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[FM10] Fabio Crouchello - Taking England to South Africa 2010

crouchaldinho

By crouchaldinho,
in FM Career Updates

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crouchaldinho

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No, in the end, I decided to vary the formation depending on several factors coming into each match (e.g. my tactical ideas for the specific game or the players I have available and so on).

If you check the 'Line Ups' link for each game, you'll be linked to a screenshot of the formation.

Also, I play traditional English squad numbers for every system, so you should be able to tell from that who was playing where.

Ashley Young was wide left in that game. Rooney was up front on his own with Lampard playing AMC.

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crouchaldinho

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European Championship Qualifying, Group E - San Marino 0 - 4 ENGLAND

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I decided to adopt a 4-3-3 shape today and set about attacking San Marino from the off in the hope of being able to reduce the intensity of the game in the second-half in order to save the players' condition for the next game coming up in a few days time away to Serbia.

It was very easy indeed and we basically cruised through it. Notice that Ben Foster has 100% condition at the end of the game. He didn't touch the ball!

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crouchaldinho

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European Championship Qualifying, Group E - Serbia 1 - 3 ENGLAND

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Serbia shocked us at Wembley in our first game in this qualifying group by pulling off an incredible 3-3 draw. I was determined to get my revenge here.

Serbia's narrow 4-2-3-1 formation worried me and I decided in the end that we should play 4-2-3-1 ourselves with the two central midfielders shielding the defence. Carrick would be deep-lying playmaker.

Serbia managed to get the lead just before half-time and I couldn't quite believe it. I feared that we were going to lose here in Belgrade.

At half-time, I told the players to show me some passion, and luckily they did improve dramatically in the second-half. Ashley Young grabbed a goal and Aaron Lennon scored a brace of goals to win us the match. Serbia switched to 4-4-2 during the second-half, and so did we, and I feel that the game fell in our favour after this change.

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crouchaldinho

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Here is the current table: 

| Pos   | Inf   | Team       |       | Pld   | Won   | Drn   | Lst   | For   | Ag    | G.D.  | Pts   | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
[b]| 1st   |       | England    |       | 6     | 5     | 1     | 0     | 20    | 7     | +13   | 16    | [/b]
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd   |       | Slovenia   |       | 6     | 4     | 1     | 1     | 9     | 6     | +3    | 13    | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd   |       | Ireland    |       | 6     | 3     | 1     | 2     | 8     | 4     | +4    | 10    | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th   |       | Montenegro |       | 6     | 2     | 1     | 3     | 5     | 9     | -4    | 7     | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 5th   |       | Serbia     |       | 6     | 1     | 2     | 3     | 12    | 12    | 0     | 5     | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 6th   |       | San Marino |       | 6     | 0     | 0     | 6     | 1     | 17    | -16   | 0     | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

We play second-placed Slovenia at Wembley next.

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crouchaldinho

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European Championship Qualifying, Group E - ENGLAND 1 - 1 Ireland

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A win today would have seen us qualified for the Euros. Unfortunately, Robbie Keane was on hand to embarrass us as we drew a game in which we were hugely dominant.

Ireland came to defend with two defensive midfielders in a 4-5-1 formation. We just couldn't find a way through to get a second goal. Then, Robbie Keane stepped up and pulled Ireland level.

We're still well in charge of the group. We have to play the two bottom sides in our last two games and ought to really tie this group up in our penultimate game.

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crouchaldinho

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Here is the current table: 


| Pos   | Inf   | Team       |       | Pld   | Won   | Drn   | Lst   | For   | Ag    | G.D.  | Pts   | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
[b]| 1st   | Pl    | England    |       | 8     | 6     | 2     | 0     | 24    | 8     | +16   | 20    | [/b]
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd   |       | Slovenia   |       | 8     | 5     | 1     | 2     | 12    | 9     | +3    | 16    | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd   |       | Serbia     |       | 8     | 3     | 2     | 3     | 16    | 13    | +3    | 11    | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th   |       | Ireland    |       | 8     | 3     | 2     | 3     | 9     | 6     | +3    | 11    | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 5th   |       | Montenegro |       | 8     | 3     | 1     | 4     | 12    | 12    | 0     | 10    | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 6th   |       | San Marino |       | 8     | 0     | 0     | 8     | 1     | 26    | -25   | 0     | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

We are guaranteed a play-off spot and we really have one foot in Poland and Ukraine.

