Asunto: National Team

I quite liked the movement of their back 5.

Their two mids were almost ideally placed to strangle both of our mids as well.

Ah well, its a comp team, have to expect some holes. Does look bad on the report when the team's word ratings came out the same though ;)

Yeah, their back 5 worked wonders and gave us little space to move. The supporting DM's often dropped back forming a nasty wall which we weren't able to penetrate. There were also a few issues with the tactic I put out tonight which helped to create the 5-0 rout:

Trying to be a bit protective of Hirons/Bellingham gave them some space.
Midfield wise we matched up against their 2 dm's a bit too frequently.
Strikers were generally too short.

So yeah, it's not something I'm terribly impressed with but at the same time I do realise that was just a competition game against their 1st XI ;). Improve for next week when we take on Norway.

We do seem to struggle a bit when opposition have defenses laid out like that, so I'll have to continue to analyse that a bit better. Ideally using either Stewart or Hewitt where Ellem was situated and pushing the strikeforce further forward into the gaps directly behind their DM's probably would have been sufficient to create more chances, but it's certainly something to look at and work out how we could do better next time we're faced with something like that.

Well we're set for the match against Norway. The format is U25 with 3 over 25 players. I used the 3 o25 players to cover areas we needed improvement in. Some of the Norway players who are likely to play today are viewable as they are either on the TL or TA. We could be in for a difficult game going by the looks of some of them.

They often use a winger and I doubt that will change. The question is which side will they play it on.

I'm expecting a close game.

Lots of goals, lots of frustrating moments from both sides and it ends with an own goal in the 90th minute of all things.

Final score 4-3 to us and that's with us losing Willis early to injury :@.

Will summarize a little later but key areas were defenders slipping off tackles or deciding not to run back/forwards to the ball allowing space in behind, Slater shouldn't have been a winger, just doesn't have the technique to be a credible winger.

Through balls worked a treat as planned :).

Quite lucky result. The injury of Willis for 11 days hurts...:(

'Twas certainly an interesting an entertaining game.

I don't think it was that lucky. Sure the shot count was different, but they left the gaps in the defense for us to pounce and you can't beat quality. It's not like Uruguay where the opposition killed the entire game and suddenly Uruguay pick up a freak goal.

Considering Norway U25's are much stronger than us, tactically we were better. Losing Willis is what prevented us from having equal number of shots because they had no answer for him other then when he got injured.

There were certainly fortunate moments, but that's sokker.

I don't think it was that lucky. Sure the shot count was different

Hehe, I'm sure Minkee will find this funny too

haha why's this because I complain we get stuffed over when we get beaten from having more shots :p.

Ain't this the way though ;). Everything is fine when you win but someone else's fault when you lose :p.

We were fortunate to win but it was seriously aided by the holes they left in their defense for our strikers to run through :p.

I mean an own goal to win the game in the 90th minute suggests something went right luck wise ;).

Hmm.. what Uruguay game do you speak of cometer? :P

the game against France where I was quick to jump on the band wagon of it being a lucky win ;).

MWC starts week 3, so I've organised a friendly against France for this week. They're going to use their B side (ie players who don't usually play) and we're allowed to use anything we want. At this stage I'll probably use a 1st string to try and grab the ranking points but it depends on who we draw in the MWC (if the draw is made before this weekend).

MWC groups have been made, strange way of allocating teams to groups but we've come out of it alright.

Group F:

Cymru
Norge
Australia
Latvija


We play Norway last in the group so the aim is obviously to knock up 2 wins early to put us into a strong position to progress.

not an easy group, not a too hard group either...
3pts vs Norge will go a long way:)

Our midfield has been ripped to shreds for this game against France in 30min time. Willis,Timpano,Beauchamp all out injured, Baveas,Oliveira,Gardiner all with form issues.

We've also got Mangos suspended, Howarth injured, Haereiti in poor form.

Absolute massacre. Good thing we've actually got some depth with our NT now.

I don't expect to win against France, I think I'd be a bit too optimistic. What I do hope for is a close scoreline and not a 10-0 blowout as against Eesti last season or a 6-0 blowout against Belgium.

Without some of our guns that makes the task that much harder but I'm quietly confident we've got the players able to put up a decent fight and that's the main goal.

Hope the game turns out to be something valuable or interesting to watch and there will be post game analysis to come afterwards.