Subject: National Team

Game against Slovensko is going to be really hard one...

More concerned at this stage with the game next week against Poland.

Whilst I understand Slovakia is going to be tough, they don't come much tougher than next week ;).

I'm quietly confident we can knock off Slovakia anyway if I get our tactic right.

Appears like South Korea have organised another friendly on the same week as we were scheduled to play them. That's a bit frustrating, but I'll see what else I can get as a replacement.

We take on Poland tomorrow in our 2nd WCQ. Realistically we're not going to win if they use their 1st XI. In saying that though I'm hopeful of being competitive. A 3-4 goal loss is probably respectable.

I will of course attempt to get a better result then that (I never see the point in conceding defeat without at least trying, especially in an online game) but we will probably require some luck and a lot of our defenders just aren't in sufficient form to cause problems for Poland. Red cards are going to be so critical and we just can't afford to be on the wrong end of them like Slovensko was last week.

Strus I believe managed Canada last season and I think in the past has run for election here too and got beaten by 1 vote, so isn't an inexperienced manager which makes it even harder for us to get it right and even then there's no guarantee.

In the past we've played Poland once in a game where Poland used a heavily reduced squad and we won 1-0 from memory with Stan Amien scoring. A victory here would be hilarious and I'd contemplate retirement but I'm still going to try to make qualification easier.

I'll give a bit more of a preview a little later this evening. Any comments/suggestions as usual please feel free to post or let me know via skmail.

Australia vs Poland
# Users 82 - 20540
National team rank 39 - 1
Rank points 1976.1- 3522.37
Previous encounters
2007-02-03 Australia - Polska 1-0
Major Goalscorers during past encounters
Stan Amien 1 (Australia)


Stats Of The Week:

1. Australia has a 100% win record and has never conceded a goal against Poland
2. Australia has never won a 1st XI match between Dec 1 and Dec 9 despite having played 4 matches of this type. (Record stands at 0-2-2). In addition to this Australia has never conceded nor scored more than 1 goal in these matches.
3. In WCQ's during week 3 in matches involving Australia, the home side has never won nor had more than 6 shots for the entire game with a total scoring accuracy of 8%.
4. Australia has never won a WCQ during week 3 whilst playing at home.
5. The most common weather condition for week 3 WCQ's for matches involving Australia is moderate clouds, cool which has occurred 50% of the time and is forecasted again for the game tomorrow.


(edited)

We're set for Poland in just over an hours time. Hopefully we get some luck in this game but most importantly I hope we don't get bad luck in the form of red cards/injuries and whatever else we don't need.

Fortunately a loss is pretty much expected and there's a friendly next week, so any damage caused today shouldn't be major, especially when we've got Jamaica and Hong Kong in 2 of the next 3 weeks. From that perspective having players out of form, injured or suspended atm isn't as bad as in other weeks.

There will be more talk after the game and I hope people make comments afterwards for good or bad (Any comment informs me that there are people that are interested in the NT and it's not just an extra novelty tag).

Again, ideas are welcome though I think it's probably too late for massive changes now with just over an hour to kickoff. Let's get this over with and move onto next week.

I will get to see first minutes before leaving off to uni :)

Given the difference in strength between the two teams, that's probably all you're going to need to see :P.

Seriously though, I'm hopeful of a reasonable result. Maybe not a win, that's almost like expecting to win the lottery but a 3 or 4 goal defeat would be ok, particularly when Slovakia lost 4-0 last week.

Ordinary result in the end. We were 6-0 down after 22min. The remaining 70min went alright. I wasn't expecting a back 5 from Poland, in fact I was quite surprised when they showed up with a back 5 when they're clearly a superior side. That in itself destroyed my intended offensive structure and we never really threatened as a result.

3 of the first 6 goals came from headers off crosses as a consequence of defenders not pushing up like they were suppose to. They seemed to ball watch and then realise oh yeah we're meant to push up now by which it was too late as the cross had already been delivered. So am disappointed conceding goals like that when I had every intention to push up off throws to avoid those "soft" goals.

In the end I got suckered into assuming the wrong things and we paid for it on the scoreboard.

2nd half I thought went a lot better then the first but the game was gone by then.


As often is the case though, in hindsight had I assumed Poland would play as they did then I would have structured things slightly differently and is something I'll look into for the return match at the end of season.
(edited)

Defending from throw ins were bad and I thought too many players played too deep. In saying that, I doubt I could have done better!

I think for throw ins there were 2 really poor ones which led to a number of their goals, one on each side. Some of the offensive throws were deliberately conceded as the plan was to attack one side. Overall though I'd agree throw ins weren't good.

Players were deep for a reason as I was trying to minimise cards and at the same time expecting them to press hard, tried to free up our midfield to give them a bit more time on the ball but it didn't really work out as soon as they stuck 5 defenders in the line. Argument against that could be exactly what happened, we weren't able to get forward to create more chances but at the same time had they been in normal positions we might have opened up more at the back.

Wasn't the best result we've had but the 2nd half was much improved on the first. 0-0 and restricted Poland to 4-5 shots.

I've promoted a few players from various div II sides who are bots and now that it's quite clear sides can be replaced in II and not just III, I'd like a chance to save them if possible. I doubt any will be sensational but I'm also not willing to risk the chance that they might be useful. Where possible I've dropped players who I know won't be going bot anytime soon (My own players in the NT squad made way first where possible). Of particular note were a number of TBF players who I have no idea what their skills are currently but might be of value.

The list includes:

Mark Gulessarian (TBF) no idea of skills, never received them
Matthew Newcombe (TBF) same as above
Andrew Plesa (TBF) have had skills in the past, getting a bit old but was close to NT at the time.
Clayton Walker (TBF) same as Plesa.

Allan Woodenberg (Roar FC) was a valuable U21 member with great potential cut down by cloete's lack of interest in the game. Still only 23 though.
(edited)

Woodenberg was a fantastic prospect. I hope he can be saved, and soon. Good idea.

Just on bots....looks like Cumlionibus got the flick during the week. Happy to have the new arrivals this weekend.
(edited)

Ive got plenty of cash if you need a player purchased and trained.

Woodenberg was a fantastic prospect. I hope he can be saved, and soon. Good idea.

It was actually naphtali that thought about the possibility of TBF being replaced and whether players were worth trying to save. I then took it a little further and went through all bots in II to see if there were any players of worth. I'll need to play Newcombe in a NT game though before TBF get replaced to ensure he gets listed.

If my calculations are correct though, Roar FC should be the next side replaced so long as it's before league games.