Albrecht FC

Albrecht Football Club was a professional football team from Albrecht, the capital of Candelaria And Marquez. The club was widely considered the most popular in the country and the most successful during the NFBL and early CMSC period as well as the ‘International Era’ that brought Candelariasian professional football to a close. During those seasons, no team won more league titles nor games overall. The ‘Scorpions’ were also one of the most successful sides in UICA competition, winning four Champions' Cup, two Globe Cup and three Super Cup titles.

Founded as Deevin FC, the club became Albrecht FC during the closing years of the NFBL and a merger with two smaller locals sides, and established a fierce rivalry with Albrecht Turkish – the Scorpions coming to represent Songstress and other inner-city districts of the capital, Turkish the suburbs. Under the stewardship of the Mastini family the club was able to remain competitive during the CMSC’s early years in the face of heavily bankrolled Gamboa FC, Castillo FC and KT Hotspur, and enjoyed a period of dominance shortly before the International Era under Lloyd Donnelly at the Millerman Sheppard Stadium, the arena they shared with Turkish.

Later, the club was bought by the Han conglomerate Samseong, with new chairman Pan Manshik establishing a close working relationship with the retained Director of Football Martin Hole-Simpkins and coach Andy Le Lan. The new ownership invested heavily though inconsistently, and the team struggled to deal with the rise of Caires City and later Green Island. The club would ultimately however be given an arena, the Tristar Songstress Stadium, that enjoyed only a short period in the sun but was for its time arguably the finest in Rushmore, while a team driven by products of the Scorpions Academy under Luís Enrique Torrealba earned the club two final CMSC titles prior to the league’s cessation and additional international glory. Albrecht FC also had a significant impact on the C&M national team’s success, with no club contributing more players to Big Blues squads.

Foundation and early history
Deevin Football Club were founded in 1902 by a mixture of churchgoers and impoverished tradesmen. They were far from the first club in the city, but quickly became the first to attract a genuine fan following for their style of play and unusually clean-shaven appearance (aside from their legendary goalkeeper, Francis “Frankie the Taffy” English, who remained stubbornly moustachioed to the last). They supplied four player – English, halfback and captain K.F. Timpson and the inside forwards Bryn Dasent and Horace Durant – for a tour of Branta by an unofficial Candelarias national football team in 1907, during a brief period of activity resumed only as Candelaria And Marquez during the International Era decades later.

In 1911 Deevin finally won the Cove Combined Footer League, a record eighteen points ahead of their nearest and not-so-dearest rivals, Thompsontown Heroicals. Their former captain and wing-half Horace “Hotlips” Hedge became manager shortly after. A lowly market-stall trader all his life, Hedge proved an astute businessman and marketer, adopting the striking red kits the club are known for today and investing in a, for the time, hugely expensive new ground; New Park. Ironically, the one innovation he consistently refused to countenance was the idea of merging with two or three other clubs in the city to form a united Albrecht team. Committed as he was to the maintenance of the status quo of regional football across the islands, he forced Deevin to remain in the CCFL whilst the Heroicals - and teams such as the Cockyard Cricketers, Cockyard Cocks and Sorres AFC – began to make inroads in the National Foot-Ball League. Finally, in 1938 – though it must be noted that establishing exact dates in relation to events in Candelariasian sport is problematic – Deevin FC were taken over by another locally-born busi-nessman, Stanley Mastini; who immediately took the club into the NFBL, after a fourth straight CCFL title. A year late, the national league finally embraced professionalism.

The first professional era
Deevin’s early attempts in the NFBL proved inauspicious, when they finished fifteenth in the Second Division in 1943. Promotion came a year later, but was followed by subsequent humiliating relegation; the club being sent down two months before the end of the season thanks to a memorably chipped goal from William Eady, a former Deevin player who had defected to Thompsontown. On their next season in the Second Division, they earned a reputation for sheer tenacity, refusing to know when they were beaten and frequently finding last-minute winners and equalisers. This ‘sting in the tail’ led their still-thriving supporter base to give them the sobriquet of the ‘Scorpions’.

The long-awaited management of Horace Durant brought them their best times, as Deevin began to move from a solidly mid-table Division One side to real title challengers, where they clearly deserved to be. Their first NFBL title, in 1954, came with something of a sour taste in the mouth as it was achieved only because the reigning champions and heavy favourites, Thompsontown, were forced to leave the league owing to financial irregularities. Unbowed however, Deevin won a second straight title, a dozen points ahead of Gassett FC, and firmly re-established themselves as one of the country’s preeminent clubs.

Deevin narrowly avoided some legal stickiness of their own when the Mastini family were involved in a high-profile corruption case, blocking off finances for two years with inevitable consequences. The club soon recovered with the youngest of the owner’s family, Cyril Mastini, firmly ensconced in the boardroom. Under Durant, the club bounced back to take another title in 1960. The following season, the club were again involved in a minor scandal when it was revealed than their star winger at the time, Leonard Prettyman, was in fact a woman called Lilian Palsson. The country’s people and press were unsure quite how they should react to this revelation. In the end, Palsson was effectively driven out of the game, though she retained a spot on the club’s board and her daughter, Lynn Lukes, remained a major shareholder until the days of Samseong, while the Leonard Prettyman End – the ‘Lenpy’ – would become home to the club’s most vociferous supporters across multiple stadia.

