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Season 18 has started, and our NT has played their first scrimmage (an away game against Cyprus) where all the GS was lvl 7. I'm still waiting for the draw of our first 2 opponents ( and praying that we won't be to unlucky in the draw). I would like to remind everyone that Consolation tournament is a draw, so you need to get lucky with your opponents in the first round ( if you are unlucky, you'll end up playing 4 strong opponents away, and then this consolation tourney is over).

To be sure of advancing to the next round, a 6-2 record is needed. Considering that all teams are starting to look decent ( esecially the european ones. they might still lack depth, but their starters are catching up with the other NT's...) it will most likely boil down to who has the best GS right from the beginning.

My goal once again will be to make the KO 32, and see from their how things go. it's impossible to clearly say what we can achieve this season, not untill all our opponents are known.

Our first game against Cyprus looks more like a box match than anything else, where we ended up making 31 fauls no less ( 2 bigs fauled out, one big injured, without mentioning that we got dominated on the rebounding side) Never the less, i should remind everyone that this game was played with enthousiasme lvl 1, where as i'm unsure what enthousiasme our opponent had, so i'm not to concerned about the result.

I'm awaiting the draw before making a realistic preview of our NT season.

LA-Revo, Belgian NT coach

With 2 games against not super strong opponents, it's time to build up enthousiasme!

First off we faced Lubnan, who were put aside easely once Tijl Deseure had done his 2 quarter warming up excercise. Before that, Ottevaere was leading the team in points, where as the Belgians were having quite some trouble with Air Fleeton being out of commision due to Faul trouble. Ivan Hemerijckx picked up the slack and managed to grab as many RB's as Air Fleeton, altho Air Fleeton had less minutes.

In the end, Vercaigne decided to put on his trubo anyhow, to enlargen the difference a bitt more. This lead us to a nice +36 win over Lubnan. We hereby managed to avoid any early tricks that could have resulted in a loss, and started off the consolation tourney on a good note. Next up, is the NT homegame against Ireland. Better prebook those tickets, cause i got a feeling that the stadium will be full...

Revo

Last edited by AthrunZala at 11/14/2011 12:46:06 PM

NT game up against Ireland. Their GS isn't that great.

We got HCA, better gameshape, not to mention that our team is better. The only thing that might give the Irish a shot at winning (and even then it will remain a distant shot) would be playing CT.

And still, with HCA on our side, aswell as the gameshape and the fact that our players are better, i highly dought that the Irish coach would be willing to CT us, cutting his enthousiasme in half, knowing that their should be atleast 1, problably 2 or 3 easier targets for him to beat when the next 6 opponents are drawn...

I accept nothing less than a win, preferably with an as big difference as possible. 2 seasons ago, we decimated their team by beating them 137 - 69. However, Ireland had played a atleast one CT before that, so their enthousiasme was very low. Theirfor, repeating that feat will be a near impossible task, however, i am hoping for a big win with a difference as big as the game against Lubnan.

Point difference is a key thing for a team that could play in the knock out stages ( no offence ment to the irish community or the irish NT. I admire the fact that matt is trying his hardest to improve the irish NT, but the irish Nt isn't in the same league as the Belgian NT) but it's highly unlikely that they can win 6 out of the 8 games in the first stage of the consolation tourney...) point difference is a big thing. So for us, this match matters in a way that we want to get the max points out of it, since their isn't any guarantee that Lubnan and Ireland might end up being our easiest opponents of the first 8 games...

For Ireland, i'd reckon that they'd just want to build up their enthousiasme to be able to get a victory futher down the road, when they face teams that are less strong than Switserland or Belgium.

So, tonight should be a big win. Anything above +35 will be good. Anything lower will be a dissapointment that we couldn't get more. Never the less, i'd like to ask the managers of the NT players to watch out for the GS, cause despite having very good minutes, our GS is still rather low. Next week might be a much thougher opponent, so please be sure to pay attention to your GS.

Revo

You can't ask more. If the GS is bad, it's not our fault, it's just bad luck. And you can't (and don't want to) ask to train GS ;)

depends on our next opponent. if it's a home game against a strong opponent, then i might ask the managers to do it... but i'm not a fan of GS training at all, and have had pretty bad results with it in the past, so i'm unsure if it really helps alot or not...

if i feel that we might be able to make a very long run in this consolation tourney, then i'd prolly ask, in an attempt to get HCA for the european championship... It would truely be awesome if we could accomplish that, tho we most certainly aren't the strongest team around here ( with Germany soon joining the consolation tourney...)

