Subject: NT vs Serbia

In an hours time we play a key qualification game against Serbia. Its crucial that we can pick up an early win to boost our chances of qualification.

I hope that many of you will watch the game and provide comments post match.

USA picked up a comfortable win against Serbia today.

Final score was only 1-0, but we had pretty much all the chances (GK had rating of 39 as he had nothing to do) and deserved a bigger win.

Well here's my general comments after the match

1. WAY too cluttered. You could literally fit all the players into 3 columns when the ball was in the middle. It reminded me of 5 year old futbol when the kids just chase the ball around in a giant pack.

What really won it for us was that they spread it really wide on the sides but didn't give a good length so we didn't have to face very much. That's a bit confusing how I said it but if you look, our two forwards only really had to compete with 2-3 defenders tops and it was smart to keep them together. they had 1 forward to deal with 2-3 defenders then the 1 played out wide but we were able to cover him so it was like they were playing a man down in the middle. Their defenders on the other hand were spread really thin and it was really easy to get through balls in for breakaways.

We should have won by a lot more looking at some of those chances missed, however the goal that we did score was really pretty.

It was deliberately cluttered, I knew my opponent would play a high defensive line and decided that if I was to move my defence back to create space for both teams to play I would largely invite pressure on myself during the match (as most of the game would be played in our half where the space is).

Based on this, I wanted to use two narrow strikers and smash my way through the middle of the pitch. As he was playing a high line, it was very important to be able to break his defensive line or I would get no chances at all, and I knew from experience that a narrow front two works really well for this.

Equally, I knew that Serbia could only create chances if he broke my defensive line. If I could deny his attacker and winger any space, winning the ball high up the pitch then I knew that Serbia would not be able to create chances. I felt the 'cluttered' play was a result of this working!

I know the game was a little dull to watch, but my priority is always the result.

Good win, happy to see Lucky help out with the assist.

Serbia is not a weak team and outshouting them 10:2 is great work.

This is a result of experience. Phil has played many times against top notch teams, and although serbia is not 'top notch' they are still a decent national team and tactics make it easier. If you want to control the game it is necessary to use tactics to close down the field. Phil is very good at this and has proven it by his results. I know it may not be the prettiest game but it is highly effective.

---

I think Serbia are a very decent NT, I would expect them to go on and claim 2nd place in this group. I'm not discounting Uraguay, but for me Serbia seem to be our biggest rivals.

I'm not at all putting down the cluttered game, it was just very difficult to watch, especially with the uniforms being so similar (red on blue and blue on red lol)

I think Phil played it really well because the other team played for the game to have space and his winger and attacker to have time and Phil played it like a cluttered game where he plays 2 forwards right close to break down the defense

10-2 shot ratio is very nice