Asunto: National Team

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.

realistically it wouldn't have done much on the wing either, that was proved when he beat the first mid and got cleaned up by the defender. I knew that, so I tried improvising to get Willis more involved, by trying to get him the ball and move the defenders and for Willis to move centrally and fire off a pass through the defensive gaps.

Of course you won't see any sense when something doesn't work as intended.

The idea was there and the sense is there, just it didn't execute as it had been planned to. You learn from these things.

Still you take away the 2 goals they scored from tackling our defenders because we were slightly faster to the ball and it's only a single goal difference

It might not be the best utilisation of Willis' skills but that doesn't mean he wasn't the best player we had for the role required.

Its not unreasonable to think that Willis would have carried the ball up the flank and then either run wide to cross or run inwards and then distribute the ball from a more central position.

It was probably a bit low on the field for him, but we were playing a superior side. Playing essentially six behind the ball makes it hard to play high wings as well.

Yeah but that puzzled me, how come Hirons kept getting cleanly tackled from behind and yet we struggled to take down their players with our best defender from the front.

The first two goals were as i stated in the previous post fortunate but as you say they probably deserved a goal somewhere. The tactic would have been very interesting if I could work out how to fix it so they came inwards quicker.


As for striker positioning and movement, I've been thinking about it for a while, the only problem is I need to find the balance because too far forward they're then offside, too far back they receive the ball too early. I actually had it in this game they basically ran 1.5 squares when we got to halfway to try and lure a pass. Perhaps it needs to start sooner before the defenders start retreating. Will look at that during my club matches during the week to see if it makes a difference.

I think also they had their wingers slightly further forward then they usually do, that caused some problems as the def-wing mids I suppose you call them were slightly out of position because of it.

Low wasn't that bad, but he has no defence, he must play near the sideline :p imo maybe it would be better:

---X---X---
-----W-----
-----B------
X----------X
-----X------
---X-X-X---

or:


---X---X---
-----W-----
------------
X----B-----X
-----X------
---X-X-X---

Willis might do like that, when ha has just to wait for the ball and pass...he just had too much defense on himself. Also, imo he would do as a winger...I have good defs in my league[they stop divine technician in divine form without a problem...] still Andy has such playmaking that most of the times he passes the ball before being attacked.

Idea was good[still, if 5 defs, then I'd move side DM's(?) lower...] but Australia doesn't have players to make it work...

I actually think we do have players to make it work. The only question is whether we can place it in the right area.


As your first alternative the problem there is that essentially we lose a player and we would have been swallowed up by their DM's.

The second one would have seen Willis covered easily by their DM's, but at least then Baveas would have been fine.

Had Willis more pace like say Zdrilic does, then yeah he probably might have gotten around the defender if used as a high wing. Thing is he doesn't but he still is our most useful player even if he can't tackle. The idea wasn't for him to tackle at all this game.

Hm...the idea was good but as I've said he just doesn't play wall at this position[I know it cause I also tried it :p]. If placed in one line with strikers and defs, he is really hard to stop - especially in this form. And always can get a throw in, which is propably his biggest weapon..:)

Generally, I think that the tactic was too open, too offensive. I would use 5 defs, 2 cm's a lil' bit down, high winger and two strikers. Can't be opened too much against such a good team...

Yeah, it was more offensive because last time it was more defensive and we only came up with a fortunate draw. It was a case of they were always going to score somewhere, we had to find a goal back and when 1 pt wouldn't have made any difference to qualifying, it was decided to try and go for the 3pts knowing very well it could turn the other way and end up as a loss.

Hard decisions are always...hard :p. Some bad luck in this season, let's hope the rivals will now have some of it...

That's the point, otherwise it wouldn't be a hard decision ;).

we're not out by any means, but the initial draw with new teams being 3rd seeds was terrible, which will now see Cymru and Uruguay safely into the world cup you would think, when perhaps they shouldn't be. Then you get Colombia to knock off Mexico twice and suddenly things aren't looking too good.

If Bulgaria pull out something against Colombia, then we're still in good shape. Mexico are beatable, that was proven by Colombia, and so if we get 9 points we're still alive :).

We did let their strikers very close to our goal. Two goals were scored from our backline playing too deep. Other than that, it looked like we were just beaten by a better team. They had the players and the tactic to overcome us, so credit where it's due.

Indeed. Although the defense was only deep in the penalty box in the bottom row of the tactic, had they have been still pushed up, from corners we would have been in trouble. They certainly outplayed us.

Colombia knocked off Bulgaria with quite a large difference as Bulgaria decided to come out with a new tactic which went against their usual trend of having a solid defense line.

Means we have to win all 3 games to qualify now but it's still quite possible.

told you so =p

You lost because you disgarded your underdog status but didn't admit it!

I guess that we'll know everything next week then. And Mexico can't beat Argentina, right?

ah Mexico beat Argentina earlier in the season. Basically we need 3 wins and we'll finish top 3.

Haha it wasn't that, just been my luck this weekend, for instance had to evacuate from the movie theatre with 30min left in the movie I was watching because the fire alarm went off and the movie cut out and everyone was told to use the nearest exit. I didn't get to see the end of the movie either :@, although should get some sort of refund tomorrow hopefully. Also managed to lose in both sokker and battrick to Achmid today, so that's been the luck of my weekend.

In saying that Argentina outplayed us with a really good tactic and combined with their players they were able to win the game on the back of that.