As part of our efforts to preview all 32 teams competing in the European Quidditch Cup (EQC), the Quidditch Post is chatting with representatives from each team. Today we spoke with Anna Kramlová and Lisa Schmerbeck, captains of Three River Dragons Passau.
Quidditch Post: Passau will be facing its first ever international opponents at EQC III. What is the team most looking forward to?
Anna: Our team is especially looking forward to meeting other teams, seeing how they play, learning new moves, etc. At the same time, we can’t wait to be together as friends, doing some teambuilding over a pint of beer, meeting new friends from other teams and countries, and having a great time together.
QP: Do you have any goals for EQC?
Anna: Give everything and have fun! It doesn’t really matter to us how far we get as long as each game feels good (fair play, further improvement of our skills). But of course, we wouldn’t mind some wins.
QP: This will be your first international games. What do you hope your team takes from this experience?
Anna: New techniques, strategies, and experience. We already felt and saw our improvement at the German qualification, just in the flow of the game, and I expect us to get even better with every next game. The other teams from other countries will probably have a different style of playing quidditch and we will have to react spontaneously, learning quickly. That is a wonderful thing to look forward to. And we hope for some good parties there as well, so that we can experience various cultures outside of the field. Nobody will beat us at drinking beer by the way, after all we are a team from Bavaria.
QP: I'm doing a lot of these interviews and I don't think there will be a sentence uttered that more people will object to. How would you describe your team's style?
Anna: That’s fine with us. If you mean style of playing, our style is based on our good relationships within the team—we support each other’s abilities. I should not disclose any more; the other teams will see everything at Oxford.
QP: Who would you say are some of the team's key players?
Anna: Top secret.
Lilli: We’re lucky to have a really awesome team structure. I wouldn’t say we don’t have any key players but everybody is equally important and everybody will have their chance at EQC to show their strength.
QP: What does it mean to the team to be able to compete in Europe?
Anna: We were super happy to qualify for the EQC, and we are proud to be able to give our best there and meet other teams from Europe. After all, how many times do we have the opportunity to play with so many different teams and to observe their technique (we have our own pros for that)?
QP: Are there particular teams you hope to face?
Anna: We hope to face some British teams (which will be easy as there are plenty of them). They are the oldest teams and have a lot of experience, and we can learn from them. However, I would not mind not playing against the Radcliffe Chimeras at the very beginning because they probably are still damn good. (Update: Neither Southhampton. Oh, they are our first opponent...Nevermiiiind). Also, we want to meet the Belgian (esp. the Brussels Qwaffles), French, and Dutch teams. A few of our teams members will go to the Zwerkbal Noordcup and face some of the EQC teams there on March 15. We are also curious about the Norwegian and Turkish teams as we have not heard anything about these quidditch countries yet. And our neighbours, the Vienna Vanguards, are of big interest as well; we will play against them before the EQC and prepare for the big games.
QP: Sorry; how evolved is German quidditch compared to the rest of Europe?
You obviously have one of the newer NGBs.
Lisa: Compared to the rest....hmmm...pretty underdeveloped compared to the UK, but pretty awesome in comparison to Poland.
Anna: But the other teams aren’t so much older, right? Like Belgian teams.
It is definitely developing rapidly in Germany, in one year we already have four great teams and others are developing.
Lisa: One more team is going to start in Bavaria in April which is pretty exciting as they will be closer to us than any of the already existing teams. We’re looking forward to meet Augsburg for a matches!
QP: How long has your team been around?
Anna: Since April 2014, so actually we will celebrate our first anniversary soon.
QP: Right around EQC.
Anna: Yep. So maybe we will make ourselves a nice present by winning.
QP: Anything else you'd like to say about the team?
Anna: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Be prepared for our Bavarian powers.
Lisa: Brace yourselves, the Bavarian Barbarians are coming! ...in the form of a three-headed dragon!
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