Top Flight

Soccer was one of the most popular sports across all galaxies. It's majestic beauty made many want to play it and even more want to watch it.

Jeppe Jurgen was one of the most elite coaches in the Ohörg galaxy. With his creative play style, he had earned himself one of the most sought after jobs in the galaxy. But the entirety of his success had always been founded on one of the best squads in the top league of twenty teams.

While Coach Jeppe had an incredibly successful first few years, he would greatly suffer when his board failed to pay the entirety of their portion of the UOFA (United Ohörg Football Association) fees. This would result in a five-year transfer ban and a three-year ban from all Ohörg competitions, except for the league matches. This would result in the club losing out on tons of potential prize money.

As the club was losing money, top players wanted to leave the club to compete in the biggest competition in soccer: Galaxy League. Which would benefit the team, because they could no longer afford to maintain such high-profile players. The ban would result in Coach Jeppe having to sell eight of his starters and a few of his prime reserves. His squad was gutted, and by the end of the ban, the team from Hertha was only in the fourth league, and Coach Jurgen would finally be fired.

While he may have never won any competitions, including even topping the league, Coach Jurgen was still highly thought of in the football world. Often finishing in the top half of the toughest division in all of football was no easy feat, but he had his players to thank for that. He inherited a tremendous team, and he rode all of his best players to a pretty good decade as a manger, but it wasn't enough for the richest owner in all of soccer.

The owner expected more from his managers after giving them the largest war chest ever seen by any club, but Jeppe didn't spend his money wisely. Of the twenty or so players he brought in over the span of eight years, only one of them proved worthy to even remain on one of the highest paid teams in the galaxy.

Jurgen's disastrous spell during the ban had been highly spoken about. While he had no chance to bring in any good, established players, the board thought he should have done better and at least maintained a spot in the highest league. The board was slow to fire him, though. He had a massive pedigree.

As one of the greatest players to ever play for the best team in Hertha history, which had been in league one for over fifty years, which was the longest streak any modern era team had ever accomplished, Coach Jurgen was showed a great amount of leniency. The board desperately wanted to keep him, because he had done so well for a good while. Many believed Jeppe was hired as a coach too soon. Most coaches didn't make the leap to become managers of great teams right after retirement from the role of player. But Jeppe convinced the board of the Hertha Citizens he was prepared for the role.

Recently fired, Jeppe knew he wouldn't have nearly as prestigious a role as his twelve years with the Citizens. But he was on the market for a new job, and he hoped he could get into a better league than the fourth league. But he knew he wouldn't be paid even half what he was making.

Coach Jurgen had a lavish lifestyle to uphold, he had his own personal ship, an expensive wife, and expensive relationships to maintain. Surprisingly, he had a magnitude of suitors, but they were all in either different, lower-ranking leagues or for this one team on Earth whose owner somehow knew about the league. With not many great options, he would have to either travel fifty years into space to become the manager of a team that could not even be a team by the time he made it to Earth or work in a lower league.

He waited a few more months for the end of the season to come, because he knew there would be more managerial positions available at the end of the year. With his eyes on one of the more lucrative jobs in league two, the team might have been a Frithe team, but it was certainly his best option. With the current coach of the Gerak team having a horrible season and discussing retiring at the end of the season, Coach Jurgen had a great chance, because he had a track record of proven success when having a strong squad.

Jeppe Jurgen flirted with a few teams in varying leagues that all paid the same, but he wanted more than everything to redeem himself. While he was still a relatively popular coach, none of the top league teams would even give him a chance. He would have to work his way back up to prove he was a talented manager.

The way each league worked, although they varied in the terms of how many teams were in each one, was that each team played every other team two times, once at home and once away. There were twenty teams in the top league, but most leagues had twenty-four. The bottom three teams in each league would be demoted to the league below, except for the very bottom league, they had nowhere to go but up. And the top three teams from each league would be promoted to the league above them, except for the top league, as they were already in the highest league. But the top four teams from the top league in ten different galaxies would be given a chance the following year to compete in the most prestigious competition in the universe.

It was known as the Galaxy League. While it didn't involve every galaxy, it was the only intergalactic competition, and teams from ten galaxies would compete in competition. It was the largest football competition in all of the universe, and players from all over the surrounding galaxies dreamed of winning it, but Jeppe had only qualified for the competition two times in his twelve years as head coach for the Hertha Citizens.

In Galaxy League, the forty teams are randomly placed into four groups of ten. Each team in one group plays the other nine teams twice, once home and once away. The top two teams from each group move on to the quarter finals, where they will have to play two games, one home fixture and one away fixture. The semifinals are conducted the same way, but the final is one match on neutral ground, set in different places each year. Coach Jurgen finished dead last in during his group stage, and never returned to the competition again.