Here's the repost of some of my ideas, so that people may see some examples of formats that they could use.
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Born to a French-speaking family of poor fishermen in the southernmost Malagasy town of Androka, Jérôme Dutertre had idealized football from an early age, with his grandfather making him a sock ball that they would kick around their boat during their nightly fishing trips. The conflict within the young man grew with each passing day, however - should he inherit his family's long-standing and respected occupation or should he try to make a name for himself by pursuing a career in football?
Remembering his grandfathers final words to him before his passing from old age, Dutertre decided for the latter option. He quickly joined the ranks of Marianne GSC, a small, predominantly Romance-speaking football club named after the infamous Benjamin Hornigold's ship. Once there, he was quickly inducted into the defence because of his large and muscular build, but it was not for long.
Dutertre cites that his desire to join the Free Malagasy Navy plagued him for most of his short-lived career, as many of his uncles and grand-uncles joined its ranks and made great careers for themselves across the world's oceans. In the end, his dissipating enthusiasm for sportsmanship resulted in his ever-growing ache for the seas winning over, and he left the club.
"It was a painful decision, but one I had to make and I've never regretted since.", he is quoted as saying in a 2019 interview. In the navy, Dutertre's spirit for defence and valor quickly shone through, as he became one of the many sailors credited with diffusing the infamous 1999 Malagasy-Indian Naval Crisis, when a group of Indian-backed pirates assaulted the Malagasy patrol close to the Horn of Africa for a full month before the diplomatic channels were successfully opened and the crisis resolved.
His bravery and calm made him a national star overnight, but Dutertre remained determined that only the seas were his to enjoy, yet melancholy persisted. The sweet calling of soil became too much to bear upon his witnessing his crew members partaking in a football match atop their ship's deck. "Damn them.", he mentioned while grinning from ear to ear in a pre-AHFA 2020 Q&A session, "Just when I thought I had it all figured out, that pesky ball up and comes out of nowhere!"
In 2014, he was invited by the board of his former club to perhaps reconsider his calling and join Marianne as its manager. Out of nowhere and much to the shock of everyone, Dutertre accepted. His unique sense of leadership and determination quickly endeared him to the players, and he had done what many thought was impossible - in only four seasons, he had moved the small team most Malagasy had never even heard of up into the Free People's Premier League, an unprecedented achievement in the club's 104 year-long history. In the 2017/2018 season, Marianne had ended up in the center of the table, again surprising many experts and becoming one of the favorite clubs for the people of the world to bet on.
In 2018, Dutertre was invited to become the manager of
Madagascar. Up until then, the Peoples' Football Association of Madagascar was mostly content with remaining a regional power, enjoying the closeness and playstyle of its African brethren, but Dutertre dreamed of something greater. He quickly went to work and made another miracle come to life - having his team qualify for the 2020 World Cup.
"It was an infuriating amount of work, but it was nothing the boys could not have done!" he said merrily in April 2020. Now, Madagascar stands as one of the underdogs of the tournament, with the vast majority of experts predicting its unceremonious exit from the group stage, but Dutertre and his players do not care at all. "We have already achieved everything that we have wanted, and to participate in such a grand event that celebrates diversity and freedom... Well, there is no gold in the world that could convince me not to feel like the happiest man alive."
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Since an early age, Ignjat Sorgo had shown what kind of a man he would go on to become. As the second son of the head of the main branch of one of Ragusa's oligarchic families, the only thing Sorgo was accustomed to was splendor and never taking no for an answer. Many believe he was spoiled rotten by his family, who knew no bounds when it came to their favorite son. As a way of showing his power, young Ignjat was allowed to practice football in the most popular Ragusan club of Sloga, located in the nation's capital of Dubrovnik.
While there, Sorgo would butt heads with players that were not of noble birth, with a particular audio tape from early 2010 that has him allegedly call many of his own teammates "low-born maggots and brainless barbarians". Of course, Sorgo has vehemently denied the accusations ever since then, but some evidence of his guilt may be the fact that he left Sloga only months after the leak for a lucrative contract in Macedon, where he would join Galata, a well-known club from Vizantion, the City on Two Continents. Having grown bored of the Old World rather quickly, Sorgo would move to New Holland, signing a contract many believed was millions-heavy and a likely machination of his father Luca.
His penchant for expensive things would not endear him to anyone, and during his stay in Mauritsstad, the capital of New Holland, his art collection would begin to number hundreds upon hundreds of paintings ranging from the 13th century all the way to the present. While playing for Fortuna, Sorgo, a well-known Ragusan nationalist, stated in an infamous 2013 interview that he "would never join a filthy Venetian club in a million years", which many cite as the reason that his alleged contract with at least a couple notable Venetian clubs never went through. Some even believe that Alvise Bernardi, President of the Venetian Football Association, introduced an informal ban on any kind of Sorgo's participation in the nation's football, even including Venetian clubs that may attempt to recruit him.
Unfazed by this, Sorgo sought greener pastures in the Confederate States of America, where he would settle in Orlando and quickly make himself a favorite of both the public while chasing the ball on the pitch, as well as the old planter class whose social circles he had introduced himself to fairly quickly and got on with them splendidly.
Ignjat Sorgo remains a controversial figure in both Ragusan and world football, but none can deny his technique and skill with the ball. It remains to be seen what may become of
Ragusan national football team's participation in the 2020 AHFA World Cup, as many critics point out that prohibiting low-born Ragusans from becoming members of the national team may only doom their efforts and hopes of greater success in both this tournament and in the future.
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Anne Bonny was only one of the many famous pirates who had abandoned their strongold at Nassau, West Indies, after Governor Woodes Rogers' violent crackdown on privateers and buccaneers alike. The exiles would sail along the western coasts of Africa, plundering and razing everything they found within their pistols' reach. Once they sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, some of the pirates began to question their purpose, leaving the captains to debate internally how to settle the matter. The ones wishing to find new land to build a New Nassau won over the plunderers just barely, and Anne was part of the winning faction. Having lost her captain and lover Jack Rackham, otherwise known as Calico Jack, in one of the storms during their campaign along Africa's coast, Bonny just barely saved Rackham's ship from certain demise, thus also shattering the image of women being bad omens on ships. Calico Jack's crew quickly took a liking to Bonny thanks to her incredible feat.
In the late 1710s, the pirates would land on Madagascar and quickly work their way into the populace's hearts, which put them into conflict with the tribal chiefs of the Malagasy island. Undeterred, the pirates' complex network of alliances would only grow in the coming years, having expanded in a series of wars that led to them controlling most of the central and southern parts of the island by the 1750s.
Anne would, during these wars, work extensively on freeing the slaves and the chained peoples found on Madagascar, Africa's eastern coast and sometimes even the Indian Ocean at large. No one is certain about her motivations, but many sources do say that at least seventy slave ships were liberated by Bonny and her crew, and some sources even going as far as citing one-hundred and fifty. This course of action would only increase in fervor and frequency in the waning days of her career. As such, an interesting term had emerged to describe the people that Bonny had freed from their shackles of oppression and who decided to make Madagascar their home - Old Anney's Children. Even to this day, circa 2.7% of the Malagasy population deems itself the descendants of Old Anney's Children, an achievement that made Bonny's status legendary in Malagasy history books and national memory.