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Mission "Laugh and flat stories" - Nikolaus tournament in Münster - 30.11.2001
The people of Münster are funny people. They organize a sporting event with around 2000 participants in many different sports, which takes place all over the city, followed by a party in a huge marquee. What a great thing! Including a canoe polo tournament, which is also great for us. But then they somehow come up with the crazy idea of doing the whole thing on Friday, with registration between 9 and 11 a.m. - in the morning, mind you! The people of Münster are funny people. But aren't we all a bit Münster?
Let's get in the cars! At a quarter to six, I make a scheduled phone call to Claus to make sure we don't oversleep. At six we want to meet at the bakery with the cars as planned. At five to six, I make an unscheduled phone call to Sven, who tells me that his car won't start. The following phone calls with Simone and Friederike are also unscheduled, to let them know that we are throwing most of our plans overboard and, as always, doing everything completely differently. On the way to Sven's, Claus and I pick up Rike. When we want to drive away again, our own car won't start. But we parked on the hill. Soon afterwards, we use the ignition cable to start Sven's car, puzzling over the cause of the problems and then realize that the petrol station is not yet open at this time of day. No matter, we have enough fuel to get to the highway. We hear on the radio about the recovery of a truck that had crashed on our route and finally arrive in Münster after a short traffic jam.
After our successful registration, we drive to the Ostbad and make ourselves comfortable in the lobby. Hordes of students come and go, and we wait a few hours until the first paddlers finally arrive and the tournament starts. We sweeten the time until then with a Flummi that Friederike pulls out of a vending machine. It's not so easy to catch with the paddle - the café menu next to me, the illuminated beer sign above me and the kiosk blind behind me make it all the easier. There are no janitors in sight. We have a chat with a few people from Münster (not only funny, but also nice people, by the way), and then the gates to the arena open. As is so often the case in paddling circles, the division into male and female is more of a theoretical nature. Welcome to the family!
The bathroom is cozy, warm and bright, the gates, nets and boats are quickly prepared, and then the games begin. We stand on the sidelines and soak up what information we can about our opponents from their games, discuss strategies and chat with others. Enough chatter, it's our turn. We quickly realize that, contrary to our assumption, the water polo goals that are played on here are quite difficult to defend, as they are much wider than they look and, unlike kayak polo goals, do not have their lower edge at a height of two metres, but at the level of the water surface. The unusually low ceiling of the hall also limits our ability to make high passes. We will therefore try to "keep the ball flat" today, not only in the sense of a calm, controlled game, but also literally. At this point, I would like to mention my admiration for the one Münster keeper who is almost like a wall in front of goal. In our first game, I can't cope with these things at all, and we haven't got used to them yet and are pretty much overrun by the opposing team. Falko, Simone
and Sven were able to adapt to the new goals quicker than me in the following games, and so I gained my first serious experience in attack up front during the tournament. Our next game is against one of the two Portuguese teams. Two of them are only in a kayak for the second or third time in their lives and are doing really well, but are still inferior to us, and we use the game to gather ourselves, find our rhythm again in a peaceful manner and rebuild our damaged morale. As it turns out afterwards, that was spot on. Our next opponents are not easy to crack, but we are "in the flow" and manage to implement our strategic plans. Of course, I'm not going to tell you exactly what they are here!
In the fourth game, we fly a little too high, underestimate the Münster team and play too carelessly. We rarely gained control of the game and conceded a lot of goals as a result. Münster are not only funny people and nice, but also serious opponents. You never stop learning.
The eight players who actually made the effort to come to Münster from Portugal to take part in the polo tournament and get to know Germany for a few days are also nice. 2600 kilometers of travel - for one way, of course! That is true passion. We talk about this and that (I speak fluent Portuguese - well no, but they speak English) and soon agree that we will try to get their university to pay for their gas to Clausthal so that they can take part in our cuddly tournament. Wheels must roll...
At this point, I would like to mention once again that situations arise at the tournaments that are so directly aimed at the laugh muscles that it is sometimes difficult to continue playing. Of course, everyone does their best, but when an opponent can no longer follow the game for seconds and repeatedly shouts "With one hand! With ONE hand!..." several times after Claus with paddle and ball in one arm has rolled with the other arm, or when Falko passes a ball from a precarious situation back to goalkeeper Sven and he then gets huge eyes because he has to catch it to prevent an own goal, or when it takes forever for us to realize who is going to throw the ball, or when the referee has a crisis because there are more paddlers swimming than paddling on the field, or when we rush into full armor for the umpteenth time only to realize that it's not our turn yet, then sometimes our coordination suffers. However, this doesn't bother us much - without these situations, the games would only be half as enjoyable.
Our games now come at shorter intervals, twenty minutes break is not much time to regenerate. We eat a snack in between and drink the fluids we've lost, and then we're back at it again. Having become cautious after the last defeat, we now play it safe. Most of the passes are on target, we set the tempo and don't allow ourselves to be pressured into anything. This Portuguese team is stubborn. We're trying to find a compromise between a strong game and one that saves energy, because we know that there's still a lot to come from the last game. We play a nice game with opponents who don't give us anything, but our calculation works out.
