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If there were better players who were 25, would you pick them? Or do you like the focus on younger players to help develop for the future?

If there was a 25 year old that clearly would be better than a younger player even after one season of training, I'd gladly use him.

We don't have anyone like that, so we're not, but if there was that resource available, it'd be senseless to ignore it.

So what did Italy do (to win the championship) that we didn't?

Different types of players? Different tactics? Different Enthusiasm management? They just develop players better?

Steve
Bruins

Can't really stuff that into a single descriptive box.

Here's their current roster:

(http://www.buzzerbeater.org/BBWeb/players.aspx?NTID=10)

Did they have better players than us? Yes.

Were they so much better that we couldn't beat them? No

Home court advantage did help them immensely.

We could have had our official crack at them had we beaten Nigeria. Maybe we wouldn't have won, but we'd have been competitive.

By the way, Italy at USA on Monday.

If we are to vote for you, how will you do a better job than juicepats?

I mean, saying that you are going to base the campaign on defence is all well and good, but what does that really mean? Anyone can come along and pick m2m, 2-3, 3-2 etc based on the opponents strengths. Does this mean that you are going to contact managers about training NT players against the good of their own teams?

Also, do you plan on creating a site for the US community like juicepats did? This site keeps everyone in the loop on who is in the squad & the other players that are developing.

With what we had available, we did have the best roster available.

Had we CTed that game (a point I've touched on earlier in this thread), we'd have won.

Have we spent the past 6 weeks fine-tuning and changing our philosophies?

Absolutely.

What happened in the Worlds is unacceptable, and if anyone thinks we're going to take the same approach into the next qualifying campaign, you're nuts.

By the way, I'd like to point out two things:

#1 Under my stewardship, we were 4-1 against teams that made the semifinals of the Worlds, and the one was a game we basically did not care about (continental finals, we had CTed to ensure advancement to the Worlds, while Brasil had not). That defintely stands for something. Our problems in the Worlds boiled down to getting CTed twice. One we couldn't do much about, the 2nd we should have met with a CT of our own.

#2 An American should run the USA NT. I'm all for having the best candidate winning the election, regardless of where they come from. I just believe that the best candidate for the USA NT should come from the USA - they'd understand the USA culture, communication, etc. more than anyone from another land. That's not xenophobia - it's just common sense. Many smaller countries, case in point Nigeria, do well with foreign managers coming in, but the USA is one of the powers of BB, and there are enough USA users capable of doing the job that we shouldn't need to cast our eyes to foreign shores.

Domenico/Jàn Ïtor is a great candidate for the NT, lots of experience and former BB too! I think in any other country, maybe even in the first round of NT elections, you'd be my choice.

Although, Juice has shown commitment and class while managing this team that IMO can't be topped. The work done in organizing the NT infrastructure was top notch, including setting up a website for US managers, organizing a team of advisers, and setting up scouting for the present and future. On top of all this, he welcomed criticism and advice from everyone, and even in cases of disappointment always took 100% responsibility no matter what the case.

True, the US didn't have the best World Cup performance. That's overlooking everything that was done to guide the US to the point, including a strong qualifying campaign. In all, I'm confident that in every game the lineups were made up of the best available players with plenty of debate for tactical planning. Juice did an amazing job overall and we're lucky he's willing to commit his time and effort to another term.

Last edited by brian at 5/9/2008 10:46:39 AM