Asunto: [NT] opsant

Hello guys,

I'm Marco (opsant), from Naples, Italy.
I wanna avoid the usual (and useless) greetings to the nation etc... if I wouldn't like your country, I wasn't here.
:)

so... a pair of words on my career:

- I'm playin' since August 2005

- 1 first place and 3 second places in the third italian division (3305 users) with the worst average marks of my division:
47.0 Sporting Leonzio
46.5 Cowboys From Hell
46.0 Flacelli de Tio
44.9 Real Palermo
43.3 Princeps of Universe
41.0 Roma Nord Utd.
40.9 X Gemina
40.6 Bolero Napoli (lower average age of all the teams!)

I'm called the "tactic man" for my ability of making the best tactic on each match.

- author of one of the first managerial tools in sokker (but only in excel eheh) with Eridon (italian MOD)

- invited in the next italian NT staff as ATT scout (by Amido)

- 67° italian user (on 3305 users) in the ranking

- tutor of about 50 sokker users

and something about my program:

- collaboration with jack sparrow, Eridon and some other italian users. I'd like to insert some australian users in the scouting plan but I can't contact directly you (by the rules...). please, who's interested in can send me a sk-mail.

- I want to create a discussion thread on th NT, where I can speak about NT with Australian users and plan together the future.

- Great attention on the youg players, with 1 scout for each role (gk, def, mid, att) and for each age (so... "att over 21", "att19-20", "att 17-18", "att16" etc...). of course, each of you can be selected for these roles.

- The max part of my time will be dedicated at the study of the opposite team and at the tactic plan, according to Sun Tzu's Art of war


vote for me!! :)
(editado)

Just read a short version of Sun Tzu, so would be interessting to see how you would use that in sokker since there are so many elements hard to include directly here (like choosing your battleground and where on the battleground) ;-)

You seem like a good candidate (not often I can say that about foreign people).

Could you describe what kind of tactics you are fond of and what their strenghts are?

What do you see as the main challenges for smaller nations as Australia and how do you think they can be controlled and turned into advantages?

first of all, thanks for your greetings, you was very kind :)

some parts of su tzu's art of war can't be applied in sokker, but the other parts fix this game very well. i.e., sun tzu says to find the weak points in the opposite war tactic and to plan all tha attack on that kind of weakness... but almost half of the book are compatible.

I love the 343 and the 4123, but I think that a NT match often need a great ability in changing tactics. then, a 3-men defense is rarely useful... above all, if we have to play against a stronger team, we need to use a more defensive plan, also playing on the MID's filter and on the counterattack.
Naturally, each match has a different key...

According to me, Australia is not a small sokker-nation. I see NTs of bigger nations going badly cause of a bad planning... our target is to get the final phase of the world cup and try to get the second phase. by the way, the most important thing is halping Australian users to train their pupils at their best.

what do you think of it?

1. Why have you chosen to stand for election in Australia, and if you haven't been active in the forums in the past, why not?

I come from Italy, where the forum life is too active to leave time to actively partecipate in some other forum. so, I choose Australia after some weeks of silent reading of forums all over the world. My staff and I like this community very much.

2. Australia has always suffered from having only a small number of managers actually following the australian team. How would you create more interest among the australian community?

I want to create a discussion thread on the NT, where I can speak about NT with Australian users and plan together the future.
Great attention on the young players, with 1 scout for each role (gk, def, mid, att) and for each age (so... "att over 21", "att19-20", "att 17-18", "att16" etc...). of course, each of you can be selected for these roles.

3. Provide a matchlink where you were/are happy with your choice of tactic (club or NT). Why were/are you happy with it?

my best match was versus a team with a bad tactic (of course!) they were stronger but.... there I also planned a superimposition of two forwards (that took my team in goal)

4. We have an issue in Australia where we have lop-sided strength. We have a strong batch of wingers but no real capability to strike through the centre. It leaves us playing quite predictable formations. How would you try to deal with this issue to help us get a bit more balance in the skills of our NT squad?

All Australian users will be helped by my staff in improving their training plan. my MID scout is one of the best trainers in Italy. I think that we'll solve this problem in a pair of seasons.

Why do you consider a 3-men defence rarely useful when it's a formation you love. I don't understand that one :)

As for me I think a 3 man defence is a great option, but only if you need the extra player in either attack or midfield. If you are overrun in the midfield you need the extra one in defence to cover up and catch all the loose balls.

What are your opinion here? When do you find a 3-man defence useful and why? or why are they not useful as you stated?

3-men defense is a great thing, but only versus some kind of teams.

it's not applyable when the opposite team is stronger on the wings (but in some cases we could use a 5-men large midfield in a 352 that can become a 532...)
it's rarely applyable versus three hi-technique strikers (we need double markers)...
every match is different, so I think 3-men defense will have some chance.

to set a so made defense we need 3 strong defenders, also high in playmaking, technique and a little in passing. nevertheless, we need one or two rocky defensive midfilders!

