Tema: U20/U17 - Soccer

As for our group itself, we're sitting pretty at #4 right now. At #5 is Switzerland; their manager has gone mostly MIA and has played the last two games on very low. Hopefully that will continue and we can build up a big lead so that we don't need to play too hard at the end of group play. His last post in their forum was two months ago saying that he would have less time this season and asking for volunteers for assistant (he didn't get any).

#6 is Venezuela, who we just beat. They're five points back with a strong schedule left to go, so hopefully they won't be a concern, but they're not a bad team, so they could surprise somebody (particularly Switzerland, if they keep playing VL, and Serbia, who I'll discuss in a minute). Their game next week against Greece will say a lot about their chances of being a threat.

#7 Greece and #8 India have had good starts, but have strong schedules the rest of the way. The next couple of games for them will tell us how much they'll be a concern.

Above us, #3 Serbia is a very good team, but they've been playing all second-stringers so far this season. We'll see how long they keep that up, but their second-stringers are likely good enough to get the team into the tournament, so I wouldn't be shocked to see them finish out the qualifiers with this team unless they appear to be in trouble along the way. They play Switzerland next week, so it'll be interesting to see if their second string on VH can beat Switzerland's first string on VL. This game has a lot of implications for what we need to do to qualify.

#2 Argentina is playing well, but hasn't really been tested yet, with big wins against Serbia's second-stringers and Switzerland on VL. Next week's game against Canada will be their toughest of the season, and could determine who wins the group.

#1 Canada is pretty much the class of the group, especially with the Boilermakers' Hudson Young leading the way. His 55 IGR is by far the best in the group to this point (I'm not sure what Serbia's got up their sleeves yet).

I'll try to throw up a bid on Buckley later today at a more US friendly auction deadline. I'm not sure if I'll be around for the finish, but at least if another European team wants him, they'll have to stay up late to get him.

His aq's are horrible though.... I wouldn't buy.

I wouldn't say they're horrible...but they're definitely not great. zomg, don't bid on him just to straighten out his ratios for us, but buy him because you need a 20yo LM who's got pretty good numbers right now at 1150OR.

I'd guess that if somebody bought him this week, the season will be over by the time his secondary stats catch up to his Mid (right now his ratios are, more or less, 5-3-2-1). I think Coleman and White will suffice for this season, and can both stand to get some experience and chemistry since they're both 19 and will probably split the starting job next season too. I imagine one of them will eventually take over for Cooper Nichols as Aldridge's backup on the senior team rather than Buckley, too, since they've got better qualities.

It is worth noting that, if my records are right, he was 6/6 at age 18. So if you do pick him up, he'll probably be playing for a long time.

His qualities certainly aren't the best, but I'm fairly weak at SM (which isn't great on my team that only runs 3 mids), so he'd be a starter pretty quick, and hold on to the position for a few seasons at least.

I'm not going to get in a crazy bidding war over him, but I can justify 125 million for an upgrade for a few seasons, and then he'll provide some depth after that.

Funny... I just bought a 20 y/o who just went down to 4/6 and has grat qs (main CF Qs: 89/82/84) striker rated 36 (max with ful energy and chem, but a bit unbalanced, so he'll increase quickly) for 50M... And I feel like it was too expensive!

Yeah, there's good deals all the time, but I usually miss them. I don't find dealing with the market to be an interesting aspect of the game, so I don't check it very often, and I certainly don't plan my life around being online for auction deadlines.

I'd much prefer the market if it followed a sealed auction, single bid format, but I don't see them changing things anytime soon.

I go to sleep very late, and happen to be online for great deals all the time!

Also, what do you mean "single bid"? Like the auctions of Free Agents?

Yeah, like free agents without the part where the seller can pay to keep the player. You just put a bid in for what you think the player is worth and that's that, you can go about your life without worrying about deadline snipers.

That could work, but I feel like it would greatly benefit the stronger teams and screw over the weaker, poorer teams

About the snipers, if youre rich enough and can afford to overpay you could do that and the deadline snipers won't go for your player

Your limited in how much you can overbid though (nor can you outbid yourself), so if someone puts a player worth 200 million on the market for 10k, it'll take a lot of back and forth bidding before I could bid what I think he's worth.

Sealed auctions generally result in lower winning bids, so I think it would have the opposite effect and help poorer teams.

Really? Then maybe it could work!

Well that was just flat out embarrassing. Not much more to say than that. We've got our work cut out for us now.

INDIA?!?!?!?!?!

Well. A solid win against Serbia last weekend puts us in a better spot than we deserve to be after blowing the game against India. Our schedule is tough the rest of the way, but if we win three in a row we're in. Or, if we win two including the last game at home against Switzerland, we're in. Or, even better, Greece and India play spoilers for Switzerland and Serbia and buy us a little breathing room.

Either way, the focus is on Argentina at home this week and retaining the lead we have. Argentina has won every game this season, friendly and competition, so it'll be tough. They create offense by overloading one side of the midfield, and they have the flexibility to switch sides effectively when necessary. My guess is they'll go for their right (i.e. our left) which is probably our weaker midfield side. What they can't compete with is our power up the middle. So hopefully we can ride that to victory.