Sport Is The Opiate Of The Masses
OOC: If you want in on this, telegram me first.
IC:
Angelos Nikopolis had a dilemma. The Athenian who headed the newly minted, Roman-backed “Confederation Of Achaea” had to figure out how to unite its three territories- southern Greece, Palestine and eastern Sudan- into one functioning unit. Set before him was a weaving mass of multiculturalism that included Greeks- both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox- Jews, Arabs, Nubians and Dinka, each with cultural differences so significant that it could tear the nascent country apart.
The COA had been established by Rome to function as a second allied sovereign state protected by the Doctrine of Authority, the other being the western African state of Casara. The Casarans were a centuries-old Empire that had long-established relations with the Imperium, but the COA- united in name only- had a different story. It was a hodgepodge of territories acquired by Rome through a variety of transactions, and while at the time of their acquisition, then-Emperor Rodin Hartian was told he should formally incorporate the territories into Rome, he refused, believing they were better served independent. He knew the Greeks, Arabs and Jews wouldn’t accept any foreign powers ruling over them anymore, so he believed it was foolish to impose direct rule over them. However, he also believed they were better served as a single unit instead of several different ones, despite the multicultural state, picking the name “Achaea” because he believed the COA was better-served operating out of Greece, the more infrastructure-sound area. Integration had eluded every previous leader of the COA, a fate Nikopolis hoped to avoid. He was stuck, though, on just how to integrate the countries together, since the Romans wouldn’t accept any other proposal.
Then, as he saw Maccabi Tel-Aviv’s Eyal Berkovic nail a fluttering, seeing-eye shot into the top corner of the net against Panathiaikos, his favourite club team, it hit him.
“That’s it! Sports! That’s what will keep this country together!”
As he watched Maccabi wrap up a 2-0 victory in the friendly match, he wondered why this rather obvious answer had eluded him for so long. Practically the whole world could be linked to a devotion to some sport or another, or, in some cases, multiple sports. His knowledge of soccer’s supremacy in Europe was second nature to him, but he remembered reading about how the Canadians religiously followed the Stanley Cup Playoffs in its heyday and something about “The World Series of baseball” and the “Super Bowl” in the confusingly labelled “American football”. He also remembered reading something about how North American election turnouts were declining for the past several decades. Hmmmnnnn, they can’t be connected somehow, can they?
He let the thought fester in his head. He’d establish a formal COA sports league system where the top club teams would all play, subsidized by the Achaean government. The Achaeans would promote the sports heavily so that the country would fall in love with them, and, from there, they could be easily controlled. “They’ll be too busy caring if their club team finishes first to notice that their rights are being taken away.” He brandished a grin. “Karl Marx once wrote, ‘Religion is the opiate of the masses’, but if he were alive today, he’d say ‘sport is the opiate of the masses’. Today I shall make that true.”
The following day, Nikopolis would make his stunning announcement. Starting in August, he would hold a year-long playoff tournament that any soccer club in Achaea could register for to run in tandem with the two other federations already present in Achaea- the Greek FA and the Red Sea FA (OOC: Israel and Sudan). The prize would be The Achaean Cup- run by an “independent” Confederation Football Association (CFA)- and would come with an Achaean-wide televised audience and a prize payout of C5 million. It would be part of a c. C200 million investment in club soccer throughout Achaea, aimed at improving venues, television access and to keep the present leagues and clubs afloat. The move was greeted warmly by the public, who saw it as an investment in culture, although a few dissenting voices wondered why the C200 million couldn’t be spent on badly needed infrastructure in Sudan or Israel.
“This is great news for sports in Achaea,” said Panathinaikos midfielder Paulo Souza. “Football has long been Achaea’s most popular sport and this move recognizes that. It’s great to see our culture given a boost like this.”
Predictably, with the news of the Achaean Cup coming out generated a lot of talk and excitement across the entire Confederation. All the media outlets covered the event in some form or another, with many media people opining whom they thought would win it all. Supporters of their clubs thoroughly analyzed their sides and tried to contend that they were the best team in the Confederation, while club directors were furiously calling each other to engineer transfers that would bolster their clubs. Team managers were putting their teams through their paces early just so they could be in top form once the actual competition got under way in August. In fact, word of the tournament eventually found its way to Rome itself, making many sports commentators there wonder who would come out as the overall champion of a Roman-wide tournament.
The team making the biggest splash was Maccabi Tel-Aviv, the biggest soccer club in Israel. Maccabi had worked out a transfer agreement with Liverpool to acquire two of its best players in midfielder Nicky Barmby and defender Sami Hyypiä. Said Maccabi player-manager Berkovic of the moves; “we can’t be content with winning Israel anymore. We have to move on to bigger and better things. This move signifies that.” Berkovic would announce that Maccabi’s moves were not finished, saying that he had more players he was targeting for his side.
