11 To Fit or Not Too Fit

Next weekend (17-18 of January) will start the semifinal phase of the Romanian youth championships. The first categories to start are the U16 and U18. The first games should have been played a week ago but the federation decided to postpone the start with one week due to problems with many players failing their individual yearly fitness and aptitude tests.

Starting this year every team qualified for the semifinal phase has to have at least eight players who have passed these tests. Eight is a minimum number of players a team must have at the start of any game in the Romanian youth championships. The rules proclaim that no player should be eligible to play without passing the tests.

After the first round of tests held in December, only about 35% of the players were eligible to play, many teams having only two or three valid members. This led to the situation that only a few teams were eligible to play in the semifinal phase, out of the 16 that qualified from the first round.

This situation compelled the federation to rethink the system. The season got postponed by one week to give teams the possibility to take the tests again with their players who failed the first time. After this second round of tests teams who still couldn't achieve to have eight valid players, would be deducted points as follows: teams with less than five eligible players a 2 points deduction at the start of the second phase and teams with less than eight eligible players a 1 point deduction to start the season. During the semifinal phase all players would be considered eligible after the points were deducted.

Players who couldn't pass the tests will have one more chance before the Final Tournament. Players who didn't pass their tests won't be eligible for the Finals and neither will be teams with less than eight eligible players on their rosters.

So we are looking forward to an interesting second part of the season, with many good teams having to cope with 1 or 2 points deducted at the start, having to fight harder than expected to reach the Final Tournament. And even if they reached it, they first would have to qualify at least eight players, with their test completed, for the official roster.

You can read the list of eligible players and teams after the second round of tests here. 

You can read the full schedule of the semifinal pahse of the youth championship here.