Tanzania, Botswana, Italy friendlies

Agreed.

Yeah your right i guess, Rickie does need to be able to shut-out/down teams from scoring opportunities.

Italy 3-0 Northern Ireland in friendly

Hopefully we hit the bar 4 times.

My team against Italy

That looks like a good squad.

Maybe it would be 4-5-1,

but Oughton in the right back? Brockie in the starting line up?
AllWhitebelievr2009-06-07 15:52:39

The Uzbeks are a very good team. The table lies a bit - they are certainly better than Bahrain.

Still think the team we'll be playing will come from the other group - one out of North Korea/Saudi Arabia/Iran.el grapadura2009-06-07 15:55:35

Saw some of Iran v Japan last night, it was a good standard, Japan are now through and if it is Iran we will face, will have our work cut out

I thought that a 4-3-2-1 Xmas tree variation of 4-5-1 might be far useful. Then 4-2-1-2-1 to open up more on counter attack in second half.

I thought that Ricki would like to try this; (Second half changes to line up in brackets)

                               Moss (Bannatyne)

Sigmund    Vicelich    Boyens   Lochhead
                  
               Oughton                  Elliot
               (James)                   (Brown)           
                               Brown (c)
                             (Smeltz)   
          Smeltz                                   Bertos
        (Woods)                   
                            Killen

. . . well thats what I would try and do. I would like to see if we could catch them off guard in the second half with some pace with fresh midfield and forward. Add Woods in, drop Smeltz to deep striker role and have James and Brown as defensive midfielders but have only one of them free to push up on the counter and allow Vicelich to push up into the midfield to replace the midfielder going up. Need to have numbers on the counter attack to allow maximum chance for a goal.AllWhitebelievr2009-06-07 16:59:42

Smeltz and Killen to play upfront together for the 90.

Japan played Uzbekistan last night. Iran is in the other group, had a 0-0 draw with North Korea.

Can't see us playing 2 up front against that kind of opposition.

  Whoopsie   yes I meant Korea and Iraq, either team would be a challenge

Glad you're on the ball El G

What you mean you saw Korea and Iran (not Iraq)?

Give me a break, spelling mistake !!


I saw 2 teams playing, one had red shirts, one had white, they were both all right

I hereby retire from all comments about teams last night.




hepatitis2009-06-07 17:05:33

I am fairly nervous about the WCQ playoffs. We better step up.

I wish you were the Phoenix coach - and no, I'm not being sarcastic!

Our mixed team getting a draw with a strong defensive effort is pleasing but yeah I question Ricki Herbert's tactical style and wish we had some fresh ideas for this campaign, can't help but think we are a bit stale with ricki Herbert.

Can't see us scoring then...

I have to disagree with the attacks on Herberts tactics, firstyl no one has seen the games so how can we judge them, a couple of reports out of Africa are hardly reliable, Hell originally we thought the first game was a nil all draw after 97 minutes!!!

Fair call Touchme. I agree we definitely need to play positively. two up front displays that.

I wasn't attacking Herbert - I just have a football crush on Allwhitebelievr...

Counter attacking via Greece (European championship winners) and Croatia (3rd in WC finals) was the best and effective way to play against high skilled teams.

If we can have the defence sorted out, then it is a matter of combining our pace and best available finishers in the team once we are able to counterattck. We just need the first couple of passes to a free unmark player and a 1-2 wall pass and have 5 of the team go for goal. Usually when a high level team has the possession in your half, they have less in the defence. Counterattacking in numbers does work. It has been done before, it's just the execution. As long as the players knows their pre-set running patterns and keep to it, then the counter attack will open many finishing options.

In the past, teams counterattack with only a couple of attackers because most of the side is defensive but it has been easy to defend against. Now you just dump half the team in attack as long as you have the defence and a couple of defensive midfielders in formation to slow down any counter counter attack (yes it does happen) and kick the ball out to allow your attackers to back tracking to the usual defensive formation. You need a very capable captain to keep a check on thing.

When you look at Denmark and Finland, most of their games against heavy european teams are basically two different formations, one for defensive and the other for attack. It's the only way a weak team can play against a more skilled opponent.

BTW Counter attacking does not need to be long direct style. it can be a couple of accurate passing, a short dribble and then a couple of quick pass with targetman but gearing straight into the box rather than long dribble wing play which is easier to defend and slows things down a tad.
The idea is accurate passes that builds up in pace as you progress down the pitch and it works especially in the direct counter attacking.

The Italian has a word for it, I can't remember what it was called but they are trained for a similar direct pace counter attack. It would be the last thing they expect from us and we have the players to pull this off a couple of times in the game.