Nikopolis, however, wasn’t amused by Maccabi’s moves. Panathinaikos had not made a dent in the transfer market and there were rumours that striker Nikos Limberopoulos was on his way out. He envisioned this tournament as Panathinaikos’ crowning achievement, since, as the best team in Greece for ten straight years, he was certain the Achaean Cup would prove the Greens were the best soccer team in the Confederation. I won’t meddle just yet, thought Nikopolis, I’ve got to make sure this tournament appears legitimate. He could easily get involved, since he appointed several of his friends to the CFA board of governors, but decided he wouldn’t, lest anyone catch on. This year will be a trial year. Then the fun will begin.
The tournament would begin with a staggering 256 clubs from all levels of soccer competing in a two-leg knockout format that would eventually whittle itself down to a two club Final to be held at the historic Mount Olympia. For the first two rounds the return leg would be held exactly one month after the opening leg was held, while in the later rounds the two legs would be separated by two weeks. The first round of games would be held on August 5th and 6th, with the eventual Final to be held on May 14. Panathinaikos wouldn’t have their first game until August 20th, while Maccabi would play on the very first day.
The very first game of the tournament saw Rishon Lezion host Greek powerhouses AEK Athens Philadelfia in their opening leg match. Rishon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, had been a top-flight Israeli soccer club just five years ago, but were now mired in the depths of the Israeli soccer system, languishing in the third division in the past season. Philadelfia needed no introduction, boasting the legendary Theodoros Zagorakis in midfield and were expected to pummel their hapless third division foe.
Instead, it was Rishon who got the last laugh. After a goalless first half, Rishon’s Nissan Kapeta struck for an early marker to give the home side a stunning 1-0 lead. Then, inspired by a Yaniv Mizrahi save on Zagorakis, Eyal Abas took on the entire Philadelfia team from the midfield line in racing up the field to score a stunning goal past an equally perplexed Ilias Atmatsidis to give Rishon a 2-0 lead after eighty minutes. Kapeta would later add another goal in injury time to complete a stunning 3-0 first leg victory in what many figured would go down as the biggest upset in professional soccer. Little did they know that bigger shocks were in the offing.
“We probably took them too easily,” said Zagorakis after the game. “They came to play and we didn’t, and now we’ve got to figure out how to dig ourselves out of this hole going back home. Still, our home fans should give us a boost, we hope.”
The reaction to the game was overwhelmingly positive. Despite the lopsided score, commentators praised what they saw as an excellent display of soccer, and noted every player took the game seriously, even if Philadelfia didn’t take their opponents seriously. The news was positive for Nikopolis, who worried that the first day of games wouldn’t be taken seriously. Now, following Rishon’s victory, he worried that there could be more stunning upsets and that there wouldn’t be enough high profile clubs left for the following rounds. Nobody’s going to watch if they don’t know or care about who’s playing he thought to himself. He then decided he’d go to sleep- it was better to worry about this when time came for the second leg. Why worry about a problem when there isn’t one? Besides, he knew he was great at damage control. Oh the things I can do; the things I can do he thought as he smiled before falling asleep.
As the games wore on, Rishon’s thrilling opening leg victory remained the biggest upset. Both Panathinaikos and Maccabi earned easy opening leg victories over semi-professional sides Aqaba-Haopel FC and the Port Sudan All-Boys Club respectively. Eyal Berkovic figured prominently in Maccabi’s victory over Port Sudan, scoring five times en route to a 15-0 laugher, while every player on the Panathinaikos squad- including the goaltender- scored a goal in a 12-0 win- Nikos Limberopoulos being the only Panathinaikos player to score twice.
A month later, the results for the first round were in. Rishon would complete its stunning upset of Philadelfia by dusting off a 2-2 tie in the second leg, they themselves coming back from a 2-0 deficit after 15 minutes. Rishon were joined in the upset category by Victory FC, a team of janitors that hailed from Sallorn, just outside of Port Sudan, that knocked off Israeli powerhouse Haopel Tel-Aviv, Maccabi’s main Israeli rivals. Haopel had won the opening leg 4-0, but somehow Victory managed to get six goals in the return leg conceding only one goal. Said Husayn Mobarak of the win, “Haopel took us too easily and we made them pay. We’ll be revelling in this victory for a very long time.” Maccabi and Panathinaikos, for their parts, cruised to second leg victories, as did Olympikaios Piraeus, who set a soccer record for a two-leg series in crushing the Hilltoppers of Gebeit by a combined 142-0. Ilias Poursanidis led all scorers with 22 goals, most from midfield. “It’s a very satisfying result,” said Poursanidis after the game, “but we know we have a long road ahead of us. At the end of the day, one win is still one win no matter how big.”
