From Hero to Zero, From Fame to Shame – FUJ at European Finals

The journey

---

In several articles I have mapped our journey through this year’s season. It all started in Hamburg, where we were able to take down German National team. We then easily qualified to Czech Championships, followed by successful qualification to European Championships. We then again quite effortlessly wen through The Czech Championships. Finally the end of the season was here. The European Championships and our vision of possible top 8 breached.

Day 1

---

At most of the tournaments, last day is what counts. The first day usually just decides the seeding and the second day is full of elimination matches. Here it was the exact opposite. Since we are part of the worst region, we had to finish 1st or 2nd to make it to the upper bracket matches. We were part of the group with CUSB from Bolognia (finalists from last year and the year before that too), RealFive (unknown Russian team) and KFK(second best Denmark team, last year reached top 8). The group didn’t seem easy, but this was European Finals after all. Easy matches were not expected.

RealFIve

The worst team in the group was waiting for us for our first game. All the confidence we had before the tournament suddenly disappeared. We certainly did not look like a team deserving to be at the European Finals. We had more than 10 drops and many more unforced errors. Not only that though, we also got hand-blocked AT LEAST 6 times. With those numbers one can’t possibly win. Despite all of those errors we were still fighting for a win, but ultimately went down 11:13

CUSB

We knew that we had to win both of the remaining matches. Net opponent was one of the best European teams that was never defeated by us. Hell we weren’t even close as far as I remember. There was no better time to break that losing streak. The wind was reaching the highest speed I have ever witnessed during a match. Trying to attack against the wind was like trying to make your way up against a hurricane. CUSB had the slightly upper hand throughout the game. They managed to break us several times up wind and forced our offence to score upwind too. They though always managed to do so and our defence always took back the break right away evening the game up. This has happened 3 times. Since we started on offence we had advantage of 1 offence (if the teams are trading points all game long the team that starts on the offence wins the game). And it actually came to that. We were attacking DOWN WIND for a win against CUSB. It was heart-breaking and I was so nervous I was actually watching, I just heard the screams few minutes later. We have done it! No one expected us to beat them, but at that moment we have become the heroes of the tournament, because taking down team that continuously reaches the finals is just out of this world. 14:13 was the final score.

KFK

Only half of the job was done though. Since no one in the group would be able to defeat CUSB and we knew it, it was either first or last place in the group depending on the outcome of this match. Again our offence struggled quite a bit. The confidence that is always helping us the most was gone once again. The match was pretty even. We actually still had the upper hand despite the fact that it was not held confidently. There was though one difference between us. Not often I vote for 0 in fair mindedness in Spirit of the game but it has happened this time. Before the match both sides agreed on shoulder to shoulder body contact as not only acceptable, but encouraged “way to play”. During the game there where three situations, where our team managed to get completely clean defensive bids, that were called by the opposition as fouls. Those situation where in quite crucial moments and from my point of view were perfect display of non-fair behaviour. We ultimately fell down 12:14 and claimed the last spot in the group. That meant that the best place still claimable by us was 19th (or something like that I didn’t really care at that point).

Day 2-3

---

The rest of the matches weren’t really important. Sure they were still (mostly) tough matches, but nor we, or the enemies were fully motivated, since there was nothing to play for anymore. Everyone was disappointed (as expected) after failing the group stage. Out of the 3 reaming matches we have won 2. There really was nothing to interesting about the matches. The tournament has basically ended for all of us the very first day.

The dream is dead…long live the dream

---

The dream of top 8 has crumbled again. This year it hurts even more, since we actually took down one of the best teams in Europe. The oldest and most skilled players of the team still have at least 2-4 years in their prime effectivity, so very similar roster will still have quite some chances to reach the goal. My mind is currently analysing all the stuff that we need to work on. There are though so many points, that I will take a detailed look at every single one of the in the following post.

The truth is that we have enjoyed the tournament greatly despite the fact that it was a failure. Last year our coach decided that since we failed we are going to party together and it seems like the rule will stand with us forever. We finished every single day with several joints and beers (well we always do, but during this time a bit more to fight off the sadness). We got to know each other better with this year’s new recruits and celebrated this season’s end together. I know one thing for certain, next year we will be even more pumped and we will train even harder.

---