📅 17th to 19th of April 2026
📍Hangar Crailsheim
After the intense German Open, we practically went straight on to the next competition: the 2026 Schubert Cup in Crailsheim!
The group stage
The first match of the tournament was ours, and it was a real treat to watch! We faced ER-Force from Erlangen, a team we’d already had a pretty exciting match against in Cologne. This time, we really stepped it up: Instead of a 2-0 loss, we managed to secure a well-deserved 0-0 draw! Despite losing a wheel, our robots were much bolder on the field and kept aiming for the goal. At the end of the second half, one of our balls even went into the opponent’s goal, but it was partially lifted, so the goal unfortunately didn’t count. Still, it was a highlight that we’ll simply record as a goal in our internal stats!
In the second game against the Immortals, we were determined to score a real goal and managed to do so in a way – albeit in the form of an unfortunate own goal: The ball bounced off one of our robots and rolled straight into the goal. A real shame, but here too, the final score remained a solid 1-0.
The last game against the TIGERs Mannheim didn’t go as planned. Normally, a game like this usually ends with an early 10-0 victory for the TIGERs in the first half, but this time the score was only 2-0 in favor of the opponent at halftime. The final score was still 10-0, but it took significantly longer to get there.
Our semifinal game
We had fully expected to be thoroughly outclassed by the TIGERs Mannheim in our second and final game, suffering a crushing 0-10 defeat, but things turned out differently. ER-Force, who were officiating the game, wanted to give us a brand-new ball, but it was still so slippery that the TIGERs’ dribblers, in particular, couldn’t handle it well. In short: ball control was virtually nonexistent. The result: Mannheim scored only one goal, so we were able to finish the game with a 0-1 score – an absolute first, not just for us, but also for the TIGERs, who hadn’t won by such a narrow margin in a long time. Our joy over our strong defense and the (for us) favorable circumstances was correspondingly great!
Conclusion
The 2026 Schubert Cup was an all-around successful tournament for us. Even though we didn’t place in the competition, we saw significant progress on the field, especially in defense and in how our robots worked together. At the same time, we were able to gain valuable competition experience, test new ideas, and grow closer as a team. If we keep this up, the big RoboCup in South Korea is sure to be fantastic!
A big thank you goes to Gerhard Schubert GmbH and the city of Crailsheim for organizing yet another wonderful event. We had a great time and are already looking forward to next year!
