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Asunto: National Team U21
In the end Austria were too good. We just struggled to get past their defense and they were able to get past ours enough times to matter.
Haven’t seen the report yet but looks like most of our chances came from midfielders rather than strikers so the shot count will be misleading.
In hindsight would have liked to have seen something change, whether tactically, substitutions, anything in the situation we were down by more than a goal. Felt like from last matches with this structure we score early and fall away, and this time we were down early and didn’t get a sniff early enough.
Was a good ride though. Quarter finals is an impressive effort that’s going to be hard to top.
Haven’t seen the report yet but looks like most of our chances came from midfielders rather than strikers so the shot count will be misleading.
In hindsight would have liked to have seen something change, whether tactically, substitutions, anything in the situation we were down by more than a goal. Felt like from last matches with this structure we score early and fall away, and this time we were down early and didn’t get a sniff early enough.
Was a good ride though. Quarter finals is an impressive effort that’s going to be hard to top.
Run has come to an end but can't say I'm too surprised either.
4 injuries to the squad prior to the match, form plummeting on pivotal players, was a bit of a bad timing but that's sokker, and that's the challenge of a small nation where depth isn't really available.
Being the 'weakest' team left also makes that jump up that much harder.
Always tempting to switch up tactic but sometimes you just have to trust the process with what has worked, and this time on this day it was not meant to be. A couple more subs were slatted in if we could get to extra time but we didn't end up making it that far.
As I've always believed, a good coach will win and take smaller teams further than ever, whereas someone wanting to look like a good coach will take a top team and do not much more than expected, even if the final result is higher, and with everyone's support here, I think you have managed to help me be the former.
We now move on to the friendly part of the season with an Asian Cup coming up. Whilst still important, it will be a bit of a time to go back to some old favourite tactics (although the current used one was v7 out of v20 so was a very old one), and put out a few players who I would have liked to have seen on the pitch.
I also won't be on overnight shifts and sick as a dog as I have been the past few weeks which I'm thoroughly looking forward too haha
4 injuries to the squad prior to the match, form plummeting on pivotal players, was a bit of a bad timing but that's sokker, and that's the challenge of a small nation where depth isn't really available.
Being the 'weakest' team left also makes that jump up that much harder.
Always tempting to switch up tactic but sometimes you just have to trust the process with what has worked, and this time on this day it was not meant to be. A couple more subs were slatted in if we could get to extra time but we didn't end up making it that far.
As I've always believed, a good coach will win and take smaller teams further than ever, whereas someone wanting to look like a good coach will take a top team and do not much more than expected, even if the final result is higher, and with everyone's support here, I think you have managed to help me be the former.
We now move on to the friendly part of the season with an Asian Cup coming up. Whilst still important, it will be a bit of a time to go back to some old favourite tactics (although the current used one was v7 out of v20 so was a very old one), and put out a few players who I would have liked to have seen on the pitch.
I also won't be on overnight shifts and sick as a dog as I have been the past few weeks which I'm thoroughly looking forward too haha
Yeah hard to go away from a tactic that got you so far. No issue with that, think that was a reasonable choice to make. Just would have been nice to try something in the last 20 if we needed goals. Understand the limitations we had and you yourself have had this past fortnight though. We got some good chances but in the hands of the wrong player every time
Definitely a bit of a shame that. Sometimes you just want to will that ball to fall in to the right feet of the right players.
And even if it's a mid, Seku can at least hold his own as a low quality striker (ie knows what a goal post looks like), poor Lane would be lucky to know they are white and there's a net at the back of them
And even if it's a mid, Seku can at least hold his own as a low quality striker (ie knows what a goal post looks like), poor Lane would be lucky to know they are white and there's a net at the back of them
Great world championship! The fairy tale is over, but the memory of the wonderful experience will remain for a long time. I think it will make your community train even harder and maybe this quarterfinal won't be the last :)
Congrats achmid on making the QF. It's the culmination of 5+seasons of expert management, preparing this group of talents and organising the community training them. It's a huge achievement!
Enjoy the rest of the season. Good to hear you're in better shape now.
Enjoy the rest of the season. Good to hear you're in better shape now.
Here here….reckon if there’s an international pound for pound title….you’ve nailed it.
With today's match we commence the Asian Cup.
First match was against Indonesia, and despite fairly similar ratings (we had a 2pt advantage) it was a pretty dominant win.
Didn't have much time to prepare but wanted to make sure to get a full roster on to the pitch.
It was quite nice not having to fight against one of the massive nations in sokker for once, which feels like it's been an eternity since we has that luxury
First match was against Indonesia, and despite fairly similar ratings (we had a 2pt advantage) it was a pretty dominant win.
Didn't have much time to prepare but wanted to make sure to get a full roster on to the pitch.
It was quite nice not having to fight against one of the massive nations in sokker for once, which feels like it's been an eternity since we has that luxury
No World Cup hangover for us. Good result to start and should make it easy to progress top of the group.
The weekend just gone, we played Cuba as our opponent for the Asia Cup organised a different friendly, thus giving us the walkover
We played Cuba, one of the favourites to win the U21 WC, which was a good battle.
We were leading the match however they managed to chase us down. Unfortunately it was my last weekend of chaos so I went with a lineup/orders from the World Cup, so had subs but they were due after 90minutes (and of course we played league against Cuba so there was never going to be extra time).
Despite being 6 rating points behind, we still had a pretty good match, going down 2:3 against a team that was right up there with the best.
This week we play Iran in the Asia Cup.
Whilst the result means something for our ranking points, as far as the Asia Cup goes, it doesn't mean a lot. I will consider whether I should field any subs that are close in skill and reward those who continue to train the fringe players too. Let's see who is available come Saturday morning
We played Cuba, one of the favourites to win the U21 WC, which was a good battle.
We were leading the match however they managed to chase us down. Unfortunately it was my last weekend of chaos so I went with a lineup/orders from the World Cup, so had subs but they were due after 90minutes (and of course we played league against Cuba so there was never going to be extra time).
Despite being 6 rating points behind, we still had a pretty good match, going down 2:3 against a team that was right up there with the best.
This week we play Iran in the Asia Cup.
Whilst the result means something for our ranking points, as far as the Asia Cup goes, it doesn't mean a lot. I will consider whether I should field any subs that are close in skill and reward those who continue to train the fringe players too. Let's see who is available come Saturday morning
So, we won, and we were unlucky to only score 2 goals out of 18 shots, but it is still my fault we didn't have more chances.
I didn't realise today was Saturday until it was too late, so used a far too defensive tactic against a much weaker team.
Anyway, we move on to the next part of the Asian Cup, the matches from now only get harder
I didn't realise today was Saturday until it was too late, so used a far too defensive tactic against a much weaker team.
Anyway, we move on to the next part of the Asian Cup, the matches from now only get harder
Even at 19-3 shot count there’s no way the game should have been that close. If you’re going to cop results like that best do it on matches that don’t matter too much and you still end up with the W.