We've started off with a nice victory against Bulgaria, which will put us on a temporairy second spot in our qualifier group.
In our group, we have got:
1) Poland
2) Belgium
3) Hungaria
4) Moldavia
5)makedoinja (an old familiar foe)
6) Bulgaria
7) Azerbeijan
8) Cyprus
(i've put em in the order of there world ranking).
In terms of strength, Poland is the strongest without a question. After them come Hungaria, who are stronger than Belgium in there roster, but have somehow underachieved in results as off late ( i'm sure they'll be wanting to correct that this season and they won't be understimating us). 3rd and 4th should theoretically be a fight between Belgium and Moldavia. Both teams are equally strong and it will boil down to GS to determine who is the better. However, if we neutralize eachother, then hungaria will get a free pass to the second spot of the group and thus qualification for europe.
After that, we've got Bulgaria, a team who's GS is terribly inconsistent. They could easely challenge Belgium and Moldavia for a better spot, but considreing their GS issues in the past, they'll likely end up slipping down the rankings again. a 5th or even 6th spot isn't unlogical if the managers of there NT players don't keep there players in better shape. Makedonjia is a familiar old foe. they managed to beat the Netherlands in the season 17 qualifier ( one of the most unexpecting qualifiers Belgium had, where the outsiders russia ended up taking the second spot...). They should not be underestimated and are likely to steal a victory somewhere allong the road. All we can hope for is that they won't be targetting belgium for that victory :P
And the last 2 teams are Azerbejian and Cyprus. Belgium should be able to beat both those teams without much worry, but the passed has learned us that Cyprus is finger happy on the CT button ( cfr season 11) and doesn't hesitate to influence the results for another teams benefit. Considering that Azerbejian could do the same, we should be extremely weary of possibility for these teams to us untimely CT's.
That is the preview of the group. As for today's results, we had a couple surprizes:
Hungaria wasted some enthusiasme on Azerbejian, which was a big surpize there. Poland squashed there first opponent (like they will end up squashing everyone in our group...). Belgium managed to beat Bulgaria in one of the highest scoring matches in 48 minutes at the NT lvl that i've ever seen. (124 points by both teams at the half time. It looked like the NBA allstar game. All offense, no defense). And the surprize of the day came from Cyprus, who beat Moldavia. (as mentioned earlier, Cyprus have a habit of doing untimely CT's). considering the schedule of Cyprus, you could argue that they could CT cause there next 3 games are all against the other top 4 teams of the division ( they played Moldavia already). They will be without enthusiasm now and thus get some serious beatings (good news for our point difference). The defeat has nearly removed Moldavia from contension for the European championship cause the other teams from the top 4 will likely win with 40 point difference now where as they lost against Cyprus. That puts them 1 game behind the other top 4 teams and they'll have to make up for those 40 points somehow if they have any hopes left of qualifying for the european championship.
Another NT season, and probably the ones i've been looking forward to the most. A lot of improvements have been made, the golden age is starting to get to an age where they all have a decent ammount of experience, so the next few seasons should be the best our NT has had. Yet the competition also has improved, so if we want to futher climb in the world rankings, we'll have to fight for those ranks. Nobody is going to do us any favors!
let the road to the european championship begin!