Asunto: National Team

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.

Important game against Japan today. We played them about a month or so ago and came away with a 2-2 draw. Think previous matches have also ended in draws. Winner of these next 2 rounds on aggregate probably secure 4th in the table at a minimum. Good chance with Mexico dropping points against both ourselves and Japan to try and finish in the top 3.

we just keep finding ourselves on the wrong end of results and the wrong end of form on key players. What's pleasing is there are a few key players beginning to return to form but there are still several that remain in really terrible form or are now slipping into terrible form which is a pity. Just can't get all our ducks aligned to give it the best possible crack.

No excuses today though as Japan will likely face similar scenarios. All part of being a smaller user base that doesn't quite have the depth to cover a large number of form slumps/injuries. We're doing ok but we still have a rather large gap between our top class players and the next layer down.

A win today here and a loss for Mexico will see us in 3rd at the halfway point of qualifying.

58% possession, 10 shots to 4 and we couldn't put them away. 0-0 draw and that's disappointing. We had several golden opportunities to bury that.

Just seems to be the case that when we dominate games we get stuffed around by the match engine and when we're being dominated we don't get any assistance from the match engine. Classic case last week 1-0 up after 70 despite dominating concede 2 in the final 5min to lose 3-1. Where's the 1 goal today for us.

It was a more conservative approach this week because we've been burned being a bit too aggressive a lot lately but I think with 10 shots you'd expect at least 1 goal, especially when we had a few of those directly against the keeper from dead in front.

Wasn't the result I was hoping for but the match was pretty well controlled and they really didn't generate anything themselves.

The better team on the day doesn't always a game of football. Deep down I think it's that kind of drama that keeps us all loving the game so much :)

Looks to me like some inproved performances :) Keep it up
(editado)

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear like we'll have a friendly today so will be a week off from matches. Japan rematch next week though.

I might see if I can squeeze in some time instead to finish off some of the info I've been trying to compile for a while. This week has been a little awkward.

Look how rubbish this Polish player is....only 5 games for NT :D

Karol Ociepa, age: 29
club: Ragnarök F.C, country: Polska
value : 3 072 000 AU$
wage: 78 400 AU$
weak [4] form
divine [17] tactical discipline
height: 183 cm, weight: 72.7 kg, BMI: 21.71
bookings:
formidable [11] stamina tragic [0] keeper
divine [17] pace very good [9] defender
divine [17] technique divine [17] playmaker
divine [17] passing solid [8] striker



on a side note, The 5x divine+ player was on the TL just a couple of days ago, was interesting to see.

Here he is....a $28M 30yo

Eustachy Chęcielewski, age: 30
club: FC Chełmek, country: Polska
value : 16 728 000 zł, wage: 292 800 zł
divine [17] form, unearthly [16] tactical discipline
height: 179 cm, weight: 77.2 kg, BMI: 24.09

formidable [11] stamina hopeless [1] keeper
divine [17] pace divine [17] defender
divine [17] technique superdivine [18] playmaker
divine [17] passing excellent [10] striker

passing dropped 2 weeks ago from superdivine
pace dropped from superdivine 30.11.

It’s 2 very different worlds isn’t it. I mean let’s face it if Sutton were just a bit younger maybe might get to that first one.

Rubbish BMI... stick 'em on the bench ;)

I mean, that first one, his initials are KO.

I don't need one of my players being KO'd. Sack him

We take on Japan in a WCQ rematch tonight. Past I think 3 games against Japan have resulted in unfavourable results for ourselves. Thought 2 weeks ago we did almost everything we had to apart from find the back of the net. Another chance to analyse and another chance to try and find that sweet spot that results in us getting the result we badly need. The game is in a hour from now so we are ready to go. Aside from a few injuries and some less than desirable form, we've got a lot of our list to select from so there should be no excuses for a result today. As usual hope everyone enjoys the game (those that watch them anyway, though I recommend watching NT games and even U21 games to see the various tactics people come up with. Gives a good help when trying to build your own for the league). As always open for criticism post games so long as it's constructive.

Well should have expected that result. Almost the only thing that happens week in week out. After 4-5-6 seasons you'd think we'd level out but it's so one sided.

We started well scoring early and then absolutely butchered a 2 strikers on the GK dead in front (should have been 2-0). We then paid for that miss as they get down the other end win a contested header on the wing and their striker picks up the scraps and scores. What I had to rewatch (and it doesn't get better) is that striker was miles offside. Match engine glitch or not that 1-2 sprite positioning advantage made a difference between an easy shot vs being tackled.

Even with that down score was 1-1 and I thought we had it in control.

Few minutes later that all changed with a through pass where Turner just let it slide and failed to chase/track their striker. Whitley got the ball first and instead of clearing it ended up being tackled by their striker who blasted it wide. Their midfielder I believe picked up the scraps managed to avoid being tackled by our defender whilst still controlling the ball on and then ran and got the ball around the keeper and then walked it in the net. Absolute garbage. Totally avoidable if Turner does what he should be doing and chasing down their striker and then even the other dodgy RNG rolls one should have gone our way (none did).

Meanwhile, Pondeljak can't escape even when the defender is behind him, Sutton can't lay a tackle either in midfield gifting them time and space.

2nd half and subs come on and again we created several 1 on 1 chances and we just butchered them all.

They ended up getting a cheap penalty in the end late on but thankfully the 1 RNG that went our way resulted in being saved. Didn't make any difference though.

7 shots to 6 seems pretty close but take out the penalty shot, the offside shot, all shots except the one that ended with their2nd goal was from distance and all of ours except 1-2 were from 1-1 or 2-1 situations which would see the shot count look something like 5-1 our way.

It's not as dominant a performance as 2 weeks ago but it shouldn't have seen us losing.

At this stage we may as well start playing sokker by playing Yahtzee.

That will hurt our ranking. Seem to struggle getting it to keep going up. Get to high 1300s and then lose a game or two to drop it right back.

Just need to find a way to turn these kind of results the other way.

Interesting stat. We are now the 39th largest country (out of 98?), meaning technically, this should be our breakeven rank.

Obviously there's going to be a good 10 season lag for the seniors, but it gives a good goal/bar to compare ourselves against

Now it's going back a fair way, but I have a list, probably back in 2020, and we were 56th biggest country.

Although I am a bit confused where all these 31 are meant to be, but I'm sure that isn't unique to Australia

We're set for the 2nd last match of this WCQ campaign. We take on Morocco who stretched us last time with a few really key players. Hoping for an easier time of it this time around. We still have a chance of finishing 4th in the group but we will need to win this and Mexico. 3rd is out of reach after Japan got 4pts against us a few weeks back and then toppled Mexico the other week. 4th was the aim at the start of the campaign (with a slight chance of 3rd but our poor luck against Japan especially will come back to bite us). We've had some good performances recently against Belgium and Czech Republic where we've ended up losing by a single goal despite their dominance so it hasn't really been a bad season. The games against Japan we should have won the first, and should not have lost the 2nd and probably should have won both. That would have put us in 3rd but it isn't the reality we face at present.

Hopefully we're able to finish the game off early.

Nice to have a fairly comfortable win for a change. Could have been slightly more aggressive but GD isn't going to play too much of a role here. Solid performance and we can move on to Mexico next week.