The day has finally arrived – the fourth IFAF Senior World Championship kicks off today! And it’s the first step to see who will be crowned the world champions.
The tournament features the best of the best from eight countries and three continents as Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico and United States have all fielded a senior national team in hopes of bringing home the title for their country.
Today’s games, July 8, will be held in Innsbruck, Austria at the Tivoli Stadium as the Group A faceoff starting with the defending champions United States taking on the Australians at 3pm local time.
And both teams are definitely fired up and ready to take the field including US’s Demetrius Eaton who is looking for his second gold medal as he was part of the US team that won the 2007 IFAF Senior World Championship in Kawasaki, Japan.
“This is the fourth championship, and I expect the teams to come out firing on all cylinders,” said Eaton. “We all have prepared very hard and we are all ready to play these games.”
Australia may enter as the underdogs of this game, but the challenge just excites them as the team is made up of true competitors who want their shot at playing and beating the best.
“Our guys are very motivated,” said Australian head coach John Leijten. “When they found out the opening game was against the United States, they were excited. They want to compete with the best in the world. Football players by nature are very competitive human beings.”
Top Australian running back Matt Croasdaile added, “We have to set our goals high. We might be preserved as underdogs but we have a tremendous spirit. So we are setting our goals high and want to beat everyone we face and we’ll see how we do.”
Today’s second game in Innsbruck will feature current European Champions Germany taking on the powerful Mexico. And following Mexico’s last practice we were able to catch up with lineman Salomon Solano who was also a coach for the World team in both the 2010 and 2011 Team USA vs. the World games.
“This is my third time playing for a Mexican national team. I played in 2004, 2005 and 2009. And each time it is a great honor.”
“Our team goal is simple, win. Win the four games we are going to play and bring the gold medal home to Mexico. And for me personally, I want to be as productive as possible with a lot of tackles and sacks. And I want to be a team player and to be part of the success of the team.”
This tournament is so important to us, and we have a lot of fans back home who are interested and we want to win for them.”
But Mexico will definitely start off the championship with a big challenge, as Germany is just as eager to win for their country as well. Who will win? We will find out today!
Read an official game preview of the opening games here…>
And you can follow the game at www.facebook.com/IFAF.org or www.twitter.com/IFAFInsider which will have live updates throughout each game!
And don’t forget to vote on the poll...> .
Hope you enjoy the games!
everyone in America is tuning in to catch their favorite teams' matches.
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