guy's, i'd like to appologize for not having updated you guy's for such a long periode
first off:
european qualifier ended in a defeat, which costed us our second spot, but let's face it. Their enthousiasme was much higher than ours, so their wasn't much that could have been done to avoid the loss. They seem to have saved their enthousiasme for the very last game, and we had lost a great ammount of enthousiasme in the game against the Czechs where we had no other option than to CT them to keep our hope up for qualifying for the next round.
I look back with mixed feelings about this NT campaign. Their were some good things that came forth out of it, and once again, i learn a few new things during these past games. But i can't help but say that i'm pretty dissapointed that we didn't make it to the european championship. With the Netherlands having trouble with their gameshape for nearly the entire qualifier, we really had a chance to go to the second round.
When looking back at this qualifier, it's clear to me that the one game that we shouldn't have lost, was the one against Roumania. that really put us in a bad position from their on, but if we looked at the calender, we didn't realy have another choice. I had to save up enthousiasme to play russia if i wanted to have a chance to beat em ( we were a bitt unlucky in that game, could have gone either way, but each game must have a winner and a loser...) and ofcourse i had to build up ehtousiasme for Netherlands too. We most certainly didn't have the most favorable calender of the competing teams, but still, that is no excuse for failing to qualify.
Futhermore, i have noticed that most teams are starting to get their NT's on track aswell. Roumania and Macedonia both have good NT's, but lack the Depth from the bench. From now on, most european qualifiers will have 5 or maybe even 6 contenders so Gameshape and possible injuries will have a very big influence on the outcome of those games.
Next season we'll be entering the consolation tournament again, where i hope that the 8 pregame lotery will not be to hard for us. ( some teams face 8 teams in from rank 50 to 90, where as others sometimes face 5 teams out of the top 30, so it really is a lotery...) unless we get a very tough lotery, we should be able to get into the final 32 and from their on, it's a game by game situation, where anything can happen.
I'd like to thank all the managers this season for taking care of the minutes on their players. We'll try to recover some of the spots on the NT rankinglist that we'll be losing due to the elimination from the Qualifier rounds, but it's going to be hard to win back those spots next season.
For the remainder of this season we have still got:
atleast one game against the Netherlands, to test out some things that couldn't be done during the first game. After that, a few other tests will be done, and once all that is done, their might be a couple of games for the young 20y and 22y old players to give them some extra experience.
I'll also be updating the database on a regular base so you can expect to see alot of players comming in and out of the NT pretty soon.
Also, for those players who have played for plural seasons in the NT, i have no problem in taking those players in the NT to help them get Transfered if a manager would require that. I see it as a way to repay them for the sacrifices they made while their players were in the NT, in terms of training and in terms of managing the GS of those players. If you have such a player, feel free to send me a mail. ofcourse, this only goes for those players who have played in the Belgian NT in competitive games (european qualifier, european championship or consolation tourney. this doesn't apply if your player has only played in scrimmages)
regards
Revo