Tokyo 2020: Men's Olympic Football -- Tournament Discussion

pregra · Jul 25, 2021

Vamos 1-0

Medina with the goal. Quite like him actually. Takes no prisoners and has a sweet left foot for long diagonals. A bit of pace as well.

locoxriver · Jul 25, 2021

This shit’s a legit cure for insomnia...

Rattlehead · Jul 25, 2021

Looks like some backyard football game. Few passes, foul, repeats. No individual flair, no tactic, everyone just play with their instinct.

locoxriver · Jul 25, 2021

Our defense is terrible. I’m terrified at the thought of them marking some actually decent opposition

locoxriver · Jul 25, 2021

Well.... at least they won, so there’s that

Albiceleste2010 · Jul 25, 2021

These kids have ability. Vera, Medina, Perez, de la Vega and Almada.

The coach has to carry the can. He cannot coach. What drills are they doing ? Why is Aimar, Placente and someone like Samuel watching over them to provide continuity into the senior side.

These kids play well for their club sides. Medina is being tracked by some big clubs and I really like him.

The AFA need to treat this seriously along with the clubs. It's a shame the Libertadores gets in the way but seriously they could not get three experienced over age players to mentor the kids ?

This is a vital learning experience in tournament football. There is no substitute. I could not care less if other sides may not be taking it seriously. We should.

And where is Almada. Injured ? Covid ? Why an earth is he not playing ? The coach is naive as seen in getting scored twice on the counter. Games like these can damage confidence.

Play Urzi-Gaich-Vega with Almada in behind and two solid DM/CM in behind. Vera plus one. Bring Pourtau into goal. This clown keeps changing systems and players. He has no idea what he is doing. Managing a club academy is miles away from controlling a national age group side.

Rattlehead · Jul 25, 2021

Dont think this team could win all the way with Batista in charge. Still needs to beat Spain, a draw could means elimination.

Rattlehead · Jul 25, 2021

I just checked some of the tournament stats and France is on third place after 2 games and has conceided 7 goals.

locoxriver · Jul 25, 2021

Spain with a late goal vs Australia (80th min) to go up 1-0. Not good for us...

Standings leading to the final game:

1. ESP: 4 pts (+1 GD)
2. AUS: 3 pts (+1 GD)
3. ARG: 3 pts (-1 GD)
4. EGY: 1 pt (-1 GD)

In other words we need a win vs Spain on Wednesday, regardless of the outcome of Australia-Egypt: a loss automatically leaves us out, while a draw is also useless (if they also draw or Australia wins, the Aussies would remain above us along with Spain; while an Egypt win would make the African side advance over us based on GD)

That 2-0 loss vs Australia really screwed us over.. not just with the dropped points, but it could be the decisive goal differential piece since it was the only game in the group lost by more than the minimal difference.

Rattlehead · Jul 25, 2021

With the way we play which has been conpletely lackluster, Im just glad at least we won today and still has a chance to progress.

locoxriver · Jul 25, 2021

There’s individual talent through Almada and Gaich (and a few others that are decent, although not great), but the team as a whole looks like they’ve never played together in their lives.

I understand they don’t spend all year as a unit like a club team, but they’ve been training together for weeks in Ezeiza and Japan, and are also the same base that has been called-up for the U-23 friendlies / Pre-Olympic tournament / Panamerican games.

The way they play it seems like a local pick-up game where you line everyone up and divide them into random teams. And it’s not just these last two games: they looked just as lackluster in the friendlies over the last few months leading to the tournament.

Rattlehead · Jul 25, 2021

If I remember, they're not exactly impressive even though they did win the Pan tournament and pre olympics tournament. We were beaten by Brazil 0-3 which gave them the ticket to the olympics. We finished 1st but with -1 goal difference.

We won all the games narrowly, 1-0, 2-1, 2-1, 3-2 and lost 0-3 in latest game. I watched few of the games and they were outplayed in some of those wins.

locoxriver · Jul 25, 2021

Rattlehead said: ↑

If I remember, they're not exactly impressive even though they did win the Pan tournament and pre olympics tournament. We were beaten by Brazil 0-3 which gave them the ticket to the olympics. We finished 1st but with -1 goal difference.

We won all the games narrowly, 1-0, 2-1, 2-1, 3-2 and lost 0-3 in latest game. I watched few of the games and they were outplayed in some of those wins.
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And that Pre-Olympic squad had some tools in offense that later became unavailable for the actual Olympics (Julian Alvarez, Zaracho, Brunetta, Nahuel Bustos)

Burr · Jul 25, 2021

That was not a pretty win. Egypt were very well organized to bunker and hit us on the counter, which we utterly struggled at defending. Fortunately in the second half we were able to get more set piece opportunities and finally capitalized on one. Gonna be tough to deal with Spain at this rate.

pregra · Jul 28, 2021

We are sitting back and letting them have the ball as expected. Spain not creating much so far. Barco with a good chance just now.

locoxriver · Jul 28, 2021

They’re getting outclassed by Spain and are having a tough time keeping up...

On a side note, idk if it was the international transmission or just the American broadcast, but that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a game have commercials in the middle of a half... they just randomly cut to a commercial break around the 13th minute mark lol

pregra · Jul 28, 2021

locoxriver said: ↑

They’re getting outclassed by Spain and are having a tough time keeping up...
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sitting back and counter is obviously the plan but we need to at least try to keep possession when the counter isn't on.

locoxriver · Jul 28, 2021

There they go with the commercials again. I guess it’s probably time slots every 10-15 mins.... the most bizarre thing I’ve seen

pregra · Jul 28, 2021

Gaich has yet to receive a good cross the whole tournament so far.

locoxriver · Jul 28, 2021

pregra said: ↑

sitting back and counter is obviously the plan but we need to at least try to keep possession when the counter isn't on.
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Yeah things have balanced out a little now. In the first 10 minutes there was a huge difference between the sides though. You could tell that Spain, besides having a more technical squad, were more tactically prepared.

Not bad for now, we just need someone to command the attack. MacAllister has been a ghost, like in the other games..

pregra · Jul 28, 2021

locoxriver said: ↑

There they go with the commercials again. I guess it’s probably time slots every 10-15 mins.... the most bizarre thing I’ve seen
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Do they care at all what is happening when the go to commercial? Clean through on goal in stoppage time and they cut to commercials

pregra · Jul 28, 2021

We're on the ropes now. Can't keep the ball at all and guys are tired as feck. No pace on the counter (do we have a single speedy offensive player out there lol?).

Leon12 · Jul 28, 2021

Egypt have taken the lead against Australia, lol, we might just sneak through to the next round but we'll get beat at that stage anyway.

pregra · Jul 28, 2021

Didn't know it was head to head before goal difference, nice. De La Vega coming in, surely Barco or Mac Allister off.

pregra · Jul 28, 2021

This could be a looong half