In 1963, the relegation from Division Two and ensuing financial crash of Cockyard United left Deevin as one of only two significant Albrecht clubs in the professional leagues. Cyril Mastini, much to the horror of much of the club’s following, orchestrated a merger between Deevin and two small semi-professional clubs (the Newroad Nonchalants and Capana FC) to form Albrecht FC. As much as anything, this move was designed with the Albrecht Turkish Club in mind; Turkish having moved far beyond their original community to become the other NFBL Albrecht club. Their repeated use of the single word “Albrecht” in club media had rung alarm bells over at New Park, and Mastini wisely sought to get in there first. Turkish were forced instead to settle for the shorthand moniker of A.Turks or, more commonly by the time of the International Era, simply Turkish.

The new Albrecht Football Club won their first league title in that same season, but success following this was thin on the ground. A.Turks meanwhile had found a young new hero in Millerman Sheppard; a striker considered the greatest Candelariasian player never to grace the national team. While he propelled the A.Turks to four successive titles; Albrecht FC were left to languish in mid-table. By the beginning of the 1970s, the league was awash with cash and the marketing men held sway. Albrecht FC, the biggest club in the league by nationwide fan support, were promoted as the premier side in the country but failed to find that form on the pitch. Finally, under the stewardship of Sam Nascimento, the Scorpions returned to the summit to win the 1973 championship. It would be the NFBL’s last.

Dawn of the CMSC
Candelariasian football lingered in the wilderness for a few years after the league’s collapse, with Albrecht FC just one of many to choose to return for a brief time to amateurism in order to rediscover their roots. When a nationwide competition, the CMS Cup, was finally created, Albrecht FC gleefully signed up. Loosing semi-finalists in the first year, and finalists – though again defeated – in the second; the club were clearly still among the country’s elite, and were soon invited into the new CMSC. With Nascimento back at the helm, a sturdy defence saw them crawl their way to the runners-up spot in CMSC IV; achieving the same result again in VI.

More important however was who they were runners-up to in that second season; A.Turks. Their cross-city rival’s free-flowing football reflected unfavourably on the Scorpions’; and Nascimento, never truly popular with supporters despite his successes, was given the boot.

Sheppard at the helm
Cyril Mastini then stunned supporters, journalists and players alike by announcing that A.Turks legend Millerman Sheppard would become the new manager. For the first time since the draconian anti-hooligan laws introduced at the start of the CMSC had come in, there were football-related riots in Albrecht’s streets. More sober minds wondered whether an ex-player with no managerial experience was really the right signing.

On reflection, they couldn’t have been more wrong. Sheppard, after spending much of his first season going out of his way to mend bridges with his old club, began to assemble a fearsome-looking side; bringing in proven strikers Quentin Ghandour and Wayne Thorpe and midfield destroyer Finlay Endee, and encouraging the development of home-grown youngsters such as the galloping left-winger Owen Tiller and teenage goalkeeper Reuben Uwakwe to replace near-legendary custodian Trevor Organ. This new side was unleashed proper against the CMSC in the VIII season, and no other club could find an answer to it. Thorpe and Ghandour finished first and second in the Golden Boot competition for the league’s top goalscorer, and Turks’ Club were left trailing well back in their wake. The season was topped off with a CMS Cup win; a 3-1 victory over none other than A.Turks. If anything, the IX season was even better, as the team strengthened by the arrival of experienced midfielder Coleman Mustard went on to ease to another victory in the league and took a second ‘double’ with another CMS Cup win.

Injuries plagued the club in the following year, though Sheppard was still able to guide them to another CMS Cup final. The Scorpions ultimately finished sixth, after losing Thorpe to a leg injury from which he never fully recovered. The club moved instead for Erdal Zafer from Khatib FC, whose goals alongside Ghandour propelled them back up to the top and a third league title in four years. A seemingly predestined era of Albrecht FC domination never came to pass however, as the club finished a distant third in XII. Shorn of Mustard and Endee, they struggled throughout XIII, eventually finding themselves in a thoroughly unwelcome relegation fight. Sheppard tried to rebuild, but the club’s youth products were not up to standard, and the rules of the CMSC meant that it seemed impossible for any club to buy their way to the title. In XIV, they finished tenth; Sheppard waving the fans goodbye with a CMS Cup victory over Turks’ Club. He would never manage again.

Unwin, Draper and Olivares
Cyril Mastini declined to rest on his laurels however, bringing in highly thought-of manager Geoffrey Unwin from Caires FC. Unwin brought with him his own players, including striker Steven Fritz and defender Marcus Mestre; and while success was not immediately forthcoming, the signs of growth were there. In XVI, the club were back up in the title race, even leading at the half-way stage, though they eventually finished third. Once again however, they took the CMS Cup.

Long-term change was not to be however, as Unwin’s Albrecht slumped to twelfth at one stage during the XVII season, and he was shown the back door. Stan Draper, seen as a safe pair of hands, was promoted from his assistant; but he too failed to make the team gel. Dissatisfied with his own performance; Mastini transferred his powers at the club to the Director of Football, Martin Hole-Simpkins. The new man at the top sacked Draper, bringing in Óscar Olivares as caretaker manager until the end of the season. Hole-Simpkins’ second action as Director was to agree with A.Turks the building of a new stadium for both clubs, to be named the Millerman Sheppard Stadium. He then moved for Lloyd Donnelly; already a veteran coach who had led Green Island to the title three years before.

