Cologne (SID) – The German 7-a-side rugby team missed out on a perfect starting position on their mission to defend the European Championship title after one of two tournaments. The German Rugby Association (DRV) selection made it to the final of the first tournament of the European Championship Series in Lisbon, but lost 17:19 to Spain there.
Nevertheless, the German team of national coach Damien McGrath still has a chance to collect enough points for a successful title defense at the second tournament of the European Championship Series in Moscow (June 26/27th).
“People are obviously disappointed now, even though they have shown such a tremendous performance against a World Series team like Spain. We were good enough to beat them and in the end we were unlucky with shots from the post. But all went well Overall, it was a great weekend for us. We kept on improving,” McGrath said.
Initially, they won 10–5 in the group stage against Lithuania (26:5), Georgia (29:0) and hosts Portugal. In the knockout stage, the team around captain Carlos Soteres Merz reached the final with a 17:7 against Poland in the quarter-finals and 7:5 against Russia in the semi-finals.
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