Playing level in international tournaments

2010: The European Championships
21-25 October: Qualification matches in Almelo, The Hague, Leeuwarden, Rotterdam and Tilburg.
25-30 October: Special qualifying rounds in Rotterdam (In the Topsportcentrum).
31th October: Finale in Rotterdam (At the Ahoy arena).

One of the biggest problems korfball is coping with today, is finding a competitive balance for international tournaments. If the results will follow any conventional outcome, we already know the order of the silver and golden rankings: 1. Netherlands; 2 Belgium. After the first and the second place, we can describe a battle for the bronze medal: Chinese Taipei, the Czech Republic, Russia, England, Portugal, Germany and Spain will be competitors to eachother.
The best promotion for korfball would be to make the matches harder: there is a need for international competition and national teams that can beat both Belgium and the Netherlands.

In 2010 there is an opportunity for European countries to work on their playing level and to compete with the Netherlands and Belgium. But the countries that would like to work on these targets, have to start a real serious preparation. This might be impossible in their home countries, because to improve the playing level these teams will have to compete against strong(er) opponents.
A suggestion for those who would seriously want to improve their playing level, is to try to come to the Netherlands in May and in June and make a lot of matches during 4 weeks against the top clubs. They can travel around and ask these clubs what they can pay (I would suggest each match could pay about 800 euros). The clubs will be able to earn this amount back by advertising and by the profits they can make from income fees payed by the visiting supporters.(Not only European countries, also other countries from other continents are very welcome! In 2011 there is the World Championship in China. The preparation for that tournament should be started also in 2010)

I realize that the players have to leave their schools and their work. But in top sport there no other route: you can only totally go for it!