Subject: »[U21] [NT] Matches

today I tried to have some players that I wanted to test ( Te Kori, Griffiths and Ingham ) and give the opportunity to some players to gain some extra training for next years. the result is totally fair although I am quite disappointed by the performance of Bowen and Heath who are supposed to be our best defenders at this moment. Griffiths and Ingham are quite nice and very good prospects for the future

Next week we continue with u21 WCQ and I hope our team to be much more better than today's test.
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wasn`t russia suppose to play u20 today?
I see they used only 21 years old...

No. We hadnt scheduled u20 match.

I had several quite choices about our tactics today that had the result I wanted.
our defensive midfielder (welford and then Inwood ) was at the exact point and vanished all opportunities that the attacking mid tried to create. here I have to note that Bosnia's basic attacking mid is injured .
my main selection was to play with long passes due to our mids with high level passing ( all of them ) and based on our attackers' pace ( apart from Maessen ) to have as many opportunities as we could. we managed to have 3 passes and have the attacker to 1-on-1 to gk. once was a lost shot by petherick. once was a goal and the third maessen lost the ball.
of course this had also as effect to have 8 offsides but who cares?

I really dont know how lanev is trained but he is very good as defender and as mid def as well. the only phase he didint perform well was when bosnia scored.

i am super happy with the today's result.
we still have a very long way to finish qualification matches and I think that I cannot discuss even a possibility of going to wc next season.its too early and its very difficult

keep up the good work...you`re doing great

result is not bad but is not good either. we should start winning some matches to have higher position in ranking and why not having a better position in group.

we got in danger twice but Lewis defeated the opponent striker. we were not as offensive as we could be. I tried to have 3 attackers in order to score. we had an amazing opportunity to score but 0-0 keeps us happy and sad at the same time.

the only thing I can say is f f f.
we had plenty of opportunities to score today but the final result was only 1-1 instead of something like 3-1.

Im so dissapointed. matches are passing by and we cannot still have 3 points from a f win.

i just saw the match...you definitly should have won this
too bad about all those opportunities, Edge missed everything except the goal, if you would have had a second Petherick on the pitch today, NZ would have taken 3 points today
Hird played incredibly weak for his skills, Wellford played well though

Really unucky!
Five draws in a row now in qualification matches, that's really strange. Think I never even had five draws within a full season...
And probably Lithuania next week will be another close match again.
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I hope you guys are allright down there with earthquakes and tsunami. Take care

at last a victory that could give us a small boost for qualification in next world cup.
if we had won last week our ranking in group would be better but we are ok.
next 2 matches are key matches and I will try my best although its very difficult.

dedicated to you all back home in new zealand that you may had a very tough week.

I saw the match....congratulations , 3 really important points
Indeed, the next 2 matches are crucial if you want to keep chances of qualifying
If you could win against Bosnia, probably the weaker team from the first 2, you would manage to do the unbelievable, and finish second in the group
It's hard, but not impossible

the only result that would keep us near our target was a win. winning today was not easy but we managed to do it this time.
the tactics I selected was a bit risky because I knew that I would weaken my middle zone but given the fact that Bosnia has powerful midfielders the only reasonable way was to play with a winger. both goals though were achieved by attacking from middle but mission accomplished.

of course -to be honest- we were extremely lucky today as in first half the score could be 0-2. instead of this we got the lead by 2 with 2 goals by monster Petherick.
this group A is clearly a mess and everything can be done from this point and on but the certain thing is that we have 2 matches and the only thing I can try is only to win both matches. the not good thing is that we might depend on other matches' results in order to qualify.

Wow, excellent result! Of course you must have lucky matches like the one today to qualify. Probably you manage to. Today was an very important step. Keep on that great work!

nice game, i really enjoyed it...the defence was flawless, the midfielders did their job, and even though Petherick is only tragic form, he played well today...proof that skills are much more important than form

bring another 6 points and you are qualified no matter what the other results will be

Thanks for the good thoughts man, it certainly was a massive earthquake, biggest for a long time!