Then the big moment arrives: we expect a tough battle. We have the feeling that there's a good chance we can do it. But we also know that it won't be easy. In situations like this, there's always the danger of
and make mistakes that give our opponents opportunities. It's an inner balancing act between optimism, caution, concentration and relaxation. From the edge of the pool, we get valuable feedback on the ongoing game from our substitutes, who have a better overview and can quickly alert us to any mistakes - if we can hear them in the turmoil. Paying attention to these calls, the ball, the opponents and the actions of the other players, drawing conclusions quickly, implementing them and, ideally, repeating all of this faster than the other side in order to always be one step ahead - this is what makes kayak polo so appealing to me. We manage to stay in the "flow" and maintain our good teamwork. Münster puts the pressure on. We take the lead after a few attacks and now try to hold on to it. Every gap in our defense is immediately exploited, creating hairy situations that are extremely difficult and sometimes impossible to iron out. Goals are scored, on both sides. For our part, we take every opportunity to attack intensively and benefit in particular from our clean passing, which we have been working on in training recently. I actually wanted Falko to replace me during the short half-time break, as I was pretty much on my last legs. However, I only remembered when the second half had already started and I was so focused on attacking and defending that I simply forgot. Maybe that's a good thing; we've now settled into this game and the short time that someone new to the pitch has to get used to the opposition might tip the scales in Münster's favor. We'll never know, no game is played twice. But we will win!
Apart from our condition animals, we are pretty knocked out. It takes me quite a while to get back on my feet. Regardless of the result, it's always particularly nice when an opposing team, which is strong but not hopelessly superior, gives us a lot of resistance. We learn our most valuable lessons this way. While we're holding our post-match briefing and analyzing the game, Simone suddenly starts running around frantically and calculating something, and after a while we realize that we're guaranteed at least third place! Unbelievable! We didn't do the maths the whole time and just kept on playing, enjoying everything and trying to improve our approach. We never dreamed of rising so high above our traditional penultimate place in the tournament. After a few more iterations, it's clear that we're also guaranteed 2nd place, and if the Portuguese win their last game against Münster, we could even finish first. However, we don't expect that at all, as they seem hopelessly inferior to Münster due to their lack of experience.
We've had a very good chat with them so far and, based on what we've heard from many experienced players, we've tried to help them improve their game with one or two tips. So we are doubly excited about this showdown - out of sympathy for David taking on Goliath, and because Portugal can theoretically lift us from second to first place. We can't believe what we're seeing now. Do we think Goliath knows, as we do, that our first place is at stake and is therefore under pressure? Does David think it's the last game anyway and will give it everything he's got? In any case, the Portuguese have learned a lot since the start of the tournament, it seems to me. A powerful attack soon results in a goal! Even conceding a goal doesn't seem to unsettle them, they do everything in their power and Münster realize that a tough fightback is necessary. The battle rages, with goals literally raining down on both sides, and Team Portugal eventually wins by 7 goals to 5. The unexpected sensation of the day! That's a great total number of goals, considering that the game only lasted 14
minutes - a goal almost every minute. And what does all this teach us? The course of a game can never be predicted with certainty, no matter how certain it may seem. The metamorphosis from underdog to winner can happen unexpectedly and suddenly. I'm delighted that the Portuguese can enjoy this success, they gave it their all. And sorry, Münster - return the favor at our cuddle tournament in February!
In the meantime, we've been playing for a good 9 hours without interruption and, despite all the fun, we find it nice to be able to take a shower and devote ourselves to the rest of the evening. After a short prize-giving ceremony and a long period of fiddling with our equipment, we make our way to a Mexican restaurant to refuel for the party ahead.
The night is short - less because of the party than because of the fact that you can't sleep so well with hundreds of people in a stuffy gym with a loud bad air blower. After finding out that most of the drunks are unable to operate the light switch for the main lighting if you have it taped, I manage to get some sleep. Nonetheless, we have to leave the dormitory at seven (!!!) in the morning because it has to be cleaned. Have I already mentioned that people from Münster are funny people? We stagger to breakfast in the marquee and soon I find myself in the car on a delirious journey home. There was simply not enough sleep for so much action.
We are somewhat surprised by our unexpected success. We seem to be undergoing a transformation, somehow the individual pieces of the strategy puzzle we are playing are slowly coming together to form a homogeneous whole. Of course, there is still a lot to do, but we are in no hurry and there are still many training sessions and tournaments to come where we can only learn and, above all, have a lot of fun.
Our thanks go to the polutes from Münster who took it upon themselves to organize the polo tournament, to all our opponents for the opportunity to learn from them, and to the Portuguese group who came all this way to save our first place.
PS: We no longer needed the jumper cables. Murphy is also Murphy.