Asunto: National Team

Doesn't change that much in my position, just one weak less of not playing. Argh...now I'll have to play a funny tactic tomorrow :S

Then there's other issues of form striking a number of players such as Haereiti,Stephenson.... the list goes on.

That ******* player named Gardiner :(
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Well we're taking on the USA in about 5 hours in a 1st XI match as preferred by the USA manager. Games are awkward to arrange atm, most sides seem to already have full schedules and those that don't are all after ranking points like us and won't take us on. Either way, we've got a few players out so we'll have a few unusual faces in the starting side.

USA were one of the sides that qualified for the WC. This gives us a chance to demonstrate that we could have been competitive had we qualified.

Hoping everything works out alright later on. Suggestions welcome as always.

We're set. Willis,Pottier,Storey,Hirons,Thompson all out injured. That gives chances to other players to step up and take the lead. Should hopefully be an interesting game. Smuckers and Madsen would be the two players I'm most concerned about. On the other hand I'm fairly confident we've got the side able to hold them off and take the win. Time will soon tell.

Didn't work out as well as planned. A lot of the long passes got cut out by the defender or else the ball got knocked away just before we could shoot. Had the setup for the other side, even though I knew there was a high chance of them mirroring after 4-5 games straight. Consequently it put pressure on Budin to continuously mark their winger and the winger was able to break through a few times to create chances.

We held them out for 74 minutes before folding in the last 10 which is a shame. We didn't look nearly as dangerous offensively as I was hoping. Probably should have been a little more aggressive with Leijer to push into a wing position to get in behind the defense. That's really where the game was lost, their defense held firm all game and ours tried hard but were unable to maintain their structure.

Losing Beauchamp in the 1st minute wasn't helpful as it took away the best player we had on the park before we'd even started.

not to mention timpano isn't exactly the defensive type either

I´ll try to teach them a lesson next week:)

nah Timpano was meant to replace either Slater or Leijer preferably.

yeh, that's what i thought

WTF??? What's up with Beauchamp at the moment, every game he plays at the moment he gets injured....

the NT one was pretty unfortunate, was in the process of making a pass. Those injuries are probably the most frustrating.

In the end we're taking on Slovensko. Don't know the format yet, but it's another tough match. On one hand it makes it interesting but another it makes ranking point collection difficult. Fortunately I think we're fairly safe as a 2nd seed after the MWC. We're also in a situation where sides below us aren't interested in playing us as they collect ranking points also.

The problem appears to have come by sides rushing to fill fixtures from the start of the season, which is fine when you know the complete fixture list but difficult when you want to be flexible depending on what's required to finish with the points you want to achieve.

Format is arranged.

Put simply the game is as follows:

Slovensko - 22 and 23yo's
Australia - anywhere between and including 22 and 26yo's.

Should level that up a bit between the two sides now and also give some older 1st XI members a break.

Temporarily dropping the following players from the NT squad. They'll be back in within 24 hours of the game against Slovensko.

Noah Baveas
Glen Gardiner
Kris Hirons
Shane Thompson
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Well we're set. Not too sure how it will fare, especially considering they like to press and use the wings. I've no idea of how strong their U23 players are but we're about to find out. I do know our side isn't the greatest, we're lacking in midfield especially without Beauchamp to boost the midfield although I'm quite comfortable with our defense.
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Probably should make this a mail rather than on the forum, but what's holding Stewart back if midfield is the problem?