Assunto: US National Team

Excellent job with the bid!

Good luck to whomever takes over as assistant. I wish Captain97G luck in the election, and I'll be helping as needed throughout the tournament. Cap has truly taken over the team though and my contributions this season have been intentionally minimal to avoid interfering with Cap's plan for the season.

As always, I'm hoping for the best for the team this season, but realistically we're probably 2-3 seasons away from having a team with an overall skill level on par with the upper tier teams in the division.

Congratulations on the bid!

It might be worthwhile to create a forum for the tournament.

Good luck to the senior team!

I thought about it but its best just to do it here. This is the senior team page and its where I will be doing everything about my talks for the team. Doing another forum may take away from what we do here. In any case thank you for the support guys it means a lot.

Thumbs up for the successful bid, USA. And fingers crossed for making it to the Top!

The forum would be for other countries to participate together in - though I suppose it probably wouldn't see much activity anyway.

With the pair of loses vs Portugal and Bosnia the Untied States does not seem likely to advance past the first round round. This team is a bit weaker then last year's team but I had hoped we would be strong enough to get to the quarter final rounds.

The Untied States pulled off a upset beating Serbia 1-0. With this win the Untied States is tied for 4th and hope is still alive. Next up is the U.K. who is going to be a tough out for the USA.

In another must win game the Untied States once again pulled off the upset beating a better on paper Untied Kingdom team. The U.K. tried to use Active fore-check to counter the USA's use of the popular Breaking up the play. I switched to Defensive to create a neutral playing ground which allowed the USA to win. It was a rising star on the fourth line George Warren who scored the only goal in the game. With this win The USA now has the fourth and final advancing spot in the group. Our spot is not guaranteed however because a U.K. win tomorrow could take it away. A win vs lowly Bulgaria would seal the deal.

The USA lost to Bulgaria today 1-0 however thanks to Serbia defeating U.K. 3-2 the USA hangs on to the 4th and final playoff spot in Group A. Many of you may be wondering why the USA who finished first in last year's group would finish 4th in this year's group. There are three major factors that I will review here.

Key Departures: The USA had to let go of a large group of players after last offseason due to age. This team is much younger since there is only three players above the age of 30 (Reid Chaffin, Richard McGrath, Zachariah Mohr) The result is a lost of Experience which is very hard to replace. We have had to bring up a lot of younger players who will make up the core of our group however they are 26 and 25 years old which means they have yet to hit there prime (27-30). Of this group includes starters on the team Centers Joakuin Fellows, Dre Thibodeau , Michael Robertson, Rodger Baker. Winger George Warren, Defensemen Daniel Carter, Drew Gallant, Neo Mathews. They are all young and have low experience but I am hoping with another season they will get stronger.

Quality of the competition: Take out Brazil and Italy two Division II teams, add a improving Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a Top Division squad in Serbia and the stiff competition makes it amazing we survived. There are a lot of good teams in this group and sadly winning it was going to be a long shot anyways.

Luck: Last year we got lucky. The U.K. the most dangerous team played on very low energy when we played last year and in several games we got some lucky bounces vs teams we could have gone either way on.

Still we advanced. We got the 4th seed of group A which means we have to play the Group B winner Switzerland. This is going to be an interesting matchup as we have used a lot of energy to play all 5 games while they played hard in 4 games and saved up in the last one. Our teams are similar in skill. I could analyze until I am blue in the face so instead I am just going to watch and see what happens. Lets see what happens tomorrow.

Today the USA lost in the quarterfinal round to Switzerland 4-2. The goal scorers for the USA are second line center Rodger Baker and third line right wing Darnell Jones. I am disappointed in the USA's lack of goal scoring with this game being the one in which we scored the most goals and we only won our two games 1-0 in the group stage and were shutout in every other game. 4 goals in six games does not a winning team make. Defense and Goalie play can only get you so far if you can't light the lamp.

We were not beat in tactics in any games nor did we win them. Rather we lost due to the lack of talent we have. Its something when this team is about the best team the USA has EVER had....and we are middle of the pack compared to most countries. This is going to be a tough few next seasons but I am hoping we can improve and promote at some point. I admit I need to work on out playing other managers using tactics and this is an art I will work on for next season.

This will be Cory Martin's last season with the national team and I am still searching for an assistant. Anyone who wants to apply please send me a pm. Good luck next season guys.

The quality of players going through the U18 team has improved over time, even with the loss of teams like the Irresistible Force, Psychos, High Hitterz, and STL Saints. I suppose it might be improving for other countries as well as they have more managers with maxed out facilities at the time players are pulled. Even so, the U18 team was in division II at one point, but now the team has made the playoffs in the top division in 3 out of the last 4 seasons, including this season.

The younger players that you have mentioned are the players I had to work with when I started in my first few seasons. I'd say the turning point was when Louie Lance turned 18. Shortly after that, the U18 and then the U20 teams promoted and have stuck around in the top division. While much of it has been a matter of luck against stronger teams, another part has been the quality of the players.

It helps that newer teams are starting to regularly produce prospects. I never had a starter on the U18 team until this season (I started in season 5 and didn't focus on my stadium as much as I should have during my first few seasons in PPM). Now I finally have elite facilities and can produce national team caliber players more regularly. The starting center was a draft pick of mine.

In any case, both the U18 and U20 teams are in the playoffs in the top division, among the elite 8.

I know and the future is bright for all of those 18 and 20 year olds. the only issue is takes many seasons for those 18 and 20 years old to get to the senior team. I feel like the benefit getting elite level players is at least a few years off.

It is time to talk about the CL drops and how they effect the team.

Goalies: Our Goalies are very strong and we may even have a goalie battle to see who will win the starting job between Kevin Clinton and Mack Gaudreau. Kevin is the stronger player but at 29 he does not have many seasons yet while Mack is only 26 and may have 4-5 good years yet. It will become his job at some point the question is whether that time is now or later.

Defensemen: Our top 12 Defensemen look very good since most of the players did not drop majorly from last season and those who did were already the best on our team. The top 6 is very strong and should be very capable this season. I do worry 1 or 2 seasons from now they will be dropped lower so I will keep looking for defensemen. There are 15 Defensemen on the roster but I am debating dropping Junior Clark because he is 26 but only has 2/6 and is the weakest defensemen on the team but I want other people's thoughts on the matter.

Offense: Due to the weak output the Offense put out last year I am going to be trying to find some new forwards to add firepower to the team. The third and fourth lines are going to be open spots of battling to see who will emerge and take a spot.

If anyone has any players they think are NT worthy send a message to me and I will look at their stats. Good Luck in the new season.

The senior team is still using the Psychos' arena.

Completely forgot about that when they folded.