Kuwait will take part in the European Beach Flag Football #kuwait #q8

Kuwait Upto Date • September 8, 2014 • 0 Comments

Kuwait will take part in the European Beach Flag Football tournament as a unofficial 4th team.

In less than ten days several European teams will compete for the first European title of Beach Flag Football in Grosseto, Italy. The organizer just revealed they will battle in a double round-robin tournament over a single day. The nations playing in the men’s competition are: Italy (host nation), Finland, Sweden, and Kuwait.

Why in heaven is Kuwait participating in a European official competition? This very legitimate doubt, raised by many a fan, is explained firstly by the fact that the first objective for IFAF (the international board) is the development of a solid movement for this relatively new sport: the Kuwaiti representative showed a commendable will to participate in as many relevant tournaments as possible soon after joining the international circuit and, given the limited number of teams who signed up for this Beach European Championship, one more squad of passionate players will certainly add to the lively atmosphere of this week of international Flag Football.

Obviously, Kuwait will not compete for the European title as the other teams will, and their games will not affect the overall statistics for the tournament, to be considered as a matter of a fact a triangular tournament. In this sense, Sweden has perhaps an advantage because its players will be able to try out (against Kuwait itself) their set plays on the sand before committing to a game valid for the tournament.

The Women’s tournament will be played by: Italy, France, Switzerland and Finland.

In their case, differently from the men’s, not every team has at least a bronze medal guaranteed thus this tournament is certainly looking to be more competitive and we expect to see charged-up matches where every single drive is important. All considered, even though the French representative has probably more experienced players, everything is still at stake.

In spite of the fact that we know many of the players for their previous international appearances in Flag Football, playing on the beach is a very different story and we expect this to be a determining factor both for athletic and strategic reasons. Since this is the first European championship ever of this particular kind, it is utterly difficult to speculate on the overall results or even on the strategy and attitudes of the individual teams.

We cannot but wait for the outcome of this competition which will certainly prove very tiring for the players and which might lead to a European ranking completely different from the one we are used to in Flag Football.

(Article by Simone Mingoli, www.le100yard.it ; trans. by Claudio Svaluto Moreolo)
Source : ItallyBffc2014