Subject: [World Cup] England

I expected England to block up the middle and relied on the side attacks. Well, they did, it's just that their defenders just had to pace to meet our attack.

What's sad is that I played a quick lineup. Perhaps that fastest that I could have without playing considerably worse players.

Stokes if fairly quick, but England's defenders didnt give him an inch of ground to work with. They were either in exactly the same spot as him. Or had the speed to get to where he was before he could get a chance to make a shot.

Overall, a very depressing match to watch live. :)

Malhan had trouble properly tackling him, but when he did fail, Bridge always stopped him :).
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I mentioned this the last time we played England, and I think it was true again. I think our main 3 defenders were too far from the goal when England had the ball in our half of the field. Defenders don't play man defense on the opposing player that's in their area, but rather stake out a position based on where the ball is located. Since they don't move until the ball does, and the opposing forwards move before that, our defenders need to be deeper than them.

What really confused me about our tactics was that lots of times Gallo and Coburn were closer to the goal than our main 3 defenders.

Still, no matter what the tactics were, I don't think we could have changed the result. England is just too fast, and too skilled overall. I'm looking forwards to watching England match up with Poland.

our midfield got dominated, they passed circles around us
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