[Boromir88]

TWO TOWERS NETWORK
Boromir the 88th

The Minas Tirith squad returned home after their hard fought defeat to Eriador. While, certainly, there are no parades for those teams eliminated in the quarter-finals, the mood around Gondor was less grim than normal. The football players were greeted in the streets of the City, as interested fans were already trying to get the low down on next year's tournament and what moves will Minas Tirith make to progress further.

Our TTN team was able to schedule a sit-down interview with Minas Tirith's defender, and captain, Cirion.

TTN: First, we would all at the White City, like to congradulate you on your club's performance in the Arda Cup. Last year was rough on the folks of this realm, but it seems that both squads are in capable management and heading in the right direction.

Cirion: Thank you. Indeed, we are feeling good enough about what we accomplished this year. Mind you, we are not content with merely making the quarter-finals, our objective each year is to put out a solid group of players that can compete for the Cup. But, it's always a positive when you can defeat your rival, Sauron, and there was the added bonus of going into Morgoth's territory and getting the victory. The boys gave a heroic effort, and left the better team that day.

There is a bit of disappointment, because we truly felt like we could knock off Eriador and get to the semis. And how about this, we could be playing Erebor right now, another team I think we could have stood firm against. I mean, it's honestly not out of the question we could have been to the finals this year. Eriador doesn't have the flash as the other teams remaining, but they are playing some excellent football right now. Elrond's got the defense in lockdown mode, not to mention Elrond himself. Erebor can't get cocky simply because they knocked out the favorites this year.

TTN: Surely, finishing with a nice bit of profit helps curtail the disappointment of losing to Eriador?

Cirion: *chuckles* It does help having flexibility, extra options, and not having to be overly concerned with hacking costs.

TTN: What then can we expect Minas Tirith to look like next year? This year you went with the interesting equal-salaries approach and it seems the players responded well.

Cirion: They truly did. Salaries are likely trending back, and in truth while it's nice to end in the black, it's a relatively low, 7 million profit. That's not a lot of room to make a big splash in the free agency blitz. We're probably going to scale back most of our players salaries from 8 mil to 7 next year. This will give us some more room and add a needed player or two.

TTN: Who are you going to target?

Cirion: Come now, you know better then to ask me that question at this stage in the game. Everything is preliminary, but I do feel we could use a horse and its rider. Now, I'll let you all go to speculate on all our future transactions.

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