slovenia had the huge benefit of the 2nd match at home, and the russians not defending home turf, like it was napolean and hitler going after them...
FRANCO PANIZO (@ Soccer by Ives) has done us all a great service ... http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_by_ives/2010/03/algeriansslovenians-abroad-weekend-rewind-2.html
Another installment ... http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_...ansslovenians-abroad-weekend-rewind.html#more
I don't see any additional games scheduled ... 04.06.10 MB A Slovenija : Nova Zelandija 13.06.10 Polokwane 13:30 A Alžirija : Slovenija 18.06.10 Johannesburg 16:00 A Slovenija : ZDA Could Slovenia really be planning just a single tune-up match? Go ZDA!
That's what I've heard, too, and New Zealand at that. (Good choice for a USA tune-up, no?) Most teams play one of those closed-door deals once they're in country, though. I assume Slovenia's no exception in that.
This is like tenth post of people complaining about us not scheduling friendlies and not scheduling friendlies against quality opponents. What's wrong with you all, friendly games are for girls, we are true machos and play only hostile ones. And for tune-up for USA, our team is scheduled to play basketball with baseball bats and egg-like ball with local Mormon missionaries. So, here you go, we are preparing for US opponents. Our coach obviously prefers less games in the preparation period and more work with the group. Future will tell is he right or not, but there were teams going to WC without playing single friendly in months before the cup. Additional things to consider: +Due to different factors (small stadium, low potential TV deals) a home friendly is not very profitable (if ever), neither are we interesting enough to get invited to a friendly and being paid a large sum of money for it (like Brazil or Argentina is). Today many friendlies are in fact played for economic reasons. + Unlike US in CONCACAF, we have tough competition in official UEFA games every year, where nearly in every game the opponent is ranked higher. Do we really need to torture ourselves and arrange friendlies with "better" opponents? We are no masochists, and obvioulsy coach wants games against easier opponents before heading to SA (Qatar and NZ), where he thinks easy wins will do more good for the team in general, than some hard fought games, which we anyway play some 10 times a year.
Thanks for the macho perspective. Between the two extremes - no friendlies and 12 friendlies (Mexico), I would think there's a reasonable middle ground. I would look at what the elite teams do (the seeded teams {less host South Africa; plus past champions such as France}); what similar European teams do (Slovakia? Denmark? you would be a better judge of that); what other teams in the group do (Algeria, USA, England), for comparison. I think a couple of friendlies in May, before the June 1 final roster of 23 must be submitted, makes sense - but we have a lot of players recovering from serious injury, so our coach has to carefully evaluate those players. Likely your 23 are pretty well set, but - setting aside the ever-present risk of injury, which can also happen just in practice - I am surprised that Slovenia hasn't scheduled an additional match or two. Good luck this summer ... in Euro qualifying.
I personally would play an additional game, but our coach doesn't. As none of BS posters ever coached an underdog team who went to WC, me included, I keep my mouth shot, believing that he knows what's he doing. By qualifying Kek earned the right to do what he wants. Before the qualifications I regarded him as the biggest clown among NT coaches, I was his vocal antagonist, but I am now silenced. I was just giving rationale behind his decisions, as I see them. He clearly searched for easy opponents, and not for opponents who would mimic any opponent in WC, it seems in his mind, it was more important to have easy wins, that to sweat a hard battle before WC. Maybe he wants to prolongue the winning moments and winning morale which is there from Russia elimination, and not endanger it with some nasty result. The starting 11 and the 23 are pretty much set in his mind, there is nothing to test, he obviously preferes working with the group in calm rather than arranging a set of games. As I said, it's pretty logical for US as CONCACAF member to search as much as possible hard opponents in the friendly games period, because they probably as a group need more such games than an underdog from UEFA needs them.
