Act I — Gold Coast Sharks: the dynasty ends, and the new landlord arrived by yo-yo
The number first, because for seven seasons it has always been the same number and this year it isn't: Gold Coast Sharks are champions of World League 1 — 77 points, 24 wins, 5 draws, ONE defeat, 76 scored, 13 conceded. Thirteen. The all-time top-flight defensive record, set by Wild Roses in Season 2 and matched by Wild Roses in Season 4, is now held in triplicate, and the third copy belongs to a club that was relegated from this division twice — sixteenth in Season 3, fourteenth in Season 7 — and finished fifth a year ago as a promoted side. At home: 14 wins, one draw, zero defeats, 49 scored, six conceded. Twelve different Sharks scored. The champions' squad, per the frozen valuations, was worth 6,741 — the cheapest of the top three, behind Raiders (7,423) and Wild Roses (9,485). The most expensive team finished second. The second-most expensive finished third. Football, briefly, has stopped reading price tags.
The defeat: Round 11, 0-4 in Edmonton — Bradley 23', Uzel 40', Tóth 49', Jambrović 90+2 — after which Sharks went 19 matches unbeaten to the finish, 16 of them wins. They took the lead outright in Round 17 and never gave it back; the title was sealed in Round 29, 2-0 at home to Raiders — Olivieri's second yellow in the 26th, Crane's header in the 58th, Amann in stoppage time — the old champions escorted from the premises by the new ones. Behind the goals: Chen Leong, 32, thirteen assists from central midfield; Russ Crane, 13 goals and 10 assists; Meinrad Kuster, a 22-year-old centre-back with 10 assists; and the man in Act IV, who cost more than the rest of the defence put together. Sharks won a division they had twice fallen through. The trapdoor, it turns out, is also a staircase, provided you keep walking.
Act II — Raiders: four draws, one defeat, and the end of an era that took ten weeks to notice it was over
Seven consecutive titles ended not with a bang but with a run of D-D-D-D-L: 1-1 in Edmonton (Dărăbanț 27', Edgar 30'), 0-0 with Sharks (a Raiders goal wiped by VAR for handball in the 67th), 1-1 in Tokyo, 0-0 with Hussars, and then Round 5 at Nordlys: 0-1 — Guiraud from the spot in the 17th, and in the 57th goalkeeper Dariusz shown a straight red for abusive comments, two more Raiders goals disallowed by VAR at 75' and 86'. That defeat ended a cross-season unbeaten run of 31 matches — 27 from last season plus the four opening draws — five short of their own 36. The records office, which spent all of last year's audit digging that 36 out of the archive, would like it noted that it is safe. Round 9 added a home defeat to Butterfly, a team that would score sixteen goals all season (Ifran, penalty, 85'). After eight rounds the seven-time champions were fourth on thirteen points.
What followed was a very expensive tantrum: 8-0 over Gladiator in Round 17 (Ojeda three including a chipped penalty, Niakasso three — the last in the 95th minute), 6-0 at Espada, 6-0 at Hussars, 5-0 over Imperial — 75 goals in total, exactly as many as Wild Roses — and a run of 19 unbeaten from Round 10 to Round 28 that dragged them back to within touching distance of second. Then the last two rounds: 0-2 at Sharks, 0-2 at home to Wild Roses. Third. It is Raiders' first season without the title since Season 2, their first top-flight finish below first since Season 1, and the first non-gold medal in a cabinet that now reads 7-0-1. Every record they own still stands — 83 points, 22 straight wins, 27 unbeaten, 98 goals — and this newspaper, out of habit, has left the space for the eighth title blank rather than reallocating it.
Act III — Wild Roses: the silver subscription enters year four, with a self-inflicted intermission
69 points, 21-6-3, 75:18 — and thirteen consecutive wins from Round 2 to Round 14, the third-longest winning streak in top-flight history behind Raiders' 22 and Raiders' 15, including the 4-0 that inflicted the champions' only defeat. After Round 14 Edmonton led by five points. Then: 1-1 with Imperial, 1-1 with Imperial again, 0-1 at Nordlys via an own goal by Munera — the 20-year-old Colombian right-back who had already been carried off injured in Rounds 1 and 11, and who now completed the set — and 1-1 with Hussars. Four points from twelve; Sharks took twelve from twelve. Minus five became plus four in four rounds, and Round 20 in Gold Coast (Leong 38', Moore's second yellow 46') closed the argument. Round 25 supplied the epilogue: 1-2 at home to Dacia with Jambrović sent off in the 24th and Moore red-carded for handling on the goal line in the 64th — nine men, and the season, gone.
