Asunto: National Team

Congrats on the landslide election victory.

Cheers. Hope we get a landslide rise in rankings in coming seasons.

I've just sent skill update requests for all 40 players currently in the squad to get an indication of what our current squad looks like. Will try and expand this tomorrow to include those above 22 not in the squad. Please if you get a skmail from me reply back when you can as the first WCQ match is this Saturday against the USA and it's also at home. Thanks all.

Apologies for the few getting several. Will work on trying to only send one in future once I've done the first sweep.

Well we're rolling in just a few hours. Only know about 70% of the squad skill sets so that was disappointing but I can't blame Australian managers as you have all been very responsive thus far. Thanks again for your support on the matter (and for those that did report the latest skills). Gives me an indication of where I need to do further work in the coming weeks.

No idea how this will pan out but the aim for myself is continual improvement so whilst I'd love to win, more important is what we can learn collectively along the way, knowing that we're starting to see some of our ex u21's that have done so well for us under Achmid's reign start to challenge for places in the senior side. I expect in 2-3 seasons we'll start seeing more of those graduates make their way into selection contention and once that starts happening our rating should start trending upwards like our U21's.

Enjoy the game for those that watch these things still. Will talk more afterwards.

If you gave me a draw at the start I'd have been satisfied given the week it's been for myself. They played the other tactic I was aware they used but I banked more on them being conservative. As a result, took a lot of our opportunities away (something I'll need to look at as to how to create more goal scoring chances with the strikers we have at our disposal).

Still felt a little hard done by giving away a pen and then missing their winger 2-3 times and then missing their striker for their 2nd but result seems fair to me (would have been nice to have won though, only had to hold on 9min longer too). However, they do rate like 8 avg ratings higher than we do so it's probably a decent effort all up. No doubt they will feel robbed if they look purely at the shot count but most of those were from range or long ranged headers.

Good first up result. Let’s hope you can get a full view of our squad asap.

Agree, great first result.

So friendly this week against Ukraine since we're in an odd numbered group of teams. Panama is the more important target for next week but would be nice to come away with a win against Ukraine today to build momentum.

Ukraine do have higher ratings then us but are below us on the rankings, so this could be another tough ask. Seems most teams outrate our side at present.

Have also had a few more responses back in regards to player skills so we're only looking at chasing a small handful of the current squad and then there's a few more I want to follow up on to give us an extended list to track progress.

Hope the game goes alright tonight, made some subtle changes that I'm hoping pays off.
(editado)

Good luck. Was rough to get a 5 team group but at least it is in your first season back, getting used to the team and getting people training appropriately.

Once you get the teams, I look forward to seeing what kind of infographics you end up using (ie A-Team, B-Team, Most promising XI etc.) :)

Yeah result wasn't what I was after. Conceded 1 on the back of our keeper having to clear a ball outside the box which ended up straight into the opposition's control with our defenders still out of position leaving their striker onside rather than offside as it would normally be. Then the second goal at the end was really a defender tiring and unfortunately missing the tackle. Think that happened just before he was going to be substituted off.

How we didn't score at least one I don't know, we had several good chances, some that just didn't turn into shots. Overall game felt fairly even (definitely more so then against USA), losing Collina to injury early kind of mucked up our midfield a bit though.

Definitely found some things I was wanting to find out, so despite the loss, learnt a bit more. I think in the end they had a touch more quality up front then what we did.

Again, think I played a bit too deep between our strikers and midfielders but can definitely look at fixing that up for future iterations of that. On one hand, it does mean we concede fewer shots but it also means we get fewer ourselves (which is good against sides we're going to struggle against but less so against sides we could/should be able to beat). Will re-assess that as it wasn't something I really put tweaks into for this match.

Feel 2-0 was probably on the high side. 1-0 I probably could have accepted a bit more.

Definitely some issues to work on but we don't really have (from the skills I've received) another striker as good as Trajcevski or an elite wing (Van Gisbergen is probably closest to that) so that means I need to work on moving the ball more to open up the gaps.

as long as the first 11 for the WC qualifiers are ok..... dont get so challenging opponents for friendlies

Ok well we're all set for Panama in a few hours. We're giving away massive average ratings so it's going to be a difficult ask. Would be a great achievement if we could come away with anything from this game.

Well that went ugly the minute they flipped their tactic and I didn't have a conditional order to flip ours set. On top of that the more offensive mid placements got swallowed up by their press. Went too aggressive this match trying to counter their unprotected defense. Interestingly the gaps that were there in previous games suddenly weren't (guess that's part of the tactical discipline feature). Still would have been nice to land a tackle. It's not like we can get our defs any higher and they still looked like school children.

Could never really work that out in this current match engine why most sides can get away with midfielders separated from their defs and yet whenever I try I end up being carved up. Sure we have the weaker players but it's kind of annoying at times how the press (well not even a press, more like a rugby match) just kills any innovative style approaches to finding space and just turns it into who gets the rng or who has the superior skills.

6-2 was a bit of a hiding in the end. Just need to find the right balance. You wouldn't know it but we had set up to try and create a lot more width then what the match showed so I'll need to work out if that was just the press in action and I mistimed when I tried to get the width or if there are other things at play here I didn't account for.

The plan essentially was to play out from the back in behind their dm's and then put a pass through the defense line as they pressed up. Worked 1-2 times and then the rest was gross to watch. Do wonder had it not been flipped how much of a difference it may have made but that's on me, they hadn't changed and didn't change very often for their club either so wasn't expecting it but I was also aware that I hadn't flipped our defense around either so that gamble backfired.

We take on Czech Republic today so they’re ranked 5th to our 67th so will be very difficult to win. Hopefully performance will be better than against Panama though but it very likely could end up a similar result as Czech Republic are just so strong player wise. As usual happy for comments/thoughts post game or during the week as for me it’s still a learning curve under this match engine as it doesn’t operate under the same “rules” as earlier engines where I found most of my success. Just makes it a harder when most teams are better than yourself. Collina and Bracken are unavailable for selection due to injury but probably better this week then next when we play Honduras.

4-0 felt a little harsh in the end. 1 goal from a gk fumble, 1 from a penalty (well pen was missed but followup went in), 1 from dribbling 3-4 defenders into what appeared to be an offside striker (but probably was onside in the engine itself) and the 4th from a last minute corner as a result of dribbling past 2-3 defenders again.

On the opposite side a little surprised not to have even got a shot off but felt it was a better defensive performance than against Panama.