Matches week 1

[Kemal]

Hmm, well kind of a rude awakening for Snaken, first match sees +5 week injuries total on 2 A-players, a red card for my best inner mid, and being wasted by the no. 7: 4-2. The beginning of the end in the 5th...?

quote:
38144 spectators had come to PULP Arena this cloudy day. PULP had chosen a strategic 3-4-3 formation. The following players had been chosen: Arenas - Griffiths, Runddahl, Escobar - Menéndez, Dubois, Holkvist, Chusov - Bloch, Niemi, Fuster.

Snaken decided to use a 3-5-2 set up. They fielded: Mi³ek - Rouwenhorst, Suárez, Malmbeck - Geiger, Farenhout, Heintalu, Pipeta, Alario - Billand, Kronskär.

PULP used their ability to concentrate their attacks in the middle of the pitch, rather than on the wings. Reikko Heintalu of Snaken was booked for kicking the ball away after the whistle. Yke Bloch's name was chanted throughout the stadium after his 16th minute goal up the middle gave PULP the 1 - 0 lead. A corner kick created great disorder in the penalty area, with a near-goal by Oscar Pipeta. At last, Snaken's Hans-Frits Farenhout was able to shove the ball in. 1-1. Some great play up the middle by PULP led to a chance for Patrik Runddahl to get the go-ahead goal in the 34th minute, but the shot hit the crossbar. PULP's Sven-Göran Holkvist was shown a yellow card after 36 minutes for slicing down an opponent. Ivan Escobar behaved like an inexperienced youth player in the 37th minute as he gave the ball away to an opponent. Lucky for him though, there was no goal. In a rapid move, Peter Billand of Snaken lost his man, passed the ball to the unmarked Per Kronskär who easily hit it home for the 1-2 goal. 1 - 2 was the halftime score. PULP dictated play, as they maintained 60 percent of possession.

A scuffle developed as players from both sides clashed following a tussle in the centre of the field in the 47th minute. After regaining order and consulting his linesman, the referee called PULP's Joe Griffiths to one side and produced a red card for the player. Snaken were forced to a substitution as Johann Geiger couldn't continue playing due to the rough treatment, forcing Daniel Villena to come in from the sidelines. After 61 minutes, Aarni Niemi made a dash down the middle past the away team's defenders to score the 2 - 2 goal. A late sliding challenge from Snaken's Reikko Heintalu was deemed to be his second yellow card offence by the referee, resulting in him being sent off. PULP created a good opportunity to score in the game's 79th minute when Noël Fuster's hooked ball from the left created a scuffle in front of the goal, and the visitors' defenders had a hard time clearing the ball. PULP took the lead in the 80th minute of the game by 3 to 2, as Aarni Niemi elegantly received a pass going deep, finishing off with a half-volley shot just below the bar. 82 minutes into the game, Martin Alario had to leave the pitch due to a knee injury. In came Roeland Hoebeke. Cheers filled the stadium as Patrik Runddahl broke through the visitors' central defense line to put away the 4 - 2 goal for PULP. At this point in the game, defending their lead became the main priority for PULP. After 85 minutes, PULP's Yke Bloch fell awkwardly, but was determined to stay in the match. PULP, bringing their ball possession to 72 percent, dominated the battle.

PULP's top performer was clearly Pierre-Alexandre Dubois. Patrik Runddahl turned in a dismal performance, however. Snaken's top performer was clearly Per Kronskär. However, Roeland Hoebeke made a disastrous appearance. The match ends 4 - 2.

[Shabbaman]

I drew v.s. the other promoted team, where I should've lost. I really need to strenghten my midfield. And my defense. Might just as well give up... On the bright side, I've spotted a team I could keep below me in the ranking.

Now, I could need some advice how to beat 5-3-2 teams without midfield but with mythical counter ratings...

What a disastrous start Kemal! [xx(]

[Kingreno]

My semi-B-team won 3-0. I used CA and gave my opponent not a single chance. I should win wednesday as well.

Kemal: bad luck...

Shabba: there are ways. ;)

[Shabbaman]

Show me the way, Obi Wan Kingreno [worship]

[Kingreno]

lol!

I am at work now, I'll check tonight and maybe i can provide some useful hints.

[Darth Pugwash]

Good start to the season for me, a 1-2 win over last seasons league champions.

Sets me up well to have a go at winning the league this season, although if I actually got promoted I'd probably come straight back down.

[BCLG100]

quote: BCLG United - Sandhu men 3 - 0 [HT Live] [Add this match to your bookmarks]





View game: HT Live
Date: 30/04/2006 at 18.00
MatchID: 77895156
Arena: The Shagpad
Crowd: 2248


Clear skies welcomed the 2248 spectators who had made their way to The Shagpad. United decided to use a 4-4-2 set up. Starters: Sharif - Bodenham, Pascoe, Calderhead, Neumann - Vaher, Soper, Mitran, Jackson - Fursdon, Abu-Kaleel.

