Finally it was here! The Teamcup -99 on the 25:th of September - the day
after my birthday (need I say I was a bit hungover). Should we finally
win? or maybe come second like in the last two teamcups? Hard to
tell...The daimis wasn't going to play but insted the local wusses was.
And there was a lot of other good teams out there so it wasn't going to
be a walk in the park.

I arrived to KTH at 13.00 CET. Just getting out of my car I see Preacher
with some unidentified people. First I didn't realize that they where
xpiloteers and greet them with my name 'Philip'. Then one of them (Kosh)
looked funny at me and asked me for my nick. I told him 'Vato'. He told
me something about he should kick my ass =). It turned out to be Kosh,
Mad Gurka and Yomat who had decided to meet with the 'KTH wusses' and at
the same time be in the same room for the cup.
We headed for Burger King to get some energy before the battle. On the
way back Preacher screamed: 'Shit I forgot my cleaning gear!' and rushed
into the nearest store. One minute later he came out with a big smile
and a bottle of "YES extra shiny spray". (Preacher doesn't use a mouse
carpet, instead he stears the mouse directly on the table and therefore
he likes it clean and shiny. =)

When we came back to the xpilot lab I saw that there where already other
xpiloteers there: Mad Max (thank God =), Adamel, Gremlin and Decimator
(who where playing for White Zombie Bears insted of PingoSvin). They
where in the middle of a warm up game against the swiss team. There
where also some other "normal" people (civilians) there but after a
while they went into the lab next door (geee, I wonder why, didn't they
like people screaming 'BALL' in frustration etc. ?  =)
After I finishied my whopper meal (yes we took it with us) the hangover
was gone and I felt really good. Seeing Preacher cleaning his mouse with
surgeon precision and spraying the table like a mad man (or a mad priest
prehaps =) I got some deja vu from the last cup.

Now it was time for our first match against H.E.N (Hallon, Ettan and
Ninor). I didn't have the time for a warm up so this would be the warm
up game. We won both the home and away leg with a difference of some
1600 points. I had a kill/death ratio of 3.4 in the home match.
(Preacher had 3.7).

Next up was the Local Wusses (Masterspy, Obi-Wan and Kogikaishakunin). I
hadn't expected to meet them until the semi's but there was no turning
back now...
First leg was at home. The rusty norwegians made a good resistance and I
was impressed by their teamplay since they didn't have the advantage of
sitting in the same room like us. They managed to hold their ball until
the last round. We won the homeleg with 471 vs -114 points (we managed
to put them all below zero. =)
The away leg started off very good. We snatched their ball within 91
frames in the first round and then we knew we would win. Our teamplay
worked out nicely and we won the away leg with 349 vs -28 points and
with 4 balls vs 0. Even though we won we knew they'll be back and that
we would probably meet them again later that night (day). And so we
would...

Next was away match against The Icecube Team (U, Schm00v and Iceman). We
knew this was also going to be a hard match. And so it was. Things
started out good for my team, we finished the 3 first rounds with a ball
but for me personally I think it was awful. I couldn't hit anything!
They just flew through my bulletstreams, shot me through 3 islands =)
etc. and I felt I was building up some steam inside. My teammates had no
problems it seemed and as I screamed out my frustrations Mad Max told me
to strafe around and suicide just to get my shit back together. His
tactic worked and I managed to get rid off whatever evil decease I was
suffering from although it was in the last couple of rounds.
We managed to win with 315 vs -32 points and with 5 vs 1 ball.
They put on a hard fight in the homeleg by using a teamplay very similar
to KACFM (i.e. be very mobile and fly around and strafe a lot) but it
didn't help and we won with 373 vs -108 p and with 4 balls vs 0. We knew
that this team was not going to settle with less than semi final.

Round 4 was up next and there was Dead Pilot Society (Cecilia, Fishy and
Uranium boy). We have seen them play on rubin and knew they where good
players concidering they play from U.S and we know this would also be a
hard match especially the away. First leg was at home. Our tactic was
very simple: get a comfortable lead at home so we would win on total
points. We won the homleg with a difference of close to 1800 points. We
knew we had won the match. We could just fly into the treasuse in the
away leg and still win but that would be too easy. The link to U.S was
pretty good  - a stable delay of 128 ms, hell it was even possible to
dogfight, maybe not to dodge bullets but still...So instead we fought
like three mad raging priests of chaos and we even managed to win the
away leg with 261 vs 29 points and with 2 vs 0 balls.
This I must say was our best played match if you look at teamplay. I
can't remember our team making any mistakes and the communication was
100%.

Now it was time for lunchbreak. There was some discussion about when the
matches would start again and some whining about bad team pairings, as
always =). We wanted to get back 22.30 so we could enjoy a good meal but
other people on the irc was more anxious to make the last bus so we
decided 22.00 and made a driveby to 7-11 for a pizza slice and some
coeffe/coke.

With pizza all over my face we where going to play quarter final against
Lagland Circumnavigators (HeadAce, Yxan and H.E.R.O.). I must say it was
unexcpected to see them in the quarters but I'm always happy when a
fellow country team makes it. Too bad we had to end their chance to be
in the semi =)
We won the match pretty easily and we almost cashed a ball in every
round in the homeleg.

Next up was the semi final and guess who we would meet? yes The Return
Of The Not So Local Wusses.
We feared that the old norwegian gods would have regained some of their
old style since we met last.
First leg was away and damn, they had improved. But it wasn't enough. We
managed to win with the away leg with a difference of 500 points.
Unfortuneatly MasterSpy had to leave and couldn't play our home leg so
Mighty Mouse had to substitute for him. The danish/norwegian team fought
honourable but not even their combined skills could stop us from the
final. We won the home leg with a difference of about 400 points.

Finally it was the final! Our opponents was the Icecube Team.
We had beaten them in the qualifications but I would be damned if we
would lose the final (as usual). But things where looking pretty bright
for us as we won our homeleg with 654 vs -297 points. The away match
started out very good as we snatched their ball in the beginning of the
first round. But we know it's the last rounds that counts so we didn't
feel safe until then. In round 12 Preacher lost it. He had lots of life
left and Mad Max was out and I was on my last life. He started to sound
like some sort of animal 'iiiiieeeeiiiii!' as he suicided them one by
one...The round was over and so was the cup. And we had finally won!
It was a pretty funny final for us atleast. I remember we laughed like
crazy in the 12th round.

Later that "day" on the irc Obi-Wan and Mighty Mouse swore that they'll
never gonna let a swedish team win again =). I'll be looking forward to
the next cup and to see that this was going to be true because the
priests are here to stay =). I'm also looking forward to the starting of
the xpilot league.

'Til next time. ta-da!

/ Vato