After the qualifiers were concluded some time ago. It is time for the draw of the 4 groups. But first let’s remember who qualified and in which pot they will be.
Pot A will have: Oscrelia, Tivot, Blueacia and Staynes
Pot B will have: Valeria, Dragonia, Tuvaltastan and Caltharus
Pot C will have: Valerica, Oan Isles, K’undzeti Commonwealth and Kothalria
And lastly Pot D will consist of: Astra, Nolova, Baykalia and Kothalria
Now is the all important draw of the 2022 Auroran Cup.
From every pot 1 team will be drawn, Pot A will have the groupheads, down until pot D is empty and the teams know who they will face off during the group stages.
Here are the groups after the draw:
Group A: Staynes, Valeria, Korstazia, Nolova
Group B: Blueacia, Tuvaltastan, K’undzeti-Commonwealth, Kothalria
Group C: Oscrelia, Caltharus, Oan Isles, Baykalia
Group D: Tivot, Dragonia, Valerica, Astra
Today the first matches will be played. But first an announcement which stadiums will be used.
since it is 60 yeras since the first tournament was held, a decision was made with the allocation of the tournament that it would be Aurora wide for the first time.
So here are the stadiums that will be used, and the nations and cities they are in:
It’s time for the start of the Auroran Cup 2022.
Group A will (ofcourse) start the tournament off.
The matches will be:
Staynes - Korstazia
Valeria - Nolova
Staynes - Korstazia
The tournament starts off in the biggest stadium used in this tournament, and in a few weeks it will also end in this stadium. Camp Venna has a capacity of 87.651 seats.
Ofcourse both teams want to win their first match. And that’s why the match started really high tempo and also quite a lot of fauls when the other team was trying to get a counter in. Already after 9 minutes the first yellow card of the tournament was shown. It was for the Staynish defending midfielder. After the boundaries where set by the referee the match started to cool down a bit but chances were still a much seen thing in this match. It took however though for the first goal to be scored. Staynes opened the score in their home match. For the rest of the first half the match was again showing the shame as the first part of the match with 2 more yellow cards being shown, both to Korstazia.
The halftime of the match didn’t give us any subsitutes coming on, so the coaches (for now atleast) are happy with their current 11 players. Within a few minutes however Korstazia subbed a player on the pitch. This somewhat caused both teams to keep reacting to each other with the subs. Both teams subbed a player on a few minutes after the other subbed a player. With 5 minutes remaining and after intervention of the VAR a red card was shown to a midfielder from Korstazia, effectively ending the match there.
Valeria - Nolova
This match was a lot more calm (and some could even say more boring) compared to the match which opened the tournament. Sure there were chances from both teams, and there were some fauls and even some gems of actions by both teams. But ones both teams got close the goal they didn’t seem to remember you have to score to win the match. Ones the first half was done both teams had exactly 0 “shots on target” and 0 yellow cards as well. They played attacking but safe.
After the break was over the both teams seemed to have watch the highlight of the other match. Suddenly there were 5 yellow cards total shown to the teams in quick succession. There were also some shots on target and a few corners. But we had to wait until the 88th minute for the one and only goal to be scored. The longest Nolovian player managed to head the ball in with one of the corners.
Results:
Staynes - Korstazia 1-0
Valeria - Nolova 0-1
OOC: due to busy sceduling I wasn’t able to post anything for wuite a while. So I will now quickly do the Group Stage. I should have enough time to work out the play-off fase the way it should be. You already have the first matches of Group A. here is the rest:
Staynes - Valeria 1-1
Korstazia - Nolova 0-3
Staynes - Nolova 1-0
Valeria - Korstazia 1-2
Advancing through to the knockout-stages are Staynes and Nolova
Group B went as follows:
Blueacia - K’undzeti Commonwealth 3-1
Tuvaltastan - Kothalria 0-0
Blueacia - Tuvaltastan 1-0
K’undzeti Commonwealth - Kothalria 6-0
Blueacia - Kothalria 3-0
Tuvaltastan - K’undzeti Commonwealth 2-0
Advancing to the knockout-stages are Blueacia and Tuvaltastan
Group C:
Oscrelia - Oan Isles 1-4
Caltharus - Baykalia 4-1
Oscrelia - Caltharus 2-1
Oan Isles - Baykalia 3-0
Oscrelia - Baykalia 1-1
Caltharus - Oan Isles 0-1
Advancing to the knockout-stages are Oan Isles and Oscrelia
Group D went as follows:
Tivot - Valerica 3-1
Dragonia - Astra 5-1
Tivot - Dragonia 4-3
Valerica - Astra 3-1
Tivot - Astra 1-1
Dragonia - Valerica 2-1
Tivot and Valerica will advance to the knock-out stages
The quater finals are as followed:
In the Eredhela Stadium in Valeria, Staynes will play against Valerica
In the Salvador Antishvili ArenA in Blueacia, Blueacia will play against Oscrelia
In the Aldanic Stadium in Oscrelia, Oan Isles will play against Tuvaltastan
And lastly in the Stinje Stadium in Valerica Tivot will play against Nolova