Subject: [NT] Friendlies

Line-up is set for Australia. It could get pretty ugly - depending on who the Socceroos trot out. They have a little more depth, so sitting their top players (if they choose to do this) probably won't have quite the same impact.

So who's playing :p. Seriously, all the best for tomorrow. I know you've done an exceptional job with the NZ NT, and all the best with your next reign as NT manager :).

The list of who's not playing should help. ;) Thanks for the well wishes, and good luck to you in your re-election bid. :)

I think Aussie in trouble ;)

we'll see. Really comes down to how the tactics fare against each other, and how strong the team that we're both putting out.

Underway against Australia.

Could be ugly. :) Biggest problem for New Zealand is the defense. I’ve rested most every able bodied defender. Back line may have difficulty with ball recovery. I’m hoping the midfield will compensate with a little more ball recovery then usual - they are played a little deeper then normal and all have reasonable tackling skills. Should the defense recover the ball, they will have several easy outlet passes, so kick-outs should be minimal.

The offense will hopefully be generated by the OM (Root in the first half, Sparrow in the second). If he’s well positioned, the other middies should be able to hit him. Roza (and Hawkey in the second half) are scrappy, so if the team can get the ball rattling around in the Australian defense, good things could happen.

442
Welford
Anthopoulos, M Gilbert, Kingi, Graham
Richards, Smith (Dabner 70), Sparrow, Root (Lynch 70)
Morcombe (Hawkey 46), Roza

Bench
Groves, Shields

Roza takes penalties, freebies are open. With more orders then usual, only 3 defenders are covered in case of card (Richards) - Gilbert has the best defending, so he’s omitted.

Good game, all goals came from costly mistakes though, and that's also including the one we scored. Another close one which once again could have gone either way.

Was close :)
But I think we had it all over ya.
Nice work Seca ;)

Do I detect a little bit of bias :p. Was different styles of play and probably in the end the quality of your strikers (who aren't even your first squad strikers) outperformed ours and was enough for you to get the result.
(edited)

I wasn't expecting that aggressive a formation from you. :) Bit of a surprise. A good idea considering the questionable defense of New Zealand in this one.

As expected, ball recovery was a real issue. Anthopoulos had his hands full with Willis - fortunately most of the crosses went awry. Kingi didn't really tackle anyone ... but did sweep the ball ok, which was the hope. :)

I was pleasantly surprised with the midfield. They did help will ball recovery, but also held possession well and moved the ball fairly crisply. Smith stood out. Root also had a nice match.

First New Zealand goal was pure providence - Morcombe appeared tightly marked on the corner. Second goal a result of a bad defensive miscue by an Australian defender. Roza did make a hash of several quality chances, so perhaps I feel less guilty about the lucky ones. :)

M Gilbert continues to terrify me when he has the ball. Awful, awful pass to set off a 3 on none for the Australia goal. Kicked the ball out several times in a tactic designed to minimize that activity. :S

Lynch subbed the wrong guy. :P Originally I had Sparrow up front first, then Root. Forgot to switch the sub when I switched them around. Lynch didn't get much chance to strut his stuff - he's much better then the 38 he put up in this one.

Things happen. I had someone else who basically approached me with the idea for this tactic and I looked at it and discussed a bit further and came to the conclusion it was worth a shot. So as the tactic name says "Blame Achmid" for that one since that was pretty much his idea, I just looked at who we had that could fit the needs and modified a few positional issues.

So there was no way you were going to know that's what was happening ;). I'm sure he'll explain more but our midfield was virtually all players who could potentially play defensive midfield to try and capitalize on your midfield and then to attack from there.

Was pleading when I saw the backpass from Gilbert and saw the opportunity, for the ball to stay in and fortunately for us it did and if there was one player you wouldn't want the ball to fall to it's Willis.

Also think Anthopoulos was a bit lucky to avoid a card with the number of fouls committed. Probably about time the ref looked the other way for your side, which have been hit by cards quite badly this NT season.
(edited)

Yeh, maybe not expect that aggressive play from cometer....but me on the other hand :P

supprisingly it didnt take too much to convince cometer of the 3 def tactic. I had a fair idea of the tactic you would use, and all the positives about my tactics worked perfectly...all but one...but pondeljak didnt get that chance.

Of course I won't say why I had certain positions where I did because I don't want to give off any clues to other NT's, after all, NZ and Aus have to stick together agaisnt the rest of the world.

I agree with your comments about Anthopoulos. IMO there are 3 reasons to play a winger, only one of which is to try and score goals (the other two are spread the defense, and get the opponent defenders in trouble with the referee). Jerry could easily have been booked in this one.

The rationality of the card system in Sokker is becoming a pet peeve of mine. Far too often the first tackle of a match receives a red card, while Jerry can foul Willis all game long and not even get a yellow. I don't think it would be that hard to tweak things so that the referee was a little more incremental, and a little less random.

Yeh, maybe not expect that aggressive play from cometer....but me on the other hand :P

Heehee. It did seem out of character for Cometer - I assumed it was a knee-jerk reaction to last week's Australia match. Now that I see your hand involved it makes more sense. :D

If you are playing a 3-1 at the back, I think it is REALLY important for the team to win possession and territory, otherwise you are asking for trouble. That Australia lost both even though they had one more midfielder suggests some tweaking may be in order.

I usually watch the match twice before I post (1st watch as a fan, 2nd watch as an analyst) but was slow getting the 2nd watch in today (my father-in-law was attempting to sleep on the couch while I watched at 3AM).

Second watch observations:

- the line throws were awful. Players were open, but the back-pass was killer. I think all but one were a turn-over. Square throws seem to be better.

- Smith MOM? His best game for the NT IMO.

- midfield played really well. SSRR were all over the ball

- through balls. If I were to rank the top 3 through balls since I've been here, John Root would own all 3. Not sure what it is about him, but he's got the knack.

If you are playing a 3-1 at the back, I think it is REALLY important for the team to win possession and territory, otherwise you are asking for trouble. That Australia lost both even though they had one more midfielder suggests some tweaking may be in order.

Yeah, I did try to control the midfield with the players selected but obviously under-estimated your mids defending skills, but yeah when you play a tactic for the first time there is always going to be some flaws, so by playing it I can determine what parts need tweaking and work on improving those.