Asunto: National Team U21

See here's the thing, playing deep actually helps cut out wingers as they have less chance of beating you to the corner flag since you're already shifted across to cover them and you've got more time to shift across. So long as your defs don't drop into the goal box any cross a midfielder makes will be outside the goalbox and will most likely be a centering pass into the centre of midfield.

However, if you don't shift defenders you're quite right but it's the same even if you play them further forward anyway. The time you play with higher defense is if you've got higher skilled defenders against sides with weaker strikers/midfielders or when you're trying to catch an opponent offguard by making an offside tactic.

In other news, take a photo, we're officially the #1 U21 ranked side today :). Won't last for long though.

Go us!

Yeah Baby!! Number 1!!! Come on Aussie!... Its the only time any Australian team will be Nr1 in the World in Anything this year... Lost it in cricket, never gonna happen in RL Football, Lost it in League, not in Union...

Go Aussie U21's!

In other news, We are taking on the Czech Republic next friday.. so as Dave has said.. Number 1 is highly unlikely to be in our possession for much longer

Oh yeah! Where's the gloat thread? :P

Nice job Tigermaster, now a big task to hold it against the Czechs.

Given the Czechs strength in players a 4-1 result isn't too bad a loss. One problem led to 3 of their 4 goals and thats forgetting to drop the defense back in the final row. You still had them on the edge of the box so anything that the keeper spills or bounces off the bar will fall to their strikers and bam they get a free shot against a keeper.

Is anyone in Oz going to buy Villafane?

as long as he gets trained and sold for a hiiiiiiiigh price, it dont matter :)

I'm seriously considering him, just depends on what the current owner wants for him.

I wouldn't mind making my entire training regime full of talented aussies. I have the cash to do so, and I will be selling off another 6 players too.

I'm interested, but don't have the liquidity at the moment. Love to have him being trained with Stewart and Libbesson until they are 24-25.
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We are playing Tunisia this friday - Using an Australian U20 squad against their U21's. Fares to be an interesting game and should be very winnable.

If you think you have a player who is 20 yrs or younger either send them to me or Update the database.

Well another solid win against USA. Can't help but feel though that the USA tactic was pretty poor to allow us to cruise. Certainly made Alagich's job much easier to break the line. I'm a strong believer if you throw men behind the ball, the last thing you do is give the opposition a free route to shots, especially when you're essentially destroying chances for yourself by doing so.

Rule #X - don't throw 90% of the team behind the ball without making sure there's no easy way through :p.

Its so much harder to play defensively than offensively in sokker. It takes a much longer time to work out all the most probable passing lines and even then its not a precise science. For me it was just another example of why playing defensively is a poor tactic at the national level. (Club level is different, especially if you have prior knowledge of the team you are playing)

I think it depends on the situation really. That wasn't a well planned defensive strategy and was not really that defensive given the gaping holes in the middle. I'm a lot stronger if I try to defend but again I don't go to the point where we've got no chance of scoring either. When I defend I cut out the passing lines whilst still looking for counter attacking measures. I most certainly don't leave the strikers free flexibility to stroll through any time of the day and I think that's the difference. When you defend you need to be more careful about placements.

Could well just be a lack of practice on my behalf... I don't tend to commit too many resources to defense.
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Yeah, I much prefer going out looking for ways to score lately. I started as a very defense based tactician though (although not 11 behind the ball). Club wise I've been kind of forced to given my relative weakness in defense/midfield. Defense is quite possible, but it requires excellent usage of the midfield to pass long length into space and then set up the striker. In my opinion, USA by using a single striker straight down the centre made it far too easy for us to defend and left some nice gaps down the defense for us to exploit and hence we dominated the game.