Asunto: National Team

willmott isn't inexperienced. He's been playing these games for years. I know him from HockeyArena. He isn't very active in the forums, but let's face it, being not so active in the forums is par for the course in the US.

And he's 7th in the US in time spent in account

I just looked at the comment posting chart and saw my name at the top in the US forums. For a moment I thought I was cool and I should have won the election. Then I realized how pathetic that is that I'm #1. Screw you guys, I'm going to send text messages to my real life friends. Wait...duh...that's not good either. Meh, I'll go kick the cat for shits and giggles.

Tujague... Never said he is inexperienced just agreeing what YOU brought up in forums..... Nice to know him and I started same time

Congrats, willmott! Good luck

Congrats willmott. If you need anything, just send me a message.

Thank you! And thanks to all who voted.

I'll be making decisions on dropping some players (already have a few in mind) this week; those things need to be done by Day 14, which is next Sunday. When I've got my list I'll post it here a day before I make the moves. Obviously, I've got final say, but if there are serious comments about it I'd be willing to take them into consideration.

During that time and in the week following, I'll make some decisions on which players to add. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'll be leaning towards youth here and adding players who will develop into the best of our country over the next couple of seasons.

The next two seasons will be qualifiers for the Intercontinental Cup, which appears contains all non-European teams. As such, we're the top-ranked team in our group (which also contains Uruguay, Peru, Chinese Taipei, and Indonesia). We have a significant OR advantage over those teams, so I'm optimistic that we'll be able to win the group and move on with a high seed, and even get our younger players some experience and chemistry in the process. The Cup itself will be played at the end of season 8.

For the first round of cuts from last season's national team, I'm looking at:

-Robert Lynch
-Vic Newell
-Jarod Perrin
-Shayne Chin
-Willie Willis
-Reid Powell
-Melvin Rees

For the most part, those moves will be made tomorrow evening (one or two are pending and may not happen until Sunday). I've got a couple more that I'm still considering.

I've also added two players who I already know will be making a contribution this season:

-Santo Locklear
-Len Bunch

They'll get some game time on Saturday.

Can you link the players so it's easier to follow?

Yeah, good call.

To be cut:
Robert Lynch
Vic Newell
Jarod Perrin
Shayne Chin
Willie Willis
Reid Powell
Melvin Rees

Added last night:
Santo Locklear
Len Bunch

Ok, those cuts have been made. Two more cuts are on tap for Saturday afternoon; these are the much tougher decisions:

Earle Smith : He'll be a great player, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him back on the NT in a couple of seasons, but he's currently stuck behind a monstrous CD core (including two 18yo's with better qualities in Phillip Woody and Willie Novak).

Drake Mayer : Again, a good player, but there's just not space for him in the structure I have planned out.

Additions to come early next week!

Additions which will be happening tomorrow:

Erik Cheney : With the aging Robert Lynch gone, we need another solid, experienced keeper to complement Petersen and Merchant (both 18) who will keep up pretty well with training. Cheney is the best option for this.

Will Nukumai : We need another RD; Shayne Chin's training will drop off this season since he dropped to 3/6. Nukumai is still at 4/6 and is also on a team that has already completed a level 15 training facility, so he'll develop just as fast as some of our younger players.

Scott Lucas : Continuing the younger movement at CM.

Raymond McCready : A good young option at forward; he'll develop into one of our better players with time.

That will bring our total to 30. After this I'll be adding one more forward and one more promising young player, and then I'll leave the last three spots open for most of the season in case of injury/suspension emergency. That will put our roster at 3 goalies, 9 defenders, 9 midfielders, 6 forwards, and 5 young stars who we'll help develop (but who will likely not see tournament action).

Well that was disappointing. I was hoping to capitalize on a distinct advantage in the midfield by letting our mids control the play and move the ball forward to generate our chances. They definitely controlled midfield play by a 1.6:1 margin, and kept the ball in our offensive end, but we just couldn't bury our chances, or even get them on net! And the forward configuration I use did not function as I had hoped...Brennan had a very quiet game while Buchanan took all the shots and missed 2/3 of them.

All in all, obviously not the start I had hoped for, but all we can do is learn from this and turn it around next week.

Uruguay is up this weekend. Should be an interesting test, especially on their turf. Would be really nice to bounce back with a win, especially to add some points to our ranking, since we're already dropping after a week 1 bye and a week 2 loss.

Buchanan is sitting out this week. 33% of shots on target is not going to cut it when he's playing as big of a role in the offense as he was supposed to last week. Plus the yellow card and team-high 6 fouls did not help the offense get in rhythm. He'll certainly have another shot, but we're deep enough at forward that it doesn't need to be this week.

I've been thinking about starting a private forum for just US managers, where I can post more about strategy, both game by game and for the long term. It would be nice to have some more interaction with the managers, especially the owners of the players on the team, but I don't want to do that here and tip my hand to the opposition. If I set something up on a different site, accessible by invite only, would anybody be interested in participating?

opivy ran a similar forum for the hockey NT. It helped coordinate scouting. I think we had every player scouted for every team in our group. But it just sort of went away.

Will I be happy with Buchanan's replacement?

Yeah, I thought I remembered something like that, but it didn't seem like it was still going. Not an overwhelming reaction here, so it may not be worth the effort now either.

Not this game...he doesn't quite fit into the gameplan today. But he'll definitely see some time soon.