Now, I want to say few words about our results:
SEASON 35 (Euro in Latvia)First phase - 1st place in group achieved easy and smooth, the only lost to Slovenia was at the time we were qualified already whith TIE vs CT.
Second phase – started with huge victory over Polland NOR vs TIE what made me play next game against home team of Latvia TIE and lose to their NOR. After easy victory over Suisse we faced CT from Hungary and won thank to another NOR. Last game against Lithuania was the game who Polland, Latvia or we are going to semis. I anticipated CT from Lithuania as their last game but they didnt play it and our NOR provided huge victory – possible mistake becose we were low in TS for semifinals against Italy, who played easier group and had higher TS. That is why we lost and ended up bronze. If I didn´t play NOR against Lithuania we could be in finals at least..
This season was season of skilldowns – we have lost Benklifa, LeMoigne, Besse very quickly and our shapes were problem through out the whole season.SEASON 36 (World in Uruguay)Repechage – we have smoothly qualified for World cup after good victories over Iran and Brasil. It was not easy tournament as Australia or Spain didn´t make the World cup at all.
First phase – we were drawn really tough group. It was not easy to qualiffy for Second phase but if we wanted to have a shot in title we had to carry on as much victories as possible. After easy victory over Algeria we had to play NOR vs Italy, as for some past issues. They didnt play NOR at the end and lose by 3 pts to us. This has eliminated Italy for Season36. We than lost to USA but victory over Taiwan who benefited from USA walkover in their game and was still in the game for promotion.Last game against China was really close again but we have lost by 7 pts with that we qualiffied with 1-2 record for second phase.
Second phase – bad bad draw Serbia and Polland were teams we needed to jump over. So we needed to beat them and have better score margin. So we played NOR vs NOR in both games and won both games. At the same time China and USA become easy qualifiers to semis and played TIE rest of their games. That meant for title we need to TIE rest of our games to have a chance in possible semifinal against China. Unfortunately I made another critical mistake against Latvia, we lost to their NOR and even last game victory over Argentina TIE vs CT was not enough – we missed 2 pts. Here, besides my mistake in game against Latvia, we had really bad luck – in Second phase we faced only NOR and CT while Serbia and Polland didn´t. In this fight we had worse position from beggining despite, that thank great shapes, we were very close to semis in which we would have chance to challenge China in another close game.
Sum it up – first season was season of bad shapes and skilldowns where I have made mistake in not playing it risky against Lithuania. In second season we faced bad draw which put us in much worse position than Serbia and Polland despite that we were able to show we are better but it was not enough as China, USA and Italy decided that Serbia and Polland qualiffies for semis on our expense. We faced those 3 teams in full strengths while Serbia and Polland didn´t. In this season I shouldn ´t have PAM Latvia game.
I feel I didn´t blow French chances as EDF coach, I honestly feel, despite two mistakes, I did pretty decent job and with little luck we could say we succed. But we didn´t and that counts at the end. I would evaluate myself with grade B- or C+
1 BBB, 23 Leagues, 11 Tournaments, 3 Europe Titles (SVK), 2 World Bronzes (SVK), 2 Europe Bronzes (SVK,FRA), 48 Seasons NT coaching