Asunto: US Senior National Team

This is my 6th time this in the past couple of attempting days.

Apologies on my absence on the forums, I only have a smartphone it makes forum-ing not fun.

I think we did well to beat Argentina twice and get the win against sweden. The loss against the UK and Serbia was disapointing but not unexpected. We are in a good position to qualify and will be conserving energy next game. However if Sweden were to win they would only be behind us by one point, forcing us to try to beat serbia in our home game. From my personal experience PPM doesnt like it when one conserves energy and leaves it to chance.

Our weakest position is defensive wing and defensive pivot. Most of our wings could play either offense or defense, but we need specialists that only use their OR for one side if we want to keep up with international play. Our pivots just arent that strong in general and lack high quality anyway. Our goalies could be better but I think are fine.

Oh and also I am still on the lookout for an assistant if anyone is interested. Tesco is filling in just in case I pull a Gambit.

Cool. Thanks for the insight and time you put into it.

So what's the thinking with friendlies? Do we just use them to build chemistry? Is there any other strategy involved? I'm not familiar with NT competition planning.

With the friendlies earlier I was trying to get team chemistry up above most other NT for an advantage that seemed to work. But now the main starters are (aside from a couple that still have relatively low chem) at a high level of chemistry and we are in a good enough position for qualifiying that I am using the backups and/or new players to play the remaining games. This gives the "2nd line" needed chemistry and saves energy for the "1st line".

Now for friendlies in general they are also used to experiment with different lineups and tactics as well as gauge how good certain players or team strengths are. Another possible bonus is understanding what kind of tactics other managers use to help prepare for competitive matches.

NT staff - What was the approach for the last game against Serbia, if you don't mind sharing in this public forum? Looking at the standings, it seems like 2 pts would have been very important to helping us advance but it appears like we didn't play our strongest lineup? Was that to support some longer-term strategic goal?

And the same for the match before that against the UK. It's the lineup that was mentioned as being backups.

Correct. Using the backup lineups were to conserve energy for the main line. USA, Argentina and Sweden all have 6 points right now, but Argentina has already played all their matches and USA plays Sweden for their last game. So all we have to do is win against Sweden and we will be going into the finals with a much better chance than previously.

The reason we used the second line up was since the first already had high enough chemistry and playing very low still uses energy. Also using second lineup gives needed chemistry to backups.

I absolutely don't want to come across as backseat-driving, but is that really our best bet to advance? We've put all of our eggs in this one basket of hoping to beat a much stronger Swedish team at their place. We have to be considerable underdogs. Both UK and Serbia are not as strong as Sweden and yet it's like we voluntarily gave away those games. Why not take all 3 shots at getting to 8pts total by playing our best against UK Serbia and Sweden, and then play the second line once we've secured our advancement to the next round? Seems like a risky game of chicken conserving energy when we're still on the outside looking to get into the Finals.

Thanks again for putting the time into the NT, by the way. Much appreciated.

And if I'm reading the standings correctly, if Argentina would have beaten Sweden last match, we'd be mathematically eliminated already before our last match against Sweden. So really we're lucky to still have a shot at this point.

Does anyone else agree with what I'm saying? Or am I off base here?

I haven't really been following the handball NT as much, but conserving energy is important, especially if you want to have a chance to be competitive in later rounds.

With that said, I conserved energy in half of the WCH games with the U18 hockey team (but only after clinching the next rounds by winning a lot earlier on) last season. By doing this, the United States caught up in team strength to all but the top 4 or so teams. The United States upset three of the favorites to win the tournament (the Czech Republic, Russia, and Slovakia) in addition to a strong Polish squad only to lose in the final four to a weak Portugese squad that went on to somehow win the tournament. It helps your odds to conserve energy (but only relative to the team you have - it delays the loss of team strength but doesn't compensate for having significantly weaker players), but there is a large random factor in PPM.

with the bad goal differential any strategy to save energy prior to be qualified is risky.

in the other hand, if we had won this game, we'd still have to beat sweden in order to qualify.

We dint know we'd only have to beat sweden to qualify prior to this match. If Argentina had beaten Sweden,we'd be out already because of goal differential.

That match was in the same time so no way we'd know anything.

Not surprised we lost to Sweden and are eliminated. Big opportunity squandered. With 3 matches left, I think the right call was to first identify that the hardest match is the last one against Sweden away (who had the highest OTS). So you try your hardest against UK and Serbia to get points. Ideally, we're qualified by then and can play backups against Sweden but can attempt to steal points if necessary. Giving away the UK and Serbia matches is still just a head scratcher to me bc our coaches have only explained it was to conserve energy. It's a learning opportunity I suppose and we'll regroup next season.

If anyone involved with the NT ever wants an extra opinion on team strategy, don't be shy to drop me a message. Always willing to add my .02. Not saying I have all of the right answers, obviously, but sometimes more heads are better.

The reason I hadn't replied to your previous comment was because Bulls pretty much hit it on the head.

After the first 5 matches I was playing odds really. We would have had to win BOTH matches against UK and Serbia to be able to take a loss against Sweden. Say we had a 50% of beating the UK or Serbia. That means a 25% chance of beating BOTH UK and Serbia. Whereas we probably had about a 33/67 or 40/60 chance of beating Sweden. Even if we had not conserved energy and pulled out a win against either UK or Serbia our goal differential was already too behind beforehand and our line-up at 4~ energy points lower to face an even tougher opponent. Also I expected Argentina to beat Sweden no problem - I don't know why but I did and I was right there but failed when the big game came.

Thanks for adding the commentary.

Are you saying you think our approach was still the best way forward, in your opinion?

Yes I do. It's easier to win 1 hard match than 2 slightly less hard matches.