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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.

One last thing... I just want to say that although our team performance was not as expected, I really appreciated the support from the whole community. That includes everyone who offered tactical advice and who helped with the scouting, whether it was scouting teams in our groups or scouting players.

Also, a big thank you to all the owners of U21 players. You guys did a great job of training this season. Thanks for listening to my endless calls for keeping your guys in good game shape. I couldn't have asked for anything better.

yes

I just heard that you're not going to run for NT manager. Now I feel mighty silly for the comments that I made.