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ZeekLTK · 11-12-2012, 01:32 PM

Level 1 - Match 1 Recap

Northern Ireland 2

Kuwait 3

Lithuania 1

El Salvador 1

Coach's Corner:
Well, it couldn't have gotten much worse. We lost our opening game to what was suppose to be our "easiest" opponent.

Even worse, since the other teams drew, we are now basically in a "win or go home" situation - if we lose, we will be eliminated because Lithuania will have 4 points + one of Kuwait/El Salvador will have 4+ points, and with just 3 points left to get, we won't be able to catch them.

So now we've go to prepare for Lithuania, who I expect to be the most difficult team we face in the group stage, with no room for error.

I felt like the major problem against Kuwait was defensively, we ran a 4-4-2 and I didn't think there was enough support in the middle, once one defender got beat, the whole defense got beat.

So we're going to change to a 3-5-2 and get rid of our wingbacks, putting them as a "first line of defense" in the form of defensive midfielders. So now we'll essentially have 5 players in the middle of the field with 2 up front and 3 behind them. Hopefully this will help us clean up the sloppy defending so that if one guy gets beat, he'll have someone behind him to slow down the attack.

I hate doing this now since Lithuania likes to attack the wings, and this new formation means we've essentially pulled out from defending the wings (although we now have more bodies in the box to stop crosses)... but we just can't risk letting the middle fall apart like it did (constantly) against Kuwait. So we'll see what happens...

Offensively, we got 2 goals, so we're going to try to keep it up and keep attacking how we did. All the pressure is on now to beat Lithuania!

11-12-2012, 01:32 PM	#6
ZeekLTK Rookie OVR: 2 Join Date: Dec 2003 Blog Entries: 2	Re: Northern Ireland Campaign (PES2010) Level 1 - Match 1 Recap Northern Ireland 2 Kuwait 3 Lithuania 1 El Salvador 1 Coach's Corner: Well, it couldn't have gotten much worse. We lost our opening game to what was suppose to be our "easiest" opponent. Even worse, since the other teams drew, we are now basically in a "win or go home" situation - if we lose, we will be eliminated because Lithuania will have 4 points + one of Kuwait/El Salvador will have 4+ points, and with just 3 points left to get, we won't be able to catch them. So now we've go to prepare for Lithuania, who I expect to be the most difficult team we face in the group stage, with no room for error. I felt like the major problem against Kuwait was defensively, we ran a 4-4-2 and I didn't think there was enough support in the middle, once one defender got beat, the whole defense got beat. So we're going to change to a 3-5-2 and get rid of our wingbacks, putting them as a "first line of defense" in the form of defensive midfielders. So now we'll essentially have 5 players in the middle of the field with 2 up front and 3 behind them. Hopefully this will help us clean up the sloppy defending so that if one guy gets beat, he'll have someone behind him to slow down the attack. I hate doing this now since Lithuania likes to attack the wings, and this new formation means we've essentially pulled out from defending the wings (although we now have more bodies in the box to stop crosses)... but we just can't risk letting the middle fall apart like it did (constantly) against Kuwait. So we'll see what happens... Offensively, we got 2 goals, so we're going to try to keep it up and keep attacking how we did. All the pressure is on now to beat Lithuania! Last edited by ZeekLTK; 11-12-2012 at 01:34 PM.