With respect to the goals, yes they were the result of very poor defending.
With respect to the general play if you do get to watch the game do one thing for me. Count how many balls get launched long, keep a running count and while doing that keep a note of exactly how many long balls are successful in finding a player and possession being retained.
With respect to Turnbulls claims that these players are capable of playing a short passing game, he is exactly right, they are capable of doing it well however if thats what he wants the team to do why did they go long so much?
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[quote=inafoxhole]
analyse every goal in every game of football like that and you'd be tearing 99.9% of the world's players to shreds tbf
As mentioned, I haven't & likely will not see the whole game so my view is purely with the caveat of only seeing the goals from this 1 x game !
I thought the initial post I responded to had the tone that the style of play was the cause of the defeat. In retrospect it was just lamenting the style of play, not the cause of goals etc.
The point I was making was that the defeat (size of) was down to continuous, very basic errors (ball watching, very poor player/game awareness) by several players & what I saw as some laziness which is inexcusable - not just because they (allegedly) played hoofball or the keepers individual poor performance.
If the Coach and/or players come out & say they were told to play hoofball then fair enough, but maybe its the players lack of discipline to follow the plan or maybe more likely a lack of "mental toughness" in a bigger game/stage & so resort to the easy option of just "kicking it away" ?
Wanting a team to do something like play possession football & them doing it are not the same or simply just the specific Coach/ NZF/ Hudson fault .The players have to take some responsibility if they are not following the gameplan..
But even if the team is filled with great passers, has the ability to play out from the back & maintain possession or did just play hoofbal, if:-
- You just watch the ball & dont know where the opposition are - You concede goals
- You dont know how to mark a player - You concede goals
- You dont put an effort in to track player runs - You concede goals
- You saunter around or stand watching unmarked players - You concede goals
These basic errors should have been eradicated before they reach NZ Level. If the above faults are evidenced again in the remaining games that is a far more serious problem than a poor individual performance or the general style of play.
NZ had 47% possession (although admittadly that will be bumped up by kicking off 6 x times ;-) ) which is probably more than the Men had/will have v Mexico so I guess they must have played some football on the deck..
Will be interesting to see the response & player/team performance in the remaining games. I wish them well.