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Once again I thank you for your votes which put me on my 4th mandate as the Swedish national team manager. The role of the NT manager is both demanding and fun. I surely enjoy the challenge, and look forward to see what we can do in the future.

This year's European championship is quite relaxed for us, since the pressure from the domestic public seems low at the moment. Sure, my promises of the better future should catch up eventually, but currently we are as low as I expect we go. The bar is therefore set to "keep or slightly improve the rating", and to "give experience to youngsters". Naturally we will not hesitate if the opportunity presents itself! We can surprise many higher ranked teams, but I don't expect us to be in contention for the second round, since this requires steady results where the random-luck factor is more or less eliminated.

Our schedule for the season is:

Andorra A feisty little nation with 11 users. It is a déjà vu from the last season, when we also played the first game against them - and lost. This time we were more successful, and managed to start the EC with a win (80482). It wasn't super convincing, but it was a decent win, which gave us some well-needed confidence before the following games.

Denmark Another Nordic nation with 32 users is currently on the rise, and their youth-development program seems a couple of seasons ahead of ours. They have a very young team with several very talented players. For the game against Hungary (which they convincingly lost), the average age of their top 10 was 27.5 years old. For example, our roster (top 10) against Andorra had an average age 29.8 years, which can also be considered young. Top nations are usually at around 32 years. Experience definitely plays an important factor, but talented youth can also bring positive surprises, at least on a bit lower level. Quality-wise, Denmark is currently similar to us (they beat us in the last EC), so it will be a difficult game.

Czech republic A country with 133 users finally managed to get a new trophy in the last EC - they finished second, behind France. They nabbed 8 trophies of all colors between seasons 17 and 26, so it was a long break, but now they definitely seem to aim on the top positions again. A game, where our chances are very limited.

Portugal A large BB nation with 232 users demonstrated their strength already in the first game, where they beat Spain (80481). Their team also seems on the rise, and is very close to the teams of Spain or Czech republic. We played them several times under my management, and were not yet successful. So another difficult task for us.

Hungary Another large BB nation. With 263 users, Hungary could probably achieve more than it did in its history. Hungarians seem more interested in the U21 team, where they got a lot of trophies (the last one is bronze from S66 EC), but their senior team's trophy room is still empty. Still, Hungary is probably also in contention for the second round, although they are a bit behind the likes of Spain, Czech republic or even Portugal. But their convincing win against Denmark demonstrates their strength and suggests that they are another stronger opponent from our perspective.

Malta The smallest country of our group (7 users) is not completely innocent, since they have some very nice players. Naturally, the depth of their roster is not great, and probably Malta will use a lot of their strength to achieve one victory (most likely against Andorra). That does not mean we are out of danger. Now, with the addition of Utopian players, every micronation can become a threat under the right management.

Spain A country with 1233 users is automatically considered the top favourite. So obviously their players are close to perfect. But Portugal managed to beat them, if they make another mistake, they are out. For us, this is a "cant loose anything" game.

Last edited by Deschamps at 7/23/2025 9:22:13 AM

In the second round of the EC, we have won in the Nordic derby against Denmark (80483). This win means a lot to us, since we were severely outplayed in the last match between the two teams, but have now regained the honour. We seemed like a stronger opponent, although we showed some moments of weakness, which allowed the Danes to be close until the final minutes. However, the final minutes were not totally dramatic - lucky for us.

Our opening to the game was a bit lazy, and the Danes quickly got to their highest lead in the game - 13:6. For the most of the Q1, we were trailing several points behind, but got in to the lead with a dunk of a veteran Håkan Dallius for 21-19, 2:30 to the end of the quarter.

Afterwards we didn't allow the opponent to take the lead again, but it was still a very tight movement of the result at least until the half-time. The difference throughout the Q2 only varied between 0 and +4, so nothing was decided yet. We slightly picked up the pace in Q3, and increased the difference to +8, which put us in a significant advantage ahead of the final quarter. I expected some additional drama in the final twelve minutes (as is usual), but the result remained somewhat static, and only varied between +6 (due to the first two points in the quarter being scored by the Danes) and +12, with the final result being 108-100.

This win opens a possibility of a bit more ambitious approach towards the next three opponents - Czech republic, Portugal and Hungary. Unfortunately we lost our star player Kristian Forsbratt due to the injury, and he will miss the game against the strongly favoured Czech republic . If we are lucky, he will return in full form already for the game against Portugal, but at the moment, things are still unclear. Naturally, we are not seen as realistic 2nd round contenders (unlike the upcoming three opponents), but we still cannot expect these opponents to underestimate us, so any win would be a very good outcome for us.

