SPAIN

The Spanish season is underway as each team has played two games so far. All six have a bye week this week. Heavy favorites for the Spanish title this year will again be the Pioners L'Hospitalet from Barcelona. With head coach Teo Polanco at the helm the Pioners have won four of the last six championships in Spain and the addition of Stanford quarterback Alex Loukas may add to their power. Despite losing one game last season – to Madrid’s Osos Rivas – the Pioners proved their dominance in the playoffs handling the Badalona Dracs in the final.

They handed Badalona a 40-12 defeat last week.

PORTUGAL

The teams in Portugal play their second games this weekend. The Lisbon Navigators have dominated the Portuguese league for the past three years. But in last year’s final the Paredes Lumberjacks pushed the Navigators before Lisbon pulled away in the second half to win 38-27. The Navigators are heavy favorites to win the league this year as well. They won their first game easily. The Lumberjacks have started the season with a loss to the Warriors so do not expect them to have the same kind of strong year they had last season. The Maximinos Warriors look to improve on their 1-5 record from last year and opened the season with a win over the Lumberjacks.

FRANCE

This weekend the French top division kicks off. Last season the La Courneuve Flash from Paris regained the title they had lost to the Amiens Spartiates in 2010. The Flash have been an elite team in Europe for many years reaching the Eurobowl final in both 2006 and 2009 and winning the French title nine times. Despite a coaching change, the team expects to remain in the top echelons of the league this season as well. Chief opposition should come from the Amiens Spartiates and the upstart Grenoble Centaures who reached the final in 2011 in their first season back in the first division.

The Flash open the season against the newly promoted Asnières sur Seine - Molosses while the Spartiates take on the St Ouen Cougars and Grenoble faces the Aix Argonautes. The Spartiates coaching staff headed by veteran Jim Criner is optimistic. Criner is well known throughout all of professional and college football and was a head coach in NFL Europe as well. The new head coach of the Flash is no stranger to success either. Jim Nendel won the championship in Finland in 2010 as the head coach of the Porvoon Butchers.