Colombia with team Tsunami

It’s 2am and my flight is just landing back in San Diego from London. After a ton of delays, missed connections, and a few close calls I was finally home for all of 5 hours before I had to be on another plane down to South America. My gear was incredibly dirty from the London The post Colombia with team Tsunami appeared first on Marcello Margott.

It’s 2am and my flight is just landing back in San Diego from London. After a ton of delays, missed connections, and a few close calls I was finally home for all of 5 hours before I had to be on another plane down to South America. My gear was incredibly dirty from the London event so I had just enough time to drive home, throw it in the wash, repack my bags and get back to the airport before sunrise. This was by far the quickest turnaround of my life. I was sitting on my couch waiting for my clothes to get finished thinking about how exhausted I was from all the traveling. But then it hit me, soon I was going to be in Colombia with my boys from Tsunami! I immediately got excited as Colombia is one of my favorite countries in the world. I packed my bags, put a smile on my face and headed to the airport.

When I got to Lindberg field I was greeted by my Delta family with open arms and warm hugs. It is always nice to leave San Diego on that note at the airport. After two short (what seemed to be short compared to the previous trip) flights I had arrived in Bogota. It was time to get the fiesta started! I was greeted at the airport by Javier, one of the head referees for the league and Tim, a referee from the NXL that was down there to help. We grabbed some food and had an early night but that wouldn’t set the tone for the rest of the trip. The trip was packed with action, beautiful sights, and loads of food. There was really no end to any of it and I was living in a south american heaven.

Friday morning I was greeted by one of my teammates from Tsunami and we headed to the field. Tsunami reminds me of a South American Dynasty; they have been around for a long time, are always at the top, and are considered to be the “cool” team of SA. I first played for them last season and collected a win down in Cali and was immediately drawn to the culture within the team. Not only are they an awesome group of guys but they have created a team that has challenged the growth of other teams in their region. You need teams like this in the sport to inspire other divisional teams to raise the bar and thats exactly what Tsunami does. They have committed to bringing down pro players and becoming the best they can over the years and I am excited to be part of it. Anytime a team is looking to grow and is genuinely passionate about our sport I am hopeful to help.

Later that afternoon I was teaching a clinic setup by Ariel the leagues owner. When I arrived at the field I was surprised to see how many people showed up. The place was packed with students eager to learn and I was excited to get the action rolling. I geared up and brushed up on some of my spanish before getting started. We had an extremely successful day covering everything from fundamental drills to in game situations. We completely dissected the layout and I made sure everyone was prepared to play at a high level over the weekend. Maybe I prepared some of them a little too well but we will get to that later!

As the rest of my team rolled in we walked the field and went over all of our game plans and possibilities. After the initial excitement of seeing everyone it was time to get down to business. I explained to the team that our goal for the weekend was to win, which was obvious, but our path to get there would be an aggressive one. I wanted the team to step out of its comfort zone and attack. I let them know we would be running everywhere and making it nearly impossible for teams to scout us because we would have a wide variety of plays that would keep us ahead of our opponents. Everyone was excited and on board so now it was time to execute.

Saturday morning came quicker than I thought as I could have used a few more hours of sleep. Fortunately I am well aware of Latin American time so I wasn’t feeling rushed and snoozed a little longer than my alarm. For those of you that don’t know about Latin American time it is a real thing. It is the idea that whatever the agreed meeting time is, add at least an hour and you will be right on time. No, I am serious. We showed up to the field ready for action and to my surprise the event was set to get started on time!

As promised we came out of the gate swinging. The team was fired up and ready to attack in every position. We won all of our prelim games losing only a point all day long and I honestly don’t think we ran the same game plans more than two times. Everyone was gelling and playing well off each other and the moves we were doing were creating opportunities for everyone to succeed. The punch was coming from a different spot every point which made it really tough for the opposing teams to adjust. I was really impressed with the improvement within the team from just a few months. Day 1 was finished and we were sitting in first place by a mile with only one prelim game left to play Sunday morning.

Sunday morning we won our prelim game 3-1 struggling only the first point. This would put us directly into the finals which as you might know, isn’t always the best. Sure it is nice to be guaranteed a finals spot but this would mean we had to sit at the field all day waiting for the rest of the prelims, and semi finals to finish before we would play our game. It makes it easy to get lazy. On top of it I am never a fan of breezing through to the finals. It is nice to face some adversity in the prelims in order to be prepared for it in the finals. Either way all those things are just excuses and as a professional we try not to look at those aspects. We had a finals spot and planned on continuing with our attack.

The very first point didn’t go our way. For the first time all event our snake player got shot off the break and we lost our center player almost immediately after that. It wasn’t long before the opposing team won the point. I wasn’t concerned though, I figured they had gotten a lucky shot because in scouting them they hadn’t shot anyone off the break almost all event. The next point we switched things up a little bit but as promised remained aggressive. Our breakout was clean and we were sitting 5 alive however they weren’t giving us a body to shoot on the break which was smart by them. They were playing a very tight pocket and going up the center, which turned out to be their key to success. Shortly after feeling like we were about to get things evened up we received an untimely penalty on a pack hit from our diorite player. It wiped out our entire diorite side leaving us in another 3 on 5 situation. I tried to push overly aggressive and got taken out next which closed the curtains. I should have waited a little longer to make my fill and maybe we could have gotten back into the game. We were now down 0-2 with only 4 minutes on the clock as the game times there are already short sitting at 8 minutes. We collected ourselves as a group in the pits and reset our intention. Only down two points? No big deal we got this. We adjusted our game plan and went out the next point ready to claw our way back in. Sure enough our gameplay worked flawlessly and we won with a convincing 5 alive performance. I called for the same line to do the same thing. Probably the first time all event we did the same exact thing two times in a row. Sure enough, it worked like a charm yet again. They didn’t know where to focus their guns because the attack was coming from all sides. The score was now tied 2-2 and we felt we had our groove back. With a little over 45 seconds left on the clock we planned to win the event with the next point.

