Asunto: National Team

Finally put a side to the sword. 7-0 and a comfortable win in the end and again it could well have been more. In the other game in our group China beat HK 3-0 so we end topping our group with a superior goal difference. Think that means we have India for our Qtr final next week which could be a tight assignment. Would be nice for a few of our strikers to regain some form for that one. Still frustrating seeing our defenders being dribbled or beaten and their own defs/mids being able to dribble past players like Sutton and you just think I hate how the rng seems to always go one direction at times.

Sorry been too quiet past week. Was away last weekend so didn’t get time to make adjustments to our tactic against India and we ended up losing 2-1. This week have been absent largely due to illness which I’m still battling through so no friendly arranged this week. Hopefully back on track for next week.

Age updates today. That means some work for me to update the DB for those I haven't had updates for as well as looking to incorporate the newly promoted U21's (now 22). Also means I'll need to update rankings list and see if I can add the current rankings of players by position (and possibly even adding a most improved across the season. Could be a few interesting shifts from the last time I did this end of last season.

Would be good to see the big movers in green and the ones who are dropping (dropping relatively to the field, maybe not by absolute number) in red.

And not every player, maybe just the extremes (fastest top 10% of movers and lowest 10%)

So my initial thoughts were that posting the new list (if they've moved positions then to use green/red respectively). That was the bare minimum (might even include position from/to).

Then I was looking at potentially a separate post about biggest movers in terms of overall score by position as opposed to rank. That way players like Traj or Sutton etc who mightn't move up as many raw positions (because they're already towards the top) might show they're improving faster than others anyway. I feel that would be more reflective of progress than raw positions given there's a bunch of players all around similar levels such that 1 pop may make a big leap.

So yeah, seems we had similar thoughts/interests. Probably still a bit early but down the road would like a maximum achieved score as a sort of hall of fame-ish type where it allows comparibility across generations. Noting this mightn't be completely accurate as it will be based on end of season rather than at any stage and is probably harsh on those players going down in skills currently that were in our side in seasons past (e.g Judd/Haugland/McPharlin etc).

Again lots of ideas, whether time permits or I remember to do these is the bigger question :)

WCQ group has been drawn. As expected given we’re still a 4th seed we have ended up with a difficult task but will give it our best shot and see if we can get 3rd.

We are in group G with Spain,Mexico, Azerbaijan, Japan and Iran.

We play Azerbaijan first up in 2 weeks time.

4-1 loss to Argentina. A few gk fumbles hurt along with Traj forgetting his shooting boots. Could have been closer and considering they seemed to go full strength is probably a good indication of what we face in our wcq group. Can’t believe their defenders all rate in the 70s that’s just insanely good.

At least this time you find yourself in a 6 team group, so certainly have a chance.

Just off the last 3 weeks ratings, the top ratings are below

Spain - 78.8
Mexico - 75.1
Azerbaycan - 75.8
Australia - 72.8
Nippon - 67.6
Iran - 67.9

Giving up a couple of rating points difference, but certainly close enough to be in with a shot of qualification.
The bottom two shouldn't provide too many headaches you wouldn't think

There's also enough competition between the top 4 teams that points could easily be split many times

So we end the season against NZ with a 1-1 draw. A little frustrating that Pondeljak got SI. Kind of crippled our attacking options a little. That being said Trajcevski was causing mayhem except for finishing. Overall considering they outrated us by 5 avg rating points it's not a terrible result for us. Card free for the start of the WCQ's next week. Hopefully next week we get a few more options to use against Azerbaijan.

Can't do much when the match engine doesn't want you to. Azerbaijan broke every tackle and made every tackle the other way. Almost all 50/50's went one way including Martinovic getting sent off. Don't quite understand why Azerbaijan were able to keep a flat line of 5 the entire match and our flat line of 5 ended up in zig zags all over the place opening gaps to pass to their strikers.

They're the better team but it is frustrating when all 50/50's go one way.

A few things like general depth positioning didn't play out how I intended them to and throws were a bit hit and miss so there's something to work on but it would be nice if the 50/50's played more 50/50 like and we could break through tackles and the ball bounce in our favour.

Next round sees us up against Iran. Think this should be a fairly safe match for us based on avg ratings and rank.

Hoping to win fairly comfortably today as I'd like to finish no worse than 4th in this group. Hope the game goes well.

Also I haven't forgotten but I will update rankings for NT players in the next day or so as I have been distracted by other life things the past fortnight.
(editado)

28 shots to 2 and it took us until the 83rd to regain the lead. 2-1 win is far less than we deserved but we at least got the win. Was pretty frustrating seeing us pepper the goal for no result and they get one half chance and take it. On another day that ends in 5+ to 0.

8 shots to 3 for a 1-1 draw against Mexico. The rate around 75 avg ratings to our 70 so in the scheme of things an ok result for us. Unfortunate not to have gone on and won that game as they relied on pumping long range through balls for their chances.

When we were without several key players for this match (Crampton/Sutton/Prince/Jeans) there isn't a lot more we can do. Could have been a bit more adventurous tactically but still thought we controlled the majority of this game and probably deserved the 3pts.

3-1 loss to Spain and for large parts of it we were only 2-1 down. One of their wide midfielders just destroyed Martinovic which made our life difficult and their third goal came from a sub not being in the right position as he was still taking the field. All that said they were better and deserved the win they got and potentially could have been a few more.

11 shots to 5 in our favour yet we lose 4-2. Unbelievable. They had a perfect conversion rate until the last minute. Dominated the game but got flogged by rng. Apologies for that result as that’s going to hurt our ranking quite a bit.

Current owner of Bob Jeans has hidden his skills from me :(. In the process of trying to resolve that but if they’re determined not to provide skills I’ll work with what I have from the beginning of this season. For what it’s worth if I can’t successfully negotiate something here that I’m comfortable with then I’ve still got options since I know the reason why I’m not getting his skills.

Annoying because it doesn’t actually help them by blocking skills I already know. They have zero power in that regard. They’d be better to negotiate with me with their concerns and we may be able to strike up something. Just annoys me when they purchase a player who is in a squad and they don’t want them playing for the NT, it’s like just buy someone else then.

Just thought I’d post this because we’ve been so good for so long when it comes to enabling nt managers to see players that when someone wants to be a smarty I’m going to basically call it out if they haven’t tried to negotiate first.

I’m always flexible if there are circumstances you don’t want a player played but I become less so if you resort to silly games like this.