Asunto: National Team

You were very unlucky against Korea because of the injuries. I hope that in the next game you can count on the entire squad to beat Turkey

Still gets the odd game for Australia.

Bidding ends in less than an hour

Allan Ng, age: 32, sum[89]
$
club: Aviron Bayonnais, country: Australia,
value: 2 826 800 AU$, wage: 37 480 AU$,
formidable form, formidable tactical discipline,
height: 171 cm, weight: 69.7 kg, BMI: 23.84
bookings:

formidable stamina tragic keeper
divine pace formidable defender
divine technique good playmaker
formidable passing magical striker

Statistics:
Official matches: 143
Goals in official matches: 193
Assists in official matches: 60
National Team member

Matches for national team: 39
Goals for national team: 23
Assists for national team: 1
Current cards:

Australia 1-4 Türkiye

Well, that kind of felt a little inevitable. Against a team ranked 40+ places higher than us that probably wasn't too bad of a result. With individual marks 12pts higher than us we simply don't have the squad that can compete against sides this strong. Next week it's another daunting challenge against the might of Hrvatska.

Hrvatska 2-0 Australia

Australia 3-2 El Salvador

Two decent performances to finish out the first half of world cup qualifying. Damage limitation against the might of Croatia, and then a solid win against El Salvador who, even though they are seeded lower, actually pull higher ratings. Those results leave us sitting a respectable third position at the halfway mark.

Team Matches Wins Draws Losses Goals Points
1. Türkiye 5 4 1 0 15-4 13
2. Hrvatska 5 4 1 0 11-3 13
3. Australia 5 2 0 3 8-12 6
4. Ukraina 5 2 0 3 5-9 6
5. El Salvador 5 1 0 4 6-10 3
6. Daehan Minguk 5 1 0 4 5-12 3

In all reality, the top two are virtually settled so the aim here would be to try and hold onto third which would be a remarkable finish in such a tough group, and with our gradually weakening squad.

WCQ Group P Stats at the halfway mark of qualifying:

Leading scorers:
8 Tim Alagich Tönisheider Spatzen
6 Alto İzalmaz Monteria F.C.
4 Yakiv Cassian Anarchia Karlsruhe
Shim Hwan-Ying JZD Horní Lhota
Cemalettin Kılınç u varvir fc 1983
3 Trpimir Tudić Club Atletico Pincha
Aljoša Končar wygra_sedzia
Brane Paškalj Kaszubia Starzyno
2 Samuray Şahintuğ SK Havanna
Joel Zelaya Koks Wałbrzych

Most assists:
3 Preston Hammond Universitatea Cluj...
2 Callum Van Blerk PEBROTS
Kapkın Osmangazi Domik Tuchola
Balkar Şahinci ☆Khánh Hòa☆FC☆
1 Trpimir Tudić Club Atletico Pincha
Halis Buğdaycı Tojos S.C.
Ivan Makarević FC Kryry
Mario Léster Blanco Victoria Lucim
Adrian Dvornik Polarne Mede
Moisés Granados arka@gdynia


(editado)

Players with best average mark:
95.7 Matija Mitić buddie
95.6 Özerhan Abasoy FC Magic Warriors
95.0 Viacheslav Gusarov FC.BMW-ul HUSI
93.5 Slaven Železni Husker United
91.0 Caleb Fihaki FC_Arges
90.5 Bob McKay Marcelo Silva FC
89.8 Chun Kwoon-Wang iraklis eyosmoy
89.5 Yakiv Naumov ASROMA
88.3 Rob Alagich Bastion
87.5 Samuray Şahintuğ SK Havanna

Average individual marks:
79.9 Türkiye
79.7 Hrvatska
70.3 Ukraina
El Salvador
69.4 Australia
68.7 Daehan Minguk

First squad average value
4 193 264 AU$ Hrvatska
4 090 957 AU$ Türkiye
3 255 566 AU$ El Salvador
3 205 600 AU$ Ukraina
3 149 044 AU$ Australia
2 739 979 AU$ Daehan Minguk

First squad average age
31.2 Australia
29.3 El Salvador
29 Hrvatska
28.9 Daehan Minguk
28.8 Ukraina
28.3 Türkiye

Nice win over El Salvador. Keeps you on track for a potential 3rd position in the group (which would be a very fine result).

Even holding on to 4th would be a decent result with the group you got

Where do you get your stats from? :)

https://sokker.org/league_stats/leagueID/38094

El Salvador 3 : 1 Australia

A tale of two halves. A really tight opening half saw the teams quite evenly matched. Appears the El Salvadorian manager made a tactical switch at the halftime break which proved the difference as they seemed to have the better of the play in the second half. Despite that it was still tied up with 12mins to go, before a couple of late goals won it for them.

