Subject: [NT] Andreasson

Hi Canada!

I`m here to candidate for your Nationalcoach. Perhaps a few of you know me.

To my person:
My name is Andreas (Andy), I`m 19 years old and my home-city is Winterthur (near Zurich) in Switzerland. In my free-time I play football in a Club in my city. So you see, football is my life (also party and women...).

Me and Sokker:
I play Sokker for a long time. In this time a became 2 times Champion from my country and I won 1 Cup. In this season I won the Double in Switzerland! But I have a lot of experience also in the "International-Football" ;) So I was 2 seasons Coach from Switzerland (and I did the Quali), then I became coach from Hayastan for other 2 seasons and now I was 2 seasons coach from Austria. With Austria I missed the Quali for the WC... against Canada. But seca had already nightmares about me after the 1:2 from Canada against "my" Austria ;).

Why Canada?
I played already a few times against Canada. I like the game they play(ed). There are a few great players like Caron, Wang, Iginla and many others. I would really like to coach this team and to bring you to the World-Cup. An other reason is, that my oncle lives in Canada (near Toronto) and I like the country (and the Hockey...).

My aimes:
My first aim would be to bring the team to the World-Cup. Thats clear. An other aim would be to continue the good work from seca. A last aim would be to make more work in the Forum. Perhaps we could convince more managers, that the Nationalteam is really interessting...

I would be really happy if you vote for me. If there are other questions, feel free to ask me. And if you aren`t sure if you should vote for me, you should be clear, that I would give 100% for succes. :)

What do you mean with more work in the forum, explain plz. Seca made some exceptional work in our forum so you think you can do more?

Amado is our best striker, what do you think about him, you didn't mention him in your post?

Is there anything in our NT squad you don't like?

I don`t want to spend more time then Seca, and I think that he did a quiet perfect job in the forum. But my idea would be to talk also with the managers themselves and search the "nearer" contact to the managers from canada. Perhaps a few of them would be interessed in their Nationalteam then.

Amado is also a great player, I lost once against "him" with Austria :)

At the moment I would say that I don`t like the interesse from the managers in Canada ;) And in some of the games I saw from Canada in the past, the defense wasn`t so good (in my eyes). I would say that I`m a specialist in setting a 4 man defense. In the middfield you have a great team, thats no question.

I always made a point to try and involve Canadian managers in tactical and line-up decisions. I usually sent pre-game messages to 2 or 3 managers (often different managers) looking for input. I thought it a good way to get people involved.

When things started to go wrong in qualifying last season I stopped doing this. I decided that if we were going down, I wanted only myself to blame. I started doing it a little more again this season, but not to the extent I once did.

And in some of the games I saw from Canada in the past, the defense wasn`t so good (in my eyes). I would say that I`m a specialist in setting a 4 man defense.

Ouch. And here I thought I was a defense-first tactician. :)

*Slumps shoulders as Charlie Brown music plays in the background*

I see that it isn`t easy to bring the managers in the forum :)
But perhaps Canada needs an other coach with new force to try ;)

To the defense:
I saw also only 4-5 games from Canada, so it can be, that I saw the bad games ;)

*Wonderwall from Oasis in the background"

I had 4 or 5 bad games? Wow. I freely admit Germany. What were the other ones?

No, I didn`t want to say that you had 4-5 bad games. I said, that I saw a faw games from you with not soooo good defensive performances. I would count surely also the 1:2 against me (Austria), but there was also much badluck in the game...

I see. Sorry I misunderstood. :)

I'm still curious what those "not sooooo good" defensive performances were. Which matches are you talking about?

Phuu...
I can remember the game I saw against USA (I think you lost 4:2 (?)). I saw the game to visit your team befor we played against you. Then the game against us and And there were also 2-3 other games, but to be honest, I can`t remember. Don`t take it personal ;)

I don't mean to sound defensive. If I am doing something wrong, I want to know about it. :)

The USA match wasn't a good defensive game. It was an early-season mostly U21 match (U21 is always tougher to read). I figured Mr. Gibbage would use wingers - but decided not to mark them closely - hoping their crosses wouldn't be good, or that we could intercept them in the penalty box. It was the wrong decision. :) I don't think a better 442 would have made much difference - that game required 5 at the back.

I've always been curious about the defense you used in this match. It was a very important match, and IMO was not a good defensive tactic by Austria. Why did you play so deep? BiH did not have a strong technical striker - they had a great deal of difficulty getting shots on goal (2 & 4 in two games against Canada, only 6 shots in each match against Greece).

By playing deep, Austria conceded far more shots then they needed to. Yes, these shots were mostly from distance, but that is how BiH scored the vast majority of their goals during qualifying. And wasn't it Austria's second or third string keeper playing? Even more reason not to concede long shots. I would think a defense specialist would recognize that situation as one where a more aggressive positioning of the defensive line was required. Don't get me wrong - I felt Austria deserved to win that match - but not because of good defensive tactics.

Seca usually have a really good communication with the Canadian managers. I usually ask for advice in how to train my NT players. I have talked about players in general but not about tactics, because I am really poor tactician myself (but I am improving a little thanks to Seca).

@ Andreasson, Thanks for your praise to Caron.

Since this candidate has withdrawn from the election, I'm closing his thread.