Best regards





Last edited by Deschamps at 8/4/2025 8:42:57 AM

Beating Denmark is all you need to do to keep at least me happy, well done

In the past two weeks we faced two higher ranked opponents. Czech republic is considered to be a #2 in the group, and Portugal follows as #3. While the Czechs had a quiet tournament so far, the Portuguese have a more chaotic one. They won in the opening of the EC against the group favourite - Spain, but this cost them some ent, and they paid heavily in their last game against Hungary. Luckily we were also able to take advantage of that, and have achieved a very nice victory yesterday.

The game against Czech republic (80489) was quite close until the final minutes. I can't forgive myself for messing with the tactics in the last minute. For the whole weekend I left everything set to 3-2 zone, predicted outside focus and normal pace (so tactics motion) and forgot about it. Then 15 minutes before the deadline I left the focus prediction blank. Even I don't know why I did it, since it makes no sense for such game. So when I saw the tactics outcome, I just hoped it won't be a very close match with a loss, meaning we lost a win due to this last second mumbling.

Although the Czech quickly gained a solid lead of approx. 10 points, we managed to match their pace afterwards. By the half-time they were ahead by 7, then they even got to +12, but again we neutralized this and went to the final 12 minutes only 6 points behind. Seven minutes to go Herman "HHH" Hansson forced a three pointer, which got us to 82-85. Unfortunately, the opponent answered with a similarly impressive three pointer, and then scored an additional one. And soon afterwards another, the score was then 96-82. After that, we didn't have the strength to get back again, so the game was pretty much sealed. Luckily for me, since even with an outside prediction it would have probably not be enough. But it is still a reminder that you should never change a game setup in the last minutes

Before the game against Portugal we were unlucky with the healing process of Kristian Forsbratt, who missed some playing time in the last week by only one day. So we had to accept the fact of his limited role for Monday. The Friday update also didn't bring any good news for us, since our big men were severely underprepared for such a tough game. Due to this, I decided to try an unconventional tactics with Sören Häggin on a PF position, and playing 2-3 zone, since our inside capabilities were rather limited. Of course I hoped they would attack inside, but unfortunately for us, they went with motion, where 2-3 zone is not very effective. On the other hand, I have seen good games of teams (including us) playing 2-3 against outside tactics, since some of the defensive inferiority can be brought back by rebounding. Also with Häggin we gained some offensive power, so all hope was not lost.

The game itself was very tight (80494). Portuguese quickly started with their shooting practice, but luckily for us, we were equally successful in the Q1, which ended 35-32 for Sweden. Unfortunately, Portugal started Q2 with a 16-0 in five minutes. After our guys finally woke up, we slowly but steadily came back, and got to 58-61 by the end of Q2.

Portugal were much stronger in Q3, and their advantage slowly crawled up to +13 (104-91). Their highest lead was a few minutes into Q4 (108-93), but suddenly they started calling timeouts, which is always a good sign (for the opponent - us). We increased the pace and leveled the score 3 min to go. In the last minute Häggin scored for 128-126, and got an extra FT - 129-126. After a fine work in defense we had two additional free throws. 131-126 with 19 s to go. They tried a three pointer, missed, but then got another chance and scored. 131-129. This time it was Hansson who had two free throws. He missed the first one, scored the second one, so 132-129. Four seconds to go, Portuguese scored a three pointer for 132-132. But then our MVP, Herman HHH Hansson scored a buzzerbeater for a sweet victory

So what remains are three games; against Hungary, Malta and Spain.

Currently, the table of the group is

1. Hungary, 3-1, +83
2. Czech Rep, 3-1, +59
3. Spain, 3-1, +40
4. Sweden, 3-1, +3
5. Portugal, 2-2, -14
6. Andorra, 1-3, -19
7. Denmark, 1-3, -23
8. Malta, 0-4, -129

Hungary, Spain, Sweden and Malta have now all faced the same four opponents, the same can be said for Czech Rep., Portugal, Denmark and Andorra. So this makes things a bit clearer among those teams with symmetric schedule.

Obviously we are still the lowest ranked team in the HUN-SPA-SWE circle. However, surprisingly, Hungary has the best starting point and is in serious contention for one of the first two places. Of course, Spain had to endure CT from Andorra and probably even Portugal, but they also struggled a lot against Denmark, which was a bit surprising. But yesterday they convincingly beat Czech republic, so no doubt they can play very well and their roster is probably the best in Europe at the moment.

Our goal is naturally to beat Malta, and to try to threaten Hungary and Spain, who are both significantly stronger. Our odds for getting to the one of the first two spots are obviously very minor, but everything is still in our hands, so we need to play accordingly.

I guess we all understand GS is critical at this stage, and we will need all of our best to be competitive against higher ranked teams. So far, we had some bad luck with injuries, but generally all managers have been really cooperative and prepared their players accordingly. And I thank you for that!

This season, our most impressive player is definitely Herman "HHH" Hansson, who scored 41 points yesterday, was also the top scorer against Andorra (30 points), and also started the games against Denmark and Czech rep (18 and 11 pts). Definitely he can already be named as the "most improved player of the year". I can only hope he will play the remaining three games on at least similar level.

