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got home just in time to add a new C to the team. At long last, Sokmen seems to have found a home who can keep his GS up at a good lvl. It's good to see one of our top C's being able to be added to the team at long last. If only Cartier would find a good team that could manage his GS well...

Anyhow, we managed to beat Israel, and we've got a present in the next round. Other than the fact that we play Bosnia Herzegovina instead of Suomi ( Suomi is a very strong team!) we also have gotten HCA in the next round, something we wouldn't have gotten had we played Suomi. And here i was cursing my luck that Suomi had gotten Bosnia in the first round, where as i had ended up getting Israel :D

It hasn't gone unnoticed that Bosnia won their game on more enthusiasme, but i'll first do a decent investigation on the ratings to check the enthusiasm used, rather than making hasty conclusions. i wouldn't exclude Suomi having underestimated their opponents, because Bosnia doesn't look as impressive as Suomi, that is for sure. However, knowing that Latif Lupinac is a product from the Vottem training academy, we should be very carefully when facing Bosnia. They have got some top players, and they always go under the radar. I have in all my 8 seasons just underestimated a team once ( South Afirca in the consolation tourney a couple of seasons ago) and i don't intend on making the same mistake twice. So even tho we might seem to be the favorites, i won't declare Belgium to be the victor untill the fat lady sings ;)

R~

Well a loss against Spain means we've matched our previous record for best preformance for the Consolation tourney. Pretty dissapointing loss tho cause we came very close to winning it. Had we won it, we could have gone on to the tournaments finales. Should be interesting to see how things turn out now.

Due to a poor cooperative U21 manager who isn't getting scrimmages, i'm attempting to find another naiton willing to have 2 scrimmages with Belgium to test 2 things. This means that the usual U21-NT Belgium game where we play this years U21 against next years U21 players and some futur NT players ( who are still in development and not yet at the NT lvl) will not be taking place. I'd like to appologize up front to those who were hoping to see there youngsters play a bitt earlier, but response from the U21 coach, it's impossible to plan things and i'm not willing to wait for a response with the risk of not having a scrimmage for the NT.

Well, These 2 past seasons have been a succes for the Belgian NT. We qualified for the european championship once again after narrowly missing out on it 2 seasons ago, and went far in the consolation tourney. It shows that Belgium has made a significant progress over the past seasons and that we finally have joined the european sub-top. We might not be able to compete yet at the european championship lvl, but we our games against the top nations in the past seasons are showing that we are slowely closing the gap. However, if we want to continue to close the gap, we need to have people training there players properly and we need a decent U21. Past few seasons have been dissapointing for the U21 and i hope that soon better generations will be comming, if not all the work done to close the gap with the top nations will have to be redone.

I've also received many requests to continue with the NT from various managers. I appreciate all your support and will consider it. Since it isn't election time yet, i'm not permitted to tell you if i'm going to be a candidate or not. Campaigning should be done during election time and election time only ;)

So as for now, i'm going to try and get 2 scrimmages with the same nation. Players will be fired and selected onto the NT to update the database and training advise will be give. Also for the tests specific players will be selected which will be in the teams interest concerning the needs for the chosen tactic.

I'd hereby like to thank all Managers who have trained a NT prospect/player, who have kept him in good shape and who have limited the minutes of those players. Without them doing so, i could have never had the succesfull season that i've just had.

regards

R~