IT ALWAYS seems fitting when the case 9 ball that brings the annual transatlantic pool tussle known as the Mosconi Cup to its conclusion is pocketed by a veteran player who has endured both the highs and lows of the game's most emotion-packed competition. Poetic justice, in a way.

So, when Dutchman Niels Feijen entered the sold-out ballroom arena at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas to battle America's Rodney Morris with Team Europe one win away from successfully defending its title, the Mosconi Cup gods surely looked down and said, "Yes. It is Niels' turn. He deserves this."

True to form, Feijen fended off a plucky but unlucky Morris, 6-3, to put the exclamation point on a convincing 11-7 hammering of the Yanks, and earn the Euros their fourth Cup in the past five years. The final nail also earned Feijen, who posted a pair of wins in both singles and doubles, the event's Most Valuable Player award.

To an extent, Feijen is a microcosm of Team Europe through the 18-year history of Matchroom Sport's Ryder Cup-style incarnation. His foray into Cup play was in 2001 as a 26-year-old, young and raw but intense and talented. At that time, however, his American counterparts were seasoned veterans with a sense of entitlement when it came to 9-ball. After all, the Americans had invented the game, right?

The immensely likeable part-time deejay from The Hague caught the full force of Team USA's dominance in 2001, his deep-set eyes opened for him in what remains the most lopsided score in Mosconi Cup history, 12-1. (Europe, in fact, won the first match of the event, before Team USA rattled off a 12-pack.)

The U.S. continued to win in the following years, but while the level of play from Team USA stayed the same (with a lineup that simply kept getting older), the European roster was just beginning to come of age.

Like many of his teammates, Feijen took to traveling the world to improve his game. While not the jetsetter that his Team Europe pals Ralf Souquet and Mika Immonen are, Feijen nonetheless hurled himself into all the stiff competition he could find. And, as was the case with many of Europe's top players, Feijen's determination began to produce results. From 2004 through 2010, Feijen posted major wins in the U.S. (the Skins Game crown, Derby City's 9-ball division title and World 14.1 Championship) and Europe (the World Pool Masters), with top finishes in the Philippines (third in the World 10-Ball Championship) and the United Arab Emirates (runner-up twice in the World 8-Ball Championship).

Not coincidentally, Team Europe continued to close the gap at the Mosconi Cup. Feijen was on the squads that lost in 2004 and 2005, and was again a member of Team Europe in Rotterdam in 2006 when it looked as if the Euros were ready to wrest the title from the Americans. Europe's late-match collapse, with Immonen missing the title-clinching 9 ball, left Feijen and his mates devastated. It also steeled their resolve.

Now part of the core of Team Europe (along with Souquet and Immonen), Feijen was a member of the 2007 and 2008 squads that thumped their American counterparts and turned the tide for the Europeans.

And after reliving the sting of defeat in 2009 and sitting out Europe's 2010 redemption, Feijen was back at the table sporting the blue and gold of the European Union in Las Vegas. And, as always, his goal was to be the team's MVP.

"Every time I'm on Team Europe my goal is to be MVP," said Feijen during the post-tournament celebration. "Not for selfish reasons, but because that would mean that I made a major contribution to the team. I used to play basketball as a kid, and contributing to a team win was always more fun.

"I still have more losses than wins in the Mosconi Cup (three wins, four losses), but right now we believe we are the better team. This team is so solid from top to bottom."

And it doesn't appear that will change in the near future. So deep is the talent in Europe that Immonen, a veteran of 14 Mosconi Cups, didn't even make the squad in 2011. Nor did 2010 World 8-Ball Champion Karl Boyes.

No worries. A lineup with Feijen, Souquet, Darren Appleton, Nick van den Berg and rising star Chris Melling was more than enough to trample the U.S. quintet of Morris, Johnny Archer, Shane Van Boening, Shawn Putnam and Mike Dechaine.

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