And so “The
Team” came together. Unofficially already started in January where we played
some matches against other teams on a 10 minute base. This formed the core of
what would become “The Team”. We signed up later for the Urban Sports League,
the real thing. We were hyped, we were psyched. We we’re going to do this and
we were going to do this good! The team consists of Markus, Jonathan, Daniel,
Uwe, Alex, Jani, Fran, Oli, Ruben and Tom (with later additions in the form of Nico and Ignacio).
A flaming start
of the Digital Performance crew stopped the Kayak Locomotive dead in its
tracks. This would be the basis of something great. In a forty minute match 29
goals were scored ending the match in 24:5 to our advantage. Already DP was
distinguishing themselves by scoring so many goals.
However,
the next week spoiled the fun. Home24 showed us we should not become
overconfident and this was just the start of the league. Being a bit unlucky
with referee decisions but also some seriously bad play made the match end in
5:9. Our team, the Spanish fury, combined with some German no-nonsense
“Gründlichkeit” and a hint of Dutch and Serbian flavor was now down on the
ground again, with lots of work to do for the coming match.
The week
after Vistaprint was the next victim. But the only thing they saw at the end is
that the score form had 12:3 printed on it; again in favor of DP. We were on a
roll again!
So KABAM
was up next, which ended in a tough fight between the two teams. Some lucky
decisions by the referee gave us the benefit to start scoring goals which in
the end would make the difference. The game ended 11:9 and we were back in the league.
However the week after would be the toughest match so far and a game for the
league place number 1: Crobo.
Crobo had been winning all of their games so far and were proud leaders with 12
points. Our job was to do something about it. And that we did.
Fran, Jani,
Jonathan, Ruben, Alex and Tom were up to the job to beat Crobo. A quick lead
erupted as our top scorer Alex broke the deadlock. An unlucky 2 minutes later
the scores were even again as goalie Tom was surprised by a powerful shot in
the top corner. DP was not broken and pulled away to 2:1, but again Crobo was
taking advantage of our sloppy defending: 2:2.
Again we
displayed some dynamic power and showed them who was boss. We put some distance
between us and were a 6:2, while Crobo had nothing to do against it for about
10-15 minutes. We were getting tired of all that ass-kicking so Crobo had a
chance to fight back and came closer again. Luckily our awesome strikers never
failed to score, so the result was never endangered. We won the game: 13:7.
For the
first time we were seriously number one in the league. Our strengths were to
seriously score many goals as we have goal machines in the form of Alex and
Ruben.
With full
hopes when looking to the schedule that was still ahead, we were on the way to
become champions in our first season of the Urban Sports League. So next week
we were up to the Max Delbrück Center.
We played a
horrible game and were almost taken by surprise by their enthusiasm. When they
attacked, they attacked with 4 people, whereas our tactics were still to keep
only 2 defending (as everyone played like this). We conceived a lot of
unnecessary goals, but still our goal machine was working; even under pressure
and bad performance: 14:8
With some
fresh new addition in the form of our Argentinian Ignacio the DP team was
expanding as we were playing the big guys from Rakuten. A physical game left DP
with empty hands as the Rakuten force proved to be the decisive push towards
our loss. A small setback, but we kept going.
Soundcloud
was coming up next and our strikers were letting them hear the sound of a ball
hitting the net a mere 16 times, whereas Soundcloud scored 8 goals. Due to our
loss the previous week and good performance by our direct competition our
league was becoming very exciting again with all to play for as now 4 teams
were having 18 points! Crobo, Rakuten, Game Genetics and we as DP were number
1, where DP was number 1 by goals scored.
Our final
game against Game Genetics would be decisive for the outcome of the league. All
we had to do was win, a loss or draw would have dramatic consequences.
The team
had grown again with our new Rico guy over the last week and we were about 10
people this week. Enough to have the team rotating a lot, with only goalie Tom
staying in place. Furthermore we had brought our supporters and 1 British
hooligan (thanks guys!). The game quickly erupted with our Spanish samba in front
of the goal and within the blink of an eye we were 2:0 up.
A quick
moment of bad concentration brought their tall striker face to face with Tom
and the striker passed with a very well placed shot in the far corner.
GG was on
the long run not a real threat anymore as our passes and goals were getting
more and more incredible and the well-oiled machine was running on full revs!
GameGenetics was capable of pinching us some salt in the eyes every now and
then, but for every goal they scored, we scored three in return.
In the end
a small situation turned explosive as goalie Tom was (almost) hit in the face
by their striker, who threatened to get physical. We have our Spanish
influences for the goals, but our German influences for the raw power; as
Markus stood up for Tom and joined the fierce discussion with the GG players.
The referee had seen enough and stopped the game ending at 19:6. The Digital
Performance crew was now CHAMPION of the Urban Sport League Mixed 2015!
Just
imagine, we are a lot of guys coming from very different backgrounds and
countries and are working in departments that might not even have so much to do
with each other. Yet, our football crew has shown that once a team comes
together we can turn into a mean Digital Performing football machine!
