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The cab was in front of Duje's place ready to take us to the train which was leaving in 10 minutes… Instead of running through the door with our bags, we are frantically looking for Duje's ID card (osobna) which is apperently missing! Looking at Duje sitting on the floor with the content of his bag all spread out made me feel sad yet hostile towards him… because I knew we were going to miss our train. Of course we did, and to top it off his osobna ws in his pocket…Way to f__ck that one up, Duje! We took the next train to Ljubljana and there grabbed a cab to Vrhnika (which he payed for due to it being his fault for being so late). It took us 20 minutes to get from Ljubljana to Vrhnika and 10 minutes to locate the gym once we were there. We arrived there at 3,30 am and were greeted in front of the gym by the everpresent Gino, our Slovenian FSC liasion! We didnt stay up too late due to the fact that, as usual, games start very (too) early and we wanted to be ready to give it our all in the morning!
Our team 'Hot stuff' consisted of: Linda, Marta, Marina, Banana, Vjeran, Duje, Frki, Goran, Čep, Bruno, and yours truly; a line-up that is rarely without thier coach and guru, and it just didnt feel the same… This was a team with a lot of relatively new players, or players that have never or rarely been to tounaments, and only a few 'veterans' - which made it that much more interseting but in the end very educational for all!
Our first game was at 9:10 against the hosts, our very good friends and wonderful rivals, Frizmi. We entered the game ready, confident and cocky but that soon changed when they started flying past with thier cool plays and fast breaks. They took an early lead of 2-3 points to our confused zero, and caught us off guard. By the time we got our game together and scored a few points, the game was almost over. They have obvoiusly been doing thier homework and seemed fluent with thier play…or maybe our defence was a bit too loose and unorganised. This game was a nice example of experience versus inexperience. Even though the final result was 7:3, we were very content with the level of play shown in our last two points.
Our next game was with Free bees (H) who showed us how it feels to be crushed and outplayed. We had a lot of turnovers and incompleted passes and they took advantage of that. Even though as a team our level of play was relatively poor, many of us made at least one great move; like a block, a nice, hard cut , a difficult pass, great score… The final score was 8:3 and they beat us good. However, our team spirit remained high.
The next game was against Vertigo (SLO) who completely caught us off guard with thier style of play. They seem to have everything under control from the very start and throughout the whole game. Again, a lot of mistakes, turovers and wrong force positioning from us which was getting really frustrating… Looks like our friends from Nova Gorica have been training hard and developing plays that just dont suit us one bit. Hats off to them for beating us with the biggest goal difference in all 6 of our matches, 11:4.
We werent too happy with our performance in the previous 3 games so we had a little chat diciding to concentrate more, have better a flow of the game, and overall try even harder for the last game of the day against the B-bears (AUT). They were without their top player and leader Gregor and since we were in a simmilar position, our two teams were literally equaled in quality! This is the game that all of us played at a very high level and it certainly showed. It was a close and very exciting race of only a one point lead for either team. We played great defence, made some attractive offence plays and didnt make as many begginer mistakes as in the prevous games. We were most pleased that we had finnaly found that flow and team-play we were looking for, making our morale really high and realising we could win this game… It was tied at 5-5, last point and we had offence: we made it up to thier goal line but made a silly, badly timed turnover. They took advantage of our mistake by scoring and ending the game at 6-5. A glorious battle by both teams and I am very proud of us all for giving it our best! This was a great example of how we 'turned it up' mentally, were more focused and took this last game more seriously. Great work guys!
In the cirlce after the game, we even saw some tears of joy and shock from thier capetain for actually beating us. It was very emotional for us all, and both teams showed great spirit!
The evening fun started at the parking lot when we were rehersing our coreography for the dance contest. After trying out some wacky ideas we settled on one-on-one action between Linda and Duje, Jan and Marta, Vjeran and Banana, and the rest dancing in the back all circled around the three dancing couples. For the great finale, Frky unloads some canned whipped cream, or š-š-š-šlag all over the faces and mouths of our kneeling chicks with discs. Kinky, we tought… However, our dance rutine, red capes and huge afros were not at all controversial compared to what other teams had prepared for us. I would only like to mention the B-Bears, whose men came as whorish, semi naked, horny drag queens in lingerie made out of latex and lace…(grrrrr!). This was the first time that a man wasn't slapped for feeling up a firm butt hiding underneath a skirt. They got the most cheers and the loudest recation from the rest of us and they deserved it - it was a real Mardi Gras!
