i watched our u17 team play against ghana and looking at the two skillfull strikers we have who can take on defences and win fouls and the two men who are good dead ball kickers.if we had played the sit deep compact defence and launch counteracts against ghana. would the result have been different?
i am looking at the brazil u17 team and their defence is basically normally nothing special..its their offence where they hold all the gems. minus the dunga era and most brazilian teams are like that. they seem to believe in the philosophy, that if i my opponent has to defend for 90 minutes, when will he be able to score against me.
Every single time a play breaks down the opponent will have an opportunity to score. No team is immune to this in today's football because every team depends on swift counter-attacks to score goals. So much so that overall possession is not as important as it used to be.
the approach that a team adopts must certainly be based on or determined by the resources that they have. if one saw the man u game vs reading....it was clear reading played within their limitations. why didnt we do that against arguably the strongest side in our group
I would say that kind of "negative"/"disciplined" approach is very difficult to do with 17 year olds. It is much easier with pros who already comfortable with their limitations and are accustomed to playing those roles for years as opposed to young players who are probably accustomed to being the creative stars of their individual school/youth teams.
Also you have to wonder if you will be doing them a disservice if you have them playing football as unambitious as Reading. Remember that these are young players getting a unique experience. They can always learn to play backs to the wall football when they are journeymen but will have few opportunities to develop their potential and star on the international stage.
