Asunto: National Team U21

Got our 2nd win against the number 2 seed in our group last night in what is a massive boost to our chances of qualifying for the main World Cup.

Azərbaycan U21 - Australia U21 2:6
5 shots to 24.

We still have a couple of big matches against Latvija (who keep giving away walkovers, just not to us) and Honduras to come, both of which have the teams to be able to upset us.

Keep up the good work all, we are in with a shot to Qualify for the big leagues for the first time in many, many seasons

Nice work G.
My U21 stocks are a bit barren. Need to shift a couple & hope next few weeks sees a decent pull or 2.

Paolo Love, age: 19
club: Ginger Nuts, country: Australia
value : 292 400 AU$
wage: 2 680 AU$
brilliant [14] form
good [7] tactical discipline
height: 173 cm, weight: 74 kg, BMI: 24.73

weak [4] stamina unsatisfactory [2] keeper
excellent [10] pace formidable [11] defender
unsatisfactory [2] technique poor [3] playmaker
unsatisfactory [2] passing very good [9] striker

Looking to sell this defender to a good home.
Have been told he is #4 defender for his age but there is a lot of competition.
With his high rank, I am more interested in selling him to a good home rather than a top price.

Good result against Latvia. Honduras the only team realistically that could prevent us making the u21 World Cup next season. Spain result won’t matter if we lose (although great opportunity to try and finish the group top) and Iran we should be too good for.

You can miss the qualifications only if you don't win against Iran. You could lose against Honduras and Spain and still qualify due to the superior goal difference. I highly doubt Azerbaijan will win all their remaining games with high score, especially against Spain.

2nd place isn’t guaranteed to qualify so we likely still need to get 2 wins to be comfortable. I mean it may already only be like 4pts needed now but yeah it’s definitely ours to lose now.

2nd place is guaranteed.
Australia has 18 points and +27 GD, Azerbaijan 12 points and +6 GD...you would need 3 points against Iran and you are 100% in the groups, even if Azerbaijan gets 9 points, meaning they have to beat Spain as well, they still need to overcome 21 goal difference.
Honduras in out of the equations.

You didn’t understand what I said. It wasn’t about finishing 2nd in our group. There are 17 groups and 32 places available so it’s all 1st places and then 15 of the 2nd places. Finishing 2nd alone is not guaranteed to qualify. Assuming they’ve fixed the bug from last qualifiers for those in 5 group teams, it might still be possible that should we lose to Spain and Honduras we might end up in those bottom 2 spots and miss out. Haven’t checked for a wee or two but when I last checked we weren’t completely secure albeit we had our own control to qualify so long as we didn’t slip up a game we were expected to win.

They didn't fix the bug, so the 5 teams group , O , P and R will get only 1 qualified team because of less games and obviously less points.

If the bug isn’t fixed then yeah we will qualify (I mean I think we will regardless but it wasn’t certain). All that said, probably shouldn’t lose to Honduras to give us a shot of 3rd pot instead of 4th which might make it slightly easier next season. Either that or beat Spain and win the group instead :)

Its a massive result, considering the number of users...you guys will have a killer NT in 4 seasons...

Huge win over Iran gives us a massive boost to achieving our goal of making the U21 World Cup Finals for the first time in a very, very long time. This is an awesome achievement that has taken a huge effort from everyone in this community and a few outside of it.

To make sure we achieve this, our main focus will be to win against Honduras. To do this, we will need to prevent any hiccups/bad luck going in to our last match.

Given this, our next match against the top of the table Spain will be a mix of 2nd XI members who just missed out on playing this season, and u20s who aren't part of our 1st 16, to see how they actually go on the field.

Keep this in mind regarding minutes played in regards to training.

I guess my newbies Zillman & Oliveira need some stamina training. :)

Good thinking. We can’t afford injuries to our first eleven.

Lineup is all set.
Keep your eye out for all the new faces. It's a good mix of reserve players and U19/20's who we will see more of next season.
Thanks for all your training these seasons

Great game from our boys, taking on a country with over 11x the number of users we have (more like 20x as most of our "users" don't even play) and giving up a 10 rating point difference.

2:2 draw against the 2nd ranked U21 side currently (we are 39th at present, which is probably too high for our players skills), certainly one of our greatest achievements.

This draw seals our path to the U21 World Cup Finals next season, where we will be taking on a bunch of other top teams, despite the fact we only just scraped in to the 3rd basket. The good thing is, based on rankings, most teams we will be taking on will be "weaker" than the Espana side.

Great work to everyone who has been training for the U21 side. This campaign would not have even been considered a possibility 11 seasons ago when I took over the team
(editado)