RNFL Season Four
Matchdays 1 through 10
Matchday 1
Bayern Heidelberg, Zimmerich FC, and Ville-Sur-Rivière all win their games today with varying levels of comfortability: Heidelberg squeak past Hamwich one-nil, while Ville put five past Puits Tunnellers. This keeps our three-way tie for first place alive, while Écho SC is only one point out. Elsewhere, the Alpine Armageddon also get destroyed by Hanting, and the Reçueçn Raptors somehow beat Slynwell, to the delight of their fans.
The whistle blows, and it's kickoff on the First League's First Matchday! This hasn't happened since before the collapse of the RNFL, so back sometime around WC 73 or something. Wow, that really sounds longer ago than it feels like--and it feels like it's been years, despite the fact that a quick look at the players will show that it's still all the same people and they're still all the same ages. What's the opposite of the saying, "time flies when you're having fun?" It's like time stands still when there's no domestic football here.
Haha, a little joke. Anyway, Reçueçn FC, title favorites, start off on the right foot with a three-nil win over Associated Savoie. Gerauld Firaut marks a clean sheet to start off the season, but he doesn't have to work too hard to accomplish that, as Savoie's attack struggles to get past Reçueçn FC's back line. It's Jack Woodard, Reçueçn FC's center-forward, who opens up the scoring for the game, and scores the first goal in the league--he takes a chance with a long shot five minutes in and finds the back of the net.
The most impressive scoreline is Bonneville Sporting scoring a five-zero shutout against Renting ASC, who had to have been hoping for a better start to the new season. Asurdi Balinaga--who odds are, you've never heard of--scores a hat trick. It's early for sure, but Bonneville will probably be looking to extend his contract when it expires in a year.
Of the teams at the top, only Ville-sur-Rivière gets away with a win this time, putting them out in front, if only by two points. Puits Tunnellers' form continues to be abyssmal. Cinizio gets only their second win of the season in an exciting four-three battle with Canting-Aexwell, who fall below them to 19th.
It's the second day of the season, and already the most important game of the year is here: "Le Classique," when Reçueçn FC and Association Genève, arch-rivals, face off. This one is hosted in Reçueçn, and a sold-out crowd at Carl III Stadium cheers their team on to a one goal win over Geneva. Firaut scores another clean sheet, stopping every shot by his RNFT teammates, Saunders, Franky, and LeClair. Geneva fans, meanwhile, are left lamenting not only a loss to their most hated rivals, but also a weak start to the season--1 point in two games is not good for a team of their caliber. They'll need to make that up next week.
Renwyll, who they tied last week, achieve wonders: a seven to one victory over Bonneville Sporting, who themselves are nothing to laugh at (remember they scored five last week). Guillaume Delafosse, Bonneville's manager, somehow doesn't actually have a backup keeper to call into action, so it looks like Niko Rehberg, confidence shattered, will be in net for the foreseeable future.
It's the Reçueçn Raptors, of all the teams, that beats Ville-Sur-Rivière and knocks them out of first place. Sporting Saint-Carl is happy; with a convincing win over Slynwell they take the lead. There's not too many other surprises--maybe Cinizio managing to hold Écho SC to a two-two draw.
Association Genève loses again this week, making their weak start official. They're now 13th in the league (out of 16), meaning they're only one spot out of relegation. Obviously that's a long ways away, but it would be a huge scandal were that to happen... Interestingly, Geneva Lake-Side is doing even worse than their bigger cross-town counterparts--losing to Itrino three-one today means they still haven't managed to get a single point in the standings. There's some other fun games to watch this week as well: Heldingen and Arly both win three goals to none, over Harrim FC and Tyvania, respectively, while Annedine Sporting scores two goals and a clean sheet each against Associated Savoie. The only particularly boring game is Col-De-Môse playing out a scoreless draw with Renting ASC. There's not many chances for either side, and the stadium is mostly empty by the time the final whistle blows.
The surprise this week is Canting-Aexwell scoring five goals to Hanting FC's one. Benjamin Couvreur scores a hat trick on Mike Rehder, Hanting's goalie, and rips off his shirt in celebration. He hasn't thought ahead and doesn't have a second jersey handy--Burt Renalds, his coach, has to sub him off. It's the most exciting moment in the league this week. Not too much else of note happens.
Association Genève lose again, which means they're now last in the league. Geneva Lake-Side and Renting ASC tie each other, and Tyvania gets a victory, so all three teams pass Genève. Tyvania brings down Heldingen, last season's champions, along the way. Heldingen hasn't been doing too badly so far: they're only two points out of first place. But in fact, with only four games played, that's pretty meaningless. More than half the teams are still within a game of the title spot.
