German analyst praises Gian Van Veen and Ricardo Pietreczko: ''Their stories are kind of parallel now"

Ricardo Pietreczko and Gian van Veen managed to impress on their debut at the European Championship in Dortmund last week. In his first match, Pietreczko defeated defending champion Ross Smith 6-3 thanks to an average of 104.28 and then gave world number one Michael van Gerwen a tough time.

Robert Marijanovic in his podcast, which he co-produces with Elmar Paulke, was impressed with the performance of "Pikachu," who surprisingly won the German Darts Championship earlier in October.

"He plays very confidently. And confident is, I think, exactly the right word. He looks confident, he plays confident, he doesn't look nervous. He looks cool. And that's already a good sign,'' Marijanovic stated.

The German then turned to the performance of Van Veen, who successively defeated Damon Heta (6-1 with 107.34 average), Daryl Gurney (10-6) and Michael van Gerwen (10-6). ''We have to talk about that too.... These two newcomers were really convincing. Van Veen managed to throw the highest average ever by a debutsnt at the European Championship, and Ricardo enters this list in third place."

Between these two players, darts legend Phil Taylor is in second place. At his European Championship debut in 2008, the Englishman threw an average of 105.98 and that record remained for 15 years.

"It says a lot about those two guys. I rate Gian maybe a tad stronger than Ricardo, but the two kind of belong together. Their stories are kind of parallel now. Gian in Holland and for us Ricardo," Marijanovic concluded.