[Nogrod]

Pelori vs. Tol-In-Gaurhoth



Oromë: I’m getting done with you! You’re just parasites so just shut your mouths!

Phantomwolf: Now who’s a parasite?

Nogwolf: Yeah. Let us hear your version of this: we say we are fully capable of using our own minds and reaching for the goals we set ourselves – also the goal Manwë protects – but you then, you only come tied with lashes from both Manwë and Eru.

Lórien: Now what comes to your mind as the goals “you set yourselves”, where do they come from if not from me, and by implication through Ilúvatar himself?

Phantomwolf: So it is Ilúvatar himself who thus makes us desiring to be defiant in front of you “Master of Desire”? *smiles defiantly*

Oromë: Don’t listen to those double-tongued rhetoricians Irmo. They have no claim to truth as they are outsiders… just some odd third generation mimicking werewolves who don’t even belong to the Arda proper. Parasites, as I told you.

Nogwolf: Now you forget where all this started. I only said we have a stronger will to win this game and the stamina to do it. And that is true. You guys have just lazed on your own reality thinking how marvelous you are, but we have been living in a world reduced from magic and any great plans – and we have learned to gain what we crave for ourselves.

Lórien: But you’re no part of Eru’s plan. You’re just an off-shoot of the legendarium, having no part in the story – like my colleague says, you’re just parasites trailing this history unfolding on a Website dedicated to us. The prophet that was the Prof, and he never mentioned you when he told the stories – you have clinged into this yourselves with no authorization at all by the forces above you, like us, at all.

Nogwolf: And therefore we’re also free from the constraints of fate that tie you into the story written by others but not yourselves, eh? *gives a snug smile*

Phantomwolf: And thus able to break your circle of winning like Eru wishes you to do every time you play against a team that is under his control… *triumphs*

Oromë: Now that is blasphemy! We are pretty much able to do things ourselves and Eru doesn’t need to follow our footsteps all the time. Just quit that like now until you annoy me for good.

Nogwolf: As you wish sir.

Phantomwolf: No offense, sir… but we will win.


So here we were live in the press-conference, sorry to have started the covering only after the discussion gathered some heat as it went off somewhat prematurely and the AKM microphones were not set until the row was already heated. But one can get the tone of the discussion even from that short exchange of views.


~*~

The huge crowds at Amon Hen Colosseum were having great problems with their loyalties. There were no warm feelings towards the T-I-G team as they were largely considered kind of outsiders, but then again many had misgivings toward the Pelori team after all that happened in the West once again this year. The Angband and Mordor fans cheered for T-I-G just because it was opposing the Valar in the game, and the Teleri and other Western elves, and most of the Maiar, naturally supported Pelori; but almost all others had problems in choosing a side. The T-I-G were darn good at playing the ball, but they were still odd outsiders, but how could they back these arrogant Valar who were shying away at nothing to keep their West “clean”?

Tol-In-Gaurhoth had it’s own fans at the Arena for sure, and even if the gang was small it made a lot of noise. Morthoron was mocking anything he could catch a glimpse of, Rikae was having a guitar and she played it like a mad Jimmy Hendrix – and the others led by Mac joined the chorus on “All along the Wathctower” – “Tol-In-Gaurhoth!” – with Pitchwife doing the add-on every time with his baritone voice. Fea and Lhuna were making the cheer-leading, forcing the willful eyes of the nearest male spectators to stare at them more their wives would have liked… while Morm and Rune looked after the security of the ladies looking grimly at anyone stalking them too long.

And a kind of a fuzz was created when The ‘Downer players and their few fans appeared to the stadium led by The Saucepan Man banging the beat with his pans – joining the T-I-G fans they made even more noise than before – to the annoyance to any decent football audiences.

But most of the crowds had decided to cheer to both teams, at least to begin with – and thus both sides got a thunderous welcome to the pitch – even if it wasn’t the most enthusiastic welcome ever given, but just having 160 000 people making a noise makes anything thunderous.

