Subject: National Team

Thank you :)

We're all set now after some slight adjustments. Chances to have players rested have now closed, so the squad I've set is now final. Those who have expressed interest have been granted their wish, makes our squad look a little bit fragile in places but it is a friendly in the end.

Colombias U25 squad on paper looks about as good as our 1st XI so it's really going to come down to how lucky we can get on the day.

Enjoy the game, I did have hopes of beating them but I had a few more withdrawals then I anticipated :p.

Well I was confident of our chances in beating Colombia with our strongest possible U25 side but it appears that even without our first choice side we came away with a win against a stronger opponent and I don't really believe it was that lucky either as we created more goalscoring chances and probably left a couple on the pitch.

Abreu 2 from 2 is much different to his U21 days where he was known for poor conversion rates. Certainly came to our cause today as Barnes was unable to convert from numerous chances.

Through balls worked a treat, and given the strength of their defense and form of their defenders it would have been difficult to go around them with the U25 players we have.

That should boost our ranking points a bit and we are scheduled to take on NZ next week.

Good luck all for their qualification games.

We take on NZ and I'm using as strong a lineup as possible. With the new M.E being used for todays game I haven't a clue how it's going to go. Our u21 match ended in a forfeit and I haven't watched any others to see how big an influence it's going to be.

In saying that I've come up with something I want to see if it works in this engine.

Enjoy the game.

NZ lost:/ That never happened when I was in charge during the 3 seasons.

Lets face it though it should have happened twice (you losing to Australia) but didn't due to the unbelievable slice of fortune you got both times :).
(edited)

In other news, I didn't really enjoy some of the new features of the match engine very much. I think the passing the ball forward is greatly overexaggerated and often made situations worse. I think a lot of tweaking needs to be done such that when you are out in the clear these things rarely happen which seem to force you wider.

Also was rather unpleasant on the eye, it looked really stop/starty in that its almost like your monitor screen flashes off and on quickly and in that time the plays further forward.

Still despite bombing several chances we put NZ in their rightful place :).

I've entered us into the MWC next season on the assumption that I'll be re-elected. My thought process behind that is not only does it save us the problem of trying to work out who's available for friendlies but there are many solid teams in which we could gain a significant amount of ranking points. Whilst I know thrashing weaker sides improves ranking points quicker in general (until a certain point where opposition ranking points are so far behind ours), in order to get to 32nd I don't think bashing minnows will get us there. We probably need to knock off some of those teams above us as well and this presents an opportunity to do so.

Yep, take 'em down! Good idea.
As a self-confessed rankings horder... I reckon taking on the higher ranked teams is always the way to go. It's lower risk and higher reward.

Good decision, plus it's more interesting to follow too...

I have arranged a fixture with Osterreich for this weekend. Should be a good challenge against a side that has qualified for the world cup this season. Later in the week I'll give a bit of a match preview.

Final friendly for this season and we take on Osterreich. My understanding is they are going to be use mainly 2nd/3rd string players with a couple of 1st XI's but have let us go in with whatever we choose to. Therefore we're going in with close to our 1st XI with a few U26 thrown in.

Hopefully we're able to take this opportunity to beat Osterreich and finish the NT season on a high.

The last time we took on Osterreich would have been a few seasons back now in the WCQ where I think we were more than competitive but just fell short when it mattered.

Didn't quite do enough. We started off on a terrible note where we couldn't land a tackle and they scored from 40yrds+ in the opening minute. Was always going to be an uphill battle after that and it just seemed that everything favoured them when it counted. A few times we'd be through only for them to cut the ball out at the last moment or for our striker to fumble it when clear on goal. Then their ability using their mids to tackle our midfielders with ease from anywhere on the field and avoid our midfielder tackles, along with being able to dribble straight through superdivine defenders made things even tougher. Skill level aside there wasn't enough consistency and that made the difference as they put their chances away when they needed to. Their 4th goal looked like an offside that wasn't called to me but no doubt I'll have a look at the game again to see where things went pear shaped.

I've scheduled a friendly against Scotland this week. They're currently ranked above us but from a first glance their team doesn't seem significantly stronger than ours and so it might prove to be a good opportunity to start the charge towards the top 32. In any case it gives good preparation into the MWC which is going to be very difficult this season with the likes of France, Czech Republic and Norway all in the competition. I'm not sure of the draw at this stage but we'll deal with whatever comes. I'm confident we can get to the last 16, possibly last 8 and anything after that will exceed expectations. The aim as always is to go out and win the competition but it's early days and until the draw is made I can't really set a realistic target.

Got bored and thought I'd take a quick look at who was left from that original team we beat USA with in our first ever NT game (I wasn't quite playing sokker at this time).

Stan Amien Age 38
Still being used as a striker, has scored 609 goals in 290 matches, with 61 assists at club level
In the NT scored 27 goals in 58 matches with a single assist.


Noah Baveas Age 36
Still with his original club (Losers), has 85 assists in 255 club level matches, with 2 goals.
Has 13 assists at national level, in 86 matches with a solitary goal


John Ozbey Age 41
286 matches for 96 assists, and 51 goals at club level
23 matches, 2 assists and 1 goal at NT level


Wesley Broxton Age 36
played 305 matches, scored 5 goals and got 42 assists (not bad for a def mid)
played 112 matches, never scoring a goal, and getting 5 assists


Taking into consideration there are 16 NT matches per season,

These players played for the NT for at least

Amien - 3.5 seasons
Baveas - 5 seasons
Ozbey - 1.5 seasons
Broxton - 7 seasons

To be fair, Ozbey sucked. And Amien had tragic shot/goal ratio. Baveas was a solid mid, Broxton was main defender for quite some time...