Asunto: »[U21] Asian Cup U21 || VII Edition

You made a great job organising Cup!
I think 90% managers are over 30y (+kids), at least we understand!
Also, waiting 8 years for few changes in Sokker learnt us to be patient and calm... and control the force! :))
Don't need to apologise!

Big round of matches this week.

Week 1 (30.12.23)
Viet Nam vs Kazakhstan - 0:5 (forfeit)
India vs New Zealand - 2:0

Australia vs Singapore - 5:0
Israel vs Zhonghou - 5:0 (forfeit)

Indonesia vs Iran - (special case, both receive 1 pt but 0:5 loss)
UAE vs Hong Kong - 5:0 (forfeit)

Week 2 (06.01.24)
Viet Nam vs New Zealand - 1-0 Viet nam pulls out the win in a very even game. NZ did a great job to finish with more shots despite giving up a rating advantage.
India vs Kazakhstan - 0-0 Kazakhstan pulls out a draw in a match that India went in as favourites. This result means that any one of these 4 teams could still win the group with a good performance next week

Australia vs Zhonghou - 0-0 Zhonghou manage to secure a draw despite losing the shot count and having a penalty kick against them. Whilst unlikely to make the knockouts, a big win over Singapore could put them through on the best of 2nd places
Israel vs Singapore - 5-0 Israel had no issues overpowering Singapore this week. I do however expect Singapore will improve over the season with new management from their experienced manager. Israel in a strong position to advance, win, lose or draw next week

Indonesia vs Hong Kong - 3-1 A fairly even game despite the 10 rating point difference and scoreline. Playoff for first in the group between Indonesia and UAE will be an interesting one
U.A.E vs Iran - 8-1 A very one sided affair as Iran's new coach starts to develop tactics and continues to scout the players - we have definitely all been there, the first season with an NT is the most difficult one

Week 3 (13.01.23)
Viet Nam vs India
New Zealand vs Kazakhstan

Australia vs Israel
Zhonghou vs Singapore

Indonesia vs U.A.E
Hong Kong vs Iran

Yes, actually we made it to score twice in last two games! It's thing I am happy with, and we should build on!
I made few bad positioning too, having lots of problems in defence already - like all Nations with low number of active Users, so I'm not searching for excuses! ;)

Congratulations to UAE manager Churruca after two 8:1 wins! UAE strikers Khater and El Baloushi are class players, must admit, making unstoppable attacking duo in Asian Cup group phase!

I'm looking forward to next match against Hong Kong, waiting for friendly Invitation anytime!

Best regards, and good luck to all Participants!

Yeah small nations are definitely quite a challenge, especially single digit user nations.
Keep up the hard work there and continue to interact with those that do exist

Hong Kong U21 agreed match against Ghana

Thanks 2posto.
Really the difference has been because of the attackers.
The biggest shame is that in the UAE the three managers have not connected in a few weeks
(editado)

That is really pity... Hopefully they'll log in any time soon!

Thanks for letting me know, feel free to organise your own friendly

Im still waiting for Vietnam invitation to the friendly.

Whilst the onus is on the home team to send an invite, every team should do the best they can to make sure the match goes ahead as planned.
I have stated before but happy to send again.
Home team invites. If no word by Tuesday, the away team is to send an invite. If not accepted by the time friendly occurs on Thursday, the away team wins as not only did they wait for an invite, they sent the home team a request and 24-48hrs to respond.

Now if the away team isn't accepting, the home team must also post this by Tuesday. This gives the away team 2 days to accept if they are just reading the forum.

This process also acts as a safety net for the occasional dishonest coach you get, although with the game losing many many members, this is extremely rare as those sticking around for NTs are generally pretty good people. But the safety net is still there for everyone's protection
(editado)

The above has been in the rules in some form or another in the past, but must have been lost in copy and paste or similar somewhere along the line, although it has come up in chat before.

So send them an invite eguaro, let's see if they accept. I'd like to give them 24hrs to accept before you organise a friendly

OK, i did send the invitation. I´ll wait, no problem for me.

Well what a final week, with many changes in the table (it didn't help that I think I messed up the points section last week, but have gone through and double checked for this final points table)



The BIG surprise here, and a huge congratulations to Churruca, the 8th seed UAE finished on the most points of all teams in the Group phase.
A commiserations to Kazakhstan who were oh so close to making it to the semi finals, with just goal difference separating Israel and Kazakhstan, an incredible effort given their original seeding was 10, and in arguably the hardest group of the competition.

So the top 4 going in to the finals are as follows.

1. U.A.E
=2. Australia
=2. India
4. Israel.

The first round of the semis will be as follows. Original seeds are in the brackets.
1v4 - U.A.E (8) vs Israel (4)
2v3 - Australia (1) vs India (3)

Thank you for all the other teams who participated in the Asian Cup. Couldn't have done it without all of you.
(editado)

Reminder to the 4 teams in the semis, today is the day that if the home team hasn't sent an invite, to send one to them.
Teams have until training to accept them.

India U21, I have sent an invite

Big week in the Asian Cup.

Close game between India and Australia with Australia coming out victorius 1:0

UAE doing what they have done all tournament with a big upset win over Israel - 5:2

Final
Australia vs UAE

Bronze medal match
Israel vs India

Congratulations to schmid. I think Australia deserved to win the Asian Cup title..