First Loss
Its been a while since I last posted on here. We've finished playing all our pre-season tournaments now. We won our home tournament in Castelo, which was probably the most competitive one featuring top teams such as Benfica and Guimares. The following weekend we won the tournament in Leixoes playing the home team in the final match. I just got home from playing the final of our last tournament in Espinho where we lost to the home team in a close 5 set final match.
We are no longer undefeated in Portugal. Now losing is never a good thing but in this case I don't think it is that bad for us. For one, it is only a pre-season game and therefore does not affect our standings or rankings or anything like that. Second, it knocks us off that 'undefeated' pedestal which does two things. It relieves some pressure off of us (nobody wants to break their undefeated streak) and also gives others team less motivation when playing us (everyone wants to beat the 'undefeated' team).
I can think of a couple of examples where going undefeated has not paid off. Last season in Denmark our team went undefeated for most of our league play only to lose three of our last four games and then lose in the national final. Then there were the 05-06' Golden Bears who went nearly undefeated all year, losing only one match all season long (to UBC of course), then were caught off guard by some cocky christians (TWU) playing the game of their lives in the national final and losing 3-0.
Anyways losing sucks but I would rather lose early in pre season than later down the road when it really matters.
Its been a while since I last posted on here. We've finished playing all our pre-season tournaments now. We won our home tournament in Castelo, which was probably the most competitive one featuring top teams such as Benfica and Guimares. The following weekend we won the tournament in Leixoes playing the home team in the final match. I just got home from playing the final of our last tournament in Espinho where we lost to the home team in a close 5 set final match.
We are no longer undefeated in Portugal. Now losing is never a good thing but in this case I don't think it is that bad for us. For one, it is only a pre-season game and therefore does not affect our standings or rankings or anything like that. Second, it knocks us off that 'undefeated' pedestal which does two things. It relieves some pressure off of us (nobody wants to break their undefeated streak) and also gives others team less motivation when playing us (everyone wants to beat the 'undefeated' team).
I can think of a couple of examples where going undefeated has not paid off. Last season in Denmark our team went undefeated for most of our league play only to lose three of our last four games and then lose in the national final. Then there were the 05-06' Golden Bears who went nearly undefeated all year, losing only one match all season long (to UBC of course), then were caught off guard by some cocky christians (TWU) playing the game of their lives in the national final and losing 3-0.
Anyways losing sucks but I would rather lose early in pre season than later down the road when it really matters.
posted by Kinger at 11:59 PM
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