Well, the next opponents are known. this will be the planning of the few next weeks:

29/11/2011 1:30:00 Belgium - Jamaica @ Jamaica
5/12/2011 19:35:00 Prathet Thai - Belgium @ Belgium
13/12/2011 2:00:00 Belgium - Costa Rica @ Costa Rica
19/12/2011 19:35:00 Hayastan - Belgium @ Belgium
26/12/2011 19:00:00 Belgium - Deutschland @ Deutschland
2/01/2012 19:35:00 Magyarország - Belgium @ Belgium

when we look at this draw, it's not to bad. knowing that a 6-2 record means that you are sure to be in the knock out stages ( even a 5-3 gives you acces to the KO stages, tho you'll end up being eliminated in the first round for sure in that scenario) we should be able to make it into the KO stages.

However, the trick is to make it to the KO stages while having HCA for a few games... GS must be taken care off and will be an important thing, if we want to secure a spot in the KO 32 stages before playing Germany!

the 3rd game is an away game against Jamaica. Considering they play England and then Tounes after us, i don't think they'll go CT. However, the Netherlands ( who are more or less our equals in terms of strength in NT games) only managed to win by 30 points on Jamaica's turf. We better take care of the GS to avoid any unpleasant surprizes. With a good GS, we should be able to win the game with a nice margin to add to our point total.

The 4th game is home against Prathet Thai. They don't have a very strong NT, so that should be a game where we'll try to maximize our point difference, so that we get an as good spot as possible at the end of the 8 preliminary games. Russia was able to win with 20 points in the away game, so it shouldn't be a big concern to us ( unless our Gs would prove to be horrible...)

The 5th game will be an important away game. Costa Rica will be playing columbia and argentina before us, and face turkey away after their game against us, so they might feel the need to CT us, hoping to end with 3 wins ( while winning against Danmark and Romania in the end of their campaign) they most certainly have got a pretty rough draw, with Danmark being the weakest team and Belgium and Romania being their 2nd respectively 3rd easiest opponent... Either we'll want to go for the win here, or we'll want to save up enthousiasme. Gameshape will most likely decide what action we take here, tho if we manage to win here, it would make things alot easier, because with the win, we should be able to claim our spot in the top 32 regardless of the result of our last 3 games... Never the less, we shouldn't waste enthousiasme if a win seems unlikely. Costa Rica doesn't have a very strong team, but with HCA on their side, things could get a bitt trickier than they'd normally be.

Our 6th opponent is a home game against Hayastan. They don't have a very strong team, so if our GS is good, we should be able to increase our point diference even more and thus securing our spot in the top 32 if we hadn't already done so with a win over Costa Rica.

The 2 last games our the ones i would have prefered We'll be playing Germany first on their own court, which means we might as well forget winning this game. Germany still is a top European nation, and i'm surprized that they didn't qualify for the World championship. Altho, questions should be asked about how their NT manager has selected his roster... When first looking at the roster, it seems that it's been selected to preform inside attacks only, tho a motion vs a 2-3 zone will kill you anytime...

The last game is a home game against Magyarország. I somehow hope that they will have squandered their enthousiasme a bitt allong the road, cause they have a very though draw. playing Mexica away, then australia home, singapore home, Peru away, Israel home and then against us on our own court is a very though draw. Whats more is that they've already lost one game, and considering the strength of their opponents, it will be hard for them to get any big wins that would enable them to qualify with a 5-3 record (for a 5-3 record, you need a very good point difference if you have any hopes of making it into the KO stages...) If we manage to win our first 6 games ( already won 2) then we shouldn't worry to much about this game, yet we sure to face a CT. If we have to play this game with a 5-2 record, then this game will mean the difference between a possible HCA in the first round or having to face a strong team right off the bat in the first round (and meaning a first round exit while we're at it)

Hence, i'd like to request everyone to take GREAT CARE of their GS! i really want to ensure our spot in the KO stages with atleast a 6-2 record, preferably having those 6 wins comming from our first 6 games, so that the last 2 games can be played without any need for a victory to get HCA in the first round of the KO stages, cause that is the minimum goal that i'm setting for this first round of the consolation tourney!

LA-Revo

if we want that 7-1, then either hungary should have assured it's qualification... and they have a large ammount of though teams to play against, so if we want that 7th one, we'll need em to squander enthousiasme in a big time way...