Talamia national football team

The Talamia national football team represents the Socialist Republic of Talamia in international football competitions. It is controlled by TSS (Talamia Sports Summaka), the governing body for sports in Talamia, which is a member of DSAFF (the Democratic Socialist Assembly Football Federation).

The national team competes in the World Cup, the Cup of Harmony and the Comrades Cup. In the past, it also competed in the defunct NSLeft Association Football Tournament, reaching the semi-finals of the 2020 edition.

Talamia's home ground is the Ebdemar Au'tokra Stadium, in Clinepalas.

The team is known as the Hoopoes, from the national animal. Black and red are the common colours, as it is in the national flag.

Origins
Following the unification of the seven kingdoms of Talamia, dating back to 1786, HoopoeBall was recognized as the Talamian national sport. It was therefore necessary to wait more than a century before football began to gain popularity. The first official document attesting a football match in Talamia dates back to 1890. It refers to the match in which the Ptoco and SF Lampride clubs faced each other, representing the two homonymous neighborhoods of the Talamian capital Clinepalas. Five years later, eight founding teams from all over Talamia created the Talamian Alfa Legue, which is still the top level of the Talamian football league system today.

The first ten years of Talamian football, not very popular at the time, saw only clubs as protagonists. In 1906, however, the seven regions of Talamia began to agree to organize an interregional internal tournament and establish their selections of best players. The Seven Kingdoms Tournament was born. It was held for nine editions, until 1914. The tournament was played with a double round-robin system. The teams played during breaks from the Talamia Alfa League, in summer and winter. The regional selection of Mentrenalio won five editions, Pento two and Uperinde and Epicesi one each. The tournament ceased to exist when TSS decided to found a single, national representative.

Foundation
The first game played by the national team dates back to 30 November 1914, when the sports federations of Talamia and Sörslúth decided to organize a friendly between the selections of the best players of the top leagues of the two nations, to encourage the quiet of a seething political climate. Played in the Ebdemar Au'tokra Stadium of Clinepalas, the game gathered twenty thousand spectators and saw the Talamian national team triumph 6-2. The very first goal scored by the national team of Talamia was by Uptele Trakute, Ptoco's forward.

At the behest of the tyrant of Sörslúth, who could not accept the defeat, the game was repeated a month later in the stadium of Eigobair, the capital of the fascist state. Talamia managed again to win 3-0. This prompted Talamia Sports' Summaka to invest in the national team, organizing a first friendly calendar. Epitede Arkha, then coach of Lampride, was appointed manager.

Failure and rebirth
In its first 105 years of life, Talamia never played official matches. Following the wave of club football, the national team stopped playing in 1966, after the failure of the Alfa League, to resume playing in 1974, thanks to Noto Plousi, owner of Fortis Epops, four years after the rebirth of the top league of Talamian football. The team began gaining popularity thanks to players of the caliber of Ensem Eio and Sanisla Pedalisismi, who is still today the top scorer.

First official appereances
After more than a century of international football played only on a friendly level, TSS decided to appoint Pedalisismi as manager in 2019, on the occasion of the team's first historic registration to an official tournament: 2019 ILFA. After weeks of hard preparation, the team was defeated in the qualification round, by an overall result of 4-3 against Lo Santano.

Despite the negative performance, this prompted TSS to include the team in the first edition of the NSLeft Association Football Tournament (NAFT). With no need for a qualifying match, Talamia advanced directly to the final stage, drawn in group D with the Democratic Republic of Cacusia, Maoux and Mon Silanies. Following this first experience, Talamia became one of the founding members of NSLeft Association Football Federation (NAFF). However, after winning all the group stage matches and the quarter-finals, the tournament stopped and the NAFF was dismantled. The Talamian national team found itself once again without official competitions in which to play.

World Cup 85
On May 10 2020, it was announced that Talamia would take part to the eighty-fifth edition of the World Cup, being admitted to the qualifications after being accepted among the 197 participating teams. On the way to the World Cup, in its first pre-tournament friendly, Talamia defeated The Jovannic 2-1. Despite this being their first participation in the tournament, the Hoopoes made a great performance, placing fifth in a group that included 13 teams. Collecting 37 points, the team bravely faced the longest qualifiers in the World Cup history. After the excellent performance, Talamia entered the seventy-seventh Cup of Harmony, without being able to go beyond the group stage. With four points won, the Hoopoes at their first participation, however, managed to beat the historic national team of Chromatika.

