Asunto: National Team U21

Amazoing

Today's match was against number 3 ranked side Bulgaria (Australia are ranked 28 after the big win against Brasil last week)

We managed to out shoot them and came away with a 1-1 draw.

Has been a decent start to the season, hopefully we can continue this on in to the qualifying stages

Australia vs Hellas

So final result 1-1
We ended up getting the draw against Greece after they had a luckyish goal with a ball deflecting off our goalie straight back to the striker who shot it.
We also missed a Penalty Kick which would have put us up 2-1
But overall it was a pretty even game. Greece went the push and we went the counterattacking route, both looked dangerous and the shots were pretty equal (8-7).

Draws are always a bit of a win to the others in the group, rather than those who got the draw, but given we are ranked 28 and they are ranked 15, it's still a pretty damn good result

Thought I'd add on, Hellas won their WCQ group by 1 point ahead of Norge, who also happens to be in our group stage group
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Bravo! Very good performance. I wish you victory in the next match. I think with a win the chances of getting out of the group become very big.

I thought you deserved more than what you ended up getting. A draw is still a great start but felt on the run of play you deserved the W. Their goal came from a backpass originally back through our defense line and then yeah keeper saved the first shot and deflected it back to their striker.

Meanwhile the amount of good chances you created including the missed penalty outnumbered their good chances.

In these kinds of groups the important thing is not to lose the first one. A draw keeps you in control where only your results matter.

Good match. Looks like you did all you could and put us in a position to win. Sets up an interesting game against Estonia.

Great result against Estonia. Small chance to secure our progression if Norway and Greece draw later. (Edit: actually it’s not a guaranteed progression but would take a big win from Norway against us next week for us not to qualify). Failing that even a 1-0 result to Greece puts us in a good position heading into the final round given Estonia play Greece last. If Greece only win 1-0 then we could qualify in the last round by winning, drawing or losing by less than Greece do, losing if Greece win, or losing by 1 goal if Greece only beat Norway by 1-0.

Thought we might get caught out by the dropped defense from Estonia but we escaped and took out chances. 2-0 probably a little fortunate but take what you get when we should have beaten Greece last week based on perofrmance.
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Eesti 0 - 2 Australia

We got the win against Eesti, a team we have struggled against with both national teams in the past
I knew they were going to have a winger down that side and slightly moved the wing back, but wasn't prepared to go all in with it as the downside of getting it wrong would have been devestating.

This was always going to be a match where we gave up a higher number of low percentage shots vs a lower number of high percentage shots, and on this occassion, we got the bickies.

It definitely puts us in a good position regardless of the Hellas-Norge match, providing the ME doesn't give us the short end of the stick.

No yellow cards is great as well, so no players out due to reds.

We are having some form issues for some key players but hopefully that can turn around a little

Congratulations! Great performance! Bravo! :)

Great result, congratulations!

For the gold :)

Thanks all.

Now we know the other result - Hellas beat Norge 2-1 knocking Norge out of the world cup group stage.

Australia to qualify to the knockout rounds need the below to occur:
- Australia win - qualify
- Australia draw - qualify
- Australia lose - if Hellas win, Australia qualify
- Australia lose - if Hellas/Eesti draw, Australia lose 0-1 or lose 0-2 and Hellas/Eesti draw 0-0. This gets messier if we score goals and lose by less than a 2 goal differential or Hellas/Eesti draw with higher scores
- Australia lose - if Eesti win, Australia lose by equal or less goals than Hellas lose by

Basically we have issuees if we lose/lose big and Hellas/Eesti have a high scoring draw or eesti has only a 1 goal win

That's great, congrats mate.
Seeing Beldham hitting the net twice makes me proud of him!
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He is an amazing player, definitely a future senior NT player

Australia to qualify to the knockout rounds need the below to occur:
- Australia win - qualify
- Australia draw - qualify
- Australia lose - if Hellas win, Australia qualify
- Australia lose - if Hellas/Eesti draw, Australia lose 0-1 or lose 0-2 and Hellas/Eesti draw 0-0. This gets messier if we score goals and lose by less than a 2 goal differential or Hellas/Eesti draw with higher scores
- Australia lose - if Eesti win, Australia lose by equal or less goals than Hellas lose by

Basically we have issuees if we lose/lose big and Hellas/Eesti have a high scoring draw or eesti has only a 1 goal win




So in other words. You play weakest team of group for avancement, and so many outcomes give cup phase.... its almost given in advance... but I Hope you keep the fokus to secure it

Well, we actually have the weakest team (lowest rating), just have the best coach :)