World Cup starts in Frankfurt
Can Germany really become darts world champion?
By Kevin Schulte, Frankfurt
06/15/2023, 4:14 p.m
A U21 national soccer player, a motorsport helmet designer, also a globetrotter of retirement age. And Germany is hoping for a historic title win. These are the ingredients for the Team World Championship in darts. It starts today in Frankfurt.
Once a year, the dart professionals have to completely change their processes and habits. That once a year is now. At the team world championships in the ice rink in Frankfurt am Main, the search is not for the best individual player, but for the best duo. It starts tonight, including Germany’s first appearance.
How is the tournament going?
The World Cup of Darts, which is the official name of the tournament, is the only event organized by the professional darts organization PDC in which players compete against each other in doubles. A total of 40 countries are taking part in the World Team Championship with their two best players. The four strongest darts nations – England, Wales, Netherlands, Scotland – are seeded for the round of 16 on Saturday. The remaining 36 teams will fight for the 12 open spots in the knockout stages in a group stage that will be played today and tomorrow.
The German participants, World Cup semi-finalists Gabriel Clemens and Martin Schindler, are seeded in sixth place and have been drawn into a group with Hong Kong and Japan. In the first group game, Germany meets Hong Kong in the evening (around 10 p.m. / live on DAZN). If Clemens and Schindler win the game, the game will continue against Japan on Friday evening. In the event of a defeat against Hong Kong, Japan would already be waiting in the afternoon. Only the group winners advance to the round of 16, which will be drawn late on Friday evening after the end of the preliminary round.
What are the chances of the German team?
Gabriel Clemens is number 20 in the darts world rankings, Martin Schindler is ranked 25th. This means that Germany is nominally the sixth strongest of the 40 teams, which roughly corresponds to the actual performance. While the group stage is not without its challenges, with Hong Kong and Japan capable of upsetting, anything but topping the group would be a major disappointment. How the further prospects are in the event of progress also depends on the draw for the round of 16.
Thanks to the special dynamics of the tournament, Germany can even hope for the title. What speaks in favor of the duo Clemens/Schindler is that they harmonize perfectly and their respective playing speeds are similar. “It’s great when you’re friends with your own team partner. Maybe we’ll win our first title together,” said Clemens beforehand. In addition, the 39-year-old believes in a small advantage. “Years ago we played doubles in our league in Germany. I think the other countries are not used to playing doubles.”
Who are the favourites?
Darts motherland England is in first place. World number one and reigning world champion Michael Smith leads the team. Rob Cross plays alongside him. Unlike the two Germans, however, Smith and Cross do not have a good relationship. In a recent interview with a US YouTuber, Smith even admitted that he didn’t like the 2018 world champion.
There are no such atmospheric problems with the 2020 Team Champion. Wales will start with Gerwyn Price and Jonny Clayton. They both get along very well and are – and this is of course the much more important aspect – excellent players. That makes Wales the top favorite at this year’s Team World Cup.
Of course, the Netherlands can also calculate chances of winning the tournament. However, the second strongest darts nation in the world after Great Britain has to do without the three-time world champion and seven-time Premier League winner Michael van Gerwen. The 34-year-old canceled at short notice because he had not yet recovered from a planned dental operation on Monday, the PDC announced. That’s why the eccentric Dirk van Duijvenbode joins the more introverted Danny Noppert. It is the second time in a row that superstar van Gerwen of all people has canceled the team world championship.
The big unknown among the top nations is Scotland. Although Peter Wright and Gary Anderson can come up with a full trophy cabinet (two world champion titles each), Wright’s level in particular has often been remarkably low in recent months. It is therefore possible that the world number 22. (Anderson) and not the world number 2. (Wright) is the secret number one in Team Scotland.
Australia, on the other hand, has better chances of a top result. Damon Heta and Simon Whitlock are only seeded in seventh place and, like Germany, have to start in the preliminary round, but the duo surprisingly won the World Cup last year. In the preliminary round, Guyana and Gibraltar shouldn’t be a significant hurdle either.
Who else should you watch out for?
The Team World Championship is also special because there are more amateur players than professionals. This is because the darts world is still heavily influenced by a few countries. Just 19 nations have two players on the professional tour, 7 teams can only rely on one professional, the other 14 participating countries consist purely of ambitious hobby players.
These actors make up the special appeal of the World Cup. For example the Italian with the euphonious name Massimo Dante. The artist’s specialty is designing helmets for motorsport enthusiasts. Among other things, Dante designed the helmet of Formula 1 driver Alex Albon. And the Italian is also sporty in many ways. As a kart driver and pool player, Dante has already represented the Italian colors, with the team world championship in darts he now makes his very personal triple perfect.
Craig Galliano also has sporting qualities beyond darts. The 21-year-old competes for Gibraltar alongside his doubles partner Justin Hewitt, who is the same age. In his homeland, Galliano is active as a footballer and has even been nominated for the U21 team in Gibraltar.
Legend Lim and Guyana also there
For the first time ever, Guyana is taking part in the World Team Championship. The small country was able to assert itself in the Latin America qualifying tournament and will be represented on Main by the two former World Cup participants Norman Madhoo and Sudesh Fitzgerald. That Fitzgerald is serving in Frankfurt 14 years after his participation in the World Cup borders on a miracle. The 36-year-old was still in a coma at the end of last year after breaking his foot, hip and jaw and losing part of his liver in a car accident.
The small country from the north of South America is one of a total of four debutants at this year’s World Cup. Bahrain, Iceland and Ukraine have also benefited from the expansion to 40 teams. Anything other than cutting out after the two preliminary round games would be a sensation for the World Cup newcomers.
A very old acquaintance, on the other hand, calculates a little more. Like every year, Paul Lim will be representing Singapore alongside Harith Lim. Lim is one of the greatest legends in darts and, at 69, by far the oldest competitor. But Lim’s life offers much more material for stories. At the age of 20 he left Singapore and traveled the world. First to London, where he became a chef. In his free time, Lim stood at the dartboard and got better and better. In E-Dart, the game on the electronic dartboard, Paul Lim is the most famous player ever. But Lim has also achieved considerable success with steel darts. In 2017 he and unrelated Harith Lim knocked out the then top seeded Scots Peter Wright and Gary Anderson in the first round of the World Cup.
The fans in Frankfurt are hoping for sensations like these again this year from the special character of the team world championship. And maybe all of that will even be topped by the host team winning the title. Even getting into the final would be historic: there has never been a big final with German participation on the PDC circuit.