U-20 Medal Winners

It didn't pass too much time since the U-20 World Cup came to an end. Well, that means we have some medals that are now shining into prize shelf of some countries. It surely had to be a lot of dedication from the coaches to get that far into the competition, so I decided to find out from them how was their semifinal and to tell us their thoughts on the most expected match - the final.

Cipone (399620) - Romania, Bronze Medal

1. Our match from semifinal against Germany, (583753009), appeared to be similar with the one we had against Ireland, (583517812), in Round IV. Similar with this one mostly because of the TS difference we had at that point, too. Now, it was even worse, which means over 6 TS levels between us.

First of all, we've lost two Inners and no matter how much I searched for any other decent IMs, I didn't manage to find anyone who could replace at least one of them. In this conditions, with all our forces, we could have got close to a 44-45% ball possession, but with poor attack ratings. There is no need to say that we could have reached actually maximum 40% ball possession, considering the fact that they might have been guessed our ideas on forcing the midfield. So I decided to give up on this idea.

I was also contacted by the Chilean coach, discussing about playing both of us MOS. But I didn't tell him if I will do it or not. All I said was that I'll do my best to win. Even at that point I thought Chile won't go for a MOS, but it seems they did.

My biggest problem was: the special events. The point is that I don't really like to let the opponent win too much ball posession if they have many headers, quick players, etc. However, the forecast showed us it was rainy, so I managed to create a double win situation. Which means that I brought some Tehnical players that promised they won't miss if we'll reach the penalties. :) Plus, they wouldn't be affected by negative events on the positions they would play.
In this way, by attracting the weather events, the appearance possibility of other events is getting lower. And this also happens with the goal possibilities of the opponent. It was the maximum we could have done.

At that point, I was quite disappointed because we could have got a negative event on the Quick defender, but, in the same time, I had to keep him into the first squad, since he had Quick wingers, too. I didn't have any Headers in defense, but I had two into the team, in case the C+H event would appear to keep some chances to get it. Or, better said, not to let it for the opponent as a present. :)

Mostly, this is the story of the semifinal. My idea was to change a little bit the probabilities from 10-0-0, as I saw them before the match, into a x-0-x (there was no chance for equality), just to keep our hopes to a greater level. I raised the "zero" at "two", but it wasn't enough, they had too many compartments that we couldn't keep up with, and that's even the SPer. Plus the fact that our GK got injured exactly before their free kick. I don't know what could have happened if he was into the field or if they wouldn't receive the free kick. But the replays say 80% of the chances stood on their side.

2. About the final, (584019321), I think there aren't many things we could approach. It was a fully unbalanced match. We also have a proof, the replays: 10-0-0.

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AL-X_Thunder (1061230) - Chile - Silver Medal

1. We've lost many of our best players from this generation, for various reasons, so we didn't have for WC the squad we expected in the beginning of the WCQ... It was hard to create a decent team with remaining players, because they were not the best, if I could say so. In the previous round, we also had 4 players who, because of their age, couldn't play in round IV.

In round IV we had to play against France, (583517813), Germany, (583517819), (which had players with great skills and TS around 9 - being obvious they were candidates for the gold medal) and Czech Republic, (583517820), (they have a similar team with us and same TS, ≈ 8).
Also, our three opponents had won medals before and we didn't, so we thought that they would play this round keeping their TS level high and looking more for the gold medal...
We didn't had medals at that time and it was a really hard work to reach round IV, being so tough to accept the fact that we could say good bye to the competition with empty hands.

So, if we wanted to have some chances to get a medal and still be alive for the third match of the group, we decided to play our best cards at first, going for a PIN against France - they surely expected a CA -, so we surprised them...
Before the third match, standings were in our favour, but still we decided to play MOTS: it was very important for us to win our first U-20 medal with not that much TS for semifinals, than leaving the competition in Round IV with TS...
This way, we won that match and we advanced to semifinals.

For semies, (583753008), we had no TS, with England having TS 10+ and TC 7... For us, playing this game was only a Big Gift, not an obligation to go for the gold medal like it was for them.
Also, the training update for that match was terrible, as many players dropped their form. So we could have played:

- 4-5-1, MOTS, with a midfield that could be close to their formation on PIC, but never better and without a really strong defense and having no attack;
- 5-3-2 or 5-4-1 "normal" CA with a possession close to 33%, with high defense, but not good enough to face the attack ratings they could have got, plus a little attack skills... And hoping to "steal" only a normal occasion;
- or a 5-4-1 "extreme" CA, with no midfield, not expecting normal occasions, but with a higher defense ratings, a better tactic level and a bigger attack, but only with a side that could pass England's defense...

