Asunto: u21 friendlies

This was the team, with the original youth clubs:

GK - Humphrey Katongo (Jackpool)
DEF - Excellent Malatsi (Durban City)
DEF - Vivian Khanyile (Durban City)
DEF - Obinna Cole (Kaizer Chiefs)
MID - Wade Zulu (Durban City)
MID - Moses Chembo (Kaizer Chiefs)
MID - Piyoyo Bax (Blue Bulls)
MID - Gilbert Christensen (Durban City)
MID - Ashley Champion (Dreams FC)
ATT - Howard Lechesa (Kaizer Chiefs)
ATT - Charles Roskruge (Blue Bulls)
ATT - Wiseman Mgqamqo (Blue Bulls)

That's it. There was one more player that doesn't exist anymore.
Those 12 all played in the match and originally came from 5 clubs.

Against strong India team I'm thinking to play more offensivelly and may be try some bolder tactic, like position our strikers deep, even with the risk of offsides because with the injury of Felix I'll probably have to start Hendricks (even though I hate his defense an stamina, but I don't think Kalaka would make the difference) and play 2 strikers, 3 off MIDs (Hendicks, Methula, Matsau) or 2 off MIDs and Methula on the wing (he should finally face only 4 defenders - giving him more space on the wing) with Molefe as our only def MID. Our defense is good enough to allow to play more risky and our strikers clearly need some help on offense. What do you think?

I think it is worth a try.

Maybe if you attack, it will help our strikers at least to take some shots without having to figure out how to beat their defenders.

Ok thanx, I'll give it a try, let's hope it won't end with disaster :-)

Niang poped in striker and I convinced the owner to give him 1 weak of stamina, so may be he would be more usefull..That damn Sithole will never get in form I guess..

So against Mexico it would be our U20 against their U19 with the exception of GKs (where we both gonna play year older). I have no idea about the strenght of their U19, but let's assume it would be tough match.
This time I'll try to play 5 DEFs in a row, we have a pretty deep field of defenders and only 3 usefull MIDs and this might also surprise our opponent. I expect Mexico to play with a winger. Their coach used 5 DEFs and offside system with defenders very deep in his last math, but it was an ugly game and he lost it, so I don't think he will be coming back to that and previously he played couple games with a wing.
Our line up:
GK: Manyathi (the exception - 21 year old)
DEF: Jooste, Cole, Olivier, Magalefa, Kalaka (75. sub by Sekano)
MID: Molefe, Hendricks, Matsau
ATT: Ludick, Masenia (60. sub by 18 year old Ledwaba - his first international match)

I would like to give some minutes to Sithole, but his form is just way too low..

I'm not sure about the strenght of Island, according to average marks and ratings we should be slight favourites, but they also played lot of 19-20 year olds in those matches and they have 9 players with value over 10M in their team (we have 8 atm).
Their coach played the same tactic in his last 3 games so this should give me advantage assuming he sticks with it.
With the experience of watching our poor strikers fight and try to outrun the Insia defense in the last match (if that's not enough our striker's are also dropping in form significantly), I might be forced to give another chance to Mathula on the wing. I don't totaly like it, but I feel it is inevitable necessity. We would play another 2 off mids, similar to our tactic against O‘zbekiston, to support our strikers, I did some changes with the positioning of our strikers according to opponents defense, change throw ins and corners and some other minor stuff, but i think this tactic fits our team the best.
Here is the nomination:
1 Koena Manyathi GK
2 Henry Theunissen DEF
3 Jan Nagoli DEF
4 Dominic Cole DEF
5 Fabian Olivier DEF
6 Jimmy Molefe MID
7 Petrus Hendricks MID
8 Oscar Methula MID
9 Marc Niang ATT
10 Zane Matsau MID
11 Peter Lekgwathi ATT

12 Fabien Lechesa GK
13 Paul Kalaka DEF
14 Joel Felix MID
15 Mfundo Jooste DEF
16 Granwald Masenia ATT
Set pieces
Free kick: Zane Matsau
Penalty kick: Marc Niang
Conditional orders
Min. Condition / Action
1' red card or no player
Jimmy Molefe on position 2
1' red card or no player
Jimmy Molefe on position 3
1' red card or no player
Jimmy Molefe on position 4
1' red card or no player
Jimmy Molefe on position 5
70' always
Joel Felix on position 7
80' always
Granwald Masenia on position 9


I'll play Hendricks (he played very well in last couple games) over Felix because of the huge form disparity (what do you think about this Marc) and despite Felix having far superior skills. Handricks doen't have stamina so he would be substitute for last 20 minutes

Actually, I'm thinking about it and I'll play Mathula as a wing in the 1st half and change the tactic to OFF MID in 2nd half, because he doesn't have particulary high stamina and he will be loosing his pace and as OFF MID he won't need it as much. Shame he doesn't have stamina I would like to do it vice versa and exploit potential low stamina of opposing defenders in the 2nd half and use his pace against them more effectively..