Lloyd Donnelly
Donnelly brought with him the likes of winger Damien Moller and defender, and later club captain, Joseph Hurtado; and guided the club to the runners-up spot; albeit a good many points behind Castillo FC. The seeds were well and truly sewn in that season for the Scorpions’ greatest period to date.

With Fritz and Erdal sparking up front; Albrecht FC looked all but unstoppable in the XX season, with their only real challenge coming from the A.Turks. At times, Donnelly’s gruff and remote style repelled fans, who also disliked his disinterest in the CMS Cup. In the league however, they could have no complaints at all, with Donnelly playing a highly attacking style that got results. The XXI season was all but a formality, Fritz and Erdal reliably finishing the seemingly endless supply of chances provided by Moller, Carl Guevara, Beck Bedin and others. A six-one win at home to Radyukevich CSC waved goodbye to New Park. Albrecht FC lost their title the following season, finishing two points behind the champions Gamboa FC who had built an extraordinary young team. The initial failure of Albrecht FC to adapt to their new home, the MSS, also took its toll. Donnelly took the opportunity as the season ended to take defender Sam Young from them, and partner him with the Scorpions’ own home-grown Benji Fu. With Erdal now passed the peak of his powers, Donnelly was forced to rely more and more on Young, Fu and Uwakwe in goal, and they didn’t let him down. The XXXIII league victory owed as much to them as it did the goals of Fritz.

As season XXIV got under way it was apparent to all that many of the more offensive players were now past their best. Without the “little legend”, Steven Fritz, their title challenge could well have faded away to nothing all too soon. With him, they remained leaders throughout most of the season, eventually finishing equal on points at the summit with Marquez-Onwere, though with better goal difference. It was their fourth title in five years.

The International Era
Several weeks before the start of the new season, Donnelly stunned C&M’s football community by walking out on his job to take the position of manager of the national under-21 team; apparently enraged at Hole-Simpkins’ refusal to invest in new players. A desperate board gave his assistant, Trevor Organ, the job; with fans left distraught after their club’s last dalliance with a No.2 as No.1.

Their attention was briefly diverted by the announcement that the club would become the first to sign a female player in the CMSC era, when teenaged Ariddian full-back Naoki Tonnelier signed for them. But fans were all too aware that with teenage wingers in Beck Ragab and Ben Edwards; this was a very inexperienced team. Their worst fears appeared to be realised early on; the Scorpions losing the league’s opener at home to Castillo FC. Two wins on the bounce after that helped calm the nerves, but as the season went on it became clear that Organ was finding the job difficult. After just the fifth game, a 2-0 home defeat to Radyukevich, Organ was given the dreaded vote of confidence by the board. A clear victory against Turkish helped his position, but the club were earning too many draws. By the half-way stage they had recovered to fourth, but sat seven points behind shock leaders Green Island.

Their recovery however was spectacular, and by matchday thirty they had finished six points ahead of the GIZ. And, for once, Fritz wasn’t even the league’s top scorer; with his large partner Alex Stromberg, and chunky young right-winger Edwards, also chipping in with their fair share. The emergence of Tonnelier and holding midfielder Matteo Corradini as real talents helped gel the team together into a fearsome unit once more. Best of all was the arrival out of nowhere of youth team product Joe Cunningham, who hit ten goals. In many ways, it was the club’s most unlikely and welcome championship.

Organ went into his second season in charge with a horribly young-looking team. Fritz, at thirty-four, had finally left for pastures new while Uwakwe was stepped don as the first-choice ‘keeper in favour of his twenty-one year-old protégé Murphy Matthews. Alongside Corradini, Edwards, Tonnelier, Ragab and Cunningham; experience was provided by Young, the club captain, and Fu, the captain of the C&M national team. The presence of Zwangzug international striker Peter Vanderpent alongside Cunningham formed a partnership well worthy of replacing Fritz and Stromberg however. Organ’s fears that the club were still unwilling to spend too much money were allayed when a Candelariasian record fee for a left-back was spent on Kelssek player Francois St. Louis – and though few Candelariasians realised it at the time, Albrecht would certainly get the fullest return from their investment, and a player who would go on to become the club’s all-time leading appearance maker.

Globe Cup glory
These long-heralded moves were not immediately forthcoming, with the return of Wanderley and the permanent arrival of Kim Daeeui being the only prominent additions to the first team. Le Lan was ultimately forced to play several players out of position for much of the season – including Ryan Edwards wide on the left and Loren Meyer at right-back – prompting most supporters to accept that this season represented a transitionary period, particularly with youngsters like William and Ben Zec, and veterans like Corradini, together in the first team.

The Scorpions’ early start was modest, leaving them well off the pace set by Albrecht Turkish. Though Le Lan kept his counsel, pundits and ex-players close to the manager began to criticise the rule of Pak Manshik and Samseong and their apparent lack of funding, though others also pointed a finger at the apparent paucity in youth development shown since David Stone had left to join Organ at various overseas-based jobs – just a single player, Corradini, was chosen for the World Cup 43 C&M squad, and none made the seventh Di Bradini Cup twenty-three. Come the business end of the Apertura, the goalscoring form of Kim and immense organisational talent of William helped the team overcome many of their deficiencies, and they crept into the top four in third – albeit thanks to an impressive goal difference. Internationally, the club suffered an embarrassing 3-0 defeat to the Psychiatrists of the Landau Institute, failing to make up the difference in the second leg and being dropped into the Globe Cup.

