Subject: NT Friendlies Season 13

week 4 v Malaysia U20 v U23
week 8 v Indonesia U22
week12 v Austria U21
week 15 v Russia
week 0 v Slovakia
week 1 v France

Week 4 v Malaysia

Currently ranked at 67 Malaysia shouldn't pose us any problems at full NT level so Malaysia will play with their U23 squad and Scotland will play a largely U20 line up with an agreed provision of 3 players aged 21.
This should be a decent test for our youngsters and i'd expect a close game.

Week 8 v Indonesia

For those who dont get too involved in International football, the Indonesia NT is managed by a friendly face of the Scottish community, wrestny langhe :)
langhe will be taking charge of Indonesia for his 3rd term and preffered an U22 fixture to the U21 fixture that i had proposed so i'm sure that he must be feeling confident.
Could be another close match.

Week 12 v Austria.

Austria are under new management and in truth i haven't seen too much of them but there's still plenty of time before we take them on in an U21 fixture which should give us some idea of how our youngsters are preparing for an assault on the U21WC the following season.

Week 15 v Russia

This game should be interesting, two countries of fairly similar size yet Russia are approx 30 ranking places behind Scotland, i'd expect that gap to close a bit by the time our fixture comes along.

Week 0 and Week 1
Slovakia and France

These Nations can be grouped together as they are both in the same category. very strong.

The idea is that hopefully Scotland will have qualified for the WC by this stage and these two countries will provide perfect opposition to try out our squad and tactics against likely WC opponents of equal strength.
(edited)

U21 would have been suicide :p

This coming Saturday we will send out our U20's with 3 21 year olds to face Malaysia's U23's

Malaysia have been playing mainly U23's in their qualifying campaign with only 3 or 4 older players featuring so this really should be a tough match for us.

As it stands we can put a decent team out with our three 21 year olds included but there still room for improvement and i would be particulary interested in any 20 y/o players who have Outstanding+ defence and excellent+ pace.

Please sk mail me if you have such a player.

If anyone has any 20 year olds at all who they think may be good enough then please drop me a sk mail and i'll be happy to discuss his chances.

Finally, for those of you who have previously sent me stats of your younger players, if you haven't updated them recently then please could you sk mail me also.

Thanks folks.
(edited)

I asked ally to rest machowell for the U21 matches this season. I'm thankfull that he had no problem with this. ;-)

hopefully I can get him double brilliant this season. his sideskills will make him a great def mid...

Injuries and form have taken 7 players from us for this Saturdays U20 match v Malaysia U23's and being U20's they are not so easy to replace, especially when four of them are your first 4 choice keepers!

We do have license to play 3x 21 year olds but i dont want to waste that space on a keeper as they would be best used outfield given our lack of choices.

So if anybody has a scottish keeper 20 years of age with around Formidable keeping and any pace then please let me know asap.

Could also do with a defender with formidable+ defence and a bit of pace also.

Sk mail me if you have a player who fancies a NT cap this week :)

some of my players have started the process to become Scottish, but so far, devs are still refusing ;)

I'm so glad that we arranged an u22 match :)

same here, average age is 22.2 ;)
Anyway, maybe you should call those players on the SK international forum in the topic with the NT requirements ;)

Good thinking Batman :)

I've been on dream web for hours and only finding 70k rated players that i dont know about. still waiting to hear back from a couple though.

Today's friendly against Malaysia kicks off at 12.00 local time.

I managed to find a couple of defenders who aren't quite the standard of our missing guys but both do have nice secondaries and they will both get some match time unless there are any enforced changes to be made.

The keeper choice was down to an excellent with very good pace or an incredible with hopeless pace, in an U20 match i would have played one of them but against Malaysia's U23's i felt that it was asking for trouble, so i mailed Malaysia's manager Tigermaster and asked if we could field a fourth 21 year old in goal, which he was happy to agree to so Kyle MacIlwraith, who helped us out the last time that we had a keeper crisis come in again to earn his 2nd cap.

The midfield will be made up of 20 year olds and will be our first choice picks for next seasons U21 WC so i'll enjoy watching them come together for the first time although we do lack an out and out defensive mid so a bit of re-shuffling has taken place. I was going to play a 21 year old here but withdrew him as i thought the keeper position was more important to fill.

Our strikers are getting there, some with high striking and secondaries being worked on, some with high secondaries and striker skill being worked on so i felt the need to have an overage player in here, 21 year old Boyd Thompson will fill this role. Will he play upfront on his own or in a 2 or 3 man attack ? we'll just have to wait to find out, you never know who is reading these fora :)

Hopefully there will be no injuries (to either side )and this will allow us to make our 3 planned changes.

Should be a close game with goals in it, hopefully we can avoid defeat.

1-0 loss, not totally unexpected.

Most important thing today was to see the young guys in action and watch them come through injury free.

Also worth noting that the mids used today were 20 year olds with one being only 19, i thought that they all done rather well, the only thing that stopped us from taking at least a point in this game was our lack of a high level striker imo.

MacFie and Stenhouse also done well, especially coming in as eleventh hour replacements.

Not too upset really, the biggest hit will be our ranking points but we'll get them back quickly enough in the coming weeks.

unlucky... the sides were pretty even at times.... though for an U23 side, they didn't have many 23 yr olds (i.e. none :P )

Pretty happy with the result. Wont be able to see the match until i get home. Went into the match wanting to play with very minimal 23 yo players and a different tactic to mix things up a bit too =)

Indonesia in an U22 match for us this week.

There's really not too much between Malaysia , our last opponents and langhe's troops, but this time we will be able to field a slightly older more experienced side. It should still be a fairly close game with Indonesia usually starting with 6 or 7 players aged 22 or under anyway so they shouldn't be weakened too much.

We will be going with mostly 21 year olds seeing as there aren't many opportunities to play them this season with two or three older guys adding a bit of strength to the mid and upfront.

Shug Waddle 4820396is unlucky to miss out again as he did against Malaysia, 3 injuries in 10 weeks for him, not good :(
Arran MacMutrie 7486042 will be an able deputy though.

A final line up will be picked tomorrow after tonights matches and the form updates.

if you field MacHowell, be sure I injure him for 30+ days ;)

Sergio said that he doesn't trust you so i cant play Machowell :)

Have another Belgian placed Scot to play though :)