Copa Rushmori XL - Everything Thread

[Astograth]

The idea had first come to Aire Epherra on the training ground. It had been an offhanded comment from Karazatorre, some banter. ‘Old man’, Karazatorre had called him first.

“I’m not even forty,” Epherra had snapped back.

“But you’re getting there.”

“So are you, punk,” grumbled Epherra. He had mixed feelings over this kid finally developing an attitude.

“I just turned thirty, mate. I’ve got plenty of time,” then Karazatorre paused for effect. “…to break Sarlange’s record.”

That was the right button to annoy Epherra. He snorted. “That’ll be my record by the time you get anywhere near it. You know that.”

“Yes, yes,” said Karazatorre to placate him. “We’re all committed to helping you out But I’m like, almost halfway there. And you were only like thirty when you got started.”
“Come on, mate. Real talk. We’re all helping you out, wish you the best, all that. You’re doing great this Copa. But you’re thirty-eight, man, and you’ve got what? Twenty goals to go?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Twenty-one. To break it?”

“To match it.”

“OK, so twenty-two to break it.”

Epherra cleared his throat and smashed another shot past the hapless third keeper. “Yeah. Twenty-two.”

Soter Sarlange’s record of 89 goals for the national team had stood for just over 50 years. Epherra’s 68 was the closest anyone had come. It was the Holy Grail for any Astograthian striker, but widely acknowledged to be near impossible. You’d have to be a starter and sustain a ratio of a goal every 2 games, or better, for something like a full decade with the national team to even have a chance. Epherra had accomplished his own mark in six years, but he was still a ways off.

“Twenty-two is a zakina-ton of goals,” warned Karazatorre.

“I can do it. One more cycle, I’ll do it.”

“That’s insane,” said Karazatorre, shaking his head. They’d had this conversation a dozen times, and it always played out like this. “You’re insane.”

Epherra frowned. “I’ll do it. And if I don’t, I’ll do it next cycle, or the next. Or the one after that, I don’t care!”

“You’re thirty-eight.”

“I feel fine. I’m playing fine. Age is a number”.

“Your pectoral took you out of the Cup of Harmony.”

“Injuries happen to everybody. I’m here now, I keep going.”

“You’ll keep playing into your forties.”

Epherra glared at him. “If that’s what it takes.”

“When’s your contract even up with Rülândéá Kôstä?”

“I don’t know.” That was true.

That one of the biggest clubs in the world still had this guy on the books, that they started him, and that he kept scoring, each blew Karazatorre’s mind. He shook his head. Then he said it.

“You’re not fucking… Berlasko the Bold, man. You’ve got to stop at some point. Or someone’s going to make you stop.”

The mention of Berlasko the Bold was like a jolt of lightning to Epherra. He perked up immediately.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re old!”

“No no, what do you mean I’m like Berlasko the Bold?”

“Oh…” Karazatorre struggled to put it into words. “That… you’re a brute. You don’t listen to reason, you just keep going.”

“Yes… yes…” pondered Epherra, a hand now firmly placed on his chin, eyes to the sky. “You mean like in Boldheart.”

“I- yeah, I guess. I meant from history but sure, the guy from Boldheart,” said Karazatorre, not liking the glint in Epherra’s eyes. “It’s- it’s not a good thing!”

Epherra wasn’t listening. The wheels were turning in his head. Berlasko the Bold. Of course! Ilixo Abarges’ character from the Boldheart series, the King of Gesterlake. Epherra, as it happened, was a huge fan; in his opinion, the pinnacle of action cinema. The swordfights were awesome, the battles epic. There was plenty of blood, maidens, jousting, and cool guys in cool armour, being badass. He’d seen all of them: the original Boldheart, Boldheart 2, Boldheart III, Boldheart 4: Lances of Rumiatzi, Boldheart: Reign of Silence, Boldheart: Origins, Boldheart: Resurrection… though naturally, since the first movie had ended with Berlasko’s death at the Siege of Antiguoko, lured there by his son’s rashness and then felled by an arrow (a classic tale older than Astograth itself), the rest were all prequels. Except Reign of Silence, which was lame because it was about Berlasko’s son, and Resurrection, which was a sequel – and, Epherra reckoned, probably the best one since it took place in the modern day and was awesome. There was supposed to be a reboot now, sometime soon, starring Anko Udondo.

Was Epherra not like Berlasko the Bold? They were both big guys. Driven. Thirty-to-forty-something in their prime. Manly. Berlasko was maybe more violent than him, on account of the ‘wiping out whole cities’ thing. Then again it was a different time, back then… whenever that was. A thousand… ish? Two thousand? Whatever years ago.

“You really think I’m like Berlasko?” he asked Karazatorre. A smile was growing on the corners of his mouth.

“I don’t think you understood what I m-“

“You’re right, though. I’m basically Berlasko the Bold.” He slapped his teammate on the back. “Thanks!”

Yes. This was a great idea. Epherra would give his agent a call after practice.

[Tikariot]

Stein-los, Pasarga. The Kilmonarch was still quiet and actually empty this early in the morning, with the sun not even sending its first glow towards the horizon. It is a beautiful venue and would be filled to the brim later that day with 72,000 spectators to host the Round of 16 match between Tikariot and Cassadaigua, but this early was just a shadowy oval as he walked along the perimeter of the pitch. He wasn't even sure he was supposed to be in here, but when he had showed the guard post his pass, they didn't hesitate to open the gate for him.

While used to early starts to the day, Brian McAllister usually did not engage in pre-sunrise walks in completely dark stadiums, but today was different. It felt different at least. He had no idea why he was drawn here in the first place, but when he woke up and couldn't fall back asleep, he figured to take a nice hot shower and then see what would happen. Out of seemingly nowhere the idea popped up in his mind to leave the usual surroundings behind and go seek some solace, some space to just think freely, but as he hailed the cab, the only place that would come to mind was the Kilmonarch. Now that he was here, though, it felt--different than he had expected. For some odd reason the huge stadium was filled with images and sounds, fading in and out, almost as if he was in a lucid dream of some sorts (he had pinched himself a couple of times to make sure that he wasn't actually still in his comfortable bed dreaming all of this up), and he somehow knew that it was not just memories from any past visits.

At one end of the stadium his mind's eye saw the Tikariot fans, the vast majority of them dressed in black, but actually depicting the Tikariotian flag across the curve. Instead of just the regular drummer at the edge of the curve to set the beat for the thunder clap, a group of them seemed to have been allowed into a cordoned-off area in front of the curve and they looked ready, tightly coiled like a spring about to explode in anticipation of the game. As he turned around, the Dagan fans on the other end of the stadium formed a stark contrast with pink dominating and it felt almost like some sort of good versus evil battle about to erupt between the Dark Tide on one end and the angelic forces on the other, painted on some surreal semi-translucent canvas. Then as sudden as this vision had entered his mind, it was gone, leaving the stadium dark and empty again.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the crisp, very early morning air and when he reopened them, the pitch was fully illuminated with the Tikariotian players in their pre-game-ritual formation. The thunderous beat of the drums took him by surprise and he turned back to the curve, where the fans had re-appeared and clapped their hands for the first time. From there the speed of the drums and the claps would slowly increase and his gaze alternated between the players and the fans, following the almost hypnotic cadence in perfect unison, until he frenetic crescendo at the end. And again, the vision did not just fade away, but just disappeared. He stepped onto the pitch, heading for the centre circle as he let his thoughts wander freely. In the past he had seen fans turn on their team, on the players, on the coach when success eluded them. They would put the blame on whoever seemed the weakest link and increase the pressure even more. With the Dark Tide, he came to the realization that even when the momentum of Stuart Ekstrom's tenure fizzled out with the weak performances at the Copa Rushmori and World Cup and the last qualifying round, the fans' support never wavered. They would stand behind the team as one, no matter how bad the results were. They would never stop believing.

A smile arrived on his face. He knew that even though just looking at the group standings that led to the match-up with Cassadaigua, Tikariot technically was the higher placed team, but Cassadaigua was one of the absolute top teams of the multiverse. A team that in the only match several years ago bulldozed the Snowy Owls flat into the ground in a resounding 0-7 loss, which still stood as the highest loss in the national team's history. But he also knew that if there was one thing he could not do, would be to stop believing. Believing that his young team had it in them to make the impossible happen. When he took over the job after winning two Copa Rushmori with Sargossa, some people saw some sort of saviour in him that would almost magically turn the team's fortunes around. The same people that would chastize him for his choice of roster for the Copa Rushmori for being "too experimental", "too young", "too inexperienced". That predicted that they would be eliminated in the group stage and sink like a stone. The same team that won the group without a loss. The same team that would not get discouraged after the surprise draw against the República Guanacasteca and would beat Raspotochje and Astograth with a combined score of 7-1.

As he stood there in the centre circle, he yelled out: "I believe!"

And in that moment he realized why the guard had told him not to step onto the pitch as the timed sprinklers turned on all around the Kilmonarch, soaking him in freezing cold water.

[Sargossa]

SSM | Sargossan State Media

International Edition - Sport



Final Repeated



Blanco Borrayo reports;


It wasn’t that long ago that The Greater Republic of Sargossa and The Democratic People's Republic of the United Socialist States of Pridnestrovia locked horns on the grassiest of battlefields. The venue was Mandrid’s Estadio Nacional en el Castillo. The occasion? The final of the Copa Rushmori. Pridnestrovia had survived a nail-biting penalty shootout with Astograth to reach that stage. Sargossa had enjoyed a highly fortuitous win over the Eurans. One nation had been steadily improving over the years, and rightly deserved their shot at a first title. The other were the reigning champions. And perhaps it was that experience that really made the difference in the crucible of a major tournament final. Because, in front of 70,000 fans in Hispinas and the countless millions of television viewers across the region and wider world, the Pridnestrovians wilted under the pressure.

It had been quite the spectacle, with two attack minded sides laying into each other from the outset. Until those crazy ninety second half seconds that saw Pridnestrovia go from leading by three goals to two, with the cup in sight, to trailing four to three and starring down the barrel. It was a hammer blow, and one their players couldn’t recover from. Coach Basil Santa Cruz desperately tried to inject the belief back into his charges but the seconds were ticking ever by and a fightback simply didn’t come. Instead Mateo Manzanares took advance of tired legs and minds to slip through the Pridnestrovian defence and administer a late coup de grace. Sargossa would retain their title. But Pridnestrovia, as it turns out, wouldn’t have to wait too long for the change of some measure of revenge.

It was a part of the tournament scheduling that had caused more than a few groans back among the football fraternity across the archipelago. The likely last sixteen pairing of Sargossa with either Pridnestrovia or Mytanija. The equivalent of being asked to choose between being burgled or mugged. There was the Pridnestrovians, with revenge on their mind, or the Mytanars. Who have proven something of a bogey side to the Corsairs in recent years. While a routine win over Isle Noire ensured Sargossa of top spot in Group E, over in Group H Pridnestrovia were searching for the goals to overhaul Mytanija at the summit of their group. They fell one goal shy of forcing a coin toss to decide it. So it would indeed be the final repeated, albeit in the last sixteen.

Although, despite being in contention for a treble of Copa titles, this Sargossan side is a very different beast to the one that lifted the last two trophies. The architect of those title triumphs coach Brian McAllister opted for a new challenge and left, taking the same position with his native Tikariot. In has come Alejandro Echeverría, who has a very different philosophy. Whereas McAllister is a very offence minded coach who encourages pleasing on the eye intricate passing manoeuvres, an aggressive pressing game and a certain amount of unpredictability. Echeverría prefers a solid defensive base from which to launch direct and to the point attacks. For him the style is secondary to the results. And in the results the difference can be seen. McAllister’s side were a free-flowing free-scoring unit who had an unfortunate knack of also leaking a lot of goals. In four group games under Echeverría the side have scored nine, the lowest tally of the group winners, but haven’t conceded at all.

Ps Team                       P  W D  L For  Ag +/- Pts
 1 Sargossa                   4  4 0  0  9   0  +9  12
 2 Cabo Azure                 4  3 0  1  8   2  +6   9
 3 Three Golden Kingdoms      4  2 0  2  5   5  +0   6
 4 Isle Noire                 4  1 0  3  4  11  -7   3
 5 Norrhem                    4  0 0  4  2  10  -8   0

Revenge fuelled Pridnestrovia will certainly provide the sternest test of that defensive record to date as the tournament moves into the knockout stages. As the tournament moves so too do the Corsairs, reluctantly leaving the Troubalose base that has proven so kind. On the plus side they’re relocating to bustling Paulinthal, a city with a notable Hispanic flavour. So much so that it has attracted a sizable community of Sargossan ex-pats over the years. Hopefully that will translate to some equally sizable support in the San Daros stands come matchday. The team has already tasted one victory ahead of the game. Having been drawn as the ‘home’ side, the Corsairs get the good locker room.

