Asunto: National Team

Go Andy! Get the "Best assistant of the Quals" trophy! :P

Most assists in the World Cup Quals: not couting games after 11:51
18 Andy Willis The Evil`s (Australia)
18 Tanislovas Varaneckas St Johnstone (Lietuva)
16 Nebojša Ćalić MRAVINJAK (Srbija)
15 Mauri Pradas Brockau (Espana)

Wasn't the result I was looking for, but it's still a win. Probably should have pushed everyone up a bit further forward. In saying that though the amount of times the pass was either intercepted or headered away just before our striker put the header in the net was quite high. Good solid effort from Hirons with 6 goals, Byers was rather disappointing, but couldn't really be held accountable as most of the passes missed his head or went to Hirons.

7-1 in the end, was hoping for around 10-0 but didn't happen. Still a win gets us 3 points closer to qualifying.

Byers got as many shots as Hirons, though the 2nd one had better situations I guess. Good game of Timpano and Hirons, average of Willis. Oliveira was kinda weak today i must say :/

Goal from 79 was nice :)

Good thing is so far not many key results have gone against us. Norway lost to Slovenia, so that basically eliminates that group, Bulgaria lost so they're basically gone, Wales lost, Venezuela got a point against Serbia which still leaves them short of us (assuming we beat Uruguay and they win both games). Few more results still needed but so far so good. I guess the crucial game for us this week is Mexico and South Africa. We want Mexico to take all 3 points if possible.

say 'latter' instead of 'second one' it makes you sound smarter =D

Apparently Byers was a little lacking in Iron and Zinc before the game so i thought i kill two birds with one stone and feed him some nails. In hindsight it probably wasn't a good idea.

Probably a good thing we don't take on Croatia this week. Timpano as I thought is suspended (no dramas there) but both Baveas and Zdrilic are injured for 15 and 10 days respectively. Baveas probably won't be fit enough to play against Croatia which makes things a little interesting. Zdrilic should be right though.

:D

btw. Willis is winning the league for me, 27 assists already...:)

Have a friendly scheduled against Hayastan (Armenia I think is what most know it as).

Yet to finalize the format but I'm almost certain we will go in with 2nd XI's. I'll confirm this later this evening.

Yowza!

Australian Fixture List:

Week 2 (2008-06-14): Uruguay
Week 3 (2008-06-21): Hrvatska
Week 4 (2008-06-29): El Salvador(competition side)
Week 5 (2008-07-05): Andorra
Week 6 (2008-07-12): Indonesia
Week 7 (2008-07-19): Brasil
Week 8 (2008-07-26): Canada (U21)
Week 9 (2008-08-02): Brasil
Week 10 (2008-08-09): Indonesia
Week 11 (2008-08-16): Andorra
Week 12 (2008-08-23): Hayastan (We use 2nd XI)
Week 13 (2008-08-30): Hrvatska
Week 14 (2008-09-06): Uruguay
Week 15 (2008-09-13): Venezuela (U21)
Week 0 (2008-09-20): New Zealand (1st XI)
Week 1 (2008-09-27): Guatemala (competition side)

Matches in green represent qualification matches.
(editado)

Probably can already see, but I've updated the Australian Fixture List and added it onto the NT page. Since NT press releases don't have the nice feature to edit posts, I stuffed up on the (UPDATE) one by having too many "----" to make it go off the edge of the page, so I just fixed that up with the other one you now see labelled (FIXED). I so wish they'd add that edit though, would be so useful.

Armenia will be piece of cake... with only 14 users and 7 seasons on Sokker, their players can't match the quality with yours... Foley probably won't play becuase of form, but I checked this match anyway. I'm expecting "classic" tactic from weak countries - 5 defenders, with attack on almost offside line... So if you pick some fast defenders, and put their ATT's to offside, they won't touch a ball :)

Go, go Socceroos!
(editado)

Well we're set against Hayastan for today. Few niggling injuries prevented some players making the cut who would have made it had they been fully fit. Similarly a few in really low form ended up not making the cut. Still I'm fairly confident the side we've got out there can do the job.

