Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Juiced up - and ready for more!
The past two weeks we played a very strong Pamesa Valencia team. I would attribute this to great players/coaches and very juicy oranges. I love orange juice and Valencia oranges are widely known to produce top-notch juice. I consider myself somewhat of an orange juice connoisseur, as it has been my go-to drink for around two decades. I credit some of my longing to live in Florida to its proximity to extremely fresh orange juice. I really do not care what anyone claims, I know that freshly squeezed juice is on another level from all of the rest.
The players in Valencia probably do not even realize what they are getting, but I know. They are getting proper nourishment that builds up their immune system so they can fight off sickness during the long season. Plus, they are getting the pure satisfaction of a delicious, dessert-like quality juice that increases overall morale. A player with high morale is usually linked with solid play in his/her athletic endeavors.
The visiting teams are not used to such a sweet, pure fluid and if most players are anything like myself, they might be tempted to indulge in binge drinking. I tried to consume as much as I could. I didn't want to eat for the whole trip because I felt that I needed to leave room for the liquid gold. I tried to get to the point where I got too much of a good thing, but for me it was impossible. Yet I know that all of us drank entirely too much juice over the week and binging on almost anything is never a good thing. This could partly be to blame for our loss… Or maybe not.
As a player, this is what we do, we have to keep our confidence. So we come up with elaborate reasons for why we lost. Sometimes we try to blame coaches or refs and we are usually wrong. Sometimes we blame a teammate or specific play by a teammate, like the guy who accidentally tipped the ball in for other team. (That was actually me and to defend myself I tipped it in from about three meters when I was going for a rebound.) Upon further reflection, most players realize their own mistakes and own up to them. But in the meantime, I am blaming 1% of our two losses to Valencia on its orange trees.
After the two losses, our team is now in a little bit of a bind. If we have any hope of advancing to the next round, we have to win our next two games and hope for a couple of scenarios to occur. Most of the games are decided by making a few small adjustments. The coaches will deal with the tactical side on the court, but for my part I am thinking of calling the hotel where the other team stays and substituting the water for German beer. Valencia is famous for oranges and exploits this fact, Germany is famous for beer, so I am actually just following the strategy (intended by them or not) of a top team in Europe.
Until next time, it is not over until the fat lady sings, or as the German's say, "am Ende kackt die Ente."
POSTED BY
ADAM HESS - GERMANY