The plum tie of the last-sixteen can be found in Stein-los where host nation Pasarga, the nation with the most appearances in this tournament and hoping to make the historic fortieth one to remember for the locals, face former title holders Astograth. The most romantic tie is set for Evenfar, where unranked duo Falykr and Xinhua will battle to see whose remarkable run continues into the last eight. In Targas perennial favourites Nephara face potential spoilers Yuezhou. A similar encounter takes place in Torgos, where heavy hitters Eura are unlikely to have it all their own way against Græntfjall. In a busy day in Stein-los Mytanija’s reward for avoiding Sargossa is a clash with a talented side from Cabo Azure. Across the city Brian McAllister’s personal threepeat is still on but Cassadaigua are tough opposition for his Tikariot side. And in Lunas two former champions will duke it out as Valladares collide with Savojarna.

[Cabo Azure]

Cabo Azure 0-2 Sargossa
Starters: Antunes | de Lima, Medeiro, Moniz, K. Brandão, Branco | Ferreira, Maciel, Serra | Dantas, Silveira
Substitutes:

A respectable loss to a superior side in a match which will ultimately have little bearing on the overall tournament. Cabo Azure will advance to the round of 16, as will Sargossa. With the completion of the final matchday of the group stage, Cabo Azure can now look forward to a match against Mytanija, to whom they lost 6-4 in a whirlwind groupstage match in the thirty-ninth Copa Rushmori.

Shooting Stars, pt 4
Isabella and Ivo’s business trip to Cabo Azure ended on a high note, both personally and professionally. Spiritair completed its acquisition of Air Cometa, cementing the occasion with a press conference by Dom Joaquin Sequeira, the smiling, sanguine picture of Azurean manhood sporting with the journalists. Lupita insisted on driving Isabella and Ivo to the airport in her hatchback and brought Isabella into a crushing hug on the curb, whispering in her ear, “Don’t work so hard. You ever need a break, come on back.”

The first changes were the most noticeable; the livery on Air Cometa’s narrowbodies changed to reflect the new ownership, and codeshare agreements popped up overnight, connecting Cabo Azure for the first time to destinations across Rushmore. Politically the response was tepid, and the royal family remained unusually quiet for a project involving the Royal Kingdom of Quebec, where Princess Alexandra had received her education and where her husband was from. No one moved or even spoke against Dom Joaquin’s new project, but it didn’t receive the fanfare that other, lesser ventures had.

Work continued behind the scenes to improve the landing strip at Natal, with the newly-formed Avo Aerospace Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Air Cometa, purchasing and leasing the fallow land surrounding the tarmac. The handful of planes based there, mainly crop-dusters and search-and-rescue platforms, began to see private jets and other higher-end private traffic. First a hangar went up, then a fixed base operator, and finally the foundation was laid for what would become a passenger terminal.

None of which went unnoticed by the Silva family or the rest of Sao Simone’s upper crust, but they mostly kept their distaste to themselves. Despite their wealth and power, it had long been suspected that the Silvas were mostly hollow, propped up by debt and reputation, and their feckless response to the continued development of the Natal airport was seen by their detractors as further evidence of their decline. However, the Silvas were known for playing their cards close to their chest.

Within a year of Air Cometa’s acquisition by Spiritair, the Silva family announced the launch of Cabo Azure Express, flying nonstop from Silva Airport to the airstrip in Lagostim, on the island of Dulce Muerte, the first scheduled domestic air service in Azurean history. Thus it became known; the new Sao Simone International Airport, as the airport in Natal came to be called despite the thirty-minute drive to the capital, for international flights, and the old Silva Airport for domestics.

[Trans-Dniesters]

“They haven’t moved? Even the tiniest bit?” Commander Miroslav Riley of the Movement for a United Ceroat asked the Pridnestrovian MP watching over their new… prisoners? Guests? Whatever? Riley didn’t know what to call the new visitors as he didn’t have a clue as to the purpose of their visit, other than that they and their leader wanted to see him.

“Not a single bit, Commander,” the MP shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve even seen them blink once!” The MP then shuddered as if he found the mere thought of not blinking for thirty minutes straight disturbing. It was, but the whole situation was so strange that not blinking was the least of Riley’s worries.

“Just keep an eye on them, will you?” Riley said, and the MP nodded his head. Riley then turned back at the cell currently holding the four “assimilated” humans who had accompanied the fifth man to their meeting with the Commander. The four (three men and one woman) assilimants shone brightly on the thermal cameras, signifying their status as alien invaders who had taken on the human form to better move around and interact with the other beings on this planet. They were wearing a worn and tattered combination of civilian clothing and the olive green uniforms of the old Ceroatian Army, and the blisters and scarring on their faces seemed to lend credence to the theory that the assimilation process killed the human being assimilated while providing a vessel for the alien assimilator. And it was that thought that sent a chill down Riley’s spine. How many of his fellow Ceroatians had been killed by these aliens in their rampage to the capital of his country, and how many had been assimilated and their bodies turned against their own friends and family? That was a question to which he dreaded knowing the answer, but he also knew that the only way to know was by going ahead and talking with the man who had led these aliens to the Movement’s frontline.

“Is he ready?” Riley asked another MP,.a Ceroatian one this time, as he turned away from the cell holding the other assimilated humans.

“He’s been waiting for you since he arrived,” the MP replied. Riley nodded and said, “Lead the way.” The MP led Riley to a different cell far away from the other assimilation. This cell was different in that there was only one person inside of it, and he had been secured to a chair in the middle by at least three handcuffs and leg irons. They really had to make sure that this one would remain where he was and not slip away yet again, although given that he had come here willingly, that didn't feel very likely. But the MPs still had to make sure, just in case.

"Colonel Edwin Chudovsky," Riley said to the man in the cell. "I must say, you're a very hard man to pin down."

"I try to do my best to keep your men sharp, Commander," the assimilated rebel warlord replied. "But I must admit, that raid in Novy Nish almost caught me off guard because you used your Pridnestrovian allies' elite forces. That one encounter did make it easier for me to prepare for them the next time they tried to come after me."

"But that didn't work out in your favor in the end, did it?" Riley said back. "You weren't expecting them to unleash a nuclear device on their own position just so they could make their escape. And you probably weren't expecting that one nuke to be able to knock out all of your tripods in one fell swoop."

"Again, I have to admit, that was a miscalculation on my part," Chudovsky said. "Everything that I had learned about you humans suggested that the use of nuclear weapons was perceived to be an absolute last resort, and that you would only have used it if it was truly the only option left. But your Pridnestrovian allies appear to be more liberal in their application of these doomsday weapons than I previously thought. You should be careful around your new friends, Commander. One false step and you could easily find yourself on the wrong side of a nuclear attack."

"Cut the crap, Chudovsky," Riley sighed. "If I wanted to ask for advice on making friends on the geopolitical level then I certainly wouldn't be asking you. There are a lot of questions that I would like to ask you, but I'll start with the elephant in the room: why are you here? Why do you want to talk to me?"

"Would you believe me if I said that the situation has developed not necessarily in the favor of my brethren?" Chudovsky replied.

"I can, surprisingly enough," Riley nodded. "I mean, clearly you and your brethren must have felt the noose closing in on you once the EMP hit southern Ceroat and your tripods couldn't hold off our troops any longer. We are literally knocking on the doors of Ragusapolis. And so here you now are, trying to negotiate some sort of peace between us. How sure are you that we will listen to any of your offers, your pleas, your demands?"

"And what makes you think that I'm here to offer or beg for surrender?" Chudovsky asked.

"Why else would you be here?" Riley asked back. "Your tripods are all but useless. The only Ceroatian city you have left under your occupation is Ragusapolis itself. You are surrounded and out of equipment to defend yourself. What else is this other than an attempt to prevent your unconditional surrender or utter destruction?"

Riley's words were apparently funny to Chudovsky because the rebel warlord started laughing to himself. "You have no idea how close my kind have come to being utterly annihilated," he finally said. "Why else would we be on your planet and not our own?"

"Enough of this back-and-forth!" Riley said, his patience now having worn thin. "What do you want from us?"

"My brethren doesn't want much from you humans," Chudovsky replied. "All we really want is only one thing, and that is a place where we can live in peace."

"And let me guess, your brethren wants that place to be Ragusapolis," Riley snorted. "It's not happening, Chudovsky. Ragusapolis is the rightful capital of Ceroat, and as the de facto leader of the Ceroatian nation, I cannot and will not allow an enemy to retain control of my country's capital!"

"Frankly, my brethren doesn't want to keep Ragusapolis as well," Chudovsky said. "You can keep your beloved city if you'd like. Your kind's affinity for concrete and packed habitation units is a breeding ground for numerous microorganisms. Those things are deadly to my kind, and you can keep all of those disgusting microbes with your disgusting city!"

"Then what do you want?" Riley demanded.

"We want a deal from you, Commander!" Chudovsky shouted. "In exchange for allowing my surviving brethren to return to our crashed ship on the mountain you call Vozrozhdeniye, we will stop attempting to terraform your island with our native flora!"

"Terraforming? You mean you alien bastards have been trying to turn Ceroat into something that looks more like your planet?" Riley exclaimed. "Is that why my men and I have been finding more and more of these red weeds the closer we get to Ragusapolis?"

"Trying being the keyword here," Chudovsky said. "The microbes in your air and your ground continue to overwhelm our plants. None of them have survived for longer than one of your weeks."

"And what if we don't want to stop attacking your kind?" Riley asked. "What if we want to eradicate your kind for what you've done to our country and our people?"

"If that is what you want to do then I cannot stop you," Chudovsky shook his head. "We are weakened because of our constant exposure to your microbes. Our tripods are no longer operable because of the EMP. We cannot fight back against your kind anymore. If you wish to take military action against us, we can no longer satisfactorily defend ourselves. But do with us whatever you will. We will not fight back. We cannot fight back."

[Falkyr]

The locker room in the Stadium of the Moon was... tense. Even though the match was over, even though they'd cleanly put away an all-but-abandoned Eastfielder side by a comfortable margin. The chilly day in Lunas had done them a service; felt just like playing at home. All had gone well... almost too well.

Things weren't supposed to be going this cleanly. It was a fight, to be sure—Yuezhou and Nyowani Kitara are no pushovers, though perhaps still to be considered a soft draw by Rushmori standards—but unranked to undefeated? Three wins from four? They obviously have the skills and the pedigree in football, but the national team had just been haphazardly slapped back together a few months back. There hadn't even been time to set up a warm-up friendly, only internal practices and sparse ones at that. How were they jelling so well? The front-to-back communication had never broken down, overextensions were rare and adequately covered. Birgitta had already parlayed her play into getting transferred to a 1Div team, for fuck's sake!

But here they were. An inexplicably well-oiled machine rolling into the knockouts after nearly a decade away from international competition, and with the yet another softball draw—the only other unranked side to make it this far, Xinhua. Another Yue-speaking nation located near Yuezhou itself, they may be seeking revenge for the slight Falkyr gave their fellows—or perhaps are looking to one-up a neighbor's performance as a statement to the rest of the region. And they will certainly be looking at the draw as being favorable to them, as well. It will be a battle for momentum to be taken into the future.

[Eura]

COPA RUSHMORI 40 – GROUP G MATCHDAY 5
Captina Island 1-3 Eura
Scorers: Vincent 30, Coffey 41, Marshall 65
Lineup: 30. T Hammond, 21. H Wheeler, 25. Q Phillips, 27. A Coles, 23. E Reeve, 24. J Gates, 16. O Vincent (sub Erskine 68), 29. T Coffey, 20. R Marshall, 18. D Bowman (sub James 60), 14. C Atkinson, 17. S Singh (sub Sharp 78)

---

She had been here before. The artwork, the plush desk and ergonomic chair, the map of Rushmore the size of a double-decker bus in the cavernous lobby outside. It was what she had been waiting for her entire life.
Eloise Chadwick took her seat, then a deep breath, and welcomed in her first visitor.
‘Good morning, ma’am. Settling in well, I hope?’ The ancient diplomat nodded courteously as he finished speaking. How hasn’t this guy retired yet? the new Foreign Secretary wondered internally. “This guy” was Patrick Lewes, the Chief of Staff to the head of the diplomatic service, and a number of their predecessors before them.
‘Thanks Patrick, all good here. I remember coming in here on opposition briefing days. You’ve been here for…?’
‘Forty-nine years ma’am. I’d call it a day but, well, that would be a bit dull of me, wouldn’t it?’
‘Huh. Fair enough – I could use an experienced hand to navigate this place.’ She cleared her throat as if to assert some kind of authority with the grand old civil servant. Chadwick was in her mid-forties and was used to having authority over those who were older than her, but it didn’t sit comfortably that she had probably been in diapers when this guy started his career.