For former Champions’ Cup finalists, the world’s second club competition could be seen as a consolation prize at best, but with a domestic challenge looking unlikely Le Lan opted to take it as seriously as possible in both halves of the season. Placed into an admittedly below-par group, the Scorpions emerged with a remarkable 6-0-0 record, with a +18 goal difference helped by an 8-0 drubbing of the Otorhinolaryngologists, a record from the first five tournaments. Tight aggregate victories over Daazyiles OC, Centralia of Newmanistan and FC Terathor of Valanora followed, before home and away defeats to Likewell Kirk of Demot, the eventual champions at the final in Arrigo.

The following year saw Albrecht in the TQCC8 group stage, where they managed only a home draw against the Otorhinolaryngologists and were beaten again by Likewell Kirk, sending them back into the Globe Cup. In a highly competitive competition, the Scorpions beat AFC Hatton of Ad’ihan home and away, came back from two goals down at home to the Atlantea Hurricanes of Taeshan, ousted Dancougan side Yuki City Athletic and then beat Soldarian FC – the TQCC7 champions – in the semi-finals. The final in Heathfield, Sorthern Northland, saw vast numbers of Northlandish Candelariasians from downtown Albrecht and beyond converge on the Causeway stadium for the match against Carter FC, a 4-1 drubbing that gave the club their first international title, and first item of silverware under the Samseong era. They finished the year inside the top ten clubs in the worlds.

Domestically their form picked up dramatically too following that first Globe Cup run, though Le Lan’s small squad could never quite string together a period of consistency necessary to fully challenge Caires City. Ultimately they came up just short, but their performances gave Le Lan a massive boost and he ended the season in the justifiable hope that the board would now entrust him with their millions. One area that certainly didn’t require a financial boost was in the goalscoring department however – Kim Daeeui became the first player since Albrecht FC’s own Steven Fritz in XXIV to break the twenty-goal barrier in the league, and the Han international veteran picked up a shedload of awards following the season’s close.

Albrecht FC’s pre-season prior to XXXII was disrupted by the temporary cessation of Samseong finances, with goalkeeper Harry Rosalia from the El din Marbles the only major signing alongside the free transfer of Myedvedeya international Nicola D’Ancona, but this did at least allow Le Lan the opportunity to give some of the latest crop of young players a chance, with teenage right-back Matthew Logan the first to settle into the first team. This mixture of youth – including the Cafundelense duo of William and Wanderley – and veterans such as Ben Edwards and Kim, proved a successful elixir for Le Lan, and his team defied the critics by remaining right in the early title race and even heading the table at the half-way stage – with the Clausura beginning with a 6-0 drubbing of AFC MN Smith in which Kim scored a rare double brace. The club also won their TQCC9 group, but were ousted in the last sixteen on away goals, by CS Sept-Onze Ourseville.

Over the following few weeks, Albrecht consolidated their domestic lead into a ten-point cushion over Caires City – but events beyond Le Lan’s control would test his thin squad to its limits. A series of injuries and unfortunate suspensions coincided with the loss of many of his younger players to the Di Bradini Cup, and their challenge began to crumble in the face of City’s relentless late form. On the final day, the Scorpions needed victory over Caires City themselves to take the title, as well as for other results to go their way – instead, Kim Daeeui forced a late own goal that provided an equaliser which served only to hand the title to Albrecht Turkish, the Scorpions instead finishing two points further back in third. The club’s next TQCC performance did provide a late boost however, winning their group once again and making the quarter-finals, leaving them ranked inside the worlds’ top five teams.

The greatest fortnight
Albrecht FC’s prospects for the XXXIII season did not at first appear overly auspicious. The only major new arrival to the first team proved to be Fred Foster, a reliable crosser of the ball from the right flank and able successor to Ben Edwards, but by no means a signing widely seen as likely to help the Scorpions challenge the top two after the morale-sapping failure of the previous year. Le Lan and his squad appeared unusually bullish however, and with good reason. By the seventh round of matches, Albrecht had established a modest lead at the top of the table once more, and as the Apertura ploughed on the confidence of the side rocketed ever further, buoyed by a relative lack of injury concerns and Ryan Edwards’ return to form, alongside a lengthy series of world class performances from William.

In other competitions the Scorpions were no less exuberant, storming through the CMS Cup – with Le Lan under renewed pressure from the board to give the fullest attention to the Candelarias’ second-most important trophy – and impressing at TQCC11 until reaching the quarter-finals and enduring a thorough beating at the hands of Yuba United. In winning the Apertura at a canter, all those with Albrecht FC sympathies knew full well that the job was barely half done, following previous false dawns at XXIX and XXXII, and the team duly suffered a bad case of the yips. By Matchday 21 they had conceded the lead to Turkish, but the team began to rally with D’Ancona coming into his own and Kim leading from the front. They remained hot on the new leaders’ tails until their arch-rivals too suffered a major blip, conceding freely amidst a series of drawn matches, but the character shown by the Scorpions to haul themselves back to the top was exemplary – typified by their Matchday 33 encounter with Green Island, coming back from two goals down to take, in injury time, the point that handed them their first league title for a decade.

