We were lucky this year, Austria Cup was very close to “Battle of the Nations” (in terms of time frame), so we needed one trip. By the way, weather in Austria was hot even for Israelis.

We reached Trogir pretty quickly. We were very glad to see all our old friends and meet new guys. We communicated a lot this year, because the camps were close to each other and people mingled. We had a lot of meetings!

All my favorite teams were close, here I mean Ukraine, Belarus. Latvians were close to us. They are our constant partners, it is the first year when we did not fight with them, we were in different groups.

What can I say about battles? It becomes more difficult to win year after year. All participants train and increase their levels.

Because our battles were planned only for the second day, we had an opportunity to join Belarus for “21 vs 21″. It was a nice experience, we could not get that neither in Israel nor at “Battle of the Nations” since we do not have the necessary number of fighters.

Other teams, as always, were interesting. Argentina won the audience this year. The guys prepared and participated well just within one year. As for Belarus fighters, in addition to the fact they were our comrades this year in the royal category, they are the guys I simply like a lot. 95 percent of their fights are very pure, in terms of compliance with the rules. Belarus fighters fight for victory, but do not forget about the purity of the game. As for new teams, we liked Estonia a lot. The guys had prepared diligently, it was clear.

This year, to be honest, we were better than in the past, but still ou results were worse than I had expected. We will watch the video material, analyze everything and work on our mistakes. After watching some video, it becomes clear that even veterans of our team, as well as me make classic mistakes, so we will work hard.

I remember a few moments best of all, for example when Russia-1 crushed us like a tank. They crushed us, beat, hurt us. The battle with Poland was memorable, too. I think it was a battle of equals. We could win, but this year they were lucky… they fought very well. There are worthy opponents to compete with!

Of course, we cannot match the level of Russia at the time, but I think we catch up with Poland and Belarus step by step. But we still lack experience. For that we need to compete and fight constantly.

Mikhail Morgulis,
captain of the National Team of Israel

Photo by Roman Dreyer (Israel)