Short thoughts on EUCF

Immediate reactions from watching at home

The European Championships are over. Congrats to Clapham, Shout and Deep Space for winning the titles!

I’ll be writing some in-depth breakdowns of a couple of the final games similar to what I wrote for EUC earlier this year. I probably won’t have time to cover all 3 finals so you can attempt to sway me here in the comments or on my discord .

For now though, brief thoughts on the games, the coverage, the format, the season.

Main Takeaways

1. Knockout ultimate is great

There’s a reason we play the games.

On my instagram I asked if people would take Moon or the field, and GRUT or the field and Moon and GRUT got 60% of the vote each. Both massive favourites but anything can happen in a single game.

Outside of the finals, I really enjoyed how ruthless this tournament was compared to EUC. Teams were very quickly battling to stay in the tournament. There was drama to get invested in from Day 1.

2. The regular season means nothing

Well, nothing is an exaggeration, but it’s very easy to extrapolate out from results and performances in regular season tournaments and assume they’ll stay the same. Smart teams that are focused on winning big tournaments aren’t treating regular season events the same as the big one. Plus, as I wrote about previously, teams that are successful have less incentive to change than teams that are losing. Honestly, I get more nervous when I have a perfect start to the season than if it goes badly.

The Good

1. Game of the tournament

The La Fotta - Mooncatchers semi final was an absolutely incredible game. The amount of jaw dropping athletic plays from both sides was off the charts. Enthralling game from start to finish. There’s something special about those intense evening games too.

2. Great coverage

4 games in each timeslot was a real treat for me at home, and I’m sure many other people. Please continue to keep paywalls away from the sport EUF! Everything about the coverage has been getting better and better over the past 3 seasons and I’m very grateful for it.

3. Ultiorganiser

Following along to the scores as they happen is amazing. It was so nice to follow along with every twist and turn in games of the teams I was supporting. Thanks for EUF and volunteers for putting in the work to make this happen.

My only issue with ultiorganiser is that it doesn't list coaches/staff in the rosters of the teams. I’d love to see them the the highlight and credit they deserve.

4. Better VAR discussions

In my EUC review I said:

EUF released a new set of rules before EUCF to improve this:

I think this worked really well, there definitely seemed to be fewer lengthy delays during calls and forcing the players on the pitch to actually discuss the call rather than signalling for video immediately was a big improvement on what I saw at EUC. Big credit to EUF for responding to this trend so quickly.

5. 8 different countries represented in women’s quarter finals

I think that’s great. It’s nice to see so many parts of Europe representing strongly. Plus, Gravity finished 9th so it’s actually 9 different countries at the top.

The Bad

1. Finals Blowouts

So strange to have two blowouts in the finals. No doubt that Mooncatchers and JinX are much better than the performances they showed here on the day. Credit has to go to Clapham and Shout for a great gameplan and then never relaxing their intensity level. At least the mixed final delivered tension from start to finish.

On the flipside, I got to watch a lot more of the Ryder Cup than I thought I would.

2. Seedings

I should start by saying as a competitor I don’t care at all about seedings. I’m happy to take on any team, any time. But I also like to know and understand everything but I’m completely baffled at how the tournament was seeded. I don't think it had any material impact on the tournament, but again, I like to know.

Women's was the one that looked the strangest - why were JinX the 1 seed and able to avoid Shout/Yaka until the final? This isn't to say JinX didn't earn their spot in the final, I just have no idea why they would have that seed based on results from this season or last.

3. New Season Structure

Again two caveats here: I understand this isn’t the end product of what EUF are aiming for, and I understand that in an international year it’s hard to fit in a club season.

What I don’t like in particular is the early season invite tournaments having such a material impact on the EUCF tournament. Having automatic qualification and (it looks like) high seeding for EUCF based off tournaments in April and May is something I don’t like. I think there’s too big a disconnect between performances that far apart. Taking those teams out of regionals then further devalues regionals as a competition - the best teams aren’t there and you don’t have the prospect of an underdog knocking a top team out of the top seeding for the tournament.

It also then forms an overly positive loop for teams that do well. Do well at EUCF and get invited to Elite Invite. You now go into the season with the chance to qualify for EUCF at both Elite Invite (a 25% chance!) and at regionals - two chances to qualify.

I am hopeful that the next step on the transition of the European club season will remove those awarded bids - however having re-read the transition plan there isn’t any mention of automatic bids from the invite tournaments so that seems to be a new addition to the process.

Finally, even though I didn’t like how the invite tournaments impacted EUCF, I’m still happy to see EUF trying things out. This isn’t a criticism to say that they shouldn’t try new things to improve the season - I just didn’t like this particular change.

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