CHAPTER XIX: YEMEN
Part 4: World Cup!
(1715-1720)
Under terms of an agreement between the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) and the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), I am obligated to allow FIFA to use this post for its own promotional purposes without recompense or any gratuity of any sorts. Therefore, we will use this post to discuss FIFA's role in the international football community as well as give a brief overview of the World Cup format. :ahem: Here goes.
FIFA is probably the scariest organization I've ever heard of. They're like the Horsehead Nebula on steroids, while suffering from a severe megalomanic episode. Their unofficial motto is 'Do as we say, or we will do things to your beloved sport that will make grown men weep for the next thousand years.'
Okay, now that that's out of the way....
Qualifying Period
It is January 1715, and FIFA, working through agents in the Mughal Empire, asks for 15% of our trade. We tell them we gave at the office. This causes them to sadly withdraw their support for our qualifying (westernization) effort, which annoys our advisors to the tune of -1 stability. We no longer have the Admin points to deal with this, so we're not at -1 stab.
Indeed, we run out of Admin points entirely in September, which pushes back our qualifying bid until March 1719. Fortunately we have plenty of merchants willing to go adventuring to market Yemeni football to the world (+25% Trade Range, -20% Envoy Time).
Unfortunately, such 'adventuring' takes money. Money to travel of course, and make connections, and buy the connections nice things, and perhaps help them deal with a 'personal difficulty'. Who knew qualifying could be so expensive? By improving our trade tech we do get +50 diplomacy points and +0.5 inflation. More importantly, our donations to the president of FIFA's cat's favorite charity (and spending said Dip points) moves our bid up to August 1718. Excellent.
Still, we only have so much money for cat charities, and just like that the challenges to our bid creep back up.
Unfortunately, the Persians do not want to see us in the World Cup and send an agent to sabotage our reputation. Like most of the world outside of the United States, we take our football very seriously. We tell our fans that the agent is actually a Yemeni football player who scored on his own net. Destiny takes care of itself at that point.
In May 1717 we run out of bribes er... diplomacy points, which once more resets the qualifying clock to November 1718. FIFA does offer a carrot though: Come through with the money, and perhaps we too can host the World Cup!
We politely decline, which not only creates problems in Qatar, but a backlash from camel racing reactionaries in Suhar who think we shouldn't be giving FIFA the time of day. They're probably right, but what can you do?
Oh, hold on! It's time for our match!
Round Robin
In December 1717 we challenge Persia to a not-so-friendly to prove Yemeni football is superior.
Of course, we fill our team with Mughal players, just in case. Is that cheating? Well, it's only cheating is the referee notices. And he hasn't been properly bribed. Which we have. Bribed I mean.
We score two goals in the first few minutes by chasing them from the Persian Gulf and Mascate Coast. The Persians launch a right wing attack itno Astrabad, but the ref calls them offsides. Our Mughal players then chase them right across the center line and in a show of superior skill and numbers crush their front and make it three-aught.
Up to this point the rest of our squad fought not-so-friendlies against the Qatari World Cup enthusiasts and camel racers, forcing their teams from the field. We then crossed in strength to the Mughal sideline and used that as a beachhead to begin entering the game.
By May 1718 the entire Persian front line was on the bench, broken or exhausted. Ultimately this impressed FIFA enough to let us into the tournament after all.
Which has no immediate effect: No units to upgrade under the FIFA 1.6 rules, and no points to spend on improving our tech. This is a long term investment.
In December 1718 the Mughals mowed down the Persian secondary line and scored again. A Persian player tried to convince us that letting the Mughals do all the work for us was cowardly. We pointed at the 4-aught scoreboard and laughed.
The final goal came in January 1719 when the Persians tried to break into their namesake gulf - and lost the rest of their players. After that we simply played smart defense, covering all the important parts of the pitch and waiting for the clock to run out.
At the 90 minute mark the Persians offered to admit we were the better team...
...but there was still the extra 'referee added' time to contend with.
Meanwhile, I increased our reserve squad to the tune of two frigates and a flyte (injured during the early goals) as well as 5 carracks.
Unfortunately, that's when our head coach decided to retire. In his place is Abdallah II (A2 D4 M3) - a good choice for the post Persian era, but it did temporarily lower our Stability to -2.
We received a new directive from FIFA. It was time for the elimination round, and our opponent would be...
Elimination Round
I did what any sensible coach would do in this situation and tried to give them Negev, but they want to feel they earned something. Fine.
With the Mughals we have 145 qualifying players (most not on roster of course) to the Ottomans' 230.
Ugly. An ugly match grown uglier in December 1719 when the Ottos, having clearly bribed officials in true FIFA style, kicked 6 of my players out of the game (literally!) and scored to show why they were one of the top three squads in the world.
Fortunately our match with Persia ended.
But now we had a real problem on our hands.
Plan A is to get the black flagged players out of their way and basically try to avoid a skirmish, though if we do get an opportunity to sting them here and there, all the better.
Unfortunately, with the Persian match over we can't expect much help from the Mughals. We're badly outnumbered, badly outteched, and it's time to let the coach take over.
Johan's Dice
Reign: 20 years
Needed: 5+
Roll: 5
Continue?: Yes
Correction. It's time to see what we can do against the cream of the tournament.