Well, thanks for your input. And your coach could be right - each team faces its own unique circumstances, and he is in the best position to know what those are. The order of group play is another factor. You guys play Algeria, USA, England, so you have to start fast, i.e. beat Algeria. If you do, then you will be very well positioned to go draw, draw and advance; or draw, win (over a too-relaxed, already-qualified England) and win the group; or win , lose/draw/win and advance/win the group. Stating the obvious, a draw (or loss!) v. Algeria, and it will be an uphill fight to advance. Starting with a must-win game, your coach may want to have your players at their relaxed, goal-scoring best. We start with England, a game most would expect us to lose, with a (BS) goal of keeping the score close. Assuming a loss, we'll very likely need to beat you and Algeria to advance. If we steal a point v. England, then draw, win or win, draw should see us into the KO Round of 16. Our friendly opponents - Czech Republic and Turkey - should put us to the test. And I think that you are right that we need that (Euro competition) more than you do, especially facing England, our (presumed) toughest opponent in Game 1. Lastly, I wonder about your choice of New Zealand as a prep opponent, for the same reasons I worry about our choice of Australia. It will be very interesting to see how the next two months play out.
i think usa top guys are very familiar with each other, it's NOT like usa has new faces who will start... other than a jones, extra matches are problematic, which seems to count him out, and count out any other true newbie... czechs and turks are enough quality to test usa, no matter who they bring... any loser of the slovenia/algeria match is up a creek... if any of usa/slovenia/algeria can earn 6 points from those matches, i bet on them advancing
Somehow this reminds me of the South Koreans celebrating their goal against the US in 2002 by imitating a speedskater after the Short Track Speedskating controversy in the SLC Olympics. Though I doubt the US coach here was blameless. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=5066473
I'm sure it's just a cultural thing, beyond our understanding. I do wonder what normally happens to the losing coach, though. Coach Posma is from New Jersey, fortunately, so I'm sure he took the beating in stride. He's probably only sorry to lose six good stick-handlers from the team.
Yes, it's a cultural thing, is pretty normal here to beat the coach with trafic signs after the win. So, now you get it why our coaches are so reluctant to organize any friendlies, they are traumatized enough after regular games.
It's unknown what really happened. Posma doesn't say anything, he didn't even report the players and the incident. The players claim they didn't attack him. What's known is this: At the party with the players Posma "forced" the youngster to drive him and some other guys to another party, the youngster didn't want to as he drank too much, but he got "convinced". While returning home, after dropping the partying party at the new party, he had a car accident. When the players which remained at the old party heard about it, went to find Posma, as they said, they wanted him to take responsebility for what happened and pay for the crashed car. Supposedly some other players, which were in that car, accepted to partly pay for new one. When Posma heared what they want from him, he laughed at them and dismissed them. And from this point the story what happened more or less differs, what's known is that everybody involved was pretty drunk.
I still think another friendly would of made sense. Just to tune these guys up and have them play with each other more collectively. And FCB even if your coach qualifies you as a fan still have the right to critique his decisions; its a right among many US fans and to a lesser extent FCB fans who want to win the league every year.
US and Slovenia's combined opposition in the final stage of World Cup qualifying, along with their Elo rankings. 8. Mexico 15. Russia 25. Honduras 34. Czech Republic 41. Costa Rica 46. Poland 49. Slovakia 76. Northern Ireland 79. Trinidad & Tobago 89. El Salvador 198. San Marino
So? I was speaking in general, not about this qualification cyclus, where we had pretty easy group. But there are qualifications in UEFA every year (meaning series of tough opponents for mid-to-low team), after the WC qualifications end the qualifications for Euro immediately start. In my opinion it's far easier to qualify for WC from CONCACAF for USA, where USA and Mexico have guaranteed entries, and the only question is who'll be the third one. Opposition for USA is weaker. It's harder to qualify from UEFA qualifications than CONCACAF ones, one can see it clearly when one compares who will stay at home from respective confederations. You can use the same FIFA rankings you posted, just do it another way: write down the rankings for every NT that DIDN'T qualify, and then compare the numbers. For UEFA this string of numbers starts with Croatia at #10, for CONCACAF it starts with Costarica at #42. Besides I said this: Unlike US in CONCACAF, we have tough competition in official UEFA games every year, where nearly in every game the opponent is ranked higher. As I checked the ratings now I even see that your every CONCACAF opponent is ranked lower (even Mexico, I leave it aside if this is realistic), no wonder you are interested in some tough friendlies.