3-men defense is the best way to get to a 3-men attack without lose a mid.

Hi everybody. I'm following this thread closely and I'd like to spend some words to promote my friend opsant.
Maybe someone already knows me, someone don't. During this season I followed the Australian Forum, most of the time silently, and I have to say this is a really nice community.
So why am I here? I will probably join opsant team if he will be elected. This doesn't mean I will be "co-coach", "vice-coach" or something similar. I will probably only help him in little things, like some translations, scouting or most probably public relations. :)
Despite he's in the third division, Marco is one of the most appreciated tacticians in Italy. The "coach", as I usually call him ( :) ), is known for his innovative points of view, and is usual to read his threads in Sokker Italia on how to change and ameliorate lots of aspects of the game, from the youth system to the market transfers. He's, moreover, one of the greatest scholar about youth school, and he has one of the youngest team in Italy (at least, until few weeks ago).
His best characteristic is the capacity to work in team. He likes really much to TALK about everything and try to catch every idea from others, discuss of it and obtain something (and his studies in psychology help him in this). This is why (and I can say that for sure), the most important parts of his work will be
1) talk with the community and
2) care about the tactic.
points 1 and 2 will be really close, maybe a single point. :)

I let you ask other questions to mister opsant, I hope I did a good job in advertise him. :)
(editado)

Argentina
ranking: [color=#CC0000 size=1 face=arial]10[/color]
users: [color=#CC0000 size=1 face=arial]758[/color]
eliminated in the last World Cup by Polska, Argentina still is one of the best Sokker National Teams.

The great match against the Deutschland is not important, because Deutschland was too tactically simple and the choice of the players, by this deutsch coach, was often bad. Argentina is the stronger team of this group, and I find hard for the other teams to defeat their defense.

Mexico
ranking: [color=#CC0000 size=1 face=arial]24[/color]
users: [color=#CC0000 size=1 face=arial]259[/color]
not bad in defense, poor of moves in the mid, good strikers. by the way, a decent team. they lack of courage, but their defense allow them a good counterattack.

Colombia
ranking: [color=#CC0000 size=1 face=arial]28[/color]
users: [color=#CC0000 size=1 face=arial]552[/color]
a team like much others. they often lose their matches, playin' an expectable soccer. the famous match lose with the Scotland speaks for me. On the other hand, their players are good and young, we have to see how the next coach will play.

Bulgaria
ranking: [color=#CC0000 size=1 face=arial]58[/color]
users: [color=#CC0000 size=1 face=arial]258[/color]
one of the smarter NT of sokker. their game often take them to lose, but is never boring. it's a team attackable on the wings, but is necessary take the midfield possession.

Rep. Dom.
ranking: [color=#CC0000 size=1 face=arial]75[/color]
users: [color=#CC0000 size=1 face=arial]13[/color]
phoenyx is a great little-NT-coach. his work gives great satisfaction to all the 13 dominican users :) they shoulda stay at 0 points, but with honour.

Considering Argentina qualified yet, we have to play against mexico, bulgaria and colombia. Mexico is a bite better then the other 2 and us, but everyone will play according their tactic ideas... these 4 teams are not too different by the skills...
(editado)

What's your opinion of playing games other than #1 squad games? If you were Australian NT manager, would you use different types of squads like U21 or U23 games to promote and test young players?

definitively, I find more interesting promoting the youngsters than playing with the #1 squad... but I'm a crazy powergamer, nevermind :)

U21 and even U19 are very fascinating projects, but they aren't only smart. the advantage taken to the U21 players (in terms of visibility and, a little, of training) is really important. Australian NT has bigger prospectives in a long term, in about 5-6 seasons: promoting the future stars is only a good thing.

Tutoring

After tutoring about 50 sokker newbies, I created an assistential forum for newbies... I wanna create something also for "young and future NT players"...

Hi everybody, I’m Flavio and I’m an assistant of Coach opsant in this exciting run for election of Australia NT coach.
I’d be really pleasured to answer to a question probably arised these days.

Why to vote for opsant?

First of all, mister opsant is present from many years in Sokker, and he is known and respected from all the Italian community. He has an exceptional knowledge of tactics, and with time he stored a huge experience that he turned into a real work that he carry on inside our community, attending for example of lots of newbies.
I don’t want to be too boring, but I’d like Australian users to know what kind of person is the leader of this team, and what this team, with the help of the entire Australian community, should do for the NT, to reach togheter “Divine” results. :)

Cheers
Jack Sparrow

Should we trust any directions given by Jack Sparrow?
[lol]

How do you expect to achieve divine results with the lack of divine players?

Cheers!

I guess this is a question mister opsant should well answer to.

The passion, the community, the common objective... to improve is our goal, and is our reality, Sokker reality!

First try... then trust! :)

among the members of our staff, this theory started a long discussion. I think opsant will tell you soon about it