On the top of apply list we’ve got Austria Austria. At the beginning, it was almost certain thing that BeAsty will be main head in his country but...
BeAsty: I already organized a 6-7 man lineup with the best players from Austria and they already see me as a captain together with t0m or v1ech. However , scorch also applied for being captain. He pm’ed me some days ago that I could also play if he is going to be captain. I´m not sure if the rest of the NC team would be interested in playing with him as the captain. And most people I talked about him , wouldn´t like to see him in a NC-lineup.
Is scorch going to re-take it? Will austrian community trust beAsty’s experience once more? We’ll find out soon!

Belgium Belgium would obviously be one of the outstanding favourites. After OVERLOAd scandal, there will be much pressure onto newly formed team. Anaconda, AL1, chizz6l, ManKo, Rhand, Glekko, spiROZE and nunca are willing to bring back the honour of BE. Anaconda is considered to be the biggest favourite in this race. Why did he actually apply?
The players dont want e-kiddies to become captain, nor do I. I have most of the lineup sorted out, butIi wont announce it yet ;) We might have MINIMAL tryouts but that might be very minimal ( 1, 2 players max, and most likely backup spots ).
spiROZE (I have around 10names in my head who I’d prolly select so I just need to decide who will be the 6main guys and who’ll be the 4back-ups :) I just need to be sure that everyone who wants to be in the mainteam is motivated to prac sometimes for it!) or Rhand can take the glory as well tho. What is noticeable- some players after being asked why they decided to apply, didn’t answer: because I can handle it. Some answered: Because I don’t want Mr.X doing this. chizz6l: I was thinking about: X, worm, tetsuo, isen, lazio, mAus, dAv1d etc.), Glekko: I applied because I am sick of Anaconda doing lobbying between his friends. 4 people will be in main line up for sure: mAus dAvid worm isen. Others will fight for remaining 3 places. AL1 will probably have support from his BeringenMijn but I doubt they can affect the final outcome that much. Also because of cheating in past of this player, BelgiumBelgium will be rather cutting down any connections like he had in the past.

shaun and punkk are candidates for Canada Canada’s capitancy. I haven’t been speaking with both of the candidates tho I would like to remind that shaun was captain in Crossfire Nationscup.

Germany Germany has got plenty of candidates. kuraigu, Bo0om, RoXor, zerender, meNtal, gambit, FlyingDJ, head, criatura and pumu have recently applied. Personally, I think some players applied just to apply and watch their number of votes. pumu and gambit aren’t playing actively from long time so far. Despite pumu’s episode in muse-gaming, they rather weren’t seen. zerender on the other hand used captain’s apply for pointing out that I want to play for team Germany Germany. But as I have played for team russia before, I’m not allowed to, even if I’m a German citizen. He is not the only one who would like to apply for other nation after playing for another but his case is the loudest one. Will clanbase change its opinion and let him play if he shows proof good enough? Time will tell..
Back to the subject: seems like the strongest candidatures at the moment are kuraigu’s, RoXor’s and criatura’s ones. Please have a closer look on their words in chat with me:
Kuraigu: Well, actually I wasn’t really into applying once again. I’ve also asked some comrads of the last lineup if they’d be interested. but they declined. so I’ve decided to do it one more time before I’ll concetrate on new things :) I have my lineup already sorted out and will probably only play if i get nominated, hence it’ll remain as a secret ;-)
RoXor: There are several reasons I applied for team captaincy in the upcoming Clanbase NationsCup. First of all I want to change something in the German team. Last years have been quite successful but still there is some work that has to be done to stay successful. This means of course changing the lineup in a bit.
Secondly Team Germany always was a “Friends Team”. Kuraigu who leaded Germany for several years now has only taken his friends into Team Germany and newer Talents never got a chance. That’s something I’d like to change.
I can tell u some players which would definetly get in lineup: snoop, hazer, urtier, butchji. Then i would add 2-4 old or even new members.

criatura: One thing was when I saw that people like meNtal have applied as a team-captain for Germany - I think nobodys need to get people like him the right hand over ET-Germany :D...The otherside is that I played with team-Germany. There are more then a few really great skilled players in Germany in our Scene. Also people like drago or ph4tE only coming back for events like NC -I could give them a chance to enter.
My Lineup would be: butchji(medic),snoop(fops),fireBall(medic),haZer(rifle),Krest(medic),Sight(fops) backup: RoXor(rifle),criatura(fops).

Bo0om wants to propose butchji, duke_ and sNoOp for lineup but he hasn’t been speaking with any of players yet. Vision of FlyingDJ’s and head’s GER team is unknown for me.

