A placid night, fitting for what would not be a placid match between Yuezhou and Farfadillis. Both teams took to the pitch, looking laser-focused and calm. You, reader, may find it strange that a game of actual football is being described here, but you can feel slightly more at ease if you pretend it's 2015 or so all over again. Anyway, neither team was particularly happy with the draw they got: this was not meant to be a round of thirty-two clash. Both teams had legitimate aspirations to lifting the World Cup, and plenty of players more than good enough to make it happen, if a few figurative coin flips were to go their way, as it always happens with champions.
At any rate, it was, could you imagine, all the Farves' fault. They'd dropped points to Katzeburg and Crpostran, teams that were definitely solid but also teams they were definitely meant to beat, especially after having gotten the heralded-as-tougher Huayramarca. Alas, Farfadillis put out a mediocre group stage performance. One would think they slept on their laurels after the matchday one win; someone more familiar with Farf football history would know Farfadillis just randomly pisses, but doesn't quite shit, the bed extremely often in World Cup group stages. Anyhow, the football.
The game was a banger. One that could reasonably be remembered for decades, despite the relatively low stakes of a round of thirty-two match. To say Farfadillis caught the Dragons completely by surprise would be an understatement. What Farfadillis did in the first ten minutes of the game was the equivalent of starting a boxing match by stabbing the opponent in the corner of the boxing match's venue. Three goals inside ten minutes, Yuezhou were left to bleed out. As it turns out, however, they were still breathing.
The Farf set-up looked awfully prescient: they switched things up a little after the Crpostran game. The team went back to their old-school one center-back system, opting to throw Nerianeknoé Ócandefé to the wolves by handing him his first international cap in the first-ever double-takilante set-up in the history of the game. Míkêl Lôçô and all of his sixteen years of experience (in this world) replaced Xíxì Fêér, in what can only be called a huge gamble. The wingers played even wider than usual. The wing-backs were bombarding forward like we were back in the 70s. It was a strange synthesis of old and new Farfadillis.
Two minutes in, the aforementioned Ócandefé made a vital, if somewhat fishy, recovery in the middle of the park before instantly punting the ball forward to an always-ready Dénes Robineau. The Szoirsian forward, the best of the world on his day, needed not a second touch. Despite being right-footed, despite the angle not being quite right, despite having failed to fully outrun Zhao Fan, with one swift, somewhat elegant, but mostly just very potent move of his body he unleashed a rocket of a shot that flew straight into the upper-right corner. The kind of shot you don't take if you're not someone as good and as arrogant as Dénes Robineau.
Five minutes in, the Dragons reeling, Lôçô received a pass from Mopiraja close to the Farf box, after a failed Yue attack. Dong Yichun hurried up to press him before he could turn, but all he had to do was actually turn. Without touching the ball, the kid was lucky (lucky?) enough the ball went right between Dong's legs. Call it a nutmeg of sorts if you will. Facing forward, with far too much space to run into for a player of his caliber, Lôçô instead opted to go for a defense-splitting long pass to Valën Pídí. The right-winger's first touch was immaculate, punting the ball forward just enough to cut in and dribble past Ji Wenwei. He passed the ball to Robineau, who uncharacteristically passed it back to an incoming Jáánsêlà, who was sprinting towards the box at full speed. Maybe in olden times, the game would've ended then and there because the crossbar broke, but technology has long advanced past those kinds of problems, so the shot was merely lightning-fast, smashed the crossbar, bounced inside the goal, then hit the roof of the net with what little violence the shot somehow still had left in it. Two-nil.
Ten minutes in, Jáánsêlà makes the exact same recovery as Ócandefé made in the first goal. He passes the ball to Sürréo, waiting on the wing. The experienced Rulandese winger wastes little time; he puts in a cross with his first touch, having seen Robineau making an ambitious run. It's inch-perfect. Robineau runs into the box at full speed, behind Zhao Fan's back, jumps astonishingly high, then smashes the ball into the net. A powerful shot taken with the head. Three-nil, ten minutes into the match.
