This year’s final 4 in the Eurobowl will be exactly the same as last year, but not all of this year’s teams had to face the same barriers as last year. The Vienna Vikings and Berlin Adler each reached last year’s final after coming out of the group stage and beating teams that had byes into the quarters. This year, every team that was offered a bye and a home game in the quarterfinal took advantage of the rest and the home crowd with wins in this weekend’s games.
Up north in Berlin the Adler beat the Danube Dragons of Vienna 35-25 keeping last year’s Eurobowl champ and the only remaining non
Austrian club alive for at least one more round. Last season they beat two Austrian clubs on the way to the EFL crown, this year they’ll have to top that, beating 3 clubs if they will be at the top again. With the Graz Giants beating the Carlstad Crusaders they will face the Adler of Berlin. The Adler will host the game on the 28th of May in north Germany.In Innsbruck, Austria the Raiders had a fairly easy game against the French Champions, the Spartiates from L’Amiens. The last time the Raiders saw a French team it was a 2009 Eurobowl win against the Paris Flash with American stars like Jason Johnson and Matt Epperson running the show. A shutout in this game was negated only by a 3rd quarter score from the French team, with a 41-6 final. This win sets them up against cross country rival the Vienna Vikings.
The Vikings won the first matchup against the Raiders 28-24 earlier this season at home. In their quarterfinal, The Vienna Vikings knocked off the Calanda Broncos, a team that paid more for wins this year than any other with their influx of imports. It got them close, but didn’t get them the edge as they lost 15-12 in Vienna last weekend. The Raiders outbid the Vikings in order to have the semi-final played in Tirol.EFAF Cup
In the EFAF Cup we’re down to 4 teams as well. Pool A was the only one that turned out to have any resemblance of competition. The Thonon Black Panthers of France, the Prague Black Hawks from Czech Republic, and the Milan Rhinos of Italy each beat each other once. The Hawks won and lost by 3, the Rhinos won by 3 and lost by 10, while the Panthers won by 10 and lost by 3. By rule the Panthers having the best point differential in the group will advance to play another day. The Panthers have come out of this group after losing the first game in the group. As a result, we must rewind to the previous blog interview with the head coach of the Panthers in which Larry Legault said, “We've had a rough start to our season here in France; we need to improve in several phases of play if we expect to be at all competitive in the EFAF Cup.” They obviously got it together, and as a result will be headed to the final 4.The Kragujevac Wild Boars of Serbia won their one game matchup offering them a chance to play the Black Panthers in the semi-final. The London Blitz, England, won their two games in their pool by a total of 88-6, while the Sollerod Gold Diggers of Denmark won their two matchups by a whopping 130-16. The Gold Diggers and Blitz will face off later this month for a chance to play in the EFAF Cup Final.
