"The Fall - Hugo" #FM20

Part III

June 2023

Operation Isabella was the systematic removal of all known Russian presence in South America, the drugs trade was thrown up in the air. Whilst Chepiga thought he had taken out Bastardo’s Caporegime, he had not considered the ever-increasing Venezuelan army. They called us ‘The Free Folk’, untraceable loyal partisans ready to do Ángel Bastardo’s bidding. From all over Central and South America, we operated in unison…silo-by-silo the presence of Chepiga was removed. In its place, a more Mercosur focused regime was implemented: we’d take on the business of the drug trade but the money would no longer drift away across the Atlantic Ocean.

My instructions were to head to Mexico in order to broker a deal with the Sinaloa Cartel, and it’s here where the great Ángel Bastardo wanted his battle to resume. Operation Isabella signalled the end of Ángel Bastardo, Peñarol & La Celeste, the succession without himself as our leader. It takes a brave man to plan for this, but that’s what he was. I watched the incarceration of Bastardo live on TV, the Americans keen to broadcast and humiliate him to a global guidance. Yet he remained brave, I could see it.

Despite being in prison, Bastardo’s plan so far had been faultless…with the most pivotal moment, in his words, still to come. On the outskirts of Sinaloa’s biggest city, Culiacán, we had set up camp 34 days ago. We had been asked to reside next to an old watchtower overlooking a basin where a large river once meandered, in its place a small stream remained. It’s here where Bastardo’s instructions became meticulous in detail, offering an insight into the military mind of a seasoned commander.

The water was to be drained 100m upstream every night for exactly 5 hours at a time. Likewise, the watchtower brick-by-brick was reconstructed onto an enormous wooden wheeled trolley…this had to move 3 meters each night towards the site of where our drainage took place, with candles emitting a light from dusk till dawn to signify it’s occupancy.

Yesterday, on the 34th day, the written instructions in Operation Isabella told me to call the Tijuana Cartel of Baja California; to inform them of our agreement with Sinaola and offer an extension and future partnership between all three groups. The watchtower would be tonight’s meeting place, where the particulars would be discussed and agreed…but betrayal was Bastardo’s prediction. Sensing pressure from the other border states and upsetting the status quo, the site would be a massacre…one instigated by the Tijuana henchman. Outgunned and outnumbered, my mixture of Venezuelans and Uruguayans would rally behind the watchtower, along with Sinaloan representatives. We would face the Tijuana Cartel and the accompanying river that had now been starved of it’s most precious resource: water. The land was a nightmarish illusion, solid until pressure is met: quicksand.

It was by far one of Tijuana’s boldest moves on Culiacán soil since the Mexican Drug War began, around 50 soldiers advanced on the watchtower. Except the soil was now to the Sinaloa advantage, gunshots were traded back and forth towards the watchtower, but the mobile shooters now belonged to me. The Free Folk strafed around the watchtower and quicksand, encircling the Tijuana Cartel until we were behind them. It now looked like death by gunshot was the honourable solution for the men from Baja California, as men drifted into the abyss of mud. For 35 days of preparation, the shootout was over in no time at all. Sinaloa had secured a key victory in their quest for border control. The Sinaloan’s ultimate goal: to manage the San Diego–Tijuana conurbation, the largest urban link between the United States and Mexico.

Bastardo’s Mexican ambitions? Well, I guess we all were Bastardo now. Our aim is to undermine the United States, on our path to prosperity, and to honour the man that gave us freedom back in the Colombian jungle…

…I am Hugo Ojeda. I am Bastardo.

Note from the Editor - Mexico is where we now reside. I haven’t revealed the Football Manager element to our story just yet, that’s for one final [more serious] post to come. But I wanted to lay the ground properly, for what I hope will be a 4-5 season save before FM21 comes out (*pandemic dependant, of course). Hugo Ojeda will be our manager, a 20-year-old Venezuelan refugee who balances Bastardo’s splintered Empire on his young shoulders.

Can he keep it together, in the middle of a Cartel Drug War, and make a success of it all? I hope you can join me to find out.

As always, thanks for reading/sharing/caring.

FM Grasshopper

"The Fall - Ruslan" #FM20

Part II

July 2022

Chepiga squinted at the monitor, the footage was grainy but he could see just enough detail, he wondered if the radiation was robbing him of his eyesight. He marvelled at what would be his biggest shipment yet, perhaps his last. He pondered, should he pull this off, he would have enough money to buy his freedom and live his life in peace. In the same moment he also thought, if he pulled this off, why stop there?

Chepiga gazed longingly at the inside of his new Soviet Stealth Submarine, he would give anything to be on that Sub. He’d acquired it for $15million from a crooked former Soviet general, who had stolen it back in 1991. This one shipment would pay for the submarine three times over.

His most trusted operatives had set off from Santa Marta, Colombia, two days ago with $45million worth of product. Chepiga still had friends in Punta Alegre, Cuba and his men took refuge there overnight before setting off for the Florida Everglades. Chepiga planned to watch the final leg of the operation live, from Pripyat.

