Asunto: National Team

Death to NZ ! Not even able to beat Belgium -_-
What a shame

Haha what a disappointment if that's the case. NZ should have known better though to be fair :p. Guess Moldova should have as well.

Sorry for those expecting a semi final, it just ain't happening. Instead there will be a final next week. As a result have scrambled to find a friendly as most would be playing the U21 qualification stuff now, and we're playing Hong Kong, who we could have faced instead of Shqiperia a fortnight ago had they been a little more fortunate.

At this stage I believe it's an U21 game and we'll be looking to go out and keep our winning streak going.
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Gooo Maras :p

Next we'll have some complaint about our flags being so similar *rolleye*

Lol, whoops! [:p]

That's okay, U21 vs Hong Kong should be good to watch anyway.

Squad selected for the U21 match.

We're taking on Hong Kong in an U21 match. No doubt I feel we're stronger than their U21's and we should be able to come away with a victory. Our U21's are vastly different every season and the strength seems to depend upon who's training new blood and those which have just trained new blood and have the bulk of those they train at around 22-23 and pushing for the top side. As a consequence any tactic that I end up using must allow for what players we have and I hope what I have selected as the tactic works for the current crop of players. Disappointing blow to have Kearton unavailable for this match. Would have really caused serious damage to the Hong Kong defense I'm sure, especially after what he did against Venezuela's 1st XI last week. Still we've got more than capable replacements.

A bunch of debutants for todays game, should get some managers their chance to have their player in the green and gold, many of these managers haven't had that many, if at all players represent the NT so it's a first for them as well.

Always enjoy the occasional U21 game, think it adds a fair bit to the enjoyment of the NT as it avoids the stale repetition of the same players playing week in week out and gives managers a chance to see how the young generation are progressing and stars of the future.

Also gives myself the chance to work with a different bunch of players who have different strengths and weaknesses.

Hoping the game goes well, I think we'll come out on top quite comfortably. Regardless, the important match is next week against the winner of Turkiye and Srbija. I'm not intending to go home runner up, we may as well take some title, even if it is unofficial. Will be watching that match with interest.

got my GK in the team?!

not for this one. Pretty hard to beat Deeley as gk.

not to worry...
he should be an asset to beat ACT on wednesday though :)

Well we beat them 11 - 0. They probably deserved a goal or 2 though, by breaching our defender who obviously lacked pace in that second half but Deeley was too good in goals.

Maras 7 goals from 11 shots
Plesa 4 assists
Rudnicki 1 assist
Davidson and Stephenson with a goal each
1 own goal from a Hong Kong defender
1 extremely funny goal from Gardiner.

11 goals from 19 shots, where was this accuracy before :o.

Anyways solid performance by the team, should give us a few more ranking points.

Toss up between Maras and Plesa for the MOTM award if there was one, probably give it to Maras just for the 7 goals he scored.

The tactic was called 'Byersinthemiddle' when he was actually not in the middle.

I'm thoroughly disappointed

haha that's the tactic I usually have Byers in the middle if using a 3 striker attack but I didn't particularly feel like deleting a tactic just to rename this tactic. Instead I just made the modifications necessary to account for our players abilities and what they were likely to play. Thought it worked rather well.

I heard Byers wanted to play but the officials wouldn't let him take the field :p.
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yeah, Byers does seem to like hanging round with the younger players, quite suspicious.

maybe he's trying to make more money cause his club side doesn't pay him enough, so assists with the strikers to give them advice on how not to shoot. He'd do well at that ;).
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Well i sure hope he wasn't expecting high pay with an accounting student managing the side!

Greedy bugger, he'll be doing more laps.