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Subject: National Team
looks very good. game against USA this week will be pivotal, though there is a chance that even with a draw/small lose we can make it.
win is what we're aiming at though. :)
win is what we're aiming at though. :)
That was a close one, unfortunately they've won. Not bad considering the difference in level [72.7 vs 76] but still...
Puca's injury didn't help, but didn't harm that much. USA used a good defensive tactic and it was hard to get through them. We're still in the race and everything can happen.
Puca's injury didn't help, but didn't harm that much. USA used a good defensive tactic and it was hard to get through them. We're still in the race and everything can happen.
Great stuff. At some point I'm going to do a Hall of Fame. Haven't got around to it yet.
Would be good to see an honour roll of the players with 50, 100 caps. Might bump you club stats thread.
Would be good to see an honour roll of the players with 50, 100 caps. Might bump you club stats thread.
I should hopefully have a complete set of NT data in the next month (including U21/1st XI split) which might make it easier for compilation. Well at least 1st XI stuff should be done in a month, U21's might take a bit longer if I come across difficulties.
From there we can separate out into 50/100 caps and whether we want 50/100 caps of Senior level or at any level. If I've set up my database properly I should be able to query just about any stat you can see available on the match report.
However, if people are eager to determine 50/100 caps beforehand by all means go for it as it's a good idea :).
From there we can separate out into 50/100 caps and whether we want 50/100 caps of Senior level or at any level. If I've set up my database properly I should be able to query just about any stat you can see available on the match report.
However, if people are eager to determine 50/100 caps beforehand by all means go for it as it's a good idea :).
We were supposed to play a u27 game but...well...
Barnes - injured
Huxley - injured
what am I supposed to do now? lol.
plus Drum injured. All is left are two 33yo strikers, Stephenson and Maras - wohoo.
Barnes - injured
Huxley - injured
what am I supposed to do now? lol.
plus Drum injured. All is left are two 33yo strikers, Stephenson and Maras - wohoo.
Ah well, no U27 game then. Or U27 with exceptions. Not having much luck to have them all injured
Happily I've forgotten about Leijer, so we do have a striker. Stephenson on the bench though, Belarus' coach agreed for it so it's all ok.
Weird tactic though.
Weird tactic though.
Disaster. It seemed like a good idea, since the u27 defenders are close to/first team, both wingers are first team players, Barnes is the best player. Only central midfielders were supposed to be weaker than rest of the team. Unfortunately we lost Barnes, then we lost Huxley...and we were left with 25yo Leijer. The double winger worked decently, unfortunately central midfielders were losing every fight for the ball...
Ah...and from what I see coach of Belarus misunderstood me. I was wondering why they were doing so good...
I wanted to play a u27 game, he understood that Australia will use u27 and he can use normal team - great :|
I wanted to play a u27 game, he understood that Australia will use u27 and he can use normal team - great :|
I often wonder whether they misunderstand, or choose to 'misunderstand'.
The double winger worked decently, unfortunately central midfielders were losing every fight for the ball...
We really do see different games don't we :). Not for the first time this season I've disagreed with something you "experimented" and said went well when I've thought it was a waste of resources.
3 things cost us this match:
1) Our 5 man defense failed to cover their winger for most parts where a winger is dangerous. Throws were covered well but the rest from general play was far too compressed and allowed their winger freedom to do whatever they wanted to.
2) Our midfielders were in no mans land the entire game. They lost the ball because they were so close to the oppositions midfielders/defenders and front on at NT level you're almost always going to get tackled, particularly when one's only in excellent form. The flipside of this was that they then exposed our defense to allow balls to be passed between them at will and allow suitable time for those that were cut out to be tackled again by their striker. One of the most basic rules if you decide to play a high pressing game is to keep your midfield close to your defense at all times. We failed to do so and we shot ourselves in the foot (not for the first time this season either).
3) A double winger, essentially made it 10 v 9 in their favour. Apart from the odd chance that was created because of Erdogan where the 2nd winger was useful, we really lost out on creating more opportunities through either strengthening the midfield, or opening up another passage to score. I feel like Erdogan was wasted, playing so defensively that it destroyed his best asset of getting past defenders. A better approach would have been to play a winger each side if you wanted to use both, or if you really wanted to play 2 wingers, have one alongside but to the left of the other so a defender can't cover both spots at once.