Greater glory was to come internationally, however. The club finished second in their TQCC12 group, having picked up just a point against Ad’ihani breakout team Mountbatten Junction, and faced another rematch with Yuba in the second stage. On this occasion, the day truly belonged to the Candelariasians; with a 3-1 win at home preceding a dramatic 3-3 draw at the Steven Rogers Memorial Stadium, Albrecht having come back from behind for every goal. Their following games were no less remarkable, with hard-fought victories over Raynor City and Sept-Onze firmly burying the ghosts of years past and sending Albrecht through to their second final, against former champions Union d’Ourseville. The game itself was a nervy affair, with Foster’s scraped effort in the seventieth minute representing the Candelariasians’ only solid chance of the match, but it was enough to hand Albrecht FC their second international trophy and first TQCC win.

The cherry on top proved to be the CMS Cup final, with an impressive 3-0 drubbing of holders Marquez-Onwere completing a unique triple. The club’s achievements were particularly emotional for Ben Zec, the home-grown holding midfielder who had earlier missed out on the World Cup 45 final through suspension, and who was later named the Supporters’ Player of the Season.

XXXIV & TQCC14
Albrecht’s title defence began with few major additions, Krytenian international Bart Graves partnering William and teenager Jesse Nakatsuru plucked from the youth team squad to take up a role in the centre of the park. As the fulcrum of the Scorpions’ attack, much relied on the green youngster’s talent and his presence attracted any number of naysayers in the media expressing the opinion that back-to-back league titles might well be beyond a team left well behind after the summer transfer rush.

As it was however, the team got off to a solid start in which they remained competitive in the race for second whilst MarquezOW streaked ahead. Having lost a couple of games inside the first eight, Albrecht timed their run of form perfectly – a 3-0 drubbing of Turkish at the Solidarity confirming a third straight Apertura trophy. With both the best offensive and defensive records in the division – with William and Foster in particular on awesome form – there appeared to be no doubting the best team in the country. Their international title defence was marginally less inspiring, heading towards a TQCC13 exit in the group stages until coming back from a goal down on the final matchday to beat the Psychologists 4-1 and sneaking through into the knock-out stages. A 3-1 victory over Raynor City looked set to see them safety through from there, until a meek 3-0 defeat at the Battleground dashed their hopes.

Rather greater woe was to befell the club than this, however, as it became increasingly clear following the World Cup break that Le Lan was the prime candidate to succeed Elgin Dannat as his country’s national team head coach. Added to the scheduled end of the Millerman Sheppard Stadium as the Scorpions’ home ground – with the vast Tristar Songstress Stadium rapidly rising up from the midst of the capital – and long-standing striker Kim’s retirement from professional football at the end of the season; XXXIV was clearly going to represent the end of an era for Albrecht Football Club.

Further on-field success would provide the tonic, but the team’s league form began to drop away badly as speculation over Le Lan’s future proliferated without a definitive announce from the club, the CAMAFA, or the man himself. Albrecht would end up losing six games during the Apertura and, coupled with stunning performances from those above them, dropped to finish fourth behind even Tenderville United. With three games to spare however, their chances of taking the league title had already been extinguished and Le Lan had other fish to fry.

Firstly in the CMS Cup, where a serene progression into the semi-finals saw them take on in-form Green Island and be entirely outplayed – but none the less winning 1-0 thanks to a late Ogus Kures goal and sneaking on through to a historic final against Tenderville. Aiming to become the first club from beyond the Candelarias to lift the trophy, the Nethertopians were outplayed with Albrecht FC winning 3-0 for the second season in a row and becoming the first side to retain the cup since they themselves back at the end of the IX season.

At TQCC14 meanwhile, the Scorpions – now comfortably nestled inside the multiverse’s top five – were still a force to be reckoned with. Even so, they once again only scraped into the last sixteen, an away victory against Raynor City, yet again, this time sealing their place and a meeting with Cafundó do Juta. As big club ties went, few had more potential for legendary status than this and a first leg, 2-1 victory for the home side at the MSS left it finely balanced for the return fixture. In the event, Le Lan’s side produced arguably their single best performance to go through, with Kim putting a brace past Cianan Theros in a truly dominant display at the Praça Maior. Buoyed, Albrecht FC soon handed cup holders CS Lac-Amédée a 4-0 hammering before very nearly throwing it all away in the second leg and scraping through with a 4-1 defeat. Two goals down on aggregate against Petardos S/A, a semi-final exit appeared all but certain a fortnight later, before one of the most sensational comebacks ever witnessed in the Candelariasian capital – Foster, Kim and D’Ancona all scoring in the final ten minutes to turn the tie on its head and secure the club’s – and Le Lan’s – fourth international final.

Against Yuba United once more, and again in Ad’ihan for the final, Albrecht took the upper hand through Kim inside ten minutes and, though Rosalia was forced into repeated saves from Carl Schwarz and Luise Ulman either side of half-time, the Scorpions broke away on seventy minutes to see Wanderley walk the decisive second into Brandon King’s net. To chants of ‘Can we play here every year?’ towards the Ad’ihani neutrals, Francois St. Louis joined the select band of players to lift the Champions’ Cup for a second time.

Le Lan’s exit formally occurred soon after, with the manager and Kim both greeting an emotional crowd after the 1-1 draw with Caires City that confirmed their Super Cup title, in a match that also saw the supporters say goodbye to their stadium. As far as Le Lan himself goes, his record can only be seen as mixed in hindsight – two league titles in seven seasons was barely even par for the course, where this club was concerned – but it will be his record at the ICCs that guarantees him legendary status for as long as professional football is played – or, at least, remembered – in the capital city.

