Finally! The N-E Strikers Charged tournament started today and the first day of the tourney immediately brought some big surprises�

A scandal has already been spotted in League 7 where Aenaos accused his opponent of cheating. Yes, dear readers, Aenaos claimed that his rival Ellmeister used the same home captains in the two games they played, which caused Aenaos to lose both matches. A quick glance at the rulebook however, showed that there was nothing wrong with Ellmeister's move. You see, you only have to change to your away captain when your opponent is using your home captain. Quite logical, no?

Already some top players showed their exceptional skills in the tournament. You want a free betting advice? Put your money on The Peeps, Einix, Flapjack, R4cOn, Marhla,Bomber and RedShell. These guys won their matches with big numbers and already seem to have reserved their place in the main tournament.

On the other hand staff members were outclassed on the field with Platty and Mr_Toad (being the very writer of this article) losing matches by a huge margin first tournament day. Mr_Toad lost his match with Bomber 10-1. Platty even surpassed this humiliating score and lost 17-0 against Marhla! After the match we found Platty mumbling something about 'that damn Toad jump attack'. One very evil attack technique he later used to defeat Shadow - the man who took the initiative to organize this tournament � with one goal difference (and two seconds left on the clock). At least Shadow now knows what he can expect from his match against Marhla� Luckily our top players Wildo and Redshell were able to defend the N-Europe staff honour and won some of their matches. We consider these victories as a small comeback from the staff.

Talking about comebacks, Flapjack was up against the wall in his match with Japjer when he found himself 5-0 behind in the away match. Somehow Flapjack managed to turn things around and scored six goals in a row, meaning a 5-6 win for him. And to think that Japjer lost the away match with the same numbers in the last second of the game. Without doubt these are painful memories for our Dutch contender Japjer.

Our contestants have until Friday to play their group matches. After that the top players from each group will enter the main tournament. The not that good players will play in the Skull Cup tournament. Hopefully there won't be only staff members in that one�

Till next time. Game on!

Nik Wouters
[email protected]