CAFA Cup III: This Time It's Regional [IC]

[Savigliane]

SF RESULTS
Will you be one of the two heading to del Piero, or will you be missing out?

the target word count for the 3PPO/Final is 367.

SEMIFINALS RESULTS

#1 The Karodin Tetrarchy 0 - 5 #12 Audioslavia
Stade des Citoyens, Villeneuve

#2 Aleirave 0 - 1 #3 Ko-oren
Arena San Agnello, Acqui Bollente

CAFA 3: THIRD PLACE PLAYOFF
#1 The Karodin Tetrarchy v. #2 Aleirave
Stade National, Villeneuve

CAFA 3: FINAL
#3 Ko-oren v. #12 Audioslavia
Stadio del Piero, Acqui Bollente

[Ko-oren]

Ko-oren's young team has done it - as the sky-high pre-tournament expectations dictated, the Dragonflies have made the final. And the opponent is... Audioslavia. The local authority of many Ko-orenite cities is putting up big screens for all to see another historical game versus the Bulls.
After World Cup group games (WC88, 89) a semifinal (WC89), CAFA group games (CAFA1 & 3), it's time for the sixth meeting between the two teams in a few short years - and they were all close encounters. And perhaps the biggest of them all is still coming up: you get a trophy for a win now, as well as the eternal glory. Lose, and lament your missed chances. There's no medicine for regret. Block out all the white noise and get that result.

Two defenders on the Seagulls team handed Rex Archer the perfect opportunity to score after 55 minutes, and that was the only moment he needed to drive the nail into Aleirave's coffin, and that's how the Dragonflies are playing their 6th major final in a few days. Two in the AOCAF, one in the Cup of Harmony, two in the World Cup, and now our first CAFA final - and all due to Saltstead's subpar group stage. Without the Stallions to beat us in a third straight CAFA campaign, nothing could save Anaia from Dragonfly dominance.

What will come through for us in the final 90 (or 120) minutes? Is it Kaplan's and Mulvahil's inside knowledge of the Audioslavian league and its players? The centreback-striker combination of the Archer brothers? The three Straudum defenders who take their club chemistry with them? Judging from the previous few games, the hodge podge midfield of various clubs in various countries with little experience with the NT system beyond Vaugrenard proved somewhat ineffective, though yCinrhadd is developing into quite the playmaker. Against a team like the Bulls, we might see a unique midfield configuration, with a DM, which will likely be Odgers, and no AM - if we can't have Longchambon, we want nobody.

Music Headlines
- New Audio Versus Ko-oren Album; Working Title Leaked: "For All The Marbles"
- The Bulls not to re-release "Minor Thirds"
- Post-post-rock band "Margaret's full name is Margaret Belmore" reconsiders hiatus

[Savigliane]

3PPO RESULTS
Tomorrow, a champion will be crowned. But first, an interlude.

THIRD PLACE PLAYOFF

#1 The Karodin Tetrarchy 6 - 5 #2 Aleirave
Stade National, Villeneuve

[Audioslavia]

Audio versus Ko-oren announce surprise release of new album
"Expect 'polished' sound", say band
Fans nervous

Again coinciding with a competitive fixture between the immovable object of Audioslavia and the immovabler object of Ko-oren, For All the Marbles was recorded at the Arena Kirola, site of the first ever meeting between the Dragonflies and the Bulls - a one-nothing win for the former on the third and final matchday of AOCAF 42's group stage. When asked how they got permission to record an entire album at the stadium, the band have responded, simply, that they didn't. Reports from security staff confirm that five visitors - supposedly carrying three guitar cases, a drum machine, a double bass and fourteen delay pedals - did indeed sneak away from a public tour of the stadium last week, and that tastefully discordant atmospheric music could be heard coming from a sealed-off executive box. The thudding sound of knocking and muffled shouts of 'sirs, your shifting textures and harmonic minor chord progressions are disturbing our guests' can apparently be heard on some tracks, but then that isn't new; the technique was first used on the band's debut - and only - single, entitled The Thudding Sound of Knocking And Muffled Shouts Of Sirs, Your Shifting Textures And Harmonic Minor Chord Progressions Are Disturbing Our Guests.