Second. A fourth consecutive silver medal, a fifth overall; the cabinet reads one gold, five silvers, three bronzes, and now resembles a very well-organised argument for the existence of purgatory. In the football that doesn't count, Edmonton did it again — 36-2-0 in friendlies, 122 scored, 11 conceded, a third consecutive unbeaten friendly season, 108 matches without defeat across three years — and lost the Friendly Ranking by ONE point, 110 to 111, to a Swiss club that played 66 matches to their 38 (Act VII). Runner-up in both competitions in the same season, one by eight points and one by one. Somewhere in Split, Adria are quietly relieved that the curse has found a bigger house.
The household names carried on regardless. Izzet Uzel: 23 goals, again — the second consecutive 23, a third consecutive top-three finish in the Boot, and the second consecutive year the trophy went to someone else by one. Vlaho Jambrović, 30, led the league with 10 yellow cards, was sent off in the Dacia match, and set an all-time record of 20 friendly assists — a left-back who spends his weekdays creating and his weekends arguing. And Milosz Kolasa — the 18-year-old Pool signing who chased the very first Golden Boot in these colours — is still in these colours at 27, scored three league goals and nineteen friendlies, and enters Season 11 on 99 career goals. The Gazette has pre-written the headline for number 100 and would appreciate it being used before the writer retires.
Act IV — The Golden Boot: defended by one, then by an ambulance
Virgilio Luján, 22, Gold Coast Sharks — 24 goals, the Golden Boot retained. The man who arrived last year by 15,000-credit courier scored in sixteen different rounds, including three in the 6-0 over Hussars and three in the 4-0 at Espada, and reached 24 in Round 27. Then he stopped: nothing in Rounds 28 and 29, and in the finale at Nottingham he was carried off injured in the 48th minute, whereupon the champions' 24th win was scored by Lookman of Arrows, into his own net, in the 86th — a substitute who had come on for an injured teammate in the 19th, just in time to donate. Meanwhile Hector Ojeda, 31, hit 23 with two against Imperial in Round 28 and needed one more from Raiders' last two matches; Raiders lost both 0-2. Uzel had been stuck on 23 since a penalty in Round 25. 24-23-23. The winning number is below 25 for the first time in three years, and the defending champion defended it from a treatment table.
The full ledger on the purchase: 49 goals in two seasons for 15,000 credits — 306 per goal, falling. Add 40 friendly goals this year (second-most in a season, behind Canto's 53) and Luján finished with 64 in all competitions, four more than Ihrig's celebrated sixty of last season. Elsewhere on the sheet: Aníbal Tineo scored FOUR in the opening round at Jakarta (2-6, the last in the 92nd minute), a first-minute goal in Round 19, and finished on 16; Krunoslav Bekavac managed 14 for Banatul plus 35 friendlies, 49 for the year; and Lamine Djaló scored eleven of Hussars' nineteen goals, including both in the finale at Espada in the 81st and 89th. Hussars drew ten of their fifteen away matches. There are clubs that travel to win and clubs that travel to draw, and then there are clubs that travel to draw specifically.
Act V — World 2: Giza on the last day, the Lions back at once, and nine in Amsterdam
Pyramids Giza are champions of World 2 with 60 points, having led the table for exactly seven of the thirty rounds — Rounds 19 and 20, and then 26 through 30. Lions FC led from Round 3 to Round 18 and again from 21 to 24; Astral led Round 25; and the whole thing went to the final afternoon, where Pyramids won 4-2 at Diamonds with ten men against ten men — Van Amerongen off in the 12th, Cuesta's second yellow in the 51st, Dunbar twice after the dismissal. Hilario Cuesta, 23, finished with 18 goals and two red cards, a ratio the disciplinary committee describes as "efficient". Giza return to the top flight for the first time since Season 5, when they finished fifteenth. They have been asked to try harder this time.