When I remember the word, I will tell you.AllWhitebelievr2009-06-07 21:33:25

I agree with you mate, just a pity that we don't have Nelsen out there as he would have made your tactics for more playable.

It interesting to discuss tactics but we are talking about italy and then Spain....its like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. What ever we do we will be over run in these two games(embarassingly so) unless we play an ultra conservative game. We do not have the players with sufficient skills to play an attacking game that would be a threat to Italy or Spain.

Check out these counter attacks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TLGf-594-w

Quite a simple bunch of pre-set running patterns. We have potential speed with Bertos, Woods, James, Brown and potential targetmans with Killen and Smeltz. Just need some team discipline.

my mate played in this game, he said leading in to the tournament the kiwi u-17  squad were high on morale, thought they were a good team and would be in the world stage to help them get pro contracts etc.

then after these demoralising losses, they all realised they were completely out of their league and should probably give up hope of pro football. sad story really.

funny that the only guy who has a pro contract from that squad didn't actually get on the field for that hammering.

Oh, guess there is mike wilson as well, not sure if he is pro or semi pro?

I would love the all whites to have a good counter attack tactic or 2, getting a goal out of the games against spain and italy, that would be a win for me.

i am more nervous about how many are going to go in the back of our net.

The italy game will be a different ball game to the spain game. not sure if it will be to our advantage or not. but italy will not be taking this game as seriously  as spain will be. so maybe we can minimise our loss to italy, as they are testing formations, concentrating on game time etc. the all whites are taking this seriously. ricki has always said he is going to play his first choice starting lineup against italy.

he knows the italy game will be on the world stage, the botswana and tanzania game were not the best build up with all the problems/ excuses etc.

from now on ricki and the all whites will have no room for excuses. its time for them all to man up, and rick and the players know that.

Thats what happen when you have Ben Sigmund on the bench under McGarth. Obvious mistake somewhere.

I just urge patience in first half with defensive resolved. Then make substitute the speedsters onto the field after 10, 20 and 30 minutes in the second half. Fresh and fast for a 30 minute burst, start increasing the midfield speed by the substituting speedsters on the field in the second half. But if we get a goal out of it, I would be more than happy. But really I like to show that we can be dangerous a couple of times. If we don't show that, then lose even more credibility as Oceania Champion. We got very little to lose as it is.

Sigh, I would to see some decent and obvious tactics being made. I wish we had Guus Hiddinks as coach.

BTW The Counter counter attack doesn't always happen as half of their team would try and defend against the counterattack so it is worth a shot as a risk in the second half as couple of times. 40% of the goals in the world cup were by the way of counter attacking.AllWhitebelievr2009-06-07 22:38:48

Don't agree at all with the few people on here saying we should get as many chaps behind the ball defending as possible to minimalize the number of goals we concede against Italy/Spain and whichever strong team we will face in the semi-finals.  We will need our defence to be brutally solid and have at least two defensive mids but we should have two strikers and a few speedy wingers as well.  We shouldn't aim to keep the goal difference to a minimum, we should go out there knowing the odds are stacked against us but to try and grab a goal or two as well.  Who knows, we may have a similarly positive result like we did against Wales a few years back.

My starting line-up for the game against Italy would be as follows:
                            Moss

Boyens          Vicelic      Sigmund       Lochhead

                  Brown            Elliot

Bertos                                         Chris James

            Smeltz             Killen

We really need Bertos to use his pace.  Like he did in his first few games with the Phoenix, if he sees space behind a player he should just knock the ball into the space, skip past them and open up the opportunity for an attack.

i am liking this line-up the most so far...just not sure what to do with that right back position. i am sure there are about 100 kids in nz focusing on that position for the future, in 10 years we might end up with 11 right backs...lol

I had the most trouble with that position, but it was either Boyens, Christie or Mulligan (that I could remember) and I think Boyens is probably the best of that bunch.

Sigmund can do Right Back, Boyens is better as Centre Back. Just swap them about.

I wouldn't touch Mulligan for the right back should anything go wrong in that but I go for Christie because he backtracks better. Either that or have Oughton in Centre and move Vicelich to the right as last resort.

You need to Bertos a full game, James for half a dash in the second. I rather have a strong defence in first half and in the beginnings of the second half.

So I start with Oughton and Elliot as defensive midfielders first up.

I would then sub in James after 10 minutes of the second half, sub in Woods after 20 minutes. So I could have Brown, James, Bertos, Smeltz Woods and Killen in the midfield and forwards readily for the some counterattacking over 30 minutes.

So has anybody heard any word as to whether or not Sky will be televising the Italy game?

I am not to sure on Killen starting ahead of woods to be honest, if anything, Woods is our best target man at the moment, he's bigger, has match fitness and confidence on his side after a whirlwind season.