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Subject: National Team
Since this one is the most popular topic here, I'd like to wish you all Merry Christmas and all the best in the upcoming year. Some of you have already had happy events as well as challenges, so I hope good luck will last :)
Thanks Vampyr, you too, and everyone else here as well (there is a christmas topic in freestyle australia)
Australia - Sverige 1:5
Unfortunatelly Sweden was to strong for us. I used few young players, but much stronger skills decided. I checked also 2 tactics. It was a bit lacking in effectiveness.
Unfortunatelly Sweden was to strong for us. I used few young players, but much stronger skills decided. I checked also 2 tactics. It was a bit lacking in effectiveness.
As a side point, how have NZ got so far ahead in the rankings with such a low user base. Huge achievement really.
I think its smart managment of the NZ NT. Look at the team, they have top player on each position.
Actually we have one striker at NT level (33yo), few good mids but with some lack with some skills, and the same with defs. Only gk position is staffed very well.
In my opinion in 3-4 seasons we can be on NZ place, because we have quite good 22-24yo ages. With good cooperation with users we can make big progress soon.
Actually we have one striker at NT level (33yo), few good mids but with some lack with some skills, and the same with defs. Only gk position is staffed very well.
In my opinion in 3-4 seasons we can be on NZ place, because we have quite good 22-24yo ages. With good cooperation with users we can make big progress soon.
There’s probably been some good ranking management too, which we may not have been doing for long enough. That is arranging matches that we have a chance of winning against sides with higher ranking points. By doing so ranking goes up rather quickly.
It's true. The selection of opponents is very important, so I chose opponents from places 40-70 in the ranking, I left one week off to have a better overview of the teams at the end of the season. Maybe it will be possible to arrange a sparring with a weaker coach but from a team with a high ranking and there will be a chance for a lot of ranking points. I will probably give up playing in the U27 / 28 age group where we do not have a large selection of good players.
Week 04: Sweden
Week 08: Hayastan u28+2
Week 12: Malaysia
Week 15: Chile
Week 00: Kenya
Week 01: Free
With Sweden, in my opinion, we had a chance at least for a draw, the first tactic was quite good, the second completely failed - it was too brave, we gave up the midfield unnecessarily. It should be better in the next matches. Despite the big defeat, this sparring has taught me a lot.
Week 04: Sweden
Week 08: Hayastan u28+2
Week 12: Malaysia
Week 15: Chile
Week 00: Kenya
Week 01: Free
With Sweden, in my opinion, we had a chance at least for a draw, the first tactic was quite good, the second completely failed - it was too brave, we gave up the midfield unnecessarily. It should be better in the next matches. Despite the big defeat, this sparring has taught me a lot.
As a side point, how have NZ got so far ahead in the rankings with such a low user base. Huge achievement really.
Was this an accidental double post? If not the above discussion kind of explains how they’ve done it. The other argument is why has ours been so low? Rankings are easily exploitable if that’s what you’re after (and I’m not saying nz has done this entirely as they could well be having good youth pulls to sustain themselves amongst other things such as a good by manager). You chase games where you likely gain points and you avoid all games where you either can’t gain points or will lose heavy points. Do this for a few seasons and your ranking points become higher. Quite simple really. Minimise damage in official matches and then target pick games for the rest to either maintain or gain points.
I have no idea how that duplicated my original post 11hrs after I posted it…
Just to add to the NZ cause.
They have 3-4 overseas managers that I'm aware of, that try to train NZers as if they were from their own country. And these managers have been with the NZ for 5-15+ seasons, so it's basically doubled the useable base of managers (which brings it to a similar number as we have).
They have 3-4 overseas managers that I'm aware of, that try to train NZers as if they were from their own country. And these managers have been with the NZ for 5-15+ seasons, so it's basically doubled the useable base of managers (which brings it to a similar number as we have).
Are we talking teams that purchase NZ players to train or people that have a team in NZ to promote youths? The latter is probably the most important as the former can still happen without high number of users if the supply is sufficient.
Whilst we've been having a discussion on youth pulls, it kind of made me interested a bit.