What really dated him was that he could remember the last time her party had been in power. ‘You know, I arranged lunches with Lafferton a couple of times, back when he was first in office. Funny old time that. Did you know him very well?’
‘Yes,’ she lied, having become an MP only a few years before Lafferton’s death, ‘he was a good man.’
‘That he was. Although, he put this place through the ringer over Mytanija, you know. It was chaos.’
‘I’m sure the new Prime Minister will avoid a repeat of that.’
‘Mmmhmm. We’ll see. Best laid plans rarely survive contact with the enemy…though who our next enemy might be I have no idea. But this might give us an idea…’ He dropped an envelope on her desk. She furrowed her brows quizzically as she picked it up. ‘And this is, what, the bill for the dry cleaners?’
‘Ah, not quite ma’am. No, this is a letter from Paige Burns ma’am, the-‘
‘-the Chair of the OSI. I know. Why are you playing messenger boy for the head of the intelligence services?’
‘Well, normally she would meet you immediately on taking office as well as the PM, but as you may know she is out of the country and was unable to return last night as planned. Bad weather out in Fligsive apparently. Anyway, she will have written to the PM separately I’m sure, but she told me over the phone that it was vitally important you get your own introduction. So, here’s a stopgap. I’ll leave you to it, shall I?’

Perturbed by the head of Euran intelligence being stuck in the Euran Oceania Territories on the day a new government was coming into office, Chadwick made some calls after Lewes had left, determined to get a proper introduction with the spy chief rather than a kind of sick note. Disappointment was expressed, to put it lightly. But still – the EAF and civil service couldn’t un-fuck the atmospheric conditions grinding flights to a standstill in Eura’s Anaian dominion. She would have to wait for a face-to-face meeting. The letter was staring back from the desk. A stopgap, eh?
Curiosity got the better of Chadwick. The letter would have to do. She opened it with an ornate letter-opener sat on the desk and began to read the freshly printed text in front of her.

Foreign Secretary,

Welcome to the side of Blackhall where power resides – I can only apologise that I am not in town to usher in this new era myself. In my role I have no political favourites, of course. But I would be lying if I told you that a sense of stagnation wasn’t setting in after more than two decades of the same people. Complacency has become an issue and left my agency, and I fear the entire Euran foreign policy establishment, without a focused set of goals. We have been listing since Yarley went. I would like to do my best to help you and the new PM right the ship.

1. YOUR MANIFESTO POLICIES

Firstly, a positive note. It is my view as the head of the Euran intelligence services that your manifesto promises on foreign policy seem realistic and achievable. Expansion of the Common Rushmori Community has fallen by the wayside in recent years as a policy priority for all member states, let alone Eura. Our sources across the pact indicate an appetite to reverse this lull in CRC prioritisation, and along with the diplomatic services and wider government, the OSI is at your disposal to ensure that giving renewed vigour to the CRC will be a high priority for the Euran government machine this term. Likewise, the proposed substantial reform of the armed forces is long overdue, and I have already instructed the relevant sections of the OSI to prepare the groundwork for this overhaul. Lessons taken from a variety of recent conflicts have taught us that, while the Euran military retains a great deal of might, it is starting to lag behind in some areas of technology and requires reform and streamlining, particularly in the use of armed drones and emerging technologies. We are over reliant on micro-options (special forces and spies) and macro-options (conventional power projection through carrier strike groups and so on) that were designed decades ago.

We have already discussed the PM’s plans for former Sameba in the past and as before I still believe they are achievable, and especially so after your party won a majority of the parliamentary seats in the seventh region. However, I would add a note of caution. Even after so much time has passed since the war, there are Sameban nationalists for whom the fight never ended, including the burning embers of an active insurgency in the far north and east of the region. It is unlikely they will all be placated or accept The Federal Deal. Your colleague at Defence will be given all the support needed to squeeze out what’s left of these people. For you, the consequence is that further massaging of our international reputation will be required when it comes to the Sameban region. Even our allies remain queasy at the blood that has been spilled to bring the region into the Euran fold.

2. GRAND STRATEGY

What of these allies, and potential enemies? When your party was last in office, this country was an established major power in Rushmore in real terms, but the region was dominated by ideologically extreme autocrats. The Mytanija intervention was initially our biggest contribution towards shifting that. The sight of liberal democratic Eura finally living up to its potential – by giving a dictatorship on the other side of the region a walloping - was extremely unsettling to unelected leaders. Since then, many of these autocracies have vanished or cooled from burning dictatorial red giants to subdued undemocratic dwarves, unwilling to raise their head above the parapet. Other events that were often beyond our influence have swept through non-democratic Rushmore – the fall of communism in multiple states in central Rushmore/Pavola, significant democratic progress in Valladares, détente between Sargossa and the democracies, the formation of the CRC, and of course the devastating but doomed final spasms of Sameban fascism – our finest hour.

But in the Rushmore-wide strategic contest between autocracies and democracies, it was not all plain sailing. The treasonous behaviour of one of my predecessors (and perhaps the Crow government) left this country deeply damaged by the Askoy Crisis, and its international reputation sullied. It wasn’t until the Valladars inexplicable Terra Henrius nuclear test that we really undid that damage to the image of Euran influence. But the silver lining was that it led to Michael Judge taking office, the right man in the right place at the right time, saving our country a great deal of hardship in the difficult years to come.

Why is this framing of our region’s politics important? Because, today, it drives the system of alliances which serves this country’s interests well and keeps the electorate you rely on happy through free-flowing trade, effortless exchange of culture and science, and crucially an absence of major wars aside from the Sameban conflict. Our core allies are the democracies that drive the region and in particular CRC members – Nephara, Electrum, Liventia in our neighbourhood, Mytanija in the west, the Valhallan Union in the north, the Kytler Peninsulae and – improbably – Nyowani Kitara in the centre. Then there are the likes of Darmen, Savojarna, Tikariot, Yuezhou and Graintfjall, countries that are not allies as such, but which share a common interest in democracy and can be reasoned with.

This framing, and the policies it shapes, has put autocracy and totalitarianism in retreat against the combined might of democratic Rushmore, and kept the system balanced enough to push out non-Rushmori influence. Compromises do need to be made, yes – our ongoing alliances with the less democratically inclined Pasarga and Astograth, for example, are strategically vital even if politically uncomfortable. But usually, the price is worth paying and keeps the momentum of regional affairs firmly in the democratic court. Relations with Valladares and Sargossa, our two biggest rivals in the region and historically autocratic, are almost as good as they have ever been thanks to this strategy putting us in a position of strength, while affording these powers respect. Just look at how Sargossa worked together with us on South Covello and steered clear of Nyowani Kitara, a level of co-operation that was once unthinkable, or how Valladares has come closer to being a true democracy than ever before, and co-operated with our investigation into Sameban nuclear terrorism.

I understand you will have your own priorities for the foreign policy agenda of this government and my agency will do everything it can to advise and serve accordingly. But, taking all the above into account, I would urge you to ensure Eura does not abandon its core strategy within the region, or how it has been applied outside of Rushmore. This cross-party approach has worked well for us for decades and should continue, alongside the other staples of Euran foreign policy: a world-leading diplomatic corps and intelligence service, and a military and supporting industrial complex capable of besting any opponent in conventional warfare (with a well maintained nuclear triad held in reserve in the unlikely event this country faces an existential threat in future).

3. SPECIFIC ISSUES

Your promises to the electorate on the CRC and armed forces reform and big-picture strategy are important, but there’s a number of specific issues you need updating on/will need to consider in the coming weeks.

Sameban nationalist militancy: We appear to have passed the heyday of post-war Sameban militancy outside of our borders, with former regime commanders and supporters having been hunted down as far afield as Nyowani Kitara and Mareibat. Their black-market supplies of heavy weaponry have dried up, all remaining Sameban Republic naval vessels have been destroyed or captured, and all nuclear materials accounted for. Our intelligence suggests this is a priority that can be wound down over the course of this term, though the Sameban Military Accountability Task Force will likely need to remain in place for the foreseeable future.

Euran Oceania Territories: The transition to Anaia has gone much more smoothly than expected and been met with little geopolitical backlash. Its not clear to me what your strategy is for taking forward the Territories position within Anaia, but we should certainly have one. Elections will be carried out there soon – the results could give an idea of the best route to take. We should also be considering how to maintain relationships with Atlantian Oceania, perhaps making the Territories a bridge between the two regions in terms of trade and culture.

Nyowani Kitara: The war is won and the peace is holding, and the country has avoided schism with the result of the referendum in the north. A Euran naval and airbase has been quietly undergoing construction on the south coast near the capital. Nevertheless, there remains risk of a re-emergence of fighting or a contested result in the coming general election, and your predecessor had serious concerns about the potential designs of Graintfjall on the country. I understand your party were unhappy with the course of action the government took on this, but it has to be said that President Akongo seems to be sticking to her word so far, and that we have committed ourselves to supporting the process. It would be advisable for continuity to be maintained. You may be able to use the “blame the last lot” trick for repairing relations with Banija and other states who responded negatively to our position on the conflict.

Leftist governments: The Liberal government had a long standing informal policy of “competitive pressure” towards the more left-wing states in our region, namely Nyowani Kitara (before and after democratic reform), and the democratic systems of Savojarna and Mytanija. My understanding is that you have a strong interest in dropping this policy and taking a more constructive approach; I saw on the campaign trail you talked about the links between us and the Mytanars, and one of your juniors was talking glowingly about rapprochement with the Savojars. OSI agents are already cultivating links on the ground and reaching out for contact with the governing parties/coalitions on your behalf.

Recognition of Yuezhou: The Liberals may have briefed this to you already and its been speculated about in the press, but your predecessor made a verbal commitment in private to secure official Euran recognition of the United Republics regime in Yuezhou, as a reward for their constructive role in the Varakoula Accords, and to secure a potential new Euran ally in the heart of Rushmore. The Nepharans have done the same. I would strongly advise that you deliver this as soon as possible.

Brenecia: I’m afraid to report troubling developments from Nephara’s former colony and an ally of ours, perhaps our most important ally in Esportiva bar Apox, and the host of the Fiana Cove naval base. There is no threat at this time to the status of the base but the turn of Brenecia towards the right is concerning, given what happened when Ward was in office. The participation of the White Cross movement in government is an active risk to democratic government in the country and I would be keen to deploy agents as soon as possible to infiltrate the party. Privately – you won’t have seen this in the papers or heard it in the house – the Nepharans think there is real cause for concern. That can’t be a good sign.

Allied capabilities: And while we are on the topic of Nephara, the Nyowani Kitara conflict has shown that we can carry out interventions at an arm’s length with allies taking a leading role, but there are limits to how far that strategy can take us. The Nepharans came out on top but they have been demoralised publicly and privately by the amount of diplomatic capital it has cost them, and the losses sustained in human and material terms. Their logistics chain has been exposed, the cracks only covered by Euran linkages. We should conduct a review of various allies capabilities and help plug gaps in order to prevent a reoccurrence of such dependency in future.

These are just some of the issues you will have to deal with as Foreign Secretary. I wish you the best of luck with finding the right solutions, and look forward to working with you to do so.

