FMI: Episode 2 (feat. Fritz)

FMI: Episode 2 (feat. Fritz)

Postby gado » October 5th, 2015, 3:36 pm

Hello everyone! I am gado, FM's interviewer, and this is the second episode of my segment here on the forums, FMI (Feed Me Interviews).
I am very sorry about the delay of the second episode, and hopefully I'll have the next episodes come more frequently from now on.

My guest this week is YeS AllStars', Fritz! Captain of YeS AllStars, two-time Division 2 champion, two-time Cup winner, one-time Division 1 champion, and player in the national team for Germany.
In this episode, he talked about his background in Haxball and in FM, his success as a player, and his time as an admin of Your-eSports.

- Hello Fritz! Alles gut?

- hi gado, yes i'm fine, nice german skills

- Haha, thanks. We already know each other, but could you give a brief introduction about yourself, as there might be some who don't know you?

- Well not sure about FM, but i guess im quite well-known, mainly because of my long time work as admin of big competitions like Your-eSports and the Haxball Champions League but in the end also as player, playing competative Haxball for about 4 years now. I'm not sure, if there is something interesting to reveal of my person, because it might be boring as hell (typical german).

- How did you come up with your nickname "Fritz"? And, have you had any other nicknames in the past?

- Haha i get this question quite frequently, because a lot of haxball players use football player names as nicknames and there is a german player "Clemens Fritz" playing in german league. So i get often asked, whether im using his name, but i'm not. Tbh i can not 100% reproduce the origin of that name, but as far as i remember, i was playing with some germans in public with fake names and we used old fashioned german names like "Hans", "Fritz", "Gerd", "Peter" etc. At this time my nickname was "kinshasa", but its really long time ago and after using the name "Fritz", i kind of liked it and changed it then permanently. But ye i guess the majority only knows me as "Fritz", because i'm using this name for ages now.

- Interesting.. So what is your background in Haxball? How did you find the game and when did you start playing competitively?

- Hm i was playing cs 1.6 semi-competatively before, but a lot of friends stopped it, so it became a bit boring for me, because none of us had the motivation to play for other teams. So one of my old cs friends once introduced me to this game Haxball (was in early spring 2011 i think) and i instantly liked it. Mainly because its a game that impressed me due to its obvious simplicity, but on the other hand also the complexity in terms of skills. I really cant say when i started to play it competatively, because its a fluent process from getting recruited from public rooms and joining some (half)serious teams, but ye i reckon that i started to play in leagues around spring/summer 2011.

- In the beginning of your career, which teams did you play for? Which ones were the most successful? Also, which community/communities did you first join?

- Hmm i really dont remember all teams from the beginnging, but you know the drill .. a new player without any knowledge about the established communtiy, or other teams & players, is following the first offer he gets. I teamed up with a bunch of guys in a handful of teams, but mentioning all would exceed this interview. At this time i was only playing in the two big german leagues HBBL and YeS and i guess my first big and serious team was indeed ROUTE 59. It was probably also my start as "pro player", because R59 was a division 1 team in YeS, where at this time the best players from europe were competing already. Yes and like i said about being boring, its also the case with my teams, because i remained in R59 over years. As this is an FM interview i don't want to forget that GI Joehans was my 1st FM team, which i joined in FM season 4.

Image

Fritz in G.I Joehans (Season 4)


- How would you describe your journey as a player over the years? What were some memorable teams that you have been a part of?

- Hm the most memorable teams were/are: ROUTE 59 (YeS), Plank & Friends (HBBL), No Rosik PLS (ILH), GI Joehans & YeS AllStars (FM), Tiradores & Dream Destroyers (CZ) and the german national team.

- You mentioned GI Joehans & YeS AllStars (your current team) being memorable. Looking at your history on the FM website.. You were part of Ducks in season 6 and h0bA in season 8. How do you feel overall about your time in FM? Why did you not play in FM for so long in between teams? And, why were those teams that you mentioned the only memorable ones?

