Me and Bjorn started our journey 05:00 friday morning. We were both really looking forward to some holiday and serious kickoff2 competition, so the hours passed by quickly when we were driving north from the middle of Sweden. Btw, If you never visited Norway, you really should, because it is a beutiful country with all the fjords and mountains.
After a small cock up by me (drivingwise) we finally arrived around 21:00
friday evening. Jorn and Alex met us up and guided us to the place we stayed at during the weekend. Lars joined us and we went out to have a beer or three. It was indeed very nice to see Jorn, Lars and Alex again.
I woke up quite early on Saturday morning. Early it was, considering we got to bed very late. I decided to cure the small hangover with breakfast. Then i woke Bjorn up, we rigged up the TV and amiga and had our first beer together with some practise. We decided to act a bit sloppy in defence in purpose to get our scoring in shape.
When arriving to the hairstudio of Jorns wife, a great place for kickoff, we
met two new faces in Sindre and Thor. Two nice guys.
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Sindre
Sindre was my first opponent. I recall I dominated the first game
quite well, I was 2-0 up at half time, a bit lucky that though when Sindre
hit the post two times in a row just before the break. 7-2 was the final score. The rematch vs Sindre (10-0) was together with my second match vs Jorn, my best in this tournament. It felt like every attempt turned out to be a goal, especially the lobbs worked very well in this game.
Sindre is, as me, a natural lobber. Both of us seem to agree this is a very good way to score. Considering he have no amiga and have not trained since 1990´s or so, i do belive he performed very well. He had two great games vs Bjorn who experienced big problems vs Sindre (3-2, 2-2). I wont hesitate stating that Sindre has potential, i very much hope he´ll start to play regulary with Jorn and co after this.
BjornP
My friend, Bjorn had a somewhat surprice win vs Jorn their opener, it was actually Bjorns first win ever vs Jorn (three straight one goal losses before). I knew it was bad timing to play Bjorn now. Of cource Bjorn scored 6 goals against me once again in a competition match (6-6 in Ostersund). His freescoring was combined with stern defending, was not
much to do about. This time it was enough to take all three points. This win and the earlier win vs Jorn, gave Bjorn a great start in this tournament. When we took eachother on in the re-match i do belive Bjorns confidence had taken a little knock after Alex took the first points from Bjorn in round 6(?) after winning 3-2. I had only wins behind me by now and confidense was on a high. It ended up in a nice 7-1 win to me.
Bjorn is a player, together with Jorn and me, that is clearly better now than he was in Koln last year. I think Bjorn did a very good tournament in Tromso, if he would have not lost narrowly vs Alex (2-3) then who knows what it all would have ended up like? But on the other hand, i know nothing about what that match was like.
Bjorn had several more beers than me during the day, even though he said that was not the reason why he performed great in the first 7 games and won very few games in the last 7 games, i have my own thoughts
about that
JornF
Me and Jorn now have three tournament together this year, all of them have taken place in different countries in the nordic area.
After i won vs him in 2 out of 2 games in the world cup, me and Jorn have played very even with equal amount of wins. So before it all started, i saw Jorn together with Alex as the main threats.
Jorn had a horrible start, this when he lost vs Bjorn, me and Alex in the first 1/3 of the tournament. I think maybe Jorn was a bit stressed with all the fixing before we could start. For instance we had a TV that refused to cooperate, he had to fix that instead of playing a few friendlies. Even if we cant see in wich order that games took place, Jorn played very well after these three early defeats.
Our first match is a match i will remember. It turned out to be a goalshow. I had the lead on several occations, but Jorn kept scoring these kickoff-lobs. With short time left of the clock Jorn managed to equlised to 5-5. The match had been ugly though (Jorns Cox had been shown the red), so it was a long injury time. With only seconds left of the match, I got a freekick in a great position, straight outside the penaltyarea. Bjorn said behind me: have you taken such a decisive freekick before? I actually had, in Copenhagen against Jorn (Jorn reminded me about the late 2-1 freekick). This freekick turned out to be a goal as well. Three seconds later the referee blew the whistle just in time to prevent Jorn to equlise on another kickoff-lob(!)
Our second game was, as stated under "Sindre" further up, my best performance this Saturday. Both of us were showing great form. Jorn had just shocked us with a 6-1(!) win vs Alex and i had a 7-1 vs Bjorn just before this match. I remember we said before we started the match, that this will probably end up in a 1-goalwin to Jorn as we had won each match vs eachother with exactly one goal in both Denamrk and Sweden. When Jorn took the lead immidiately i could not belive a 7-1 win to me was waiting around the corner. Like in the replay vs Sindre, it felt like
everything went in. I would like to remember that my lobbing also in this match worked very well.
I think, to be honest, Jorn was a bit unlucky in the start. Reciewing several close defeats from all topplayers. It will be very interesting to see how he will perform in London in the start of September. My guess is that he will do well.
Alex
I remember well that Alex was one of the friendly people that did welcome us when we got to the world cup in Germany last year. Therefore it was nice to see him again.
We had a friendly before it all started, he went 2-0 up quickly, but i turned it around and won with 2 goals, if i recall correctly. When it was time for our first game i realy belived in a win. Just in the match vs Jorn i had the lead several times in this match, but with only 30 seconds left or so, Alex equlised to 3-3 (just as Jorn did). Two late blc-goals saved
me though. As Alex stated, this could have turned in any direction when the score were 3-3.
I very well remember Alex in these two games missed two identical chances when the keeper was up in the stands buying hotdogs, and Alex shot wide both times. I guess with some more practice, he would nail such chances. Our second game i cant recall much from (4-2) but i have a feeling i managed to score several blc´s in both legs.
Alex is a tricky player. He showed several trix i never seen before. I belive if he would have dominated our two games he would have caused heavy damage with these crosses from the wings. I think he scored from a very high % of these. Together with Jorn, Alex seem to be a very likely attender in London within two-three months. Im looking forward to see both of them again there.
LarsA
In Ostersund i did not win with big numbers vs Lars, but in differance to Bjorn and me that practices at least once a week vs eachother, Lars had trained only once since the start of June. Today he was also suffering from a heavy hangover. Under these circumstances he was an easier target than last time we met. It ended up in double figures leaked for Lars in both games.
With more practice and less hangover
im sure he would have done much better, this when i would like to remember him having
a good defence. His high of the tournament must have been the 4-4 vs Jorn.
I hope Lars will be able to travel to London with Jorn. It would be nice to see him again there.
Thor
Thor was indeed the tournaments most violent player. He got several penalties against him and several red cards was reciewed. In our second match we got the referee: "Willis" as ref. In half time he had already lost one or two players. With at least three miutes left of the match, he had lost both the central defenders as well as one wingback AND one central midfielder. No wonder it turned out to be big numbers. Though, Thor creates chances. He should have scored vs me in both games, but luck was not with him in the second match. He had scored in every game quite far in the tournament.
Thor got a win, and scored a few. So not that bad performance after all when no practice in several years. I really hope that both Thor and Sindre will join Jorn and co. with playing regulary from now on.
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After we finished the last games we went home to Thor´s place. He was very kind and gave us pizza, Alex was very happy when i do belive norwegian frozen pizza is his favorite-meal
After that we went out and had a few drinks and beers together.
I have only good to say about everyone that was involved in the ko2 play and i hope i´ll be able to see everyone again, this year or next.
To sum up, both me and Bjorn had a really good time in Tromso and we will very probably return next year, if Jorn is willing to arrange something liket his again. Though, next time we will NOT travel by car
because the trip back was, as stated earlier, a missery.
I've now got some figures to remember. 3-4, 1-6 and one championship.