(In case you missed it last round,
The venue- Amon Hen)
There have been years when the bronze medal match received little discussion in the shadow of the championship contest, but not so this year. The anticipation is unbelievably high- Angband versus Pelori! Morgoth versus Manwe! Evil versus Good!
Morgoth’s Utumno squad played in the 2010 bronze medal match, losing to Turin and team Mithrim. The blame for the loss was placed on the attitude that infected Morgoth and his squad, largely spurred on by the taunting of Celegorm and Curufin regarding the futility of giving full effort in a “meaningless game”, as anything less than a championship was a failure for someone like Morgoth and the powerful team he had assembled.
This year is an entirely different story, however. In recent press conferences, Morgoth has been extremely critical of the way he handled the end of last year’s tournament. “I’m not proud of it. I allowed the Sons of Feanor to get to me last year, and cloud my thinking. The bronze match isn’t meaningless-
no match is meaningless. There is pride on the line, and your greatness is judged every time you step onto the field. People left last year’s tournament thinking Utumno was inferior to Mithrim, and that matters.”
“I want to win it all. If I can’t, I will be second. If I can’t be second, I’ll be third. Every year I desire to achieve as much as I can. There are many great talents and teams out there, so no one can win it every year, so the way to separate myself from others is to not only win titles, but in the years where I don’t win, still come close. That sort of consistency is a testament to greatness.”
And while Morgoth may in truth believe everything he’s been saying in the lead up to the game, most suspect that the opponent is partly responsible for his new outlook. Morgoth has set himself against Manwe and his friends for years beyond count, and doubtless this contest is the definition of a grudge match with serious bragging rights on the line (though Manwe is widely considered too polite and/or boring to rub it in should Pelori triumph).
In years past it has been quite common for Arda Cup to hold the bronze match in the afternoon and the championship in the evening of the same day, but this year interest in the bronze match is so high that the Cup Committee elected to hold both as night matches on consecutive days.
The Coliseum is expected to be at full capacity for both matches. Angband supporters have already bought out the Utumno, Angband, Mordor, and Moria sections of the stadium, while the Ainu and Elves of Valinor have filled the slots in the Valimar and Tirion sections, and portions of Gondolin and Doriath sections. General football fans, mostly from Gondor, bought out the Numenor and Rohan sections early on, and so there will only be the minimum 40,000 seats available to the masses on the day of the match, and from the look of things more than that will turn out to scoop the tickets up, and many will go home empty handed.
The title match, on the other hand, will be much more friendly to travelers that showed up at Amon Hen without tickets in hand. The allowed number of general seats are already filled of course, and Doriath wasted no time in nabbing the Gondolin and Mirkwood sections, parts of the Tirion and Valimar sections, and of course the Doriath section. But Tol In Gaurhoth was another matter. Their fans are very vocal and very loyal, but the fan base is not terribly extensive, and so there will be many tickets available to the masses.
When asked about how much support his squad would receive in the final, NogWolf had this to say. “Doriath will be out in force, no question about that, but most of the stadium will not have a hard-line affiliation, so they shouldn’t be terribly rowdy or rabid. I expect they’ll be on Doriath’s side 90-10, but we may sway them with our play. But in the end it doesn’t matter- we’re going to play our game, and that will decide things. We’re too battle-tested to be impacted by external factors.”
It is possible, however, that NogWolf is underestimating TIG’s fanbase, primarily because of Sauron. The longtime ruler of Mordor has always been a strong supporter of Tol In Gaurhoth, ever since he first founded the squad late in the first age. Mordor and Dol Guldur are in fairly close proximity to Amon Hen, and Orcs, Trolls, and other creatures have been steadily trickling into the area sporting TIG jerseys and personalized shirts that TIG has released recently that have been all the rage in the football world.
Among the more popular shirts is one featuring NerWolf sporting a crown, with text below reading “All shall love me and despair- or I’ll rip their heads off!” Also popular is the KuruWolf shirt, reading “I’m not a Werewolf- my dwarfish beard is just really out of control.” And of course there’s the PhantomWolf shirt that kicked off the campaign early in the spring- “PhantomWolf is here. This game is now important.”
Oddly enough, when team Doriath showed up for their first in-stadium practice earlier this week, Carcharoth was wearing a ShastaWolf shirt (“If we don’t win this game, my head will explode!”). When questioned about his loyalty to team Doriath, Carcharoth waved his paw and chuckled. “No, no, I have no problems here. We’ve worked very hard to get here and I’m going to do everything I can to make certain Doriath comes out on top. I just happen to like the shirt, and I’m a big fan of ShastaWolf. He plays the game so passionately and invests everything he has in every second of any contest, and this shirt exemplifies his attitude. Anyway, I bought it well before we knew we’d be playing Tol In Gaurhoth.”
In general all the finalists have been quite complimentary towards their opposition. Surprisingly, even NilpWolf, SallyWolf, and PhantomWolf have refrained from taking jabs at Doriath, and have restrained their customary arrogance, no doubt thanks to pressure from their teammates concerned about provoking an already challenging opponent.
We’re seeing quite the opposite from the bronze match, where Morgoth and his Balrogs have traded subtle barbs with Namo and Orome ever since the semis. And so it is that two rather different but equally exciting matches are shaping up- the heated rivalry of Angband versus Pelori, and the supreme athleticism and skill of this year’s best squads- Doriath and Tol In Gaurhoth.