- If i remember correctly, Ducks was former ARRIBA! after they more or less disbanded and Joehan took over captaincy. He decided to only recruit FM related people, while my focus was already too much on YeS and R59 only, plus the fact that he feared i wouldn't like to play in a less competative team. So ye thats why i dropped out there. My other team h0bA was fun as well, but it was the same problem, i was focused too much on YeS and couldn't serve their expectations, so i decided on my own to leave them. All in all i always liked to play in FM, but yes i really need to repeat myself. The major reason, why i did not play all the time in FM, was my passion for YeS as my main league, also provided by the fact that i was admin there.

- As much as I'd like to talk about your time in YeS, which you are most known for, let's fast-forward to the beginning of season 12. What was your decision to come back to FM, and start up your own team "YeS Allstars"?

- YeS AllStars was not basically my very own idea. After i decided to finally close YeS, i teamed up with Coon and some german players in Haxtrick, because although we were tired of administrating a league, we still had the motivation to play competatively. But we noticed very quickly that we won't get happy in Haxtrick, as we did not agree with the way it has been administrated back then. So i decided with Caccapupù, pata and the majority of the other players to join FM as YeS AllStars. Unfortunately not with Coon, as he is married with Pablo Haxobar, so i had to take over captaincy, but yes in the end we moved as existing team from Haxtrick to FM.

- Obviously, right now you are the champions of both division 1 and the cup for season 13. When you made the team in season 12, did you expect the team to have so much success, and how does it feel right now as you have just won the cup?

- Hm we were always a competative and ambitious team and i would lie, if i'd tell you right now that our primary aim wasn't actually to win division2 in season 12 and respectively season 13 in the 1st division.We knew that we would participate in fighting for the title, but i'm not sure that anybody expected to win both titles this season. Especially in knockout tournaments such as the cup, you need also some kind of luck, because unlike during a regular league season, mistakes or bad form can not be corrected anymore. But yes soc and you spoilered me already that no team ever won both titles, so i guess it was about time :D

Image

Fritz & Schnuppel's insane teamplay (Season 13)


- In comparison to your club career, your runs with the national side (Germany) hasn't been as successful over the years. Why do you think that is, and what has your experience with the national team been like up until now?

- Ah its an interesting question and i'd like to take up what i said in the previous question already. We always passed the group stage with Germany, but then its elimination mode, where every single mistake will be punished and indeed we got mainly eliminated very unluckily. Mentioning as example the 0-1 vs Belarus (Freds mistake), the 0-1 vs Poland (my mistake) or the 1-2 vs France. So we either lost due to our own mistakes, or we met Turkey. Additionally these tournaments are played on Big Easy and the focus of all german players is for sure Big 3def. But ye in the end i think that after kAoS, NesQuik, Fred etc. retired, the individual class of the other teams became superior.
I mean we were always a nation with strong players and maybe always belonged to the favourites, but i think that nations like Turkey, Portugal, Serbia (grobar, Uriels, garban) had always better individual players that made in the end the difference. Other winners like Russia and Czech Republic are very experienced and familiar with Big Easy. But yes, lets not forget that Germany was the first CC winner 2011, though i personally never managed to pass the quarterfinals with Germany.


- Now, as you have won the titles for both the cup and division 1. How do you feel about the future? Is there something else you'd like to accomplish? What are your goals in FM and outside of FM?

- Well ofc we want to defend our FM title, although it will be very hard i think, because with LS another favourite is joining division1 and unless they break together, i expect a really hard fight with them. But i think that the main focus will be playing a good HCL with YeS, because we are all looking forward to play as FM champion in HCL and compete with the best european teams. Personally, maybe i can somehow manage to play in a HCL final, after having lost 2 semi finals there already, so ye haxball-wise this could be a nice goal.

- Going back a bit, to your time as an admin of Your-Esports. Are there any memorable moments that you can recall?

