Asunto: National Team

should be an interesting game then :p

not at all.
- formdable keeper is way too low, clearly visible during 3rd goal
- Indonesia is way slower than Australia (result: 3 penalties + defender couldnt take over the winger
- One striker is in tragic form
- You fielded your winger on the wrong side! ^^

Doh! We only needed 1 more as well ;).

Anyway I guess I've equalled langhe's biggest defeat and I've still got another crack at it in a few weeks time :).

For those not watching the game, we won 7 - 0, 29 shots to 1, no real problems and I was happy with the performance. Perhaps Indonesia should have defended more :p.

;). Think most of the penalties came from our players having strong technique levels and your defs tackling conveniently from behind :p.

Well, if they were faster, they would have been in a better position to tackle. Ok, ball would still go goalwards, but at least, it wouldnt be a penalty. of course, the failure itself is due to the defense-technique comparison + tackle from behind

Yeah maybe, hard to say sometimes. Still you're fortunate Byers missed so many as that record could have been smashed ;).

I thought we were going to smash the record after the early goal rush.

Loved the positioning of Timpano for that game. Great to see us using an alternative way forward if/when our forwards are covered when Willis has the ball on the wing.

I dont want to know his skills but I'm quite sure it is at least triple magical?

that was the plan. Knew they wouldn't be worried about wasting men in the back line protecting wings, so I knew I had to come up with some other way of breaking the defense. Was anticipating them to use 2 dm's and from past games they shift across to cover the side the ball is on, so that was one of the ideas with having Timpano move the other way to the way their DM's were moving so as to take their dm's out of the game. Even without the 2 dm's, I dropped Willis back a fraction to be able to get the ball and pass off quickly which would take 1 defender out of the defensive line and quite often he fired balls across to the other side of the field to Timpano which opened up a lot of room as their defense then had to scramble back into position but quite often were caught short due to the speed in which it went from Willis to Timpano to either Byers or Hirons.

Didn't want to have the game still in the balance at half time either, so I was rather picky with a few of the running lines some of our midfielders and both our strikers took. The Oliveira through ball to Byers (2nd goal) for example was intentionally designed to happen (didn't mean it would happen though but it was hoped it would) as you might notice how the gap opens up as one of their defenders moves away whilst the other is still too far away and allows Byers the easy run through which was something I picked up from watching the Croatia v Indonesia match.

who you referring to? I'm not gonna give any hints anyway but I think marks and value can give you a rough indication anyway :p. Our players certainly aren't "weak" :).

Actually the major plus, was the fact Hirons,Willis,Nikas,Timpano didn't pick up a yellow card as all of them currently sit on 2 yellows. Means we're now (excluding any injuries we pick up this week) going to have a full side to select from against Brazil next week.
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Oh yes, next time put your defense on offside trap, so that Indonesian strikers have chances to outrun your defs :p
edit: it is opening a gap, or leaving the striker on the other side of the field stand totally free. Current ME favours passing from one side to the other side :) Now, as 1vs1 is less favoured by the ME than cross from the wing and header from inside the box, I chose to leave the gap and try to cover the wing :)
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That works if you can compact the defence so you're not left with holes after the cross. I use the same tactic myself. You see most of the good tacticians try to open up a defence with cross-field passes into dangerous areas. Worked a treat for us today.

I particularly liked Willis' cross to the back post when Hirons' centring header was buried by Byers. Fun to watch.

Current ME favours passing from one side to the other side :)

I wouldn't agree with this actually. I actually think passing through the middle still works a treat if you know how to get it executed. Just as easy to stop though if you know how to do it :).

That wasn't the first through ball we've gotten this campaign :).

Crosses are only effective if you have a player with high passing/pm and by high I mean high, not mid range high (ie not formidable/outstanding). Needs to be a lot higher, otherwise you end up with a lot of balls sprayed wide.

, I chose to leave the gap and try to cover the wing :)

Yeah, although as I've said there are ways to cover both cases, rather than selecting one of them as it is actually possible to cover the wing and keep the defense compact without the gaps and still have a reasonably solid structure at the back. Took me a long time to find out how to do that, but in the last season and so far this season there haven't been too many through balls against us :p.

Doesn't work 100% though as it is still limited and skill dependant to some degree but it's been working nicely for us so far this season as we've only conceded the 1 goal in qualification so far. Brazil will test us significantly though.

The whole first half was fun :). The game was in the bag after 20minutes and after 30min we had 5 goals up on the board. Was a bit of a shame we only added 2 more goals after that.

Almost wasn't buried by Byers though, had to rely on the goalkeeper fumbling it and it rolling over the line but yeah it was one of the many good constructive attacks we had today.

Uruguay went down 3 - 0 to Croatia, although with a slightly better defensive tactic and a little more luck when shooting at the Croatian keeper, the scoreline might have been a bit different. The only result we didn't want from that game was Uruguay winning. As a result of that not happening, we're now still 2 points clear of Croatia and a comfortable 7 points ahead of Uruguay. Looks like a 3rd place spot is in our control, but then we've also got to be among the best 4 3rd placed teams to qualify. At this stage we're still in the hunt for top spot, although I think Brazil are leagues ahead of the other teams in this group just from the way they've played so far.

Will be an interesting clash next week for sure.
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