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Asunto: National Team
Not necessarily. We are now 2 points from top spot in the group. Should we manage to get a single win or even a draw against Argentina and then win our remaining games, we'll finish no worse than 2nd in the group.
Mexico's tactic was far from perfect, and yeah they kinda got jipped in the 90th there where the defender got to the ball first kicked it into the striker who somehow managed to control it and lure a penalty at the same time.
Colombia got quite lucky, although Mexico didn't really look like causing many problems.
So basically we require the following:
Win against Colombia
Win against Republica Dominicana
Win/Draw against Argentina
Win/Draw against Mexico
Potentially if one of those two crucial matches is a win, particularly if it's Mexico it might be Mexico missing out. The next fortnight will determine our fate though as we play both Argentina and Mexico. We come away with 3 or more points from those 2 games and I'd back it in will be right in with the mix in the final match day, as Mexico play Argentina in the final round.
Was always going to be a tough group to get out of, was made tougher by the draw with Bulgaria, take that out of the equation we'd be sitting top of the log with Argentina.
Whilst there is still hope, I'll keep on fighting to finish top 3.
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Mexico's tactic was far from perfect, and yeah they kinda got jipped in the 90th there where the defender got to the ball first kicked it into the striker who somehow managed to control it and lure a penalty at the same time.
Colombia got quite lucky, although Mexico didn't really look like causing many problems.
So basically we require the following:
Win against Colombia
Win against Republica Dominicana
Win/Draw against Argentina
Win/Draw against Mexico
Potentially if one of those two crucial matches is a win, particularly if it's Mexico it might be Mexico missing out. The next fortnight will determine our fate though as we play both Argentina and Mexico. We come away with 3 or more points from those 2 games and I'd back it in will be right in with the mix in the final match day, as Mexico play Argentina in the final round.
Was always going to be a tough group to get out of, was made tougher by the draw with Bulgaria, take that out of the equation we'd be sitting top of the log with Argentina.
Whilst there is still hope, I'll keep on fighting to finish top 3.
(editado)
Our destiny now rests with our upcoming game/s. Hopefully our side has the luck later on tonight and we're able to walk away with 3 points. Taking my time with this one, have been discussing things over with Achmid for quite a long time, looking at pros and cons of pretty much every possible plan of attack. We're going for the full 3 points, so the game shouldn't be boring. Basically it's crunch time, we need points, we have a pretty difficult run home, we lose more than 1 game we can say goodbye to the world cup next season.
Losing today won't kill us but it makes everything else a must win game. Ideally I'd rather have that 2nd chance ticket at a later stage and hopefully won't need to pull it out come next week against Mexico, but to be realistic Argentina aren't pushovers. We can't expect to go in and win against them, although I'm optimistic (for once) in that I think we can cause an upset if things play out well.
This is going to be perhaps the biggest wait of my time on Sokker, but we will keep fighting all the way to the end.
Things could be very interesting later :).
(editado)
Losing today won't kill us but it makes everything else a must win game. Ideally I'd rather have that 2nd chance ticket at a later stage and hopefully won't need to pull it out come next week against Mexico, but to be realistic Argentina aren't pushovers. We can't expect to go in and win against them, although I'm optimistic (for once) in that I think we can cause an upset if things play out well.
This is going to be perhaps the biggest wait of my time on Sokker, but we will keep fighting all the way to the end.
Things could be very interesting later :).
(editado)
You can't be confident of an upset as an underdog, that just destroys your underdog status..
PCness states you're meant to 'hope for a win but am sure it will be a tough match'
PCness states you're meant to 'hope for a win but am sure it will be a tough match'
I want to see Andy with his brand new pace, so will get up at this wrestny 9 a.m :p btw, I'd try Dreger...improved in pace, is in form.
Storey and Richter are ready to serve if required coach! Form is good and both are chomping at the bit to help us get through to the WC
Maybe in the eyes of some, but it's possible to be the underdog and still believe that there is a chance of winning ;).