Again we played two games since my last report. We tried our best to grab a win against Hungary, but fell somewhat short (80497). Then we played a must-win game against Malta, which was successful (80502). What remains is the "almost impossible to win" game against Spain, we'll see what we can do after the Friday GS update.

In my latest post, I apparently jinxed Herman "HHH" Hansson, who got injured shortly after I praised him for his performances. So, unfortunately, we had to play against Hungary without him. On the other hand, Kristian Forsbratt returned to full form, so we had a clear team leader nonetheless.

We started the game against Hungary very well, soon leading 14-6. However, we only lead by 1 point at the end of Q2. Hungarians first got in the front position at the beginning of the Q2, and stayed there until the half-time, when the result was 52-49 for them. For most of the Q3, the result moved very evenly, but by the end of the quarter, the Hungarians materialized their lead a bit more solidly. Their highest lead was +9, and the quarter was finished at +6 for them. Unfortunately we started the last 12 minutes very lazy, and the advantage of Hungarians quickly doubled and almost tripled, with the highest difference being +17. By the end of the game we managed to get a bit closer but were never in real contention for getting the game to the over-time. Unfortunately we lacked some more offensive power of our best outside players, so we are definitely in need for more depth, but this will hopefully change soon. I must emphasize 15 assists of Michael Ahler, which got him to the shared 2nd place in the all-time list for most assists in a single game.

The game against Malta was the complete opposite of the game against Hungary. This time we were the favourites, however the Maltese started the game much better, and got to a +16 lead sooner than we realized the game started. The first quarter finished at 42-30 for Malta, which was a bit alarming for us. Luckily we were able to turn the game around somewhat quickly by starting the Q2 with 14-2, equalizing to 44. We took the lead at 49-48, and then increased our advantage to 71-65 by half-time. In the second half we quickly got to +20, which effectively sealed the game, although Maltese managed to get back to 12 points difference. We had some problems with their best player, Luke Ghigo, who scored 49 points and was the reason why Kristian Forsbratt fouled out. But the one-man band from Malta got more and more tired as the game progressed, so the last quarter was again ours, and our advantage steadily increased to the final 147-125 for Sweden. As expected, Forsbratt and Hansson were our best scorers (33 and 23 pts), while young Mats Josefsson also had a remarkable debut on competitive games. He scored 22 points from the bench, and was a very solid replacement for Forsbratt when he fouled out.

The standings of the group are:

1. Spain, 5-1, +166
2. Czech rep, 5-1, +103
3. Hungary, 4-2, +57
4. Sweden, 4-2, +16
5. Portugal, 3-3, -21
6. Denmark, 2-4, -17
7. Andorra, 1-5, -62
8. Malta, 0-6, -242

Last games are: Denmark-Czech rep., Portugal-Andorra, Hungary-Malta, Sweden-Spain

We have very, very slim options of getting in front of either Spain, Czech rep or Hungary. It is much more likely, that Portugal will get in front of us, so the primary goal for our last game is to finish 4th in the group. Which basically means we have to maximize our performance against Spain. This obviously applies to more or less any game, so not a big game changer. It is no secret, that it will be a CT-TIE game, but the Spaniards are still huge favorites. Portugal and Andorra will likely play CT-CT, so I don't think Andorra can help us here, but let's see.

I would love to see what we can do against the arguably best team in Europe with all our best players in the top game shape!

The tournament was finished for us with a game against Spain (80506)

For this game, we didn't have any realistic chances, and those chances were further lowered after the Friday GS update, which gave us very few possibilities. So the game was uneventful, Spaniards led convincingly throughout the entire match, but didn't exactly destroy us as I was afraid. Probably our higher attitude played a role here.

Still, even though we lost our final game, we exceeded expectations in this year's European championships. The final standings in the group are:

1. Spain, 6-1, +191
2. Czech rep., 6-1, +123
3. Hungary, 5-2, +88
4. Sweden, 4-3, -9
5. Portugal, 3-4, -24
6. Denmark, 2-5, -37
7. Andorra, 2-5, -59
8. Malta, 0-7, -273

We went into the group as seed 6, and finished fourth, which is a nice achievement. To be honest, the Portuguese helped us here a lot, they beat Spain in the opening of the tournament, but this cost them heavily, and everything went down from there on. But we also displayed better performances than Denmark, who is somewhere on our level. With some more luck (no injuries), we might be able to beat Hungary, but even this would happen only because we only had eyes on them, and they wanted a promotion. The reality still is, that both Hungary and Portugal are significantly better teams, and both could hope for one of the first two spots. We, at the moment, cannot, we can only surprise some better teams, but cannot do it multiple times.

I will adress our roster and the future in the following post.



Last edited by Deschamps at 9/2/2025 7:56:54 AM