By Matthias Friedel and Ben De Boeck
Finally we are there: The European Korfball Championship in Wroclaw, Poland. It is the first time the IKF divided the Championship into two groups: A (first eight ranking countries) and B (second eight ranking countries). We start in the B Championship. It is our first European Championship and it is our first tournament that lasts for more than 3 days in total. You could feel the excitement, tension, and intensity of everyone each day. The team is once again a totally new one consisting of players who played Korfball for many years and of course players who started playing Korfball just a few months ago. A perfect mix which will enable us to be successful on the one hand and on the other hand develops Korfball in Switzerland further and further.
To play a tournament through a whole week is exhausting: Time schedules change each day and depend on the match schedule given by the IKF. Routine? Forget it. A mandatory Covid-19 test each morning before the training forced us to have breakfast even earlier. Training was taking place each day in the morning, afterwards quickly back to the hotel, taking a shower and getting ready to be picked-up by the bus to the match again. In between lunch bags were distributed so that the players at least had something to eat in preparation for the match.
However, as a coach you are not only responsible to coach during the matches: You need to prepare the match days one day earlier, inform the team about the new time schedule, announcing the starting eight before everyone is in bed and checking with the physio and manager what constraint or issues we might face on the next day. Having discussions with players before and after the match, coaching the players during the match and making decisions at the right point of time within the match are additional tasks.
The new format of the IKF by dividing the Championship into two groups makes this B group so much more exciting: Each team can beat all other teams. When you win one match it does not mean anything, and pressure does not decrease until the very end of the tournament. There is no match you can give away and you always need to fight until the end. Many matches have been settled in the very last minutes. Considering the match time with 4 x 10 minutes the matches are done so quickly that you need to react fast to changing circumstances. If you are leading with 5 or 6 goals, you are likely to be the winner but for sure it is also the other way round…
The tournament has been a great experience for us as coaches. Decisions need to be made quickly, you cannot wait too long and wait for something to happen. You also need to gauge how you can support the team in the best way by taking a time out, realizing substitutions, shouting, being quiet, pushing or being demanding. It was great to have two coaches, a manager and a physio who were focused all the time. For sure we needed a few minutes in the first matches to experience what the other persons needed and how to approach them, but it was great teamwork during the whole tournament. We are all looking forward to the next opportunity to show how Korfball in Switzerland has developed and we are willing to go for the needed extra mile. Next stop will be in Turkey for the qualification tournament in 2022 to be part of the World Championship 2023 in Asia. Korfball in Switzerland deserves to go there – let’s do it!