Aihe: US Under 21 Team

I need another 20-21 year old goaltender. Does anyone have a player in that age range that is better than this player from a dead team:

Mort Christopherson

The U.S. will very likely be better than Chile and Turkey and make the next round again this season. It's very possible that the U.S. will be better than Argentina and Slovenia as well. Most of those teams probably will add a lot of players between now and the first game of the tournament.

Well, we won our friendly today by virtue of forfeit. Did not see that coming lol.

That happens fairly often actually. For the first game of the seasons, all of the 21 year olds that were called up the previous week for the World Championships were removed from the team. If the manager doesn't call up the current 21 year olds, possibly having to add players to the team if there aren't enough, then the lineup will end up invalid. In addition, the manager from the previous season manages the team for the first game before a new manager takes over. It's possible that an outgoing manager might not care to set up the lineup for an exhibition. Finally, the manager has to set up the first few exhibitions for the season in the last season; it's possible that some managers might not realize that they have to schedule some games for the next season and may not receive challenges for those slots (this results in no game being scheduled).

I see! Well, that can make it interesting for sure. We have some more friendlies coming up anyway.

I've added 8 more players to my scouting queue after double checking all the rosters with level 10+ facilities or in I.1 and transfer histories for all division I and II leagues back to season 14. 6 of the players are 20 year olds with less than 1000 OR that I probably wouldn't add this season.

There are 2 interesting 20 year olds that I hadn't scouted yet: Kevin Gibbs of the Oregon Sixgunners and Curtis Underwood who the Doppelgangers sold in season 15. I also for some reason left Cedric Brewer who I recently sold off my followed list. I'll likely end up adding Brewer as the reserve/#7 back. I'll need to cut someone to add Brewer though. Gibbs and Underwood have a chance of replacing one of the 20 year olds on the team that I likely won't use this season.

If none of those unscouted players are goaltenders who can catch up to Mort Christopherson by the end of the season, I'll probably end up adding him even though he's from a dead team.

underwood was a universal blocking back (looking back at him now). he seems to have been trained okay, with the exception of AGR which doesn't actually appear to have ever been trained at all.

The schedule's now filled out for the season. I ended up adding Brewer, Gibbs, and Underwood and dropping 3 players that have poor training and facilities.

I added Christopherson too. 3 of the remaining 6 players I have to scout seem to be goaltenders based on stats, though 2 of them are 20 year olds with less than 700 OR. The third one who will be scouted tonight is 20 with over 900 OR - Cesarz from Green Bay Top Flight. I think I will drop one more relatively weak players and add Cesarz as the 3rd string goaltender to complete the roster. Cesarz seems to be available for sale.

*2 of them are 20 year olds with 700-800 OR and mediocre facilities.

In the next few seasons the senior team will need an attacking left wing and back. On the D : Right wing, Pivot, 2 backs.

and fwiw vaughn will be senior team in ... 4 seasons?
a couple more than a few seasons admittedly.. but he should go well with David Allen by the time he's there... if you can wait that long.

Michael Horne is a serviceable universal blocking wing. he has had pretty good CL and OR through his life cycle and even though he's kind of average in AQ, he works in a pinch if you're really desperate on that right defensive wing.

Scott Serna is a universal blocking defender that (luckily for me) fell through the cracks and wasn't on the national team yet (so he didn't get fire sold). He was on both the U19 and U21 squads. He's had one of the best CL progressions of any of my players and is still 4/6 CL at 24 years old.

The U.S. U21 Handball NT will return to the final round once again. Since I clinched early, I was able to rest the team for the last two matches of the qualifiers.

The U.S. has a competitive team this season that I believe should make the playoffs and at least win a round.

Some new strategies have been implemented this season (I won't go into into detail here) at the suggestion of reverist, the assistant manager.

reverist is currently a candidate to run the U21 NT next season. I don't intend to run again and believe that reverist will do a good job. reverist is the current U.S. U21 Handball NT assistant manager, managed the U18 U.S. Hockey NT in its inaugural season, is one of the more active managers in the forum, and has a lot experience from a while back before taking a break from the game despite seeming like a newer manager.

The next round starts today with a match against Finland.

Whoo hoo! I'm excited to see how this goes.

Good win today against Finland!