Asunto: [U21]LaBamba

thats actually a defender:-) he is there to keep the ball so my other trained players avoid the injury..
You should do it the same way :-)

oh, this was a game?
I thoght it was a common throw-in and long shot-training session ;-)

It's very competitive :-) Who has the better corner tactics :-)
In Czech we have a corner tactic Cup:-)

in switzerland we have a corner tactic friendly league. But I prefer to see them playing, since the injury-risks have become considerably lower.

Have you seen the French guy injured for 50+ days recently? :-)

But overall it's true, I use to have injuries every other match..I remember my Italian NT striker I was training had about 100 days of injuries in a season:-)

yeah, i saw that in the global as well...that was bad luck at it's maximum!

I had constantly 2-4 players injured before the change, now it's 0-2

congrats to another victory! what a brilliant season, wow!

But todays victory wasn't as easy as it seems by looking at the result. Our defense had some serious troubles in the first half mostly and it was our Keeper who kept us in the game!

In the second half, the forwards clearly made the difference. How hard it was for them to score can be seen in the 84th minute...^^

The tactic worked quite fine, maybe the defense was a tiny little too high. but midfield created some nice spaces and our forwards were top as usual and even if Serola wasn't the main scorer this time. It's good to have several of them ;-))

Yes it was not easy today, the match was pretty even. If you look at Costa Rica's defenders and mids they actually have higher valued players on every position, today it was all about our strikers and especially Ledwaba's efficiency:-) He actually has better scoring record in the team than Serola..
Idk if the NT stats are updated already but 35(6) -26(29)-10 sounds impressive at the beginning of his final season entering his U21 prime:-)

Offensively it was not bad, the wider mids created some nice situations, but the lack of defensive coverage between defense and midfield bothers me. I was not very pleased today :-) But that's also because it is the beginning of the season and the players always look worse than the last generation.

Funny thing is they played the sub21 tactic the whole freaking season and when I prepare for it they change it for the first time. This happens to me all the time..I can't even count how many times this happened:-) Anyway It was not a big problem after all..most importantly I guessed the height of the defense..so most of the time our strikers were positioned correctly according to the defense line..

Anyway the unbeaten streak is 19 matches, 17 wins and 2 draws, I hope I can finish the season and my U21 career with 20 matches next week against Australia. It will be pretty prestigious match since I know their coach and I've been active on Australian forum the whole season :-)
I have actually acces to their association forum, I must ask them to fire me:-)

edit - Ledwaba's stats

Matches for national team: 35
Goals for national team: 29
Assists for national team: 10

pretty cool:-)
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National teams by ranking points

55 South Africa U21 1607.10

I need to brag a bit:-) I think we improved about 20 spots in World rankings in 3 seasons!

yeah!!!

but Carna is on position 47 with the NT....;-p ;-)))

just teasing. it will be hard to defend that spot with the WCQ and the opponents we got...^^

To keep the 48th spot will be my goal, since it guarantees 3rd seed for the WCQ..so again I'll try to book similar or weaker teams for the friendly season, to secure the spot..

Impressive 4-0 victory. Well done!

How about that shot by Ledwaba from outside the box? :)

that was a beautiful goal. happens with a low pace-keeper who takes too much time to replace ;-)

yeah, another great result! congratulations to a nice 1-1. a beautiful finish for that long non-losing strike of yours!

I just hope you consumed all the luck this season, we need some for the WCQ ;-))

Lingard the wild card:-) How many times he scored as a substitute this season. We were 5 minutes away from ending that streak, but I'll take it:-) Solid draw against higher ranked team..

Anyway not very convincing performance, our mids are simply not good enough this season, Winstanley is too young and lacks PM/technique for off mid, even though he made some nice passes and S.Kalaka is below average for our team. Only Marco Lingard is decent mid.
Defense is gonna struggle too, but it should be much better this season, than the last one since we are playing virtually the same players..
It is all going to be about our strikers..:-)

Nice to finish my U21 career with a streak of 20 matches undefeated (17 wins and 3 ties :-)
as you said hopefully there is some luck left for both the U21 WCQ and the senior team:-)

Congratulations! That's the first time the u21 squad has gone unbeaten for a season.

Played 16, Won 13, Drew 3, Lost 0, Scored 56, Conceded 12.
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