Exactly one week ago on Sunday 28th October 2018, the Maltese team ended their last battle on Welsh turf in a war that lasted two whole days. The only break was for grabbing beer and eating delicious welsh cakes.
It was a bloody and hard fought tournament. The first day started pleasantly with a strong team win against Holland, but ended up with a disappointment as our team lost the other two games of the day to mythic France and the feisty Welsh playing on home turf.
The night gave us the rest we all needed to garner our strength for the morrow. We were determined to raise our mighty flag back were it belonged. During our first appearance last year we hauled an unbelievable 6th place out of 18 teams. This year our benchmark was already abnormally high for such a young and relatively inexperienced team. This year our objective was to win the hosting rights by placing better than the other qualifying nations. At the start of day two, Finland was already ahead of us by a whole win.
We started the 4th round against the odd Dragons with a mighty win. Re-energized as we were, we could only expect to fight a harder team as we started ranking better. For the 5th round we were matched up with the Belgians – a team renown for their prowess in beer, mussels and blood bowl muscles. The experienced Belgians were a fearsome group with hundreds of games under their belt. In the end we achieved a tight win with 2 wins and 5 draws. We were exhilarated! The day was going well and we were all sweating blood.
After three wins out of five we were only expecting to play one of the best teams at the tournament. Our hearts were pumping with excitement. The 6th and last game was to be fought against powerhouse Denmark. This was a historic moment, a turning point in Blood Bowl history.
With household names synonymous with Blood Bowl, like demi-Nuffle Kfoged, Denmark certainly had one of the strongest player line-up contending for the championship. Denmark was probably the team who has flirted most with the Euro Bowl Cup without actually bagging it.
The last game ended up with four wins and two draws for the Maltese team. That meant that the last match was won as well.
We are all in sheer ecstasy:
i) we won against team Denmark
ii) we won the last match of the day finishing with 3 wins on the most difficult day
iii) we ended up ahead of Finland which meant we achieved our main objective of winning the hosting rights for the 2021 Euro Bowl Championship
iv) we ended up 5th place ahead of several veteran countries!
I would like to thank first and foremost all the organizers and helpers of the Welsh Euro Bowl Championship 2018. Equally I would like to thank all the Maltese contingency and all the supporting teammates in Malta. Jean Mark Meli, the team captain, Massimo Rolli the Blood Bowl sage guru, Maicol Owen Visani the inspiring Goku, Francesco Alèthe epic torpedo, Antoine Buttigieg the fearless, Gregory Pizzuto the go-getter and Robert Vella the indomitable. I would finally like to thank my family for their support and Michele Slama Saad for his spiritual assistance, whose physical presence we missed.
Country results
1) 🏴England
2) ️️️️️🇪🇸 Spain
3) ️🇫🇷 France
4) 🏴️️️️Wales
5) 🇲🇹 Malta
6) 🇨🇭 Switzerland ️
7) 🇮🇹️ Italy
8) 🇵🇱️ Poland
9) 🇫🇮️ Finland
10) 🇩🇪Germany
11) 🏴 Scotland
12) 🇮🇪 Ireland
13) 🇩🇰️ Denmark
14) 🇸🇪 Sweden
15) 🇵🇹️ Portugal
16) 🇦🇹️ Austria
17) 🇧🇻 Norway
18) 🇧🇪 Belgium
19) 🇳🇱 Netherlands
20) 🇭🇺️ Hungary
21) 🦖Dragons
22) 🇬🇷️ Greece