Team Matches Wins Draws Losses Goals Points
1. Türkiye 6 5 1 0 20-6 16
2. Hrvatska 6 5 1 0 14-4 16
3. El Salvador 6 2 0 4 9-11 6
4. Australia 6 2 0 4 9-15 6
5. Ukraina 6 2 0 4 7-14 6
6. Daehan Minguk 6 1 0 5 6-15 3

We drop from third to fourth on goal difference and we now go into the belly of the beast with matches against Croatia and Turkey next up.

Hi all,

I want to have an open discussion around the NAT team management and get some thoughts on how we should plan for the future.

Firstly let’s be clear, since I’ve taken over as manager we have gone from a team ranking in the high forties in the world rankings to a team ranking in the low sixties now. Clearly an aged squad due to a lacking training community have lead to our slow and now accelerating demise. We have some stars, but no depth. And even our stars are not world class.

In saying this, the work lead by Achmid and supported by our small community to get this ship back on track is really promising. We are rebuilding but the process will take 10+ seasons to get us close to a rank in the forties.

From a personal point of view, I have not been able to put in the effort tactically into the NATs this season or the last due to the whole ‘real life’ thing getting in the way.

The question now is how to manage the NAT and U21 going forward. Do we want to change? Do we want a foreign manager again?

Discuss...

First and most important we probably need to decide as a community whether we want to coordinate to develop and train local talent. To do that we really need to know who has a youth school and who is training what (att/def/mid/gk) and work out have we got too many of one and not another. We probably need a coordinated development system if we want to reverse the slide. The few active users we have we really need to convince to run youth schools and to actively manage and invest in them properly. Only way to climb is to start increasing our player pool. The changes coming forward in a few seasons might also add to this with increased juniors and ability to train any position but until then we do need to know where we stand and who is doing what.

We can certainly tabulate this as a lot of this work has already been done.
We currently have the following.

GK - noone. We have been lucky with foreign investment

Defenders - fantum (experienced/medium sized) , tabby (new)

Mid - Agbell (exp/large), Achmid (exp/med-large)

Strikers - cometer (exp/small), vivski (I think, exp/small), Philly (new)

Pace - naphtali (exp/large)


The ones who may need more tutelage/more in from are:
Cisco, ukes, Stamford, Roman bears, guzza, panxxxo - this is off the top of my head

A couple of the above talk to me semi regularly and have even told me what they plan on training I just can't remember and am not in a position to look at mail (mail in sk is terrible on a phone).

I think we have a decent balance TBH as mids are one of the most expensive to train and require bit training investment due to the high number of skills required.

Then it's balancing striker trainers with defenders and that is relatively balanced and will only grow especially with cometer on striker balancing our fantum on Def.

Between a few of us talking on skmail, a lot of those names have youth schools now and do make an attempt to sell every youth before firing which I am ever grateful for

Whilst I think real life may have affected the ranking a bit, I think a lot of it is due to player quality dropping as you probably still had a lot of players from the backend of when Steel fury/TMP etc were active.

As you say it probably takes about 10seasons because we need to halt the decline, stabilise it, and rebuild it, so you are now starting to see my trained defenders coming through (McPharlin and Bailey) but it took a while to convince others like fantum/cometer/vivski and getting tribes interest back, so that little peak will be a few more seasons away, which again will be defenders, with players like Collina, Last, Selling etc.

I think the NT is yours until you want to give it up or until someone like fantum/cometer/naphtali/vivski decide they want to put their hand up.
I think the others probably need a bit more experience or forum presence before being in the same mould.

Should you not want to continue on for the time being, and noone else wants to take over just yet, then hopefully one of the foreigners who actually spends time here would like to take over.

Anyway, I wouldn't let the rank dissuade you from continuing with the job, but should you need too/want too Hand it over to someone else, that would be perfectly acceptable too

Agree with what Cometer & Achmid have stated already....the gap between Uber & TMP etc. & those returning/newbies will take some time to see the trend reverse, but we've at least started that process.

FWIW, my youth school is now capacity slots (28 filled) with brill (14) coach....that's the next step for me - increasing coach level.
Age level is quite low with 13 x 16yo, 11 x 17yo, 4 x 18yo (adequate level across the board). Don't appear to have any superstars in coming weeks, but one 16yo by season end, should pop out at VG(9), so I guess any talent might put him in that category?

Definitely feel it's worth trying to persuade those mentioned by G to have some focus on their YS (especially if they plan to stick around). Hopefully the weekly friendly league I'm running will continue next season with greater numbers....should help keep some engaged.

Oh, & using SK Asitente to help the NT managers. :D

So with further thought, I can confirm my preference is to not run again for NAT manager. I will stand if we can’t find anyone better, but my role would be limited to setting lineups with little time to scout and build tactics. Real life has gotten in the way and 2021 is going to get busier with a big work year and a wedding (and hopefully overseas travel!).

I’d suggest our options are:
1. Elect an Aussie that is capable (time & ability)
2. Actively scout for a foreigner
3. Let it run, see who applies and pray for a good’un to show up

Do we have any local takers?

Not for me....mainly for same reasons you've outlined.