BuzzerBeater Forums

So if the goal of the Mexican manager was to "screw over" Canada they did an outstanding job. Well done Mexico, well done.

I noticed that Mexico also played normal in their game against Brasil yesterday, which is also extremely baffling if you look at it from a logical point of view. If they are looking to go out with a 3-2 record they should either crunch that game or play TIE. Anything else is just purely ridiculous.

However, if you go with my working theory it makes perfect sense. They are just there to screw us and the Americans, in my opinion. It is the only reason for their enthusiasm strategy: a normal against the US, followed by a crunch against us, followed by a normal to Brasil.

Anyhow, I talked to BB-Charles a bit in the chat last night and he said we do have grounds for a complaint (especially if Mexico does not crunch Chile in the last game). However, the BB philosophy is currently that NT managers have to face their community in an election the next time. So their current policy is not to get involved in NT affairs.

Finally, I suspected the crunch was coming but foolishly thought we could take them with a TIE. So from that standpoint, I take the blame.

The results may not have been what we needed or expected, but I want to publicly thank thenewchuckd. He has helped me on countless occasions in reguards to training and tactics. In my mind this is equally important for the managers of the NT. Embracing the community and helping others develop players that may be the future of the NT is something RIP and thenewchuckd have done a fantastic job of, congrats.

I hope you guys both return to your positions, although you may be disappointed your hard work will pay off.

Thanks and you have my votes!

We already talked about this via BB-mail. I do not want to be a lame duck manager so I will not say 100% what I plan to do regarding the next election. However, I did make the promise to go to the World's and I did not follow through on it. Regardless, I think the most important rating of any manager should team performance and I didn't get it done.

On the other hand, maybe I can show something in the consolation round that turns some heads. We'll see. I like our team next season - maybe they are not quite what we had this season but they are close.

I also feel like our 19 yr old group is weak - but I should have a better idea of them after the game against Puerto Rico. Once that game is over, I will start to call up all the 18-20 year old prospects to see where they all stack up. So at that point, I will have a better idea. To be blunt - I think our next U21 manager will have their work cut out for them.

Finally, if you have been following the off-site forum, you will know that I have issued the challenge to our community to scout all of the players in Canada within two days of the draft. More to come on that later... I already have some volunteers to help and I am hoping to recruit more. My current thought is I will save the best 4 players who are on teams about to go bot.

If there was anything that should have been done over again, then it should have been to tank the match against Peru and ensure we get second in the group. Unfortunately, by winning our group we were guaranteed to be in a group with 2 of Argentina, Brazil and U.S.A., and when combined with the fact that we were also grouped with the winner of Group A (Chile) instead of the runner-up, it was a recipe for disaster.

That is indeed true... I really wish you and/or others had pushed harder for me to tank a match in the opening round, though. I think you tried to explain this to me at some point (maybe during the election) but I did not grasp exactly what you meant. I'm still not sure how I feel about tanking matches but that's just me.

I'm not sure what the point of bringing this up is, though? I already confirmed this in the off-site forum.

Now, if the point is to set up a run as the U21 or NT manager, I have to say that what I have seen this season does not convince me that you would be a good candidate. I was hoping you would take the head of scouting position and run with it. I'm actually not quite sure what you have done this season besides maybe scout one player from Chile. From the way you made it sound, I thought I would get fairly regular updates on new teams with quality players, etc. But I didn't hear from you all season.

I also didn't hear too many thoughts from you on tactics. I have to say, at this point, if I was looking for someone new to manage the team it would probably be The_Mogul. He offered great tactical advice and scouting before every game and was usually bang on.

Its been a tough season for sure. The flatout heartbreaking tragedy of the PG less 4th quarter against Brazil was really tough, and if that had not happened we could still have been talking about the knockout stages now. Chile was a great, tension filled win and the Mexico and US losses were tough.

I think Chuck has done pretty well considering everything that has happened. The offsite forum debates about tactics were engaging and all inclusive and although its easy to see how decisions could have been made differently, all your decisions were well thought through and had a logic to them and it is too easy to criticize individual decisions with hindsight. Disappointing as it is in the end I've enjoyed the U21 season and look forward to the consolation tournament.

Now, if the point is to set up a run as the U21 or NT manager, I have to say that what I have seen this season does not convince me that you would be a good candidate. I was hoping you would take the head of scouting position and run with it. I'm actually not quite sure what you have done this season besides maybe scout one player from Chile. From the way you made it sound, I thought I would get fairly regular updates on new teams with quality players, etc. But I didn't hear from you all season.

I also didn't hear too many thoughts from you on tactics. I have to say, at this point, if I was looking for someone new to manage the team it would probably be The_Mogul. He offered great tactical advice and scouting before every game and was usually bang on.

Now these are the kind of comments that aren't going to win you many favors. There was no huge, damning criticism of you, just a statement of something that could have been done differently. You've somewhat jumped to the massive conclusion that this was some veiled attack against you, rather than just admitting that you could have handled that differently and moved on. May I advise that a thicker skin is required as a national manger as you are going to be criticized no matter what you do but this doesn't mean that most Canadian managers don't want to see you as our U21 manager. Quite to the contrary if you look at your approval rating!

That (minor) aside you have done a good job and I look forward to us rocking the consolation tournament and hope that our luck improves in the future, because the BB gods were definitely against us in this round!

Now these are the kind of comments that aren't going to win you many favors. There was no huge, damning criticism of you, just a statement of something that could have been done differently.

True enough.

As for my approval rating, I expect it to come down... Maybe in some respects I did a good job but like I said overall I would rate this (at least first half) term as a failure.

On the other hand, I was going to make this point about AM no matter what (I would be really surprised if he does not run for NT manager or U21 manager down the road). I used to think that eventually he would be a good option to run the team, after this season I don't. If you think that's based on his last comment leveled at me, I can see how you would interpret it that way. All I can tell you is the two things are unrelated.

I don't think I ever said that we were unlucky to lose the game against you. Maybe I said in the chat that I didn't understand some of the stats early in the game - like why we were even in offensive rebounds and why you were winning the turnover battle. However, those things changed dramatically in the 2nd half. The only trouble was we just couldn't score - I think I remember one sequence where we got 5 offensive rebounds in a row but still couldn't score.

I don't really share the opinion, either, that we lose the game against you 99 times out of 100. I think it was at least a 50-50 shot. If you disagree with that, that's fine, we will just have to agree to disagree.

As for the patient offense, you are not the first to say it was a bad choice (read RIP's comments above). The community also pushed me to play a 3-2 zone in this game, which I did not do. I expected to get more inside looks with the patient offense against your 3-2 zone... Either that didn't work or your inside defense was just too much for us. Or you are right and a patient offense is just totally ineffective.

I'm not sure how effective an outside offense would have been for us, either. We maybe put up a proficient outside shooting rating against your proficient outside d. Maybe an inside offense was the answer but I really have not been impressed with how they work in the new GE.

As for not playing a 3-2 zone, I think whatever we would have gained there was made up for by our rebounding differential. I don't think our defense was horrible, either. Sure, you put up a prominent(low) OS, but our defense was right there with you. And that came out in the results because we pretty much shut down your offense. My feeling is we lost because your defense was just too strong or the patient offense didn't work.

In this context, I thought I'd respond to RIP's suggestion that the game against us was unlucky. This is the quote I was responding to:

No problem, I thought that's what you meant, but since the reply was to me I took it that way. As for RIP, I don't think that's exactly what he meant, either. I think he meant more that the game was 50-50... So in that sense, we were still unlucky to lose. I discussed tactics with him and both he and I have a lot of respect for your team and you as a manager.