Despite superior experience playing ultimate, the benefit of more athletic talent, strong stewardship and history -- you would think that the top teams would get nailed from time to time.
Which happens, of course, just not so often in opening round pool play at a 136-team worlds. But the upsets -- they do occur.
Fortunately my team did not succumb to one today, defeating the strong Masters team Wolpertinger. Looking back at the scoreboard provided by WFDF we ran off 4 straight points to win 15-13. The last three on defense. Nice.
My point all along was that I thought maybe our featured Game of the Day would truly be one. But Doublewide crushed Bogotá's Euforia, the Colombian national champion. I got a lot of good info on the scene in Colombia from Luis Rodriguez who plays for 2600 Mixed and joined me in the broadcast booth for the game. I wish I had more time to blather about it all but it's late already and sometimes there's just too much information.
Generally speaking, there's so much going on at Worlds that it's hard to keep track.
But the upsets and the big games -- they're coming. Right around the corner, in fact. Power pools are set. Actually, i wish I could find out how the heck 4 of the 6 best team's in the women's division ended up all in the same power pool together, especially if there are 4 power pools. MUD (Japan) Fury (San Fran) Backhoe (Raleigh-Durham) and Huck (Japan) are all together and that's deathly.
Controversy to come, for sure. But for now - the top teams remain on top, the new nations still looking for the footing on the field. But the Yanomami drums keep everyone's feet dancing and the great amount of teams that have come to represent keep the universal spirit of ultimate strong, status quo or non.
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here is a link to see the Open "standings" although its not entirely accurate because we are all in pool stages of course. if you click around on the left hand side you'll find more info on teams, games, specific points scored by specific players and much more.
http://scores.wucc2010.com/?view=seriesstatus&Series=1000
and one last note -- I haven't even seen CLX yet, nor about 100 other teams (Sockeye, Fury, Riot, Chain, Mental Toss, Axis of Cville, etc etc among them) so if you are waiting for updates on some of these top teams they will presumably have to come at later stages.
Tony, I hope you find the time to write more about your conversation with Luis Rodriguez.
ReplyDeleteI am not surprised at the lack of upsets over #1 seeds in the Open Div. If you look at the Goals/dif on the stats link provided, all the American teams are at the top, followed closely by Colony and Buzz. What's more surprising is that Masahiro Matsuno is leading the individual stat board. Is it because the entire offense runs through him? That's the way it looked like from the Worlds Games footage. He is, to be sure, one of the best players at Worlds. But I would think that the team would want to rest him more and involve more players against weaker teams. Granted, two games to 17 a day is not all that taxing, but I would still want to give him a rest.
Tony, how about some sideline reporting from a game or two?
ReplyDeleteHope you're having fun over there playing with the guys. tell them that I send my best.
Knappy