Asunto: National Team U21

WOOOHOOOOO!O!!!!!!!! BOOYA!!

Phew, that was incredibly nerve-racking. Awesome effort to keep them out! Nesic didn't give away the penalty, Agostino was ruthless against their winger... Adkins and Morley were solid... Stathakis played beyond his skill ability in a critical position.

We needed Byers, Colosimo and Sharpley to go out and score... and they did!!

We're off to the World Cup, baby!!!

Awesome :)

You can't fault the plan! everything went so well...

nice :)

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I thought the tactic was well thought out and executed. The players did what they needed to do and just as critically we had that touch of luck in finishing that you always need.

Awesome job on qualifying guys.

Exactly. Mids positioning was astounding today!

I have just only one comment, I noticed that the mids are usually very aback...it often pays off to have one mid ahead of the rest, so that the mid with the ball has more options on what to do with the ball :)

Stathakis got robbed of an assist but still set up the 2nd goal though ;).

Congratulations to vivski for successfully qualifying for the U21 WC next season :). There were many up and downs during the campaign, particularly with the draw against Honduras earlier in the campaign. That draw consequently put us behind the race for the majority of the season but we were able to keep within reach of Ukraine and give us a final shot.

Unfortunately for Ukraine, after being in 2nd spot for the majority of the campaign the loss they had against us tonight ends their campaign and they fail to qualify.

Thanks again to Tigermaster to put us in this position to draw the group we did and to vivski for continuing the work and getting us into the world cup next season. I'm sure it's not going to be easy work but the main goal of this season has been achieved :).


Thought the tactic worked well again tonight, we marked all their 3 central midfielders and restricted the times they could get the ball to their winger and when they did Agostino or Bowyer came over and took the ball away.

Great result :).

Qualifying for the U21 World Cup is pretty special, given the unpredictable nature of U21 NT. It was a dramatic final game which saw us get over the line against a country with far more users than us.

Huge congrats to Minkee and Cometer who were instrumental in this campaign! Also to Achmid and Tigermaster who offered good advice at crucial times. The U21 NT forum was running hot... with 7 pages of discussion surrounding the games against Ukraine alone. Qualifying was definitely a team effort!

Big thanks and congrats to everyone training their juniors for the benefit of the Australia NT and U21 NT! Can't do it without players and many of the best junior players are now getting dedicated training from Australian managers.

It's very satisfying to have taken the step that Tigermaster set up for us last season.

Now we have to wave goodbye to some great young players and welcome in the new breed to represent us in the World Cup next season. Minkee will direct a tribute to the 21yo players with a goal-fest against NZ in week 15. :D

aww, just when sharpley was getting started :P

congrats guys. WC should be fun to watch. I'm pretty sure we'll win it. :)

Well done, Minkee. Nice win tonight against Malta.

That was a good hit out for our U20 team. We're carrying through some pretty decent players. Some areas need work and some scouting, but all in all we're not in bad shape.

Solid performance from our U20's. A little concerned about the average marks though. Would make it better if we could get that to 50-52 instead of 47 because most teams at the world cup will be around 55-59. I guess we can't really expect to get out of the group stage realistically but it will be interesting to see what our players can produce and see if we can put up a decent performance despite the disadvantage of not having the same luxury as other stronger national teams.

Another good result for the team overnight though. Looking positive for next season :).

Hellooo please accept the friendly against New Zealand U21, I have no much time to prepare it's time to summer party on my little village "Cañamares (Cuenca)"

Match booked. :)

We may have to reconsider the format for our game next week against Cameroon. We'd originally flagged it as a possible competition side game.

Any requests, guys?

div II and lower game :P. Haha that's going to become fun this next season if they're run.

noooooooo i dont qualify for that anymore :(

thanks and greetings from Spain and New Zealand good luck!

Alex Neill - I think you guys might be aware of him?