The other thing to point out here is that Harrim FC defeats Itrino six-one. It's Matthäus Behrend who draws the attention in this game--"only" two goals, but he also keeps dropping back to the midfield and creating wonderful attacking opportunities for his teammates. An eye-catching performance for sure.
The top of the table is still very tight--three teams within a point of first, with three more only a game back from there. The Puits Tunnellers Alpine Armageddon annual grudge-match takes place this week, and the Armageddon carry the day in a two-one win. They take the winning lead with fully half an hour left in the game, but struggle to look convincing as they finish it out. After all, neither of these two teams are particularly great.
And they've done it! It's taken more than a month, but Association Genève finally records their first win of Season 4, a two-one fight with Arly that isn't as convincing as it should be. Franky scores both the goals for his team, which is as many as the entire team had scored in the season this far.
Anyone not a Genève fan, however, is tuning in to the Chapel-Field House game as soon as they hear about what's going on: three red cards are given out (Bernard Wellington for Chapel-Field House and Earl Randall and Damien Jennings for Stomford), so it's ten on nine, and both teams' defenses start to fall apart. The final score is seven to four, which is frankly ridiculous. Everyone watches this bloodbath happen, and within hours of its end it's been dubbed "Stomford's Stomping". It's all anyone can talk about for a week.
It's not a good day for Écho SC fans--they lose, but not only do they lose, they lose to Ville-Sur-Rivière, meaning they fall ever further back. The game is a close one, but Tristan Kempf slots one through at the near post just before full time.
Another nice week with nothing crazy. Stomford haven't recovered enough to win, but they put up a respectable showing in their three-one defeat to Col-De-Môse, at least making them fight for the goals. Reçueçn FC is hosting another Geneva team this week, whom they also welcome by scoring on right off the bat--Roméo Jacquard scores in the second minute. Geneva never recover and look shaky for the rest of the game, although they only give up one more goal. Association Genève take another loss too. It seems their scoring has entirely dried up: normally they're strong on the attack but here somehow it's their sixth game and they've only scored nine goals total. Franky is putting on shades after the matches now and refusing to talk to paparazzi.
Bayern Heidelberg accomplish a five-goal shutout against Ramton, which is impressive, but not as impressive as Zimmerich FC scoring five against Sporting Saint-Carl. Nick Seck, Zimmerich's manager, is ecstatic at his press conference. "You can see our attacking drive is paying off. It's easy to score goals against some teams, but being able to repeatedly do so against an opponent of Saint-Carl's caliber is a promising thing in this league, especially if we can control the ball the whole time and only concede a single goal in the meantime. If we keep playing like this I can assure the fans we'll be back up in the First League next year."
Heldingen and Renwyll face off this week. Both teams are common UICA competitors, so it's a big game, but it's more one-sided than ticket-holders expected. Renwyll's Truman Behling lets in four goals and his teammates don't score any. Reçueçn FC are now first in the league with eighteen points in seven games. Not bad. They're also a game clear of any competition, for now. Things are tighter at the bottom.
Speaking of the bottom, I know I keep mentioning it, but it's crazy that Association Genève only has five points. They ought to be in second.
Zimmerich FC does it again in a breathless six-five game against Ville-Sur-Rivière. Zimmerich is please with their game--they won, they got the three points, and it was a great game for their fans. Ville-Sur-Rivière is obviously upset: one would hope to win any game where you score five goals. It's the neutral parties who point out that the attacking philosophy has gone too far here--one should expect to lose any game where you concede five goals, and happening to win is just lucky.
Finally a win for Genève, because I'm getting tired of talking about them losing, and I'm going to have to stop mentioning them. For now it's worth saying that Bonneville Sporting is a good team and they put up a good fight, so it's a good sign if Geneva can beat them. It was a fun game to watch.
An even more fun game is Reçueçn FC hosting Heldingen; two more strong teams, and boy do they put on a show. The final score is four to three, which means Gerauld Firaut has let in more goals here than he has in the entire season to date. His teammates are happy with him anyway--after all, they've won--but it's clear as the tv cameras zoom in on his face that he's disappointed with himself and beating himself up over it. Here's a man who takes his job seriously.
A lot of high scoring games again this week, but this time all the teams getting stomped on are ones you would expect given their opponents, with the possible exception of Actwell, who despite losing six to two against Ville-Sur-Rivière this time around still have a winning record.
