Asunto: National Team

looks like it :).

Probably the biggest surprise for me is Dustin Pierce who got a string of games as a defensive mid for a while and then disappeared.

Yeah, putting him back in, just got an update and he still qualifies for our 2nd XI borderline 1st XI as he's improved in some of the areas he lacked.

Missed the milestone for Tony Nikas against Israel the other week. Was his 50th cap for Australia. In other upcoming milestones, Dean Byers and Lucas Howarth are only 2 games away from their 50th caps, Andy Willis is 8 away from his 50th cap and Brendan Ando and Wesley Broxton are closing in fast on their 100th caps for the NT. Will be quite a milestone if and when they reach it :).

We take on Venezuela late tomorrow night in the MWC final round of the group stage. A 2 goal win would force Israel to beat Singapore by 13 or more to jump us and top the group. The thing that floats in our favour is a draw is sufficient to progress, but realistically I'd like to finish 1st to avoid copping a dangerous team in the next round. The positive thing is we'll know exactly how many we need to chase as Israel take on Singapore before we play Venezuela. Last time we took on Venezuela we won 2-0 in an U21 game and the last time we took on them with our 1st XI we won 5-0 in the quarter final of the MWC 2 seasons ago.

Venezuela's chances of progressing are rather slim, although an upset victory against us would likely see a very early exit for us from the MWC, which is always a possibility if you draw the first game like we did. Still I'd back our team to knock them off and progress to the next phase, they didn't really look that threatening against Israel last week, who decided to sit their defense back.

A few continued problems with form, namely Baveas, Mangos, Haereiti, Hirons, Thompson but most players are in reasonable form and are in contention to be selected. More will be decided tomorrow on this matter.

Also in the progress of gathering various bits and pieces to form some sort of a history of the NT. Could get quite extensive, still not sure just how detailed I'm going to get.

I'm quite curious whether Andy will be able to beat 100th game. 58 is quite much...though he plays almost every week so who knows :)

Well Broxton and Ando have been around basically the entire time. Ando is being quickly caught though by Pottier as you've probably noticed by the fact Pottier has played a few 1st XI games now.

Israel only beat Singapore 2-1. Don't think it was their 1st XI or if it was it clearly didn't look like it. Maybe they were trying to be nice to Singapore to give them a closer game. Given that 2nd in our group look to have Uruguay next and Colombia in the not too distant future I would have thought it would have been more important for them to try to score as many goals as possible.

Makes our task so much easier to top the group now, we only have to win by 1 goal against Venezuela to take top of the group.

well I wont be up at 2am to see it... but good luck anyway!

haha yeah, it's like 3am here :(.

I think if everything goes according to plan, we'll be taking on Nippon next week at a much friendlier time :).

Have to make sure we win tonight though.

Hehe.. we did you guys a favour :D

Yeah certainly. Played a lot better against Israel then I thought you would, helped by the fact Israel didn't use their offside trap which was effective against us.

Pretty certain Venezuela are gonna go in with a tactic similar to what they've used against us in the past. Can't see why that would suddenly change. They'll try to get 1 winger (most likely on the left hand side, but could well be the right side if they use the mirror tactic button) to slide past our defense to send them in crosses. They'll settle for 4 at the back and 1dm and 2 other midfielders, very similar to a tactic we've used quite successfully over the seasons. I'd be surprised if they suddenly deviated from that.

The only possible deviation they might make is to drop an extra man back to make it a back 5, but that could hurt them if they start playing too many deep. They need to beat us to progress and eliminate us, a draw won't be good enough for them (nor would it be for us really, means we throw away top spot). Don't really care how much we win by this week as long as we win. I'd settle for a 3-0 win quite comfortably.

Our tactic to take them on is set. Should do the trick against what I expect them to do. Their winger could be interesting though but I don't think he's got enough passing to cause me any harm if in fact they do break the line.

Bring on the game :).

Great match there against Venezuela. Timpano played out of his skin, Cunico said no, and Byers and Storey smashed their defence.

Ando did a couple of great saves, and everyone else performed pretty well.

Nicely done Dave

Could have done without the injuries to Ando and Byers though.

Reasonably happy with the result, their goal was a little soft I thought, Kilkelly gave it up far too cheaply and the ball went straight through Pottier into the net.

Knew Kilkelly would kick it out but needed that boosted defense in the case of them playing either a wide striker or winger. Pretty much did his job apart from a few fumbles.

Great to see some of the angled runs result in a couple of goals and assists to Timpano, something that I planned to have happen as the Venezuelan defense opens up a fraction when they shift across and that was enough to open up the space.

Willis fairly quiet, that's ok he was marked I figured he would be (didn't say it in my pre-game speech but then again that wasn't an actual assessment of what I expected to happen :p) Still chipped in with 2 assists and was probably unlucky not to get another 1 or 2 from some of the nice crosses to Byers and Storey.

Can't really fault anyone, Nikas a bit sloppy at times at the back, letting Cova past on a few occasions but otherwise a good win.

Assuming things play out as I expect, we'll be taking on Nippon (Japan) next week, so fortunately it's not a game where we have to have Byers.

Well done mate. Tactic looked pretty good.

Was just a few minor tweaks from the match against Singapore, namely I had an idea they'd try to cover the wings for Willis so I used my next trump card in Timpano to try and open up the central defense for our strikers for an easy through ball. Worked a treat I thought.