So we decided to go for that extreme CA and, because I expected they would receive 10 occasions and all the special events, we've sent some players to train at SP trying to defend ourselves a little more against their indirect free kicks. Finally, we decided to play with 2 SPers...

We expected better attack ratings from England, but they decided to play with more midfield, which was in our advantage. Also they didn't make changes if not in the lead after x minutes to increase their attack, which was also great for us.
They didn't score from any normal occasion, (even if they got 7 occasions on their stronger wing attack), but only from a penalty kick (the second one they had in this match). More than that, we've scored from an CA on our strong wing attack.

Our forward, the captain of the team and also the best SPer received a red card (so unfair, since he has "normal" personality), but we managed somehow to not receive other goals even with the nervousness and confusion events...
Second SP tacker also prevented a quick SE, so we were all very happy to be "alive"...
At the end of the extra time, we made two changes thinking on the penalty kicks - one of them scored and the other one missed the penalty. :(
Maybe with our best SP not being eliminated in regular time , we would have won the penalty kicks 3-2, into the fifth round.

So I think it was a big, but a fair, win, considering our efforts on planning as many details as possible.

2. For the final, (584019321), it was more complex, Germany obviously saw our semifinal game and knew all our tricks, so it was impossible for us to surprise them...
It was probably they won't make the same mistakes as England did. So we only tried to lose without receiving too many goals, in order to leave the competition with our heads up. So, we did some last call ups to the squad just to increase our defense, even if that ment less attack ratings.

This time we didn't get a CA on our "stronger wing attack", and conceded a normal occasion goal. The other goals came from two special events, so it looked like a mission accomplished.

We got our first Silver medal, that nobody expected, even less with this generation of players that wasn't exactly the one we expected at first.

My whole staff and me, personally, had plenty of fun, too much hard work, and many times we've tried simply not to lose than rather thinking about the win. :D

Thank you!

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_Kowalski_ (3682061) - Germany, Gold Medal

1. Romania - Germany, (583753009). The differences in team spirit and team confidence were really big: Walking on clouds & exaggerated (Germany) vs. irritated & strong (Romania). And Romania kicked three players after their last match. So we first checked the maximum midfield rating that we thought Romania could reach. ~9.00 should be the best they could play in a 3-5-2 with DD and WtM. But of course we mostly set them on a counter attack match against us. We thought they would play 5-4-1 with a massive defence and one strong attrack wing.

Our form update wasn't that good:
Eisert 7 -> 6 (Keeper No. 2)
Kaderabek 8 -> 7 (Keeper No. 1)
Misztal 6 -> 5 (Keeper No. 3)
Bruckböck 7 -> 8 (CD-Set pieces taker)
Tessin 8 -> 7 (IM)
Linge 7 -> 8 (Winger)
Klukowski 7 -> 6 (nFW)
Pachler 7 -> 8 (Deffor No. 3)
Kiefinger 6 -> 7 (Deffor No. 2)

Romanian form update:
Buga, IM 7->6
Patiu, Winger 8->7
Calin, IM 5->6
Serban, CD 8->7
Lois, IM 8->7
Carbune, Winger 7->8

Not even better.

So we tried some 3-5-2 variations and I decided to play like this:

Kaderabek
Töpfer - x - x - Bruckböck na - Landgraaf
Linge - Hodatsch - Tessin - Daimer - Hasenfuss off
Offenthal def - x - Sachsen-Paule

100% Off, PIC

VT: 9,75 - 9,00 - 12,50
MF: 9,25
ST: 12,00 - 11,00 - 16,00

Romania played 5-3-2 with one strong wing, but the rating were as expected. We were lucky to 'cover' their strong wing (a bit). The lineups gave us the advantage and I was sure to win the match. In the end it was a 2:1 with 10:3 chances for Germany. Nice. We reached the final :)

During the last minutes of our match against Romania we began to prepare the final. Against England, of course. I built up the last matches of England with our own squad... But... What the hell is going on? Chile beats England? Unbelievable. But... no! England is allways losing penalty shootouts.^^

2. Germany - Chile, (584019321). Ok, what should I say about our match plan? Or what about the diffenences in team spirit and team confidence?

Our lineup was build in 5 minutes. 4-4-2 'all to the wings' + MOTS. Finished. I promoted two FwtW and both scored in the final. Well done, boys! :)

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