Now it’s time: Our possibly last game of this tournament. We’re playing against the team Immortals, which has already performed brilliantly against TIGERs Mannheim. We’re tense but also relaxed, knowing that we’ve done everything in our power.
By unanimous team decision, our robots have all been retrofitted to the old radio system. Only if everything is on fire will we switch the low numbers to the new radio. Additionally, we’re going into the game with a heterogeneous fleet of old and new robots.
You can find the link to the live ticker as always on the YouTube platform of Twente or under this link.
First Half
| 05:00 | The game will be kicked off soon. We’re playing in white shells as the blue team, Immortals is playing in black shells as the yellow team. |
| 05:00 | The game starts with a 7-minute delay at 15:37. |
| 04:42 | Apparently, the kick-off isn’t going well, there are constant ball placements and free kicks for Immortals. However, they’re not making use of these free kicks. |
| 04:19 | Dangerous situation in our half. Currently, Immortals seems to be playing more stably; we’re defending more through physical presence than through clearances or passes. Also, our robots are moving quite strangely and are therefore not really able to play the ball. |
| 04:18 | Immortals take a timeout. One can only speculate why they need this. One noticeable thing was that they always missed the last meters of their “Cola kisses Orange” ball placement maneuver. At least it doesn’t seem to be a hardware timeout, as the robot handler is not on the field. |
| 03:46 | And thus, the inevitable happens: A goal against us by Immortals. One of the Immortals bots shoots from the corner towards the center, where his teammate shoots on goal from an acute angle and scores. |
| ER-Force 0 : 1 Immortals | |
| 03:19 | Currently, Immortals is clearly dominating; the ball hardly reaches the opponent’s half. The only reason we’re not conceding more goals is that we’re overwhelming our defense with quantity rather than quality: Many robots in our own penalty area. But how long can we keep this up, and how long can our robots handle it? |
| 03:11 | Timeout for Immortals again. Apparently, Immortals is also getting a penalty against us. Given the number of fouls we have, this is not surprising; after all, we have two yellow and even a red card. If we get one more card and thus reduce the allowed number of ER-Force bots to 7, we would actually feel the reduction! A novelty for us, as we usually have so few robots that the reduction never affected us. |
| 03:11 | Since Immortals didn’t implement a penalty, they seem to have opted for a corner instead. An arbitrary decision, but whatever. |
| 02:20 | The game is primarily being played in our penalty area, but no goals are being scored at the moment. |
| 01:49 | By now, we already have 2 red cards and a nearly expired yellow card, which means that with our 7 robots on the field, we’re close to the allowed maximum of 8. |
| 01:45 | Timeout for ER-Force, presumably related to the radio system. |
| 00:51 | We’ve discovered a drawback of “Cola kisses Orange”: When the ball is right on the goalpost in the goal, the two Immortals bots, one on the left and one on the right of the post, try to squeeze the ball together but don’t realize that a post is in the way, so they keep trying over and over again. Quite entertaining. |
| -00:31 | With that, the first half ends after about 40 minutes. In summary, we’re doing better than in the previous games, but still terribly. We hardly manage to get a shot on goal, as our robots are mostly misoriented and their “snouts” are not facing the ball. At least we had a good number of robots on the field, but the radio problems were constantly noticeable. |
Second Half
| 05:00 | The second half is kicked off. |
| 04:42 | The game starts off excitingly: Our Erhard takes the initiative and rushes directly into the opponent’s half. He even manages to reach the penalty area, but he can’t score. However, Immortals seizes the opportunity to launch a dangerous counter-attack, which we fortunately manage to defend against. |
| 02:54 | OK, that was unexpected: It’s our Erhard again who takes the initiative: Initially, he races forward to engage in a duel with the opponent, but due to wild spins, he doesn’t gain the upper hand at first. But then he finally manages it and kicks towards the goal: But the post! Of all things, the post! We didn’t need that, very unfortunate! But great effort from our Erhard, our number 2, for the team. |
| 02:02 | I’m starting to get the feeling that they gave our goalkeeper, number 10, a better radio (quite realistic, as the new radio only works with a single bot). At least the keeper saves balls fantastically, clearing a dangerous situation. But the number 3 also shines. Commonality: They’re all old bots, and everyone else is new. |
| 01:35 | Another timeout for ER-Force, probably primarily for radio adjustments again. |
| 01:04 | Again, lots of duels in our half, but the situation ends harmlessly. |
| -00:13 | One last struggle and a few final attempts, again from Erhard, but unfortunately, we can’t change anything about it: The ball ends up out of play, and the game ends 1-0 in favor of Immortals. Thus, we’re eliminated from the tournament. |
| 00:00 | Although it’s disappointing that we’ve been eliminated from the tournament and that our radio had such problems, we’re at least glad that we could offer a much better resistance than in the previous games and in the second half, we could present some good game situations. |