Helsinki All Stars overwhelm Barcelona 195-70 at European championships

Helsinki did not just clear Barcelona 195-70 in Namur. It turned Friday’s European Regional Championships opener into a statement win, one that made the 125-point margin look less like bracket housekeeping and more like a warning shot before Saturday’s Game 8 against Rainy City.

The game came at Centre Namurois des Sports Tabora in Namur, Belgium, where the 2026 WFTDA European Regional Championships opened under the host of Namur Roller Derby. Helsinki entered listed ninth in Europe with a 7-1 record and a 187.57 GPA, while Barcelona sat 10th at 6-2 with a 196.68 GPA. That made the result more revealing than a seed line might suggest: Helsinki did not edge a weaker opponent, it imposed its tempo on a team that had already shown it could score in bunches.

Barcelona had not come to Namur short on offensive evidence. The Spanish side had put up 276 points in a win over Vienna and 226 in a rout of Dublin, results that underline how different postseason derby becomes when a team is forced into long defensive sets and fewer clean scoring runs. Helsinki’s 195 points mattered too, but the bigger number was the 70 it allowed. That is the kind of defensive control that travels, especially when the bracket tightens and every jam starts to feel like a possession battle.

This was not Helsinki stumbling into one hot result. The Finnish side has stacked wins over Kallio, LDN Saints, Göteborg, Stockholm and Lomme, and the Barcelona blowout fit the same pattern. The All Stars have built credibility the hard way, through a season that has asked them to show they can win in different game states, against different styles, and away from home.

Now comes the real measuring stick. Rainy City, listed first in Europe with an 8-0 record and a 587.33 GPA, has beaten Paris, Crime City, Antwerp and London this season and owns a 7-1 edge in eight all-time meetings with Helsinki. Their closest game was Rainy City’s 173-172 win on June 4, 2017, a reminder that the gap between these teams has been narrow before, even if the rankings now say otherwise. Helsinki earned the right to ask the question; Saturday will tell whether it can actually answer it.