Blog

Paganello anyone?

Hi peoplez

I'm now back in London after spending 6 awesome days down in Portugal. Everyone down there is super friendly and willing to spend the extra time to help you out but don't try to rush them, or they'll start to get a bit edgy towards you. It seems taking your time is a way of life down there, unless you stick them behind the wheel of a car, in which case they become the next Michael Schumacher racing every other car on the road.

The tournament was held at a small coastal town 3 hours South of Lisbon called Figuiera da Foz which has the BIGGEST beach I have ever seen. EVER. I would say, from the retaining wall to the ocean would be about 400m. It is HUGE. I'll try to put some photos up soon, but all the net cafes i've been to don't seem to recognise my camera.

Anyway, to fill you in, Australia fielded a largely pickup team with 7 Aussies (Leon Smith, Helen Osmond, Kelly Kidman, Brad Saracik, Jessica Lye, Tim Roy Booth and Myself if you're interested), 2 Austrian, 2 Italians and a guy from GB. Despite almost all of the Aussies having played in Perth at some point in time, none of us had played together EVER and we surprised everyone, including ourselves, by gelling from the very first pull of the tournament. First up was a surprise victory over Team GB who referred to our win as a "loss that hung around like a bad smell". We then lost to a slick Austrian outfit but following that was a close win over the USA, with yours truly scoring the deciding goal with a one handed grab over my defender. You couldn't wipe the smile off my face. It was particularly satisfying as I've been trying to work on "playing tall" for some time now. We dropped the last game of the day with a 2-2 record, but with two important scalps in the USA and GB.

By the end of the 4 days of round robin games, Australia finished with a 10-3 win loss record and finished 3rd ahead of GB, USA and Canada. BUT, because we had so many international players, we were dropped back to 5th place so we didn't play in the semi's. We were bitterly disappointed, but we knew about 6 weeks ago that this would happen if we qualified for the semis, but back then, no-one gave a pickup team from Australia much chance. We really threw the tournament upside down and perhaps over-acheived because we gelled so quickly.

The parties were also very good, with cheap pubs and nightclubs being organised for us. The nightclub had this ridiculous system where you rack up drinks on a bar card that they give you, and when you leave you hand over the card and they work out how much you owe. They didn't think it through very well because I ended up finding a spare card on the floor, so I racked up a shiteload of drinks on 1 card, and exited on the other. There was no repeat of Brisvegas at halftime on the first game, but it was touch and go for a while. Thank goodness the Columbians know how to party too, and were similarly affected the next morning.

The only down point of the tournament was losing the 5th-6th playoff to Belgium by 1 point. It basically came down to a last point win scenario, and Belgium scored the crucial point
upwind. I had a terrible game, as I wasn't mentally prepared and was full of nerves which never really settled during the game. THe other bad point was the wind. Imagine a fremantle doctor strength breeze blowing all day from 10am - 8pm. At least it was consistent, and we played it accordingly.

It was a great tournament, and whilst probably only GB, Germany, Austria and Belgium sent full strength teams, it was still a fun tournament to play. The spirit of the tournament was excellent, with probably not more than a dozen fouls being called against and by us the whole tournament. And because of the 5-a-side beach format, there were lots of free flowing games, hucks and layouts. All up, it was the most enjoyable tournament I've played so far and i would recommend to anyone to try and play in the next beach tournament if they
get the chance. Paganello anyone?

Full results and a few photos are up on wcbu2004.org website. My photos should be up soon (hopefully) at http://photos.trikarso.com/ but for now one of the italians has put some up at http://fotoalbum.sillano.com/ (Ultimate-->BULA2004)

Cheers
Derek