Asunto: u21 friendlies

We've got a full schedule of friendlies booked for the season.
Some of them, like last week against Norway, we have absolutely no chance of being competitive in.
Others, like this week against Honduras, we should be able to put up a respectable showing.

Bear in mind that I'll try to give young players their first caps where possible, although I'll try to avoid costing us decent results in closer contests like this one should be.

South Africa
40 players, average age 19.0, average value R1.43m, last 3 marks 43.6/40.6/42.8

Honduras
37 players, average age 20.3, average value R1.33m, last 3 marks 35.4/39.3/41.6

The youngsters got the job done on Friday with a 2-1 victory. That is a fair enough reflection of the match. We were better but not by much. It would really help if we had a decent keeper!

We play Slovenija this week, an opponent we're not likely to fare very well against.
There's a big gap in marks, and their players are worth double ours.

South Africa
40 players, average age 19.0, average value R1.43m, last 3 marks 40.6/42.8/42.5

Slovenija
25 players, average age 19.8, average value R3.05m, last 3 marks 52.4/51.2/50.1

Slovenija fielded a weaker team than normal, and our boys played quite well.
The match ended in a 0-0 stalemate, a result we can be satisfied with.

Nest up we have away and home friendlies against Vietnam.
We played them twice and the end of last season (only 4 and 5 weeks ago) losing 2-5 and 0-2.
We've got our work cut out to do any better than that this time around.

Team set for Friday's friendly. I'm using the same formation as for Slovenija last week with much the same team.

Okpara and Seoke are both out injured though, so some enforced changes.

We'll see how the team fares. If it doesn't go well, then I'll switch back to the formation I used in our first encounter with Vietnam recently. We lost that match 5-2 but had a pretty even number of shots.

Our match against the Swiss u20's didn't go too badly as we ended up losing 1-3.
They took the lead while our lot was warming up (2 minutes into the game), but we equalised in the 19th minute and then kept them out until the 64th minute. They sealed the match with only a minute left on the clock.

Our friendly this week is against Indonesia. We played them two seasons back and that was a 1-1 draw.

Manuels is suspended and I'm resting Mbambo because he's carrying a slight injury.

Tonight we face Bosnia in an u20 friendly. They're stronger than us and I wouldn't be surprised to us get thumped. Even so, I'm going to try play a little more aggressively and see what happens.

As expected, Bosnia were too strong for us, beating us 4-0. It was interesting that they scored their 4 goals in the first 23 minutes and could add to their tally after that. We managed to get only 3 shots though, not good enough.

This week I'm taking a chance and fielding an u19 squad against Tunisia's u21. I'm doing this out of choice to make the match competitive and to give our young players some caps. A bunch will be playing for the first time; messages have been sent out to managers.

As a basic comparison, Tunisia's 11 players fielded in their last match were worth:
(GK) R3.5m
(DEF) R1.0m, R2.8m, R1.1m, R0.7m
(MID) R1.0m, R0.9m, R1.2m, R0.8m
(ATT) R1.1m, R1.7m

The 11 I plan to start with are worth:
(GK) R3.9m
(DEF) R2.5m, R1.4m, R2.0m, R2.2m
(MID) R1.1m, R1.0m, R2.4m, R1.9m
(ATT) R0.9m, R1.2m

It looks like we'll be competitive enough, though a bit weak up front.
Since these youngsters are very short on stamina, I'm going to try sitting the defenders back at the edge of our box. A risky tactic but it should make for an entertaining, open game and ensure that they don't tire themselves out.

Our u19's fared reasonably well against Tunisia's u21's, producing a 1-1 draw in an evenly contested match. The tactics saw us give up a lot of territory, but helped us conserve stamina and we ended the match quite strongly.

This week we're facing Jamaica.

Their overall squad strength is quite similar to ours, though we have the edge.
The team they've been using recently isn't particularly strong, but I'll use an u20 lineup this week instead of the u19's, mainly because their keeper is much better than ours and we will need our 20 year old strikers to have a chance of scoring.

The u20's put up a good performance against the weaker Jamaican u21 side, winning 3-0 and completely dominating with 21 shots to 1. They actually recorded the best average mark by the squad for the season to date, 46.3.

This week we have a very tough encounter against Scotland. We'll be lucky not to get thrashed, so I'll be using the full u21 squad this time.

The boys put up a respectable performance against Scotland, managing to get in 7 shots and going down 4-2. We were 4-0 down after 49 minutes.

Much the same side will line up this week in another tough encounter, against Australia. There are one or two changes due to suspension/injury.

The side continues to fare reasonably well against strong opposition, although unable to hang on for any wins or draws. Australia beat us 3-1 after we had taken the lead in the 23rd minute and held it until only 15 minutes to play.

This week we play Hong Kong, a side that is stronger than you might expect. Their recent marks put them a little ahead of us, but not as strong as our recent opposition (Scotland and Australia). Let's see if we can surprise this time.

I'm going to be away for the next 3 days, so I have to set the lineup early. Hopefully none of the team gets injured in their league matches tomorrow.

Babale is out suspended and Profs is injured so Manyathi gets his place in goals with the uncapped 17 year old Djiehoua on the bench. The rest of the side is much the same as usual, but I'm adding an extra player (Mmotong) as an central/attacking midfielder and leaving Das Neves alone up front with Lane on the bench.

Felix got injured midweek but it's no excuse for our performance. Hong Kong absolutely slaughtered us, winning 7-1 in the end. It was the sheer pace of their strikers that hurt us the most, a risk I've been taking with the higher defensive line on the last few weeks.

Next up on the friendly list is Russia. Their recent marks place them a little ahead of Hong Kong in strength.

Russia only managed to beat us 1-0 despite having a far superior team.
To be fair though, the result flattered us considering they had 13 shots to our 1, and we were mostly camped in our half.

This week we're up against a strong oponent, Spain.
It seems that they haven't been using their strongest lineup lately, so we may have a competitive match if they do so again. It's the last match for the current 21 year olds, so after this match I'll be re-arranging the u21 squad and trying to bring in fresh talent.

I'll have to keep a solid core of the strongest players for the qualifiers next season but will again try to focus on young players with talent and training prospects to make up the bulk of the squad.

Oops! I nearly got caught out with the age update today.
Fortunately, I saw that players were missing from the lineup and have hastily reassembled the squad for the match tonight. It's a bit of a rush job, so may not be the same lineup that we'll use in the qualifiers.

To compound matters, our wing was injured in his club match.

Spain were simply far too good and gave us our biggest thrashing of the seaso, 0-7.
Our defence and keeper were pitiful. :(

This week we're up against Japan. Like us, they're a tiny sokker nation.

I'm going to use an u20 team for this match.
There will be some overlap with the full u21 squad that will play in the first WC qualifier next week.
(editado)

Despite lower average marks, our u20's fared quite well against Japan's u21's.
It ended up as a 2-2 draw but, if anything, I was disappointed that we didn't come away with a win as we led twice.
In the end it was a fair result.