SPORT: Talamthom World Cup Update

Republic of Talamthom 0 - 1 United States of Astor

Talamthom's football (soccer) team are currently participating in their first intermicronational competition, the EIFA World Cup 2004/05 which is being hosted in Babkha. The timing has meant that Talamthom's national team is currently competing in two competitions at the same time, the World Cup and the Tománnach Inter-Regional (TIFA) Championships. The result is that all of the first team players are playing in Babkha now and a team made up of reserves and youth team players are playing in Tománn Indo-China.

With the full strength Tománnach team arriving in Talamthom on the back of a defeat in Lhasa against Indo-China, the coach, Thomas Kelly, was unsure what the team's morale would be. During practice though it became apparent that there was a real buzz going around the training ground. This was a team that was raring to go and ready to try and climb up the rankings from the current position of 12th. Talamthom's only other EIFA match came in the form of a defeat at the hands of Mayo back in October. Since then a strong two-division domestic league structure has emerged which has proved to be popular and is expected to be emulated in a few other nations, namely Novaya Zemlya.

So to the match in question. Talamthom found herself up against the United States of Astor in her first match of the World Cup. Astor is a country that prior to the World Cup was unknown to the Tománnach general public. All that is really known about Astor is that it is a German-language micronation, and they obviously know how to play football!!

The atmosphere was absolutely fantastic inside the stadium with the Republican Flag and flags saying "Tománn go Bragh" just about everywhere. So it was that following the pre-match excitement in the Tománnach camp, and amongst the fans, the match was decided in the first three minutes of play. With no time gone at all Astor broke through the Tománn defence and left the goalkeeper exposed and the ball was fired home by the Astorian striker with great ease. After the goal was scored the Astor strike force seemed permanently pinned back into the midfield as Talamthom went on an eighty-seven minute attack. An attack that was punctuated by half-time. It all came to nothing and Astor went away the victors.

Talamthom's next match in the competition is on the 17th February against French-speaking nation Monte-Liro. Talamthom are going to have to pull something out of the bag and soon, there are after all only three games in the group phase. Two wins must now be attained, we remain hopeful.