In the first few games of the 2008 season, Ljubljana has been playing better than what their record says, and Novi Sad has done the opposite. Both play this weekend — could there be a reversal of fortunes?
With the CNC Gladiators already at three wins, they are the frontrunner in North conference, ahead of everyone by two wins, what practically would’ve been good enough for a playoff spot last year. Things are of course somewhat different this year, with 10 games in the regular season, and the Silverhawks are not out yet.
It could’ve been a lot different though, as they were just an overtime away from beating the Gladiators at home. Then, they were a few plays away from beating Dukes in an away game. They lost both with the same score — 13-6. Now, they face the most convincing team thus far and by far.
“The Vukovi are without a doubt the best team in the league. Just by looking at the scores of prior games it’s clear that they have a defense made of steel and a high octane offense. How to stop such a team is a great mystery for every coach”, says Ljubljana’s Head Coach Uroš Valant. “Because of injuries we’re a few players down, so for us it will be a very hard game.”
The Vukovi themselves will be a few players down because of various problems, ranging from injuries to traveling problems, and the number of players on the team, for the game, will be much smaller than what they’re used to this year. Still, they’re favored for a reason.
“This year we’re really much better and of course we’re playing to win, but the Vukovi are so strong that it’s going to be really hard.”
Belgrade’s main rival in the South, the Novi Sad Dukes, hasn’t had problems keeping up with them, but more in terms of number of wins then in terms of how convincing of wins. They are two of two in CEFL and five of five in official games this year, but outside the CEFL opener at Budapest against the Cowboys, their wins have been not very big.
It all started in the Serbian league and was followed up by a very close win at home against the Silverhaws; just last week they needed a goal line stand to preserve a 35-27 win against a Serbian team they really expect to beat by a bigger margin.
At that game, they had their coach, Predrag Nikolić, with them for the first time in the CEFL season. Being away from the team, for one more week, he says it’s unclear to him why they’re not showing the form that made had them easy at 4-0 last year.
“This time our defense was bad, they were driving like we were playing the Vukovi. The previous game, the offense was disastrous, and the defense played well. I can’t really tell from this position why we’re playing so hot and cold. I, too, hoped we would win a game convincingly, but it wasn’t to be last week”, says Nikolić.
On Saturday, they’ll be in Bratislava, for their second away game. Unlike last time, the team they’ll face has a lot more to prove — Bratislava’s 53 point loss in Belgrade is something nobody expected and it looked so bad in the end that their coach was willing to leave the team.
Looks can be deceiving though, as the Monarchs kept the Belgrade game scoreless in the first quarter, before they crashed and burned in the second half, after falling behind by 20 at the half.
It now looks like their coach, Milan Mudry, will stay after all and the Monarchs will try to become the first new team to record a win against one of the old teams. Their chances might not be as bad as it seems.