Five of the eight games end one-nil this week, which is a bit more like the Reçuecian soccer we all know and love. Well, Reçuecians love it, somehow. It's a bit hard for others to fathom how they get so excited by Luc Pélissier scoring in the forty-third minute and then his team parking the bus for the entire second half. But that's tradition, and that's exactly what happens here as he leads Heldingen to their win over Stomford. It's essentially the same storyline in Itrino, Harrim, Renting, and Col-De-Môse, although not all the hosts wind up on the winning side.
Second League Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
1 Ville-Sur-Rivière 18 12 4 2 46 24 +22 40
2 Bayern Heidelberg 18 12 3 3 34 12 +22 39
3 Zimmerich FC 18 12 1 5 41 26 +15 37
4 Hamwich FC 18 10 5 3 27 18 +9 35
5 Sporting Saint-Carl 18 10 4 4 42 28 +14 34
6 Écho SC 18 9 4 5 25 18 +7 31
7 Hoping FC 18 7 7 4 31 26 +5 28
8 Actwell 18 7 6 5 41 34 +7 27
9 Hanting FC 18 7 5 6 32 28 +4 26
10 Lampadaires Associated 18 6 6 6 23 25 −2 24
11 Boruncia 18 6 6 6 33 36 −3 24
12 Slynwell 18 5 5 8 22 24 −2 20
13 Alpine Armageddon 18 6 2 10 33 51 −18 20
14 Reçueçn Raptors 18 5 4 9 25 40 −15 19
15 Canting-Aexwell 18 5 3 10 31 32 −1 18
16 Ramton 18 5 3 10 30 38 −8 18
17 Cinizio 18 4 6 8 23 31 −8 18
18 West Canton Eagles 18 5 2 11 36 44 −8 17
19 Hesse Sporting 18 4 5 9 11 20 −9 17
20 Puits Tunnellers 18 0 5 13 16 47 −31 5
This week the scores are much more reasonable. The most important games are Écho SC versus Zimmerich FC (Écho, two to one) and Bayern Heidelberg versus Sporting Saint-Carl (Saint-Carl, by the same score). The table shows how close things still are for the most part. (Can you believe that Puits Tunnellers haven't won a game yet!? ... Yes, I can.) With no surprise, the top three teams are all those that came down from the First League last year. Remember that only two seasons ago, Ville-Sur-Rivière won the First League, so they definitely feel they should be able to win the Second League here. It's looking like they may be right.
First League Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
1 Reçueçn FC 10 9 0 1 20 6 +14 27
2 Annedine Sporting 10 7 0 3 20 11 +9 21
3 Bonneville Sporting 10 6 1 3 20 16 +4 19
4 Associated Savoie 10 6 0 4 18 16 +2 18
5 Arly 10 4 4 2 18 14 +4 16
6 Chapel-Field House 10 5 1 4 18 17 +1 16
7 Harrim FC 10 4 2 4 12 12 0 14
8 Itrino 10 4 2 4 15 18 −3 14
9 Heldingen 10 4 1 5 18 15 +3 13
10 Renwyll 10 3 4 3 19 17 +2 13
11 Association Genève 10 2 4 4 9 13 −4 10
12 Renting ASC 10 2 4 4 8 15 −7 10
13 Geneva Lake-Side 10 2 3 5 12 17 −5 9
14 Stomford 10 2 2 6 18 25 −7 8
15 Tyvania 10 2 2 6 9 19 −10 8
16 Col-De-Môse 10 1 4 5 13 16 −3 7
Reçueçn take another win at home, and they're on top of the league as the first third of the season ends--where they feel they should be, happy to be two entire games clear. Hopefully no one is writing off the season this early, but there's a lot of teams that look like they're starting to think about aiming for the IFCF Challenger's Cup, rather than the Champions' League.
Gerauld Firaut has only let in six goals up to this point (three of which were in a single game), meaning Reçueçn's leads the league in Goals Allowed--well, you know what we mean. It's kind of like golf. They also handily are one of three teams that is tied for the most goals scored, and not coincidentally, the three teams--the other two being Annedine and Bonneville Sporting--have the top three spots for now. Looking at goals for and against, Tyvania definitely has the worst record--a goal differential of minus ten. But they've managed to give them up in bursts it would seem, since they're still ahead of Col-De-Môse, who are last but have a goal differential of only minus three. This week they keep that stat even as they tie Association Genève two-two. Oops, I said I wouldn't mention how badly Genève is doing. Well I guess I lied. They're still doing badly. Tune in for the next installment to see if they can turn that around.