Torrealba
Former C&M international – and briefly Albrecht FC defensive midfielder – Luís Enrique Torrealba was the perhaps surprising choice to succeed Le Lan, after taking the C&M under-21s to victory at the tenth Di Bradini Cup. Torrealba’s own domestic record was mixed, with early success with Cathedral City eventually ending in the club’s relegation, but his personal story’s echoes with that of Le Lan’s were self-evident. Torrealba kept faith with the bulk of the squad prior to the XXXV, but the retirement of Kim Daeeui forced him into signing a new striker – Kim Mihyeon, as it would turn out – while an apparently internal pressure to renew the club’s appeal to Songstress’ LGB community saw the Sarzonian winger George Morrison arrive from KT Hotspur.

With the Tristar Songstress Stadium not finished in time for the season however, the post-Le Lan era would begin at the old MSS. Predictions for the new manager’s debut season varied massively, but it steadily became apparent at home and overseas that this set of Scorpions were once again set to fall just short as Torrealba began the difficult task of fashioning Le Lan’s squad in his own image. The new man at the top was assisted throughout by a fretfully chain-smoking Kim Daeeui from the dugout, but dealing with some of Le Lan’s more idiosyncratic elements proved awkward – Foster, despite being part of the Big Blues set-up under Le Lan, fell in and out of favour throughout the season with youngster Xavier Tekeste staking his claim, while the working relationship between the often volatile Zec and the more mild-mannered fellow former holding midfielder Torrealba publicly deteriorated during the Clausura with teenager Rhys Khan increasingly being favoured in the role despite regularly looking out of his depth.

Despite these problems, Albrecht FC consistently remained in championship contention right up until the season’s most latterly stages, and the team ultimately finished seven points short of Green Island in second position – arguably an overachievement. Hopes of making history by winning a third straight CMS Cup title finally came to an end in the quarter-finals with a poor home defeat to Port of Clotaire, meanwhile. The club went into TQCC15 with a chance to make history, but hopes of retaining their title were dashed in the group stages where Torrealba’s Scorpions were, by his own admission, naïve and outclassed. They narrowly qualified for the latter stages of the Globe Cup, where they looked on course to achieve great things after knocking out Ranca Toco in the Last Sixteen, but they ultimately disappointed in the quarter-finals against FC Capri.

It was a similar story a year later, with the Scorpions struggling for consistency against the big clubs; again dropping into the Globe Cup. Here they went one better than at Globe Cup 12, making the semi-finals and raising hopes that a repeat of Globe Cup 5 could set them on the way towards a TQCC bid once more, but here they met old foes in the form of the Noka Mariners and exited on goal difference. Prior to this, the competition had seen a first ever ‘international’ meeting between Albrecht FC and Albrecht Turkish – an unsurprisingly fraught and robust affair that Turkish looked on course to win after going 4-2 up on aggregate early in the return leg at the MSS. The home side fought back however, with a brace from Nakatsuru handing them the edge on goal difference and a superb Morrison chip late on cementing their place in the quarter-finals. Having knocked Turkish out of the CMS Cup earlier in the season, bragging rights were certainly left in Songstress – though the clubs both earned 2-1 away wins in the two league derby games.

Decline and rebirth
While ‘decline’ must be used in relative terms, Torrealba’s second season was certainly more disappointing. He was far from helped by fears over the financial solvency of Samseong, with work on the half-finished new stadium abruptly ceasing prior to the start of the season and money for the squad drying up almost entirely – young Jesselton native Fahmi Hamizi being the only new signing of any note. The Scorpions’ squad was seen as still strong enough to mount a serious challenge however, but such an effort failed to materialise; their Apertura blighted by a lengthy series of draws – nine in all, leaving the club eighth in the league and, embarrassingly, out of UICA competition following a disappointing exit on penalties in the last sixteen of TQCC17 to Trecelunas FC. With Torrealba under little threat of being removed and the season going nowhere, the manager opted to concentrate on the CMS Cup once more, while the league was given over to throwing in teenage midfielders Go Songji and Adam Kouakou Kouamé, centre-half Gijs van Aulen and the striker Hamizi, with Kim Mihyeon and Wanderley increasingly left out in the cold as Torrealba began to favour a 4-3-2-1. Experienced campaigners Foster and Zec seldom got a look-in, hardly assisting the mood in the camp, but their form in the cup served to keep spirits afloat. Making the final after knocking out Turkish in the semis, however, ‘Torrealba’s tots’ were well beaten by Portuguese, leaving Albrecht FC trophyless for the season and finishing only seventh in the league, just a point ahead of Caires City.

Though no era of relative failure could be allowed to last long at Albrecht FC, few experts nor fans predicted the season that would follow. Torrealba was able to make few signings of any note, while the cataclysmic events in the Han Empire left considerable doubts over the future of Samseong’s involvement in the club, potentially leaving them in a financially precarious position. The ‘tots’ remained the Scorpions’ lifeline but, talented though they certainly were, top four appeared their best hope for any kind of success. Instead, Albrecht were immediately among the pacesetters, winning every one of their first ten league matches. Hamizi, alone up front, was barely needed as Torrealba’s five-man midfield combined perfectly to help the team stroll through their early games, with George Morrison coming into his own on the left and Nakatsuru looking every inch the world-class talent. At the back, the budding partnership between Van Aulen and William, supported by the ever-present Rosalia, appeared all but impenetrable.