Well we're all ready. Bring on the match because it's hard to sit and wait for the match to arrive :).
Thing I don't really quite understand is how come everything in the air went their way and I mean everything, don't think there was one case where we won a contested header yet we were in the same position they were. Also our players constantly got tackled from behind and we couldn't tackle theirs, and the first 2 goals they scored were highly fortunate as well as our players always fumbling their players hardly ever if at all.
Guess it's something I'll never quite understand, but other than that they deserved the win, they had more chances than we did and they took them.
Guess it's something I'll never quite understand, but other than that they deserved the win, they had more chances than we did and they took them.
in my opinion, the game was won in the midfield. they certainly made more chances than we did, and i was kinda confused about the midfield tactic we used. looked like we were somewhere in between going for the wings and going down the centre. also, that red card in the 89th minute was just rubbing it in...
what was meant to actually happen, was the front mids were meant to come in much quicker than they did, they were really only meant to be wide defensively so we could stretch the Argentinian defenders. That didn't actually happen as nicely as intended.
Guess it goes to show they don't follow tactics too well when they've got the ball and instead continue to run straight, so that's something I'll remember for the future.
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Guess it goes to show they don't follow tactics too well when they've got the ball and instead continue to run straight, so that's something I'll remember for the future.
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I have a feeling I know what that happened, and if we were o use a similar style play should be able to correct this.
But they deserved the win today, and its not that great a suprise as they have 6 times as many users and are ranked much higher then us
But they deserved the win today, and its not that great a suprise as they have 6 times as many users and are ranked much higher then us
Unlucky today dave... Saw what u mean about the ball in the air... I could see what you were trying to do with the tactic too... Didnt quite work and kinda hurt when i saw their high Wingers and only our 3 defenders tho.
I don't see any sense In using Andy on this position...
Have to give them credit for a well researched tactic. They had us covered for most positions and obviously played some defensive mids with plenty of defending as they had few problems with us. Any time we got through another defender would step up.
Byers looked a bit slow on the trigger today, but at least he dribbled a defender occasionally, something you couldn't say for Hirons.
Our best chances were again Byers running towards the winger off throw-ins. Loving that as even though they had him covered in his initial position he just ran straight into space and received the ball twice in great scoring positions.
The 3-3-2-2 we ran certainly had some potential. We need to at least contest all the possible goal kicks around the center of the pitch which we didn't always do.
I thought they probably deserved their 2 early goals just on sheer number of chances. Their 3rd goal was the old god-ball with the defenders running the wrong way etc, not much you can do about that.
Oh, one other thing, we might want to get our forwards running more aggressively forward, that seems to be how people get more of those great through balls. When the forwards slowly march forward the passes tend to come at, or behind them, we might reach them first but its easy for the defense to then pick off.
Full marks for trying guys, I'm loving the variety in our tactics and there is obviously plenty of thought going into each game. Whether we advance or not its been probably the most interesting campaign by Australia to date.
Byers looked a bit slow on the trigger today, but at least he dribbled a defender occasionally, something you couldn't say for Hirons.
Our best chances were again Byers running towards the winger off throw-ins. Loving that as even though they had him covered in his initial position he just ran straight into space and received the ball twice in great scoring positions.
The 3-3-2-2 we ran certainly had some potential. We need to at least contest all the possible goal kicks around the center of the pitch which we didn't always do.
I thought they probably deserved their 2 early goals just on sheer number of chances. Their 3rd goal was the old god-ball with the defenders running the wrong way etc, not much you can do about that.
Oh, one other thing, we might want to get our forwards running more aggressively forward, that seems to be how people get more of those great through balls. When the forwards slowly march forward the passes tend to come at, or behind them, we might reach them first but its easy for the defense to then pick off.
Full marks for trying guys, I'm loving the variety in our tactics and there is obviously plenty of thought going into each game. Whether we advance or not its been probably the most interesting campaign by Australia to date.