Next up we play Montenegro away before finishing against San Marino. Three points from just one of these games will see us win the group.

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crouchaldinho

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European Championship Qualifying, Group E - Montenegro 0 - 2 ENGLAND

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We went with the 4-2-3-1 and put in a great shift to comfortably win this match.

This win sealed our qualification for Euro 2012 and it has been extremely straight forward for us. Let's hope the actual tournament follows in a similar fashion!

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crouchaldinho

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European Championship Qualifying, Group E - ENGLAND 9 - 0 San Marino

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I decided to give the 4-3-1-2 formation a try today, employing Lampard behind Rooney and Crouch, with a midfield three of Barry, Carrick and Gerrard behind them. San Marino went with a bizarre 4-2-4 formation at Wembley.

We absolutely trounced them and I have the feeling that it could have been many more if I hadn't switched to a more orthodox 4-4-2 in the second-half. Rooney and Lampard were on fire.

It's nice to celebrate our qualification with such an emphatic victory.

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crouchaldinho

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Here is the final table: 

| Pos   | Inf   | Team       |       | Pld   | Won   | Drn   | Lst   | For   | Ag    | G.D.  | Pts   | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
[b]| 1st   | Q     | England    |       | 10    | 8     | 2     | 0     | 35    | 8     | +27   | 26    | [/b]
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 2nd   | Pl    | Slovenia   |       | 10    | 5     | 3     | 2     | 14    | 11    | +3    | 18    | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 3rd   |       | Serbia     |       | 10    | 4     | 3     | 3     | 20    | 14    | +6    | 15    | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 4th   |       | Ireland    |       | 10    | 3     | 4     | 3     | 12    | 9     | +3    | 13    | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 5th   |       | Montenegro |       | 10    | 3     | 2     | 5     | 14    | 16    | -2    | 11    | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| 
| 6th   |       | San Marino |       | 10    | 0     | 0     | 10    | 1     | 38    | -37   | 0     | 
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

8 points clear of second place with a goal difference of +27. I think that says it all.

It really wasn't a tough group. :D

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Jenko_EFC

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Managed England a few times in the World Cup and got to the semi-final which was the highest I ever got but that was probably because I was biased and wouldn't play Gerrard, Johnson or any Liverpool player and played Baines, Jagielka even Rodwell :p

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crouchaldinho

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Managed England a few times in the World Cup and got to the semi-final which was the highest I ever got but that was probably because I was biased and wouldn't play Gerrard, Johnson or any Liverpool player and played Baines, Jagielka even Rodwell :p

:D

Luckily I'm not biased!

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International Friendly - ENGLAND 3 - 2 USA

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A couple of friendlies to see out the year now and to prepare for the Euros.

First up, the USA at Wembley, which turned out to be a tougher game than I had imagined. I put out what I felt was my strongest team in a 4-2-3-1 formation.

Ultimately, we dominated, but made life tough for ourselves by conceding a couple of really soft goals. Must improve is the verdict after this game.

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crouchaldinho

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Euro 2012 Draw

Here is our draw for the Euros:

EnglandEuroDraw.jpg

Should be a straight-forward passage through to the Quarter-finals to be honest.

The other groups are:

Group A - Russia, Sweden, Portugal and Poland.

Group B - N. Ireland, Ukraine, Germany, Czech Rep.

Group D - Romania, Spain, Italy and Croatia. ----> Group of Death!

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crouchaldinho

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International Friendly - Tunisia 0 - 2 England

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Time for a quick Euro 2012 warm up friendly match.

No Steven Gerrard here, so I abandoned the usual 4-4-1-1/4-2-3-1 style formation in favour of 4-5-1/4-3-3. We lack any quality up front apart from Rooney and we have a plethora of quality midfield and wide players, so these will really be our choices for the upcoming Euro 2012 tournament.

This was nothing less than total domination against Tunisia. One thing that I don't like about the 4-5-1 style formations is that they don't tend to score a lot of goals with the lone forward, who has no support apart from the wingers. I much prefer the 4-4-1-1/4-2-3-1 style formation. I'd really like to go with two up top but as I mentioned previously, it makes more sense to field three central midfielders and one forward with the players I have at the moment.

Anyway, job done here. It won't be long before the Euro 2012 tournament kicks off and we're underway now!

