Asunto: National Team

After hard beginning - a nice ending. I think that Boutsanis and Beauchamp were just scared by the Australian NT dress, though later they played nice. Schwarzer had a enormous pace, compared to other players :)

Thompson was playing odd today - no good passes from wing, though he had ball a couple of times....Leijer amused me twice, when he was taking the free kick....and passing the ball to Boutsianis :))

Defence worked pretty well, of course they still have some weak skills, though - not for long. Especially Henderson made a good impression at me. Bourke was solid, Cunico as well - especially with kicking the ball forward, Maninga is only 18yo :), and Rose....he would be one of the best, though he has tragic form.

O'Neill - saved us a couple of times at the beginning. Nice debut.

About forwards:
Mitchell - 1/1, nice header :)
Storey - 2/3, he made us live in the 2nd half :) Scored a real beauty with long shot.
Dreger - 0/2, sucked a little bit due to form, had some dribbles though.

Ufff...pretty hard game :)

Awesome game. All the goals were nice, but my favourite would have had to been the first one, nice passes from all players and then a great assist to give mitchell his first goal for Australia.

Of course I watched my two players the most, and I dont think one player got past cunico. An amazing 21% of defensive work and 11% of offensive work.

Would have bene nice to see O'Neill only let one goal in but still, not too bad. His first real official game (as his first official game the other team didnt show up for).

Leijer played great, bit awkward with the free kicks. Storey with two goals from three shots was nice.

It certainly looks promising for the future of Australia. Some great players there, and they arent even all 19 (1 17yo and 4 18yos)

Yes, the future looks bright. davidgordon already agreed to train a future central mid, Beauchamp for this position, as he could train him also for winger- though we have a lot of good wingers already in all age :)

I think it'll be good.

Good game and nice to come away with the win.

What this game really tells us though, is that Australia has a lot to look forward to when some of these players reach the "main" team!

Yes :)
Leijer and Thompson aren't that far to class presented by North, Timpano and Zdrilic. Also defs look very nice - Bourke and Rose[form..:(] from U19 especially and Burns and Nohra which are 20yo. Also Henderson and couple of others...on things it's sure - there will be very big list of players to choose for each position in future :)

David Kemp is a great option for the midfield in the future :)

If trained rather for centre than wing, as he won't be able to beat Thompson and Leijer imo :)

Hey, pretty happy Beauchamp played. I didn't expect him to get a game anytime soon so I'm pretty stoked.

He didn't do great, but he's only a young lad and I'm sure he'll come good.

He was the best choice for central mid at the beginning. :)

Squad for the game:[Games/goals/assists]

1 Brendan Ando 53/0/0 GK
2 Wesley Broxton 40/0/1 DEF
3 Travis Nikas 0/0/0 DEF
4 George Mangos 2/0/0 DEF
5 Lucas Howarth 16/0/0 DEF
6 Alex Galal 17/0/0 MID
7 Stuart Widera 23/0/2 MID
8 Vince Veart 49/0/7 MID
9 Grant Zdrilic 12/0/1 MID
10 Stan Amien 41/18/0 MID
11 Carl Richter 7/5/1 ATT

12 Darren D'Arcy 2/0/0 GK
13 Chris King 8/0/0 DEF
14 Noah Baveas 34/0/2 MID
15 Jeremy Timpano 23/0/12 MID
16 Wayne Augerinos 7/3/1 ATT

Events:
*First game in NT for Travis Nikas
*50th game in NT for Vince Veart

Subs:
'45 King for Mangos
'48 Augerinos for Richter
'50 Timpano for Zdrilic

1:0, after goal in 4th minute.

Tony Halik, NT coach of Poland, blocked our offensive throw ins very good. Though we had a lot of situations at wings, but, don't ask me why, there was not even a single good airborne pass! Only shots/passes for goal kick/passes to centre of field - nor Zdrilic, nor Veart, nor Timpano, nor Widera was able to make a good one.

My idea with 'mobile Amien' didn't worked too good, only few passes to the winger.

Defence played a great game.

I'm curious to see how many points we'll get in ranks, currently Australia has 1531.2 points.

I see I had the closest prediction this week!

Still - you get 0pts, as in plan. :p

I would have been devastated if I did get some points!

Ok, latest schedule:

New season fixtures:

02.12. Hellas[U21] 10:0
09.12. Slovenija[U22] 5:1
16.12 Venezuela[U23] 3:1
23.12 Türkiye[1st team] 4:2
30.12 Island[U21] 1:1
06.01 Ecuador[reserves] 5:0
13.01 Scotland[U21] 1:2
20.01 Ireland[1st] 1:1
27.01 Uruguay[U19] 3:2
03.02 Poland[mixed] 1:0
10.02 República Dominicana
17.02 free
24.02 Bolivia[Competition game against a week NT]
03.03 New Zealand

7 wins, 2 draws, 1 loss

Goals: 34:10

Most goals:
Marco Croxall 6
Kris Hirons 5
Stan Amien 5
Carl Richter 5
Wayne Augerinos 3
Brett Parkinson 2
Jacob Naumovski 2
Dean Byers 1
Esala Hrehoresin 1
John Mitchell 1
Carl Storey 1

Most assists:
Jeremy Timpano 3
Steve Vidmar 2
Archie Coveny 2
Stuart Widera 2
Stephen North 1
Shane Thompson 1
Andrew Leijer 1
Marco Croxall 1
Scott Terminello 1
Vince Collina 1
John Ozbey 1
Brett Parkinson 1
Wesley Broxton 1

I'll update this each week, and I'll also make stats of shots/goals for forwards.

Not too bad today against Poland. Our defense held together quite nicely.