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that was a typo...

innes needs to get next season to where our 21 year old bigs are now and he will be a sure starter. stop giving him orange juice and give him some testosteron or so :)

Hey, Astra, I hope you're feeling more positive now about your stint as U21 coach. You seem to have achieved much of what we hoped for, and the team is moving in the right direction. Well done.

Well done indeed. At least one of the national teams is making us proud!

ok. we won tonight in a CT vs Tie at home vs Guatamala. It got in the 4th quarter closer than I would have liked, but we won and that is what counts. Our record is now 5 - 1 and I am expecting us to jump another 5 places or so in the rankings...

Lacey 1 FT away from a perfect game -_-

Good win Astra, Germany next! 6-1 here we come ;)

Hello everyone

Time for a new update.

We lost last week vs Germany U21. We got overrun cause I played Tie. I felt this weeks game vs Taiwan is a quite even match and one that we needed to win in order to qualify for the next round. Thus far this seasons it is closer than before in the top and some teams had a crazy easy draw so a 6-2 is a must to get through to the next round. It doesnt even give you HCA for sure.

Today we played vs taiwan and we won. I expected Taiwan to CT and since we needed to win too I CTed too. I am glad I did. The final score was England 93 - 77 Taiwan. Think it would have been alot closer and perhaps too close when we would have normalled. Taiwan played an inside offensive opposed to the normal outside one that they have played more or less every game. So our 3-2 was slightly wrong, but it still stopped their super guards from scoring too many points. I was planning to play an inside offense, but at the last moment changed it to base offense and it was the right choice. Taiwan played a 2-3 defense. We got outrebounded alot, because they played with 3 bigs, but their TOs and our assists were a big help.

The key players for us were Dyce and Lumley. Selected Lumley because off his decent OD and his id and rb skills. He would normally not be my first choice, but hey cant have it all.

Contacted one or two coaches again with regards to GS and lets hope they will try to get that organised. Players like Blanco and Dillon are players we need.

With the 6-2 best score ever for the U21 england team we did qualify for the next round. Lets wait for the draw and lets hope we get a home game :) even if it is unlikely.

Laters
Moominpapa

Nice work, Astra. Good tactical thinking, good performance. Good luck against Bulgaria tomorrow!

wow atleast one person besides me cares about the U21:)

Astra, jsut be sure to get to the next round.

then you'll get to Face U21 Belgium :D

then you'll have a shot at taking revenge for the loss that your NT suffered by our hands

Rev

Hello Everyone

Our U21 run is than finally over. We played CT with 4 enthusiasm (after last weeks CT) vs Bulgarias Tie.

I knew Bulgaria would play an inside offense and I knew we would never put up an inside defense matching that. not in a million years, so I took a gamble and the gamble didnt pay off.

I played a 3-2 defense with a motion offense, hoping that we could stop their guards passing balls to their bigs, but it didnt work. We got heavily outrebounded and that made more than the difference.

Once again the most disappointing thing was that I couldnt field our best players, simply because their GS is fooked. I did contact several coaches AGAIN the last 2 weeks reminding them I need their players, but also telling them what benefit they have from a good managed gameshape. It clearly shows that some people dont understand or dont want to understand.

We have some good 20 and 21 year old players, but their coaches cant seem to manage their gameshape and that cost us a bit. Besides that, have to be honest, I believe we have gotten the best out off this group off players and it is time for the people that think they can do better and always patronise me and criticise me, take it over and do better than the 6-3 score we got. 6-2 before the knockout phase. I only lost vs germany u21 and canada u21. I am proud off my achievement and cant wait to see certain other people do better than me... To get us to the next level we need to beat countries like germany, canada or bulgaria U21 and I cant see that happen. (talked to the bulgaria coach tonight and they have 50+ on gamedays on chat). But miracles exsist and i wish the new U21 all the best.

Moominpapa

euhm, don't know what to think of your gamble really...

just want to point out, if you are going to try and prevent their guards from passing the ball up (what i wouldn't recommend at any given moment!) then i'd think it would slightely be more logical going iwth the 1-3-1, getting the extra pressure on that PG fast...

but then again, i'll be honest to say that i wouldn't go with the 3-2 zone hoping to stop their bigs from passing...

i'd expect a 3-2 to open up EVEN more room for the Bigs to do their stuff... but then again, in your situation, you had to go with a gamble, the gamble didn't pay off.

from what i've seen you did some good work. whoever will be the next U21 coach, it will be important that he knows how to train U21 players ( preferably he would have had some experience on a good working NT team, that way, he knows wht to look for on players) and the staff surrounding him will also be very important. cause a U21 team on your own, that's hard to pull off. so in that aspect, you did more than great Astra

hats of for ya achievements with the U21, and let's pray that the next U21 coach will be able to continue your work and expand the U21 staff aswell. cause more staff ==> easier to track dow more talents and monitor more talents ==> more talents getting trained, more competition for the spots ==> more competition, will result in better players ==> better U21 ==> better NT

so the next U21 coach knows what he needs to do. get some staff would be a good start, and preferably some people from england or who have ties to england ( if the coach were to be a forreigner)

Rev