Subject: U20 Australia NT Discussion

Declan Watkins is now on the market for 25 million

The loss to Montenegro 3-0 was not unexpected, but we did hope to have had a closer score. We've now trialed almost the whole squad to get some clear ratings, so the next match will be real team on the pitch for most of the match. Hopefully a wonder strike will bring the first ever goal for this team after two successive 3-0 defeats.

As a celebration of U17 & U20 being launched this season, the Australian U20 team will be hosting the Australian U17 team in a friendly next Saturday night.

This promises to be a unique event (on low intensity ... where the newly capped internationals get to play in front of their mums and dads. Senior Coach RyanAndTheManySocks is expected to be in the crowd keeping an eye on our future champions, and club loyalties will be left in the dressing room as Colah Creek take on Colah Creek players.

The She'llBeRightMate Cup will be presented at the end of the game by the honourable TrueBlue55 as the previous foundation coach of the Australian NT.

Free tickets have been sent to all Aussie managers and their squad, so a bumper crowd is expected.

There will also be a ribbon cutting ceremony at the beginning of the match to open the new Triple-Floor multipurpose stadium at Westie Stadium.

Good luck Crico No pressure on the underdog, but the U20's are nervous.

At least we know how to put the ball in the net, mate

The U17s should be slightly stronger than their past two performances as I look to give six new 17yo reserves a run. However, two 16yos, Scott McGrath and Hugh Tyler, will be in the starting squad.

Love it... they're your Colah forwards

Good to see one of my forwards knows how to score after all

Congrats on a solid win. I think it was a fair result. Time for us to get a win under our belts!

Evening, hope you all had a great weekend,

The highly prestigious She'llBeRightMate Cup was up for grabs and predictably (and thankfully ) it was the Australian U20 who held it high after the match against the Australian U17.

The U17 team started strong, holding the game scorely until late in the first half, when Downing passed to Downing, who passed back to Downing, who passed again to Downing for Downing to score the first EVER goal by this team. It was Centre midfielder Jerry Downing who scored after an assist from right midfielder Zachary Downing . Superb effort and highly positive commentary from PPM !

Oranges and drinks were had at half-time, rumour has it Branden Flanagan went into the wrong half-time shed with his club coach CRICO the U17 coach. But anyway after listening to CRICO's half-time rev-up by mistake he came out and scored a nice goal. 2-0 was the final score, hopefully not the last time we win this season.

Special thanks to TrueBlue55 for presenting the She'llBeRightMate Cup after the match, and for his speech which will be censored for this report - rumour again has it that the VIP Skybox Trueblue55 was watching with National coach RyanTheSockMan ran out of beer in the first half!

Up next for the U20 team is the mother country! Yes the U20 Australian vs England U20 in a friendly. The players always lift playing the pommes so hopefully tactics/positioning/and a LOT OF LUCK, will be on our side next weekend!

Until next week!
This is U20!

fantastic write up. Keep up the great work.

Evening all,

Another U20 Friendly and another 3-0 scoreline... this is getting predictable. However to would have been a draw (if the game had finished in 60 minutes instead of 90 minutes)

In the first half it was traditional singing in the stands by the pommes which set up a great atmosphere... Such classics as "Captain Cook just stopped to take a poop" and (to the tune of Yellow Submarine) "You all live in a convict colony, a convict colony, a convict colony".

It was a suberb defensive performance by the young Aussie team to hold off a team of 1000+ OR U20 English players for the hour, however as happens (especially with the PPM engine), 3 quick goals between the 60th and 76th minutes sealed the win for England. They remain undefeated.

We put William Goode up as a lone striker hoping his superior speed would help, and knowing he might not get too many chances this match - but he got three - but unfortunately he smacked his 3 shots wide.

The next two friendlies are against Paraguay and Egypt and we will be going in to win those both before we start the World Cup qualifiers.

Until next week!
This is U20!

Evening all again,

A significant event! The first ever win against an U20 side (be it the very weak Paraguay U20) but still... was great to win 6-0. 6 goals all in the first half too, and no shots on our goal - I've never tried playing a match without a goalie - has anyone? Paraguay are certainly in trouble with only 21 active teams (to Australia's 60+ teams).

