[Nogrod]

The Armenelos stadium is situated just in the shadow of the tower and the citadel raised by Elros himself. The proud team of this magnificient city had humbled their opponents game after game admitting no goals this far in the tournament. They had promised to stick to the principle in the playoffs as well. But today they were facing a team which was also known for it’s defensive qualities, the infamous “girdle of Melian” being their last stand.

On the match-day the daily newspapers reported widely on the earlier play-off games and every single one pointed out to the number of first-born teams going forwards. “An end to the rule of the First-born!” shouted Armenelos Times in it’s front page. “Only elves and weirdos through this far!” screamed The Númenorian – pointing to the T-I-G team with the latter expression.

The around thousand supporters from Menegroth and it’s surroundings didn’t feel themselves so much welcomed but happily there were no serious incidents either. The elves were treated cordially by the organizers and the home crowds were behaving themselves for there was still the pride in them, and beating visitors with numbers wasn’t exactly honourable.

The game itself was pure Nirvana to the home crowd and a valley of tears to the guests. The home team took a complete control over the midfield from the very beginning and never gave it back again. That meant that the Doriathians had only a few decent attacks in the whole game as they were forced to play long passes to their forwards which the solid Armenelos defence handled with professional effectiveness.

In the attack the Armenelos team was as impressive. The home team scored twice in the first period. First Ar Gimilzor ran the ball in from a beautiful long pass from Tar Telperien who was still up after a corner kick. On 34th minute Tar Minastir was freed with Tar Ancalimon’s neat pass and he gave Melian no chance.

An interesting feature of the game was that Luthien had marked Ar Pharazon personally and managed to make him almost completely invisible for almost the whole first half. It was clear the goalmaker wasn’t happy for the overcoat watching and following his every step and effectively shutting him out from the game. So he went on playing rough with her, bumping and crashing with her whenever possible. In the end that paid off as his size and strength wore her down. On the 73rd minute Ar Pharazon got what he had yarned for the most: a goal in front of the wild-going home crowd. That goal finally ended Doriath’s hopes of getting back to the game and the last twenty minutes the teams mostly just passed the ball to and fro with no actual fighting over the ball anymore.

It was clear the better team, the far better team, won. And no one has yet scored a goal behind Elros! The team had stuck to it’s principle and the parties after the match at Armenelos were quite a sight! “Armenelos rules” was sang through the night in every pub and taverna of Armenelos.

Armenelos – Gondolin will be a classic! For example The Arda Kicker Magazine holds these two to be the best teams in the whole tournament. Sadly only one of them can go it all the way to the end.

Armenelos 3-0 Doriath
shots 16-8
on target 8-3
GOALS:
*Armenelos, 18 (Ar Gimilzor- Tar Telperien)
*Armenelos, 34 (Tar Minastir- Tar Ancalimon)
*Armenelos, 73 (Ar Pharazon- Ar Adunakhor)
YELLOW CARDS:
*Armenelos- Tar Calmacil, Tar Atanamir
*Doriath- Saeros, Elwe, Mablung