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crouchaldinho

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International Friendly - England 2 - 0 Finland

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Another friendly before the tournament begins. I took the opportunity to experiment in this game and decided to play an asymmetric formation (what the game calls '4-2-3-1 Asymmetric' but I reversed it so that it is the opposite of the default). It seems to suit my best players well enough and I thought it was worth a try for something different.

In the end, this game was a case of total domination from us but we just couldn't find the goals until the very end of the match. The important thing was that we got the win. I think it was probably hard for us to play our usual style of game in the gale and rain that was going on at Wembley.

In other news, Rooney broke the goalscoring record for England.

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crouchaldinho

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Cheers Canvey!! No Zamora, I'm afraid. :(

Euro 2012 Group C - England 1-0 Belgium

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Far from convincing but we got the all important win to get us up and running.

I'm not sure how well the Asymmetric 4-5-1/4-3-3 formation is working at the moment. I decided to stick with it for this match but we struggled to create much and really scraped the victory. Perhaps it wasn't the shape but rather that I should have been more adventurous and attacking.

Getting the win was made more difficult when Wayne Rooney picked up a knock and I decided to sub him as a precautionary measure. In the end, Steven Gerrard popped up with the goal to win this match and we ended up hanging in there for the three points.

Some bad news after the game as I discovered that Ashley Cole is injured and is ruled out of the rest of the tournament.

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Euro 2012 Group C - Greece 0 - 2 England

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With Gerrard and Johnson looking a little tired, I decided to rest them. The biggest impact was in the midfield, where Barry came in to play DM, Carrick came in at MC to play deep-lying playmaker, and Lampard shifted up to play an attacking AM role. We actually looked a lot better like this and it raises the old question of whether you can fit Gerrard and Lampard into the same team. At the 2010 World Cup, the answer was no. What will the answer be this time around? At the moment, I like our midfield with Carrick and Barry in it. Maybe I need to go along with the old Italian system of the 'relay' (I forget the Italian) where you have two similar players who cannot (or should not) feature together. For them it is usually their fantasistas (fantasy attacking players, e.g. trequartistas etc.)

Anyway, in the end we were quite comfortable in this one, with both goals coming from Rooney. England's record goalscorer also managed to get himself sent off in the middle of the second-half, leaving us down to ten men. He will now miss the final group game against Switzerland. At least he will not miss a meaningful fixture, as this result confirmed our qualification for the Quarter-finals.

I've just realised that the FA want me to reach the semis at the very least, so I will be battling to achieve that.

I was also just reflecting that I have quite an old squad now with a few players unlikely to be with me at the World Cup in 2014. Lampard and Ferdinand are 33, Gerrard is 32 and there are a whole bunch of players on 31. So there will be a rebuilding job after this Euro 2012 tournament. Will I be there to do the rebuilding? Only time will tell!

I will use the last game against Switzerland to experiment and to try to fit Gerrard and Lampard into the team together once again. However, we really ought to be trying to win this last game to finish top of the group (we need a draw to finish top), so I will still be taking it very seriously.

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crouchaldinho

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Regarding the Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard situation, I'm thinking of bringing Lampard back in at MC and playing him as 'advanced playmaker' on support, with Gerrard returning as AMC and playing 'attacking midfielder' on an attack duty. We'll see how that goes against Switzerland.

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Euro 2012 Group C - England 0 - 0 Switzerland

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We more or less showed today that if we lose Wayne Rooney, we haven't got a plan B. Plan A is Wayne Rooney and Plan B is get knocked out of the tournament. :(

This was a boring 0-0 which we definitely edged but we just couldn't find the back of the net. Switzerland were playing an ultra defensive 4-4-2 with DMs and we couldn't find a way past them. We were also off our game today. It wasn't a performance to be proud of really but we got the point we needed to finish top of the group.

It has made my mind up about the Lampard and Gerrard issue though. I'm going to drop the England captain, Frank Lampard, and bring Michael Carrick back into the midfield as deep-lying playmaker. Gerrard will start in the attacking midfield role with Lampard able to come on as a sub. It means the captaincy will pass from Lampard to Gerrard (who is vice-captain).

In other news, Leighton Baines was injured in this match. I took two players for each position and with him and Ashley Cole out of the tournament, we now have no recognised natural left-back. Gareth Barry will have to deputise in that position.

We now play the runners-up of Group D - Spain - which is going to be a very challenging fixture at this stage of the tournament. They will be wanting revenge, no doubt, after we beat them in that terrific World Cup semi-final is 2010.

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