[Nogrod]

The magnificient city of Armenelos was hosting an Arda Cup play-off game for a second year running. The Armenelos stadium situated just in the shadow of the tower and the citadel was ready to receive the players and the fans and the town was buzzing with enthusiasm and confidence.

On the match-day all the major daily newspapers published Arda Cup -supplements reporting widely on the games so far, speculating on Armenelos’ next opponents and reminiscing about the last year’s tournament.

“The catastrophy of last year is forgotten, I’m ready even for a shoot out if one comes this year”, Ar Gimilzor assured in an "Armenelos Times" interview. “But we’ll play in a way we don’t need to go into those anymore”, he added. And people were pleased. All the team and management were on the affirmative: the team had learned from last year’s tournament and would not let the opposing teams to take early leads like last year. They would press on from the very first minute to the last.

It was widely accepted that Erebor would be no match for the home team. They had a dragon to be sure but Sauron could easily hold it at bay if needed. Armenelos had humbled their opponents game after game in the group phase and they had promised to continue that style in the play-offs as well.

"The Númenorian" was the most confident as it’s front page screamed: “No chance for petty dwarves and lesser men! Armenelos will prevail!”. As people started gathering to the stadium the old song “Rule Armenelos, Armenelos rule the world!” was heard from all around the gathering populace – and getting into the stadium itself it concentrated into one big roar for the home team: Rule Armenelos, Armenelos rule the world!

There were a few hundred die-hard fans of Erebor attending the match, mainly men and dwarves. Also a few thousand football fans had arrived from Gondor and the south. But almost 90% of the spectators were Númenorians championing their own team with enthusiasm. To the visiting team the roar and thunder of the home team supporters was intimidating indeed as they entered the fully packed stadium bellowing and chanting for the home team.

And so was the game itself. Armenelos ran over Erebor from the first minutes as they had promised. After half an hour’s play the home team was leading already 2-0. Armenelos pressed on from deep inside Erebor territory forcing the Ereborians to lose balls or to try long passes up to the forwards. The Armenelos midfielders and defenders took those long passes easily into control and ran into attack time after time. Smaug was a shadow of it’s earlier glory in the field now that Sauron was personally guarding it and shutting out any possibility Smaug might have had to take control of the ball and eventually do something.

But the flare and stamina of the home team was just amazing. They rained attacks to Erebor defences from left and right, shooting from far and near. As there always seemed to be a new way of creating an attack, the Erebor players could never anticipate for good what was going to happen next. “Lord of the West” rocketed the ball in from 32 meters at the 13th minute of play while the forwards were denying Bain any decent view to the ball when it left Ar Adunakhor’s boot. Ar Pharazon shoved the ball in from close quarters at 29th minute after a corner kick.

It was a virtuoso performance from the home team. And there was more to come. Less than ten minutes into the second half Ar Gimilzor made the lead 3-0 and broke the spine of the visiting team – thus finally throwing the disaster of the last year’s play-offs from his back. The game was over and the rest was a formality.

Armenelos kept the game under control but they also eased up their pressure and active guarding so that the Erebor team also managed to create a few chances – even though most of their shots went wide. At 76th minute the visitors finally got their comfort-goal with Nazgul #7 seeing nicely how the defenders took Bolg a bit sloppily and sped the ball to him behind the defenders. Bolg thanked for the nice pass and scored from the penalty spot.

In the end Armenelos had chances to make it 4-1 but Tar Minastir shot it just an inch wide.

After a confident win the host-supporters could play it generous and no major rows were reported from the night following the game. A few skirmishes of course, but that’s just normal with events like these.

So Armenelos really showed their quality once again pulling out a clear victory with a masterclass performance. The ones getting on their way the next should really prepare - if that helps...


Armenelos 3-1 Erebor

shots 15-8
on target 7-3
GOALS:
*13, Armenelos (Ar Adunakhor, Tar Calmacil)
*29, Armenelos (Ar Pharazon, Sauron)
*52, Armenelos (Ar Gimilzor, Tar Minastir)
*76, Erebor (Bolg, Nazgul #7)
YELLOW CARDS:
*Armenelos- Tar Minastir, Tar Ancalimon
*Erebor- Bard, Girion, Bolg