(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
 Pool-alignments announced for European Cup Tournaments
Nederlands
 LAUSANNE (Switzerland) -
The Technical Commission of the European Baseball Confederation (CEB) today (January 23) announced the group-alignments for the two European Cup A-tournaments, as well as the four European Cup Qualifier-tournaments.
In November, Dutch champion DOOR Neptunus, as of this season called Curaçao Neptunus after its new sponsor-agreement in December, was been awarded the organization of one of the two European Cup A-tournaments.
L&D Amsterdam Pirates, which lost last years best-of-seven Holland Series, has to travel to French capital Paris, where Paris UC will be the host of the other tournament.
Playing in front of a home crowd in its Neptunus Family Stadium, Neptunus will meet Heidenheim Heideköpfe (Germany), KNTU Elizavetgrad (Ukraine), Templiers Sénart (France), Rimini Pirates (Italy) and Draci Brno (Czech Republic) in Pool 1.
In Pool 2 in Paris, Amsterdam Pirates meets PUC Paris (France), T&A San Marino (San Marino), Brest Zubrs (Belarus), Solingen Alligators (Germany) and Fortitudo Bologna (Italy).
Brest becomes the first club from Belarus to play in the European Cup A.
The two tournaments will be played June 2 through 7.
The winners of each pool then meet in a best-of-three series in August to determine the winner of the European Champions Cup.
Last year, the Cup was won by T&A San Marino, which defeated Rimini 2-1 in the best-of-three final.
In the period of June 15-20, four European Cup Qualifiers will be organized.
The winners of each event will qualify for a European Cup Play-Off to be played in September.
The four group-alignments for these tournaments are as follows:
Pool 1 - Antwerp (Belgium)
Borgerhout Squirrels (Belgium), Essex Arrows (Great Britain), Espoo Expos (Finland), Stockholm (Sweden) and Split Nada (Croatia).
Pool 2 - Athens (Greece)
Panathinaikos BC (Greece), Vienna Metrostars (Austria), Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria), Atletico Alexandria (Romania), Zurich Barracudas (Switzerland) and Olympic Sports School 42 (Russia).
Pool 3 - Karlovac (Croatia)
Olimpija Karlovac (Croatia), Gepardy Zory (Poland), Leksand (Sweden), London (Great Britain) and Zajcki Ljubljana (Slovenia).
Pool 4 - Ostrava (Czech Republic)
Ostrava Arrows (Czech Republic), Dornbirn Indians (Austria), SDUSOR Diamond (Ukraine), Kutno (Poland), Apollo Bratislava (Slovakia) and Therwil Flyers (Switzerland).
(January 23)
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