Estonia Estonia has got 4 candidates: Night, EmeRica, xRIFzZ and infect. Of course, at the first sight name: Night appears. And he is considered to be the biggest favourite. Even his competitor: EmeRica, previous captain of EE in Crossfire Nationscup said: I applied because friends told me to give a try, but I think ‘Night’ will be choosed to lead Team Estonia this time.

Finland Finland has got plenty of candidates. Most likely 3 guys will be fighting for prestigious Finnish captain role: decem, Matias and Reikkeri. Some review? There you go:
decem: Well, I since I pretty much know most people of the ET scene and all the top players in Finland, it shouldn’t be too hard to put a team together with all the best players available. I would need to ask certain players if they are interested at playing, will do that if I get selected. Though I already know players who are eager to join and have the skill required. Also departure of players like squall, lettu & twidi due to army makes the team selection a bit harder. No harm in applying, but I'd rather go and ask the top tier first, in case we get some stars back in action.
Matias: Many guys asked me to do it so.. I wanted to play anyway so that's why I applied :-D I've been thinking the lineup with a few people.. havent ask many guys yet though :-) I’m gonna ask people.. and if somebody wants to complain for not being asked them he/she can send demos of him-/herself for me from matches against EC teams.
Reikkeri: I think that the domination of murso’s players and their mates has continued too long, because the captain has been for the last ~2 years been from their team or their friend. So I want to change that. Most of the players are sorted out, but some changes might still come up. Finland doesn’t have that many skilled and nice players, so I doubt there’s a need for any tests.
You may wonder why I didn’t put chmpp in the same line. The reason is hiding in our conversation, from which I’d like to quote 2 words of that Fin: vote Matias.
On the other hand, there are some applies of players who weren’t / aren’t competing on highest level but would like to lead suomi. tazOR proposing his lineup of himself playing only vs weakest teams like Ireland and Israel, Sample, smokeninja, reikkeri, matias, xpaz, chmpp, Iron. Vanhaomena stating that being oldschool and experienced isn't really important if you haven't played in 2 years and don't really care about the NC. His recruitment? I'll ask players who I know to be decent - starting from the very best - until the lineup is complete. Players would also be free to contact me and try to make a convincing application, which I will then review. So the primary method for recruitment would be invitations, the secondary being applications. deSanchez’s application looks pretty weak after he decided to apply because he is on ET scene since 4 years and 3 years in Finnish one. He didn’t say anything interesting, so as far as I’m concerned, he won’t get many votes. Other applies are: EMU, MakiZZ, Ajak, clouver.

France France got 2 candidates: simoon59 and douille. Knowing the fact that douille is well known French player from high level, he should take the captain role.

In Croatia Croatia frozz & gumiflex will probably be competing between each other. Both known, both unreachable on irc while I was preparing this article, so it’s really hard to add from myself.

Latvia Latvia’s community is pretty small and all candidates probably will play anyway, so I’ll just mention that fuzz, clown, dunno and speedy have applied.

Interesting situation we’ve got in Netherlands Netherlands. Efax, Hope, ronner and zenix – 4 candidates and 4 different visions. Favourites: ronner and Hope should be fighting till the end. Ronner: I’ve been team NL captain a couple years ago and at that time I ended up with pretty much the best players NL had to offer at that moment but they weren’t too motivated. This time around I’ll be cautious and pick only motivated players. The community will speak for itself who they would like to be the next nations captain for NL so we’ll just wait and see.
Other strong candidate: Hope wasn’t reachable unfortunately, so I can’t specify his point of view. Efax should have support of his old mates, but I don’t think he can become real 3rd weapon.

Norway Norway has got 3 candidates: DizA, Lakaii and Vizi0n. Lakaii was the team captain of his country on Crossfire Nationscup but he wasn’t able to create a lineup for his nation. Small community, winner can be any of those 3.

Poland Poland has its own voting run by et.owned.pl. There will be 15 votes from:
- k1ck
- devilry;
- PolagZ
- 8 clans from ETCup V playoffs
- et.owned.pl vote;
- eSports.et ET section vote ( might be excluded tho)
- shoutcasters vote
- vote of community.
Despite having the most candidates ( and the most ridiciolous candidates as well ); there are only a few who will honestly count: Wrobel, n00n as the 2 strongest candidatures and Esclaw / aDman as possible black horse.
Wrobel: I have decided to apply because last time, after I was chosen, I wasn’t allowed to lead Polish team. I know who should be the fundaments of our representation. There are plenty of skilled people, so the squad of old faces can be supplemented by new talents.
I think that choosing captain by selecting some institutions, who are able to vote is better way than option proposed by clanbase hovewer, people are tending to cast a vote by joke too often and their choice is not always optimal.

n00n: I have decided to apply because I feel I can be good person for this task – I can bring Crossfire NationsCup and 2nd place for Poland for instance. I’m not 100% sure who will I select, but I am convinced that I want to base Polish team on 3 players: wiesiek, naga and krein.
Voting option proposed by clanbase is not bad. The way of choosing Polish captain is ok but it depends whether decisions will be well thought and people will choose between proper candidates, eliminating people who aren’t right persons.

