The top eight softball teams from the Europe-Africa region will travel to the Netherlands and compete at the Take Off to Tokyo in 2019. The tournament will be hosted in Utrecht from the 23rd to the 27th of July, and will showcase six European and two African countries as they battle it out on the softball field. Eight teams will compete, but only one team will earn their ticket to Tokyo.
The Take Off to Tokyo is one of three softball qualification tournaments to be held in 2019. The American Qualification Tournament will be played in Surrey, Canada from the 25th of August to the 1st of September. Whilst the countries from Asia and Oceania will be competing for their ticket in Shanghai, China from the 24th to the 29th of September.
The eight competing softball teams are divided into two groups. Group A consists of: the Netherlands (A1), Great Britain (A2), Spain (A3) and South Africa (A4). Italy (B1), France (B2), the Czech Republic (B3) and Botswana (B4) are classified in group B after a draw by the WBSC.
The tournament will open with a Round Robin series, and each team will play off against the other teams in their selected group. The top two teams from each group will then advance to the Super Round, and compete in the final series for their ticket to Tokyo.
Team Kingdom of the Netherlands will play all three Round Robin games at 7:00 PM, and if placed within the Super Round, the Netherlands will compete at 7:00 PM Friday 26th and 3:00 PM Saturday 27th.
Start* | July 23 | July 24 | July 25 |
10:00 AM | ESP v GBR | FRA v BOT | ITA v FRA |
01:00 PM | BOT v ITA | RSA v GBR | ESP v RSA |
04:00 PM | FRA v CZE | CZE v ITA | BOT v CZE |
07:00 PM | RSA v NED | NED v ESP | GBR v NED |