Lions FC Lagos, relegated last season after nine years as founding residents, go straight back up in second on 57. The highlight was Round 7: Union Santiago 0-8 Lions — the two clubs relegated together a year ago, one of them apparently still angry about it — with Leuenberger scoring twice and Onyekachi Clark, 26, the boy who scored in the 3-3 that settled Season 1, adding two more. Lorenz Leuenberger, 30, took the World 2 scoring title with 21. And third, on 56, Astral Amsterdam, who produced the season's signature scoreline: Astral 9-0 Europe Brussels in Round 23 — Yavuz 6', Beridze 14', Yavuz 22', Van Gemert 27', Ducrocq 30', an own goal 32', Yavuz 46' for the hat-trick, Ducrocq 68', Huata 71' — the biggest win in World 2 history, retiring the 8-0 that had stood since Season 3. In the same round Pyramids beat Atlantico 7-0: sixteen goals in two matches, one afternoon. Astral also played out a 6-4 with Diamonds in Round 16 and scored 77 for the year, the division's most; they return to World 1 for the first time since Season 4, when they conceded 94 and finished last. Plan accordingly.
Black Army Budapest finished fourth on 52 — for the first time since Season 7, the coin has landed flat: neither promoted nor relegated, a condition the club's supporters are experiencing for the first time in years and finding disorienting. Tomis were a comfortable eighth in their first World 2 season; Jalisco, champions of World 3 a year ago, eleventh; and Hilmar Ihrig, 30, name-checked in this column annually since the Bronze Age, scored 17 for sixth-placed Kaiser plus 23 in friendlies — 40 for the year, 173 career goals in 192 matches. Down go Cardiff Dragons, Europe Brussels (see 9-0), and Diamonds Amsterdam, whose Nelso Trinidad scored 18 — two of them on the last day against the champions — for a side that finished last two seasons after winning World 3 with a record 72 points. The trapdoor is fitted with a mirror.
Act VI — World 3: five clubs, two doors, and the man who stood up
Amazonia Manaus won World 3 for the second time (also Season 6), with 63 points, and clinched it in Round 29 at Martial Tokyo with Iago's goal in the 91st minute, the only one of the match. Below them, the scenario of the year. Going into the final round: Baltic 57, Adria 55, Bania 55, Storm 54, Trakia 54. Five clubs, one promotion place plus the runner-up spot, ninety minutes. Baltic, at home to Plymouth, LOST 0-2 — two penalties in six minutes, Pope 54', Dimbleby 60', after a Baltic goal had been chalked off by VAR in the 33rd. Storm won 4-0 in Mexico City. Trakia won 1-0 (André 33') — with two further goals disallowed by VAR in the 75th and 79th, and their goalkeeper Dokmai sent off in the 75th for abusive comments. Adria, needing a win, went behind in the 6th minute, equalised from the spot in the 11th, and never scored again: 1-1. Bania, needing a win at Accra, led through Canto in the 28th and were pegged back in the 72nd. 1-1.
Final tally: Storm 57 (+32), Baltic 57 (+26), Trakia 57 (+20), Adria 56, Bania 56. Baltic Tallinn — an Estonian two-club-league side two seasons ago — lost their last match at home and went up anyway, because both teams who could have passed them drew 1-1 in the same hour. Trakia Plovdiv conceded TEN goals in thirty matches — the best defence in World 3 history, retiring Amazonia's 13 — and stayed down on goal difference, undone by an attack of 30. Adria Split drew FOURTEEN times, lost twice, and finished fifth: the eternal runner-up club, in a season with two promotion places, missed both by a point. Bania — friendly-ranking champions by force a year ago — sixth, also by a point; the equaliser that stopped them was scored by Dela Kofi of Accra, who had served a seven-match ban this season and came back specifically, it appears, for this.
And now the finest detail in ten seasons of this newspaper. Last year we reported that Per Gjertsen — first Golden Boot in history, scorer of the header that won the first title ever contested — had played zero minutes for Baltic in anything. This season, at 31, he played six league matches, sat on the bench for twenty-four, and scored twice. One of the two: Round 20, Baltic 1-0 Amazonia, in the 91st minute — the winner against the eventual champions. Run the arithmetic backwards: a draw that night leaves Baltic on 55, behind Adria and Bania, fifth. The man who spent an entire season seated rose once, in stoppage time, and promoted a football club. He also scored a penalty in a friendly against Trovadores. Estonian football, previously reported to contain multitudes, has now also been reported to contain Per Gjertsen minutes.
