[Boromir88]

FRIENDLIES - ROUND 4

The Ost-in-Edhil Stadium was chosen to host the friendly between Angband and Inter Beleriand. It was an interesting decision to play the game in Middle-earth, but both teams agreed it was the best. Since Angband would be playing their games at Michel Delving, and Inter Beleriand would travel to Weathertop, both agreed to make the trip to Middle-earth early and play their final friendly at a neutral location.

It was fairly well attended friendly, since the locals were interested to see two Beleriand teams play, especially since one had Morgoth himself, and the other Maedhros and Fingon. Also, many supporters of the teams wanted to get to Middle-earth early, and buy up the group-match tickets when they went on sale.

The match was hardly fought and contested, with both sides going for the win, but neither tried deception. Without creativity in the teams' attacks, both defenses were up to the task of shutting them down. Eventually, the agility of Telivildo, and dominating presence of Ancalagon, freed Ulfast to give Angband the lead in the 38th minute.

Angband came out of the break looking to showcase their defense even more, and Inter Beleriand found it very hard to break down a defense organized by Morgoth. The pure skill of Maedhros and Fingon did create some quality efforts, but those efforts were too few, and Carcharoth was never truly tested in goal.

Angband 1-0 Inter Beleriand
tot shots 11-10
on target 4-3
GOALS:
*38, 1-0 Ulfast (Telvildo)
YELLOW CARDS:
*Angband- Ulfast, Ulwarth
*InterBel- Haldad

Isengard and Minas Tirith, squared off in a full tournament effort at the Hornburg Stadium.

Isengard dominated the first half, particularly Saruman, who scored both of Isengard's goals. But Wormtongue's midfield also played well in the first half, feeding passes to the up front goal-scorers.

Isengard pulled back the offense in the 2nd, which allowed Minas Tirith to create a couple chances. Mardil was able to pull the White City to within a goal, but it required bringing defenders up as extra attackers, to finally bbeat The Mountain & The Tree defense. After cutting the defecit to 1, Isengard played a couple counter attacks, just to keep Minas Tirith on its toes and not able to focus entirely on equalizing. In the end, Saruman looked more likely to grab his 3rd goal of the match than Minas Tirith did at equalizing.

Isengard 2-1 Minas Tirith
tot shots 13-10
on target 7-4
GOALS:
*22, 1-0 Saruman (Lugdush)
*44, 2-0 Saruman (Quickbeam)
*74, 2-1 Mardil (Cirion)
YELLOW CARDS:
*Isengard- Freca, Wulf, Mauhur
*MTirith- Ostoher

A very clean game played amongst friends, but still a competitive one. Eriador, in particular, showing you did not need heavy bruisers, or intimidation tactics to play a solid defensive game.

Although it started out shaky for Eriador's defense, as the BarrowWight and Bombadil were up to their usual performance, making it hard on defenders, and simply being annoying with never ending dancing and terrible poetry.

It's no insult to concede a goal to those two players, since they are one of the best combos in Arda, and have scored on any defense (even on Melkor and the mighty Valimar in the 2009 Cup!) But somehow Bombadil's self-indulgent celebrations were viewed as an insult by the Noldor, and Gil-galad made it his mission to shut Bombadil out for the remainder.

But shutting down Bombadil was not at all a troubling task in the 2nd half, since no one seemed to know where the annoying little man was. And thus Eriador was able to take firmer control of the game. Thrice Eriador scored, and it was a total team effort involving 5 different players. After Gil-galad's goal, making it 3-1, Eriador defended to close out the game. With no Bombadil, Shire-Bree was unable to make a game of it, and so nothing of note happened in the final 10 minutes.

Eriador 3-1 Shire-Bree United
tot shots 12-14
on target 6-5
GOALS:
*24, 0-1 BarrowWight (Bombadil)
*43, 1-1 Glorfindel (Arveleg)
*61, 2-1 Witch King
*78, 3-1 Gil-galad (Arahael)
YELLOW CARDS:
*Eriador-
*SBreeU- Bandobras