Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Anatomy of a French Ultimate Tournament

So you probably know that Ultimate Frisbee tournaments have occupied a fair few of my weekends over the past 5 years. And although the rules of the game are the same and the people are just as friendly, there are some elements of the tournaments here which are notably differnent from tournaments I've been to at home. There is one key difference I should note: at home I pretty much only participated in college-level Ultimate tournaments (except maybe the occasional 'hat tournament' -- referring to the hat from which players' names are drawn to pick the teams, rather than players registering for the tournament with a particular team). In any event, I'm pretty sure club-level tournaments operate the same way as college-level tournaments in the U.S., so that shouldn't affect the comparison I will draw below. Enough chatting, here are the differences:

1. Fields and game length
          Of course there are fields involved in American tournaments, I only mentioned this because I've noticed most tournaments (both indoor and outdoor) have only 1-2 fields. I don't think I've ever played in an American tournament with only 2 fields -- usually there are a minumum of 4 and at some of the bigger tournaments there are 12+. This means of course that only 2-4 teams can be playing at once, so there are fewer teams involved in the tournament and games are shorter. For example, at the N3 (national level 3, above regional level and below national level 2) tournament this weekend, there were 7 teams: Besançon, Strasbourg's first team, Strasbourg's second team, Metz, Nancy, Dijon and Voujeaucourt. Part of that is of course because there are only so many teams in the region and the other ones are in the lower (regional) level. But honestly we wouldn't have been able to host many more teams, because we only had 2 fields. Or games would have had to be shorter. They were already 45 minutes, which is half of the standard 90-minute game length in the US. I've never played in a game at home which had less than 60 minutes + a 15-minute "cap" (if the determined score to win hasn't yet been attained).



2. "Mixed" teams
          Technically all of the teams who played with this weekend were co-ed, but most teams only had 1-2 women (including ours, which had only Clémentine). This meant that often women were guarding men and vice-versa. Some women feel really strongly about this: either that it's unfair when men guard them or that it's an insult to their altheticism that they can only compete against other women. I go back and forth, because certain physical traits like height are extremely difficult to compensate for, particularly in Ultimate. This picture on the right illustrates this pretty effectively: Yves (known as Bob) is #25 and the girl in the white on his right is Clémentine, who also plays for Besançon. She's really quick, but so is Bob, and his arms are possibly twice as long as hers! On the other side of the argument, I will admit that I am often pleased when the other team chooses a guy to guard me -- it's sort of a point of pride. Anyway, in American Ultimate, the mixed teams often have a closer-to-even gender ratio and so the number of men and women on each team must always be equal. That couldn't be a rule in France because there aren't enough female players. This just makes for a different dynamic.


3. The buvette (buffet)
          The "Food bag" : a brown-paper grocery bag filled with (often unripe) bananas, a jar of peanut butter and some form of starch (usually a box of cereal or sliced bread). This is supposed to last for both days, and the food is usually gone by Saturday afternoon. I'm being a little harsh here, but the food bag passed out by the host team at American tournaments is usually something along these lines. In France, there's an uproar if the first croque monsieur sandwiches aren't ready by 11am. La buvette continued to be a novelty for me, even after I had attended half a dozen Ultimate tournaments. The spread was always impressive : coffee, bananas and apples, and breakfast tarts were often available beginning first thing in the morning, and lunch was usually cold sandwiches (but on fresh baguettes, with the local cheese, made by volunteers during the first games), croque monsieur sandwiches, many many kinds of pasta salad and savory "cakes." Then for dessert tarts, brownies, and little cakes or cookies, and to wash it all down: water, juice, soda, tea or beer. Can you imagine? Some tournaments had crepes too! I took pictures. They thought I was crazy, but I was impressed.


4. The post-game Spirit Circle
          The closest I have ever gotten to this in American matches is after the two teams give each other high-fives following the conclusion of a match, the captains might discuss any contested fouls or tense moments during the game. And usually we would cheer the name of the other team as a way of thanking them and maintaining good spirit. But in France (and in Europe in general, as far as I know), they have the "Spirit Circle." No Ouija board required. The two teams form a circle, seated or standing based on their fatigue, by alternating players. The losing team's captain or nominated speaker then proceeds to give a post-game talk, summarizing any good or bad points, and bringing up any issues or problems which occured during the game. Then the winning team's captain does the same thing. Sometimes these Circles last a really really long time. Usually they're pretty quick and uneventful, but when it gets down to debating the wording of a particular rule, they can last quite a while. I think it's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I'll miss it when I go back to playing Ultimate in the U.S. because usually I think it takes much longer than necessary, and if there are real arguments then the Spirit Circle doesn't always resolve those either.


5. The Spirit-of-the-Game grading post-match and Spirit-of-the-Game award
          Not to be confused with the Spirit Circle, the Spirit-of-the-Game grading usually takes place immediately following the Circle. The two teams separate and fill out a score sheet giving the other team a grade based on five criteria including: understanding of the rules, absence of dangerous play and positive conduct both as a member of their own team and in interactions with the opposing team. These scores are out of 20 and 10 is considered "normal" (this apparently caused an issue in one of the first World Championships, not unlike the differences in scholastic grading, the Americans thought that 10/20 was a failing grade and apparently gave everyone unusually high marks). At the end of the tournament each team's cumulative Spirit scores are tallyed and the Spirit-of-the-Game award is given at the same time as the tournament champion is announced. The Friz'Bistonins were proud to have won the Spirit Award at 4 or 5 tournaments in a row while I was playing with them.


6. Round Robin rather than elimination-style
          Those of you who watch European soccer will understand this immediately, but for me, it took a little longer. All of the other Ultimate tournaments I have played in were the same format as the NCAA basketball championship: pool play leading to bracket play with elimination leading to a championship game. This isn't necessarily how it works in France though. For the regional tournaments leading up to the national tournament, each region has two rounds the phase aller and the phase retour, often with 3-4 weeks between them. At the phase aller every team in the region plays every other team, with the games spread out over Saturday and Sunday. Based on how many points each team scores, and how many points other teams score against them, the teams are ranked with a number value (for instance, +20 if a team scored 30 more points total than the combined number of points scored against them). Then at the phase retour, the teams do the same thing again. Whoever has the best record at the end, advances to the national level. I can see how this could be fairer, in that losing one game doesn't necessarily knock you out for the whole tournament. There are multiple divisions for each region (in ascending order): Regional 1, Regional 2, National 3, National 2, National 1. The names are sort of confusing, since the teams in National 3 still have to play against other N3 teams in their region before advancing the N3 national championship. But there you have it! During the indoor season, Besançon's first team won the N3 championship and was therefore bumped up to N2. The N2 teams who had the poorest performance in their tournament were bumped down to N3. In this way teams have to stay on top of their game to avoid descending the following year, and teams can rise one level per year if they really improve.

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