Paige Burns
Chair of the Office of State Intelligence

[Pasarga]

Round of Sixteen
Pasarga 0–0(0–0 AET)[6–5 PKs] Astograth
Nephara 2–0 Yuezhou
Falkyr 1–1(1–1 AET)[3–1 PKs] Xinhua
Tikariot 4–4(4–5 AET) Cassadaigua
Sargossa 1–2 Pridnestrovia
Savojarna 2–3 Valladares
Eura 1–0 Græntfjall
Mytanija 2–3 Cabo Azure

Quarterfinal Fixtures
Pasarga v Nephara @ San Daros, Paulinthal
Falkyr v Cassadaigua @ Stadium of the Moon, Lunas
Pridnestrovia v Valladares @ Telathron, Targas
Eura v Cabo Azure @ Silverthal, Torgos

[Nephara]

Nephara 1 - 0 Xinhua
(4-2-3-1) 1 - Provost; 17 - Kovac, 18 - Scales, 6 - Turnbull, 3 - Lind (22 - Page 76'); 19 - Tapper, 16 - Brand; 7 - Matalin, 14 - Fletcher (23 - Kvasina 76'), 11 - Marinca; 10 - Harper
Goal: Marinca 49'

Nephara 2 - 0 Yuezhou
(4-2-3-1) 1 - Provost; 2 - Schrader, 5 - Clevinger (6 - Turnbull 89'), 18 - Scales, 3 - Lind; 19 - Tapper (4 - Timekeeper 68'), 8 - March; 13 - Reed, 14 - Fletcher, 11 - Marinca (16 - Crowcombe 79'); 21 - Basilisk
Goals: Fletcher 29', Reed 37'

The diplomatic corps of the United Republics of Yuezhou could be forgiven for feeling impatient.
For once, political speculation was right. In the heavyweight diplomacy that had gone on behind the scenes at the Varakoula Accords, the Yuezhou delegation had been pivotal in getting something workable over the line; part of that had been bought by Corvistone agreeing to acknowledge the United Republics as the true and legitimate government of Yuezhou. Corvistone was always true to its word. But there'd been... delays. First, understandably, they wanted to put some distance between the declaration and the signing of the Accords so that it did not look so flagrantly like it had been bought and sold in the room where it happened. This made the declaration to come seem more legitimate and honest. But then there was a federal election. MFA Medina Klose had been pivotal in getting the deal over the line, but her Nationals were out, and a new wave of cautious Pro Dems were in. They were fairly quick on the line to Nangang - not Xilindao, which of late Nepharan politicians tended to pretend didn't exist - to give their reassurances that Corvistone would offer their commitments, but it would take time to set their initial agenda. Then the Copa Rushmori had come. The two sides, remarkably, ended up with the possibility of going toe-to-toe. Wouldn't it be just the nicest showcase of diplomatic relations to tie the knot just beforehand?
So it was, the declaration made just three days after the group draw. Much shaking of hands and smiling in front of cameras. Drusilla Brindle, the new Minister for Foreign Affairs, got flown out to Xili-- fuck. To Nangang, to talk a good game about a shared interest in democracy, et cetera.

It wasn't all bullshit. Nephara had taken a pretty clear view of Yuezhou over the years; 'it's over there, it's not our problem'. Nephara were used to the chameleon act; social democracy, or democratic socialism? That was basically the platforms of the two major parties, anyway.
But Nangang had stood out well in the Accords, and that mattered a lot, in an arena where Corvistone's relationship with so many other nations soured badly. And there was a long-standing diaspora connection, both of former communists fleeing the UR and of former capitalists fleeing the PF. Diadora Reeve, as Marcher as they come, represented the Re-- the Blue and Gold Dragons through her maternal grandfather, to say nothing of the Yue players who had made Nephara their home, from Cypher Town legend Ruo Xiaolan on.
So decades of apathy, years of war, months of awkward silence, and then maybe a week of furious love-in. All leading to this, the miracle draw that really did happen, Cormorants vs. Dragons. It would be nice to say it was an exciting game, but it really wasn't; Nephara had been particularly brutal and uncompromising in the tournament thus far, and today was no exception, using their physicality to unsettle and bully the Yue side. Dominant in the first half, they struggled to break down the door before a direct free kick beat Lu Qiang from range, and then the Cormorants got joy on the break, threatening a number of occasions before a brilliant disguised pass from Latona Basilisk, who everyone on the pitch expected to shoot, played in Reed to drive home the second.
The Dragons improved in the second half. Huang Shedong was arguably unlucky not to draw a penalty from the otherwise impeccable Scales' clumsy contact, while Li Jing forced a brilliant fingertip save from Aranea Provost late on. Yet the scoreline, the thing that really mattered, didn't budge.
It was probably a metaphor, or something.
It had started with some hangover from before. Lind and Li exchanged wreaths or banners or something. It was completely forgotten by the end, all talk of a brand new shared dawn lost. As the blue and gold lay stricken on the floor and the green and black cheered and hugged each other, there was only victor and vanquished.

[Cassadaigua]

Advancement and the transfer window,
By Chelsea Dufresne, Concord Heights Times

There are a couple topics to go over as the news around the soccer world never seems to end. The Copa Rushmori is going on in Pasarga, and even though it is the off-season now for the CSL, there is plenty of activity to talk about. Then, we even have some Rachel Schanke news to go over. You probably know the basics of all of these by now, but hopefully we can add a little more insight to the recent happenings.

Let’s start in Stein-los, where the Fillies were doing battle against Tikariot for just the second time in their national history. This game was obviously a lot more meaningful then the first one, when the teams met for a friendly when Tikariot were mere owlets on the international scene. That’s not the case any longer, and no one expected Cassadaigua to roll to a 7-0 victory like they did in that friendly. They still call themselves the Owlets, but they are obviously full grown Owls now.

Cassadaigua did well to jump out to a 2-0 lead within the first 20 minutes of the game, with Morgan Rosenblatt setting up two brilliant goals. The first was scored by Chloe Anderson in the 7th minute, a key score to get the momentum in our favor right away, and then a 19th minute strike by Krystal Sherwin, who has very quietly been a reliable winger during the Copa Rushmori, much like she was in her first ever World Cup appearance. However, after conceding the first nine goals in head to head matchups between us, the Owlets finally put one behind one of our goalkeepers, coming in the 26th minute and quickly reminding everyone that they were not going to go away quietly. Alan Castanheira scored that goal, and then he would assist on the game tying score in the 35th minute, coming from Callum Baines. For fans of the pink of the black, it was a true shame to be in a deadlocked situation as they went to the intermission. After the game, manager Brittany Byers said of the first half situation, “I know when you look at the stat sheet, you will be led to believe that we got complacent, but I do not think that was the case at all. Brian McAllister (Tikariot manager) did a great job at making the adjustments to what they saw from us in the opening twenty minutes. We were not terrible, but obviously they were better. In the locker room at halftime, it wasn’t a complicated message for us, and that would be just to calm down, and not let this get away from us. Getting back the momentum would naturally be important.”

Both teams looked to assert themselves in the second half, and it was evenly played and very exciting for the fans, though it would make all of them very nervous at the same time. Opportunities were coming quickly for both sides, but the last lines of defense, or the goalkeepers were coming up big. That is, until the 63rd minute, when a beautifully executed cross by Liam Dawson that was finished off for Castanheira’s second of the match. With the lead, the Owlets were not going to just sit back and play defense, as that is not what they do, but McAllister looked to get some fresher legs in the back, and would enter in Bryan Harrison. No, not the guy with the exact same name that drove for Team Cassadaigua in NSSCRA two seasons ago. They are two different people, and that Harrison, I promise, is still a race car driver who now drives for Tropicorp. The young Harrison looked to make an impact right away, but looked like may have crashed into a wall when Rachel Boldin’s footwork in the 69th minute completely made him look foolish, en route to the game tying goal. This, indeed, was going to be fun, and now with the game all square again, the intensity was reborn.

The Owlets responded, with their wide open focus, and took the 4-3 lead in the 75th minute, but just five minutes later, the game was tied up again. The hero for Cassadaigua here would be Bayley Stanton, who was entered into the game just three minutes prior, for Tara Kriedel. Even in the final ten minutes, both teams had strong chances, but there would not be another goal after ninety.

Off to extra time we would go, and with nothing scored in the first fifteen minutes, Brittany Byers made another substitution in the midfield, taking out Krystal Sherwin, who had played well but was starting to look more fatigued at this point, and entering 34-year old veteran Madison McClain. She had not seen much playing time during this competition, but here she would have the chance to be a hero. It would have been a nice script, but instead the hero was Morgan Rosenblatt, who’s powerful strike in the 122nd would be the deciding goal. Victory for the Fillies, and on to Lunas, to play Falkyr.

Next topic: Rachel Schanke. One of the best Cassadagan forwards of all time, who retired two seasons ago is back on the news, and will be back on the soccer pitch. However, if you were expecting to see within the Cassadagan Soccer League, this was not what you were thinking that you would hear. Schanke will be moving into coaching, and will be the manager of a team known as Hiyashi Celestia. Have you never heard of them? Of course you haven’t, because they will be an expansion team within the league of Saint Eleanor, and have massive sponsorship from a company based in Kandorith. The team promises to spend a lot of money, and they have begun to try to do so on the transfer window. Schanke has absolutely no coaching experience, but has always seemed like someone who could go into that role. Of the opportunity, Rachel said, “An expansion club is pretty exciting, especially when they are in a top division of a league, that league expects to grow its stature, and the owners have money to spend. I was a little surprised to get the call, and to hear that I was their first choice. Surprised, because you know, I am Cassadagan without any coaching experience, and they could have looked into other people. It was an honor to hear my name mentioned there as a top choice. I think everything has aligned there to have this be successful.”

Finally, the transfer window. Aggressive bids by Concord Heights City to land key people, including defender Kevin Sherwood, based in Eura, are falling short. Sherwood will be playing for 1830 Cathair in Audioslavia next season, a club seen by many as being the gold standard in the world for club football. Manager Amanda Bowman said of competing with a club like that for a key player, “I have a job to do. We swing for the fences here. It was an honor to talk to Mister Sherwood for a little while, since we were permitted to speak with him. I think his mind was already made up at that point, and I have since congratulated him on his new deal.” She would go on to say, “I have four starting spots on the field, and one starting goalkeeper spot to fill. We’re going to be a new team next season, we all know that. But look, I am going to pursue the best people out there.” Bowman has made one major score in the past, so certainly has confidence that she can do the same again. To this point, Concord Heights City has been unsuccessful on all of their bids, but has several pending. If the club is not able to utilize the transfer market to fill their big holes, then they will go back to how they typically built the team, and making deals within the CSL.

We’ll see how all of this unfolds. In the meantime, we will hope for the best against Falkyr!

[Cabo Azure]

Mytanija 2–3 Cabo Azure
Starters: Antunes | de Lima, Medeiro, Moniz, K. Brandão, Branco (goal 55')| Ferreira, Maciel, Serra | Dantas (off 70'), Silveira (goal 33')
Substitutes: Gouveia (on 70', goal 90+3'

An impressive win over an opponent who easily handled the Azureans in the group stage last go-round. The teams were in a dead heat for most of the match, only to have the stalemate broken by none other than Vasco Gouveia, whose hat trick in the previous meeting between the teams shored up the Azurean side of the scoreline but failed to make a difference in its point total.

Cabo Azure came out tentative against the team which put six past them only two years ago, but a corner conceded by Kevin Brandao gave Atletik Thessia forward Atsev an opening, and he scored on the volley at just twenty minutes in. Playing from behind, the Azureans opened up their game some and took more risks. One such risky play was rewarded as Ferreira threaded the needle for Silveira, who scored an easy tap-in against an overwhelmed keeper.

Amilcar Branco, who has been having a quiet, defense-focused CR thus far, at least by his standards, opened his account shortly after half with a rocket from the shoulder of the eighteen-meter box which caught Besak flatfooted. Mytanija answered soon on a convetered free kick, turning the last half-hour of the match into a free-for-all as both teams sought to win in regulation.

It is unclear whether Vasco Gouveia's substitution was a canny decision by Paulinho or one grounded in superstition, the lad having scored three of Cabo's four goals against the Hoops last Copa. Whatever the logic, it proved to be the right choice as the young striker found the back of the net in stoppage time to get the Macaricas the win and advance them to the quarterfinals.

Reqiuem for a Queen, pt 7
Dr. Abigail Fonseca, better known as Queen Abigail, had three children with her husband Luis, those being Manuel, born 1983; Alexandra, born 1987; and Maria, born 1994. Maria was a surprise baby, having been born when her mother was thirty-six, and her parents divorced not long after she was born. Manuel was a lively, athletic child, while Alex was quiet and bookish and Maria was seen as anxious and never comfortable in her own skin. Their life paths have largely followed en suite with their childhoods: where Manuel worked as a bartender and taxi driver in Sao Simone prior to ascending to the throne; Alex went to medical school in Quebec; and Veronica, who was still a teenager when her heritage was revealed, chose to become a mariner, enrolling in the Corps of Cadets at Maritime to train as a deck officer.