One beneficiary of Haopel’s loss was Yossi Benayoun, who decided to sign on with Maccabi following the leg. Benayoun’s contract ran out after the conclusion of the leg, which just happened to be the day before the Israeli season would begin. “I didn’t think my decision would be popular,” said Benayoun at the press conference to announce his signing, “but right now, being at Maccabi is what’s best for my career. Their previous moves indicated to me that they want to be more than just Israeli champions- they want to be the best football club in the world, and I want to be a part of that.” No other big names changed teams as the transfer window closed right before the season began, prompting Nikopolis to announce that for next year’s tournament, the transfer window would close at the beginning of August.
However, Nikopolis had other problems bigger than Benayoun’s transfer. Many of the clubs were deeply ingrained in municipal and, for the bigger clubs, regional levels, so for some fans, the games became a matter of “region vs. region”. A new trend, however, was emerging- because of the nature of the tournament, some fans were beginning to take it to a new level where winning became a matter of national pride. If Nikopolis wasn’t careful, the games could tear his precious Confederation apart since a successful club could encourage its region to start demanding more autonomy simply because of its club’s influence. He would use damage control, telling the fans that hooliganism wouldn’t be tolerated, that no “disrespectful behaviour, including chants” would be tolerated and that the state would do everything in its power to enforce these rules. In fact, he took the opportunity to pass a new security law that would beef up its police forces and their powers, ostensibly to ensure that crowds didn’t get too rowdy at games but were really there for surveillance and control over the entire population. Nikopolis ordered his police officers to “go easy on the revellers”, but they were also told to use “discretion” when dealing with suspected felons. Government control extended ever so slightly over its citizens, but the people didn’t notice since the law received almost no play in the papers compared to the play the tournament received, and Nikopolis made it so.
Still, Nikopolis’ moves would not be enough to stem the tide of the growing association with club teams and politics. Nothing was at a fever pitch yet but he knew that a wrong move would be deadly. He didn’t worry though- after all he had the ultimate control; but would that be enough? Only time could tell.
As the tournament wore on, so too did Nikopolis’ comfort level with tinkering with the laws. He made every one of his changes minor so as not to disrupt the tournament in progress, but he also made sure that in doing so that eventually the laws would be radically altered from before he took power.
Still, he wasn’t able to fool everyone, though those who didn’t fall for his trap were few and far between. Services were radically under-funded unless they dealt in some way to soccer (such as a bus/train service directly to games) and there were rumblings that people who questioned Nikopolis, the tournament or even soccer itself would disappear at night, but most of those complaints were drowned out by the furor created by the Achaean Cup. Surprisingly, Nikopolis did not curtail revelry, because he believed if the government was seen as “destroying the party” it would dampen the mood surrounding the tournament, and besides, if the people are too busy celebrating they won’t care that it’ll cost them half a day’s wages for a loaf of bread.
The tournament itself was going mostly according to plan. There were a few surprise results but for the most part the teams that were supposed to win were able to come out on top, ensuring the biggest fanbases in Achaea would remain glued to their television sets. The biggest of the tournament’s overachievers were Victory FC, who had somehow found themselves in the quarterfinals drawn against Olympikaios. As for Nikopolis’ beloved Panathinaikos, the Greens breezed through the next few rounds, getting to the quarterfinals by scoring a grand total of 52 goals while only conceding five, but faced a daunting deficit against Kiriat Gat after two second half goals by Eyal Inbrom secured Kiriat’s 2-0 first leg victory. Inbrom, Kiriat’s best player, came on as a substitute to provide the flaccid Kiriat team its needed spark and looked to be the key player heading into the second leg back in Athens. Panathinaikos had no answer for Inbrom’s keen sense of positioning and impeccable ball control skills, worrying Nikopolis that he would be too much for his team to handle. He decided he would look for something during the game that would allow him to suspend him for the second leg in Athens, but he didn’t have to look for long.
In the 57th minute, shortly before he would corral the ball and take it from his end of the field to Panathinaikos’ for the game’s first goal, he tripped Blendar Kola while sliding for the ball. The referee had deemed it as a malicious tackle and gave Inbrom a yellow card, even though Inbrom had touched the ball first and Kola appeared to trip on his own feet. Kola had said after the game that he felt that Inbrom should be suspended for that tackle, although the media rightly downplayed the incident as an example of unnecessary harshness on the referee’s part, but Nikopolis was quick to heed Kola’s advice. Through some “coaxing” to the CFA, Inbrom found himself suspended for the return leg in Athens. Without Inbrom in the lineup the Greens crushed Kiriat 5-0 and moved on to the next round to face Victory after the Janitors (a nickname the team gave themselves after their primary professions) ousted Olympikaios with 0-0 and 1-0 performances. However, while Nikopolis was delighted to have such light-weighted competition in the semi-final, he still had to worry about Berkovic and Maccabi, who also easily qualified for a semi-final date with Beitar Jerusalem. Still, the reaction in the press had so far been positive, with no one questioning the legitimacy of the results, or even Inbrom’s suspension which became a “was it or wasn’t it malicious” debate. Nikopolis at least smiled when he saw fans dancing in the streets after yet another victory and figured one day he might join in the party. He just had to keep it going first.