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Question to candidates:

What is your take on training U21 players that have HOF potential compared to Superstar potential? Do you have the players train the same or do you force more primary training on the superstar guy to benefit the U21 team more?

A lot of U21 teams have donkey bigs with high primaries and 1’s everywhere else. How do you feel about this? How might you exploit that?

What is your take on outside offenses? What skills do you look at for outside offenses compared to inside offenses? What would be your ideal outside offense lineup?

In your own opinion, how do you think the Game Engine works in regards to tactics? Specifically, I want to hear how you think a LI works compared to a RnG? For example, does the GE value passing as much as DR? Is JR useful in LI? Does IS matter in a RnG? What do you think?

Like I said, I believe that you can really only count on people to do what they believe is in their best interest. I will do my best to advise each manager on how they can best help the U21 team, but will defer to the goals that they set. If I can convince someone with unrealistic or wasteful goals to either change their plans or sell for profit, that's great, but I won't try to force someone into any kind of training, as I don't believe that would lead to a player that I could count on, regardless. If someone with a HoF potential player is interested in training the, with the NT in mind, I'll give them my honest assessment of what I think their best path is, while also, if it is plausible, offering a compromise path that might benefit the U21 along the way. Something like this is what led to Aubrey Bliss making the U21 as a SF on his way to training as a NT PF.

Donkey bigs can have an important role on U21 squads, and are usually necessary in order to be able to field a full roster from the pool of available players.

Outside offenses are important, but are generally harder to run successfully because of the global emphasis that is put on OD.

I believe that specific evaluations of tactics are best saved for a less public forum.

This thread got a lot of activity since I left it yesterday so I'll do my best to answer all of the questions. If you see that I didn't answer something of particular interest to you either BB-Mail the link to the post or re-ask the question and I'd be glad to get to it.

Basically, I want as much OD as can be had at the PG-SF positions. IS is a nice bonus and someone has to have elite level JS and enough ID to be moved between the SG and SF position to be a scorer. Now that's my experience in a small nation where resources were limited and we had to get experimental on player builds. Speaking to experimental, I don't think super high levels of RB are quite as necessary(still need to have an acceptable level for sure) and I like SB on my bigs. PA is another skill I think needs to have an acceptable level to but doesn't need to be outrageously high. For the SF position, I like both OD & ID to be capable of playing any defense(preferably we have an outside, neutral, and inside SF, but we don't always get that each year), but I really want JS and IS so they can always score from there.

For the differences between man and zone would have to be the common knowledge that bigs might have to defend more 3s and thus I'd prefer they have a little OD to make that work. Also, as much SB as possible for the zones. In M2M, it really comes down to matchups against the other teams offense.

A strong offensive build will always be more achievable, and more quickly achievable the way training is set up. That said, defense is still necessary. For a U21 setting, scoring is more valuable but defense being too low can become too much a liability unless that player has 20/20 JS/IS and then would have to be used super situationally.

What is your take on training U21 players that have HOF potential compared to Superstar potential? Do you have the players train the same or do you force more primary training on the superstar guy to benefit the U21 team more?

First off, it depends on starting skills and what the manager wants out of the player. If the starting skills for the HOF player have significant holes to where making the NT will be a chore then we can devise a plan much like the SS to make the U21. If the skills are that of a NT plan, then we have to work on that route and realize he might not be on the U21. Also, if the manager just wants the player to be a specific type of player for his club then we have to respect that, but always if we think that player can be much more we can at least inquire about selling and attempt to line up a buyer.

A lot of U21 teams have donkey bigs with high primaries and 1’s everywhere else. How do you feel about this? How might you exploit that?

Get a little creative on offense and move some players around. A French Patient is how I beat China in continentals this past term(a CT helped ;)), but we knew their outside skills weren't up to par for defending the 1-2 scorers I had available. Now, that's not an option every week, but if we can find holes like that to exploit then I want to put players in position to make them pay.

What is your take on outside offenses? What skills do you look at for outside offenses compared to inside offenses? What would be your ideal outside offense lineup?

