If the Gladiators have been one of two teams keeping up with Belgrade, then the other are the Novi Sad Dukes. Every big win by the Vukovi has been matched with a win by Dukes to stay tied for first place in the South conference, even though their wins haven’t been as impressive.
With the team from Novi Sad having a weekend off, the Vukovi will attempt to get their fourth win and at least for a week, get sole possession of first place in the standings. The team visiting Belgrade on Saturday are the Budapest Cowboys, the third and final new team that will travel to play the Vukovi.
The other two new league teams have already done their tour in Belgrade, losing by 74 points in Zagreb’s and by 53 in Bratislava’s case.
Belgrade hasn’t really been tested in the first month of the league season — the closest it got to that was in Ljubljana, where they won by 32 points, although it was closer early on. One of the reasons was perhaps the lack of players available for that game; it’s also perhaps the reason their two import players, William Blocker and Jordan Green, played a lot more than they did in the first two games. Or perhaps not, and the Americans will play more from now on in all the games — if so, we’ll see it against the Cowboys.
The team from Budapest was able to win its second game of the season two weeks ago, but narrowly against Zagreb. What that means, when they’re playing against a team that beat the same opponent by a 10 times bigger margin, is not hard to figure out — on Saturday in Belgrade, they’re underdogs to say the least.
If there’s something missing in Belgrade’s fast start, it’s that two of their best from last year, and probably best known players, haven’t played almost at all and maybe won’t anymore. Receiving tandem of Andrej and Pavle Tasić hasn’t played in any games this year together; Andrej had surgery on his right knee and hasn’t played a down, while Pavle has had two minor injuries that kept him off the field, except for the season opener against Zagreb, when he caught a touchdown pass in limited time. They’re both very likely leaving for the US in June, so how much they’ll play for the rest of their time is anyone’s guess.