The Dragons, somehow, did not give up after that. Games against Farfadillis tend to go one of three ways once Farfadillis takes a commanding lead: a massive thrashing, a high-scoring tight game in which Farfadillis ultimately comes out on top, or a massive upset that leaves Farf fans reeling for another fluid two years. Today would be one of those middle-of-the-road days, but the way that middle of the road was traversed was what made the match remarkable. Ten minutes into the game, three goals.
The Farves' tactical set-up held on throughout the first half. Yuezhou had quite a few chances, but Fórténté was not having any of it and pulled off three cruelly good saves. Farfadillis kept piling on the pressure, but could no longer find the moments of magic they'd found in the first ten minutes. By the time the ref blew for half-time, the scoreline could very well have been five-two.
Yuezhou came roaring back for the second half. Yuan Zilai, who had been accused of being a filthy fucking traitor by every Farf in the lead-up to the match, made the mistake of reverting to his more usual set-up. The Dragons reacted correctly: they smelled blood. Farfadillis was letting up pressure, looking to secure the game, maybe take the game a little lighter and get to the round of sixteen in one piece. No such thing, sirs, the Yue had to say to them.
Minute fifty-five. After ten minutes fruitlessly trying to break down the surprisingly low block Yuan Zilai had set up, Kara Mingsdottír Zhang took matters into her own hands and went for a screamer, as Lôçô, still inexperienced and, in fact, unaware of who she was, left her a little too much space. The shot was exquisite, much more dagger than hammer, and Fórténté could only watch as the ball caressed the side netting on its way into the goal.
Yuezhou still needed two goals, and they looked like they were plenty aware of it. They started bombarding the Farves, who started retreating more and more, much to the forwards' frustrations. With ten minutes to go, Leona Tsang received a pass inside the box, fooled Mopiraja twice with her feints, then slotted the ball in beyond Fórténté's reach. Three-two, game really was on now.
Eight minutes of added time because both teams just kept going at each other throughout the second half, especially as the Yue inched closer to extra time. Minute ninety-nine. Farves are beginning to cuss at the referee in his native language; they apparently had taken a couple days off to learn it to a native level. The ref, a little shocked, did not card any of them. The game goes on nonetheless. Zhang shows her pedigree by, in what was supposed to be the last play of the game, finding Jia Luka Siski, the Farf representing the Dragons, in the box like a needle in a haystack. He gets a shot off, Fórténté saves. All hell has broken loose inside the box. The rebound falls upon him. He shoots again. Lajos Danzas, who'd come in ten minutes before, punches the ball out. Now it's the Yue players cussing at the ref in... a lot more languages than just Yue, surprisingly. Anyway. Penalty, red card. Standard procedure. The referee tells the players it's the penalty and it's over. Of course, if Yuezhou score, the match goes to extra time and they're up a man with insane momentum. The stakes... decently high.
Jia Luka Siski, of all people, steps up to take it. He feels robbed of his moment of glory, by his very own multinational nonentity, no less. He wants revenge. But think of the optics here: it's a Farf taking a game-deciding penalty against Farfadillis. His penalty was weak. He tried to fool Fórténté, but he called his bluff and stopped his weak shot. Didn't even give him a merciful rebound. Full-time. Yue players dropping to their knees, Farf players celebrating, you get the idea.
A little after the match, with the Farf team heading out, one journalist was lucky enough to come across Lajos Danzas, the man that had taken the stupidest of risks and won the game for Farfadillis. "What was going through your head when you stopped that shot?" The journalist hurriedly asked.
"I knew that if the shot went in, they'd have a lot of momentum," Lajos explained, surprisingly calm and articulate. "Extra time would've been tough. I figured I'd demoralize them by preventing the goal. It was a bit of a gamble," he explained.
"Well, yes it was a gamble, but what pushed you all the way?" The journalist pressed on.
"I figured if they missed, they'd be completely demoralized, and extra time would be much easier," Lajos smiled politely.
"I, uh, what?"
"Did you know Farfadillis did not, in fact, invent cheese? I learned that the other day. And it's alright, cheese is an exercise in futility..." he continued, uninterrupted, for five minutes live on air.
