TeamUK Wins, Losses, and the Future at World Cup 2018
After two years of preparation since their third place finish at the World Cup in 2016 and a European Games trophy in 2017, Team UK headed to Florence, Italy at the end of June to compete at the 2018 IQA Quidditch World Cup. Captained by Seb Waters and coached by Emily Oughtibridge, the team was comprised of many longstanding team members, alongside the six new players who made their debuts for Team UK.
An easy day one group draw meant Team UK went relatively unchallenged, comfortably winning all their games out of range. Unfortunately it was a different story with day two, as Team UK entered the championship bracket on the same side as the two other medalists from the previous World Cup, Australia and the USA. The UK cruised past Vietnam to reach the quarterfinals, where they faced a strong Italy team with a huge home crowd advantage that even the mass of Team UK supporters struggled to drown out. The game was in SWIM but that didn’t seem to matter for Team UK, as a speedy snitch catch by Johnathan Purvis guaranteed the UK a place in the semi-finals against the USA.
Photography Credit: Ajantha Abey Quidditch Photography
The UK cruised past Vietnam to reach the quarterfinals, where they faced a strong Italy team with a huge home crowd advantage that even the mass of Team UK supporters struggled to drown out. The game was in SWIM but that didn’t seem to matter for Team UK, as a speedy snitch catch by Johnathan Purvis guaranteed the UK a place in the semi-finals against the USA.
Photography Credit: Ajantha Abey Quidditch Photography
Team UK opened the scoring against the USA in the semi-final with a beautiful finish from Jemma Thripp, however they struggled to keep their momentum against the eventual champions and the game slipped out of snitch range. Some excellent plays by Andrew Hull kept them in the game, but eventually it was the USA who would deal the UK their first loss since losing 70-80* to Belgium in pool play last year.
Photography Credit: Ajantha Abey Quidditch Photography
The UK then went on to play the bronze medal match against Turkey, which was a close game with some brilliant performances from both sides. Team UK kept the game in range but struggled to get much time with the snitch, and a catch for Turkey secured them their first ever international medal. The UK leave the tournament ranked 4th best team in the world.
Photography Credit: Ajantha Abey Quidditch Photography
Results from all of Team UK’s games in Florence:
Day One:
Team UK 160-50* Slovakia
Team UK 200-30* Catalonia
Team UK 160*-20 Mexico
Team UK 180-30* Czech Republic
Day Two:
Team UK 130*-0 Vietnam
Team UK 80*-60 Italy
Team UK 40-160* USA
Team UK 60-110* Turkey
Update of Training and Expansion Squads
We’re pleased to announce the latest editions of the Team UK Training and Expansion Squads. Congratulations to everyone who has been selected/moved up, and we can’t wait to see the outcome of all the training and hard work at European Games 2019 and beyond.
See the full squad lists on the Team UK page.