The 'B' side to that single, Jeremy Jaffacake Will Never Die But You Will, was a confusing and unpalatable mess. And speaking of unpalatable B sides, Ko-oren's national football team have shown quiet confidence ahead of the final. The side are sure that their own brand of minor violence and sideways passing will counteract Audioslavia's version just as it had in the group stage. The Bulls, expected to line up either 5-5-0 or 6-4-0 depending on how adventurous they're feeling on the day, will need a bit of luck. So says manager R.J. Styrn, who watched that very first AUD-KOR match in her bedroom back in the day, two cycles before making her own debut for the national team.

"Let's face it" says Styrn. "It's going to be a nil-nil draw. Even if it finishes 2-1, it's going to be a 0-0 draw. Spiritually. The only way to get a goal in this fixture is to lull your opposition into a rhythm and then break that rhythm with a surprise moment of actual football. It's like... well it's like a post rock album. Fourteen minutes of droning and then, surprise! the first half of a chorus. And now listen to an old guy complain about a beach."

It will be the eleventh match between two sides that are both proud that none of the ten preceding games were in any way watchable. TV Ratings' loss will be football's loss also. Those of us who prefer our Whinnie The Poohs when he's wearing a tophat and a monocle will be settling down to watch the sport's two foremost practitioners of Post Football. The winner, fittingly, will be nobody.

Although we do have a prediction here of the final score:

[Savigliane]

FINAL CUTOFF
Thirty nations, seventy-six matches, six self-selected groups, six cities. But it all comes down to two teams. From Stadio del Piero, we give you our last goodbye.

CAFA 3: FINAL
#3 Ko-oren 0 - 1 #12 Audioslavia
Stadio del Piero, Acqui Bollente

[Audioslavia]

R.J. Styrn would've been a bit too young to have seen, first hand, Karsten Eiger slowing his stride in preparation to absolutely blooter the ball past Grant Hansen. A last-minute strike to double Audioslavia's advantage at a crucial time and all but lock the trophy into the previously barren cabinet. The footage has been replayed often enough for the current Audioslavia manager to have memorized each and every syllable of the event, naturally. It's one of those perfect passages of a story. The team that had failed for so long got to shatter all the skeletons in their closet with one swoop of a beloved striker's foot. Last minute. World Cup final. Local rivals. Star number 9. Rawr.

She'd have been old enough to have remembered the boot being on the foot some years later. Polar Islandstates, the team with their own losing record, scoring a similar goal in similar circumstances. Last minute. Oh captain. Thwock. The goal that doused Audioslavia's flaming desire for a third World Cup.

She definitely remembers the World Cup 69 final. She was on the pitch. And it was on the pitch where she'd've learned that fairy-tales don't usually happen. In fact it almost never goes down like it does in the books. Audioslavia the underdogs, failing to make an impression on the game against the chaps of The Holy Empire. Styrn unable to get a look in. 0-1. That's that.

By now, Styrn was old enough to know that victories often come the same way. You don't usually get the blistering last-minute hollywood goal that wins the day. By and large, you get something different. More real. Accidental. Searing choruses aren't common in day-to-day life. Hence post rock.

Even if you close your eyes, you can't quite picture the winning goal. Your mind moves through it like a laser-pointer through a cat's paw. Trying to remember what happened is like trying to catch gravity. It gets as far as not really understanding the concept. Just trying to piece together the events can turn people mad.

Let's try.

---

7:37pm - As the two sides are waiting in the tunnel to emerge onto the pitch, a twelve year-old Savigliana ball-girl shyly waves at Ko-oren defender Atole Kaplan, who plays his football for AC Izotz Zubia. He smiles and he signs a small picture of him that she'd brought with her. They have a small hug. The girl seems as happy as anyone could possibly be.