Outside offenses continue to be underutilized, but just like any offense you need to have the personel to make them work. More JS/JR is needed, for example, which can take away some of the defense and HA/DR or even IS since that is still what rules the roost for offensive prowess. That said, if we could field a roster 7-8 deep within our full roster I would love to have even more offenses available for use.

In your own opinion, how do you think the Game Engine works in regards to tactics? Specifically, I want to hear how you think a LI works compared to a RnG? For example, does the GE value passing as much as DR? Is JR useful in LI? Does IS matter in a RnG? What do you think?

First, JR and IS are useful and matter in every offense. For LI, you'll still take a couple jumpers and especially threes with a hit the further out you are, so having JR can help deter part of that hit. For RnG, yes the shots are going up quicker in the play clock but there are still quite a few shots in the paint making IS still very necessary. For tactics and the GE, I've always seen DR have a big effect for scorers but scoring off the pass has a higher percentage of makes, all things being equal.

Pick 2 of the three guards for your team:

14/14/13/12/12/7-6/5/4/3
12/7/13/12/12/9/11/5/4/3
15/6/13/13/13/13-2/5/4/3

Depending on what the rest of the team has of course, I'm going with A & B. 14/14 JR/JR on A and the 11 IS on B are great scoring skills, and OD/ID is equal for each of them. That 15/13 JS/PA for C is really good and I'd want him on the team, but at 2 IS I feel I can get more points out the first two.

Everyone: Can you give examples of USA U21 or NT players that you have trained in the past. If you have not trained any, what qualifies you to guide a long term training program for dozens of players.

These all made the U21 for their nations, which, yes, is more than just USA as you asked.

Ricardo Pardo - Spain
Lawrence Phillips - USA(A Warrior did a lot with him after I sold off my team to rebuild)
Mick Sterling - USA
Rafi Mansur - Israel(sold him late in his 19 y/o season after getting a bunch of 1v1 and OD)
Man McCormack - USA(Jk did the heavy lifting on him, but I did pump his OD late in his 20 y/o season and trained through his 21)
More than a half-dozen Nippon players during my term, including a couple bigs that would have had a chance at the USA team if they were eligible to change nationalities.

Last edited by khenry at 10/26/2018 10:48:14 AM

Why is it important to have the "underdog" mentality and tactical base for USA in this term do you think?

We don't have the horses right now to show up and LI/M2M every opponent and beat them down. Can we run through Americas for the most part? Hell yes. But what matters to us all is getting to Worlds and playing in that Final for Gold. It takes going outside the box with tactics at times. As Americans, we're always going to look at ourselves as favorites. Admittedly, during Nick's term, we knew we were underdogs but fell apart in the final group at Worlds after having to burn enthusiasm in the Repe to get a couple wins over teams that made the consolation Semifinal and Final. As the Nippon U21 manager, I played teams I was far superior to just like the USA is a lot of the time, but I also faced the likes of Australia, Taiwain, and China where I was very much outmatched. Also almost beat Poland in the round robin of the Consolation tournament and they won the dang thing to get HCA for Euros.

Saying I've been absent for a long time is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. As the manager of another U21, my focus was there but I did jump in at times during Nick's term for both Americas and early this past season. My absence about halfway through has been discussed, but that does not qualify as "for a long time".

I chose to return when we hit a time of year that allowed me more time. That happened to be a few days before elections so I found it opportune to change from another term in Japan to giving this a shot. Can't stress this part enough: I acknowledge that things could have been done differently when I focussed on life and I could have made a better attempt at responding to your BB-Mail or posting in the Discord before deleting the app from my phone to keep from checking it. I can't change that, but I can assure you that I'm around with time to spare for this entire term.

Time commitment. How will all the candidates fare with time committed to the U21 for the next 6 months? Khenry I know you’ve answered for the next couple months what about for the Worlds season?

Our busy time of the year is high school football from late August to basically this week since most of the teams we cover get knocked out in the first round and we don't need as many broadcasters for each week. This was my first year they needed me on the broadcast team so the time it took snuck up on me more than I would have liked. This term will run approximately to April-ish and that's perfectly in my slower time of the year. If this were the spring to fall term, then with my knowledge of my time constraints for football I doubt I would be running. This term has my full commitment with no extra work schedules to pull me from managing the USA U21.