Throughout her children’s adolescence, while working full-time as a professor, Dr. Fonseca continued to be a force in the reform of the Azurean political system. The Gang of Seven were autocratic and often brutal, but they were not blind nor ineffectual. Sometime in the early nineties, it is believed government representatives approached Dr. Fonseca and the rest of the Maritime Mafia about a path to a democratic government that would preserve the fortunes and legacies of the men and women of the Gang of Seven. Already on the road to divorce, their entreaties would drive a further wedge between Abby and her husband Luis; Abby, ever the pragmatist, favored a compromise with the Gang in the interest of peaceful transition while Luis believed they should be held accountable.

The degree of Dr. Fonseca’s involvement in the negotiations with the Gang of Seven will never be conclusively known, but historians theorize it must have been extensive. Most scholars and courtiers who were familiar with the trappings of the Azurean monarchy were dead or in exile by 1990; as a former royal, Abby would have been one of the few people left on the islands who understood the nuances of royal transitions. It is believed she and the Gang agreed to maintain the status quo until her elder brother, the deposed King Reinaldo II, died, which happened in 1999.

With Reinaldo out of the way, the path was paved for the Maritime Mafia and the Gang of Seven to lay out the future of Cabo Azure. Unfortunately, as had happened in 1983, significant roadblocks prevented the forming of a consensus. The largest barrier to progress was the need for absolute secrecy; as the Gang was wildly unpopular, being seen colluding with them would have been devastating to the Maritime Mafia’s cause. The mutually assured destruction of either side going public maintained a deadlock for almost ten years. Another major splitting point was the reinstatement of the monarchy; Abigail and her supporters maintained it would give the people something to rally around and provide legitimacy to the new government, while the Gang and others believed she was merely gathering power to herself.

[Trans-Dniesters]

"My friends, today I bring you all a dilemma," Commander Miroslav Riley of the Movement for a United Ceroat said to the other leaders of the Movement once he had called them for an extraordinary meeting at Novy Nish. "I'm sure that by now you have all heard of the extraordinary events that happened in the outskirts of Ragusapolis. The aliens that have plunged our nation into the Chaos that it currently suffers have approached us with an offer that could potentially end this war between us and them, but the implications of that offer have given me some concern, and that is why I bring this matter before all of you."

"What exactly is it that the aliens offered to us in order to end this war, Miroslav?" asked Stipe Barrett, leader of the Northern Group, an alliance of guerrillas operating in the northern part of the Western Province of Ceroat before joining the Movement for a United Ceroat.

"The aliens offer to return control of Ragusapolis and all the other territories that they still occupy," Riley replied. "But in exchange, they wish to transfer all of the surviving aliens back to their landing site on Mount Vozrozhdeniye."

"And what do they mean by surviving aliens?" asked Predrag Karadzic, one of Riley's deputy commanders. "Do they mean only the actual aliens or do they count those humans whose bodies they have taken over in their campaign to take over Ceroat?"

"I believe the aliens have made it clear that they count those whom they have assimilated to be their own kind now," Riley said. "And before anyone asks, it is simply not possible for these aliens to leave their host bodies without both alien and host dying. The process of assimilation kills the human being assimilated, and when the alien leaves its previous host, it causes some sort of chemical exothermic reaction that literally melts the human host's body. The alien itself then must find another host body before the microbes in our atmosphere infect the alien and kill it too. So any assimilated humans will have to go back with the actual aliens to Mount Vozrozhdeniye, if we all agree to do this. I don't think we will want the assimilated humans to stay with us, and I don't think they will want to stay as well. And of course, there is the risk of the aliens body hopping across hosts because of the decomposition of their original bodies. The assimilated people will have to go with the aliens wherever they may go."

"But Commander, do we really have to agree to their demands?" asked Felicity Ivanovna Tkacheva, leader of the guerrillas operating in the area around the city of Vilkerovo. "What's stopping us from just continuing our advance on Ragusapolis and wiping out each and every single one of these bloody aliens?"

"Nothing, actually," Riley said. "Even the aliens themselves have said so. The EMP that the Pridnestrovians detonated over Duboynye in their failed attempt to capture Edwin Chudovsky knocked out all of their tripods and rendered most of them useless. Those few tripods that they could still operate were vulnerable to our weapons because they had lost their force field shields. The aliens are practically defenseless. Their only truly effective weapons now are the weapons that they captured from their human victims, and even those are running out of ammunition as we tighten the noose on Ragusapolis. We can fight the aliens, and we can kill them all because they are unlikely to be able to put up any sort of credible defense against us. Or we can let them retreat to Mount Vozrozhdeniye, and we can turn all of the weapons and ammunition that we would have used against them towards the remaining warlords in the Northern Province and Rabely Island."

"What's your guarantee that the aliens won't stab us all in the back when we turn our attention towards the north?" Barrett asked. "How will we know that that spaceship of theirs won't repair or recharge their tripods and wreak havoc on us once again?"

"Of course I asked that question to the alien delegates," Riley replied. "I may be inexperienced at this whole leadership thing, but I'm not stupid. And I can tell all of you that the aliens cannot give any guarantee. Of course, they said that they agreed to us forming a defensive perimeter around Mount Vozrozhdeniye to keep an eye on them while they retreated to the crash site of their spaceship."

"But doesn't that defeat the entire point of freeing up troops and weapons for our pushes into Rabely and the north?" Karadzic retorted.

"I was thinking the same thing," Riley acknowledged. "And I said as much to the aliens. If we have to commit men that we could use elsewhere to ensure that the aliens are keeping their promise to stick to themselves, then what is even the point of stopping our offensive against them?"

"That's exactly my point, Commander!" Tkacheva insisted. "We all want to put an end once and for all to the… things that unleashed the Chaos upon our country! I do, and I know that Stipe and Predrag and Konstantin and Abraham and everyone else in this room want to put an end to the Chaos once and for all! We've already secured most of the Northwestern Province anyway! Zagnovoje has already fallen, and Stremenac is sure to follow within the next few days. We won't make the mistake of opening up two fronts again like we did when we launched our campaign into the south. We don't need to rush into both Rabely and the north. So why are you even offering us this choice to let the aliens return unpunished to their spaceship? They must be offering us something more than just Ragusapolis back if you're even informing us of this offer."

"Very well then," Riley said. "In exchange for allowing their return to Mount Vozrozhdeniye, the aliens are willing to turn over Edwin Chudovsky to us."

That statement was enough to shut up everyone in the room. Everyone knew the name of Edwin Chudovsky, and everyone knew of his deeds as the leader of the largest warlord group in Western Province. Edwin Chudovsky was the reason why the Movement for a United Ceroat was created in the first place, and the Movement's desire to see Chudovsky stand trial for his crimes against the people of Ceroat still burned brightly in the hearts of the Movement's leadership. Chudovsky's ability to escape the Movement's numerous attempts to capture him had been a sore point for the movement even as they captured the rest of the country in order to restore order in Ceroat.

"Now you all understand the dilemma that I am in right now," Riley said. "See the difficulty I have in making decision, which is why I have decided to put the fate of so much of our entire campaign on your shoulders. And now, the time for deliberation is over. It's time to make a choice. All those in favor of accepting the peace conditions made by the aliens, raise your hands. And all those in favor of rejecting the deal and continuing the fight?" Riley counted the votes, which weren't many because of the small number of fellow leaders that he actually had. Once he was sure that everything was accounted for, he nodded his head and said, "Thank you all for helping me make this decision." He then left the room to tell the aliens of the new deal.

[Eura]

COPA RUSHMORI 40 – ROUND OF SIXTEEN
Eura 1–0 Græntfjall
Scorers: Robson 70
Lineup: 1. E Palmer, 2. A Mason, 4. J Menard, 15. J Byrd, 5. T Green, 3. L Almwood (sub Reeve 66), 6. S Erskine (sub Gates 87), 8. V Robshaw, 7. M Woakes, 10. T Sutton (sub Sharp 72), 9. S Robson

---

emplor.eur/main/euranews
EXPERTS PUBLISH RECOMMENDATIONS TO OVERHAUL EURAN MILITARY IN TEN YEARS
Drawdown from Sameba-era numbers, while missiles, drones and navy should gain importance
Chief defence Chloe Marwood correspondent reports from Bastion

After just months in office the Euran government has drawn up the early findings of a review that will underpin the reconstruction of the Euran military with unprecedented urgency as part of a decade-long plan.

A panel of experts, Euran military leaders and politicians have produced the initial findings of the New Armed Forces Strategic Outlook (NAFSO), which looks back at Euran military performance from recent decades to the present day, with a particular focus on the Great Endemian War but also operations in Mytanija, the Corvidae War, South Covello, Endemia, Nyowani Kitara, Mareibat and other conflict zones. These initial high-level findings, to be followed by publication of more detailed analysis in the coming weeks, are expected to shape an initial 10-year strategy to “restructure, rearm and reconfigure” the Euran armed forces for the “post-Sameban” era.

While the strategy has not yet been finalised, it is expected to set an initial 4-year “sprint” period during which most of the restructuring of the armed forces will be carried out, while technological improvements and much rearmament is expected to be completed across a 10-year timeframe. However, government sources and experts in military matters suggest that in reality the programme will take much longer, with new naval shipbuilding programmes for example likely to take much longer to complete in their entirety. The government, for its part, has admitted that some reform will be contingent on emerging technologies that have not yet matured, and therefore may not become a regular part of Euran military operations for much longer.

Numbers game

Before the war, the Euran military stood at an eye-watering 17 million personnel in all branches (including reserves). This massive conventional armed force was geared towards peer-adversary, symmetrical warfare with conventional weapons, able to fight any conceivable enemy – from Sargossa to Valladares or South Covello – but primarily able to wage a war against Sameba, with nearly one million troops actively deployed close to the border with Sameba at any given time.

The military performed well and ultimately achieved its goal in a long and brutal struggle, suffering seven figure casualties from which it is still recovering. But after years of post-war stagnation as the armed forces has been focused on multiple international commitments and a long, costly counter-insurgency operation in former Sameba, pressure grew over the last couple of years for the Euran military to be reformed to acknowledge the new world we live in. The Social Party seized upon this – seeing an opportunity both to deliver a “peace dividend” for the Euran economy and its tax burden, and a necessity to overhaul an enormous military machine that had served a now extinguished purpose.

The initial NAFSO findings reflect this by calling for a massive reduction in numbers of over third of the pre-war strength, with much of this reduction accounted for already in wartime casualties. Against pre-war numbers (the Government has been ambiguous about overall force strength post-war), the Army/Army Air Corps should face the brunt of the cuts according to the NAFSO, reduced in size from 7 million active personnel to 4 million. The Air Force should reduce from 2 million personnel to 1.5 million, the Navy and Fleet Air Arm from 3 million to 2.5 million, and the Marine/Marine Air Corps from 1 million to 800,000. Eura’s elite special forces, despite being named as a key component of Eura’s capabilities, are expected to reduce in strength as well.

Accompanying these personnel cuts will be a purge of equipment; hundreds of thousands of surplus, outdated or war damaged (but serviceable) vehicles, aircraft and vessels should be sold or scrapped. On the topic of the overall defence budget the report is less conclusive, perhaps due to the ambiguity in the Euran government’s own bean-counting of military expenditure since before the war, with widespread accusations of corruption in operations in former Sameba. However, the report did suggest that if its recommendations were followed, the budget should broadly “increase in the short term with a long-term decrease to follow”.

Quality over quantity

Although these reforms should leave the Euran military numerologically superior to almost all possible adversaries, the NAFSO calls for the armed forces to focus on “new force multipliers” and novel technologies as part of a widespread drive for modernisation. The report observes that the Euran military (and the defence industry base supporting it) is surprisingly deficient in the use of drones, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons systems, the waging of cyber warfare and in missile and anti-missile technology.

Joe Reed, the chair of the influential Castle Institute defence thinktank, summarised the issue perfectly in a conversation we had this morning: ‘The Euran military is unmatched in this part of the multiverse in its capability as a traditional nuclear age, combined arms focused superpower military. But its ability to wage orthodox warfare from a position of strength has allowed for the development of serious weaknesses in other areas which have been treated as academic curiosities by the military establishment. There is a risk that the military, especially the Army, could find itself embarrassed by much smaller but smarter opponents in the limited conflicts that we regularly face.’

