Ireland v Paraguay ESPN Wednesday AM

Ireland v Paraguay ESPN Wednesday AM

Cheers for that, booked on MySky now

I bet you to it BigPete
http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=13072&PN=1
but wasn't sure which forum to put it under. Oceanic62010-05-25 00:18:09

More publicity the merrier as not many people seem to know about it being broadcast (has been advertised the last few days on ESPN). Will be fascinating to see what they're like- and Ireland may well be a bit similar to the All Whites, which is why Paraguay chose to play them.

I bet both of you to it in the existing thread which the original poster still updates...

http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12158&PID=514123#514123

Ireland looks like they're playing a strong side. Stoked on getting to see Duff and Keane.

Republic of Ireland starting team v Paraguay (Tues 25 May): Keiren Westwood (Coventry City), Stephen Kelly (Fulham), Sean St. Ledger (Preston North End), Paul McShane (Hull City), John O'Shea (Manchester United); Liam Lawrence (Stoke City), Glenn Whelan (Stoke City), Keith Andrews (Blackburn Rovers), Damien Duff (Fulham); Robbie Keane (Tottenham Hotspur), Kevin Doyle (Wolves).


Predicting Ireland 2-0

If its going to be locked, do it after the game has aired.

Id like to think Ireland will win this. Im really looking forward to this, it will be interesting to see how the 'strongest Paraguayan side in years' shapes up.

Big Pete 652010-05-25 19:19:43

thanks mate!

Think we have a good chance against Paraguay. Didnt look very threatening at all and should have got another goal in the second half seeing Ireland looked like they were just messing around/subbing on new players. Fallon wont have much trouble dominating the aerial game.

Yeah we definitely have a chance to grab some points from these guys. I thought it was a pretty lacklustre performance to be honest.

was it paraguays best team?

No, they were missing 6 first-teamers.

Though Ireland gave 3 guys their first cap.  They didn't start but still.

Paraguay are beatable.

Huge call.  Still reckon Paraguay are more likely to put us to the sword than Italy are.

yeah big call, but they could also flop. I would like to see them play their full strength team against someone so I can really see what they're made of, going by this morning they looked ok but nothing flash or to be afraid of. We should be able to use our height against them quite easily.

If we keep the ball off the ground they won't be able to reach it

This.

Only watched the last 30 min but have to say that if we keep giving the ball away that we did against Oz we will be punnished.

A couple of things I noticed about Paraguay.....first of all how small they look at the back. Our big strikers should have a greeat time. Secondly....they are very quick and pass and move at grreat pace. They also exploit the wide spaces well, trying to get in behind the attackers. Not a team to play 3 at the back IMO. Still if we play the right team and have the right tactics we could cause them a few problems. If you dropped off them they look like they could tear you a new A. hole

Well its one of those yes and no things. [I haven't seen them play]

With the high altitude, the ball will travel very quickly from one side of the pitch to the other and having three big forwards are quite useful as well as getting the first touch in the 50/50 balls by their long legs and head. It would place serious defensive problems for the Paraguay team. The ball floating through the middle may be much quicker due to the high altitude.

However since it is likely that their quick players pass well and move at pace, we do need at least 4 or 5 men in the midfield to press hard. To exploit our height advantage in front as well as mantaining defensive pressure in the midfield allow us to keep ball further up field away from our goal. Any high balls (e.g crosses) against our defence, due to the thin air, can be deal with by our solid defence.

I don't think that the ball will be that easily controlled by their small forward running into the wide from the high or on the bounce before someone gets in their face.

A way to prevent them from exploiting the wide attack is to have wingbacks rather than normal lateral backs further up the field. Having lateral backs can give you a sense of false security on the wide because the midfield backs off and let the lateral defence handle the dribbling winger. Whereas the solution is maybe to stop/hurry the pass to the winger making the wingers first touch difficult and not getting time to start his speed dribble. Because once he has, then it's already over for the defender.

But having a wing back right next to his first touch, will make the winger work harder and hopefully make a mistake or cut/slow his wider attack option down, allowing the central defenders time to be better organised and their attack more predictable. Hence having three in the back is still playable.

I think that the 3-4-3 will still work well. When the wingbacks drop to cover the wingers, it will have a 4-3-1-2 and still have our three in the midfield covered with a deep forward dropping back. So basically we have a 3-4-1-2 feel to it.

As you rightly pointed, we can't drop off them when they attack and the midfield is key to this. However, they can't be caught losing the ball because we just simply dinked the ball over quickly to one of our big forwards and suddenly they are on their back foot for nothing. My question is then how compressed in depth are they going to be from the forward to their backs. If they are too tightly compressed, the high ball will see them turn on their back foot to cover the big forwards. If they are not as compressed but their midfield positioned deeper, then they are dropping off our midfield giving us a bit more time and space to play like we were against the Australians in the first half. If they compressed with their midfield up further as they normally would do in a low altitude game, a quick medium ball to Smeltz or another player in the hole between the midfield and backs will see them getting exposed on the counterattack despite having more of the possession.

The high altitude will move that ball in the air quicker, which would better for the counterattacking (usually with lower skill) type teams in the tournament rather than the possession (usually with higher skill) type teams. It would be the physically fit and the bigger teams that can do more damage than usual and so I think that there will be plenty of upsets and more even games. I think the teams with the better long shooting midfield with counterattack abilities to boot will advanced further ahead over the high possession type teams.

For this reason, I say to watch out for teams like Germany, England, Netherlands, France for their long range shoots. And expect teams like Algeria, Mexico, Denmark, South Korea, Chile and Uruguay to exploit their counterattacking abilities and cause more problems for their usually stronger opponents.

Also playing what we are doing will cause a number of problems for the opposition. So it would be interesting how well this competition will pan out.AllWhitebelievr2010-05-28 00:37:53

Frankie Mac2010-05-28 01:54:36

Only going by what zinidane has observed and it is enough to make some comments.

But you seem to have some seriously unattended anger issues . . . ?AllWhitebelievr2010-05-28 20:02:09