Oh, how we love Europe! The old world baby, that’s where it’s at! Cooking waves, good coffee, cobbled streets and a wifi zone not too far away. This is where people should be going on surf trips, not Indo, every second person that goes there get’s their laptop stolen and has to be airlifted out of Grajagan Land to a hospital in Bali. Anyway, that’s beside the point. Portugal’s a world title deciding the location. Second, to Pipeline, it’s probably the most important event on tour. 

Surfline indicates that the surf’s going to be pretty big for the first couple of days of competition, considering that, here’s our team.

Tier A

Jordy Smith

Tier A is such a tough pick at the mo. It’s like everyone in tier A could take out an event win right now, except maybe Conner Coffin. Safe surfing can only get you so far. But who knows, maybe Conner just lucks into good waves as he did in France. Anyway, let’s take our minds away from the safety of the Coffin and focus on Jords. Jordy’s not in the title race (realistically), but the big man loves to surf sans pressure. Free as a beautiful symmetrical butterfly roaming the sunflower fields. Jordy’s gathered a bit of momentum after France, and we reckon he’s going to be surfing free and loose in Portugal.

Julian Wilson

Julian’s successfully muscled his way into the 2018 title race. It looked from all angles that the two Brazilians were going to run away with it, like a bad thought that materialises into a sinful action, Julian shoved that Australian flag firmly in the faces of his two adversaries and said: “Hey boys, I’m here, let’s play!”

With huge mind blowing hucks that made the Red Bull Airborne look like an event for jumping castle loving toddlers, Julian took to the skies and landed three mean punts to take out the event favourites. A ankle breaking full roat into the flats that had Peter Mel screaming like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert to take out Gabby, a fantastically stylish slob to send the mullet wearing Mikey Wright back home, and another backhand full roat over the top of Ryan Callinan’s kop to win the finals. Julian’s on a heater, and he wants the title bad! Best you place your cursor over his bek and click play.

Tier B

Jeremy Flores

Jeremy Flores was livid in France. Livid that down the beach was firing 6-8ft thundering French barrels, but they had to endure a shitty shifty, funky beach break right out front. Jeremy as he does, made his repugnance clear. His face looked like he had walked into a bathroom post pooh from a vegan eating hippy. You could smell the torchere Jeremy experienced from the look of distaste on his face. Luckily for the honest Frenchmen, swells look tip-top and sizey for Portugal. Hopefully, we’ll see some bombing filthy pits in Portugal, and when waves get consequential, Jezza’s frown turns upside down. 

Griffin Colapinto

A bad result always seems to follow a good result for Griffin. It’s almost like he gets a good result, has a bit of a party, kisses a couple girls, like teenagers do, maybe gets a bit to caught up, then he gets a bad result and thinks to himself, “Shit! I can’t just mess around for the rest of my life!” – then he knuckles down, puts the time in, hangs out with Snake (Jake Patterson), and gets a good result. This may seem like a fools logic, but it’s only foolish if he doesn’t make it past round 3, and every heat win after that will seem like wisdom. Trust us, Griffs gonna do well right here.

Sebastian Ziets

Ziets is like a house cat with fast reflexes. Have you ever watched youtube videos of cats playing with snakes? Their reflexes are so lightening fast, they can evade the snake even when it strikes. That’s like Seabass. he responds so quick to stimuli, adjusting his approach according to how the wave changes as it hits the sandbar. And it’s a highly valued commodity in beach breaks. Ziets is also a frighteningly superb barrel rider, just have a look at his latest Insta G post from France. He threads barrels like South African taxi drivers thread traffic.

Adriano de Souza

Have we all forgotten how good de Souza surfs? After his world title, he went into cruise control, just kinda enjoying the world tour and the different destinations and perhaps even treating himself to the occasional bucket of KFC. He’d been chilling for so long, when he awoke from his deep slumber, he realised that he was in danger of falling off the tour. “WHAT! – de Souza falling off tour!?” – you ask in a bewildered fashion! Yes, sir. In France we got to see glimpses of an old Adriano; incredible rail work, excellent positioning, and trying to find the reform on every single one of his waves – even though the judges couldn’t care less about the reform. de Souza’s looking good (again) and we’re putting him in our team.

Tier C

Ryan Callinan

If you didn’t watch France, you’d call us a bunch of fools for placing #OurPalRCal here, but if you watched France, you’d call us a bunch of fools for not placing #OurPalRCal here. Luckily we watched France. And we saw Ryan blitz the top 32 surfers in the world except one. Ryan’s surfing the best he ever has, and we’re backing him.

Matt Wilkinson

Ahhhh Matty, what happened my guy? Last year you were flighting for a world title. And the year before, you had your eyes set on being the best surfer on planet earth! And now look where you are. At the bottom. In a rut. Maybe you lost your strength when you cut your hair? Regardless, France was the first time in a long time we’d seen Matty surf with a hint of the same confidence he carried last year. He’s in a sticky position, but in his post heat interviews, he backed himself for re-qualification through the CT, and to do that, he’d need a good result in Portugal.