The report pointed to the Mytanija intervention decades ago as an early warning of this problem, suggesting that while Eura was well equipped to overwhelm the dictatorship and end the conventional civil war there, it struggled to adapt to the post-war counterinsurgency and ended up leaving Mytanija with lofty long-term political objectives unrealised, and a five-figure Euran death toll. By contrast, the use of drones to target Sameban leadership figures during the Great Endemian War was hailed as a decisive success not widely understood by the public, which should serve as an example for the future.

On the other hand, the report does not call for the wholesale scrapping of Eura’s conventional military might, as called for by some more outspoken critics, who Reed dismissed as ‘outlandish science-fiction fans’. Instead, it calls for replacement of outdated equipment (such as ageing utility helicopter models that the Army Air Corps rely on), and the scrapping of large numbers of surplus vehicles such as older or more expensive main battle tanks and “overkill” weapons such as multiple rocket launch systems (MRLS). In some areas it calls for a combination of modernisation and reinforcement of conventional forces, notably calling for the reintroduction of a dedicated long-range surface to air missile and newer anti-ballistic missile capabilities to the Euran arsenal, which the report calls a “glaring gap” in Eura’s national security architecture.

Nuclear options, ailing allies and Sameba’s legacy

While the NAFSO places an understandable focus on the Euran military and its approach to a wide range of conflicts, there is also much in the way of significant recommendations on the unspoken other element of Eura’s hard power, its nuclear arsenal. Despite criticism from arms control experts, campaigners and foreign governments, Eura has never disclosed the exact strength of its nuclear forces, with independent estimates speculating anything from a few thousand to as many as 30,000 warheads in possession of the Euran Strategic Nuclear Forces branch. At the very least, there must be enough submarine launched ballistic missiles lying around to equip most of the Euran Navy’s fleet of Poseidon class ballistic missile submarines, of which there were 70 before the Great Endemian War.

The other elements of the Euran nuclear triad, under the command of ESNF reporting directly to the Prime Minister, are a small arsenal of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and an array of air-launched or dropped strategic and tactical nuclear weapons used by the Euran Air Force, mainly from supersonic SB-16 bombers. In the report, these weapons are deemed a “fundamental pillar” of Eura’s national security, and that Eura must maintain a “highly credible” nuclear triad, not just in light of the use of several nuclear weapons by Sameba against Eura, but also the close calls of the Askoy and Terra Henrius crises with Valladares, and the inadvertent Banijan nuclear attack against Farfadillis. However, the report urges the government to consider where technological advancements may have rendered some elements of the system obsolete. It also claimed – without making a firm recommendation - that Eura could reduce its Poseidon fleet by a third with “only a cosmetic negative effect” on capability in exchange for massive savings to the defence budget.

Alongside the reflections on the nuclear legacy of the war with Sameba, where Eura also used several strategic and tactical nuclear weapons against Sameba on its home turf and abroad, the report urges the government to draw a line under what it described as a “damaging period of minimum oversight in the disarmament of our former neighbour”. In conducting research for the report, analysts found that tens of thousands of Sameban vehicles, aircraft and even some naval vessels had been captured or abandoned to Euran troops during the war but had not been systemically dealt with by the Euran state, after more than a decade since the collapse of the Sameban regime. It is well known that much lethal equipment was looted and exported abroad or deployed in domestic anti-Euran insurgency by former Sameban soldiers, that some equipment has been used by the security forces of the recently abolished Provisional Government, and the rest of it has been left to rust. The report calls for the armed forces to conduct a thorough survey of what equipment remains and to dispose of it, while retaining some for-training purposes or donation to allies.

Eura’s friends are the final piece of the puzzle in the eyes of the authors of this unprecedented review of Eura’s defence strategy. In their view, the conflicts of recent decades have revealed deficiencies not only in Eura’s ability to deter and fight war, but also that of its allies. A startling recent example was that of Nephara’s intervention in Nyowani Kitara, which despite its eventual success was undermined by reliance on Euran logistics and strategic capabilities that the Nepharans simply did not possess. To address this problem in the short term the report proposes exporting or even gifting aging, but reliable Euran equipment destined for replacement, such as the naval auxiliary vessels loaned to Nephara for the conflict, to both the government in Corvistone and other allied countries. In the long term it calls for Euran military intelligence to co-operate more closely with allies to anticipate emerging needs and weaknesses within their own armed forces.

[Pasarga]

Quarterfinals
Pasarga 1–2 Nephara
Falkyr 1–3 Cassadaigua
Pridnestrovia 2–1 Valladares
Eura 2–1 Cabo Azure

Semifinal Fixtures
Nephara v Cassadaigua @ Kilmonarch, Stein-los
Pridnestrovia v Eura @ Stadium of the Moon, Lunas

[Nephara]

Pasarga 1 - 2 Nephara
(4-2-3-1) 1 - Provost; 2 - Schrader, 5 - Clevinger, 18 - Scales, 3 - Lind; 4 - Timekeeper, 8 - March; 13 - Reed (7 - Matalin 65'), 14 - Fletcher, 15 - Crowcombe; 21 - Basilisk (10 - Harper 77')
Goals: Fletcher 15', Crowcombe 57'

Belgrave was the fancy part of Sabrefell. Other cultures might call it the good part of town, but Nepharim didn't like to speak in those kinds of terms. People from Belgrave were generally pretty well-heeled; as a result, ran conventional wisdom, fuck people from Belgrave.
There was a decent football team there, though. Conventional wisdom ran that you needed a certain level of financial desperation to be a good footballer, the worse the home life the better, but it often turned out in northside Sabrefell that having parents who could afford to drive you around the city, get you into coaching clinics and buy you good boots was a valuable commodity in its own right. Belgrave had a decent reputation for youth development. Shosanna Bruhn, ultimately, became the first from that side of town to represent the Cormorants, and while she never quite did her best work in the green and black she continued to thrive at club level even today.
Few expected Ana Crowcombe to be the second cab off the rank. In fact, in the post-mortem following their relegation, she barely factored. She'd made seven league appearances that season, five off the bench, the other two only after an injury crisis; she'd scored once and laid on one assist.
Belgrave had an issue with its forwards. Kondou had no finishing touch, Sontag just wasn't up to it, and Crowcombe... hadn't really been considered as a solution to that problem. She was 5'2", for fuck's sake.
When the bloodletting began, it was the likes of Bruhn, Ness and Ingram that went, their fleet of frictionless, technical players who deserved better than the thunderdome of the First Division. So when manager Lexus Ulreich picked up the phone from the board, expecting yet another key name to get struck from the lists, he sighed and picked up the phone with a sense of dread.
"Yeah? You're saying Avenida Leal've been in touch?"
...
"Sure, who is it this time. Syrene? I could see them going for Sy, she's the kind of--"
...
"Ana? Who's Ana? Ana who?"
...
"... She has a first name?"

It's not that Crowcombe wanted to go to Farfadillis. Of all places! Of all people to go to those places! Crowcombe's main claim to fame so far within the bounds of even Belgrave obsessives was the infamous 'Ana Hatty', where in one game she had scored a goal, got sent off, and thrown up from anxiety.
She was a good player on the ball, nobody would deny that. But she'd been trained her whole life as a centre-forward in the expectation of a growth spurt that just never really came, and her reaction to adversity was generally to panic. Nepharim generally had mongrel in them. They wanted to fight. They were brash, outsized personalities, and that was the brand they were generally bought on. Foreign nationss liked Nepharan culture, that players could reliably come in, care a lot, shout a lot, follow the paychecks and generally make themselves known.
Crowcombe sometimes cried when she saw particularly beautiful stray cats pass in the street. Farfadillis was not for her.
Nevertheless: somehow, a club seemingly way above her level wanted her, saw a pathway to regular minutes for her that was a lot clearer than what fucking 1Div Belgrave did. Her agent begged her to go. He wept. Ultimately, though she had to be sedated for the flight, she went.
And then something weird happened: she was... good.
Not just showing flashes of promise. She was genuinely holding her own. When on the pitch with the ball at her feet, things Just Happened. She worked tirelessly, never shirked, and though she never raised her voice, Farfadillis was one of the few environments in football where the dressing room really didn't need much more noise or colour.
Nobody was trying to make her play as a lone striker anymore, getting crunched by defenders. On the wing, she could, sporadically, work miracles.
And that had inexplicably taken her to the regionals, a statement callup from the new boss directly to replace the old boss' own daughter. She'd been quite content to sit on the bench - hey, she was this close, she'd earn a first cap at some stage, and that was already beyond her wildest dreams - right up until a few names had been rotated in for the game against Schu... against SWR. Okay, she'd done fine. Then Lili Marinca had gone down injured against Yuezhou. Of course she'd come on. Of course Marinca hadn't recovered for the quarterfinal. Of course a coming-together between Basilisk and Sarrazin left the ball squirrelling into the corridor of uncertainty, left her the one able to pick it up, left her one-on-one with Mezei as she bore down on goal...
In a crunch quarterfinal. Against a heavy-duty regional opponent. Against a highly-experienced goalkeeper, backed by the home crowd.
Yet, just this once, Crowcombe did not panic.

[Cassadaigua]

On to the semifinals, and other news,
By Chelsea Dufresne, Concord Heights Times

Team Cassadaigua is on the semifinals of the Copa Rushmori, and standing in the way now between them and the final will be someone who lately always seems to be in our way: Nephara. Here we are again, set to meet the Cormorants in a key game of a major soccer competition. In the Copa Rushmori, Nephara has had the better of the rivalry, and they started things out owning the head to head matchups, but recently the tide has turned. In World Cup 90, they sent World Cup winning manager Triffid Ramsey to the unemployment line (probably just temporarily) with a group stage victory that prevented Nephara from making the round of sixteen. Elaine Koller is next in line as their manager, and a Copa Rushmori victory would certainly be a great way for her to kick off her career. As for Ramsey, there were reports that Starksville Coastal put in a bid to make them their next manager. Obviously a longshot bid, and some feel that Coastal just did it to look good for their fanbase, knowing that there would be no hope of actually convincing the legendary coach to come to a Cassadagan club that finished near the bottom of the league table the last couple years. Coastal made a few bids on the transfer window that were eye openers and led many to believe they were just doing some PR for their fans. More on Coastal, though, in a bit.

To get to the semifinals, Cassadaigua needed to take care of Falkyr, a nation that started the competition as an unranked, but made it out of the group that also included Yuezhou, Nyowani Kitara, and World Cup qualifying whipping boys, Eastfield Lodge. They did well to get as far as they did, and can use it as a positive stepping stone as they build their program. The first half was a bit of a grind as the defensively responsible Wings did a great job containing the young Cassadagan forwards, Chloe Anderson and Rachel Boldin. In the midfield, they did what we see many teams try, and focused most of their attention on Morgan Rosenblatt while not worrying as much on the other pieces. As such, the Fillies did not generate many quality chances, but the Wings did not get much going offensively. Cassadaigua’s 39th minute goal that opened the scoring was a bit of a fluke, with an innocent pass from Tara Kriedel to Kelsey Werth taking an unusual deflection and bounced off the leg of a defender (Edvard Losnedahl) that Rachel Boldin was in perfect position to capitalize on. She would do just that, and it was 1-0 at the intermission.

Cassadaigua made great adjustments in the second half, and seemed to find some holes in the defensive structure of the Wings early on. This would lead to great chances and many good saves from Katrine Berg, but in the end, the keeper could not get them all, as Krystal Sherwin made it 2-0 in the 58th. Natalia Fortuin got one back in the 73rd, but with the Wings desperately trying to get the equalizer in the late moments, the Fillies were able to strike in the counter attack with a brilliant long ball from Madison Rutland to Chloe Anderson that the forward would finish off in the 87th minute, sealing the game.

Up next, is Nephara, as mentioned. And we are at a point where all we have to say is “Cassadaigua vs Nephara”. You know what you’re going to get when we play one another. Let’s do it again!

