Nordic Storm

Talking about the AFLE EFA, we've got big news coming out of the EFA and the Nordic Storm for Masi Obert.

He just signed to the Minnesota Vikings practice squad this week.

When I first looked at it, I was like, oh, cool.

But he just so happens to come from the EFA.

And that's the league he played in this year.

And that's the, you know, he won a championship at the Nordic Storm.

So, Moving on, congratulations, Maceo Baird.

We really hope it works out for you.

Hello, this is Yelda Frohold, Center for the Arizona Cardinals, and you're listening to Stormcast.

Hello everyone, and welcome to a very special edition of Stormcast, a Nordic Storm podcast.

Today we're doing something a little bit different.

Rather than talking about one particular game or looking ahead to the next opponent, we're going to spend the entire episode getting to know one of the biggest names in European football.

He's played across Europe, become one of the continent's dominant running backs, won championships with Rhinefire, battled his way back from serious Achilles injury, and has now added another championship with the Nordic Storm.

So there is really only one person this episode could be about.

Glenn Tunga, welcome to Stormcast.

And so I would say that I was almost spoiled.

And now it's a thrill that he is still in football coaching successfully.

And he is the head coach of the Nordic Storm of the European League, the European League champions, coming off a championship season.

John Shoup, mentor to Ben Johnson, joins us now.

Good morning, John.

I think that's a good plan, John.

I think that's after a successful season in Europe.

So you were the head coach of the Nordic Storm, and you won the European League Championship recently.

Was that last weekend? Yeah.

You've got to think, okay, we've got to have some sort of variety you know you can't just have the same thing over and over again we're just going to beat you with our fast athlete over the top because i mean quite frankly the guys who play this sport in this continent yes they they are educated right they're not just guys who are just gonna turn up and make the same mistake over and over and over and over again they're gonna learn so you can't keep you can't run the same basic gimmick and expect to score from it because by this point in the league no idea what that was by this point in the league by this point in the season as well guys know okay american receiver over there all these other threats have not done anything let's just double cover triple cover the american guy quarterback's not going to throw it to their native wide receiver three who's dropped every pass this season you know yeah let's

just look at how um the you know jump over to the other league for the sake of conversation let's look at how the nordic storm ran their offense in the final when they pretty much when they did a really similar thing to the Munich Ravens.

It was, they mixed it up.

A lot of the time it was Fons going downfield and the American receiver Bolio was running perimeter screens and just moving them around the formation, regardless of changing the play or whatever, just moving your A import receiver around the formation opens up so many possibilities.

But at times, it just looked like the Panthers were hitting their head against a brick wall, hoping something would change.

I think a lot of the time as well, like you said, with moving your wide receiver, moving your American import receiver around.

I mean, with the Nordic Storm, for example, a blueprint of a good offense, typically, to stereotype it, yes, you have your American quarterback, American wide receiver, you'll have a homegrown receiver, a wide receiver who's talented enough to be up on it or talented enough to be an e-import somewhere else you'll have maybe an e-import running back or homegrown running back who's good enough you might have a homegrown or european tight end as well and that's pretty much your offense of course you need a strong offensive line but you don't need to there are other guys you need to have other talent other than your american receiver essentially other guys who can take some of the load otherwise it's just one-dimensional offense you see american guy throwing to american guy and you have nine homegrown players on the field who don't touch the ball and they should be watching which is incredibly easy to beat right now to go back on royals live panthers run game remember we've been saying that run game is very it's been very strong all season remember last week They only managed 18 yards outside of their quarterback, I believe it was, outside of Jameson Wang.

They only managed 18 yards.

That was a big rematch that we wanted to talk about.

Now, the 10-1 at the time, Munich Ravens against the 10-1 at the time, Nordic Storm.

They faced off in Innsbruck, in Tivoli Stadium, in that beautiful, beautiful Tiro region of Austria.

for the final of the first EFA season, and we kind of thought it would be a tight, tight one, given the fact that the first game between these two teams was very tight.

And all their starters came back this time, and we said, we're expecting a tight game.

I think we were quite wrong with that one.

We were quite wrong with that, because Nordic Storm came to play, and the Munich Ravens came to be played with.

No, I think the game was a lot tighter than the scoreline suggests.

All right, let me just read out this summary of the game that I wrote.

So Nordic Storm made history on Saturday, beating the Munich Ravens 48-28 in Innsbruck to become the first ever EFA champions.

Storm took control early with JJ and Clark, throwing four touchdown passes as they built a commanding 28-6 halftime lead.

Munich threatened after the break, but Storm always had an answer.

We played in the league, we played in last season, there were divisions, so we didn't get to play all the teams in that league.

But now we know each other.

Now the Nordic Storm and the Munich Ravens, they know each other.

Now there's history.

The big thing for me is the financial part because like we see with Berlin right now, they have to have the league step in and basically save their ass.

Is this going to create more of that gap between the Nordic storm, the Munichs who pay their own guys, more Americans, it's just a money thing again.

And that's all it comes down to.

And I think I would, for me personally, I'd like it to be marketed, not as like a European game anymore.

You know what I

mean? I think a lot of them want to play for their home team in general.

Like when I was in Spain playing with Morgan Boney and Yada, who are from Sweden, they wanted to play for the Nordic Storm.

They want to represent their home team.