Subject: [NT]Myname

Hello everyone,

I am Myname, a Belgian manager on Sokker since 2006.

In real life, I am a 20y old student mathematics. Hobby's: football referee, being a student, a bit of a Sokker addict and sports in general. And I have a cat at home :-)

But all of this is not so important. I've heard from Carnavalist that you guys are still searching for a decent NT-manager. I'm not saying that I am the man you should vote for, but I thought I might give it a try!
My experience is the following:
*I've been U21-manager of Ísland for 2 seasons. I managed to get some good results with rather weak players due to the low number of Íslandic managers. Because Suomi has more managers, they have more decent players and therefore it should be possible to get some very good results with Suomi too.
*Furthermore I've been an assistant in Nippon for 2 seasons when Jurkasz was the manager.
*I have also been a DEF-scout for the Belgian NT for 2 seasons.

Off course, I hope you guys are willing to vote for me. If some of you have questions about my tactical knowledge or anything else you think is important, just shoot!

I hope to find some people to complete the crew if I get the idea that I might win this :-)

You seem to be a good candidate. I have one or actually two questions.

Tell me our most promising players. Do we have chance to win WC with these players?

Well, I have to be honest, untill this morning, I didn't know I would apply for the job of NT-coach of Suomi, so I haven't prepared much yet.

First thing I will do is watch some more of Suomi's matches and look which ones are the top players. But the players I have seen uptill now look very good to me. Off course you cannot compete with Italy, Romania or Polska on player-quality, but there's more in Sokker than player-quality alone. If the tactics suck, you can lose any match.

So if you ask me 'Does Suomi have a chance to win the WC?' than I say: yes, but this chance is very low. On first sight, Suomi has the players to beat a big Sokker nation, but there will have to be some luck/good tactics too.

I hope this answers your question for now ;-)

Off course you cannot compete with Italy, Romania or Polska on player-quality

Are you sure? ;) If we play with our best players the match rating is going to be ~77. That is quite close to Italy and Romania I would say. Poland is a few points ahead I think. But as you said, It all depends on tactics :)

yes I'm quite sure

Off course both teams can put 5 double divine defenders on the pitch, but it's the details that make the difference at that level. A lower technique level can be the reason for an offensive tackle and a potential dangerous situation. Really good players cannot be recognized by their main skills, but by their sideskills. And that's what makes the difference between a topcountry like Suomi and favorite like Italy/Polska...

Ok, let me see, you asked me, who I think are the most promising players. Off course, I don't know their skills (not of all of them)

I think Sahanen is the most promising player, with his amazing GK-skills (saw them on Future NT stars), combined with his good form and his young age. If nothing extra-ordinary happens, he will probably be the best Suomi-keeper for at least 8 seasons.

I've watched the match against Brasil and the one that made a really good impression was the 26y old winger Pellilla (or something :-) ), if I may believe your database, he should be the best midfielder you have. Because of his young age, he must be a certitude for the future of the Suomi NT. Based on player value, Vähäsaari is probably the best possible winger for Suomi for the moment.

Furthermore I think Pete Talanen (finally an easy name :-P) is your triple divine striker or maybe just below triple divine but with very decent sideskills :-)

Defensively it's hard to see which one is your star, maybe Topi Kerman or Miska Bruun, but they could be DEFmids as well. Anyway, it's usually very hard to see the difference between a very good defender and a very good defmid. But these two are only 26y old and can improve some more for the next couple of seasons.

Hope this answers your question some more. More questions?

Thank you for this answer :)

What do you think are our strenghts and weaknesses based on player material? And how does that fit in your playing style?

Off course I do not know the player skills precisely and maybe some of the playerskills will really surprise me, but I think the biggest problems are the central midfield. A central midfielder must be a really complete player with defensive qualities, but offensive qualities as well (for example a 5x magical player). And as far as I have seen there's not really a Suomi player that can completely forfill this task.

The good thing is that we can play matches without a central midfielder. If you divide the tasks of the central midfielder between several other mids, you can compensate for this.

For example: my team doesn't have a real central midfielder so I make a very clear difference between defensive midfielders and offensive midfielders and I don't use a central one...

In this match with 2 defensive midfielders and 2 offensive ones

or I use several 'central midfielders' to compensate for not having 1 very good midfielder. These midfielders share the tasks of what would usually be the task for 1 player. In this way you can compensate the lack of individual talent by doing a good teamjob.

Look at the midfield in this match

...the second weakness -I can imagine- is the fact that there are not so many Suomi topplayers. Suomi will not have 50 double divine defenders with decent sideskills, so the teamquality will suffer a lot from injuries and suspensions.

But what about the strenghts of the Suomi team?

Suomi probably has a well-balanced team, not with 11 worldclass players, but with enough decent players. With a good tactic and a good team effort there's a lot possible.

If you really ask me to indicate the strenghts of Suomi, I think you guys have at least 2 very good goalkeepers and some awesome wingers. But as said before, it's certainly the overall team that looks good. About every position on the pitch has a good Suomi player for it.

How will I use this? Well, it gives the opportunity to use a lot of different tactics and surprise the opponent with tactical creativity. I know all of this sounds a little vague, but it's kind of a hard question to just give a satisfying answer.

Maybe it would be useful if the questions are a little more specific. For example on the Belgian Fora, they ask, how would you play against the Netherlands if they play like this, or like that :-)

whats your motivation to lead Finland to success and how much time are you going to spend this project?
(edited)

Euhm, for me personally, I like to see where I stand on a tactical basis. I've been an U21-coach for 2 seasons, but there was a lack of quality in Ísland. Suomi has a more competitive team, a team that should be able to get very far in the WC and a team that should always end in the first 2 places of the WCQ groups. So it's a challenge for me to see whether I'm able to make great tactics for a good team.

Uptill today I wasn't really looking to be a NT-coach, because I didn't want to manage a lower ranked team anymore. When I heard that Suomi was still looking for a decent NT-manager, I thought this might be my chance to be leading a very well organised NT with good players.

Off course there are some very good opponents in this election and I don't speak suomi (if it's called like that too), so my chances of winning this election are not so high, but I know that I'm tactically able to lead Suomi to succes.


How much time will I spend to this project? Euhm, it will depend, I guess. The first weeks I will have to put a lot of time and effort in this team. First of all, I will need to find some assistants and scouts. Together with them I will try to update the database and search for friendlies for the end of the season. Off course, I will also try to know the players I will be working with. So the first weeks, I will put as much time in this job as I can. Later on, when everything is settled, things will be a lot easier and I will spend a little less time to the NT off course. But, you know, it's hard to point a number of hours on this. I can assure you, that if you elect me, I will put enough time and effort in your NT!

You have my vote

Will you post previews (along with line-ups of course) about games to the forums? And will you analyze the match after it has been played and tell us what went wrong and how did we succeed?

What would you do to make NT team more interesting? If you just make tactics and never actually post anything to the forums it would get quite boring. And last question, Will you get a linquist for yourself because not everybody here in Finland speaks english.

I will post previews and I will analyze the match afterwards, but off course only if there's enough interest for that. It's not very funny if you keep making previews and no one ever answers, you know ;-)

To make you guys even more enthusiastic, I'm thinking of making some kind of 'betting competition' in which the winners can choose players of their team to join the NT for one special match against a team you might like to compete: 'the community friendly'.

And a linguist is not a bad idea. I would even call it an excellent idea, would there be anyone who would be so kind, you think?