From this imperious position, Albrecht surprisingly failed to top the table at the half-way stage – with injuries and distractions from other competitions taking their toll. Rosalia’s collarbone fracture picked up in training set off a horrible goalkeeping crisis, with his number two Drake Malan breaking a wrist, third-choice ‘keeper Aaron Kiddle letting in four goals in a defeat to Radyukevich and youngster Jaime Zamora ultimately becoming the regular stopper until the World Cup 49 break. Despite this, the Scorpions rolled supreme through their Globe Cup 16 campaign, notching up two 8-0 aggregate victories even before the group stage and emerging undefeated from that also, despite finishing second to Oldbridge City. Juavi FC and Cafundó do Juta were also defeated on their way to the final in Rothsbere – a match settled on penalties, with Nakatsuru putting away the winner to give the Candelarian side their second Globe Cup trophy.

Shortly before the league season resumed, and with Zamora still in goal, Albrecht were invited to participate in the inaugural Aeropag Football Invitational; a friendly tournament, but one featuring a number of top international club sides. A defeat to Emperor’s Cup champions Sanghae Haetae aside; the Scorpions performed sufficiently to top their group and make the competition semi-finals, Nakatsuru again the star in victories over home favourites, the Aeropag Penguins, and Mercia Bromham – soon after home to former Albrecht FC manager Andy Le Lan – to take the title, trophy, a sizeable lump of gold, medals a-plenty and – most importantly – goody bags featuring top-of-the-range rubber finger puppets.

With the wind behind their backs, the team soon resumed their place at the top of the division, but the final few matches brought justifiable fears that their young guns would falter in the face of Green Island and MarquezOW’s greater experience. Though their lead was cut to just a point at one stage, the Scorpions recovered to take the title on the penultimate weekend of the season. The Champions’ Cup campaign that followed ended in the first knock-out round, with two heavy defeats to Soldarian FC, but this exit could hardly overshadow one of the club’s finest seasons for years – capped off in style with the long-awaited opening of the Tristar Songstress Stadium.

Final years
Following the GIZ’s years of dominance, few doubted that Albrecht would now once again take back their traditional role of C&M’s leading club. They opened up their title defence with the first competitive match at the TSS, an entertaining 4-2 win over Radyukevich, and despite the standard complaints over insufficient toilets, restricted views, distracting shadows on the pitch, worryingly sentient grass, etc., the Scorpions’ new home proved a fittingly daunting edifice for a club aiming to cement themselves as one of the truly great clubs in the history of club football.

3-0 victories over Green Island and MarquezOW followed, but on Matchday 11 the young team suffered their first home defeat at the TSS, 1-0 to Caires City. XXXVIII began to establish itself as one of those seasons that nobody seemed to want to win. The biggest threat came from Green Island once more, a renewed team of young talents shorn of several of their elvish stars and instead promoting their local protégés. It was the Tots against the Oxides of Zapata almost throughout – the GIZ four points clear after a 2-1 win on Matchday 20; Albrecht FC back ahead four games later after Green Island stumbled. The final weeks of the season were disastrous however, with defeat to Albrecht Turkish effectively calling time on their title ambitions. Fans blamed the referee for the 1-0 loss – not entirely without reason, given Ted Garrido’s failure to award arguably the most stonewall of all the season’s would-be penalties for a Alex Rafaela horror tackle on Hamizi – but the incident failed to unite the dressing room. Instead, a 0-0 draw with McDonald SC was marked by an unseemly on-field dust-up between Hamizi and Nakatsuru and the team slid away to finish eight points off the lead and out of the Champions’ Cup places.

The overseas competitions however provided a rather different story. Topping their TQCC group, Albrecht crushed Petardos 5-0 at home in the first knockout round with a performance widely considered perhaps the greatest by a Candelariasian side in international club competition, with Kim Mihyeon in particular on fire with her first UICA hat-trick. Comfortable wins over Carter FC and Cafundó do Juta saw the Scorpions through to yet another final, facing off against Trecelunas FC in Dancougar. A proper old dog with fleas went to penalties, something which an Albrecht FC side with a rough recent history from the spot would have had reason to dread. As it was, the chunky veteran Rosalia played a blinder and substitute Rhys Khan cheekily rolled home for a 4-1 penalties win and a third title. The team repeated the trick to take another Super Cup win a few weeks later, over Dunboor FC.

In tandem with their poor domestic form however, TQCC22 was quite the disaster. The Scorpions lost all but one of their matches in what had appeared a simple group – one topped, much to their embarrassment, by a side from Sargossa of all places. Belated sighs of relief came months later, when El Nacional duly stunned the multiverse to take a first title back to whatever city they play in, we can’t be bothered to check.

Albrecht brought in just one major addition ahead of the XXXIX season, the curiously monomonickered Krytenian goalkeeper Arian, who was actually a bloke called Allen Morris so fair enough, but this would prove to be a very different Scorpions outfit to the previous year. While augmented by an exciting bench of homegrown youngsters, the core of the team were Tots no longer. Gijs van Aulen and Go Songji were now at the heart of their respective national teams but fashioned from their teens in the ‘Way of the Scorpion’, Candelariasians Adam Kouakou Kouamé and Jesse Nakatsuru were at their world-class peak, Fahmi Hamizi had discovered renewed confidence. With the major threats to their Apertura lead coming from unexpected sources in northern Candelaria – Port of Clotaire, Caires City, Caires Sports and Radyukevich – a changing of the guard in the CMSC appeared imminent, but Torrealba’s men rose above it all.

