Asunto: National Team

Hopefully an offensive tactic like last week... I enjoy seeing plenty of people up front!

we'll see. I know what it is but the rest will have to wait and watch the game in around an hour :).

3 minutes until the match commences. Basically any maths would show you we need goal difference badly, and that's what I'm aiming at. The more we get here the less we need next week against Colombia to jump them.

Looking for around 10 - 0 from this match, and have chosen a tactic to do so with a few tweaks here and there.

Gambling to not defend their wings as it is not about whether we win but by how much so going straight up the guts is the plan. Get the ball into the box as many times as possible and hopefully that works. A 1 - 0 win is as good as a loss, we really need to win by at least 6 to have a chance.

Same reason I decided against 3 strikers, we need to get the ball in the midfield as quickly as possible to generate chances.

Offensive tactic made since we have to be offensive and have nothing really to lose anyway.

Hope this works :).

What do we have to do to score goals. We'd have the goal basically there and then manage to stuff up the shot, yet we nailed the ones we could argue were the seemingly more difficult ones. Byers choked on the penalty (*See that's why I gave O'Neill the penalty last week :p*)

I suppose now we're hoping Argentina absolutely pummel Colombia because a 3 goal gain is just not enough I'm afraid. We move to +11 Colombia are still +19. So at this stage looks like we're going to have to beat Colombia by 3 goals or more, that's assuming Argentina only win by 3 goals later tonight and assuming we're still in the race.

Ultimately I think we're finished. We just didn't get enough goal difference today to put us in with a shot of entering the top 6 3rd place finishes.

Will wait and see but that's my gut feeling. What we will try and do next week though is to end with a win to at least finish on a positive note.

The game against Bulgaria where we drew looks to have been the deciding factor which is going to haunt us. Still whilst there is still hope I'll keep trying (bit like the cricket atm).

If Bulgaria does us a favour and Colombia get hammered against Argentina then well you never know but I'm fairly disappointed with how we finished today. 20 shots for 4 goals is pretty terrible, whilst somehow Nikas didn't want to run to tackle their striker who went on to score.

Ah well, on the positive we at least won the game and we've only lost 2 games this entire season.
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well... let's hope Argentina give us a hand later today...

I dont know if it's luck or anything but their GK was brilliant in the 1st half and sadly Byers was absolutely shocking today...
Tactic seemed to work fine with Willis distributing good ball all game... shame the strikers didnt convert (the 84min blunder is the icing on the cake...)

havent seen the game, but 3 assists for willis and all strikers scoring seems pretty okay... cant we get into the world cup with 4th place? wasnt that what happened the last time?

Go Byers!! Playing like crap, 1 from 8

This should mean he does the opposite tomorrow night!

Nope, because there are more groups and teams then last time, only top 2 go through automatically and then it's the next 6 highest 3rd placed teams and we don't have anywhere near the goal difference to make it into the top 6 3rd placed teams, even if we do manage to finish 3rd.

We need Argentina and Bulgaria to do us a favour tonight or a lot of other teams to lose. Peru lost 3 - 0 so that helps a little bit, until you realize they're going to win next week anyway.

Andy got his record high note :)

Lol boooo at Colombia throwing virtually every man behind the ball to try and get a point. Least they lost, but by my calculations we've got to beat them by 4 goals and we've still got to hope Mexico lose or draw tonight and lose to Argentina next week.
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Yeh there was something fishy about the two tactics, but that's ok, even if they do make it, they won't make it far in the next round.

I would perfer to see us not make it through at this stage and participate in the mini world cup

The tactic tonight wasn't great. It seemed a bit undeveloped and raw. Didn't work as well as it could've with the throw-ins and general positioning. But it should've been enough. A bit unlucky there.

Yeah, throw ins were a bit edgy, but I probably over thought too much and expected them to suddenly change tactic, so on that base wanted to focus centrally. We still managed to get 20 shots away though so perhaps should have had a few more go in.

Also I was trying to also focus on what would give us chances and play to what I knew were our strengths, rather than try and outplay their tactic as such which might have resulted in less or even more chances.
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Well that's it, luck didn't fall our way today. Next week is all for pride only and perhaps being able to knock Colombia out from qualifying also, but yeah it's pretty much set in concrete we won't have enough points to qualify (theoretically we can make it if we win by enough and everyone else playing newer NT's lose, but that's like trying to win lotto). Bit of a disappointing result, but we shall be back in 2 seasons to try again.

Has been an interesting and largely enjoyable ride though and although we don't look like we're going to qualify the fact we've only lost 2 games this entire NT season so far is the positive to take away from this campaign and I intend to continue to keep it there :).

*Just wishes Bulgaria played this tactic against us when we drew with them, would have made all the difference, holes everywhere*
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There's a tiny chance, assuming we win by 4 or more and Peru,Cymru win by less than 3, and a few other teams win by less than we do, but if that was to somehow occur I wouldn't really know what to say or do. We'll try anyway, regardless to finish in style :).

yeh for sure.

By my calculations, if we win by the required number of goals, there are 2 places for 4 teams...Australia, Peru, Uruguay and Cymru.

But if we can beat colombia, then we can virtually knock them out of the WC too because I think that Uruguay will win, and cymru or Peru will have a big win.

And even if it wasn't for that Bulgaria match, it wouldn't make much difference (if we drew or lost to colombia next week) bcause we would still be out. The only difference it makes, is if we were to win, we woul dhave been through.

Anyway, we will be doing our best to get the required goals.