As the game kicked off T-I-G took the initiative and started rolling their attacks towards the Pelori goal one after another – jumping over the “reconnaissance-period” from the first minutes of the game T-I-G clearly wished to surprise the Pelori team – and they were seriously after a goal from the very first minutes. But Pelori defenses were alert from the beginning as well and most of the shots T-I-G managed to make went off the target, but it clearly looked like the outsiders were calling the shots in the beginning – until they shifted their play and fell back a little to ease their burden. With T-I-G leaving more room to the middle-field Pelori started having some quite nice chances as well and the game became more even – and after the first rush by T-I-G it seemed that now even they had fell back to testing their opponent.

But even if both teams were mainly trying to look for any weaknesses on each other’s defense while trying to keep their own goal guarded, there were some quality performances on both sides at the last half of the first period.

After a long build-up Oromë ended up near the corner flag but managed to dribble Nilpwolf aside for a fleeting moment to center the ball – and Varda made a nice diving header for it only to be caught by Shastawolf.

Some five minutes later Galadwolf robbed the ball from Vana in mid-field and sent it fast forwards to Gwathwolf who had anticipated the change of direction and ran for it like mad ridding himself from Gwaihir and Nahar: and he was one on one with Manwë and was just about to shoot when the referee whistled it off-side. T-I-G protested loudly for the late whistle but the referee kept his mind with it.

Shastawolf was forced into a real test at 42nd minute when Eönwë cut the T-I-G defenses square and went after a long ball from Nienna in a counter-attack and faced Shasta alone from thirty meters – running towards him. Eönwë faked a shot at around the box when he saw Shasta, who had ran to meet him, diving for it just a few meters before his eyes… Eönwë made a quick turn right and was looking for a foothold to shoot when Shasta knocked the ball off with his fist and Eönwë’s kick hit Shasta to his right arm. Shasta was howling in pain and the first aid unit was summoned to the field.

The T-I-G players were calling for a straight red card for Eönwë from intentionally trying to injure their goalie but the referee stood firm and a free kick was all T-I-G earned from the situation.

After Shasta was up again and returning to his goal something quite unexpected happened. T-I-G forwards and midfielders started jogging forwards while the Pelori team jogged backwards to lower their field. Manwë had come far away from his goal, actually to mid-field, to follow the injury-situation and was slowly backing towards his posts. And here Phantomwolf saw an opportunity. So instead of jogging forwards to the midfield he ran to the ball whispering something to Skipwolf who had just settled the ball down for the free-kick a meter forwards from the edge of the T-I-G box. He walked a few steps towards Shasta and suddenly turned around, took a quick run of a few steps and sent the ball forwards high into the air bringing all his force to the shot.

Manwë was walking briskly towards his goal with the lowest defenders by his side. They were about thirty meters from the goal when the cry stopped him. “Run!”, it was Varda calling him from the other end of the pitch. Manwë turned around and glanced upwards only to see the ball flying some ten meters over him and falling dangerously fast… towards the goal! Gwaihir had noticed the situation as well and waved it’s giant wings to try and cut the flight of the ball while Manwë dashed towards the goal trying to prevent the obvious from happening. But there was nothing they could do as the ball flew in the air and went into the Pelori goal right in the middle when Gwaihir had just lifted off the ground and Manwë was still about twenty meters away from his goal.

Even the staunchest Valar-fans had to admit that was both a brilliant idea and a brilliant execution of that idea. The few T-I-G supporters at the colosseum went just mad with joy: they were leading 1-0 just a minute before the half-time! With most of the 160 000 spectators making a standing ovation to the Phantomwolf even he did look a bit embarrassed about the roar and thunder the applauses created.


Pelori came to the second half composed and effective. Their fast passing game created some nice opportunities in the beginning of the half but after T-I-G adjusted their game to match that of Pelori the game evened again. It was anybody’s game now as without some masterful performances by both goalies either team could have added to the scoreboard.

8 minutes into the second half Nerwolf showed some flare releasing herself from both Namo and Gwaihir – but doing that she had drifted to such a narrow angle Manwë looked confident to deny the shot. But Nerwolf put such a swerve into the shot Manwë wasn’t able to hold it and it slipped from his fingers. Gwathwolf was there for the rebound but his shot missed the goal totally, from ten meters away. Gwath fell on his knees and ripped his hair in agony and promised he would get back up again only after someone poured some ash over his head.