Only in the latter part of the season did the Scorpions’ apparent march towards yet another title begin to falter. By this time, C&M as a whole was reeling from the Beatrice Event – something which served to render football both utterly unimportant and simultaneously the cause of great sorrow and soul-searching, but in those first weeks that followed a hardy core of supporters continued to fill half-full stadiums. By Matchday 29 the team had lost their long-held lead to their opponents with a 2-1 defeat at Caires City. The weeks after however provided Albrecht FC with arguably the greatest, and most bittersweet, period of success in their history. Back in the Champions’ Cup, the team had not been at their very best in the group stage, winning only two matches, but produced a series of mature, gritty performances to oust Hatton Town, Raynor City and, in extra time, Yuba United. The prize on offer had been clear from the start – a final at home, at the TSS, the first time the major UICA trophy would be awarded on Candelariasian soil. Against Dunboor FC in that final, facing more familiar foes including C&M international Jordan Hawker and Green Island great Lúthien Anwamanë, the Scorpions were immense – from teenage full-back Enrico Corradini, son of the great Matteo, drafted in for his first UICA start, to an inspired ‘AKK’ and ruthless Hamizi.

Back in the league, Albrecht put together a string of results to return to the top of the table and, satisfyingly, win it with a game to spare in a 4-1 demolition of Turkish. The team went on to defeat PoC on penalties in another game at the TSS, completing a historic triple. The stadium hosted the CMSC2 play-off thereafter, and this would prove the final match in Candelariasian professional domestic football. Defending their TQCC title, a Scorpions team shorn of much of their talent finished bottom of their group, a 2-3 home defeat to Stithis FE of Vephrall sending the team into a hibernation from which they would, of course, never emerge.

Home stadium
Opened in time for the CMSC XXXVIII season, Albrecht FC spent just two seasons in their new home, the Tristar Songstress Stadium, prior to the collapse of professional football in the Candelarias. Financed by and named for the Samseong corporation, the TSS took quite some years from receiving the green light from Albrecht City Council and the first bricks being laid to finally being ready for football, further building working paralysed largely as a result of political and economic instability in the Han Empire.

After many months of staring up at the misshapen monstrosity that became known as “Pak’s Folly”, more a home for the capital’s underclass and urban fauna than top-level sport, the stadium did eventually see the light of day – and was quickly confirmed as one of the finest in the region. At 88,800 seats it is by far the largest in C&M, dwarfing the Solidarity Stadium built for Albrecht Turkish.

The amenities within its bowls – gift shops, club museums, a food court and mini-mall (much to the amusement of locals yet to encounter such strange, foreign terminology), the rebuilt Bucket of Rabbits pub that formally sat on the site and was incorporated into a third-tier box – are on a far grander scale than anything the Candelarias had seen before. The then state-of-the-art biosynthetic turf resulted in a pitch capable of withstanding almost any weather condition and the wear-and-tear of any number of consecutive matches, concerts and anything else the new national stadium could be utilised for. Intended to host the plurality of C&M international home games as well as Scorpions matches, the stadium’s seat covers used polychromatic pigments that could be shifted remotely between Albrecht FC red, C&M blue or a neutral white.

Built with the principals of feng shui held in mind, the stadium’s main entrance is built into the east stand to welcome the rising sun (and to help avoid the evening sun getting in the eyes of the massed ranks of supporters in the new Lenpy in the west stand), and externally carries distinctive hallmarks of oriental architecture. The surrounding Songstress Park is one of the largest in downtown Albrecht, replete with miles of running and walking paths, a swimming pool and community football pitches.

The TSS was located close to the then offices of the CAMAFA (largely destroyed during rioting during World Cup 51) and the club’s previous home, the Millerman Sheppard Stadium – the fondly remembered but less than atmospheric old ground initially remaining under the club’s control to house its training facilities and reserve-come-feeder team, the MSS Scorpions. The Scorpions Academy sat opposite but this, along with the MSS itself, was demolished in 2017 to make way for housing. The TSS still stands and is faithfully maintained for its role as a major music venue, but has seen little sporting action over the past decade.

Notable CMSC1 International Era players
Goalkeepers
 * Arian
 * Harry Rosalia
 * Stefan Santamaria
 * Paolo Thorpe
 * Reuben Uwakwe

Defenders
 * Benji Fu
 * Bart Graves
 * Matthew Logan
 * Loren Meyer
 * Francois St. Louis
 * Ignacius Sverus
 * Kieron Tomlinson
 * Naoki Tonnelier
 * Valete
 * Gijs Van Aulen
 * Marc Vilito
 * William
 * Sam Young

Midfielders
 * Matteo Corradini
 * Nicola D’Ancona
 * Ben Edwards
 * Ryan Edwards
 * Fred Foster
 * Go Songji
 * Adam Kouakou Kouamé
 * Jack Marshall
 * George Morrison
 * Jesse Nakatsuru
 * Xavier Tekeste
 * Luís Enrique Torrealba
 * Ben Zec

Forwards
 * Joe Cunningham
 * Steven Fritz
 * Fahmi Hamizi
 * Kim Daeeui
 * Kim Mihyeon
 * Cas Richardson
 * Peter Vanderpent
 * Wanderley