- Ye sure, positive and negative things ofc. Despite struggling with some minor issues during my admin era in YeS, the most positve thing was probably the development of the league itself. In our peak time we had 56 teams divided into 5 divisions and the league was very popular all around europe. Without any doubt the hack and in the end the loss of all data that players gathered over a couple of years, plus the hack related following occasions, were the most remarkable negative things. Maybe also worth to mention two things during my HCL admin time. After having organised one of the greatest tournaments ever that ended up in this amazing turkish final witnessed by ~950 viewer in the livestream, the next edition ended up in maybe the most famous 3def violation protest ever that probably really changed european haxball.

- I see. From an admin's PoV, how do you view FM as a league and its development over the years?

- FM indeed changed over the years. Starting as 3v3 league with mainly local british players, it also always attracted a couple of foreign players. Especially players from scandinavia, but also some germans, dutch and even spanish players found their way to FM very early. I think at this time FM was less famous for being a strong league, but for having an amazing community and cool people. I've always enjoyed following the forum as silent reader, because it was really entertaining and unlike YeS-forum very active as well. Nevertheless FM changed a lot, after they abolished 3v3 (and later the draft) and established 4v4. Some captains started to chase and recruit top players from YeS then (Ovo, Rachel), other teams were even fully stacked with YeS players (signorelli). The flood of foreign players really improved the league in terms of strength, but in my opnion at the expense of the community atmosphere. I think during this time, the identity of the league totally changed, because unfortunately the british players disappeared more and more. Now FM is even administrated by foreigners, so i personally consider it meanwhile as european league and not as british league anymore. For sure the roots of FM are UK based, but too many FM locals retired, hence i dare to say that the only british heritage nowadays is jonnys wonderful website.

- As for my last question, I'll go for my trademark hypothetical one.. However, this time the setting will be a bit different. One day, you wake up and the Haxball scene as you know it, is no more. In this universe, there are no players from other countries, besides Germany and Turkey. Once a year, a showmatch is organised between these two countries on BIG, and for this time you are the captain, as well as the DM. Your task is to create an all-star German team, that could beat the Turkish team. Which players would you choose, from any time period? (excluding the DM position)

- Well if you ask for Big 3def, then i would choose the following team (considering their skill level at their peak time): Fredklopp - Fritz - NesQuik - kAoS. I picked these players, because all 3 of them were among the top players of europe for a certain time. Fred and Nes both won the HCL with Nerdlucks and kAoS (CC winner 2011) is in my opinion the best german striker of all times. Of course there have been several other remarkable players (Craig, vali, sackfalt3, Schnuppel, KingKong, etc.) but if i had to decide, then i'd pick the team above.

- Do you have any shoutouts or final words to conclude this interview?

- In terms of shoutouts i really wouldn't know where to start and where to end, also i'm afraid i would forget half of the people. So i greet all players that played with me over the years (i told you, boring haha).

- Danke schön, Fritz!

- Haha kein problem :) thanks for having me in one of your interviews and hopefully you will do some more interviews :)

(Fritz)
Teams: Season 4 G.I Joehans, Season 6 ARRIBA!, Season 8 h0bA, Season 12-13 YeS AllStars
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Re: FMI: Episode 2 (feat. Fritz)

Postby Pain » October 8th, 2015, 9:19 pm

conceded goal from Belarus was obvious lag by Fred, not a mistake :-/
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Last edited by Pain on November 13th, 2015, 3:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: FMI: Episode 2 (feat. Fritz)

Postby SebastiAn » October 19th, 2015, 6:57 pm

> The flood of foreign players really improved the league in terms of strength

Having only 2-3 top teams with the same circlejerk of players dominating out of 2 leagues does not mean the league overall gained strenght. Quite the contrary, it means it's unbalanced.
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Re: FMI: Episode 2 (feat. Fritz)

Postby Perkins » October 20th, 2015, 10:38 am

^ Playing hax at 30 yo makes you more of a jerk innit ?
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Re: FMI: Episode 2 (feat. Fritz)

Postby SebastiAn » November 11th, 2015, 9:23 pm

Perkins wrote:^ Playing hax at 30 yo makes you more of a jerk innit ?


Here's your reply. Now be careful not to spend it all at once.
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