Cape Town Storm go up in second with 67 goals, 27 of them by Irfan Chowdhury, 25, the 8,450-credit signing of last summer — four in the opening match (the 15th, 45+1, 45+2 and the 46th: three goals across a half-time whistle), four more in Round 29. Storm hold the World 3 record for goals conceded (71, Season 7) and are now promoted; both facts are Cape Town facts. At the bottom, three of last season's six qualifiers went straight back through the floor: Academicos Buenos Aires, 15 points from thirty matches, equalling the fewest ever recorded in this division (Tomis needed only eighteen matches to do it); Mexico City Dairylea Lunchadores, who conceded 61 goals — the exact number they conceded when they went down in Season 8, a club of unusual consistency — including eight consecutive defeats; and Accra Stars, winless for 21 straight rounds. Also out through the six doors: Juventud, Martial Tokyo, and Étoile Nantes, founding members, fifteen goals in thirty matches, who abandoned their famous transfer boycott this season to buy a striker (Act IX) and were relegated with him.
Act VII — THE FRIENDLIES: sixty-five percent, and a Swiss club that would not sit down
The census: 123 series, 1,688 friendly matches against 928 official ones — sixty-five percent of all football played this season didn't count (up from sixty-four); 4,300 goals; 55,360 credits in prize money; 343 injuries carried home. And a new ranking champion: FC Leman Geneva — 66 matches, 34-9-23, 144 goals scored, 112 conceded, 111 points. The 144 is an all-time team record (Bania's 134); the 111 beat Wild Roses' 110 by one; and Leman achieved it by the simple expedient of never being at home. Their Clementino Contrera, 19, scored 36 friendly goals; their Meylan, 32, played 66 of 66 with 15 assists; their goalkeeper appears in Act X. Sharks, the actual champions of actual football, were third on 101. Highlights:
- Kaunas Tauras and Nordkette Innsbruck each played 68 friendlies — a new team record (66) — and Tauras's Jonas Pocius and Nerijus Kazlauskas played in ALL 68, retiring Anish Chand's individual record of 66 after exactly one season. Chand, for the record, managed 47. He is 21 and already a nostalgia act.
- Luján 40, Contrera 36, Bekavac 35 lead the friendly scoring; Canto added 25 to his 19 league goals. Nobody approached last year's 53. Some records are not broken so much as visited.
- Jambrović's 20 assists retire the mark of 16, set in Season 8 and equalled by the redeemed Calomfirescu last year.
- The Lead Glove changes hands: Ludwig Schlatter, goalkeeper, FC Leman — SEVEN friendly red cards, a new record, from a man whose team won the ranking. Djimon Kakpo (Aberdeen, goalkeeper) six. Naïm Ben Haj, two-time holder, managed two and retired (Act XI). Six of the top six friendly red collectors are goalkeepers. The syndicate no longer has members; it has a constitution.
- Aberdeen Bad Boys finished fourth in the ranking with 49 goals in 62 matches and ONE HUNDRED yellow cards, which is one way to read the name literally.
- The welcome committee: Union Santiago 9-0 Mayab Merida, Sharks 8-0 at Guangzhou, Banatul 8-1 at Trakia. Mayab conceded 130 friendly goals for the season and would like it known they are still very young.
- Wildcards into next season's qualifiers: Aberdeen Bad Boys, Hammer Hamburg, Trovadores Granada. Seven different clubs won four series each; the trophy count has become a participation medal with extra steps.
Act VIII — The Qualifiers: Detroit at last, Montreal goes UP, Italy sends a one-year-old
Forty-five entrants (up from forty), forty-two ties, seventy-eight legs, six that went to extra time, three shootouts — one of them, Vltava against Olympique Marsupilami Pertuis, needing eighteen kicks, the French champions opening with two shots against the post and losing 6-5. And, at the third attempt, the loyalty programme paid out: Detroit Motors — champions of America for the fourth year running, 7-0 over Lusby United along the way (Salmi four, the biggest win in country-league history) — went through the bracket: Esil Astana 3-1, Shanghai Dragons 4-2 after LOSING the home leg, and Trovadores Granada 5-4 on aggregate after losing the first leg 1-3. No penalties were required, which is the only reason it happened. The committee's standing wildcard has been cancelled with the notation "qualified normally", two words this club had never previously seen together.
Then the stairwell. Oxygen Montreal — twelfth in World 3 a year ago, pushed out through the six doors — spent the season in a three-team Canadian league containing BOTH Montreal clubs, won it with two wins and two draws, and drew both derbies (1-1, with Oxygen's own O'Malley scoring for Red Kings, and 0-0). Then the bracket: Kings United 2-0, Lusitania 2-1, Hyderabad Vikings 1-0 — five scored, ONE conceded, six legs. Oxygen Montreal will play World League 3 in Season 11. It is the first time a Montreal club has gone up since Season 3, and it happened the same night André Monette — the goalkeeper of Season 1's three-round dismissal trilogy — retired (Act XI). The city's combined trophy count now stands at one Canadian league title, which the Gazette has decided to count.