12 minutes into the second half Pelori was pressing on letting the passes mess the T-I-G defenses as well as they could – and Eönwë did find a line of passing between Sallywolf and Nilpwolf. Before the two had time to turn around Varda was already there reaching for the ball. Kuruwolf saw what was happening and slid towards the ball hoping to cut the imminent shot coming… but Varda was one mental step ahead and instead of shooting he just flipped the ball left to where Eönwë had rushed. The crowds went “uhhh!” seeing Varda surrounded by three defenders and Eönwë getting the ball to his feet ten meters to their left – and all alone!

And Eönwë’s shot was a real beauty: accurate and powerful, heading towards the top right corner of the goal. But somehow Shastawolf managed to make an impossible looking dive reaching to get his fingertips in the way enough to change the trajectory of the ball so that it hit the post and flew over the goal.

17 minutes into the half T-I-G was pressing for a change and got a throw-in from near the right corner-flag. Inzilwolf threw the ball far to the left side of the pitch (no one thought someone could throw the ball that far) – and as the defenses turned towards the left side of the pitch and started orienting to the new situation Phantomwolf crossed the ball diagonally back to the right – just where Nogwolf had made a sudden run into the middle. Nogwolf took the ball down with his chest, leaped forwards beside Namo and hammered the ball in with a mighty cannon leaving Manwë no chance to even begin guessing where the shot would land.

Tol-In-Gaurhoth had claimed a two goal lead with little less than half an hour of the game left. The crowds were totally baffled and confused – except for the T-I-G and ‘Downer fans who were making such a noise it was probably heard at the sea in the end. Coming from behind hadn’t been exactly Pelori’s strongpoint in this tournament as they had always more or less had the control of the game in their hands – so what would they do now?

To the disappointment of most Pelori fans it first looked like Manwë wasn’t going to surprise them with radical tactical changes to try and turn the tables, but little by little they started coming forwards with more energy. But T-I-G let them drink their very own medicine retreating into a kind of suffocating defense even Manwë would have been proud of if it was his team doing it.

Only with pure immortal willpower were the Valar able to push through the T-I-G defenses but even then they were forced into off-side positions (T-I-G’s off-side trap worked ingeniously in the end giving T-I-G five free-kicks from off-sides – all from situations which might have ended up in a goal to Pelori had the trap not worked), driven to the edges and corners of the field, denied decent shooting opportunities… It seemed the T-I-G defenses were all around and when Manwë dared not to bring all his team up to attack Pelori was practically playing shorthanded all the time.

So Pelori put all their hopes into the free-kicks – and with T-I-G’s abrasive game (when needed, the wolves bit, scratched, tackled, howled and basically played every dirty trick in the menu) to distract and annoy the opponent) they got a host of them from various positions. But Shastawolf was firm and took couple of important saves in the end.

And finally the referee blew his whistle and the game was over. And it was game-over for team Pelori! T-I-G was marching to the finals, shutting out Pelori and scoring two against the Valar! That, one could say, was a piece of Arda’s football history.


~*~

In the post-game press conference Manwë was not forthcoming and actually answered every question with “no comments”, was it a question about their feelings, the causes of their loss, the speculation about the re-organisation of the Arda Cup, especially as it came to Valar or playing the games in the Blessed Realm.

T-I-G representative never appeared to the press conference as the whole team had jumped up to the stands and joined their fans there starting a party of their own straight after the final whistle. When an hour later some Stadion officials were kindly asking them to move their parties maybe to some other location as they would close the colosseum for the night, the werewolves showed them their teeth and warned that anyone suggesting the finalists couldn’t party in the stadium witnessing their glory would get torn into pieces. Understandably, they were allowed to have their party.



Pelori 0-2 Tol In Gaurhoth
tot shots 12-17
on target 5-5
GOALS:
*44, 0-1 PhantomWolf
*62, 0-2 NogWolf (GwathWolf)
YELLOW CARDS:
*Pelori- Vana, Nahar, Namo, Varda
*TIG- NilpWolf, SallyWolf


T-I-G to the final, Pelori to the Bronze-game.