For the first time Australia U20 played 3 forwards up front and saw William Goode play in RF role. Goode is currently be re-trained to be a CF by Beta so was interesting to see his rating of 23 in RF role, to the rating 21 when he plays CF. 4 shot on target and 2 goals to him in the match so that was Goode! (sorry, bad pun).

Branden Flanagan also scored 2 goals from 4 shots on target so good to see him in form, and special mention to Jack Berry and Ben Stone for their 5 assists between the two of them. Hang on... this whole paragraph is talking about Colah Players! Keep up the good work CRICO!

So it was a good training run for the boys, with much harder matches to come, but confidence is higher - probably too high now .

The last friendly is up against Egypt U20, and this will be a good test against a relatively equal strength team. We'll be looking to win this one.

A bit of delay in posting.. was celebrating my birthday Sunday.

Until next week!
This is U20!

Happy Birthday Chris!

Thanks for the write-ups - enjoying reading.

Evening all again,

Australian U20 went down 2-0 tonight unfortunately to a beatable Egypt U20. A combination of Egypt playing high intensity to our very low, some bad tactics, and us missing a couple of top players who are in training camp didn't help, but we will be better for all the above.

I did muck up some settings after some late jiggery-pokery with the line-up and forgetting to then update some tactics... glad it was a friendly.... actually... maybe... it will confuse our opponent for our next match, so there is strategy in mistakes .

Next week, the world cup qualifiers begin for U20, and overall it will be tough for us to qualify. We absolutely must win our first 3 matches against Israel, Algeria & Chile which is achievable, as up after that are the big 4 in our group, France, Croatia, Ireland & Bosnia.

On a positive side, we are lucky in a way in our group - whilst these 4 teams are significantly higher rating than us, only Croatia are ranked in the top 20, so we will still be going in to win/draw in an upset.

On paper we are ranked 5th in our group on a good day, but if Steve Bradbury can win a gold medal... the U20's can do a Bradbury too!

Right.. next match.. v Israel U20... that's the only focus. We will be ready!

Until next week
This is U20!

I've player a couple of U17 opponents recently where they've player higher intensity. Surely, they're just wasting energy for the competitive games or have I missed something like chemistry goes up quicker on high intensity?

Great win last night away against a stronger opponent. Well done!

Evening to you all once again, and what a great evening it is!

Maybe something to do with the super-duper AWAY win by the Australian U20 over Israel U20 in the early hours of Sunday morning.

It was left defender Owen Swansson who was the hero in the 88th minute of the match, scoring of an assist by centre forward Branden Flanagan . One would have thought it should have been the other way around, by these [soccer_team=36519] players know each other well! Manager of team Colah, the famous CRICO, was arrested shortly after when excitement got the better of him, and he ran on the ground (wearing not much) to congratulate his players. A trivial side note - officially the spectator attendance at the match was ZERO! So CRICO must have not paid for a ticket & also jumped the fence to get in - two fences in one evening! I suppose he is use to jumping creeks .... but we digress...

Back to the match, Israel were the stronger team, with more shots, more corners, more freekicks & 55% possession, but the defense, led by CD Xavier Thompson and goalie Austin Harbridge held out.

William Goode was unlucky not to score with a missed PK in the 57th minute, and a total of two shots on target. But the match will go down as a very special one for our Australian U20 team, who now see themselves level with Croatia up the top-end of Group 7.

In other matches our group, Group 7... Croatia smashed France 5-1 - clearly they are the strongest team in the group. Chile vs Algeria played out a 0-0 draw and it was 0-0 also in the other match, Bosnia vs Ireland.

Next week, the U20's are up against Algeria and will be looking for another win to make it two from two. There will be no over-confidence though!

Until next week,
This is U20!

Reminds me of a cricket match I went to in Dubbo many years ago between NSW Country and Zimbabwe. A streaker jumped the fence and ran on to the field pursued by a couple of overweight police. He just kept running, hurdled the fence on the other side of the ground then disappeared into the streets of Dubbo. Presumably he had a house key stashed away some where.