Sandhu decided to use a 4-4-2 set up. They fielded: Taylor - MacLaws, Williamson, MacAndrew, Soper - Broderick, Jackson, Weckesser, Thomas - Mulrooney, Papangelis.

In the 25th minute, Sandhu's Boris Weckesser received a yellow card for going into a challenge studs first. United made a bid to take the lead as a ball coming in on the right hand side left Vlad Mitran completely alone with keeper Andrew Taylor, who made a spectacular block. In the game's 31st minute, Sandhu's Scott Jackson fell dramatically just outside the penalty area. However, the referee booked Scott Jackson for diving. In the 32nd minute cheers broke out as Vlad Mitran found his way through the guests' central defense line, clipping the 1 - 0 goal in for United. Many in the crowd felt the referee was being too lenient when he only showed United's Hugh Fursdon a yellow card after a mistimed challenge from behind in the 34th minute. The Sandhu player who had to be helped off the pitch, was Scott Jackson as he was unable to finish the game. Christopher Farrell came in to finish the match. The teams went for the halftime break at 1 - 0. This half belonged to United, who controlled the ball 66 percent of the time.

After 49 minutes, Hugh Fursdon put United ahead 2 - 0 when he rose to head in a hooked ball, the result of an effort from the right side. By now, United were drawing the troops back in order to defend their lead. Sandhu's Laurent Broderick had to watch the rest of the game from the sidelines, after twisting his ankle in the 72nd minute. Thomas Smart was the replacement. Good work by Sandhu's defensive line produced a couple of good counterattack chances, one of which found Clifford Mulrooney alone in front of the goal, but his shot whistled just wide. Hugh Fursdon gave United supporters even more to cheer about when he increased the lead to 3 - 0 after 87 minutes, following a good exchange of passes on the right that the away team failed to deal with. This half belonged to United, who controlled the ball 77 percent of the time.

Most important United player was Jordan Calderhead. Rahman Abu-Kaleel was a disappointment, however. Most important Sandhu player was Clifford Mulrooney. On the other hand, Nathan MacAndrew's play was disheartening. The match ends 3 - 0.


Woop!!!! i now have a 2 game winning streak!!!

That should probably end this week in the cup when i get trounced in round 2 :D

[Darth Pugwash]

Congrats dude! :D

I have a 10-game winning streak and a 15 undefeated streak. :p

Though that is in danger of bieng broken in the next cup game...:(

[Tubby Rower]

I won against another new team in my division 2-1. I'm currently tied for 2nd in my division as the other scores were 0-6, 2-1, and 4-4.

Next week, I'll be playing the 2nd place team from last season. They won 7 straight to end the season. They lost 2-1 to the 1st place team. Which leads me to a question. I'll post it in the HT Q Q&A thread so as not to clutter things up here.

EDIT:: oh yeah... and I PIC'ed that game :D

[BCLG100]

quote:Originally posted by Darth Pugwash

Congrats dude! :D

I have a 10-game winning streak and a 15 undefeated streak. :p

Though that is in danger of bieng broken in the next cup game...:(


why? what division is the team your playing in?

[Darth Pugwash]

Edit: ah crap sorry I misread your post BCLG

They are in another div 6 but they have a slightly better team than me

[Dell19]

Won 7-0. The real test comes next week against what will probably be a solid midfield.

[Tubby Rower]

quote:Now, I could need some advice how to beat 5-3-2 teams without midfield but with mythical counter ratings...@ shabba, for your 5-3-2 CA specialists, couldn't you just field a disastrous midfield and give him no CAs? Also I'd think that pressing would work, but I'm still trying to understand the counters to different tactics

[ProPain]

Won 3-1 against a competitor for the 2nd to 6th position. Quite happy with it. With my incredible form drop last friday (dropped from 49 to 44,5 stars, my two best inner mids lost a whole star each...) I consider this a small miracle. Possession was in my opponents favor (54%) and his wings outclasse me while he played AoW. Still his defense wasn't good enough and my forwards exploited this weakness quite effectively. :)

Will play a promoted team next week, seems I have a fair chance at winning that match as well. All in all I think I should be able to stay in this division without too much hassle this season.

[Mistfit]

Lost 1-0 :( the guy had:
Right Defence: weak (low)
Central Defence: excellent (very high)
Left Defence: inadequate (very high)

so I presume he is a defender trainer. I think I need a much better SP guy in this league as my scoring chances may be fewer and further between.

Next week... The guy that has won the series or came in 2nd the last 3 seasons.

I did win ToP though so all was not lost

[barbu1977]

tied 0-0.

I actualy got 0 goal chances against 5 for the other team. That means I got unlucky as all the ratings were on my side (a bit) and the ball possesion was 50-50.

On the plus side, since I PICed this one TS is up to satisfied.

[arne1]

won 3-1 against the guy with the second best hatstats in my league. I have a fairly week division, so I expect to be posting a lot of wins this season.