The rest of the six: Harimau Selatan, relegated from World 3 a year ago, back after twelve months via a 7-5 aggregate over Hammer Hamburg (3-4 away, 4-1 home) and a 9-2 over Nordkette, powered by Bayron Pacay, a 17-year-old Guatemalan, five goals — the bracket's top scorer, and its youngest. AC Vesuvio Napoli — born last season, welcomed 2-8 by Atlantico — won Italy with a record IDENTICAL to LISKA Genova's (3-4-1 each, settled on goal difference; Italy remains the platonic small league, though Milan Nolo Whales did manage six draws in eight and finished unbeaten in third), then beat Hundis, Clavins 11 and Ciudadanos: a World League club in its first full season. Oresund Copenhagen (4-0 over Vltava in the decisive leg) and Al Najd Riyadh, beaten 5-0 by Adria at this stage a year ago, complete the class.
The fallen: FC Backgammon Bucharest, Romania's sole domestic club now that Bania have moved upstairs, won the away leg at Seoul Hangang 2-1 and lost the home leg 0-2 — the Romanian assembly line has, for the first time, produced nothing. Suwa Warriors of Fiji went out in the first round to Ruige. Glasgow Thistle, last year's fortress that conceded nine in Tallinn, finished Scotland with ZERO points from four matches; Aberdeen Bad Boys won it. Spain: Trovadores 24, Toros 23, and the three Madrids finished fourth, fifth and sixth of six — Real Atletico Madrid scoring four goals in ten matches and conceding twenty-one, which is three clubs doing impressions of the same one and all of them getting it wrong. Germany went to Hammer (11 scored, two conceded), who then lost that twelve-goal tie to Harimau. England's two clubs, Ro Liverpool and Red Bulls, beat each other 1-0 and were identical in every column; Ro Liverpool carried the flag into the bracket and lost to Toros. Toros, last year's consumed wildcard, reached the third round and were removed 2-1 by Harimau.
Act IX — Mercato: the crash
Sixty-three transfers, 42,805 credits — more deals than last season's forty-one, for a THIRD of the money (116,128). Nobody spent 15,000. Nobody spent 10,000. The top fee of the year was 7,240 for James Huata, 21, a New Zealand right-midfielder, to Astral on the season's first night — who repaid it with a hat-trick against Jalisco in Round 11, a goal in the 9-0, two against Lions in the 3-2 that briefly put Astral top, and promotion. Behind him: Benaboud, 5,210, to Wild Roses (a 21-year-old centre-back for a defence that conceded 18); Boudiaf, 3,601, to Espada, three goals; and Mwelwa, 3,300, to Étoile Nantes — the end of the transfer boycott, followed within the week by the end of Étoile's World League residency. The club that would not buy for nine seasons bought once and went down. The accounting desk declines to draw a conclusion and has drawn it anyway.
Baltic bought five players on the way to promotion — Sant, Kamstra, Al-Biladi, Benčina and a spare — and the season's busiest buyer was a club that did not exist when the season started: Spicey Boys Barranco of Peru, registered on the season's first day, made THIRTEEN signings, five of them under the name Spicy Boys, before someone found the missing letter. Three players changed hands for zero credits, including Birgir Arnorsson to the champions and 18-year-old Henri Selane to Kaunas, who promptly played 67 friendlies. Not a single owner sold a player all season; the all-time invoice table therefore still reads Luján 15,000, Begin 9,700, Hulme 9,661, Ostrowski 9,340, Chowdhury 8,450 — and Begin scored 17 for Adria while Chowdhury scored 27 and won promotion this year, which is what the desk would call vindication if it were speaking to anyone.
Act X — Crime blotter: four goalkeepers, one match
Round 26, World 2, Kaiser Vienna 3-1 Union Santiago. Minute 22: Kaiser goalkeeper Rieser fouls in the box — red card and a penalty, which Union fail to convert. Minute 30: Union goalkeeper Brunings, second yellow, off. Minute 78: Kaiser's replacement goalkeeper Schober grabs the referee by the arm — straight red. Minute 79: Union's replacement goalkeeper Molina, second yellow, off; no substitutes left, so centre-back Pedrero puts on the gloves. FOUR GOALKEEPERS SENT OFF IN ONE MATCH, two per side, in order, as if by rota. Kaiser used a third keeper. Ihrig scored the penalty that decided it. The syndicate has produced its masterpiece and the Gazette recommends it be hung, not framed.
