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First, I thank you for the opportunity to lead the national team for another two seasons.

I will merge the threads for both seasons into one thread, probably makes more sense. Again, I invite all managers to the swedish discord channel, there the discussions are more lively: https://discord.gg/K798aEuT. Probably makes sense for league and other discussions as well.

So, the season 71 will again give us the opportunity to play at the european championships, which will be held in Bosnia this time. Our ranking improved noticeably since two seasons ago - back then we started the EC as #55 in the world (which put us in the 6th seed), now we start the EC as #43, which was good enough for 5th seed, but the #4 seed, Latvia, is the first european team above us, so effectively it would be the same, if we were seed 4.

We were a bit unlucky with the group, which consists of a host, Bosnia, two very strong teams Bulgaria and Poland, then Latvia, who will also keep an eye to the top 2 spots. The three lowest seeded teams (#6, #7, #8) in the group are Iceland, Wales and Belarus. Especially the latter seems to be much stronger than its ranking suggests, and may give additional problems to the other teams. I am hesitant to speak of goals, this championship is a perfect opportunity to test our current reach, our team still has weaknesses we must address, and many strong opponents will help us with further progress.

The team for this season did not change much in comparison to the team of the previous two seasons, and I doubt there are any secrets. The core of the team consists of:

Kristian Forsbratt, 32, Afk Ballers, 105 NT caps, team captain
Finn Egghall, 35, Glaskulans IF, 120 NT caps
Sören Häggin, 33, Field Mice, 112 NT caps
Lasse Lundell, 33, Pipa Warriors, 102 NT caps
Peter Danielsson, 32, Afk Ballers, 64 NT caps
Kalle Håkansson, 31, The Chickaboos (CAN), 77 NT caps
Bernhard Rolfsson, 31, Jokehim Maniacs, 42 NT caps
Herman Hansson, 30, Markushhh’s, 50 NT caps
Bengt-Åke Olsson, 28, Field Mice, 24 NT caps
Michael Ahlér, 27, Kerlci II (UTO), 43 NT caps

These are 10 players, 8 of them are in domestic clubs, one is with me, and Håkansson is currently on sale, so the majority of the players are kept within the community. Also Ahler will be available very soon (probably in two weeks) -a reminder for anyone, who would do some easy further training, and would like to get good merch.

Some of these players are also very high on the all-time NT lists:

Kristian Forsbratt scored 332 points in season 70, which is the fourth most productive season of any swedish player (and the top three are from distant seasons 45, 23, and 18). Cumulatively, this got him to 1763 points, currently number 10 on the all-time list. But given he is only 32, and has at least four more seasons in the NT, he is a threat to the legendary Tommy Fyhrhult, who sits at the top of the table with 2783 points.

Finn Egghall is currently number 6 on the all-time assists list with 530 assists. This will be his last full season, but he can probably gain a few more places, #3 is at 561, which is within reach. Lasse Lundell is also currently #9 on that list.

There are approx. 10 more players, who might fill the remaining 8 spots in the team. The emerging of young players happens very fast, last season Bengt-Åke Olsson was not yet a team regular, but now he became one of the key players. Several other top young players of ages 26 and below are not that far, yet still far enough, that I don't expect them to be a part of the team in this season. Maybe some of them will see more playing time in season 72, but they will more noticeably contribute in the next cycle, so season 73 and onwards.

Also, I encourage anyone with any remarks, complaints or questions, to express them here on in the discord

Last edited by Deschamps at 1/28/2026 4:18:38 AM

Our first game was a success, we beat Latvia quite convincingly. The game ended with a score of 154-139, most points out of any NT game this week (83033)

Going into the game, I was a bit sceptical, since our GS was worse then GS of Latvian squad, their DMI was much higher, but I also knew they have their own problems, so I trusted the team to deliver. But I did not expect such a performance.

First half was almost unbelievable, we scored a total of 88 points. We quickly got to a 10 points lead (5 min into the game), then 20 points lead (10 min into the game). The Q1 finished with a score of 46-21, and then, 10 min into Q2, we even surpassed the 30 pts difference barrier briefly.

After the half-time, we stepped off gas, but Latvia didn't manage to threaten us in Q3. The difference before the final 12 minutes was still 25 points. Afterwards, the garbage time came, and this was a bit too much relaxed from our side. After two minutes the score got below 20 pts difference, then, 3 min to go, it was already 142-132 so game was open again. Two minutes to go, Latvians scored a three pointer for 142-135, and 1:30 to go it was 142-137, while we panically called timeouts every minute. Fortunately Sören Häggin scored a three pointer with only one minute to go, which ultimately sealed the game, and we managed to get back to +15 via free throws. A bit more chaotic then I predicted based on first three quarters, but a nice win anyways.

