Asunto: National Team

line up has been finalized. some have played first team matches in the past but who I consider right on the edge of both 1st XI and 2nd XI and if they were to get injured or suspended we'd be able to cover (would still prefer they didn't). Some other players get a rare opportunity.

Moldova haven't really ever been much of an attacking side, most of their formations feature a heavily packed defense. I'd be expecting something similar from them today, although not necessarily being the same type of tactic they've used in the past.

Our defenders are going to have to be up to the task of cutting out the few chances they are likely to get, as I think if they play something defensive, they'll restrict their chances of scoring.

A high win would give us a great chance of overtaking NZ on the rankings for the first time in a while but realistically I can't see us jumping them this week.

Here's the lineup

Carl Pottier (GK)
Wesley Langdon (DEF)
Sean Rex (DEF)
Eric Kohler (DEF)
Joe Kilkelly (DEF)
Luke Nohra (MID)
Royce Beauchamp (MID)
Grant Zdrilic (MID)
Scott Scarparaolo (MID)
Marco Croxall (ATT)
Carl Storey (ATT)

Jamie Lawton (GK)
Chris King (DEF)
Shane Thompson (MID)
Gareth Tarka (MID)
Jose Maras (ATT)

Croxall penalties
Beauchamp freekicks

Thompson to sub on for Scarparaolo at min 50
Maras to sub on for Croxall at min 60
King to sub on for Langdon at min 70

Hope everyone that watches the game enjoys it and lets hope for a lot of goals to get past NZ on the rankings ;).
(editado)

Was really surprised their winger was able to get past Kilkelly considering Kilkelly has an extremely high defense. That said, noticed a few problems when our 2nd defender has to cover for the outside defender being beaten, the goal box is basically free for a pass. Will make sure I fix that up so we don't have that happening again.

Croxall, guess we can forgive him for his low form but he butchered quite a few, although to be fair the entire strike force butchered chances. We should have been about 4 or 5 goals up at the end of the game.

Contender for goal of the season has to come from that backpass through their goalkeeper for our 3rd goal. Had to laugh at that and then Thompson with the goal open hit the crossbar :'(.

Was just a game of mistakes from our players, certainly wasn't impressed with the shooting accuracy, bring back Byers was a large talking point from those who attended the game.

In the end we won but far from impressively. Few tactical flaws at the back cost us goals, whilst our strikers up front didn't know where the net was.

Guess we move onto Uruguay next week and hope that we convert better.

Thanks for blowing out the off-season cobwebs on Croxall.... my but he butchered some chances out there. Felt mildly better when Maras came out and did about as bad.

Learnt something about corners on the left I hope. I thought they were quite funny actually, particularly the pass to Beauchamp's head straight over the goal line. Still not as funny as "our" 3rd goal. Glad we got up 4-2 as winning on that goal would have been pretty hollow.

Still kind of is somewhat hollow. Take that out of the equation we only got up by 1.

The corner situation was something new to me as well, can't say I've had too many corner kickers pass to the player who is there for a throw in, might have to bump him back a bit further to stop repeats. Might also add I've never seen a keeper take a defensive corner throw before either, that almost turned into a comedy act itself, until Thompson hit the bar.

Few bizarre moments in that game, even the simple 4th goal we had to play aerial ping pong until we finally fumbled it across the line.

A few friendlies arranged for this season:

Week 4 - Costa Rica (Get to use the competition side we meant to last season against the same opponent, works out nicely)
Week 8 - FREE
Week 12 - FREE
Week 15 - Venezuela (U21's)
Week 0 - Annual Grudge Match against NZ
Week 1 - FREE

I also plan to cut the squad back from 90 odd to around 60-70 so a fair few players will be cut. More news when I decide to cut them sometime next week after i get over these examinations.

Our old foes Uruguay, eh? Everything ready to go tactic and line-up wise?

will be by kickoff, haven't been well past 2 days, just got to determine what this new manager of Uruguay will do. They are extremely predictable with their club side in that they use the same tactic almost all the time, so it doesn't really give me an idea of what they are capable of tactically. Will be ready by the game though in 4 hours, very convenient kickoff time when Qatar v Australia is on almost directly afterwards :).

Tactic is ready, unsure if it will be effective or not, really depends on what Uruguay do and how well we convert our chances. Very nervous, always hate these opening games when you get no idea of how they operate and they have the chance to know how we play. Will be a close game either way, I'd predict a 1 goal swing.

It was a shame to concede on the last play of the game as they really didn't have many chances.

Byers looks extremely efficient with his 3 goals from 5 shots, but he must have dribbled it into the keeper at least 3 or 4 times. Still a good return, but its always frustrating to watch strikers failing to at least attempt a shot in those situations.

Defenders owned their respective players until the last 5 minutes when they were broken down a few times. Supply wasn't too bad from the 2 mids. (Broxton effectively a 5th defender and Willis a wing/forward rather than a mid). Great result and start to the campaign.

Interesting tactic from Uruguay. Quite a lot different from their club tactic but I expected that which is why I didn't read too much into what they'd do. Went with a thing with what would be best for us. Seemed to work quite well. Yeah we got pipped in possession and territory but that's biased because they had most of the ball on their wings so we had to constantly chase them down.

Aim really was to make sure if they did use a winger and they did get past our outer def that when the 2nd def (tried to make it our defensive midfielder) that we still stopped the simple pass back into the centre of the box, and I think we genuinely did contain that.

That being said thought there were at least 3 or 4 shots we should have had that Byers decided to run into the keeper, but he made up for it with that long range stunner to give us our 3rd goal as well as completing his hattrick.

A disappointing goal to concede at the end there though, makes those who were banking on clean sheet points go out the window :p

All in all a solid start to the qualifying campaign and a few more ranking points ;).

Nice match. :) Good tactic concept and execution. Unfortunate to concede late - it was a very strong defensive effort (particularly on Oliva, who I think is a really nice young player).

Encouraging to see Byers off to a good start. Bodes well for the qualifying season. :)

Yeah Byers is becoming efficient. Believe he has been in training in that very category by a kiwi of all people ;).

Yeah so far so good, got the worst game out of the way without a dint. Reason I call it the worst is whenever new managers take over you never know what's going to happen. They often act very differently to their club side and it's vital you don't cough up early points against lower seeded teams.

Top of the table already :P

Interesting tactic from Brasil playing the same winger on both wings. Not 100% convinced its a good idea, as a fair portion of the time you end up playing with no wingers as they run back and forth across the pitch. Still, it was interesting to see. I thought Hrvatska had slightly the better chances. Both those teams look really tough though.

Glad to see Haereiti once again in NT :)
He will keep training and training so hard that he will even be able to take the ball to Polish strikers from behind :)