Supporting features: Accra Stars finished a match with EIGHT men — three second yellows in 26 minutes, the last of them the goalkeeper — and held Étoile 0-0. Arrows 1-1 Imperial in Round 6 saw BOTH starting goalkeepers sent off for denying goalscoring opportunities (Biin 10', Lindsay 35') before Kusano completed the set as last man. The official goalkeepers' red-card table is a five-way tie on three — Bonachera, Spinelli, Brunings, Catalan, Fattuch — and the outfield leader is Pompiliu Gâdei of Dacia, four reds and a seven-match ban earned in the 77th-minute brawl at Raiders in Round 21; he returned in time to score in the 4-0 finale. The all-time chair, meanwhile, has a new occupant who is not even retired: Tianjama Kontao, goalkeeper, Seattle Pacific — FIFTEEN career red cards, two in the league and four in friendlies this year alone. The previous holder, Karam, left the game on nine. Kontao is 28.
The season in numbers the referees would prefer we didn't print: 375 official red cards; one match in three (33%) featured at least one; VAR wiped out 562 goals and penalties in 928 matches and downgraded 36 reds to yellows; 373 penalties awarded, 312 converted; 19 brawls; 15 outfield players in goal; 21 players stretchered off with no substitutions left. The infirmary's worst case: Prévost of King Cobra, 20 rounds out from Round 23, i.e. the rest of the season and some of the next. King Cobra conceded 70 and went down. Correlation is not causation, but it is company.
Act XI — Births and farewells: a Peruvian, three Englishmen, one that vanished, and 324 gold watches
Four registrations: Spicey Boys Barranco — Peru's first club, thirteen signings, see Act IX — plus Rochdale AFC Manchester and Enfield United, which takes England to four clubs (Red Bulls, Ro Liverpool, Rochdale, Enfield) and therefore, technically, to a league. And ESSEX FC, registered on the Thursday and gone by Sunday night without playing a match — the shortest club history on record, filed under "a nice idea, briefly". The obituary column is otherwise empty for a second consecutive season; the obituarist has requested a transfer to the crime desk, where the work is steady.
The retiring class numbers 324, and the corrections desk goes first: last year this newspaper called 285 "the second-largest class ever". It was the fourth; the archive shows 486 at the end of Season 1 and 334 at the end of Season 8. This year's 324 ranks third. We regret the error and expect to regret several more. The class is led by a new iron man: Leon Zegers of Astral Amsterdam, 245 appearances — past Genet's 239, which lasted, like every appearance record now does, exactly one season — a left-midfielder with 26 goals and six red cards who retires the week his club returns to the top flight. Omari Briggs (Pacific) leaves on 238, one short of the old record and seven short of the new one, the cruellest number in the class. Petrovic (Hammer) 232, Seki (Imperial, fourth-place farewell) 223, Hegeman (Astral, scored in the 6-4) 221, De Zwart (Diamonds) 215.
Two keepers leave the syndicate. André Monette — Oxygen's Season 1 trilogy man, three reds in three rounds when the game was young — retires at 33 with five career reds, four friendly reds this season alone, and his club promoted the night he left. Naïm Ben Haj, the Lead Glove of Seasons 8 and 9, goes at 33 with ten official appearances in his entire career and a friendly rap sheet that would fill this page. And still standing: Giuseppe Cilloni of Gladiator, 293 career appearances, the game's active leader, relegated; Alexsandro Perez of Raiders, 290, eleven assists this season; and Kolasa, 99 (Act III). The gold watches were, per tradition, invoiced to the friendlies budget.
