Saturday night in Germany – I’m feeling a bit sick today and tomorrow the Hessonian Flag Football League is going to start for my team, the Walldorf Wanderers. Not the best preparation you can guess! Last week we lost again a semifinal within an important tournament (the German Indoor Flag Bowl) and only ended 3rd instead of defeating our title. I’m going to write more about this tournament later on. Overall you could think March was a bad month of Flag Football for me – but this is not true!
Due to all the tournaments I’m a bit late writing about it but nevertheless the experiences made during th tournament in Israel are worth writing a few lines especially as Israel is applying for the EFAF European Championships 2011.
In the first week of March 16 players from many teams in Germany (Walldorf Wanderers, Stuttgart Scorpions, Franken Fun Rams, Darmstadt Fun Diamonds, Augsburg Raptors and Radebeul Suburbian Foxes) took the trip to Israel to play Flag Football. During the months of preparation there were rumours that also Dutch and Irish teams would take the trip to Israel but in the end only we and the Italians took the trip. We played in two mixed teams and the Italians with their National Team. Overall the tournament consisted only of seven teams which seems not much compared to the big European tournaments as Big Bowl in Walldorf. But the hotel conditions, the transport and the overall organization was perfect. And hey, a difference of about 50 degrees to the German temperature can not be beaten. The field was in perfect shape and I’m still amazed about the natural Green within the desert. From an organizational point of view nothing went wrong and we had a great stay in Eilat.
Talking about the tournament: It was clear before the tournament that our chances of winning would be slight – and that was the reality. The field was very long and as our teams never played together before and will never afterwards we didn’t have a chance against most of teams. The Italians were just executing their plays perfectly and also the Israeli Teams knew how to play Flag Football. Respect to all the participants of the amazing games. Afterall a big sensation happened and we are very happy to have seen the stars rise: Thundermuffins – due to the best and most spectacular plays they made it to the finals were they lost to the Italians.
So in the end our biggest success was going to Israel and not loosing all the games. I would like to thank everybody who made this week in Israel a rememberable experience and want to pics my brother made during some games.
[nggallery id=13]