverse’s sporting regions would claim ownership of the title and would defend it in their own regional championships. The football world was entering a period of dominance from the second greatest of the three sporting regions.
Trivia / Extras
- An aww-shucks-I-have-to-write-about-my-own-nation-winning chapter
- The two graphs from this video
- I missed the chance to include this image due to having only been reminded of its existence weeks after the video had been completed.
- That 2003 decision to base Audioslavia’s shirts on that of Brazillian club team Fluminense pays off. Though.. everyone is celebrating the ninth goal of a nine-nil win a little too enthusiastically aren’t they?
- The first seven minutes of this video were pretty much entirely done by early May. The second half was done in late June, after the six-week break.
- In retrospect I feel guilty about doing Rushmore like that. Nevertheless, the end of this video sets up the next chapter well.