Before I finish off this article, I want to talk a little about the international transfer window which officially closed last night, as there were some last minute successful transfers to Cassadagan sides. It was looking like Concord Heights City was going to be completely shut out of adding anything to their lineup when they had so many key losses this off-season, mostly due to retirements. This may have been the result of manager Amanda Bowman and company being far too aggressive in trying to get the biggest names on the list. It’s hard for the club to compete with sides with far greater prestige on the IFCF scene, and some early success in prior transfer windows probably got to Bowman’s head in that regard. If nothing else, she can go back to her fans and say “look, I tried”. And, she would be right. But, she did get a last minute score by adding Charlotte Bauer from Southend AC Ladies of Baker Park. She has plenty of international experience, mostly as a junior, but the 28-year old can be a fixture in the back now for many years. She was added late to the list, but is really an ideal fit for this club. Concord Heights City just needed to get a couple Bauers, not just one. Bowman said Bauer, “She’s obviously good, but smart, and that’s what we have always prided ourselves in. She is a prototypical Concord Heights City fullback and will be here for many years. You’ll love her.” The more I read about her, the more I think I agree with the manager. Like I said, though, the club just needed a couple people like this, and now with the internal CSL transfer window opening, look for CHC to see what they can do there. Sources say, though, that managers may not be willing to help CHC, unless they significantly overpay.

Another club that was throwing a lot of money around was Starksville Coastal, as World Cup legend Hannah Ranucci tries to get the team from being near the bottom of the table every year. She still has not found a manager for the side, but that will come soon enough. Ranucci did bid on Triffid Ramsey, but she will be going to Pasarga’s Tanrisal instead. Not much has been said about how it went for Coastal, but most feel it was probably just a short phone call. It allows Ranucci to at least try to say that she tried to bring in a big fish of that stature. Then, there were all the big bids, on big names that you knew were never going to go to Coastal, but at least the effort was there. Then came the big news. The very, very big news. Quinton Harris, a superstar forward agreed to terms at the very last minute, making Coastal’s $10 million bid a success for the 26-year old with international experience with Baker Park. There were reasons for his being placed on the transfer window, but he has thrived (when healthy, he can be injury prone) with lower level teams before and made them respectable, making him perfect for Starksville Coastal. The striker can certainly have plenty of great conversations about scoring goals with Hannah Ranucci, but the bigger story there will be if he can stay healthy. “Quinton Harris has proven himself to be an excellent player who gets the job done,” Ranucci said, “he will be a great addition to our lineup for many years. We know about his history with injuries, but he is a good, no check that, he is an outstanding fit for us. And he will get the best training we possibly can give him, we have people from the prestigious Starksville Medical Institute, the best medical college in Cassadaigua, and thus the best graduates from it, right here to help him maintain his body.”

That’ll do it for now. Buckle in for the semifinal showdown.

[Trans-Dniesters]

Rabely Island was a small island located thirty kilometers off of the eastern coast of Ceroat. At the last Ceroatian census two years ago, the island had a population of around 160,000 people living on the 900 square kilometer island. Rabely Island had always been considered part of Ceroat; the Count of Rabely had sworn fealty to Grand Duke Tomislav II of Ceroat around the 1400s, and Rabely had remained steadfastly Ceroatian since then. But, like most other things in Ceroat after the Chaos, that lifelong association between Rabely and the mainline had been almost torn asunder, and only the sheer will of the island's governor, Francis Zdanek, had stopped Rabely from descending into the same anarchy that had engulfed the mainland. That didn't mean that Rabely escaped the Chaos unscathed though; a few enterprising warlords had established themselves in the northern part of Rabely Island, and Zdanek knew that he didn't have the men or equipment to go toe-to-toe against those warlords. Zdanek had enough firepower to defend the main settlement from the warlords' raiding attempts, but he didn't have enough to take the fight to those warlords. Despite the presence of the warlords in the north, Francis Zdanek had been mostly successful in keeping life on Rabely going on as usual before the collapse of the national government in Ragusapolis. Zdanek made daily attempts to reestablish contact with the Ceroatian capital, but as days and months went on and he still received no reply, Zdanek started losing hope. And with scattered reports of even more warlords carving up the mainland between themselves, the governor of Rabely Island was starting to be convinced that this was how life was going to be in the near future.

And then news of a different kind started reaching Rabely. Zdanek now heard that a foreign army had landed on the mainland, in the Western Province to be exact. The foreigners had been invited to land their forces by a Ceroatian guerrilla force working to reunite the country from the warlords that had divided it up between themselves. The foreigners, with their better weapons and superior tactics, were able to roll up most of the warlords in the west, and the Movement for a United Ceroat had established themselves in the city of Novy Nish and declared themselves the new provisional government of Ceroat. Then when the guerrillas and their foreign allies turned south towards Ragusapolis, they were repulsed, not by a warlord but by alien machines called tripods with devastating heat rays that could vaporize any person or object unfortunate enough to cross its path. The United Ceroat guerrillas and their foreign allies were forced to retreat and regroup in order to find a way to take down those alien tripods. A few weeks passed without news from the mainland, and then a new star appeared in the sky that shone brighter than even the Moon. The star lit up the sky for hours before finally disappearing in the light of day. News then came to Rabely that the United Ceroat Movement was now making rapid progress towards Ragusapolis.

Zdanek didn't know what was in store for Rabely after that. Rabely was just off the eastern coast of the Southern Province of Ceroat, right next to territory now occupied by the Movement for a United Ceroat. Any military strategist with half a brain would know that Rabely Island posed a potential risk to the Movement's military gains, and so Rabely would have to be secured by any means necessary in order to prevent the Movement from getting flanked and blindsided. It didn't matter that most of Rabely had remained free of the warlords infesting the rest of Ceroat; it had to be brought back into the fold.

The inevitable arrived in the middle of the night. The night sky was lit up by the smoke trails of the missiles launched against Rabely. Six landing ships beached on the shores to the west of the island's main settlement, Tokačy, deploying hundreds of troops flying a red-green-red flag with a hammer and sickle in the corner. After an initial battle between the invaders and the local police, the invaders sent out a party to the police with an offer to stop the fighting in exchange for summoning the leader of the faction that controlled Tokačy, in this case Francis Zdanek. Zdanek was woken up and brought the frontline where the troops flying the communist flag were now joined by other soldiers bearing the more familiar red and white checkerboard of the Ceroatian state. One of those soldiers approached the side of the defenders and Rabely and asked them in Ceroatian, "Where is the leader of your faction?"

"Here I am," Zdanek said, raising his hand and walking over to the Ceroatian soldier. He tied his nightrobe tighter to give him some warmth in the cool night air. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"My name is Miroslav Riley, Governor Zdanek," the soldier replied. "I am the Commander of the Movement for a United Ceroat."

"Ah, so you're the Commander on the mainland that I've been hearing so much about," Zdanek nodded. "I have to say, you look… different to how I imagined you would."

"And how did you imagine I would look, Governor?" Riley asked.

"I don't know, probably more muscular," Zdanek shrugged. "You definitely look more like an accountant than the leader of a guerrilla organization."

"And you, sir, don't look much like a warlord yourself," Riley said back. Zdanek wasn't sure if that was meant to be an actual compliment or a backhanded one.

"What do you want from me, Riley?" Zdanek asked.

"I want a straight answer from you, Zdanek," Riley replied. "You are the Governor of the Rabely Island Province, yes?"

"That's right," Zdanek nodded. "Is that all? Is that the question that you wanted to ask me?"

"No, that's not my only question," Riley shook his head. "How did you remain in your position during the Chaos, sir? All of the other governors on the mainland provinces gave up their positions once the national government collapsed. Why did you remain at your post, Governor Zdanek?"

"Now what kind of a question is that, Commander?" Zdanek replied. "I remained at my post because it is my duty. I swore an oath to the people of Rabely Island that I would serve their best interests to the best of my abilities. And even if I had fled my post and responsibilities, where would I go on this island? This is a small place; everyone knows everyone else here. I'd have nowhere to go, and nowhere to hide. Besides, we're also victims of the same warlords roaming the mainland. Why, I think two or even three of them have already set up shop in the northern part of the island! I cannot in good conscience leave the people of Rabely Island to deal with these warlords themselves and without a leader that they could look up to?"

"Interesting take on the whole situation, Governor," Riley nodded as he appeared to ponder his next words. And then he said, "How would you like to join my alliance, Governor?"

"Excuse me?" Zdanek said.

"How would you like to join your forces with mine?" Riley asked. "You look like you actually treat your men and your people well, unlike the other warlords. I understand why you've had to take the mantle of leadership upon yourself when the Chaos overtook our country, and I appreciate that you didn't take advantage of anyone else. Men like you have become regrettably rare in this country today, and your lives are all the more precious because of it. And I also believe that we are both working towards the same goal, which is the restoration and rebuilding of Ceroat. So, Governor, what do you say to joining my alliance?"

[Eura]

COPA RUSHMORI 40 – QUARTERFINALS
Eura 2–1 Cabo Azure
Scorers: Atkinson 47, Malone 70
Lineup: 1. E Palmer, 2. A Mason (sub Malone 59), 4. J Menard, 15. J Byrd, 5. T Green, 3. L Almwood (sub Bowman 62), 6. S Erskine, 8. V Robshaw, 7. M Woakes, 14. C Atkinson, 9. S Robson (sub Vincent 84)

---

The atmosphere in the House was febrile. A great rancour was taking hold of the opposition benches, who were not pulling any punches.
‘Traitors!’
‘Bloody rubbish. You’re unfit for office!’
‘Shame!’
The opposition were half resigned to defeat and half furious about it as they watched the new government set the agenda. Bruno Pelle, Minister for Sameban Integration, had just set out the Normalisation of the Sameban Region Bill, the Social Party’s manifesto promise of a “Federal Deal” for former Sameba put into practice - a piece of law that would effectively end all differentiation between former Sameba and the rest of the country. No more military role in ordinary policing and crucially no more barriers on political participation and organisation, with the notable exception of a technical ban on what the Euran government defined as “separatism”. Pelle, a man who had spent most of his life under the yoke of Sameban Republican fascism, was now setting his old country on a course definitively away from it.

But many Eurans were not happy; they did not want Sameba on level terms and did not trust it to rebel once Sameban-centric parties could run for office. That was reflected in the-
‘PRICKS!’
-tasty language being used. In the cavernous atmosphere of the Euran parliament where there wasn’t even space for all members to participate physically at once, it was much easier to get away with such language than in many foreign legislatures.
As the speaker called up the lame duck Liberal shadow to Pelle to respond to the government, a group of Capital Party MPs watched on resentfully from the backbenches. Their party had been dealt the latest in a long line of humiliations at the recent general election, pushed down to fourth in the seat count behind the alarmingly buoyant Unionists. And none of the remaining Capital representatives were more aghast at the current situation than the 35 Capital MPs in Sameban seats, the only section of the party to not retreat massively at the election. This group had clung on in a few disparate areas on low turnout where a combination of socially conservative Samebans voting for the first time, ethnic Eurans and south Sameban anti-nationalists had voted for their conservative, “bring back the Provisional Government” outlook. In doing so those voters returned 35 ethnic Euran Capital MPs, none of whom wanted to see their region unshackled and their measly majorities threatened by resurgent Sameban nationalists.

How were they to be rewarded for their role as self-interested blockers?
‘The vote is carried by the affirmatives, 1,630 to 1,109!’
The entire group took a deep intake of breath to calm themselves. Liberal rebels had failed to turn up, and the Social whip had held strong. The Bill would pass. These MPs could now face Sameban-centric parties, including nationalists, at future elections. All of those present shook their heads or expressed disapproval in some other manner as they filed out of the chamber.
Now it was time to plot in the backrooms.
‘A vote of no confidence? Are you mad? The Social majority isn’t huge but they’re not going to lose that so soon after an election.’
‘We might as well try.’
‘It would blow our credibility. No, there has to be something else.’
‘We could go to Social rebels, social conservatives and more nationalist leaning types in the south, around Brigham way. Get them on board with us.’
‘Yeah, right. A bunch of old trade unionists are going to bail us out. That’ll be the day.’

A solitary MP from another party dramatically emerged from the shadows to join the group, who promptly ceased their discussions and glared at the intruder. Their sudden silence could not disguise the stench of conspiracy.
‘Gentlemen, ladies, why are you so reluctant? Keep going. I’m just an interested party. Mainly interested in how you’re shafting our brave new leaders, what, a few months in?’ The new participant continued speaking before they could be interrupted. ‘Face it. You can’t get rid of Barnham this soon after an election. It would be suicide if another one was called now, and you don’t have the votes to force it anyway. I have an alternative proposition, one that saves your careers in the long run and that will undo this monstrosity of so-called “normalisation”. All you need to do is resign your seats en masse.’
Almost all of them did a double take before digesting what they’d been told to do. ‘You what mate?’ one retorted bluntly.
‘You heard me. Throw yourselves on your swords and create as big a show as possible doing it. Resign from your party and as MPs, and call by-elections in your constituencies. It’s the only chance you have to see off the nationalists before they get organised.’