Each team had a very amusing and creative dance, making it hard for the dudges to choose a winner. After all the teams finished thier performances, we continued partying on to the usual early hours of the morning. Returning back to the gym in a very cheery state, Goran 'Highlander' started a sequence of hysterical laughter with his classic jokes (which aren't really jokes, its just how he says things!). I guess people around us didnt mind being woken up by a bunch of crazy, drunk Croatians because pretty soon they too were laughing with us! Im sure this could count for a few Dinner Club sessions due to the intense, ab crunching laughter…(maybe we should make up sessions where we just laugh like mad, it's a really good abdominal workout, especially if Goran is present!). It was Gino's mega loud snoring that killed our laughing frenzy and we all crashed with huge smiles on our faces.
Our first game on Sunday was against Stack Overflow (AUT). Being still a bit hung over from the great party, we went into the game suprisingly ready and didn't even realise that this was going to be our best and also most fun game (mine at least)! We all had great moves, and our playing rythm was by now going in the direction that we wanted. Our opponents were very worthy advesaries and gave us a hell of a match! The point distribution was wild, 2,3 up for one team, then tie, then 1-2 up for the other, to be tied at 7-7 at the last minute call… You could sense the tension in the air, both our teams wanted that last point so badly, the only problem was that we both deserved it and it was going to be decided by one mistake or careless move… It lasted relatively long with a fair amount of turnovers which only made it more exciting and dramatic! Like I mentioned, a mistake decided the winner and unfortunately it was made by us. We played our hearts out and everyone showed great skills the whole game! An amazing performance from our 'new' players, they were crucial to our great playing! Even at 8-7 in the end, we felt like winners and very proud!
As at the last few tournaments, our last game was for second-last place and again against our good friends Cosmodisk (SLO). In our minds there was only one goal: to win our last (and only) game! We knew we had already gotten into the groove of playing well and as a real, organised team so we wanted to show them that also. We certainly did by starting strong and taking an early 3-4 point lead. Their play was good, but it kind of resembeled ours at the begining of the tournament – nervous and unorganised. We held our lead the whole time and it felt so good to finally be on the other side of the score board! It's a totally different feeling when you don't have to chase the score, way more fun! They are a young team with a huge potential and we were very happy to see them make several great plays, so we cheered for and supported them with every cool move! Massive respect to Cosmodisk - soon it wont be so easy to beat them… We had a lot of excellent plays, most of which resulted in goals or almost goals. The final score (11-4) is proof that we played exceptionally well, and punished every mistake our opponents made.
We finished the tournament with a well deserved victory and were sorry it was over just when we got into shape! Had we played the whole time like in our last few games, we would have been playing for a much higher position than 11th place…I guess we'll have to leave that for next time.
The overall standings were:
1. Hallod Igaz-e (HUN)
2. Catchup (AUT)
3. UFOzd (HUN)
4. Free Bees (HUN)
5. Frizmi (SLO)
6. Vertigo (SLO)
7. Hagymas Bab (HUN)
8. Herny Ha’l Disco (ITA)
9. Stack Overflow (AUT)
10. B-Bears (AUT)
11. FDK Zagreb (CRO)
12. Cosmodisk (SLO)
The hosts Frizmi took the prize for the best dance doing thier 'Free As A Bee' dance, but hummmble as they are, they passed it on to the Free Bees who also put on an impresive show!
It was time for the spirit award and, did you even doubt it- it went to FDK Zagreb! Not that suprised actually, being so spirited and friendly, this was our cherry on top of the whole tournament. I guess it's our friendly attitude, fair play, recpect and our traditional little prizes for the best or hottest player from every team we played against that won us our cool red disco-ball spirit award! This was very important to us all and I think it gave us even more iniciative for improvement in the future.
If I am not mistaken, I think each of us scored at least one goal, not to mention multiple great plays in both offence and defence! A real learning experience and a whole lot of fun for everyone! We should all be very proud of our efforts and embrace the lessons we learned.
It's unfortunate that we still see this trend of starting a tournament quite poorly and then gradually building up our confidence, concentration and overall level of play towards the final games. We should work on this issue for upcoming events and I have a good feeling we shall! A new, ready FDKZ will be seen; so friends and regional rivals beware, because we want revenge and are coming to get it!
Jan
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