Subject: Ireland Vs...

Hurrah.
Their tactic had very little resemblence to what we expected. I certainly didnt expect them to play 2 strikers which i think was a mistake on their part. The only thing i got right was i expected the defence to play around their area which caused some problems. Our defence easily coped with everything they had.
The return of some players should push our rating up past the 60 mark so Argentina have a big target on their back.
Now the first game is done we can start properly scouting. I want to watch the Czech-Argentine game.

Nice start. :) An air-tight defensive effort. Some decent chances at the other end.

I didn't find the game that nice to watch - Sokker can sometimes be a little ping-pongy (not sure that's really an adjective :P) with the ball bouncing back and forth between the defenses. This match seemed to have a bit of that quality at times.

Thanks :) I totally agree on the watchability, when the play is compressed (by me) like that it tends to bounce around a bit. I was expecting Sharon to play a higher line and wanted to exploit the space he leaves normally between defence and midfield, in the end he jammed that area so the were a lot of players on top of each other :)

I'm not promising anything more watchable for next week though, I think it will be something very similar and conservative :) I'm going to wait until the friendly games before making any big changes.

I wasn't blaming either manager for the "watch-ability". :) Some matches just go that way. The actions of defenders is something I'd like to see tweaked in the ME (I think there should be more short passing).

Not sure if anyone in this forum knows who Al Davis is (famous American Football team owner) - but his notable quote certainly applies - "Just win, baby." :)

If anyone wants to get a bit depressed have a look at the Argentina squad and see the skills of the listed ones :)

ahhh, and thats what i like most:) make tactic for stronger rivals;)

anyway, i didnt say it jet: well done, gratz for first points!:)

Unlucky result ...

I liked the tactics, especially in the offense the player were exactly at the right position.
I think the mids had to cover too long distances, maybe that's the reason for the bad last 30 minutes ...

Anyway, the low secondary skills of our defenders (mainly technique and playmaker) were responsible for at least 3 goals. And we saw that the passing skill is missing on almost every position ...

The first half was great, I think we even created more chances, but in the second half we didn't stand any chance ... :-(

Good try. :) It was an interesting match until the last 20 minutes or so when Argentina pulled away. Ireland did generate some good scoring chances and probably deserved to get one. But the result was (IMO) fair.

I've never had much luck with 2 winger tactics. :P When I use them, the two wingers tend to fire lobs back & forth to each other (ignoring the striker), which is disaster - the passes are long and slow allowing the defense to close easily. But that wasn't really a problem today. Most wing to wing passes in this match were along the ground, and fairly effective.

Dean, Coyne and Cryan were standouts IMO. :)

The wingers will do that if you place them level with the striker. They end up running ahead and wont pass until the forward is level.
They did exactly what we thought they would do and i think we got our formation largely spot on. Losing Crossley and Docherty didnt help us at all. We needed a performance and didnt get it from the defence. I dont think the scoreline was justified.
I really do not like Larkin, especially not in the centre. To be honest i wouldnt even have him in the squad. I know Docherty wasn't available but Conor Creedon, Brett Neville, Jon McKeon, Jimmy Colbert, hell even Derek Freyne would be better options.

Crap...

I'll watch the game now and see where it all went wrong.

Like Nin has said the formation did what we wanted it to so I can't decide if that makes it better or worse :) I wanted to press their midfield heavily to stop them playing and have some (relatively) good passers there to start counters which all worked out. I had the two wingers so that whatever side we got the ball we'd have a pass on rather than sending it to Matthews too early which also worked... Unfortunately the Argentina manager cleaned up his formation a bit as well; the formation he used last week wasn't half as solid.

I guess I could have changed the midfield after 60 minutes, the reason I didn't is that there were no passers left in our squad who could survive in the midfield to use as subs. I had Shevlin as a backup which was needed in the end but I'm not so sure he's a player up to the NT standard yet. As for Larkin I wanted him for his pace and defending, and the fact he's one of our better defensive passers. I don't think I'd trust an incredible defender against argentina even with loads of secondaries.

We do need big defenders with some passing, more importantly we need a better striker than Matthews. At this level he's not able to bouince his way through a defence like Argentina's guys did today.

In terms of positives I thought Dean was outstanding today in the midfield. Colberts lack of pace showed a bit in the second half but him and Donegan weren't far behind Dean either.
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You'd be far better off with an Incredible defender who has technique and playmaking, than an Unearthly defender who has neither. That was the reason i dropped Shane Berrigan ages ago.

I'd aggree with that but Larkin also has a lot of pace. In the games before Jirkas lot I'll be looking to test a more balanced set of defenders to see could we get away with them.

That's good analysis. :) Tho I think part of the reason why it worked well in this match was a bit of a gap in the Argentine defensive midfield - the wing-to-wing pass could be made along the ground. If they'd had someone occupying that lane those passes (there were several) would have likely been airborne.

But even if they'd been airborne they would have worked better then mine usually do. :P Ireland did a good job getting the off-winger into the middle of the pitch. So the pass was shorter (regardless of being along the ground or in the air). I really liked this. *makes a note* :D

Ireland Vs Chile today. This is going to be another tough game for us; they're up there with Argentina and the Czech Republic which is the main reason I took them on as a friendly. After Argentina last week I've made a few changes, the 2 wingers thing didn't get us goals ,for example, so that's gone. I'm 'resting' Dean and Colbert for form reasons so it gives us a chance to look at Richard Barry Murphy who hasn't played in a while.

Squad
Philip Cryan
Derek Reidy
Robbie Shevlin
Derek Docherty
Matthew Kukureka
Richard Hanrahan
Terry Matthews
Gary Armstrong
Corey Curley
Christian Coyne
William Brunton
Richard Barry-Murphy
Gerard Crossley
Johnny Keenan
Aaron Lizrraga
Kieran MacKeamish
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I'll be watching, it'll give me an escape from the database coding.
The database should be getting a visual overhaul in the next couple of days. At the moment i'm just looking to make it easier to use. I'm going to remove the incomplete dutch language and add a numerical option that should be readable by everyone.
I'm pleased to see the return of Barry-Murphy and Brett Neville to the squad. There may be a few more when the database update is complete.
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