Everyone has the right to criticise, it doesn't mean that the most appropriate thing to do. I have the right to walk on hands instead on foot, but prefer not to. For Slovenia is a rare occasion to qualify for big tournament, so if a coach manages to, it's the most appropriate to trust his decision at least for a year. When FCB won the first Spanish trebble last year, Guardiola gained blank cheque to do whatever he wants (even in transfers), he gained the right at least until new failure. Who would oppose him, claiming that the bozo doesn't know what he's doing. The right was earned. I really opposed the decision that Kek is appointed as NT coach, because of it I personally started boycotting our NT. After the success, what can I say, he may do what he wants in 2010, no friendlies, fine with me, he's smart, I'm dumb. He was right, I was wrong. Kek was a very average player, he's young, so a lot of people remember him as a player. He maybe managed two or three caps for NT, never played abroad (maybe played in Austrian second division or something, but certainly nothing special). Later on he was very average club coach, he may have won some Slovenian championship, but he was never considered specially good, his team played boring and defensive football. He always seemed to me like some kind of spineless and dumb character, even his surname is suspiciously akin to slang word for village idiot "kekec" (which is diminuitive from "kek"). The FA couldn't appoint more appropriate local candidates for various reasons and refused to hire a foreign manager, because they cost too much, so they hired Kek (the village idiot, as he was known among fans), which came for a very low wage. At beginning they considered him as temporary solution. So the FA decided to hire this manager, BECAUSE HE'S CHEAP. Well, thank you very much, I said, I'm boycotting this shit, call me when you guys get serious, and hire a serious manager, than I'll support the NT again. So, did I change my mind after all the success. Partially yes. But anyway in my book he earned the right to do what he wants, and I'm keeping my mouth shot for the year 2010. So, what happened. I made a common human mistake -- formed an opinion about a person, and sticked to it, not counting that people do change, and not only that, people (and managers/coaches are people too) improve too, as players do. I never paid attention when he said he learned a lot, and is still learning, a person ready to learn in his forties, fifties, that's the right person for a job. He has this kind of open-mindedness. In some interview, after the qualifications, when he was asked about what type of coach he is, authoritarian or non-authoritarian, he said something like this: some of my players play in major leagues, train under important coaches, it's not that I can teach them, it's that they can teach me a lot of things. This response is really bizarre and anecdotal, in a way I hope that our players are not coaching the coach instead of viceversa, but at least it prooves that he is an open personality eager to learn and improve. Sometimes it doesn't matter for succes how wise someone is, but how prepared he is to listen to wiser ones.
Honestly FCB you are a great wealth of knowledge when it comes to Slovenian culture; for that I do thank you. I think with Guardiola however he was lucky to get on to FCB over any other team. He has the best players and coaches in the world. The mark of a truly great manager is that of one who can win or do well at lower level squads and build their way up. Another point of advice is not all the best coaches are the best players. In soccer their is a little bit of a higher proportion but that doesn't mean its true. Wegner played third division French football and that's it. Avram Grant was never a professional player. Now to go back to what I was saying their are points where one must criticise and maybe its not your coach but your FA. Maybe Kek wanted more than one friendly but the FA said we just don't have that sort of money. I also understand that the 16,000 seater in the capital has not been comepleted yet which also hinders your ability for income. Look two friendlies is enough to re-enforce squad basics as well tactics. (Add to it you are a counter attacking team which makes position and formation amplified) In a lot of ways thought Koren reminds of Ceh in 02 being that number "10" character to lead your team.