Asunto: National Team

Great to hear what others are thinking. This is probably the best tactical discussion I've had on sokker. Loving it.

Weeeeee Maras got an assist and a goal in his first '90min this season :))

Very good job from your NT manager....

I said on our (Croatian) forum few days before that I dont have a time and that we will play with some tactic like in Brazil game....

But i didnt hope that you will stop us..so well done mate....next time I will seeking to revange ;))

Wish I could read Croatian, I tried looking for anything obvious came up with nothing so gave up and just assumed you'd go in with something similar. Next time will be interesting indeed :).

Still have around 12 hours until our game. Might just note almost everyone has put in their selection. Think I'm just waiting on 1 now. With the side selected currently I'm positive that we'll walk away winners. We've just got too many attacking threats for them to handle. Basically have set free kicks and penalty taker to the highest finisher in the competition for the corresponding position, was the fairest way (although not necessarily the best way for the team picked). Will post up the lineup sometime tomorrow morning hopefully before the game is played.

How good was Maras' miss on the stroke of half time? [:D]

I'm happy with the performance of my CB which found Maras a few times and setup the 7th goal...
shame about the spot kick missed... :)

I'm certain it's not random. I'm certain there is some "hidden" characteristic on taking penalties as Maras always misses. Have never seen him score. There are others who were similar, Augerinos is one that comes to mind, whilst there were others that always seem to slot them. Then there are those who are 50-50,or 70-30.

Anyway a solid performance from a team made up of random selections ;).

Yup, my Pawlusinski also misses. Hehe nice one, 7/10 with formidable striker..:)) And his best ever note - 61! :)

10 games, 24 goals. :)

Try 7/18 borkos :p.

Formidable strikers seem to be doing well, Quevedo is a demon for me!

Formidable is a bit overkill. As long as they can get into a good scoring position, very good is enough striking for a pretty good conversion rate in div2. You only need more if you can't maneuver into good positions.

or if the opposition keeper is extremely high, you need more than very good, but other than that you can get away with virtually any striker level if you're able to beat the opponent's defenders frequently.

Vejvoda begs to differ.

damn maras runs so much faster than ellem, and they're the same age >.>

gotta love that goal that started the second half though, so much better than the effort before the end of the first :P

Well we've got a few issues before the game today.

Howarth -> still bad form
Haereiti -> SI
Burns -> SI
Kohler -> SI

All falling to defenders. We're fortunate in that we're able to cover this without too much strife and we're only taking on Andorra. Expecting to go on and win this, goal difference is irrelevant at this stage but we'll try to go out and burn a few goals for the sake of it. Uruguay got 8 against Andorra so we'll be aiming for no less than 8 ourselves. As long as we get 6 though it will be a reasonable performance.

These are the games which are easy on paper but one slip up and you could find yourself chasing the pack. Indeed that was the case when we took on Bulgaria the first time last qualifying campaign and ended with a dodgy draw. So one needs to be just as careful against these kind of teams to try and eliminate any chance they have of being 'lucky' and stealing points they shouldn't be taking. With the 1 point against Hrvatska a fortnight ago, we're in a prime position heading into the next few rounds knowing that if we beat all the sides seeded below us from now on in we finish on 19 points. That means somewhere down the line that other 3rd placed sides must knock over points against the top 2 seeds. Ideally, I'd like to get a win against Brasil as well just to bump it to 22 points but first we've got to get through these next two games.

Andorra have been fairly predictable to date, 4 at the back, 2 defensive midfielders, 3 in midfield with 2 on the outside wings and a lone striker. I don't really expect them to change too much from that structure which gives us an opportunity to control the game and keep them defending.

We've played them before and won 6 - 0 I believe but I don't think that was our 1st XI, I'm pretty sure it was either a 2nd XI or an U21 side. I'll take a check to confirm.

I think Indonesia next week will have a better chance of stealing points off us, but I'm going to try and make certain that won't be the case as I believe we are good enough to participate at the next WC and I'm going to continue to push to get there.

Still have time to get competition captains in, and even to enter a side if you haven't joined but would like to.

I hope everyone enjoys the game and our *correction* second home game of this qualifying campaign.
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