Subject: »[U21] vs Sweden

my guess would be playmaking, or something with the new ME that is kinda buggy and makes them look for a short pass rather than take a shot when they should

My notes are a little sloppy but I think there is some quality somewhere in them somewhere, hopefully you get something out of my review.


Man those first few minutes were scary there.

3' look as Trigg keeps that forward onside, had they made that pass there would have been trouble

I definitely agree with Hale being wasted, but I'm not sure if it was the position he was playing but more of where he played in relation to other players. I felt like maybe he needed to be pushed away from the forwards a little bit. Something that I had noticed when I made my tactics for my team was that there came a point of pushing an offensive midfielder up that switched from helpful to hurtful. I think on the offense our forwards could've used being a notch forward and Hale could've been better off not pushing up so much right when the ball crossed the midpoint line.

I think it was a good test for short passes on the ME but I don't think they are going to be doing give and goes often enough for that to be useful.

37' - Probably the 1 time that I feel Hale's positioning up front worked.

39' - I looked down and up and a goal happened here that I missed, but I heard post and it looked like something the keeper could've had.

I felt like we looked a lot slower today. It seemed Sverige had a lot better pace for the most part. Nothing to fix about that, just an observation


Something that I might try tactically is a rotation around the back to kind of give some support. I felt like our back midfielder would sometimes push to the side too much to give support and then the middle would be lost at times. If maybe a wingback pushes up there, the defense could rotate to the side some, and the midfielder could stay more central and prevent any counters through there. Because from what I've watched rarely will a team who is defending be able to cross the ball all the way across the map diagonally to a break away, and if they did try our other defenders would definitely be able to close the gap before the ball got there.

That's just kind of my theory - Take as many of their players out of play to create the greatest player advantage for yourself in a certain part of the field, while still keeping a reasonable distance to their "wasted" players to prevent a counter.

70' - that was cute, you guys plan to substitute together?

Towards the end there at 75' and 80' Singer and Tucker both avoided shooting...hmmm...

also good goalkeeping on our side, they definitely had some good shots


Overall, 1-1 aint too bad at all mate. Nice tie

Best Regards,
Llama

TBH, I think that Hale was wasted in that slot. He has the skills to play there, but to me it seemed like everything that was played forward never reached him or went straight to the strikers. Good call about not playing the Free Kick taker as well. Had you selected Hale for that, he probably wouldn't have taken it as soon as he had further too run to get to the spot.

Sure, Hale's form has really slacked lately, but I think he was just too crowded to do much of anything in that CAM spot.

"Sure, Hale's form has really slacked lately, but I think he was just too crowded to do much of anything in that CAM spot."

Yep, that's exactly my point

maybe, but the other team's strikers did not have that problem

I agree the other team stacked as well but if you look at our defense compared to theirs, they smash all 4 of their defenders close in while we keep some distance

Plus from what I noticed, it seemed they crowded in 2 groups, half would crowd about 10-15 meters in front of our defenders so it was like 3v1 or 3v2, and then the other half would crowd right around our sweepers so so that when a ball came in there they would have a lot better chance to get the ball

Our crowding was just at that point where it doesnt work (this is from personal experience). Either you play a 3rd forward who can crowd up there with them (have 1 really high up then 2 under to support) or you play your forwards then drop off a considerable distance to where he's still a part of the attack but not where he gets caught running past the forwards but trying to be a midfielder.

I think the crowding didnt work because of there pace, the holes were there, they just closed quickly. There was 2 or 3 times early that Hale received a ball off throw in that he just held the ball until he was tackled. I had a feeling then he wasn't going to create anything.

On strikers not shooting I would say Pm and maybe a little stamina

I did like him in those throw in positions, didn't get to mention that

despite him not making anything of them, they were good looking opportunities

Looks to me that the biggest issue was that you would have been better off to play Hale as a winger. Its usually pretty tight in the centre of the pitch, especially when a player is advanced so usually its a bit of a waste.

Phil! Where ya been?!

I watched Swedens last friendly and there was a big hole there, I have never played a omc type player there in the past so figured he would not feel he needed to close it.

It was an experiment I felt was worth the risk. Hopefully the next U21 manager takes notes.