I won't list the lineup in fairness to those in the competition selecting captains, I'll let people try and work out for themselves who is likely to play.

Will be interesting to see how Hayastan elect to play. Quite often they've defended and haven't really caused too many problems once a goal is put past them. Just going to do some minor modifications to the tactic selected and we'll be set to take them on.

Congratulation my friend for the today victory.You played better, much better, and obviusly you have far better players.The game started pretty well for us, but unfortunately the first red card appeared, and then the second...:(...Of course you would have beaten us without those 2 red cards, but maybe not with such big difference.Anyway, it was a nice game, and the best won.Congratulations once again.


*El Scorpio

My friend, even if we are a small country in sokker, that doesn't mean you have to be rude with us. It is anybody's fault that Armenia has only 14 users.We tried to increase the number, but we didn't succeed .We play with what we've got.When we'll grow, we'll have a much stronger team.Until then, we wait.:)

Hmm, interesanting match, but not the best from your side. Armenia plays very well imho, if we realize they have only 14 users, and not such a big players base. Their tactic suprised me, they played open game with you. Start of the game was theirs... I must say, today Armenia has a great bad luck, or you had a big luck. Armenia 4 fouls = 2 red cards. Australia 5 folus - no card. Also Armenia has some really nice scoring chances, but Deeley was on the right place. You can change your chances into goal, and that was the main thing why you win today by such a big difference...

I don't like some things. Defence, they have a problems to take a ball from opponents even from front or side. Overall I guess this team don't have such a big defence skills, 'cause also mid's have a problems to win a ball. I didn't like also "cooperating" of defence, when they pass the ball between them and help to make a chance for opponent. Many balls goes also after side line. Next thing, centre of a field was completely empty and there were only 2-3 armenians players! There was noone who could stop them, and that's why they have so many chances... Even when they played with 10 and later with 9 men, they can make some problems to you. Funny is, that even on (yours) right side was more space 'cause of red card of Tchokitchian, most of chances goes from right... And I didn't like your throws-in (I hope this is the right phrase we call it "aut") on your own half. It could be set better.

What takes players, I like first of all Deeley, he makes a great work, clean sheet is a success, he made some real important saves. And then Thompson, 90% of chances goes though him and his beautifuly precise passes... (if it is not secret, how high is his pass skill?). Then, after comming to the match, Stephenson made a great work for those 30 minutes...

So at the end, you were better, but have big luck, Armenia plays well and deserve compliment.

Gratz to win.
(editado)

6 - 0 win in the end. Might not have been a fair reflection on the game though but I can't really say that the 6 goals we got weren't deserved, perhaps they should have scored though, they had their chances. Their winger had much more technique then I anticipated, would probably cause some of our 1st XI defenders some problems. Defensive fumbles were almost costly on a number of occasions but fortunately Deeley had a solid performance in goal to keep them out.

Defensively dropped them back a bit too far, but it worked on the rebound when we caught them offside a few times as a result of the defense pushing up quickly when they passed back to their midfielder in the centre.

Offensively, pretty good, wasn't expecting them to go in with that kind of a tactic but our midfield still supplied our forwards some good chances. The red card to their outer defender helped but we still didn't exploit that channel with Richter often enough for my liking. Was very surprised they were able to tackle Richter from behind yet we couldn't take their winger from side on. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me unless they have exceptionally good defenders in which case they should be producing stronger results then they have been. Their midfield looked to be one of the weakest areas though, quite often we were able to beat the first tackle and continue down the pitch, whilst they didn't have very strong crossing skills or passing skills in general.

That's probably what stopped them from putting a few past us.


Overall, satisfied with the result, few issues in the tactic crept up again, most likely because I didn't notice it when modifying a previous tactic. Was surprised they didn't resort to their usual style of play though, caught me out just a little bit but we were still able to win the game.