Subject: [NT] Friendlies

Not sure why you deleted that Mazo ... was a good question. Thought Sutton had a good match.

Good try against Romania. The new ME test caught me with my pants down with New Zealand - played a tactic that I don't think is all that conducive with the tweaks. Canada's tactic fit the changes alright. A -2 is a pretty good result against a team like Romania.

Congrats to Cairiman on his first NT goal. :) Parise is still looking for his. :P

Didn't really notice a lot of the changes in Canada's play. They were much more obvious for Romania.

Good try against Portugal. Pretty hard fought midfield battle. Some decent service for the strikers, but none of them were able to break that one tackle needed to get through.

Good try indeed.
I don't know if is just me but I can still see strikers running with the ball straight into DEF in most cases.

- Players will now determine dribbling direction somewhat more effectively, instead of proceeding directly towards the goal in most cases.

I don't see strikers doing that.

There were a few examples of that in today's New Zealand match (vs. Belarus). Though they were in situations where the striker had an unopposed path to goal and should have gone straight ahead, but instead drifted to the corner flag.

Any restrictions in the South Africa match today? Is our run in the U21 Tournament over?

Nice match against South Africa. Midfield put some decent balls through ... strikers just a step away from hooking up a number of times.

Broussard really should have done better. Could easily have had a hattrick out of those 8 shots. Not his day. :/

Greece is one of those up&coming teams due to the size of their community. The red card they took opened things ... shots really came freely after that. A deserved win in the end. :)

Good try against Chile. Seemed like a long field ... not that common to see NT matches like that. Broussard had an absolutely miserable match and couldn't do anything right. :S 2nd & 3rd Chile goals were bad defensive laps. None of the defenders reacted to the cross on the second goal - strange.

Nice result against Slovenia. I was concerned to see so many of our best 11 players exposed to injury & cards a week before qualifications, but we got through unscathed. I don't know Slovenia's team all that well, but I'm guessing that since Adamovic didn't play, they were a little more cautious with their selection.

Tactic was effective, and most everyone had a good day. Broussard still not converting at the rate he should be. :/

Nice to go out on a win! Congrats Laufer. :)

friendlies booked so far for the upcoming season:

Week 4:
Week 6:
Week 8: Scotland
Week 10: Chile
Week 12: Australia
Week 15: Suomi U-23
Week 16:
(edited)

Silly question: Why isn't anybody using the "NT Canada" forum for anything?

Friendly vs Uruguay this week

should be a good match

Congrats on the result against Uruguay. They are a good, up and coming team that can be a handful. Granted, they rested their top players today to preserve them for next week.

Which is probably what Canada should have been doing too. Exposing the A-squad to injuries and suspensions in a friendly the week before a must-win qualification match is a little reckless IMO. And we didn't get away with it. Sebrango is perhaps a bigger loss then Broussard. Both are potentially missed.

Liked the tactic. :) Very interesting approach. I'm not sure I'd tuck the off-winger quite so much in the defensive end ... might be giving up some fast-break opportunities by doing so.

The QM is against Israel, so I was not that worried about it, I needed to get a better feel for some of the A team players and what they are capable of within my style of play. So far so good.

I intend to play a much more aggressive style against the Israelis, we have a lot of goal differential to make up, at least three goals

Just watched the match against Chile.

Don't know what happened there, but Canadian Defenders didn't win any tackles?
The strikers and midfielders could do what they wanted to do.
Looks like they have a lot of technique.
You should work on a better setup against wingers for the coming matches as well.
Holden had a very bad day, can't remember one successful tackle or pass.

Lavrynenko made a good game, scored the limited chances we had.
I hope he does so for the important matches as well.

yep, nothing like watching opponent strikers walk right through a double divine defender in top form, multiple times... or lose easy headers in the box, or abandoning a rebound in the penalty area and moving back upfield... lovely stuff from the defence

if I had enough depth at the back to play five I would, but as you noted some of the top 4 are hardly up to the task as it is... even our defenders with divine pace and defending looked pretty useless soooo...

oh man, this has been the worst season ever for me, another loss, this time with over 60% of the play in their end and a 2-1 shot count, lovely

nice play by the Canadian U-23's though, looked better than the sr team, just no finish at all :-/