7:38pm - Shamrock Cathair and Audioslavia defender Archer Flat whispers something into Kaplan's ear. Flat is pointing at the ball-girl, who is further up the tunnel walking onto the pitch holding a corner of the Anaian flag. He makes a cry-baby gesture and then suddenly juts his neck in Kaplan's direction, expecting the Ko-orenite to flinch. Kaplan merely presses his forehead firmly against Flat's forehead and the two stag it out for a few seconds before being separated by team-mates.

9:11pm - Deep into the second half, with the scores still poised at 0-0, Obadele Volonte tries to play a long cross-field pass to the right wing, but has his plans scuppered for two reasons. One: He's a centre-half who absolutely should not be making those sorts of passes. Two: His pass, while wayward, is deflected off of the shoulder of Khidinu Daraluthen. The pass, intended to be well ahead of Antoine Letexier scarpering up the wing, instead balloons up and towards the touch-line.

Wanting to keep the quick counter-attack going, Bulls manager Ronda Styrn gets herself underneath the ball, catches it, and quickly throws it to the arriving Tiago Brown for the quick throw. Brown throws the ball forward to Letexier, who is unmarked on the right wing. The referee blows his whistle.

9:12pm - You can't be offside from a throw-in you <expletive deleted> <ableist comment deleted>, shouts Styrn at the referee. She is booked. The referee invites her to glance over at the big screen, which is showing Styrn catching the deflected ball. She does it perfectly. The problem is she's a good three metres inside the boundary of the pitch. Her protest, 'It was going out anyway though', falls on deaf ears. She is booked, and Ko-oren are awarded a free-kick.

9:13 Jubenar Mallerbury spends so long trying to figure out which of the three sideways passes to go for from his indirect free-kick that he's shooed away from the ball by Atole Kaplan who, seeing as he's goal-side of the ball, opts to loft a long back-pass towards the goalkeeper.

That.. that is a very long back pass. It is rather over-hit. Edou Bittencourt gets his skates on to track back. He's there in time. He leaps up into the air, puts both hands up to catch the ball and then...

...drops them dramatically, allowing the ball to drop over his head.

10:31pm - "It's an indirect free-kick" explains Bittencourt to a grey-haired old Ko-orenite journalist. Beside him is a camera whose glare Bittencourt is trying to avoid. He's holding a bag of ice to the back of his head. "I had two options. Option one: I catch the ball. That's a back-pass. Can an indirect free-kick be a back-pass? Yes it can. If I'd have stopped the goal, I'd've given away an indirect free-kick right on the edge of our six yard box. Suicide. So... I let it go.

"So.. so you thought that..." starts the Ko-orenite hack. He's interrupted.

"It's in the rules" replies Bittencourt. "You can't score a goal from an indirect free-kick, right? I mean everyone knows that. What few people know is that you also can't score an own-goal from an in-direct free-kick. I let the ball drop over my head, it goes into the goal, and the result is not an Audioslavian goal, it's an Audioslavian corner kick. I was playing the percentages.

"The percentages" says the Ko-orenite hack. "So you weren't expecting...

9:14pm - The world watches in astonishment as the ball ricochets off the cross-bar, hits the back of Edou Bittencourt's head and lightly bounces into the goal. A photograph is taken of Bittencourt trying to get to his feet just as the ball comes to rest an inch over the goal-line.

In the ensuing celebration, Archer Flat is sent-off for furiously screaming the first six lines of the Audioslavian national anthem into the face of a sad and frightened Savigliana ball-girl. It's a picture of this and a mildly concussed Bittencourt that adorn the front and back pages of every newspaper in Audioslavia.

---

The game, like any Audio Versus Ko-oren game worth its salt, made a mockery of football in all the best ways. Ko-oren, needing an equaliser, found only a ten-man Audioslavia in turtle-mode and a manager not seeming to care about her yellow card, flailing about her technical area, her arms waving like two military drones controlled by a toddler.

The final whistle heralded the sound of a million friends of football fans asking 'is this the thing you really like, then? It's not very good, is it?' along with the sound of jubilation in Audioslavia, broken beer bottles in Ko-oren and a fifth regional title going into the books for the Bulls.