Asunto: National Team

As a random fact out of my own interest, it has come to my attention my 100th game in charge of the Australian NT was against Osterreich in the 3-1 win 2 weeks ago :O. Thought I was getting close to the century mark. Thanks for sticking by during those ups and downs and giving me the opportunity to reach this milestone.

Congrats!

all set for Ghana. End of the day I'll settle for 15+. Belarus only won 2-0, Slovenija lost to Latvija and most of the other contenders for 3rd place haven't played yet. I think if my memory serves me correctly that we're fighting against Uruguay,Portugal,Venezuela,Norge/Turkiye,Belarus for the 2 3rd placed spots. Most of the rest of 3rd placed teams haven't obtained 3 pts against one of the top 2 spots yet.

A huge win here will go a long way.

Well that's annoying a little bit. 47 shots (10 more than last round against them) and we scored 2 less. Oh well, I suppose it's still a decent 14-0 win, was hoping for more though especially when we were 12-0 up after 60min and then failed to do anything until the 85th.

pfff... 15-
:)

not much I can do about Newhill slotting 4 from 20 though :p. The intention to score 15+ was there, so was the number of chances.

Can't do any more than that really, its just the way it goes some times.

I thought Beauchamp was fantastic running through the lines. Tarka on the other hand seemed to be the "guy-most-likely-to-pass-to-an-off-side-player".

Wow look at that defensive line...I would consider them the "young" backline.
To see Mangos, Cunico, Kohler and Haereti together without the likes of Broxton, Howarth, Nikas and Burns is great (yes I am aware the Nikas and Mangos are actually the same age)

I guess you can't half tell I train defenders

How the hell didn't Beauchamp get at least one assist in that game?

dunno, deserved at least one.

Anyway, we're set to take on Republica Dominicana this week. Starts in about an hour. Very interested to see what they will come up with. Hopefully it's something similar to what they played against Belgium as I think that would work in our favour.

A few players out but a few come back in as well after long stints out of the team. Those back are incredibly positive for our NT chances and allows us much more flexibility by strengthening our game.

A win is vital here, if we were to lose any points in an upset situation, this would probably be our most likely chance of failure. We manage to win this week and we set ourselves up for a decent showdown against Belgium in 3 weeks. Guatemala is perhaps capable of causing us pain but I think Republica Dominicana are more likely to.

Well we had 4 more shots that game and still couldn't put more than 4 goals in the back of the net. I guess it's poor conversion. What we probably need is a divine striker with enough pace/tech to capitalise on the chances we took because we're just not scoring enough from our chances. 4/20 when 1 came from a fk, 1 came from a tap in which wasn't even a shot just isn't good enough. From 20 shots we should be scoring at least 6 on average.

Throws didn't work out as nice as I had planned, Willis received too many because their defense pushed up forcing Willis to push up also and thus receive the throw.

The throw was intended to go to Beauchamp/Plesa.


Huzzah at getting some through balls though. Pretty shocking opening goal but I've been hit by that countless times so I'll take every one of those we get. I also suppose at the time of the pass there was about a 2 space gap for the pass to be made.

Wirrpanda benefited from some magic setups and scored 2 from 5 (although 1 was a tap in and didnt count as a shot).

Glad to have Nikas,Pottier and Maras all back in the side. Allowed me to push Mangos further upfield to use his midfield skills.

Broxton didn't really defend as nicely as I had hoped down our left hand side. A bit sloppy in places.

Otherwise I'd probably rank this as a better performance than last time, we got the same margin but just didn't finish off enough. Probably not as much possession as I'd hoped for either but I suppose we got the 3 points and that's what mattered most.

Might add, through balls are generated largely by PM. You don't need a lot more. You get playmaking and have fast strikers and it's all over. Might make me reconsider certain players because I've always gone the otherway thinking passing was more effective, certainly appears though that PM is what causes the 50m+ through balls.

Nice to see Maras back in NT :) His striker will get to divine+ so I think that during the WC he will have at least unearthly.

Surprised with Andy's goal, though he is quite keen on scoring...:)

I was surprised to see Wirrpanda turn his defender inside-out for his first goal. Probably the striker least likely to achieve it, but first chance he gets after running on to the field he produces an awesome turn and slot it home.

I was very surprised about it too.

form + freshness + random chance of beating a defender = success.

Considering the other strikers both had more it was a little surprising but happily taken.