There was a flicker of excitement in Chepiga’s stomach as the submarine dived down 50metres. All was well, the submarine was performing beautifully. Suddenly Chepiga could see a flurry of activity, “we’ve been detected, they know we are here, DIVE! DIVE!” The link was suddenly lost…

August 2022

“Listen Chepiga, someone is going away for this. You cannot continue to protect that terrorist scum. You must give him up, if you do, you have our word you can continue with your Colombian operation. We do not care about a few tonnes of drugs, our citizens need a release, we care about the men that have spilt American blood. We care about Bastardo.” Chepiga sat confused, unsure how to leverage himself out of this.  His interrogator was a pregnant woman, he had no point of reference or commonality with her. It was clever, the Americans were always ahead of us in ‘clean’ interrogation techniques, he thought.

Chepiga looked around the cold room, he’d been in plenty of similar rooms over his lifetime but never was he as weak as he felt now. He’d taken to mapping the night sky for the last 14 evenings through the tiny slit in his cell. He was certain he was in the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba, Guantanamo. The situation was worse than he’d feared. The Americans could hold him here indefinitely, nobody is coming to save him. They have threatened to parade him on Fox News with the Submarine covered in Soviet insignia. He was on his own. It was time to negotiate, to play any card he had left.

December 2022

Chepiga and the FBI agents were lurking in one of the shadow stairway exits of the Lusail Stadium.  There were around another fifteen groups, at the exit points of Qatar’s showpiece stadium. Uruguay would not defeat Die Mannschaft in the Last 16, Bastardo was a good manager but his insistence on playing 4-1-3-2 would be his downfall; Chepiga was sure of that. The bust would be tonight at Full-Time.

There was no backing out now, Chepiga had agreed with the Americans to capture Bastardo if he ever left Uruguay, and he knew the Americans would not risk arresting Bastardo in South America. Time and again he warned his old friend, “stay away”, “don’t come to Qatar” among his many messages of warning.

Bastardo ignored them all, his over-confidence annoyed Ruslan. The Argentine had found a moral purpose in Uruguay: to care for the Venezuelan refugees that refused to leave him after Colombia.  But it’s not what Chepiga originally tasked, Project Peñarol was Bastardo’s doing…he had outgrown his original purpose in Uruguay: the management of the Under 20 National Team. 

The shrill of the full-time whistle faded into the still desert air, so did Chepiga’s sympathy for his friend. He had brought this upon himself. It is him or me, his final thought as he strode onto the pitch. AK-47 raised and loaded.

Chepiga had two objectives, to capture Bastardo alive and hand him over to the FBI thus…saving his own skin today. His second objective was to execute Hugo Ojeda. The youngster had become a man, rising up the ranks of Bastardo’s Underworld to sit in the Argentine’s inner circle. Chepiga knew he’d come after him if he ever lived past this evening, killing him was the only way to save his tomorrow self.

Chepiga would only fire three shots, he felt remarkably calm in these situations. Time moved so slow, slow enough to avoid Cavani’s amateurish attempts to stop him. Ruslan’s first shot found its mark, the legs of Hugo Ojeda, shattering his Femur and leaving him prone in the centre circle. Chepiga approached like a snake who had just delivered a venomous bite to rodent. He lifted the young man’s head, his long curly hair soaked in sweat. “Who are you?” growled Chepiga.

“I am Bastardo!” Spat the youngster, defiant, even now. Chepiga remembered the jungle where he first met the boy, he was now a man but he’d seen those eyes before, he was sure it was him. He raised his side arm and executed the youngster.  Hugo Ojeda was history.

Making his way towards the dug out where Bastardo was re-loading, Chepiga gave the order, “Take him now!” A flash grenade wasn’t his preferred choice but the Americans were in charge now.

It hurt to see his old comrade dragged from the stadium, he wished he could go back to the Jungle, he wished his old ally had heeded his warnings. Alas, there would be no glorious “Return to La Plata” for Bastardo this time, not while the Americans had him.

Note from the Editor - Both FM Eadster and I wanted to provide a bit of background around Bastardo’s arrest. Not only does it allow Chris to flesh out his beautifully constructed character a bit more, we also get to see the moral conflict in the Bastardo-Ruslan shared Universe. Ángel Bastardo was given a second chance at the beginning of FM20, but we quickly saw him outgrow his original remit. On the one hand he grew more of a conscious over the previous 4 years of in-game time…but his lifestyle had him drawn back him into the Underworld of contraband and drug trafficking.

Kudos to Chris for the submarine backstory off the Florida Keys coastline and the murder of ‘Hugo Ojeda’. As Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish once said in Game Of Thrones: “Money buys a man’s silence for a time. A bolt in the heart buys it forever”. The only problem is, you need to make sure you get the right man…

Thanks for reading/sharing/caring,

FM Grasshopper

"The Fall - Ángel" #FM20

Part I

December 2022

The boy pretending to be Hugo Ojeda fell first, a shot fired from one of the stands behind the Uruguayan dugout hitting him in the legs.  Bastardo retreated, as more bodies fell around him in all different directions; their falls painting Bastardo's black blazer red as he ran for the dugout.  Covering fire and momentarily relief was provided by an Edinson Cavani volley from a semi-automatic weapon, smuggled in by Bastardo's backroom staff.  The 153 capped Striker’s screams for Uruguay silenced by the advancing FBI.  Their recognisable attire now standing out in a rapidly emptying stadium.