I therefore went looking at my youth pulls since I came back at the beginning of 2020. I've pulled 71 that I can account for and of those 71, only 8 have had estimated talents below 4. I cut off anything negative or less than 2.5 to account for errors of having influential points due to not being in the youth school long enough, so really I'm looking at those in the 3-4 talent approx window.
Of those 8, only 5 exist in the game still, 2 of which are in the U21 squad currently and 1 that will be shortly (Crampton, Greenwood and Groom). I still have 1 of them (Cooke) but will be expecting to sack him given age and skill distribution wasn't particularly good and the 5th is well in a team that doesn't seem to be particularly consistent with training him (Lazaridis) and would be well out of the picture by now (if he wasn't when he was pulled to begin with).
I happened to extend it out a bit further with approx talent ranges and number of players that I calculate fall into each bracket. That being said, these are approximations and probably could be quite different to actual talents either way (especially as for the most part I've had incredible youth coach and a lot that don't end up playing for the junior side).
2-4 - 8 players
4-5 - 7 players
5-6 - 14 players
6-10 - 22 players
10+ - 12 players
So even in that next group there's only 2 players (of the 7) still in the game, and neither will get anywhere. Unfortunately, one of those is still in my side as he was pulled recently but had an unfortunate skill distribution which effectively ended his chances right there.
Also haven't checked my own current group yet to be pulled to see where they lie.
Mostly meaningless here because you can have great skill distributions and age but not so good talent and also the opposite, good talent and nothing else. Guess it shows really how a lot of the youth pulls just come down to luck and the more you manage a school the higher the chances of getting the luck required to feed the NT system. However, it's easy to fall into a trap of not actively managing the youth school and end up keeping players that perhaps one shouldn't have bothered keeping. I guess that's probably the part where smaller communities need to be really on top of in order to bring about any kind of growth to the NT level. There's been a lot I've kept I ideally wouldn't have other than I didn't have anything better or they were high enough levels that perhaps a good distribution may have given them the boost in chances for NT representation.
(edited)
I therefore went looking at my youth pulls since I came back at the beginning of 2020. I've pulled 71 that I can account for and of those 71, only 8 have had estimated talents below 4. I cut off anything negative or less than 2.5 to account for errors of having influential points due to not being in the youth school long enough, so really I'm looking at those in the 3-4 talent approx window.
Of those 8, only 5 exist in the game still, 2 of which are in the U21 squad currently and 1 that will be shortly (Crampton, Greenwood and Groom). I still have 1 of them (Cooke) but will be expecting to sack him given age and skill distribution wasn't particularly good and the 5th is well in a team that doesn't seem to be particularly consistent with training him (Lazaridis) and would be well out of the picture by now (if he wasn't when he was pulled to begin with).
I happened to extend it out a bit further with approx talent ranges and number of players that I calculate fall into each bracket. That being said, these are approximations and probably could be quite different to actual talents either way (especially as for the most part I've had incredible youth coach and a lot that don't end up playing for the junior side).
2-4 - 8 players
4-5 - 7 players
5-6 - 14 players
6-10 - 22 players
10+ - 12 players
So even in that next group there's only 2 players (of the 7) still in the game, and neither will get anywhere. Unfortunately, one of those is still in my side as he was pulled recently but had an unfortunate skill distribution which effectively ended his chances right there.
Also haven't checked my own current group yet to be pulled to see where they lie.
Mostly meaningless here because you can have great skill distributions and age but not so good talent and also the opposite, good talent and nothing else. Guess it shows really how a lot of the youth pulls just come down to luck and the more you manage a school the higher the chances of getting the luck required to feed the NT system. However, it's easy to fall into a trap of not actively managing the youth school and end up keeping players that perhaps one shouldn't have bothered keeping. I guess that's probably the part where smaller communities need to be really on top of in order to bring about any kind of growth to the NT level. There's been a lot I've kept I ideally wouldn't have other than I didn't have anything better or they were high enough levels that perhaps a good distribution may have given them the boost in chances for NT representation.
(edited)