There were two Spanish teams there. Our team beat out the Spanish 'B' team to get 13-16 in the Regular. The other Spanish Team is a top flight Masters team. There were three great players with Andreas being the best IMO. The other two that played real strong was a young looking kid, Imanuel and Fransico. I think they ended up getting 9-12 though. I had a good time but they racked up some mini money from me. For some reason they were always able to get one in the top part of the bracket and one in the bottom, I usually beat one but beating both was tough. We could have chopped and I would have been fine with that. I wondered if they were from spain becaue every time I would try to say something in spanish, they looked at me funny. It could have been my silly attempt to even communicate in spanish.
I was group leader/translator for these two Spanish teams. One team finished 17/24 as you say and the other team finished the same as your team in 13/16
None of the two teams were Masters quality and if they were we would have played them in the Masters division.
The statistics of the better of the two teams were:
Andres: in Individual Regular finished 129 - 192, in team won 17, lost 9
Francisco: in Individual Regular finished 97 - 128, in team won 14, lost 12
Imanol: in Individual Regular finished 257 - 384, in team won 14, lost 11
Juan: in Individual Regular finished 49 - 64, in team won 13, lost 11
Jorge: in Individual Regular finished 257 - 384, in team won 7, lost 18
Diego: in individual finished 129 - 192, in team won 12, lost 17
Andres, Francisco and Jorge are 2nd division players in Spain, Diego and Juan are 3rd division and the youngest one, Imanol is a 4th division player.
At least three of those players will be promoted at the end of this season.
If you consider this a top flight Masters team, then you must consider your own team and the 12 other better teams as Masters also.
Up until two years ago, I was playing BCA and BCAPL and first John Lewis and then Bill Stock used to send me a list of all Portuguese and Spanish entrants so that I could comment as to their entries in the various divisions. That way Spanish or Portuguese top flight players never found their way into the Regular divisions.
Maybe the VNEA should do the same.