The dugout had become a hollow shell of broken bodies and plastic, the desperate fire from Bastardo's guns was inaccurate and increasingly sparse.  Bastardo tucked himself amongst the broken chairs for one final reload, but before he could send off his last round…a deafening high pitch tone followed the brightest of lights: a flash bomb.  The silence that followed confirmed the end for Bastardo's defence.  He could not see past the whiteness; the only sense remaining was the feel of their boots trampling over his lifeless body.  His grip of the pistol loosened.  Then all of the light faded into darkness.

Some moments later, Ángel Bastardo woke in an interrogation room. The walls were a worn pale grey, with a steel door at the end and an accompanying one-way mirror for whoever lurked behind. The aches in his bones were reminiscent of the first time he met Ruslan Chepiga in the Russian Winter. Think about the Devil and he shall appear…the steel door unbolting from the outside and rotated inwards, revealing Russia’s dark artist: Chepiga.

His attire remained immaculate. He had walked across that skirmish of gunfire without getting a single splash of blood or dirt on his suit. Bastardo on the other hand was a walking corpse, the blood of fallen comrades painted across him. Reminders of the fallen.

Bastardo could not hold back his distaste for the once-ally-turned-ultimate-betrayer:

“Hijo de puta” Bastardo said defiantly. But in truth, even forcing those words out hurt. His rib cage stopping his usual deep breathing, a 46-year-old body shutting down.

“Now now Ángel. You were warned about coming here. Your actions forced my hand” Ruslan replied. Bastardo always suspected the threats leading up to the World Cup tournament were Ruslan’s. They were phone calls with automated messages, often simple statements of ‘STAY AWAY’ or ‘AVOID QATAR’. The phone location could never be re-traced, despite Bastardo’s caporegime doing their best to investigate.

“And now what? You kill me?”. The relief of a quick short end was now somewhat appealing to Bastardo.

“You wanted that last time, remember...in the jungle?” Ruslan’s words were softly spoken, only growing slightly more audible as he approached Bastardo. “Comrade, you will not die. All this is a game to me…a bit like chess. I see the board, and it’s all equal; each side has 16 pieces: one King and Queen, two bishops, two knights, two rooks and eight pawns”. Ruslan moved closer to the fallen heap that was once Ángel Bastardo, kneeling beside him…he continued: “I like the equilibrium Comrade. It’s predictable and safe...everybody knows their place in the game”.

Bastardo’s chest rallied for another question: “And I am your pawn now?”

“Ha. You overlook my admiration for you Comrade. Truly, you do. You’re not a pawn, far from it: you’re the Queen. You make the moves they can all do, and the ones they can’t, you upset the order of things. Too powerful to be left uncontrolled. If left, you’d no doubt rule again like what happened in Africa or what you’re starting to do in your adopted country, Uruguay.

So, we take you out of the game for a bit. Maybe, for a long time whilst you sit in an American jail. Perhaps we never play chess again, and you remain with the Americans for good. It’s all about finding the balance Comrade. Making sure I, Ruslan Chepiga, and my party profit from this game”

Ruslan smiled and placed an arm on Bastardo, his ice cold touch startling the fever that now raged within Bastardo: “Comrade, your men are dead. In and outside of the stadium, we took care of them. Your manboy too, Hugo…was it? He fell, I made sure of it out there on the pitch. Your legacy is dead Comrade”.

Ruslan picked himself up effortlessly and headed to the door. Bastardo accepted his fate, with the smile it deserved…shuffling to face his judge, jury and executioner. He spoke to the Russian one last time…summoning the final bit of strength he had left to air his words:

“I’m not scared of the fall Ruslan; I’ve hit the ground before”.

Ruslan Chepiga ignored the words and disappeared with the door slamming shut. In truth, the fall did worry him…but Bastardo had sensed betrayal long before this World Cup. He thought of Hugo Ojeda, the boy who will need to grow up fast in order to become a man. The man who would be responsible for Operation Isabella; who will need to lead and ensure that Bastardo doesn’t fade from memory.

That man was alive. Somewhere.

Notes from the Editor - Firstly, thanks to FMEadster…who has allowed me to use his character of Ruslan Chepiga in this way. This story arc has been in development and foreshadowed in my writing for around 18 real-life months, which I had planned as my FM20 conclusion. But the narrative of the in-game 2022 World Cup accelerated this particular scene; Bastardo was always going to have his immediate future dictated by one of Russia’s greatest Superior Agents. This is it.

We’ll explore more on the reasoning and act of betrayal within my next part of “The Fall”. An insight into the mind of Ruslan Chepiga, which will be written by Chris Eadie himself. After that, we’ll have more on Operation Isabella in Part III, which will move our story forward.

I hope you enjoy the escapism of these posts, as much as I had fun putting them together.

FM Grasshopper