Teema: U20 Australia NT Discussion

Unfortunately, we weren't able to steal the points in Colombia going down 1-0:
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However, a couple of other results went our way so we're still a chance of qualifying going into the last game, at home against top placed Serbia.

Serbia were too good for us in our final qualifier:
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We weren't far off qualifying but ultimately it wasn't to be. Next week we have a friendly where I'll give next season's team a run.

On another note, I haven't renominated for U20 manager yet and would prefer not to. I will if no-one else sticks their hand up but I'd encourage anyone who's interested in managing a national team to have a go even if you're still relatively inexperienced. While we're a small community, we're happy to help out if needed. The U20s are also probably the best place to start. The U17s require tracking all the new players while the senior team involves managing a very broad pool of talent, many of whom are playing in foreign leagues. The U20s is just steering the U17s to the seniors

Think about it!

The new season started with a solid 6-1 thrashing of Uzbekistan:
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Must be the influence of Malikas's boys who don't know how to lose

I am looking for an assistant manager. If anyone is interested, let me know here or by PM. It will require very little work but will allow you to see how it all works if you're interested in managing a national team in the future.

The original world cup crew are all grown up now!

Good luck with the U20s!

Apologies for not providing any reports recently. I have been absolutely flat out both at work and outside work.

Our final friendly before the qualifiers saw us lose 2-0 to Belgium overnight:
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That made three wins, three losses and a draw for our campaign so far but I feel confident we have a decent team both for this season and next and we are a real chance of qualifying.

Next week, we will be away to Poland in what will be a tough match.

PS Still looking for an assistant

Very pleased to report that we have started the qualifiers with a win, a 2-1 victory over Poland:
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The Poles were the stronger team and had home-ground advantage which resulted in a strong possession advantage and more shots on goal. They converted one of them to take a 1-0 lead into half-time. We never gave up and after equalising in the 76th minute, we hit them with everything we had and were rewarded with an injury time winner. A memorable victory

Next week, we're at home to Malaysia, a game we should win if we want to make the finals so I won't be letting the team get too cocky.

Congrats! Great start to the qualifiers!!

A solid 4-0 win over Malaysia sees us sitting top of our qualifying group for the moment:
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Next week we travel to Morocco, who are similarly ranked to us but we have a chance of taking some points out of the match,

Yay! Grats to the U20s...

Thanks. It's all your U17 team of course

We lost 2-1 away to Morocco overnight:
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Next week, we're home to Serbia.

A tight match at home ends in a 1-1 draw with Serbia:
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In our first competitive match of this season, the Aussie U20s held Poland to a 0-0 draw:
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It's a good result because Poland were on top of our qualifying group at the end of last season and had a noticeably higher team strength than us.

It's a bad result because we are now 7th in our group, six points behind 4th. That's going to be tough to make up over the next six games but we'll give it a crack.

crico

Dammit, we went too hard against Malaysia and smashed them 6-0:
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On the bright side, we now have a positive for/against. But we have lost some energy we could have used later on.

We have leapfrogged Serbia and Morocco into 5th place, four points behind Turkey in 4th.

A 2-0 win over Morocco keeps the dream alive.
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We are now three points behind Hungary and Peru in third/fourth. We play both at home in coming weeks so our future is in our own hands in a way.