Subject: u21 friendlies

OK your tactic is set:-) We will play it in the 2nd half.

1 Jeffrey Tavlibudine GK
2 Lerato Morris DEF
3 Musawenkosi Ngwenya DEF
4 Sibusiso Fredericks DEF
5 Granwald Mabedi DEF
6 Marco Lingard MID
7 Burton Felix MID
8 Ryan Lehoko MID
9 Thabiso Ledwaba ATT
10 Arthur Serola ATT
11 Valentine Methula ATT

12 Fabien Lechesa GK
13 Louis Maselesele DEF
14 Bheki Lingard ATT
15 Shingayi Kalaka MID
16 Ricky Winstanley MID

Set pieces

Free kick: Burton Felix
Penalty kick: Thabiso Ledwaba

Conditional orders

Min. Condition / Action
1' red card or no player
Marco Lingard on position 1
1' red card or no player
Marco Lingard on position 2
1' red card or no player
Marco Lingard on position 3
1' red card or no player
Marco Lingard on position 4
1' red card or no player
Marco Lingard on position 5
46' always
Change tactics for Additional tactic
46' always
Bheki Lingard on position 10

Which one?

Louis Maselesele, age: 19

club: Tendenze, country: South Africa,
value: 6 562 517 Kč, wage: 42 751 Kč,
magical form, very good tactical discipline,
height: 181 cm, ·weight: 79.3632 kg , BMI: 24.22
bookings:
Last update: 2012-11-29
excellent Stamina tragic Keeper
very good Pace excellent Defender
adequate Technique solid Playmaker
weak Passing weak Striker

or

Lerato Morris, age: 20

club: FC JAGUAR, country: South Africa,
value: 6 750 017 Kč, wage: 68 251 Kč,
unsatisfactory form, solid tactical discipline,
height: 179 cm, ·weight: 77.9945 kg , BMI: 24.34
bookings:
Last update: 2012-11-15
formidable Stamina tragic Keeper
formidable Pace outstanding Defender
poor Technique good Playmaker
solid Passing hopeless Striker

Just so you have an idea, what are we playing against, Czech 19 year old striker, one month ago :-)

very good stamina poor golakeeper
briliant pace formidable defender
briliant technique poor playmaker
weak passing excelent striker

Only about 8 pops better than our best 19 year old strikers.... !

Out of ALL our u19's, we don't have any with a single skill at brilliant.

Very tough choice between Maselesele and Morris.

Does 13 points difference in form make up for 2 points difference in pace and defending?

I'm inclined to lean towards Maselesele, also because of Morris' poor technique.

Tough call.

Yeah that striker is a beast, the Czech U19/20 generation is exceptional, we can be one of the favourites to win the WC in 2 years.

It's 2:1 votes for Morris including me, but it' close of course :-) Anybody else with their opinions?

boah.....we need a truely good day on friday to stop this guy^^

to make it a little more complicated: I tend (a tiny bit rather) towards Maselesele as well. His technique is a true risk against these forwards. even if almost any skill of both players seems a risk against the czech guy above...

I'd go for Morris..

heh thanks guys, so my vote decides 3:2 for Morris:-)

Or I'll just simply sub them:-) We don't have any subs except Serola anyway. He should have 4 days of injury on Friday. Is 60 minutes for him ok?
(edited)

Maselesele had +1 in defense and there is a further gap in form, so I'll go with him in the end.-)

knew it...;-))

hard to tell, which tactic workd better, both seemd to work out, with different advantages. i personally liked the second one a little better (surprise, surprise!!;-) because it created more chances (but also for the opponent). What do you think?

Hard to tell, as you said they both had their dis/advantages.
Our 1st half defense was probably better surprisingly, despite the riskier high defense, but that might be probably because the 2nd half tactic had no defensive coverage from our mids, the game was more opened. I think the Czechs had 2 big chances from Hulvert in the 1st half, but other than that nothing.
The 2nd half gave them more room and more shots, but i dont recall any big chances.
Offensively we've scored 2 goals and wasted huge chance by Ledwaba in the 1st half and we had i think 2 big chances from Lingard in the 2nd.
What heleped us a lot in the 2nd half was that you've guessed much better the positioning of czech defense, I think all of our offsides came in the 1st half..The 2 wide mids had also their moments especially Lehoko's movement created some holes in the Czech defense.

(edited)

So against Costa Rica we will try to increase our number of unbeatem matches to 19 :-)
It will be after the age update, so our current U20 boys will have their opportunity to fully show their strenght before the WCQ:-)
Costa Rica makes it easier for us by playing the same tactic all the time with even the winger on the same side. Doglo's tactic against the Czechs as it was meant exactly against this tactic (442 "pyramid" with 2 defmids) is the perfect "counter strike" I think:-) I repositioned the mids a bit and we are going to play higher defense, I've changed the throw ins according to Costa Rica and move the defense on the winger's side. I know I should probably ignore the winger anyway, since it would be useless, but I'm conservative, I like to cover a winger when I see one:-) Maselesele will take the job to bother the wing, he is the worst anyway and it should be enough just for eliminating the passes there..

Enough words, here is the tactic, you can see it yourself:-)

here is our line up, I've decided to go with Netshivhazwaulu on the bench over Mxaka and Morris. What do you think? Doxakis is set there as a MID, since we don't have much to choose from..hopefully he won't have to substitude..

Squad
1 Jeffrey Tavlibudine GK
2 Louis Maselesele DEF
3 Musawenkosi Ngwenya DEF
4 Sibusiso Fredericks DEF
5 Granwald Mabedi DEF
6 Shingayi Kalaka MID
7 Marco Lingard MID
8 Ricky Winstanley MID
9 Thabiso Ledwaba ATT
10 Arthur Serola ATT
11 Valentine Methula ATT

12 Jan Walker GK
13 David Netshivhazwaulu DEF
14 Bheki Lingard ATT
15 Pierre Pitakathi ATT
16 Musa Doxakis MID

Set pieces

Free kick: Arthur Serola
Penalty kick: Thabiso Ledwaba

Conditional orders

Min. Condition / Action
1' red card or no player
Marco Lingard on position 1
1' red card or no player
Marco Lingard on position 2
1' red card or no player
Marco Lingard on position 3
1' red card or no player
Marco Lingard on position 4
1' red card or no player
Marco Lingard on position 5
70' always
Bheki Lingard on position 11

(edited)

looks good to me!

what's the purpose of Serola (nr 10 in the tactic) playing lower than the two other forwards?

wouldn't it be better if he'd play on the same height?