Asunto: National Team

Mini World Cup Draw has been run. We've got an interesting draw, won't be a walkover of a group, we'll have to actually come out and win a few of these games.

The group we have is:

Australia
Venezuela
Singapore
Israel

Israel and Venezuela shouldn't be underestimated, both are quite worthy opposition and will certainly give us a run. I think we'll be taking on Israel first but we'll wait and see what happens.

In related news, we once again got given one of the death groups as far as the most difficult. Think only group F with Norway,Wales,Slovenia and India could be arguably harder.
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Oh no.. we're in the same group :(

Well back to the match against the Netherlands. They'll be going in with their B side as far as I've been informed against our A side, so a win is quite possible depending on how close to their A side the B side is. Tempted to rest players on 2 yellow cards to be available to take on Israel next week but I'll have another think about that when it gets closer to the match.

We're set for the match against the Netherlands. Could really be anything from them since Maqoma is managing them this season. Game is in approximately 1 hour, so I'll be making a few tweaks here and there. Hirons is still out injured from the NZ game and a few players have some form issues. Currently I haven't worried about cards on the basis we've got depth to cover if we need to and we don't really need to sacrifice today's game just so we've got the squad next week.

Could be a really good opportunity to gain some ranking points and have a 2nd seed for next season's qualification looking a realistic aim.

what hapepen to the gold and green?
you gotta laugh with their 1st goal!
pretty entertaining so far.. some monster through ball...

Wooding was a real pain in the ass for Willis...and Versluis was awesome at clearing the crossings. Well, not a bad game, just unlucky..

gold and green never comes up when we play away against teams whose primary colours are similar to ours.

1st goal for the dutch was ridiculous.


3-1 loss, quite harsh really, we had almost as many chances as they did and we didn't get the lucky end of the stick like they did.

All 3 of the Nederlands goals were incredibly lucky, the dodgy pass, giving away the penalty and then 1 50-50 ball falling to their striker over Howarth.

At the other end we had a few good chances most butchered. Don't understand how they can tackle a divine technician from behind when we can't tackle them from behind :@. Never understood that, guess I never will either other than call it luck ;).

I thought the game was closer than the score is suggesting...
Both teams employed a very similar tactic and I found both wingers had absolutely no input in the game, that highlight how the defense dealt with them... it was nice to see the quality of the passing and there was some very nice through balls from both teams.

Pottier had a shocker on their 1st goal... almost hilarious if it wasnt the other team scoring!
I found Byers very disapointing all game...

a stupid goal and a penalty kick gave them the edge really...

Few things were a bit wrong. Throws down the right hand side were meant to be thrown backwards but obviously due to their pressing defense, Willis came up and was too close and hence got thrown the ball, basically self destructed that entire side of throw ins.

Their striker placement wide was a really smart move, caught us out of position on a number of occasions and led to 2 of their 3 goals. Nikas tried well, but obviously just didn't have enough time to get across to make the tackle.

Centre of the pitch was a little vacant. Was expecting to see Maqoma go with the usual back 4 2dm's 2 wide winger approach and hence tried to attack around the wall of defense, worked a little but not enough and allowed them to pass between wingers with relative ease.

Defenders got shown up for not having enough technique to handle their strikers who must have a bit of defending on them, and quite often that put us on the backfoot.


So I think the 2 main areas which cost us the game was not anticipating them to play a wide striker and our right hand side throw ins were badly positioned and the ball went down that side of the pitch too often and we lost a lot of cheap ball.

Throws down the right hand side were meant to be thrown backwards but obviously due to their pressing defense, Willis came up and was too close and hence got thrown the ball, basically self destructed that entire side of throw ins.

The thing is the players always try to pass forward from throw ins, unless there is one very far, then they pass backwards.

I'm aware of that, hence it's exactly as I said, Willis came up further then he was meant to and thus got thrown the ball ;).

I know the range of throws by now, been playing and experimenting long enough to know these things ;).

So over being beaten by the match engine. Despite their offside trap we had numerous times we broke the line only to be tackled from behind or the ball being knocked the wrong way. They could easily have been down to 8 or 9 men with all the last defender fouls committed and got away with 1 yellow. They shouldnt have been able to chase down storey yet alone tackle him, he's virtually 2x divine. Then a couple of sloppy errors from defenders cost us the 2 goals, they didn't deserve them really. 11 shots to 4 and we drew, sounds perfectly reasonable to me :@ Such a stupid game when it does this, because they really didn't have a great tactic other than the offside trap and a lot of stupid moves from our players, to keep us in trouble.

What the...Byers changed his club?

yeah for a nice price as well.

I've been robbed!!! In Broad daylight!!!

Basically taking on Singapore in the next few hours. A must win game given that we drew with Israel last week if we intend to march on. In saying that Hirons is still not back from the injury against NZ, but otherwise we've got an entire squad to select from. Few form issues might see some players given a break whilst others a chance to get some game time.

Singapore went in with a very defensive approach against Venezuela last week and still got beaten 5-0. I'm quietly confident we'll beat them by approximately 7 but am hoping to win by 10 to give us the best chance of qualifying in 1st place. Going to be a race between Israel, Venezuela and ourselves for that top spot.

Assuming Singapore stick with this kind of a defensive approach it could be a day where our midfielders really have to step up and provide some quality balls. At the same time we've really got to nail a few early goals to secure the match early on and then hopefully capitalize once their players start tiring in the 2nd half. With that set, aim is to be at least 3-0 ahead at half time, then to pile on 4+ goals in the 2nd half to stroll away with an easy win. Striker efficiency is going to be critical.

Edit: Would be right in saying Hirons recovers just in time for the game, although don't think I'll risk it with his form level.
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