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As I debated earlier, we played our last game of the EC against Armenia. The game turned out to be much easier than anticipated - we finally formed our ranks and got proficient GS all across the roster, while Armenians had some problems. We also didn't hold back and went all in for the last match, while Armenia kept some of their enthusiasm for friendly matches, and went "only" normal into the game. So the end result, 112-75 (77769) meant we achieved by far the highest win in this tournament, which got us to a 5th place finish in the group.

The game itself was quite uneventful. We steadily increased our lead by approx. 10 points per quarter. We had some problems guarding Armenian star player, Rupen Bohchalyan, who scored 26 points with a FG 10-14. Other players were much less effective, although our defensive tactics (outside box and one) should in theory focus more on preventing good shots from their best scorer. Among our players, we had a very homogeneous distribution of point scoring, Egghall, Forsbratt and Lundell scored 14 points, Sören Häggin scored 13 points, while Håkansson, Gilltorp and Nilsson contributed 12 points each.

The defeat of Danes against Estonia meant we got ahead of them in the rankings. Ukrainians were also not very convincing against Azerbeijan, so we could also hope to get ahead of them - at least for the first three quarters. Unfortunately for us, Ukraine stepped up in the last quarter and increased their lead by +19, while we stepped down and only managed to increase our lead by +4.

At the end, this got us where we belonged at the start of the tournament - 5th place in the group and nowhere near the fight for the second round, which was reserved for Lithiania and Italy. However, especially Italy was under a lot of pressure, their matches against Estonia and Ukraine were very, very close. This emphasizes the fact, that the differences for one individual match are not that high, which was evident also in our games against the two group favorites. However, what smaller teams lack is consistency, and across the span of five difficult games even very small differences in quality become very evident.

At the end, I can call this tournament uninspiring. Not completely unsuccessful, but I believe we were able to achieve more. This was the final, now really final, season of the NT legend Tommy Fyhrhult, who finished his NT career with 161 appearances (#1 in the all time list), 2783 points (#1) and 522 assists (#6). Another retiree is Frank Jonasson, who got to impressive 134 appearances. He was never the first choice in the PF/C positions, and was always just a backup. But, given our small talent pool among high players, he was frequently used, which brought him to such high number of NT games. Kudos to him as well.

Getting some new PF/C players is also our first priority for the seasons to come. Petter Börjesson also has only one good season left, while Håkan Dallius is the next oldest regular player in the NT. This means we are really, really thin with high players, but if everything goes perfect, that we might survive this without noticeable decline in performance. But we really need to do everything completely right. A more steady influx of high players is expected when current U23 year olds mature, which will take some time.

Just a quick summary of our season 68. In buzzerbeater terms, it was awful or even pitiful, and our weaknesses were highlighted in almost every match we played.

The away loss against Andorra (79354) quickly decreased our chances for qualifying to he playoffs for the third time in a row. Afterwards, we tried to neutralize this loss against Greece (79416) with a higher (normal) attitude, but we were far from being successful, and it became very obvious, that we cannot match such teams at the moment.

Two games with normal attitude left us without accumulated enthusiasm for the away game against Iran (79461), where we were also not competitive, and one game later we finally managed to get our first win against Cyprus (79484) at home. Then came another disappointing match against Macau (79531), where we were once more dominated. Afterwards, we played our only good game of the season, beating higher ranked Romania (79565). Although it was a home game, and Romania also had a very bad season, it was a light of hope in our depressing campaign.

For the last two games we had nothing to loose, so we attacked Bosnia (79607) with a crunch time. Although we also positioned ourselves well tactically, we were nowhere close in this match, and it was again a bit depressing. For the last game of the season, we managed to beat our weakest oponent in the season, Jamaica (79634) even with depleted enthusiasm.

Bottom line, we tried many tactical combinations, lineup combinations, but at the end we were still unable to bridge a large black hole of our centers. Also, our team got a lot younger in the recent seasons, and this also shows. I expect we will reach a plateau for a while (in an otherwise falling trend, so plateau is good in this case ), then we'll start to climb. We have a really good generation of players, aged 30 and younger, starting with Sören Häggin (30), Kristian Forsbratt (29) and Herman Hansson (27), who are world-class players, or will soon become such, and will reach their peak in a couple of seasons. But they will not yet enjoy the benefits of world-class PF/C teammates, here we will have to wait for Michael Ahler (24) and beyond.

I started with encouraging managers to train Swedish players when current 23-year olds were 18, and theese generations carry quite a lot of depth and outstanding quality, so I am still very motivated to continue with the Swedish NT. Here, I thank again to all Swedish managers, who put a lot of effort into training and maintaining players of all ages. Again, I invite you to discord, where informations are a bit more up to date

https://discord.gg/xZNmX6jdX7


Last edited by Deschamps at 6/24/2025 11:52:42 AM