Asunto: National Team

pretty massive upset I'd say. He has been floating around there for ages though so it's good that's he been given a chance, but will be interesting to see how he goes.

definitely deserves the chance, i think he'll do pretty well and should learn a hell of a lot

Yeah, I know I have learnt quite a bit from my one season here and I know I'll learn more this season.

it came as a shock! lol i mean dave telling me via txt msg... i somewhat doubted you... tbh i really thought jaworlegia would have won the election again. Congrats Borkos, and to you Dave. Its going to be an interesting season for myself

Lol, you'll learn heaps and do well i'm sure :D

Thanks, and congrats. :)

Well the first few weeks of fixtures I've arranged and that will see us through to when we exit the world cup, whatever round that might be.

Currently the fixtures are:

14-07-07 Romania
21-07-07 Rossiya (u21 match with some u22's)
28-07-07 Norge
04-08-07 Slovensko
11-08-07 Italia

More will be added after we know the fate of our world cup campaign.
(editado)

Well we're ready to take on Romania. They have a large number of users and I'd expect they'd have some really good players. This should be a good match for determining if we can match it against the stronger sides. We still have Howarth and King out and Nikas is now in tragic form so is unlikely to start. Widera is also suspended so it's going to put some pressure on our defense. Hopefully we can play reasonably well.

Any last minute suggestions as always are welcome so feel free to sk mail myself if you feel you wish to discuss anything.

Hmmm 1 - 1, reasonably satisfied with that. One fatal defensive blunder not chasing back when they got into the corner led to a soft goal to them, and we were lucky enough to bounce back with Byers finding the net. Zdrilic caused problems for them in the 2nd half but their winger cause our outer man some grief. Considering the players we had out, I'm rather satisfied and I think Byers showed he's capable of playing at the elite level as well.

Very interested to hear other people's comments like last season about where things worked and where things can be improved, especially with the world cup coming up in a fortnight.

Forwards tracked back a bit more often than I'd have liked in situations where our mids should have stepped up but I think their highish defensive line contributed to that.

I thought we created some good chances. They had a 8 shots to our 5 and will probably feel they should have converted at least 2 of those. Still given that we were somewhat outgunned I think you put us in a position where we could get a result and we were good enough on the day to get a draw.

Yeah I didn't want to have to track back either but I saw how they had played for the majority of last season and was confident they were going to play the same back 4 with the 2 defensive mid scheme, and so I had to try and make it so that our offsides were reduced as much as possible.

Interestingly enough, on the 2nd viewing, I found out why our defenders suddenly went forward which led to their goal and it was due to us actually winning the ball before quickly losing it again and the defenders still moved according to their offensive position which opened up the gap :(.

It's an encouraging result ahead of our opening world cup matches. First team players in the world cup will be rested next week so I'm a bit disappointed Timpano,Moon and Veart didn't pick up their 3rd yellow.

Next week is against Rossiya in an U21 match with the option of playing up to 4 U22's.

Yawn...That has to be the most boring game Ive seen in a while.

Scoreline suited the play, Timpano sucked as AM, Zdrillic was much better.

Congrats on Cometer for getting a draw, it was obvious they had a little bit better players.

For the tactic they used the throw ins were ifne, but agaisnt teams that covered throw ins ours wouldnt have been that great.

Noone did anything special, the tactics werent special, there was nothing to cheer or bitch about. You could tell the a this game was computer generated.

I want my gate ticket back, was almost as boring as real soccer.

Overall, nice draw, fair result...Yawn

Nice result against Romania! Top class team. I thought their tactic was a bit funny to start off with, a triangle with some random dot(player) out in space and a kind of cap on the peak. Not sure about the romanian NT elections but i think the coach must be new. Definitely not one of the first times i've seen the bum-buddy striker tactic but its usefulness was again outweighed by its drawbacks, as if playing 1 striker. Their almost abandoning of the wings wasn't really that smart of an idea either consider its one of Australia's strengths.

Zdrilic definitely gave them a lot of strife which i think they deserved, they had some very smooth passes too but i think cometer deserved the draw on the day due to tactical superiority. Liked the positioning of the forwards and didn't really notice any track backing (so wasn't obvious) but will watch again later on today. Impressed with Byers' goal too, he is continuing his superb form of late which i'm thrilled at. A little surprised that Hrehoresin didn't manage to nail home a goal either. WD cometer.

Cheers. Glad I went with Byers in the end. Was tossing up between a few players but decided to stick with Byers. Byers almost snagged a 2nd goal as well with the strike that was saved by the goalkeeper.

Their manager managed last season and played the same back 4 2 dm strategy the majority of the seasons, so decided to use the space they had kindly left us on the wing.

Howarth should be available next week (if a full NT game).
(editado)