Asunto: [U21]LaBamba

Just realized we lost another talented defender Mfundo Jooste, who is in bot team..too bad and surprising because his owner was communicating and sending updates and now we lost another defender with senior NT potential..

Preview against Kenya

Our young superstar should be on TL today. According to the owner he has lots of extra trainings.
I have a ready czech buyer who wanted him for long time, plus couple more, so we'll se how the bidwar goes..:-)

Thabiso Ledwaba, Age:19
club: Rain Man, country: South Africa
Value: 287 000 $, Wage: 2 425 $
superdivine Form, excellent Tactical discipline

adequate stamina, hopeless keeper
formidable pace, adequate defender
outstanding technique, poor playmaker
average passing, very good striker

Good, that will be interesting. :)

Review against Kenya

Nice deserved win, we outshot the opponent 18:3 and our strikers even scored some goals, we even hit the crossbar like in the old days :-)
Bad news is the injury of our best player Molefe who will have to play we slight injury next week against Ukraine..

I really hate in the new engine when players kick the ball in front of them..the result is always opponent's player outrunning them and stealing the ball comfortably..today's expert in this ability was Matsau..

Review against Ukraine

I don't think I want to write reviews anymore, because I don't think I understand this game anymore. The new engine is total crap. It's absolutely unpredictible, random and somehow it weirdly seems to favour weaker teams. We were better, led 2:0, UNTIL UKRAINE LOST 2 PLAYERS DUE TO RED CARDS and suddenly we had no chance and lost 2:3..

I'm gonna play default tactic next time and put our GK in the attack and attackers in defense and stuff, may be this will lead to victory..

Yeah, it wasn't pretty. We definitely looked the better team early on but we looked outclassed in the final quarter despite the 2 man advantage.

One thing I thought I saw is that they might have changed their tactics as soon as we scored that first goal, but that was very early in the game.

Hard luck, mate. The result could have been different.
To be fair though, their strikers wasted a good number of decent chances.

I don't mind loosing if I feel there is some logic and consistency in it..But to change the look and outcome of the game after 2 red cards..I've seen too many stupid results on sokker recently I guess, so it got me frustrated..

If you guys have any ideas and suggestions what to play against Moldova, please write it on the association forum..

Review against Moldova

I value this draw a lot, I think it is one of my best results so far in 2 seasons, because Moldova recorded basically 60 mark and I couldn't believe the quality of some of their players. They find their strikers with through passes so many times, their MIDs must have at least magical passing and incredible PM, they way they played in the midfield.
Of course they had to put 5 defenders against my first attempt with winger this season, luckily I set another tactic in the 2nd half, because Matsau was completely useless there.
The result could have ended 5:0 for both sides, we wasted at least 5 clear break aways, thanks to their high defense even Molefe and Matsau had their chances face to face with the goalkeeper but they all failed.
Moldova of course on the other hand had their break away chances also, hit some post (after stupid mistake by Lechesa) and obviously we were lucky they didn't score more goals.
It's nice to see our strikers outrunning the defenders and being able to hold the ball for a while, Serola even dribbled past 2 defenders, something we haven't seen yet in our team.
It certainly is a different team when our strikers don't suck as much as previous season :-)

It is shame our strikers are not 2 years older, because we could do so much more damage with this squad..

Yep, great idea switching tactics and a good result.

I'd have to say though that Matsau was not really the problem.
That mid/def they had placed near him was perfectly positioned, completely taking him out of the game.
Perhaps he could have done better with better supply, but the fact remains that we don't really have the ideal type of player for the wing, unfortunately.

Seems a right survey of today's game. Quite a nice result anyway, gratz. ;-)

Well done. Actually a very good result!

Review against Bulgaria

I was hoping in better result after the promising first half, but Bulgaria was stronger at the end.
Still I liked our decent performance. I positioned our defense lower today and they were running towards the strikers, the moment they crossed the half, kind of reversed movement than typical, this way I tried to face their strikers from the front and also lower the gap between our defense and mids. Even though they had area advantage, I think it worked quite well, something I'll possibly try more in the future.. the 2 goals they scored were basically from standard situations after crosses and the 3rd one was when their striker beat our 2 defenders head to head.
Shame we missed Olivier today, he could have helped us in some situations, Kalaka is after all more of a def mid than central defender.
Our mids also played nice game and passed the ball adequately, Molefe, Matsau and Hendricks are really good and unfortunately we won't be having midfielders on this level for very long time..there is nobody amongst our youngsters even remotely close to them..
Our strikers had some glimpses of potential break away situation but just couldn't beat the superior defense today. It's hard when you have to rely on 19 year old striker as your best offensive option :-) btw guys check Serola in the database he looks awsome for 19 year old and is close to pop in pace and striker, he might be 3 x magical at 21 y :-)
Next week is friendly against Nigeria, we will miss Molefe due to cards, but let's hope we'll get a nice win anyway
(editado)

Although we gave up some territory and possession compared with the last time we played Bulgaria, overall it was a better performance. They had less chances and we scored this time. To lose by only two goals is a fair effort against the strongest side in the group.

Another NT coach didn't respect our friendly agreement, this time it's Nigeria. So we will have tougher opponent in Cymru (Wales) instead next week

Ledwaba 17 days injury:-(