This is why i don't select players if they can't defend for out NT.
Our Nt players might not be the best offensif guy's, but when it comes down to defending, you can be sure that they all should be able to hold their positions.
Today, against Croatia, i decided to take a little gamble, since i had this fairy whisper in my ear that they would go outside. They had been going inside the whole season ( probably hoping to lure out a 2-3 zone from us...) But with their 2 big C's out of shape and their 3rd best C getting injured, they had to call up 3 players.
If 1 player is a 114k C (which, by all means is low for a salary on a C, so it had to be a specialist) allong with 2 guards, then if you add 1 and 1, you get 2 ( which was 3-2 zone). I'd like to thank that fairy for whispering that in my ear, cause with my exams, i wouldn't have noticed the call ups untill just prior to the game.
Next up is Latvia, a very strong team, which seems to be plagued by poor Gameshape. Despite the poor gameshape, they had a very easy qualifying round, thus stacking up huge ammounts of enthousiasme. They only lost to Bolivia, who had decided to play CT against them while they were playing home (hey, that seems very simular to the story of us playing against Costa Rica...). Despite their recent GS struggles, they should have had a 8-0 record, just like we should have had...
They didn't have alot of though opponents. The most challenging one was without dought the Netherlands, who they seemingly send packing pretty easely ( not good news for us Belgians, since Netherlands are a bitt stronger than us...).
This is most certainly going to be a very though game, but regardless of the result, The Belgian NT has made it to the 2nd round in the KO stages of the tournament, which means that it's already doing better than any of the previous consolation Tourney's... Let's hope we can add another round to it. In the event of a win, Turkey is looming right around the corner, and in the event that we'd get that far, playing turkey would be a nearly certain loss...
However, i'll start thinking about Turkey once i face them. I'm taking a game by game approche right now.
After the Competitive NT season is concluded, their will be 2 scrimmages against the U21, to call up players who are in training to reward them with some minutes ( which should add a bitt of XP to their players. They are the futur of Belgium, so need to give them enough attention). The idea will be something like last season, where the top U21 players stay on their U21 roster, where as the NT will take in a few more trained guy's, aswell as some up and comming 20 year olds to balance the team out a bitt.
Since Marchoul is owned by the Danish NT coach, a scrimmage against Danmark will be arranged aswell ( it should have taken place already last season, but due to an unforseen circumstance, Both NT's didn't manage to find a spot in their NT schedule to face eachother).
Their, that should give you a preview of what is to come where the season to end against Latvia. However, i have no intension what soever to give up just yet. The scrimmages can always be postponed, so for now, we're concentrated on our task at hands, which will be trying to find a way to beat Latvia.
Revo