Just a quick summary of our season 68. In buzzerbeater terms, it was awful or even pitiful, and our weaknesses were highlighted in almost every match we played.
The away loss against
Andorra (79354) quickly decreased our chances for qualifying to he playoffs for the third time in a row. Afterwards, we tried to neutralize this loss against
Greece (79416) with a higher (normal) attitude, but we were far from being successful, and it became very obvious, that we cannot match such teams at the moment.
Two games with normal attitude left us without accumulated enthusiasm for the away game against
Iran (79461), where we were also not competitive, and one game later we finally managed to get our first win against
Cyprus (79484) at home. Then came another disappointing match against
Macau (79531), where we were once more dominated. Afterwards, we played our only good game of the season, beating higher ranked
Romania (79565). Although it was a home game, and Romania also had a very bad season, it was a light of hope in our depressing campaign.
For the last two games we had nothing to loose, so we attacked
Bosnia (79607) with a crunch time. Although we also positioned ourselves well tactically, we were nowhere close in this match, and it was again a bit depressing. For the last game of the season, we managed to beat our weakest oponent in the season,
Jamaica (79634) even with depleted enthusiasm.
Bottom line, we tried many tactical combinations, lineup combinations, but at the end we were still unable to bridge a large black hole of our centers. Also, our team got a lot younger in the recent seasons, and this also shows. I expect we will reach a plateau for a while (in an otherwise falling trend, so plateau is good in this case
), then we'll start to climb. We have a really good generation of players, aged 30 and younger, starting with
Sören Häggin (30),
Kristian Forsbratt (29) and
Herman Hansson (27), who are world-class players, or will soon become such, and will reach their peak in a couple of seasons. But they will not yet enjoy the benefits of world-class PF/C teammates, here we will have to wait for
Michael Ahler (24) and beyond.
I started with encouraging managers to train Swedish players when current 23-year olds were 18, and theese generations carry quite a lot of depth and outstanding quality, so I am still very motivated to continue with the Swedish NT. Here, I thank again to all Swedish managers, who put a lot of effort into training and maintaining players of all ages. Again, I invite you to discord, where informations are a bit more up to date
https://discord.gg/xZNmX6jdX7
Last edited by Deschamps at 6/24/2025 11:52:42 AM