FUJ has qualified for European Finals in Ultimate Frisbee 3rd time in raw!

fingersik (66)in #sport • 7 years ago (edited)

Every single year FUJ compete for a spot on European Finals. Last years we have managed to do so, therefore this year we wouldn’t be satisfied with anything but another qualification. Long story short – WE DID IT! Where would the fun be without knowing the story though? I even found some photos of last matches!

If you guys have no idea what Ultimate Frisbee is, go and check my older post where I tried to explain why is the sport so epic.

For the first time the qualification was 3 days long (Friday-Sunday). That proved to be problematic because the older part of our team had problems getting off the work, therefore out roster for the first day was significantly weakened. At the same time the strongest opponents were waiting for us that very day.

Our opponent for the first match were our good frisbee friends from Graz (Austria) Catchup. Lacking our main handlers we screwed so many deep passes that we couldn’t possibly expect anything but a loss. The stadium was in this weird dead air region that ended roughly at 1/3 of the field, therefore every deep pass that went over that threshold was pushed to the moon. Despite that the game was pretty even. 12-15 was the final score.

Second game was against our regional rival Forward. I don’t know how these guys do it, but they always win qualification in our region. In Amsterdam month ago we even managed to beat them like 15:4 or so. Anyway this time, when it really counted we didn’t pull it off again. After 13:15 loss we knew that we will have to climb the fuckin ladder to get to the finals.

2 matches were behind us and 6 ahead of us. If we wanted to qualify, we needed to win ALL of the upcoming games. Not an easy task. 540 minutes of the most intensive moments of our lives were ahead of us and after good night’s sleep were more than ready.

Third game was yet again against Austrian team (third time in raw lol) BigEz. The game was a struggle for both sides for good half of the match. Then we finally woke up and crushed them. BigEz used to be a really good team that seems to be suffering from departure of the old generation. 15:10

Fourth game was against Moira. Polish team with witch FUJ has great mutual respect. They did some unforced errors in the beginning of the match and made the game easier for us. Even though they fucked up the beginning they managed to climb back. They caught up with us but were unable to ever be on the winning side thought the game. Both teams were trading points until the very end, when we managed to break them for the win 15:13

Fifth game was kinda easy. Team from Slovakia, nowhere near the European level got destroyed pretty fast 15:6.

Every European qualification every Saturday FUJ attends its traditional All you can eat (aka all FUJ can eat. It comes with plenty of advantages. It’s fun, one doesn’t really need to eat breakfast the following day and one falls asleep almost immediately after returning to the camp.

Sixth game was against a well-known team Prague Devils. Lately we have dethroned them from supposedly best Czech team and nothing would make us happier that day than confirming it. They though refuse to make a mistake for almost an entire match. So did us though. After constant pressure from our best defensive players we finally forced them to do some errors right at the end and took the hard win. 15:13

Moira was waiting for again for the seventh match. Those guys really wanted to make it to the finals. And they truly deserved it. The game was of a different level.

Sometimes all you can do is sit and watch

It wasn’t a clean game. Offences quite often lost possession of the disc and even got broke. Fortunately both sides were doing so. I felt really good during the game, since I was defending a guy we call “train”. I was in his head always knowing where he would go putting my body in his way. And he as a good train tried to run through me all the time. He got the disc like once during the whole time I was defending him. Most of us played our best game of the tournament actually.

For example there was no such place where our octopus wouldn’t be able to get the disc

After what felt like longest 90 minutes of my life we emerged victorious from the Universe point. 15:14. sadly we sent Moira home. They really deserved the spot in the Finals.

This was it. The Eight deciding game against Insiders (waaait for it…Austrian team again). Sadly it was quite an exhibition. They only had 11 players after suffering some injuries and playing tournament of such a scale with such a roster is just impossible.

Looks like a losing battle right?

Not really – clearly because of the cheering number 16 pulled off

Behold my ass! Once again a failed defensive bid

I admire those who can laugh while playing

15:8 was the final score. FUJ FUCKIN DID IT AGAIN! European Finals here we go! Next week we are going to attend Czech Championships. Hopefully at the end of the tournament will have more photos to share with you. Anyway thanks for the support and stay tuned.

Source of all the photos (but All FUJ can eat :D)