The men’s futsal tournament at the European Universities Games Zagreb – Rijeka 2016 starts today, and will last until July 24. This meant that the 22 futsal teams and their delegations from all over Europe had been arriving at Zagreb over the last few days, on the eve of the general technical meeting for futsal, which was held yesterday evening.
Most teams arrived with little hassle, checking into the accreditation center and settling into the village without any problems. Some, such as the team from the University of Minho, made their presence known with an impromptu flashmob, performing the Macarena during their first dinner at Restaurant 2 on Friday night.
However one team did not have such a pleasant journey: the boys from the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences were troubled by flight cancellations. They were supposed to fly from Lithuania to Zagreb via Warsaw, but the flight was cancelled due to poor weather, and the team had to scramble to find seats on whichever flights they could for their 15-strong delegation. The clock was ticking: they had to show up for the general technical meeting or they would have been disqualified.
Although they were originally scheduled to arrive at Friday afternoon, four of their officials and a referee were the first to arrive that night at 22.00; two of the players arrived a few hours after them. According to the team’s attache Lucija, the accreditation office was closed when they finally made it to the village, and the weary travelers had to find temporary accreditation passes before they could enter the village and get to their rooms.
At that time, the remaining eight members of the team were still scattered across Europe. Thankfully, they all made it in eventually, some 24 hours late. Speaking with the team’s coach at their first training session yesterday at Martinovka, he elaborated that two more players had managed to arrive from Warsaw, but that some had spent the night in Frankfurt. Four had ended up in Milan, adding an extra 800 kilometers to their journey. However, any stress they may have had about getting to the Games in time was certainly alleviated by the compensation they had been entitled to – such as free hotel rooms, vouchers for dinners and upgrades to business class, ensuring they arrived well rested for their training later that afternoon.
Accompanying them back from training, with music blasting from a set of speakers they carried around, the boys seemed in good spirits. Although not quite knowing of what lay ahead, they were looking forward to the Games. This evening they will start the tournament, facing the team from Erasmus University of Rotterdam at Sutinska Vrela. Best of luck to both teams!
