Game 9: Sweden 87 - Germany 99
Our first KO game was our last. Despite playing at home and with more effort, Germany got the win. On top Falke guessed after the injury of Birgersson the right focus.
Säfen had one of his worst games (his defender did all he could to help him with that) and the points from Smol and Gustavsson weren't enough in the end.
You managers did everything I asked during the last seasons. You trained all the right players, the right skills and sacrifised your team efforts for the NT. Looking at the team I see a deep player pool and really strong players. Going from this point onwards, there is one factor left which is responsible for the failures. From my point of view, this factor is me. Maybe I'm too blind now (because of the long run) or running to deep in one direction. I think something has to change and a new approach is needed. And I'm a hindrance for that.
Because of this I won't candidate for the post of NT manager anymore. The team is young (enough) to give a new NT manager enough time to shape it to his/her desire. There are young prospects who move up to the NT. Thanks to your training there are other options.
I enjoyed the seasons with you and I want to thank you for the trust. Nonetheless I couldn't reach what I set as a target.
For the next weeks I will arrange the scrimmages and run some rotations. I will update the player pool and post one last overview about the guys.
Maybe one of you swedish managers wants to take over and be more successful than I was. I really hope, that you can get the real potential out of the team.