English
From a German perspective, the first NXL Europe event of the year was clearly dominated by Ballistics Göttingen. In the second highest league, the NXL Semi-Pro, the team from the north achieved a respectable 1st place at the opening event in Lisbon. We accompanied the guys on their journey to the event and want to give you a little insight into the impressive story from the preseason to the top of the NXL in today's article. We also had Dustin Hauk, the team captain of Ballistics Göttingen, as our guest for an interview.
PBS Magazine: Dustin, first of all, congratulations on your tournament success. How did it feel to win the NXL Semi-Pro?
Dustin Hauk: Thank you very much! Of course it felt very good. But ultimately it is simply the well-deserved reward for a lot of hard work.
PBS Magazine: Your team, the A-squad of Ballistics Göttingen, is only playing in the NXL Europe this season, but in all three events. – Is that correct and how did that come about?
Dustin Hauk: Yes, exactly. We would have liked to have included the DPL Bundesliga, but for various reasons the Bundesliga did not come about for 2024, which is why we are concentrating fully on the NXL. Our focus has been on the European series since 2023 anyway!
PBS Magazine: Dustin, tell our readers a bit about your NXL trip to Lisbon. You only see the games on the live stream, but how does a trip like that go and what else happens on an NXL weekend with your team besides paintball?
Dustin Hauk: Lisbon was obviously a bit special because you can't avoid arriving and departing by plane. This means you are faced with problems that you are not familiar with from national paintball: booking flights, booking rental cars, getting pots in the target country and finding a way not to give them away after three days of the event. This means you have a lot of organizational things to sort out before you even get to the paintball. We traveled from Hanover on the Wednesday before the event. Including a stopover in Amsterdam, we arrived at our accommodation after about twelve hours in the evening and rounded off the exhausting day with two or three cold drinks. On Thursday we had four hours of training on the event fields. Here we always try to train as inexpensively as possible but at a high level – for a one-hour slot at the NXL you can easily pay a €400 entry fee. We managed that quite well, so that we were able to get started with the American pro team Shock, the Norwegians from Ronholt Dynamite, PPA Pilsen and also with the friendly German semi-pro teams Ballern. and P!MP Squad.
The three actual event days followed. In the preliminary round, you only play two games per day (Friday + Saturday). So theoretically you would have a lot of free time before and after the games. However, since our focus was clearly on winning the event, we spent the time watching pro games or scouting potential opponent teams for Sunday. In concrete terms, this means that apart from about 60 minutes on the beach in Ericeira, we didn't see anything other than the event site, the local supermarket and our accommodation. It was simply four days packed with paintball. A sacrifice that you're happy to make if you can get on the podium at the end.
PBS Magazine: A tournament success like this doesn't just happen by itself, it's hard work. How did you prepare as a team for this very special event.
Dustin Hauk: Our preparation consisted of three full training weekends. We usually try to complete at least one of these against friendly pro teams, which we managed in this case with the bad boys from the Netherlands. We also planned a day on which only we as BG Squad 1 have the layout to ourselves. Breakouts are planned down to the smallest detail, if-then scenarios are defined, bounce shots are practiced. The final training takes place on site on the Thursday of the event weekend. We also work out plans in online meetings, discuss problem situations and define solutions for potential problems on the layout. In the end, event preparation always feels like a lot of work. That may not sound so cool, but it is exactly what paintball means to us as a performance-oriented team.
PBS Magazine: How would you assess the current level of play in the NXL Semi-Pro? How can we imagine it? Is it comparable to tournament sport in Germany?
Dustin Hauk: The level is definitely high. Comparable to the first half of the DPL Bundesliga table before Corona. Every player there has good gun skills and scores with the first balls. You can't afford to underestimate any team. Everyone who plays there is damn hungry and wants to win the event – which definitely makes sense considering all the effort etc. In my opinion, the top five in the Semi-Pro division could also play in the Pro division – although not necessarily very successfully. But you can see from the guys from Scalp that you can take the step if you are willing to intensify the work. After winning the series in the Semi-Pro 2023 in Lisbon, the guys won the Pro division in their Pro debut.
PBS Magazine: Next stop for NXL Europe is Birmingham. What are your plans for the second event of the season? Will we see you fighting for the title again?
Dustin Hauk: Our goal for 2024 is clearly defined: promotion to the NXL Pro Division. With the victory in Lisbon we have taken a big step in the right direction. Of course we will also do everything we can in England to fight for the title on Sunday in the pro field. With Pro-Shar and Dye Europe we also have two of the big players who will help us achieve our goals at all levels. Will it be enough for the second event victory in a row? No idea – keep your fingers crossed for us!
PBS Magazine: We would like to take this opportunity to thank Dustin for the great interview and the impressive pictures he brought us from the tournament.
Finally, we would like to make an editorial comment on the final. The opponent that the Ballistics defeated in the final was no less a team than SL Benfica. Yes, Benfica, as in “Benfica Lisbon”. The boys not only had a home game, but were clearly the local hero, because they know the venue from training and also had a large part of the audience behind them. This final victory is all the more impressive. The Ballistics have definitely shown all the other teams in Europe that German teams can also play extremely strong tournament paintball and that they are definitely a force to be reckoned with in the future. We wish them continued success for the rest of the NXL Europe season. The Ballistics have already set their target: under the motto “Road to Birmingham”, the team will be training from the beginning of June for the England event, which will take place on the first weekend in July (July 5th to July 7th). We will definitely keep our fingers crossed for the Ballistics and hope that they can repeat this great performance. can repeat once.
