Having watched the replays of the other games, I think we may be under rating our players. Some of the mistakes (Israel game etc) were very poor.
Whilst we didn't light the world up, we were composed and organised. Two qualities that will help us against bigger teams.
That being said, I would like to see the midfield get closer to our striker (assuming we play 1 up top again) to allow for more attacking play.
Whilst we didn't light the world up, we were composed and organised. Two qualities that will help us against bigger teams.
That being said, I would like to see the midfield get closer to our striker (assuming we play 1 up top again) to allow for more attacking play.
I have not seen all the other games to comment but know we were not put under any amount of pressure so will see how we go in the next game.
Traditionally we have been a team that has battled to compete, here we dominated possession and dictated play. Yes it was a little boring, but we never looked out of control.
I even noticed how the commentators language towards us seemed more positive than previous tournaments, like even he expected us to bring something more than earlier tournaments.
I don't know if we will win either of our next two games, but I am confident we will be competitive, we will have moments.
Guatamela did host the CONCACAF qualifying tourney, and they needed pens to beat both Canada & Mexico. But still it's a sign of the constant progress now in the U20/U23s space especially, that we expect to go into these type of games as favourites, and dominate the possession stakes. 10 years ago that didn't happen.
Coincedentally Uzbekistan hosted and won the AFC U20 tourney. Needing pens to get over favoured teams Australia & South Korea. Beating them would be a big result for Bazeley's group. It wouldn't go unnoticed in Australia, where there is a bit of angst about their U17/U20 male teams mostly failing to qualify for age group WCs.