The idea of Eurobowl was a get together weekend for all the coaches who travelled to different European tournaments. At the end of the weekend some games would have been played and one nation gets to call itself "Eurobowl Champions" for the next 12 months. Because taking part was more important than winning, all matchups were random.sann0638 wrote:Quick history lesson for the newbies among us?
In 2004 (Germany) it was Random/Random
In 2005 (England) it was Random/Random. I also wrote a "Eurobowl" tournament system to track results, do the random draws, etc.
In 2006 (Italy) it was Random/Random. The "Eurobowl" system I wrote was updated and used.
In 2007 there was the NAF World Cup
In 2008 (Spain) 6 months before the event I asked Spain if they wanted the "Eurobowl" system updating and was told no. When I landed in Spain I was asked where the software was Complete disaster was averted at the last minute and they used a normal tournament piece of software (I think Score!), hence why it was Swiss/Swiss
With the NAF World Cup being ultra competitive, suddenly everyone started thinking that Eurobowl was meant to be the same - it never was. Also some countries began choosing their players purely on ability and with no regard as to whether they've played outside their own country or not.
Keeping it Random/Random will hopefully stop any team "powering up" and going there with the sole aim of winning it; as the random draw system removes any claim by the winning team of being "statistically the best". This means that we can all get together and enjoy the reason we're there - to game and see friends - knowing that we always have the come back of "yeah, well you never played anyone good " if the winning country get too big for their boots!
Moving to Swiss/Swiss makes winning the EB as the prime objective. (don't we have enough tournaments in the rest of the year that have this approach??)