The buzzer sounds, game starts, and we all make it to our spots 5 alive. G1.. G2… Then I hear ball 1, ball 2, thats ok its now a 3 vs 3 and we have field position. I start pushing down the snake side but they had a thorn in our side over there being in the snake 2 it slowed our attack. We lose another body but shoot another body, 2 vs 2.. then bam, I shoot the guy in front of me at the same time my diorite player shoots his guy.. We were collecting the information and heading towards the buzzer only to run out of time! If we only had 7 more seconds we would have won the point, and the tournament! Shoot. Alright time to regroup, take a deep breath and go do it again in over time. It seemed as if the lethargy had warn off and everyone was firing again. We had just won two basically three points in a row, pretty convincingly. It was time to go win the event in over time. As we made our way out to the field I was trying to formulate the best game plan for our runners. We get to the start gate with 15 seconds to go as I break down what everyone will do. We tag up and the refs run in to double chronograph. I hate when this happens because we chrono to get on the field in the first place. That is when we have time to adjust the marker if there is a small fluctuation which there almost always is. Unfortunately the paint we shoot and the guns we use aren’t perfect so you cant just set your gun to 290 FPS and assume it will stay there constantly. Even when I chrono around 285 I will get balls that spike over 300 so it is a real bummer when you get pulled for a 302 or something in that range. However, it is their job and rules are rules. One of our players was hot by a few FPS. In scramble mode now we had to quickly redefine our game plan for 4 players as we didn’t have a time our or time to lower his gun. Fortunately the ref was understanding of the situation and said shoot again. He was under 300!!! Awesome we could start with five guys and it would be business as usual. Keep in mind this was all happening in 15 seconds! We barely touched up in time as the horn blew. With our unfortunate start we lost our two diorite players off the break which put us in an immediate 3 on 5 situation. Not ideal but still very winnable. Then we lost another player and it seemed to be folding on us. I made a fill out to the snake corner and didn’t make it, our last player got bunkered and we would finish the event in second place. What a bittersweet way to end the event. We kicked butt all weekend long only to have a series of mishaps and a few poorly played points bring us down.

Everything was our fault, the chrono, the penalty, everything was totally fair and honestly just happened to us at the worst time. Still, even with those adversities we should have been able to come out on top as I know the talent of team Tsunami is unmatched in South America. Part of the bittersweet taste was that two of the players on the team that had beat us had come to my clinic on friday. I had taught them exactly how to play the field and they used my own strategy against me! I was proud and upset at the same time as I am sure you can understand haha. I guess my clinics do work after all.

Well, the event was over and it was time to reflect and move on. Looking back as we drove back to bogota I was incredibly impressed with the event. I have been coming to Colombia since 2012 and this was probably the best event yet. Mostly because the referees did such an amazing job. I honestly put the referees from the last Bogota event up there with the NXL referees if not better. They had zero bias all weekend and calls were consistent. Referees were in position to make the right calls and seemed to genuinely care about keeping the game fair rather than making a game winning call. They had a referee from the NXL, Tim, who was outstanding. It was my first time meeting the guy but I was incredibly impressed all weekend with how he handled the players. The NXL should consider getting him on the pro field! All in all it was an amazing weekend and our team is still sitting way ahead in first place.

I would spend the next week in Cali, which is where the guys on Tsunami are from. This would turn out to be one of the best weeks of my life! I cant even explain to you how beautiful it was. Every day was a different adventure. My buddy Felipe, one of the main Tsunami players totally dialed me in. He took me to his cabin that sat on a beautiful waterfall in the middle of the jungle, sent me with the team to his lake house to rip it nonstop on jet skis, let me chill out at his awesome country club after long nights out and made sure I was constantly taken care of. The jungle was one of the most peaceful places I have been to. I laid in a hammock for hours just listening to the tropical rain and waterfall as I dozed into a state of ecstasy. No joke the tranquility makes it impossible for the brain to process the chaos from the outside world. When you’re out there you really just experience the moment as you’re so captivated by everything around you. I haven’t seen so much beauty in one week in a long time! The hospitality between Felipe, David Ramirez, his family and the rest of Tsunami was truly unexplainable and I am incredibly thankful. They treated me like one of their own and that is why I am happy to call myself a Tsunami player. The next event is in Medellin and unfortunately it is the same weekend as NXL but look for Tsunami to bring home the gold. I will be back with them in bogota if everything goes as planned to help win the tournament and series title!

I cant thank my amigos enough for the entire trip! Planet Eclipse played a huge part in getting me down there and I also cant thank them enough for their continued support. They have opened their arms to me big time and I am excited to continue traveling to represent the awesome brands that make this possible. Planet Eclipse and HK Army you guys are the real MVP’s. Gracias!

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