I'll tell you what the big difference between the States and Europe is: Language!
That's the killer! Even after two years, it's hard as hell for me to play ball in Russian. The other American on the team is fluent, so it's no big deal for him. I understand about 60% of normal speaking, but then start screaming across the field and that drops to 30%. Most of the time it has no effect on the outcome of our games, but sometimes I misunderstand and it goes to hell.
and tha Russians have got Jack ****...yet they managed it OK.
It's like trying to build a Ferrari with the spare parts of a friggin' Chevy! Our player pool is less than 60-70 guys that could play at the Millennium level today, and the best 20 of those guys are with Legion and Legion Cadets. We can't even kick anyone off the team because we couldn't replace them if we did. Everyone else is novice level or low Am B with no Millennium experience. The biggest killer though is money, and who can afford to play seriously.
Now you can subtract another 30 from that player pool because of no $$$, and you have one Am B team that can afford to play Millennium and play well, one Am B team that is only playing 3 events because they can't afford to play them all, and then about 10-15 miscellaneous guys who play one event, or play for us or Knauf when we need a guy.
So for me, this team is the only opportunity that i have to play every Millennium event. Otherwise, it's back to local 5-man (and severe depression.)
