Ironic that you chose Phyrric, because thats exactly what i accused our u21 manager the year we were in consolation, Phyr, of not being mindful of. I also suggested that tough was not wary of Normal's last worlds for the US, and several times in round 1 i begged for a normal to be used. I was too critical after the fact i believe, but i don't take back what I believed at that point in time.
I think that each nation has their own goals. I'm not going to suggest that Cletus that is running Canada doesn't want to win it all, but I think last worlds he probably had a goal that was to qualify for worlds through the repecharge and make it to the second round given that they hadn't made it to round 1 of the worlds in quite some time, and hadn't made it to round 2 in even longer (if ever, didn't look that far back). If i were in his shoes in worlds season 35, i would've used normal a few times in round 1 to ensure that i made it into round 2, even if i was riding a 1-2 or 0-3 record in.
Nobody is going to really remember whether or not the Netherlands got eliminated or advanced in the consolation tournament, because not too many care about winning the best of the rest tournament. So why wouldn't the Netherlands take the opportunity to say "hey, we've got a once in a lifetime opportunity to knock the 2nd best ranked team in the u21 worlds out of the consolation tournament with little long term downside". That win right there could mean a lot for people in that country, because now they feel like if they give it their all, they might be able to compete with the best teams. They might get 2 or 3 people from the Netherlands that now are willing to invest time in the u21 efforts knowing they could turn into Estonia or the Ukraine.
While it's hard to dismiss the TIE from italy here as a strategy that they should not have gone with (I think it was the right call), after analyzing their team composition and the Netherlands to this point, i feel as if i am compelled to believe that Italy slept a little bit on this matchup. The Netherlands has been running 3-2 a lot, and has defaulted to neutral or outside offenses. Running the generic LI without considering how to stop their PG from distributing the ball to others in motion was not the best strategy, nor was going with your bigs at SF. I think had you played a guard at SF or played your best OD at their point of distribution might have eliminated the high opportunity chances. You made the same mistake many of the power nations make every now and again against the underdogs. In this particular case, you were probably very unlucky with regards to the anticipated outcome, but the chance was always there. If you need proof of that, look at your game against Finland in the Euro's.
Last edited by FurY at 2/15/2017 5:29:49 PM