Subject: NT involvement...

...particularly from users who have no or few NT players has always been disappointing. I fit in to this category and want to care more than i do so i want to share people's opinions and frustrations on why it is so poor.

I raised this topic in Bugs/Ideas in June, without a lot of interest, but a recent incident has led me to bring it up again.

Terry Bensted (what, you don't know him?) led his age group in England by some way as a MID at least until the age of 21. Of course, it was possible there were better players. Owners of these players kept quiet if so.

Anyway, for a few months now i've expected my player to be involved with the full NT, particularly in U25 games (he is 25) but he hasn't. I don't really know why this is, i've kept him updated.

Anyway, i noticed he had a 21 day injury when i was setting my team for my must-win final game of the season. I checked my last friendly and league game and didn't see an injury. I actually started filling out a bug report until i realised he may have been selected for his country which was of course the case.

I don't really expect the NT manager to let everyone know who's playing (although the U21 manager does do it) so having a notification or SK mail when my player plays for his country is going to firstly, make me aware if he's been injured on duty and secondly, quite possibly get me involved in watching the game.

Instead i was just narked by his injury.

If we can't get people who have players in the team to watch the games, how can we get users who don't have any?

I had this same situation with my Azerbajani U21 striker getting injured on duty - which I found out a couple of minutes before the game, luckily.

I have to say I wish they'd send a mail saying, 'Hey, your player got injured, sorry' but what can you do?

What about having a thread that announces each England squad for a set of friendlies. So for arguments sake say there is 3 friendlies in the first 7 weeks of a season, the squad is announced and kept the same unless of course there is an attachment to the thread saying a player has been changed due to injury or form. Maybe the NT manager should be the only person to be able to write on this thread to give the updates and it wouldnt then get swallowed up by us public asking questions and commenting.
I know very little about the NT and this maybe asking the manager to do too much work. I think though it would increase my personal interest in watching the games if I knew who the players were and who they played for and would also give abit of excitement for people with fringe players that may get drafted in.

Hopefully we can get the NT involvement moving along again.

i personally think you shouldn't become a NT or U21 manager unless you have the time to do the things being requested here (sending individual managers messages and such) I have a player involved in the U21's and it makes me watch the game (preying for an injury to Moggs)

Apart from that, the idea I had for running the U21's (i stood for election and got one vote!) was to not worry about the results, but keep changing the team every week, using a mixture of ages...if you do this, more people will have players involved, leading to more interest in the team. + it would sure be nice to have a good quality 18y/o receive extra training early on, over a 21 y/o who is better but has no chance of making the N/T.

The point is that we try to ensure that we have a decent set of players leading from the u21 team to the Full NT side.

When I was u21 manager I did not show the players on a weekly basis as I felt it gave too much away, generally people knew who would be playing though. I tried really hard to ensure people were involved and constantly sent messages to trainers of players. Many times gaining no response which can be rather deflating.

It is the end of the season and jpk is at the end of his reign and due to this I doubt he has wanted to go into too much detail. With regards to Bensted I am sure he will receive many caps for the NT.
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isn't the best way of getting better players to the national team ensuring that the more talented ones play regardless of age and current ability (obviously they need some level of skill in a position)

I don't see why there is such an emphasis on winning at U21 level, maybe pride :)

you'll find that there are talented players at every age in every position, so you might as well play the talented 21yo's who will be more likely to win. the younger players will get their chance when they're 21. also everyone likes to win, so trying to makes sense :p i find the extra training doesn't make too much difference anyway...

fair enough, i thought the extra training (and extra tactical discipline) made more of a difference
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just as an example...after each of my keepers three caps, his tactical discipline went up a level...prior to the caps it took a long time for it to go up at all.

well you get 50% worth of training from nt matches, but if they play a match for your team then they'll get most of the training anyway so the nt matches only give you roughly an extra 10% of training at most. i don't know how much of a difference it makes on tactical discipline though...

It increases experience a tad more and increses teamwork nicely - but the teamwork is generally negated as U21's are the most likely to sold and that resets it to the beginning again :)

dont you guys use your association?

as for players getting injured while on NT duty - its the way it goes im afraid. I usually send an skmail saying sorry about the injury mate and i always make sure i do not play players who are requested by the manager to not take part (only in friendlies mind)

It's full of tumbleweed and stuff :(

well that is just plain silly. The association is where the NT & U21 teams/selection tactics/ scouting etc should be done. In the public forum it is where lying, deception towards managers of opponents

The most activity on that forum was when I commented on the lack of activity :P