I don't really see why we should be complaining if they used a stronger side, ratings wise we're pretty much on par, but we just failed to utilise our strongest assets and continually shoot ourselves in the foot by providing no options to goal, which leads defenders to backpass, belt the ball out and hold the ball up and get tackled.
We really do see different games don't we :). Not for the first time this season I've disagreed with something you "experimented" and said went well when I've thought it was a waste of resources.
3 things cost us this match:
1) Our 5 man defense failed to cover their winger for most parts where a winger is dangerous. Throws were covered well but the rest from general play was far too compressed and allowed their winger freedom to do whatever they wanted to.
2) Our midfielders were in no mans land the entire game. They lost the ball because they were so close to the oppositions midfielders/defenders and front on at NT level you're almost always going to get tackled, particularly when one's only in excellent form. The flipside of this was that they then exposed our defense to allow balls to be passed between them at will and allow suitable time for those that were cut out to be tackled again by their striker. One of the most basic rules if you decide to play a high pressing game is to keep your midfield close to your defense at all times. We failed to do so and we shot ourselves in the foot (not for the first time this season either).
3) A double winger, essentially made it 10 v 9 in their favour. Apart from the odd chance that was created because of Erdogan where the 2nd winger was useful, we really lost out on creating more opportunities through either strengthening the midfield, or opening up another passage to score. I feel like Erdogan was wasted, playing so defensively that it destroyed his best asset of getting past defenders. A better approach would have been to play a winger each side if you wanted to use both, or if you really wanted to play 2 wingers, have one alongside but to the left of the other so a defender can't cover both spots at once.
I don't really see why we should be complaining if they used a stronger side, ratings wise we're pretty much on par, but we just failed to utilise our strongest assets and continually shoot ourselves in the foot by providing no options to goal, which leads defenders to backpass, belt the ball out and hold the ball up and get tackled.
1) Our 5 man defense failed to cover their winger for most parts where a winger is dangerous. Throws were covered well but the rest from general play was far too compressed and allowed their winger freedom to do whatever they wanted to.
I haven't seen a decent u27 winger in their squad so I've decided to keep the defs close.
2) Our midfielders were in no mans land the entire game. They lost the ball because they were so close to the oppositions midfielders/defenders and front on at NT level you're almost always going to get tackled, particularly when one's only in excellent form. The flipside of this was that they then exposed our defense to allow balls to be passed between them at will and allow suitable time for those that were cut out to be tackled again by their striker. One of the most basic rules if you decide to play a high pressing game is to keep your midfield close to your defense at all times. We failed to do so and we shot ourselves in the foot (not for the first time this season either).
I was expecting a close encounter of our mids and their mids but thought that our mids would turn out better than theirs, especially Sterjovski.
I decided to keep them higher in order not to have a gaping hole between midfield and attack as such approach already did hurt us once in last months.
3) A double winger, essentially made it 10 v 9 in their favour. Apart from the odd chance that was created because of Erdogan where the 2nd winger was useful, we really lost out on creating more opportunities through either strengthening the midfield, or opening up another passage to score. I feel like Erdogan was wasted, playing so defensively that it destroyed his best asset of getting past defenders. A better approach would have been to play a winger each side if you wanted to use both, or if you really wanted to play 2 wingers, have one alongside but to the left of the other so a defender can't cover both spots at once.
Well most chances were created thanks to a pass from Erdogan to Griffiths or thanks to dribble-lose-tackle of this duo.
Having said that, only other option was to put Erdogan on the other side which wouldn't change anything at all. We had one striker, we had two central midfielders and 7 defenders - I thought that playing 631 with a winger wasn't a good idea as well.
I don't really see why we should be complaining if they used a stronger side, ratings wise we're pretty much on par, but we just failed to utilise our strongest assets and continually shoot ourselves in the foot by providing no options to goal, which leads defenders to backpass, belt the ball out and hold the ball up and get tackled.
well what other options did we have? there was no sense in attacking through the middle because Barnes and Huxley weren't available, using two wings instead of a double one wouldn't change anything in the matter about which you're talking...
I haven't seen a decent u27 winger in their squad so I've decided to keep the defs close.
2) Our midfielders were in no mans land the entire game. They lost the ball because they were so close to the oppositions midfielders/defenders and front on at NT level you're almost always going to get tackled, particularly when one's only in excellent form. The flipside of this was that they then exposed our defense to allow balls to be passed between them at will and allow suitable time for those that were cut out to be tackled again by their striker. One of the most basic rules if you decide to play a high pressing game is to keep your midfield close to your defense at all times. We failed to do so and we shot ourselves in the foot (not for the first time this season either).
