Asunto: National Team

do it...
good luck :)

So now it's a waiting game. We should be through now though as we have a +11 GD from 2 games. Guess it means we win next week as well to make sure of it.

As for the game, a brutal encounter as both sides picked up cards and injuries like the drop of a hat. Fortunately Willis and Cunico are both SI and we can hopefully cover Mangos suspension.

6-0 win in the end, we slowed down a lot after Mangos got sent off but we'd already done most of the damage by half time.

Solid effort from Willis to soldier on after taking a very early knock.

We now move to the top of the group as Norway were only able to knock up a 3-1 win over Latvia.

Willis unavailable for another league game...great :/

Yeah, wasn't particularly nice to have happen but he's had a pretty awesome run so far.

Bad luck that he was my idea for winning game tomorrow :( now I will have weak winger...
(editado)

or just play him SI anyway. He still carved up Cymru despite being SI.

If it was just for weaker performance, I would. But it's a risk of getting 35+ injury...

Well Mangos suspended, Cunico SI, Willis SI. Good thing we're fairly safe of progressing. Meh what am I making excuses for, we've got the depth to win this one as well. Going for 3 from 3 out of the group to ensure not having to face a #1 from another group next week. The easier ride we get the better it becomes.

Norway played us a few weeks back which we were lucky to walk away with the 3 points with. This time however, I expect them to want to come out with revenge and don't expect them to leave some nice juicy gaps between defenders after I gave them some advice not to try such a tactic.

I think we'll go alright despite not having 2 of our best defenders and by far our best midfielder. We'll just have to wait and see what happens in just under an hour.

Well we managed to grab the win and the 3 points :). Tactic held up reasonably well, a few things I'm still yet to perfect, particularly from goalkeeper kickouts which gave away a truckload of possession. Thing is though it's a grey area because you have to set up the centre square and the bottom row middle square to be pretty well the same in order for your players to be in the right position. Still that's work to do for next week.

A few occasions the wingback came up unexpectedly and opened up the pass in behind which allowed them some space to move. I got beaten by a quality throw setup which allowed them to grab their only goal of the game and could have been somewhat unlucky not to score again from that same piece.

Anyway we defended brilliantly considering Broxton wasn't in the best of form and Mangos/Cunico and Kilkelly were unavailable.

Waters had a solid debut game for the green and gold by keeping their right side winger quiet.

Thought we butchered a few chances up front, either from missing the target, being chopped at the very last moment before a shot got fired, or from the numerous interceptions at the last possible moment.

In the end though, it was a pretty streaky penalty to bring us level but should have been buried from Stephenson in the first place and we definitely deserved a goal up until that point. The 2nd goal was a brilliant piece of footwork slicing the ball through the gap to Byers who slammed home the goal that eventually won us the game :).

That's quite a solid tactic I've got there though, it seems we take a battering in the first 45-60minutes before storming home over the top in the last 30. Kind of what you'd like to see actually, keeping the game tight, withstanding all their attacks and then turning up the pressure and running away with the game.

Satisfied with the result and we've booked our place in the next round with 9 points from 3 games. Will await and see who we get next week.

with a 5 man backline, i kinda expected more players in the penalty box :O

and thompson comes on to change the game and save our arses ;)

nah it wasn't thompson who changed it. I could have slammed a number of midfielders on who would have done a similar thing, Plesa,Zdrilic,Oliveira,Baveas,Tarka.

What changed it was the fresh legs when they were tiring (and this is the thing with pressing, it opens up as soon as your defenders run out of gas which happens frequently).

When you think about it, it's not really we were saved, we just converted our chances better in the last 15 then in the first half. We had 4 quality chances in the first 45min which we didn't score from as well as a few extra ones that got prevented from being shots.

Looking at it from a statistical point of view only, they had 8 shots of which only 3 were from inside the box (2 of which were headers). They scored 1 of the 3. The ones outside the box are genuinely considered safe by myself when you've got a decent goalkeeper on the pitch.

From our side we had at least 5 of the 8 shots from inside the penalty area, so with double the chances inside the penalty box you should really expect to win the game (at least you'd hope to win).

You might consider Maras again while making the line up, he is getting back in form :)

yeah he played last week. Each week strikers are selected based on what I need to successfully implement the plan. He's always in contention when in form, I'm aware of his form improvements :).

The reward we get for winning the group stage is Canada.... Brilliant system, another top side who finished their group on top as well. This MWC is being run stupidly.

Looks like we're going to have to keep winning.

It´s random as for equal to everybody.

I wanted Singapore, but got India...pissed me off:)

well yeah it's random but when you draw #2,#3,#4,#6 and likely #3 again it makes it seem a lot less random ;).