‘I see’ chortled one sceptic, ‘and this I’m sure has nothing to do with any ambitions of your own, naturally.’
‘Oh of course, I’d quite happily see your party diminished further. But my party are not going to win your seats – only you can do that. If you do then you give yourself a mandate to incite a wider rebellion across other parties to get another vote, and repeal this idiotic, treasonous law. Ms Osprey will surely be forced to give your faction of the party more power too. And if you lose…well…come the next election, you will be rewarded for your loyalty with safe seats in the other six regions. Once you defect, of course, denouncing the government and your own party. Think on it, won’t you?’
That they did. At first the caucus of Capital representatives in former Sameba dismissed the idea, going back to their homes having laughed it off among one another. Slowly, one by one, they began to reconsider. The sight of nationalist and ethnic Sameban parties beginning to assemble on social media and in the streets was already becoming visible and disturbing, and the establishment of real local government in former Sameba was threatening their privileged link to Bastion’s centralised coffers, and the sway it could have on voters come election day.

Eventually they pulled the trigger together in one hastily assembled press conference. From there a rapid series of by-election campaigns took place in what felt like a bizarre kind of early mid-term for the Barnham administration, whose expectations were high having won most of Sameba’s seats during the recent general election. They believed the majority of Samebans, grateful for new opportunities and freedoms, would vote for Barnham again even with the new laws already in effect. There would be no upsurge in nationalist voting patterns. But…
The results shattered the assumptions held in the far away offices of Blackhall. Barnham reportedly fumed at the sight of only 3 of the 35 seats going to his party, 2 to the Liberals, 3 retained by their Capital MPs (who were now independents having been told to leave the party by their new leader)…and the remaining 27 constituencies flocked into the arms of a coalition of “independent” Sameban candidates with no affiliation to any national Euran party. Even without a formal party structure they had swept the popular vote in almost every seat on much higher turnouts than at the general election. Within days, talks had begun on forming a new pan-Sameban party.
For the Social government, it was their first crisis. The Capitals suffered a disastrous split. The Liberals were simply confirmed to be, suddenly, quite irrelevant. Yet the Unionists remained oddly quiet.
That mysterious political figure had been Tom Bannister. And he was laughing.

[Pasarga]

Semifinals
Nephara 2–2(2–3 AET) Cassadaigua
Pridnestrovia 4–4(5–4 AET) Eura

3PPo
Nephara v Eura @ Kilmonarch, Stein-los

Final
Cassadaigua v Pridnestrovia @ Stade de Torgos, Torgos

[Cassadaigua]

A title is in reach,
by Chelsea Dufresne, Concord Heights Times

The 90,000 seat Stade de Torgos has seen it’s share of many great international sporting events. It is a beautiful stadium, and one that if you have the ability to travel, you should check out sometime. Tonight, it will have the chance to have a special place in Cassadagan lore as it could be the site of our first ever Copa Rushmori championship. There are many Cassadagans that have made the trip, and are ready to get loud in support. They know that they can see history as a title that some feel is the biggest one that we have not won yet (others argue the World Lacrosse Championships is that tournament). It’s been an elusive crown jewel for the Fillies, as recently they have been great in this tournament, but have not been able to hoist that trophy. On the other side of the field will be a squad from Pridnestrovia, a nation who’s sporting accolades are most widely known in the matriarchy as coming in gridiron. But they have been very good in this competition historically as well, and entered the 40th edition as the seventh ranked team in the region. They’ll have many supporters here as well, supporters who’s minds will be off the nation’s involvement in the Unified Ceroat mission. Ask Cassadagans what they think of that situation, and they will say they mostly support the mission, but really it is not something that either our citizens, or Queen Cassie have been concerned about.

Most Cassadagans now have heard about all of the great achievements that our nation has done, and there is a good list of them. However, in soccer, Cassadaigua has not won any sort of title since World Cup 51, and obviously that is a very long time ago. 78 years, as a matter of fact, so you’ll be able to talk to some people now who were kids when that happened, though people these days want a new title. Close calls, oh they have certainly been common. World Cup semifinalists in 83 and 86, and then many good runs here in the Copa Rushmori. You can draw the parallel to the World Baseball Classic, if you will, where we returned for the 40th edition, having won three titles in the teenage editions, but again the new generation never experienced that. Close calls, oh yes, they were very common. Agonizing near misses with semifinal and final appearances, and no title. Then, in World Baseball Classic 50, finally, we won it again. It was the longest drought between titles in competition history and our fans could now say they witnessed one live.

The Copa Rushmori is not the World Cup. We know that. If we were to win a title it would not be a substitute for ending our World Cup drought (at least in that, there are other very successful nations in soccer with longer droughts than us). But it is a major title, an internationally respected title regardless of what region you are from, and it is something that we have never won. It won’t completely fill our appetite for a World Cup title, but it will be a great meal that fans would savor for now.

To get here, there was a common, recent foe: Nephara. They have knocked us out before, and for a while had all the momentum against us. But, as I mentioned previously, the tide has turned in the head to head rivalry. It would be a challenge, but no one was seeing them as the team that owned us, but instead as a team that we could beat, especially because we did so very recently. The squads were not identical to the teams that played in World Cup 90, but there were some familiar faces, such as another big head to head showdown between Morgan Rosenblatt, and her teammate with AFC Treason, Ophelia Schrader. Latona Basilisk would again be out there for the Cormorants, with Caitlyn Kaleta needing to step us and be the one to defend her from doing too much Basilisking. But each side had their new faces, faces that were eager to prove they should be regular players on their respective sides, and knew that in this head to head showdown, a big game could go a long way in that.

The game was evenly played to start out. No jaw dropping chances on either side, but some opportunities that got the fans up out of their seats (if they weren’t already standing), to hope that something would develop. Either the respective defenses would keep the situations from getting out of hand, or the keepers had a good view and angle for the shot to make a rather routine looking save, even if it was not routine at all. As this played out, you knew that getting the first goal was going to be huge, as it might force a club to play out of there game plan, but as the minutes ticked away in the first half, there would not be a single goal scored after 45.

Entering the second half, we saw each side be more aggressive with chances with more regularity, instead of happening in a more hit and miss style that we saw in the first half. In the 57th minute, we’d finally get that first goal, but if you are a Cassadagan, it’s not how you wanted it to happen. Severine Reed, the Raynor City United star, took advantage of a slight hesitation by 24-year old Brianna Ward in her footwork, to get by the defender, then get the opening goal. Nerves picked up amongst the Cassadagan faithful, though manager Brittany Byers seemed content to stick with the plan. Ten minutes after Reed scored, the Fillies would get the equalizer. Kelsey Werth would be the one getting it, thanks to a great cross from Chloe Anderson. All square, 1-1 in the 67th minute. Six minutes later, with momentum still on their side, the pink and black did it again, with Anderson showing that she can pass the ball pretty well too, and set up fellow youngster Rachel Boldin to make it 2-1 in favor of Cassadaigua.

With the lead, Cassadagan fans cheered as the minutes ticked away. 80, 85, and eventually 90 minutes would be reached. The referee signaled for three minutes of injury time, and if they could kill that off, the Dagans would be heading to the final. In the second minute of injury time.....

Damn you Latona Basilisk! Damn you! Damn you! Damn you! Stop being so good!

Cassadagan fans were silent, Cormorant fans going crazy. A dramatic game tying goal by the 31-year old star. We’re going to extra time. Fitting though, given the history of games between the sides.

Brittany Byers did a great job keeping the game from getting out of hand now. It can be emotional to be so close, and then not get the result that you were looking for. The game was still not lost, and the team needed to get their emotions back up, forget about what just happened, and get that lead back to finish it off. The first fifteen minutes of extra time, as you would probably expect, was mostly in Nephara’s favor. They had all of the momentum, but responsible play in the back by the Fillies answered these challenges, and you could see as more time ticked away, the game was beginning to become more equal again in terms of possession.

The best chances for Cassadaigua came in the final ten minutes of the second extra time session. In the 117th, a new late dramatic goal would be scored, with Chloe Anderson and Rachel Boldin’s young legs still having plenty left for the late moments. Another great passing play was worked out between the two, and it would be Anderson putting it right underneath the crossbar with a beautifully arced shot that keeper Aranea Provost could do nothing about. The Cormorants would not give up, of course, but this time, there would be no further moments of panic from Cassadagan fans until the final whistle.

Another Cassadaigua vs Nephara chapter was in the books, and once again, it was a fascinating game.

Now, only one nation is in our way. That elusive regional title is in our reach.

[Pasarga]

3PPo
Nephara 1–2 Eura

Final
Cassadaigua 4–0 Pridnestrovia

[Cassadaigua]

Fillies Win Copa Rushmori 40,
By Chelsea Dufresne, Concord Heights Times

After being the runners up in Copa Rushmori 37 and 38, and a third place finish in 36, everyone associated with the team, and our fans were aware of the close calls. Would this time be different? After beating Nephara, a common nemesis of ours in this tournament in previous editions, there was a feeling that this was indeed shaping up to be our tournament. With Pridnestrovia defeating Eura in the other semifinal, the possibility of capturing regional glory for the first time seemed even more possible. Overall, there is not a lot of difference in the rankings of Pridnestrovia and Eura, but based on their World Cup prestige, it seemed like a more favorable opponent.

Journalists cautioned that the team should not suffer a let down after such a thrilling battle with the Cormorants to a perceived easier opponent. Brittany Byers and company promised that would not happen, and from the opening whistle, it was obvious that there would be no let down at all. A lot of Cassadagans filled Stade de Torgos, and they were ready to get vocal. Early in the match, just six minutes, the aggressive attacking plans of the opponent backfired, with 22-year old Amber Hogan intercepting a pass intended for Vladislav Fokin, and providing a perfect long ball to Chloe Anderson. It could not have been any better of a set up, and with tic tac toe passing, and Pridnestrovia scrambling, Anderson set up Boldin, who set up Morgan Rosenblatt, who had a clear run to the goal and there was nothing Karl Fenenko could do about it. 1-0, Cassadaigua, six minutes in. Continue that festive attitude in the stands, please!

Up early, Brittany Byers knew this would be a great time to aggressively push and get another early dagger. In the center of the field Morgan Rosenblatt obliged, and while the opponent (who doesn’t have a known nickname, by the way), did the best they could, Cassadaigua would strike again, with a 17th minute goal. Rosenblatt would set up Rachel Boldin for the two-nil lead, giving no reason for the Cassadagan fans in the stands to quiet down. The Fillies controlled the remainder of the opening half as well, and in the 42nd minute, Tara Kriedel’s goal made it 3-0, and now everyone was sensing it.

Pridnestrovia did what they could in the second half, but in this match, the Fillies defense simply had the answers for everything that Basil Santa Cruz’s team tried to do. Time ticked away, Cassadagan flags were waving in the air from our supporters, sensing that for the first time since World Cup 51, a major soccer title was going to be won. In the 75th minute, Byers substituted off Morgan Rosenblatt, then two minutes later the same for Chloe Anderson, and then three minutes later, would do so for Rachel Boldin. This would allow the fans to give each of the players a loud standing ovation for everything they had accomplished. One of the players entered in was 34-year old Madison McClain, who’s done a ton and has been a part of all those recent close calls in the Copa Rushmori. In the 87th minute, knowing it was in the bag, McClain wasn’t going to concede a great chance that set up for her and kicked home the exclamation point to give Cassadaigua a resounding 4-0 victory. 4-0 in #40, and finally Team Cassadaigua was champions!

This is a great victory, and for Brittany Byers, it is the signature piece now to her resume as a manager or as a player. She knew what it was like to play for our teams when we returned from a long hiatus, and was an assistant for Stephanie Sweeney for a while before getting this position. She’s done a lot, but now, she’s won a title.

Recent greats like Rachel Schanke and Meghan Wolcott weren’t a part of this team, but they were both in their own suites at the stadium to savor it, and likely joined the team at some point.

But most of all, it’s a victory for our fans. Now, they don’t have to listen to their grandparents talk about soccer titles. Now, they have seen one of their own!