Subject: »[NT] Update

i was close :D

This player have a chance to play in NT ???

Shimon MacIlvora , age 20
value: 588 000 lei, wage: 7 600 lei
very good form

tragic stamina,
very good pace,
excellent technique,
average passing,
tragic keeper
weak defender
average playmaker
very good striker

If he improves his striking and stamina he could play.

He is a very nice prospect. The Snowhares youth system has become a striker factory. :P

:( That doesn't make a defender trainer very happy mind you...

Have an agreement to play Columbia in a friendly match this coming Saturday.

I believe we have an agreement to play Portugal June 3rd - tho there have been some communication difficulties. :)

Bosna i Hercegovina - June 10th.

Hehe thats where I come from. Glad I don't have any player in NT to play against lol.

your doing a great job of picking up "4 point games"

nicely done

Eesti - June 17

BiH was upset by Ireland yesterday. They had been in front of us. Still will be a good test for our lads.

y'know,

I just watched Germany get hammered by England in the semi-finals 4-1. They outshot them 17-3 and totally dominated possession. It could have been 8-1. Germany is supposed to be a really good team. So I went back and watched our match against England which was a 2-1 loss and realized that our NT is actually much better than we may think it is. If it wasn't for two 'boot of god' tackles and some amazing keeping by Hann, we would have won that game. Heck, if Parker makes a save that he clearly should have had we would have at least gotten a draw.

And then there was the 2-0 lead vs. the Dutch, and so many other games, grrrr America.

Basically, I think that we aren't far off from the top teams. Its litterally just a bounce here or there, one or two plays a game and we can beat anyone outside of Poland.

By next year I think that the development Amado, Iginla and Fichaud will really put us in the running for a good run.

Lets hope anyways, it would be fun to watch!

Our team is an interesting one.

Because of the presence of the 3 horsemen, we have a chance in almost any game, regardless of the quality of the opposition (see this season's Voyageur cup final).

In a sense, these 3 players (Barry, Moreau, Garvey) are more mature then they really should be. They were starting players on one of our oldest Canadian teams and have received continuous training since week 8 of Canada's first season. Team Canada's success is due in no small part to the contributions of Shalrik.

We have also been fortunate to have a member of the community (rhilker) who had the foresight to train a Canadian keeper to divine. Parker is still young and receiving pace training. By the next WC he will be as good as any keeper in Sokker.

Good defenders and midfielders take time to develop. If you look at our depth chart, you may note the number of players in midfield and defence that are in their early 20s. This is really encouraging - to be on the depth chart, their primary skill must be strong. The young age suggests there will be time to build secondaries while these players are in their prime.

In the short term, we should be very competitive. I am a little concerned about the long term.

As the game matures, the advantage the 3 horsemen have given us will be eroded.

This is when our small size is likely to show. For every Fichaud we pull, (in theory) a country like Argentina pulls 13 similar players.

Furthermore, as a small country (with fewer youths) it is a greater posibility our premier pulls may "miss" a position (this season a disproportionate number of our great youths seeem to have been forwards with very few potential defenders).

In the long term, team strength will be determined partly by our commitment to train Canadian, and partly by communicating to ensure all aspects of the team are growing together.

My tactic wasn't optimum for facing you though, and despite how bad it was, England still won though.

I think that's what you need in an NT - the ability to win with tactical errors.

well, ours was even less optimum, look at our strikers!

anyways, my point was that we have been competitve in most of our matches against the top 10, more than many teams that are ahead of us.
(edited)

well, ours was even less optimum, look at our strikers!

I think that is a little unfair.

First off, I played the match thinking that a draw would be a good result for us. I think our tactic was reasonably well suited to this aim.

mr gibbage expected us to attack the wings. When we didn't, he had two under-utilised players in the wide WBs.

I expected mr gibbage to pound the middle with his treehouse tactic. When he didn't, I had an extra CB in there who was under-utilised. Since we had fewer under-utilised players then England, I would suggest they had the less optimal formation (no offence mr gibbage).

I'm not sure what your complaint is about the strikers. If you have some constructive criticism, I would happily accept it. :)

(Again, I was expecting the treehouse tactic. I spent 2.5 hours viewing matches involving that tactic, pausing frequently, and made 27 sketches of player positions at different ball locations. I deployed the forwards in what I felt were the best positions considering these sketches and the vacuum at center midfield left by the use of an extra CB).

I remember that game a little better now. Our strikers should have been a little further upfield. Not perfect. We did manage to outshoot them, even tho we only had 2 middies, so I don't think the forward positioning was terrible.

The those two tackles by Harper summarize things pretty well for me. These tackles were against our best technical player. And twice he took the ball cleanly from behind. That suggests a significant skill differential.

I'm not saying we couldn't beat a team like England. But it would take a great deal of good fortune to accomplish it.