Final standings
World 1: 1. Gold Coast Sharks 77 · 2. Wild Roses Edmonton 69 · 3. Bucharest Raiders 62 · 4. Imperial Tokyo 47 (+9) · 5. Nordlys IF Oslo 47 (+8) · 6. FC Dacia Brasov 46 · 7. Seattle Pacific 39 · 8. Banatul Timisoara 38 · 9. Hussars FC Warsaw 35 · 10. Espada Madrid 33 · 11. Munich Butterfly 32 · 12. FC Sipp Dortmund 31 · 13. Fiko Tunis 28 · 14. King Cobra Jakarta 22 · 15. Nottingham Arrows 20 · 16. Gladiator Milan 18
World 2: 1. Pyramids Giza 60 · 2. Lions FC Lagos 57 · 3. Astral Amsterdam 56 · 4. Black Army Budapest 52 · 5. Jökull Reykjavik 46 · 6. Kaiser Vienna 45 · 7. Union Santiago 41 · 8. Tomis Constanta 41 · 9. Atlas Marrakech 41 · 10. Azure Chefchaouen 38 · 11. Jalisco Guadalajara 37 · 12. Atlantico Porto 31 · 13. Ashwaganda Ahlen 29 · 14. Europe Brussels 29 · 15. Cardiff Dragons 28 · 16. Diamonds Amsterdam 24
World 3: 1. Amazonia Manaus 63 · 2. Cape Town Storm 57 (+32) · 3. Baltic Tallinn 57 (+26) · 4. Trakia Plovdiv 57 (+20) · 5. Adria Split 56 · 6. Bania Craiova 56 · 7. Halicspor Istanbul 43 · 8. Plymouth Sea Dogs 42 · 9. Avala Belgrade 41 · 10. Vittoria Verona 39 · 11. Juventud Buenos Aires 30 · 12. Étoile Nantes 29 · 13. Martial Tokyo 26 · 14. Accra Stars 23 · 15. Mexico City Dairylea Lunchadores 18 · 16. Academicos Buenos Aires 15
Countries: Canada — Oxygen · China — Shanghai Dragons FC · England — Ro Liverpool · Spain — Trovadores · France — Olympique Marsupilami · Germany — Hammer · Italy — AC Vesuvio · Japan — Naniwa · Portugal — Lusitania · Scotland — Aberdeen Bad Boys · USA — Detroit Motors · plus thirty-three champions by attendance, FC Backgammon of Romania among them. Qualifiers → World 3: Detroit Motors, AC Vesuvio Napoli, Oresund Copenhagen, Harimau Selatan, Oxygen Montreal, Al Najd Riyadh. Friendly Ranking podium: FC Leman Geneva 111 · Wild Roses 110 · Gold Coast Sharks 101; wildcards to Aberdeen Bad Boys, Hammer Hamburg, Trovadores Granada.
Golden Boot: Virgilio Luján (Sharks) — 24, retained by one over Ojeda and Uzel, from a treatment table. Record watch: the title streak ends at 7 (Raiders); top-flight goals conceded 13 EQUALLED (Sharks; Wild Roses S2, S4); World 2 win margin 8 → 9 (Astral 9-0 Europe); World 3 goals conceded 13 → 10 (Trakia — and no promotion); World 3 fewest points 15 EQUALLED (Academicos, over 30 matches); country-league win margin 5 → 7 (Motors 7-0 Lusby); iron-man appearances 239 → 245 (Zegers); career red cards → 15 (Kontao, active); friendly team goals 134 → 144 (Leman); friendly team matches 66 → 68 and individual appearances 66 → 68 (Tauras, Nordkette; Pocius, Kazlauskas); friendly assists 16 → 20 (Jambrović); friendly red cards 6 → 7 (Schlatter); qualifier entrants 40 → 45; goals in all competitions 60 → 64 (Luján). Still behind glass: 83 points, 22 straight wins, 27 unbeaten and the cross-season 36 (Raiders' run died at 31), the 10-0, the fifteen-goal match, Canto's 53, Ojeda's 38, the 109-goal season, the 126 ranking points — and Wild Roses' 13-win streak enters the top-flight list at third, behind two entries by the same club.
Season 11 opens with someone other than Raiders defending the title for the first time since Season 3, and Raiders chasing one from third place for the first time ever; with Wild Roses one point from a friendly title and eight from a real one, and Kolasa one goal from a hundred; with Lions, Astral and Pyramids back in the top flight and King Cobra out of it after ten years, leaving six founding ever-presents; with Oxygen Montreal in World 3, Baltic and the risen Per Gjertsen, 32, in World 2, and Detroit Motors finally somewhere other than Detroit; with a Peruvian club that owns thirteen new players and one corrected spelling; with a goalkeeper on fifteen career reds who is 28 and by all accounts warming up. Sixty-five percent of last season didn't count. The paperwork has stopped arguing. Do not change the channel.
