Seven non-US players headlining the World Ultimate Championships
August 28, 2024 by Edward Stephens in Opinion with 0 comments
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2024 World Ultimate Championships is presented by Spin Ultimate; all opinions are those of the author(s). Find out how Spin can get you, and your team, looking your best this season.
The Line brings together lists of sevens from our reporting staff.
There’s a kind of duality to our appreciation of ultimate. It is by its very nature a team sport, in that no single player can so much as advance the disc, let alone score, without the cooperation of at least one other player. This is a stark departure from other team sports like basketball, soccer, lacrosse, or hockey – and it is one of ultimate’s central charms.
And yet, it’s hard not to get caught up when an individual player transcends what we think of as normally possible and becomes preternaturally brilliant. Even in a sport as necessarily team-oriented as ultimate, superstar performances are captivating. They offer us a chance to celebrate everything we love best about our own potential. The World Ultimate Championships will be brimming with players who fit that description. Here are seven from around the world who have proven their greatness on the biggest stages and are set to capture the world’s attention again.1
Manuela Cárdenas (Colombia Women’s)
Half of the best twin pairing – actually, make that sibling pairing… actually, at this point, is it just any pair of players? – of all time with sister Valeria, Manu’s play over the last 10 years for Colombian national sides, for Colombian clubs Revolution and Macana, and for Denver Molly Brown has been one of the most highlight-stuffed you’ll ever see. Her athleticism, awareness, and backhand power are all completely maxed out. Still a young player at 25, she’s a lock to add more clips to her gallery of excellence – remember the 2022 Block of the Year? – over the course of the week. And she might add another gold medal, as well.
Daan De Marrée (Belgium Open)
The last two years have been awesome for faans of Daan De Marrée. Instrumental in Mooncatchers’ run to semis at the World Ultimate Club Championships in 2022, a force of nature for the Belgian U24 team last year, and reigning European Player of the Year, he has vaulted to the top of the sport in the blink of an eye. Watching him play, it’s easy to understand why. Not only is he gifted in literally every way an ultimate player can be gifted, he has an extra edge: ruthlessness on both sides of the disc, probably why we’ve seen him play on both lines with his newfound American outfit Chicago Machine. De Marrée is, even as the youngest player on this list, one of the greatest in the world at this moment.
Britt Dos Santos (Canada Women’s)
We first began to take serious notice of the Toronto 6ixers star in 2018, when she earned Breakout Player of the Year honors in the USAU club season. Since then, all she has done is produce as the focal point for every team she’s been part of. A cutter-shooter par excellence, Dos Santos was the only player to put up a double-double (11 assists, 12 goals) at the World Games in 2022. That’s no statistical mirage: she was Canada’s best player and one of the best overall in that rarefied arena. Look for her to lead Canada’s full-steam charge toward the medal games.
Justin Foord (Great Britain Open)
Some actions, repeated often enough, become ingrained in the fabric of a culture. Among those in this sport, Foord in full-tilt pursuit of the disc, powerful step after powerful step, is one of the essential and eternal. The longtime Clapham standout has stood at the top of British, European, and International ultimate for more than a decade. The only reason the 2021 European Player of the Year has just one such award to his name is because that particular honor didn’t exist for most of his career. His canny throws and athletic playmaking will be essential for a Great Britain side with justifiably high medal hopes.
Masahiro Matsuno (Japan Open)
One of the most captivating and beloved players of all time, Matsuno is the beating heart of Japanese ultimate. Everything about him, from his attitude to his play style, exudes bounciness. It’s fitting that some of his best plays are skies like the one over John Stubbs from this very tournament back in 2016. Don’t worry: the longtime Buzz Bullets2 and Japanese national team stalwart hasn’t lost a step. Just a few months ago he was skying PoNY defenders and carving up defenses with inside backhands at Tokyo’s Dream Cup, same as always.
Cat Phillips (Australia Women’s)
Why read this paragraph when you can get a full career summary from Cat Phillips’s Wikipedia page? There’s a very good answer, actually: she’s a two-sport athlete. That Wiki is for her career as a professional Aussie Rules Footballer and budgets exactly one sentence to the ultimate side of her resume. Which shouldn’t dim her achievements with the flat ball at all. She was arguably the best player on Australia’s World Games teams in both 2017 and 2022, and her performances with Melbourne Ellipsis and Toronto 6ixers in club have been elite. Look for her to control the cutting lanes, as well as be one of the steadiest throwers at the tournament.
Levke Walczak (Germany Women’s)
If there is a limit to Walczak’s game, she hasn’t found it yet. Her boundless energy and appetite for the game are features both of her anything-goes, hard-running style of play and her penchant for traveling the world: in addition to her time with German national and club teams, she took home a World Ultimate Club Championships medal picking up with Medellín Revolution in 2022 and a US club championship last year in her second season with Boston Brute Squad. Remarkably, she took home championships at Windmill with two different teams3, winning both finals on the same day and rarely taking a round off. Talk about a motor. Not always the most efficient player on the field, but often the most exciting, Walczak’s stellar two-way play will be the centerpiece of Germany’s medal push this cycle.