Also I would like to ask you before every game for suggestions about tactic name:-) You can come up with ideas according to opponents historical, political or geographical situation:-) Or whatever, their coach's nick name:-) I democratically pick the one I like the most, wich would probably be mine anyway :-D But still you can try :-)
I pick NoBailoutland! for Island. Not sure if you were following the economical situation in Europe though..:-)

NoBailoutland! is good. I'm against bailouts myself. :)

You're right about Felix. Tragic form is horrible. I think most people underestimate how much difference poor form makes to a players performance.

The idea to change tactics at half-time for Methula is good. I'll probably do stamina training in the two off-peak weeks at the end of the season, but that's not going to help you with him. :(

How about Kalaka vs Felix, superdivine versus tragic form? What do you think is the difference between 0 and 18 form? 3 skills?

EDIT: Deleted the post because the injury to Felix that I forgot about throws out all the calculations. I wouldn't want people coming to the wrong conclusions because of bad info. I'll look for other examples to get a better idea about form effect. Looking through old forum posts shows a lot of disagreement on this issue.

You were correct, I have MOD rights as U21 coach, so I can also edit posts here, I asked buddy MOD :-)/ LaBamba

(editado)

Anyway i totaly believe that. Even though 7 levels seems really a lot. But very possible. There is big difference in player's performances in form's opposite spectrums (0 vs 18). I've mentioned before that i believe the form is exponential.
Concerning Felix didn't he had slight injury though? Injuries slow players a lot..

Hmm, I wonder if your mod status in the SA Association has something to do with being u21 coach for SA? That's probably it.

About Felix, yes you're probably right. I'd forgotten about the injury.
He was injured in the u21 games on 24 Feb. The match on 7 March was his first game back, so he was probably still slightly injured. That would definitely have slowed him down.

EDIT: I started another thread while looking at pace of players running onto the pitch but the examples just weren't making much sense some of the time. I need another approach.
(editado)

That might be it:-) but it's the first time I've noticed that. I'm able to moderate and modify users and articles on the front page but never noticed editing posts..:-)
Hmm I've never read any opinions about form, how many skills could be the difference..I guess that is also the beauty of sokker nobody knows anything for sure and you have to use your own experience from watching players and games..I'll try to ask around some experienced users ..

edit: so i asked - My and my friend's guess is around 20-25% difference (so 3-4 skills on average between 0 and 18 form), but wouldn't surprise me, if that's higher.
Pace is difficult to measure because the players don't run at full speed all the time..
Concerning slight injuries I found out that those players are completely useless and i rather don't play them at all no matter how good they are..

(editado)

Yes, I prefer not to play them but I usually risk it if they're trainees. I wouldn't use them in a NT match though.

I made changes in ATT. Ludick (18 form) will start next to Niang, they have higher striker, which can be usefull for Methula's crosses in 1st half. Lekgwathi will sub Niang in 2nd half to use his pace for through balls against tired defense. Masenia will come for last 30 mins.

Dominican republic has pretty even team, I can't say we would be the favourites, because we will very probably outplay them, just like we would outplay a lot of teams on our level, but with our issues in ATT we can hope for 1 lucky goal..They have pretty good defense, but only 18 year old GK, so let's hope he would make some mistake:-) Just for comparison their strikers has 3 TIMES higher value than ours..their weakness might be in midfield were they don't have any star players, so we should be dominating as usual, especially when they miss this guy:

Matias Galán, age: 21

club: Kłodzko Juniors Club, country: República Dominicana,
value: 17 617 545 Kč, wage: 181 501 Kč,
outstanding form, excellent tactical discipline,
height: 188 cm

NTDB:
injury: (22 days)

weak stamina tragic keeper
incredible pace average defender
incredible technique outstanding playmaker
outstanding passing good striker

luckily for us he is injured..

Our struggle in ATT lead me to do things I normally wouldn't do, I don't like to watch us dominate and than finish 0:0 again, so i'll probably try something to shake things up, like playing deep offside system (which i normally don't like and dont play). Let's hope this will put more pressure on his team and create more chances on his half, I believe our defense is good enough to allow me to gamble a bit and it can also surprise our opponent. His MIDs are not good enough to handle it and defeat it with through passes. Let's hope it won't end with disaster as their strikers score 5 goals on break away chances..
I don't know what tactic he will play, he changes it a lot, but we would stick with 442, Methula winger in 1st half (this time on the left side) and as offmid in the 2nd half, with little changes in positioning.