Asunto: National Team

Certainly although it's teamwork all round really because these players have been trained up to where they are now as well which gives a lot more variety in tactic approaches.

Don't worry, Andy is getting a more-than-2-seasons pace training :)

Haha I can imagine, what else does he need lol

:)

well played cometer!
good luck
;)

Full credit to Argentina who I thought deserved to take all the points. That said it was a great effort from our boys to hold firm though.

Defensively at the back we were sound (Ando was amazing) but they had an awful lot of supply. Whilst Willis was/is a bit slow, our passing towards him was dreadful and the Argentine coach did a great job of marking him as well.

Note: Everything below is intended to be constructive, hopefully nothing reads harshly. (I've also been up since 3:30am after someone decided to take out a power pole with the car at the house next door, so take it all with a grain of salt)

Biggest concern for me tactically was the goal kicks. We seemed to lose a lot of the headers, but when we won them, they were ineffective for us as we would head the ball sideways to a contest rather than forward. Contrast that with Argentina who were able to find open players.

With the option of a playmaking forward like Croxall (I don't know if anyone else can play that role or not) it might be worth dropping them back a bit for goal-kicks at both ends so that they can be a target in the future? At least when the ball heads to the side without our wing?

I'd still like to see a little more lateral movement for our forwards as well. Our central forward was open(ish) for much of the game , but our wide forward (Byers) spent almost the entire game marked by the same defender.

IMO Croxall would be best as a little bit wing-back-att. might be really good, just check Eesti - Belgie last game. It was u21 and one of my favourite players Oidermann played like that - AWESOME game for him.

Pretty lucky today i think! Ando had a wonderful game and Willis was all but neutered.. Long shot fever has been caught at 11 Wise Men camp, i dont mind it, but to me, Byers' long shot made up for his terrible lack of shots in good positions earlier.

Well done cometer and Achmid, very lucky on the day i have to say though =p

Yeah perhaps Argentina did, but also they are a lot stronger than we are, so to get anything out of the game was a good achievement (without super defending). They did get a large amount of chances I agree on the back of their midfield work to their strikers.

The passing to Willis probably looked dreadful on the back of his lack of pace and positioning. He didn't get the time to get in behind them as he wasn't quite placed far enough given his pace ability.

That's an interesting pick up there as I actually didn't notice that first time around so I'll watch it again later today and work out ways of which to improve this if this is the case, but also remember that Argentina most likely have faster players then us as well which results in being able to chase down headers quicker, but will certainly look at this situation.

Well in the tactic there was lateral movement although it was mainly sliding work this game because Argentina usually slide their defenders (and they did this game), so what was tried was to place the strikers in the gap and keep them in the gap all the time. That was probably a slight misplacement and well no arguments from myself here, had him man marked as a result of the approach taken.

So these things will be looked at and thanks for the feedback, as it is always very useful to have.

But that's really the only way you're ever going to beat a side so much stronger than you is by being lucky, as there is only so much that tactics can give an advantage.

Indeed it was very lucky, I don't deny that but you take every point you get and there have been times when you are unlucky and don't get results you deserve that's pretty much a part of the game :p.

Thrilling to watch. Ando was dynamite. Congrats on a great result! :)

Ando is handy!
shame about Willis but interesting game overall... good result for Oz :)

Well done. To take a point from a side ranked more than twenty places higher in the sk-world is a good result.

IMO you just can't play always with this one winger, try sometimes to play with 4 centre mids or so :) the thing of playing always with off winger will make opponent use 5 defs, and let's suppose - 2 strikers. that makes him use only 3 mids, so they would be totally dominated with 5 Aussie mids :)

Of course, I don't always use one winger, I base it on what's best for the match. Might seem we use it a lot, but you just have to go back a few games when we didn't use a winger. Even when I do use a winger they still have to guess which side it is, so that takes at least 1 extra defender, which works fine for myself as it's one less player elsewhere causing damage.

Got to remember to play to your strengths as well.
(editado)

You don't have to tell this to me, cometer - I was one of those that who started using this tactic in NT[more to say, at WC quals first 2 best assistants from group were afair North and Timpano - with about 14-15 assist together :)