Asunto: National Team

So I know now why the strikers depth was out but it does raise more questions that will require a little more investigation (not tonight). Still no explanation why our outside defender got dragged in (only assume it's the tactical discipline aspect that make defenders mark up on the nearest striker even when you don't want them to and that burnt us a few times).

So whilst we wait for our 3rd place playoff with Kazakhstan in the Asian cup, the draw for the next season World Cup qualifier sees us with a tough draw.

Our group contains
Belgium
Czech Republic
Mexico
Japan
Morocco

Swear we had Czech, Mexico and Japan all fairly recently in the past few WCQs.

We should be able to finish 4th but it won’t be easy with this group to do a lot better.

So looking at current rankings we drew rank 6 first seed, rank 5 second seed, rank 3 3rd seed, rank 8 5th seed and rank 2 6th seed. Given there are 17 teams per seed/pot we didn’t draw one team in the lower half of their respective seeds/pots out of 5 draws. At least we got a 6 team group.
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So aside from one close loss to Indonesia we went through the Asian cup pretty comfortably (4W, 1D and 1L) and finished 3rd overall. Disappointing we couldn’t finish the cup in the final but I think overall we played pretty well. Got 74.5 average ratings for last nights match, close to the highest I’ve seen for us. That is somewhat inflated by playing a 4-4-4-2 but a few seasons ago we were struggling to hit 70. 5-1 win overnight with a friendly next week to round out the NT season. Impressed given we were without Brooks and Martinovic for this one and Traj decided to remain injured for a day.

Our group contains
Mexico
Japan

Three teams for the same WCQ group :D With only exception being, that last time Mexico was in 2nd pot.

Yeah definitely a rough group. Last time mexico was a 2nd pot and Czech has regularly been a first pot.

Gotta say it's the group of death

Well took on Japan today and rested 5 of our usual 1st XI players so they are available for Mexico next week. So Trajcevski,Sutton,Bishop,Collina and Jeans out of our side which gave some game time to Ferguson, Sevin and Bresciano amongst others.

Felt we were hard done by to be 2 down, most of the 50-50 tackles Japan got the advantage of both when they were attacking and defending and that was a little frustrating. First goal was painful when they dribbled through Brooks front on and then delivered a cross for a header chance which they buried. Second goal was a little similar, think it came from beating a few tackles and opened up a chance again.

We finally turned the screws a bit late on after a few subs came on with fresh legs and in the end we were unlucky not to win. Ended up with 10-7 shots in our favour and a lot more half chances we didn’t get into shots.

Not the result I was after but this match was really mostly about not losing anyone for next week that we needed.

While on the other side I went with as many players with 2 cards in NT as I couldm so they will be out against Marocco and will be ready for other opponents ;) Sadly only one of them got a card.

Overall I would say both of us had good material to analyze against each other. If engine will not be in favor of one team we will get good matches in WCQ :)

New season, new set of qualifiers. A really difficult group to get much from. Mexico first up at home in just under an hour. No idea what they will end up going with but would not be surprised if they played a winger down their left hand side (our right hand side) just to be different to what they've done the past few weeks.

2 seasons ago we got a draw (where we were unlucky not to win) and a 3-1 loss when Mexico changed and sharpened their tactics and they dominated us.

Not sure how this one will fare but I bank on a changed tactic since they've used the same one for a few weeks now. Hope the game is entertaining at the least and we're not totally ripped apart.
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Sometimes you just have to find some hole in the corner and just ask yourself what does it take to win a game. Game went almost flawlessly for so long and we had a 2-0 lead and an absolute golden chance to go 3-1 with a 2 striker on 1 gk situation that we just dribbled into the keeper instead of shooting (thanks Traj). Then we end up coughing up goals to Corona their substitute striker and Collina just got done too many times.