I was expecting a close encounter of our mids and their mids but thought that our mids would turn out better than theirs, especially Sterjovski.
I decided to keep them higher in order not to have a gaping hole between midfield and attack as such approach already did hurt us once in last months.
3) A double winger, essentially made it 10 v 9 in their favour. Apart from the odd chance that was created because of Erdogan where the 2nd winger was useful, we really lost out on creating more opportunities through either strengthening the midfield, or opening up another passage to score. I feel like Erdogan was wasted, playing so defensively that it destroyed his best asset of getting past defenders. A better approach would have been to play a winger each side if you wanted to use both, or if you really wanted to play 2 wingers, have one alongside but to the left of the other so a defender can't cover both spots at once.
Well most chances were created thanks to a pass from Erdogan to Griffiths or thanks to dribble-lose-tackle of this duo.
Having said that, only other option was to put Erdogan on the other side which wouldn't change anything at all. We had one striker, we had two central midfielders and 7 defenders - I thought that playing 631 with a winger wasn't a good idea as well.
I don't really see why we should be complaining if they used a stronger side, ratings wise we're pretty much on par, but we just failed to utilise our strongest assets and continually shoot ourselves in the foot by providing no options to goal, which leads defenders to backpass, belt the ball out and hold the ball up and get tackled.
well what other options did we have? there was no sense in attacking through the middle because Barnes and Huxley weren't available, using two wings instead of a double one wouldn't change anything in the matter about which you're talking...
well what other options did we have? there was no sense in attacking through the middle because Barnes and Huxley weren't available, using two wings instead of a double one wouldn't change anything in the matter about which you're talking...
You had a few options you could have used without changing the basic formation too much.
On the basis of using the same formation and with the 2 wings on 1 side:
1) Push Erdogan up alongside Griffiths on the inside of their outer defender. That gives 2 target men from our midfielders to hit and if he plucks the defender there's a chance Erdogan can tackle him before he gets rids of the ball.
2)Push the midfielders back to cover the holes (doesn't need to be excessive but there shouldn't be more than a 1 square difference between them at any stage imo) and give them more time to distribute the ball (both of which they can do easily enough). Then because of 1) you give them an opportunity to put one of the wingers into a hole and away for a cross or corner. You also block their quick counters by having less holes in your own defense.
3) Using a 5 man defense you need to push the outside defender across quicker or use a well positioned midfielder to restrict the option to their winger. If I suspect a winger of reasonable quality, I'd be looking to ensure they don't get any chance of breaking through. I guess given they used what appeared to be a 1st XI, their winger is likely much better than anticipated. Still if you expected a winger not to be very good you may as well gone in with a back 4 and used the extra midfielder to start to regain control of the midfield and block the pass to the wing.
It's difficult to say entirely whether that would have won us the game. I'd have been confident it would have but I guess if you expected an U27 game then it may well have turned out completely different had they used U27's. By no means was your tactic bad, it just had a few fine details I didn't like that to me got exploited repeatedly throughout the game.
You had a few options you could have used without changing the basic formation too much.
On the basis of using the same formation and with the 2 wings on 1 side:
1) Push Erdogan up alongside Griffiths on the inside of their outer defender. That gives 2 target men from our midfielders to hit and if he plucks the defender there's a chance Erdogan can tackle him before he gets rids of the ball.
2)Push the midfielders back to cover the holes (doesn't need to be excessive but there shouldn't be more than a 1 square difference between them at any stage imo) and give them more time to distribute the ball (both of which they can do easily enough). Then because of 1) you give them an opportunity to put one of the wingers into a hole and away for a cross or corner. You also block their quick counters by having less holes in your own defense.
3) Using a 5 man defense you need to push the outside defender across quicker or use a well positioned midfielder to restrict the option to their winger. If I suspect a winger of reasonable quality, I'd be looking to ensure they don't get any chance of breaking through. I guess given they used what appeared to be a 1st XI, their winger is likely much better than anticipated. Still if you expected a winger not to be very good you may as well gone in with a back 4 and used the extra midfielder to start to regain control of the midfield and block the pass to the wing.
It's difficult to say entirely whether that would have won us the game. I'd have been confident it would have but I guess if you expected an U27 game then it may well have turned out completely different had they used U27's. By no means was your tactic bad, it just had a few fine details I didn't like that to me got exploited repeatedly throughout the game.