[akots]

I won 0-8 against a very good team (seed number 3 in the league) which for some reason fielded its B-squad. May be saving his A-squad for the cup but win is a win, so not my concern here. I'm number 1 now and have a fair chance of winning the following 2 matches. Might be time to expand the stadium now, hard to tell. But future looks good and bright. I think with some luck I can finish second or third this season and am pretty much safe with 3rd or 4th places unless some weird things start happening.

[Mistfit]

not really match info but I received the biggest payout I've had for a previously owned player today [:p]


Money for former player


5/1/2006
Your team has received 29 750 US$ because John Sunesson (67048191), who was formerly a member of your squad, was recently sold for 850 000 US$.

btw I sold him previoulsy for 1.2 mil :D

[Swingue]

Won 3-1 to a team that will compete with me for the 2nd to 7th place, seems everyone is pretty close this league.

[yndy]

I won 4-2 after being lead 0-1 and 1-2. A win was expected and very useful. Also being hit by form drops from 49* to 46*. Next week seems more difficult in the league, I will try to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

[Tubby Rower]

After hatstats finally got the matches loaded, It seems as though I currently am 5th in my league in ratings despite tying for 2nd currnetly in Win-loss ratio. The good thing is that I got a win against someone higher in ratings :) For the next two matches I'll be playing 2 of the top dogs in the league. I'm still developing a strategy though. I can't wait until they play against my formidable GK at the end of the season. There might be a couple of upsets :D.

Here is the link for my series USA VI.426 http://usa.hatstats.info/standings.php?level=6&rank=&round=1&season=29&series=27762

[Kingreno]

quote:Originally posted by Shabbaman

Show me the way, Obi Wan Kingreno [worship]


Your Division has only one real CA team, his ratings are very good however and beating him is by no means easy...

On CA in general, my two cents...

There are basicly two types of CA, Type one is where the team playing CA aims for a 49% posessionrate, and not more then that! This means they get a share of normal chances and for the opponents posession they get a chance for a CA as well. The second type are the anti-posession-fundamentalists. These chaps try to waste as little resources on posession as possible, all but a very very few chances are either SE or CA.

TYPE I

formations likely used are 5-3-2, 5-4-1. Possible are 4-3-3 and 4-4-2 but these are rare as CA-players are in general def-trainers so why waste the 5th trainingspot?.
5-3-2 is played here with 2 (or 3 by the lesser gods) IM'ds and one winger. It thus abandons one wing.
To beat: The good thing is that one wing abandonned, will likely mean a slightly lesser defence there, so attack there. However the middle will very likely be very crowded, especially if one of the IM'ds is defensive. Do try to take a very decent ammount of posession. Out of experience I know that when skills are more or less equal 65% posession is usually enough to win. tactics? Play one FTW on his "empty" wing with 3-4-3 and perhaps Play creatively! play both FTW with 3-5-2 as your solid-something central attack will hardly harm a SN Central defence anyways.
The 5-4-1 is played with 2 (or by some lesser god 3) IM's and 2 wingers (or 1...). It usually has the simgle forward Towrads wing as well.
To beat:Ignore your own Central defence and defend your wings. Offensively this is a very very hard to crack nut. all sides are heavily defended. Playing creatively may be wise. Also, gaining heavy posession is a good idea as his 4 midfielders should be his mistake!
the 4-3-3 variant with 2 IM'ds is very rare. Treat the same as the 5-3-2 as it too abandons one wing. It may even leave his CDef doable by a good CAtt.
4-4-2. well, no exp needed here! This is a very decent option perhaps good for using yourself one day. with CA played with no repositioned players: so two IM'ds.
to beat: This is a very strong overall line-up but excells nowhere. This is good and bad. I would go for a strong Central Attack against this one, but individual players matter a lot here. Logicaly if a team always plays his best defenders in the central area you should focus in another place. one weakness is again the "energy" put into posession by 4-4-2. Any decent 3-5-2/3-4-3 should deal with that rather easily.

TYPE II

Formations incluid 5-3-2 (98%), 4-3-3 (1%) and 5-2-3 (<1%).
The guys absolutely want NO posession so more then one Inner Mid is very rare. If they get a Wretched midfield, they are Motsing.

for all formations the easy thing to do is Don't waste your own energy on too much posession!!! Against a MF with Disastrous - wretched rating weak - inad is more then enough to get 75%+ posession! Don't waste OCD's, WTM's or FDef on MF!!!
Heck, why not even exploit this even more??? 3-4-3 with 2 wingers is a very decent option here! Or, also a very uncommon use, 3-5-2 with a IMTW (less MF, more winger)! Just don't waste energy on the one thing you do not need that much: Midfield.
As for tactics, the same rules apply as for Type I, with the recommendation that the Cdef with Type II CA teams is far more vulnerable due to the lacking defensive aid from the midfield. There may be chances there, especially for 3-4-3.

Hope it helps...