With 154 points, the most since a whooping 182 points against Malta in a distant season 23, many players scored more than 10 points - 7 of them. Kristian Forsbratt and Lasse Lundell both got above 30 points barrier with 35 and 31 points, and Lasse's three points were 7-9. Even cumulatively, our FG% was "only" 49%, while our 3FG% was 60%.

Next week we play against Iceland, who has a very decent team, but they got surprised by Wales yesterday. Fighting a wounded tiger is always dangerous, so we must ensure not to get grounded too quickly. Meaning good minutes and good game shapes of all key players. Then I think we are clear favourites.

Beside Wales beating Iceland, Bosnia used a home court advantage to win over Poland, while Bulgaria had no problems with Belarus.

Unfortunately, the chances we gained by beating Latvia in the previous week, were quickly lost due to a defeat against Iceland (83035)

Our GS in this week is quite solid, so it was a no braner for me with what attitude to approach the game, as we were clear favourites. It was a bit of a risk, since Iceland probably had better ent, and their GS was also not bad, but if we wanted to achieve something in this tournament, playing TIE here was not optional.

However, many little things have gone wrong for us in the game. First, Iceland manager correctly predicted our outside attack, and second, one of two GS=9 players, Bernhard Rolfsson, got injured very quickly into the game. In addition, his backup was Christianos Serafidis, who is only a very occasional player, and to make things worse, I didn't put any reserve to the C position, which was a stupid thing to do. So Christianos played non-stop for 46 minutes, leaving him exhausted and very inefficient towards the end of the game. So a combination of bad luck and me not covering every possible bad luck scenarios led to this defeat, which was definitely avoidable.

The game itself was very tight. We managed to get to +10 at the beginning of the Q2, but Iceland quickly responded and tied the result by half-time. In the second half, they were pushing the pace, getting to +8 six minutes into the Q3, but then we managed to get back until the end of the quarter. Neither team got any significant lead in Q4, Iceland managed to get ahead to 97-94 just before the end, but Kristian Forstbratt scored a three pointer for overtime.

In the overtime two three pointers from Lasse Lundell got us to 105-101, but Iceland managed to recover and got to a +1 lead 32 seconds to go. 16 seconds to go we lost a ball, and Iceland got to 113-110 with two successfull free throw attempts. Finn Egghall made a three pointer attempts for another overtime, but this time it was not successfull, and this meant the game was lost.

Unfortunately, this is the way it was, with two wins our morale would be on a completely different level before the games against group's favourites. Now we can only hope not to be surprised again by one of the weaker two teams (Belarus, Wales), and to maybe get something from the three games against better opponents (Bulgaria, Bosnia, Poland). Next week we play host Bosnia, chances here are slim, but with some luck one never knows.

Two games were played since my last update:

First, a game against Bosnia, who were clear favourites. We played them twice in the last three seasons, all games with their HCA, so we sort of knew what to expect, and the outcome of the game was more or less expected (83041). A loss by approx. 20 points, and while we never were destroyed, we constantly lagged behind. Kristian Forstbratt scored 41 points with a 16-25 FG, and 7-11 3FG, but other players lacked such efficiency. Additionaly, even with playing 2-3 zone, we had problems with rebounding, loosing 39-49, which effectively decided the game.

Yesterday we played against a low-ranked, but quite decent Belarus. Their approach to this game was a bit of mistery, and this was a game we couldn't afford to loose. Additionally, it was more or less clear, that we are still in contention for the decent 4th place in the group, but cannot achieve much more, so we went a bit safe into the game, and played with normal attitude. Luckily for us, Belarus did not attack us, and also missed the GDP, so by the end we won quite convincingly, by 20 points (83042). Could have become nasty if Belarus took some other decisions, though. A win by 20 points got us some boost in points difference, and now we are competing with, surprisingly, Wales and maybe Iceland for the fourth place in the group. Latvia lost a game against Wales, and they are now more or less out of the picture, although they were the 4th seed in the group.

I believe we are in good position to be fourth, since we only need a win against Wales for this. To be frank, Wales already won against Belarus, Latvia and Iceland, so they have to be treated seriously. I also hope we will be able to play equally against two very strong teams - Bulgaria and Poland. This will be a good test for us, where we stand, how much is still missing. Our PF/C positions lack depth, so we are clearly not there yet, but the gap is closing.



Last edited by Deschamps at 2/24/2026 6:44:34 AM