In February 2021, TSS officially founded the DSA Football Federation, promoting the development of interest in football on the planet of Delusia. On April 2021 it was announced that the Hoopoes will take part as the host nation to the inaugural DSAFF Comrades Cup.

Nickname
Talamian team is commonly known by fans as "The Hoopoes". The hoopoe is the national animal of Talamia. In Talamian culture, it has an emblematic meaning related to wisdom and integrity and change, while its crest indicates royalty.

Kits and crest
Talamia's traditional home colours are red and black shirts, red or black shorts and white or black socks, incorporating all colours of the Talamian flag. The very first kit worn by Talamia national team in its debut match against Sörslúth was all-red. Therefore, over the years the team has re-proposed the historic design, wearing similar all-red jerseys. The national team wore white shorts only on the outfit used between 1977 and 1978. The uniform was so unpopular that it was replaced after just one season.

Even though Talamia's first away kits were total black, starting in 1974 - the year of the resumption of Talamian football - TSS decided that the team would wear simple white shirts in away matches, in order to cushion travel costs. From necessity, tradition was born and still today Talamia's traditional away colours are white shirts and shorts and black socks.

Talamia's third kit has always coincided with the goalkeeper's first kit, which colours are green shirts, shorts and socks - recalling the laurel on the national flag.

The badge of the Talamia national football team has a laurel crown, a symbol of peace introduced on the national flag in 1786, incorporating the letters "TFF" in its center. It was briefly replaced in the 90's by hoopoe's feathers, and restored in the 2000's.

In April 2021, after having firmly entered the professional football arena, the national team decided to forge a relationship with the technical sponsor Tahuatxi, from the nation of Txakhaxi. The agreement provides for a complete restyling of the national team badge and jerseys. The new uniforms and new jerseys made their debut in the eighty-eighth World Cup and in the inaugural edition of the Comrades Cup. Tahuatxi has completely modernized the badge, introducing the red and black colors typical of the national team and the image of a hoopoe, to recall its nickname. The new jerseys do not deviate much from tradition. The away shirt has a small novelty: a stylized red hoopoe on the left side. For the first time, however, a third shirt is designed, completely orange and with references to the plumage of the hoopoe.

Home stadium
Talamia have always played their home matches in Ebdemar Au'tokra historic stadium, in Clinepalas. Initially built for HoopoeBall - Talamia national sport - the stadium became the national team's home since its founding.

Talamia played their first match at the stadium in 1914 against Sörslúth. The stadium has undergone many renovations over time, before being permanently closed and then demolished in 2015, in its hundredth birthday. For a period of three years, the team played their home games in various stadiums around Talamia as the Ebdemar Au'tokra was beaing completely rebuilt.

The first match played in the new stadium that just reopened took place on 22 April 2018 and it was once again against Sörslúth. The stadium is today owned by the city of Clinepalas, being considered cultural heritage.

Media coverage
All Talamia matches are broadcast by Pro Diorux Sports, since the foundation of Talamia's most famous pay-tv sports channel.

Before the birth of Pro Diorux, from the 1950s to the 1980s, the matches were broadcast free-to-air on national television's first channel. From 1977 to today, the official commentator of the matches of the Talamia National football Team is Gian Gianvilipendio, the most well-known sports commentator in the nation, whose voice is closely linked to the glories and failures of the national team's recent history. Gian Gianvilipendio was replaced in only one case, in 1994, by his colleague Auxe Aggelia, due to illness.

Current squad
The following players were named to the squad for both the DSAFF Comrades Cup 2021 and the World Cup 88.

Individual records
Ansem Egemon, captain of both the national team and Ptoco, holds the record for most appearances for the Talamian team with 126 since his debut in 2003, breaking Loic Pule's record in 2019. Egemon also holds the record for most caps as captain, with 67. In second place is Pule, historic goalkeeper whose national career lasted for 23 years, with 121 caps, followed by Ensem Eio with 110.

Sanisla Pedalisismi holds the title of Talamia's highest goalscorer, scoring 76 goals, having played for Talamia on 99 occasions from 1966 to 1979. Elko Timoria-Zemia is the second highest goalscorer, scoring 51 goals in 78 appearances between 1998 and 2008, of which 42 were free-kicks.

The youngest player to play in an official national team game is Neaniaõ, who broke Kladios Paid previous record by taking the field at the age of 16 and 14 days in 2018. In the same occasion, Neaniaõ became the youngest player to ever score in a match.


 * Updated 31/03/2021. Bold denotes players still active at international level for the national team.