Asunto: National Team

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.

Just an update that devs have released a checkbox to enable nt managers (including u21 managers for the u21s) to see player skills. By default these are set to enable but nt managers can’t see skills yet for another week as grace time. Would make my life easier if you kept them enabled but I also understand if you would rather keep them private so the choice is ultimately with you. Also happy if you feel like I then get an unfair advantage to sort something out privately too.

We take on Honduras in a few hours time. Again, we are out-rated despite having a higher ranking. Another tough assignment as their best striker is almost double in value to Trajcevski. Going to be hard to contain that.

In his U21 days, Arrarte was known for his game ending tackles.....perhaps 10 mins at start of the game before subbing off ?!! :D

At this stage I’ll take a W any chance I can. I mean losing arguably our best midfielder after 7min made me wonder as that was a key role (and only one left unprotected by orders). Fortunately their superdivine wonder striker decided to try and take out martinovic and got sent to the showers and from there for the majority of the first half we controlled the game.

Second half I made a misplay and it basically swung the game around completely the other way so I’m glad we had a lead to fall back on. One wonders what the damage may have been by that point if van gisbergen was still on the pitch (or of their striker was still on).

For a moment early on I thought we were going to run out of cards to issue to people.

Worst part is I can’t analyse much of that particular placement as I only get 7min footage.

Must be my luck but first time this entire season they changed their tactic (including not playing 7 def orders and having a 2nd proper striker). Feel like almost every game I’ve come across the opposition making a tactical change for the first time. Honduras and Panama especially. Doesn’t bother me if they’re consistent doing it but frustrates me a little that they chose our game to change things up.

Haha I know that feeling.

Congrats on the win. Great to see 3 Achmids Soul players out there on the park in one match. Its been a rare occasion I have seen so many of my players play in one senior NT match. I like it

Well done on the win. Within 3 points of 2nd at half way.

Thanks to all of you who have left the option for nt managers to see skills of players. I really appreciate this (and I’m sure Achmid will for the u21s).

For full disclosure the senior NT manager can also see u21 player skills as well. I tested this out out of interest to see how they programmed that. With that tested I’ll limit my access to that page but it may have advantages for scouting if Achmid is unavailable for scouting roles.

From our current senior squad we had every player except 1 let me see skills which is a great turnout and more than I was expecting (will update my records in case a few decide to be change as they nah not have realised). I’ll commence a wider search now and see if there’s any in the wider group that I’m not getting currently and add them to my records. Should then be able to shake up the squad list once that’s been done and then provide some intel (without disclosing skills) to the rest of you as to where players stand in relation to the NT and selection.

Also again if there are issues about knowing your player skills when it comes to league games or any of that, happy to discuss via skmail as there may be things we can sort out (hiding players for a week or myself avoiding your club page for a week etc). I am wary of this so will try to minimise my exposure when it comes to tactical decisions based on additional knowledge.

And knowing cometer IRL, I can guarantee if he says he will avoid your squad page, even if its for a number of week, he definitely will.

I will say the same goes for me. It's less of an issue as U21s are less likely to find your way in to the club side, but should there be any concerns feel free to voice them. I'm even happy to share my own U21 players skills to avoid having any sort of unconscious advantage.

Just an update.

All the managers with NT players in my records have allowed visibility of the player skills. This includes the 1 player earlier who I couldn't see. 100% success rate for visibility. That's beyond my expectations and so I'm extremely grateful for that. Entire list I have are now updated to the exact same date.

Next step now is to start trawling through and finding players I don't yet have. Thanks to Achmid I have a list of ex U21 players I can now check and potentially get their skills easily. Also thanks to Achmid (who arranged and sought it out) I have a list of several hundred players sorted by highest value that I can easily work through now.

When that's done we should have a good indication of where we are and where we are headed.

Finally progress being made (just I'd like to see some more progress in NT results now).

On the subject of that, I have arranged a friendly with Dominican Republic. They are rated slightly ahead of us and get average marks around about the same as Honduras so with a good tactic and a bit of luck may be able to be beaten.

In case you missed this,

here you can find a database that has all SK players that you can sort by nationality, age, value etc. so won't miss any potentially worthy player

Thanks will take a look.

So without Van Gisbergen, Sutton and Bracken from our usual midfield lineup, we were able to come away with a 1-0 win against Dominican Republic. That's 2 wins in succession now so small steps. Played the game well and truly in our attacking half and gave them almost nothing to do when they had the ball except for 1 dangerous scenario where our defender got tackled. Still though, we struggled to create shots on goal despite looking a little bit better through midfield. In the end we scored when Trajcevski tackled one of their defenders.

Still a work in progress but thought today's win felt a lot more comfortable than that 2nd half against Honduras last week.

Happy for thoughts/suggestions as to how to potentially open up sides a bit more. I'd really like to be generating 10-15 shots per game but preferably not at the expense of 20-30 the other way.