Asunto: US Senior National Team

eh, back when I had PRO pack and was in D1 and even if i didnt get that great of draft picks, I had like 12 NT players, its just proper training with 100 coaches and good facilities, most of my guys were "average" quality for D1 and just had relatively high starting OR (which happens when you have lvl 15 academy) so i mean if you get the facilities and staff it's not that difficult i dont think to atleast have 2 on a NT in a few seasons. just my humble opinion though

i agree with this pretty wholeheartedly. developing players over time really just takes a small bit of luck and a lot of just not making any careless oversights or doing anything stupid.

Even mediocre (70s) quality guys can be awesome for at least the youth national teams if they're pulled from a good SA and trained well. Actually a few of my national team players are a testament to that fact (Erwin Copeland , Michael Horne , and Burt Whitney to name a few).

It's one of the reasons I'm really toiling with whether or not I should cut my one draftee from this most recent draft class, Curtis Underwood . His AvQ really isn't great, but he's starting out in the mid 400s for OR, is 6/6 CL and universal handed. Even if he's a scrub in training, he'll still probably be like 1600-1700 by the time he's 22 years old. Hardly something to scoff at.

It's also the reason why even though I really like Darrell Bentley 's qualities, I'm considering selling him away. I pulled him literally 3 days before the end of last season, so he's a horribly "low" OR 16 year old. Due to that, he'll probably never make much of an impact on the national teams regardless of how well I train him.

Actually... only 5 of the U.S. national team players I currently have on my team came from draft selections. Drilling into those numbers even further, 2 of them (Ted Keenan and Rolland Benedict ) were drafted ten seasons (three real life calendar years) ago, and 1 of them (Michael Horne ) was acquired on the market (he was drafted by the Detroit Tossers, not me). So really, I've gotten just two of my current national team players from the draft: Scott Serna and Mitchell Moody .

I actually think my draft luck has been pretty poor tbh. I feel like I've had countless guys who, despite being "B" players, are utterly worthless. Also... despite consistently having one of the top (or the top) ranked sports academies since like season 4 or 5, I've only drafted 1st overall in the mid-season draft twice (I think?) during that time span?

Not really spectacular draft luck in my opinion...

Even if you look at the five national team guys I sold last season, Benjamin Lewis Armando Pryor Gene Trimble Joseph Vaughn and Antoine Strauss , only 2 of them came from the draft. I got one on the market, who was another Detroit Tossers throwaway (man I miss having them around).

Mostly I just wanted to express this to reinforce the point I made above (which Mr. Brightside also espoused): you don't necessarily need fantastic draft luck if you're deliberate and methodical with your training strategy, youth development, and infrastructure spending.

yeah... I'm feeling the pinch on this...

This season, our U19 team will probably be the weakest it's been since I've been heading it.

I'm saddened by the lack of depth we have at some of the positions. We'll probably be starting a defensive pivot and goalie who aren't even 1000 OR.

We are on to the next round again. Either 2nd or 3rd. We did get to rest our starters for one game, which I have found really comes into play the next round. As a lower average team this is what has kept us in the top 20.

I am really looking forward to next years players, we have some really key additions coming.

If anyone would like to be an assistant please message me.

Yeah, I know what you mean regarding the energy stuff. It's why in recent seasons on the U19 team I've really tried to manage energy as well as I do on my regular team. The penalty on the national level for being even just 2 points lower energy seems massive.

P.S. I'm fine with being an assistant to any of the other national teams as long as it doesn't interfere with my duties on the U19 squad (i had some problems adding players to the U19 team the last time I was made a Senior team assistant for some reason).

You don't seem to be signed up for next season if you wanted to continue with the senior NT.

If anyone wants to help with a NT, they should sign up as soon as possible if tescosamoa hasn't signed up yet. Even if you just want to be an assistant or don't want to manage the team, you could add tescosamoa as the assistant and discuss how you want to handle managing the team.

I asked Vlad to get me added....

Vlad said that this will not be happening, as it would not be fair to other managers. So we will have a new National Team Manager. I have contacted K1231 to add me as an assistant, so I may assist them.

Currently I have placed Lanky as the assistant and will set the team up, then I will see what K1231 will decide. Sigh

you should do what cap and i do, and just sign up as soon as you can via your team's info page (it's a link that shows up at some point during the season on the right side of the page near where your team uniforms can be viewed)

can we maybe ask vlad to change the national team voting to how it is in soccer (where national team managers are voted OUT rather than voted IN every season)?

i feel like that's IDEAL.

Heading into the season USA sits at 24th. We are grouped with the following teams: Denmark (27), Venezuela (35), Slovakia (3), Argentina (14). This is a tough group and ideally we will be battling for 3rd place.

The USA team is starting to get a little old so a rebuild is starting. There were 5 good adds on the Defensive side. None on the Offensive side. So we are going to go with two Left Wings on the attack. If this does not work out I will move one of the Defensive Left Wingers up. We now have our future starter goalie in John Field on the team. He will be backing up Nathaniel Cunningham this season and next then move over to starter. Erwin Copeland will remain on the team until the next good goalie comes along.

All in all this is going to be a strange season where I am going to push for a 3rd place finish in the group and push to get USA up to 21st overall in the world. Season one of the rebuild begins.

Drops :
Don Womack DB, 117 games.
Mitch Hilton AB, 85 games.
Stacey Wells AB, 140 games.
Lloyd Russ G, 121 games.
Adds
Hugo Wilhelm DP
John Field G
Phillip Marvin DW
Gene Trimble DB
Matt Mcrae DB

*whistles*

I probably would've opted to drop copeland instead of russ tbh. Russ' experience and national team chemistry made him a far better option than copeland... and by the time he's no longer better, Leo Patel would be old enough to replace him on the roster (several seasons from now).

Russ and Field are going to be my number 1 and 2 goalies going forward until Leo Patel is ready to be a starter with Field. But the only reason i haven't sold Copeland yet (as I consider him the most disposable of the 4) is because I like having 4 goalies. As soon as I get a new, young goalie, Copeland is gone.

Until then, he'll serve in a utility role, but his experience won't really be ticking up much as a result.

I'd also caution you about relying on two LW on offense. From what i recall, playing a winger on the "wrong side" results in a 25% penalty.

So if you have a left handed guy who is 2000 OR, he'll be roughly as good on the RW as a 1500 OR right hander.