Both strongest candidates hopes that Poland will have good captain and already want to thank for votes on them.
From other, not mentioned candidatures yet, I have received phase’s point of view. To make things short, he said he wants to quit with inviting friends only and wants to give a chance for new-comers, who, he believes, deserves a try.
All Polish candidatures:
rsd, n00n, Esclaw, zMk, Wrobel, LOL_MAN, Freze, HaszKers, AbouT, Boron, Cools, grzesiek, dIZEL, renokleet, belka, aDman, Ev0x, fxr, chelmianin, z3R0`, Squidy, Thaumas, FrG, naga, negative, vojdal, Phase, Dolar, viC, klejf.

4live and h8m3 applied for team Russia Russia. Hovewer, as h8m3 said: well, it doesn’t really matter much who will become a captain- the lineup will stay the same as it used to be the last time.

Spain Spain has got 2 candidates: Z1P and meth0je. Z1P is the guy with more contacts amongst skilled players and he has got a bit of advantage thanks to that.

Turkey Turkey’s candidates are TanQ and RazZaH. First one was leading his country in Crossfire Nationscup and because of that he has got an advantage. Hovewer, RazZah can surprise.

United Kingdom United Kingdom has got 5 candidatures, all are interesting. Every person wants to bring back sunshine for UK instead of acid rainy scores. Have a closer look on them speaking:
tyyrd: Theres no real reason of my apply to be honest with you. If I was chosen (unlikely), I would make sure the team is the strongest it can be and make sure people are 100% committed to the team otherwise it would be pointless of them to be participating for their country. I did have a team in mind but it seems one or two don’t really want to compete in nations cup. The team I would most probaly pick would be - w3st, griim, hentai, Hype, crumbs, med1xza. With a few backups aswell. I would make w3st the ingame leader as I feel he has good experience and is one of those people who can boost peoples confidence and ability.
hentai: I've always been quite motivated in terms of playing for team UK. When I was playing on publics, representing Britain was a target for me, and when it became real, it was kind of cool. I've played a few times for the UK, in both ET and ETQW, and I'm still motivated for more. Captaining in ET would be a first, and I appreciate the opportunity to do as much as I can for the nation. I know i can trust myself. I've got the core of the team planned. If i get captaincy, my lineup will be along the lines of: rahul, syK, w3st, griim, R0SS, Meez, med1xza, crumbs, and maybe one or two more.
Starzi: Well it really wasn’t my idea - a good friend of mine told me to apply so I did. I’m not expecting to win but I feel I have a good friendship with most of UK players. I would have probably put w3st as in game leader along side with hentai. I know there have been some love and hate relationships within the UK community but I feel I could prove to people I could get them playing with each other happily like the film Remember the Titans. My line up would consist of w3st, Hentai, Ross, syK, grim & hype as they all play actively. I think if I got all 6 of them on vent and found a war they would forget the differences in a matter of minutes and play like any other normal team. If you want to achieve something you can’t pick your friends you have to pick the best person for that job.
Hype: Well, I'm trying to bring change to the nation of the UK. Every year, the community witnesses the same scenario and the team under achieves big time. UK has some great players and should be doing better and given the chance, I'm going to try and make things better. It's a difficult situation with players as the UK scene is always divided into rival fractions. The best lineup I'd want to produce would be myself, w3st/sheep, griim, hentai/mixer, tyyrd/sqzz, syk .. whether that's possible or not, only time will tell.
Wakizashiuk: Reason why I have decided to apply? Since everyone else in the uk community applying is an idiot. I can't stress that enough. I have a good idea who I want in the lineup. But till all be down to public trials since I wasn't impressed with what happened last NC. I’ll arrange it all on irc and et nation and actually get a proper lineup sorted.
Seems like it’s going to be a tough fight this year!

Nations skipped:
Cyprus
Egypt
Iraq
Niue
Saudi Arabia
Seychelles
South Africa

Reasons: high probability of lacking players, dumbly faking countries (I was born in Seychelles(in Victoria) and I lived there for one year with my parents. And now I decided to make nations cup team of seychelles ! I have already chosen my lineup. It wasn’t hard because of amount of SC ET Players.).

Nations missing ?
Australia – no one applied so far
Greece – no one applied so far; old problem with all players in the same clan still actual ?
Malta – no one applied so far

#homer.pl