Quote Originally Posted by tongly45 View Post
i agree, that's also what i thinks, but more foul doesn't mean more promissing freekick.
it also mean an higer possession and rate of getting back the ball for your team. Marking works the same, where man to man offers more ball's recoveries but on the other side becomes dangerous if the opponent jumps his marker.

Royal Rumble Cup, Quarters, Second Leg



And so we did what seemed impossible at first glance. We earned every tiny bit of this victory and overall of the two legs; first, globally we were the better team on the pitch, considering plays, occasions, pressure and possession. Second, we had to follow a "kid"'s caprices which brang about 3 different time changes into our second leg, including the real hour which was 2.20 AM. Of course, we too changed the match time according to our needings, but despite knowing the time he'd play in League, we simply moved the match to fit our work-table, and we did so one day before the match without further changes.

That said, the match itself was pretty wierd for about 65 minutes. We espected Koln to change its setup few mins before the match, and so he did, thinking we'd be asleep and not bothering to a possible counter-measure. So, when he opted for an asymmetric 4-2-2-2 (DL-DC-DC-DMR) we were already ready to confirm our 3N-2W-2N-1-2. Koln had resorted to this trick in the first leg too, and in all the cup's matches: basically using a DMR instead of a DR grants him cover as a 4back, but makes the engine consider it as another midfielder, hence effectively acting as a +1 man on the pitch. Facing teams based on wingers and a single striker, this is devastating, as he keeps on par the numbers in midfield and also minimize to 0 any damage from the ST with a "real" 4back. We didn't get caught in their trap as in both legs we alwais had 2 strikers, aided by an AMC red arrowed seen the lack of DMC.

This time too, we started of dominating; with 55% possession despite being away, and pressuring like hell, it took us few mins to let Wayne find the right angle making things a lot easier for us. After the goal, we were surprised to see us keeping the insanely high pressure on them, where we had 3 consecutive clear chanches (from 18' to 29') where first Wayne, then Hutton twice set the ball away. At minute 35', the board signed 10 shoots/6 on target for us, 1 shoots/0 on target for FC Koln. We expected a module change or a sub, but there weren't any. Suddenly tho, from minute 35' to 45', our pressure vanished and we were seriously pressed in our own area. Despite that, only a corner Kick smothered by our Keeper was registered as dangerous.

In the second half we immediatly shaped the Narrow Diamond sure that our starting module was being made zero impact by the engine, and as matter of facts we started like in the first half, having the better pressure and possession; Wayne sent another one flying too high, and Kent twice from Free Kick almost scored, once stopped by the post, and another one with their keeper defusing the shoot in corner. From the corner, Blaze's header only grazed the bar. Then again, without subs from Koln, our module became unuseful as much as it was devastating in the first minutes. We got pressured hugely from minute 50' to 60', where practically all the saves shown by the stats were made in two actions: two straight free kicks defused in corner by our good Parker, two consecutive double corners which both times (or better say all 4 times) ended up with Parker smothering it letting us breather. At minute 63' Allofs injured, and to our surprise wasn't subbed. We understood that the "kid" got mad, and prolly left the game showing without following or, very probably, fell asleep again (you nub, setting a crazy time, trolol), and that eased our march. We understood that none of anyone's shot would go in when for 4 straight times Wayne passed the ball to either Becker, Kent or Stark and all of them went wide, while all the shoots from Koln were "smothered" by our keeper. We got in a second DMC practically closing every tiny door and a it ended, we were in paradise.

We'll face another top team in the semifinals, Salvatore FC, Q63 and raising (+5,5 in 10 days). He has about 4-5 alt teams, so we'll get badly pressured in terms of possession, hoping someone will come cheer us up. Another hard challenge, while in the lower board The Shield (Q 57,8) will facr Alex FC (Q 58.2).