A 2-2 draw and shot parity is an amazing effort given we gave up a 6pt avg rating difference but it's just so annoying we couldn't go on and win that game when we never once trailed the entire game and had our chances to finish it to avoid the draw and just didn't finish it off.

Annoying but still a great effort.

They are ranked 36, which is just outside the 2nd basket, so it shows we can certainly get to the heights of a comfortable 3rd pot pushing for 2nd pot

We get to take on Morocco tonight in just over an hour and half. Hoping this is an easier ride then against Mexico. Can never take any side for granted though but this really should be our game to lose. Easiest game we'll probably play all season and Japan winning 4-0 is definitely a target we need to look at matching. Having some headaches with selections lately (mostly good to have as a number of players have broken through in recent seasons and making my life more difficult deciding what to go with).

Well that didn't go anywhere near to script. We had a monstrous time trying to handle their #6 and Brooks and Myburg were constantly beaten which gave them some really good chances that thankfully they missed or else Ponting made some really good saves. Also their striker seemed capable of running straight through Myburg and Turner when they felt like it which again opened us up so many times. Meanwhile Pondeljak struggled to get around their outside defender for much of the match and our strikers had a hard job to beat their defenders. In the end we got the win and the 3 points but really we could have just as easily dropped points here. Used our get of jail free card tonight that's for sure.

Otherwise we seemed to control possession and territory nicely but we got burnt a lot on the counter.

The match against Czech Republic didn't go well. I think they were very fortunate on most of their goals that they scored. 1st from a sluggish defensive chase that ended up with a defender clearing needlessly out for a corner (should have gone for the throw or hoof it down field). They scored from a 50-50 off that corner. 2nd came from an aerial header from our defender that decided it was worth attempting a header back across behind our defenders rather than heading it towards our mids and it put their offside striker onside who scored. 3rd from streamrolling our defenders missing the shot but 2 of our defenders had a yours moment and ran away from the ball allowing their striker to bobble it over the line. I originally switched off the game at this point.

Their 4th and 5th goals were of a similar manner when I rewatched, manage to break free and shoot from distance under pressure for one more and another defensive screw up gave them their other.

I know what causes it but I wish the match engine had some sense of realism in it. Most of these screw ups wou,d rarely happen once yet alone multiple times in a game.

I thought we had a few good chances to and should have had more than 1 goal. Probably should have had 2-3.

Taking that all into consideration, Czech did miss a few I thought they probably should have scored but I've got no time for that when the garbage gets dealt before hand that had the game killed off by then anyway.

They're the far superior team, with far more options then we'll ever have so I'm not annoyed with the loss. I'm just annoyed that many of the ways we conceded goals were ways that really could and should have never eventuated.

The back heading off defenders to defenders comes from their press as the engine determines the defender is more free then the mid or striker. Garbage but something I can at least look at being aware of in future.

The mix up with the "yours" call at the back is a combination of a small tactical flaw but also a visualisation issue where 2 players are the equivalent distance and so neither end up going for it.

The dribbling through defenders is an rng mechanic (wish we could get it). Unfortunately a number of our defs are mid form which likely increases the chance of these rng scenarios working against us. That being said Parkinson and Pondeljak both sd form had trouble beating their defenders.

Not having Sutton and VG available wasn't great but I think the bigger issue we had here is how many of our defs aren't divine form and then Trajcevski not being in great form either.

5-1 I think is a harsh result (especially with how they came), not saying we deserved the win but we deserved a better result then we got.

Keep at it :)

Took on Belgium today in another game I wasn’t expecting anything from. We snagged the early lead and rode our luck for 70minutes before the wheels came unstuck. For an offensive throw in our own defensive corner we coughed up the ball and played their strikers on side for the leveller. That’s annoying but they should have scored moments before that throw anyway. We then held on until the last 5min where we coughed up another 2 goals to better reflect Belgiums dominance.

Right result but disappointing we weren’t able to get one of those results that goes against the stronger side, was just beginning to think we might steal it.