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[GoDawgs]

Following Alilane4's and Jackk's stories of African national team management I've decided to follow suit and start my first FM story with South Africa.

Started with South Africa in January 2011 so I could have a decent crack at qualifying for the African Cup of Nations in 2012.


First Game.



Happy with this, experimented with various tactics and will upload that in the next post.

As this is my first FM story feel free to post constructive criticism and pointers are always appreciated.

Edited by GoDawgs, 30 January 2012 - 12:04 AM.

[GoDawgs]

Tactics



Playing with a similar tactic to Alilane4 (credit to him for creating this) and Jackk. Still tinkering with it but I think I've started to get to grips with it and mould it to fit my best XI. Next games, home to Egypt then we make the trip to Niger to complete our pair of CAN qualifiers.

Edited by GoDawgs, 30 January 2012 - 12:05 AM.

[GoDawgs]

CAN qualifier SA vs Egypt

This was a big game for us, we had won the 2 qualifiers that had been played before I took charge and Egypt had beaten Sierra Leone but had then had drawn against Niger. I felt that we need AT LEAST a point from this game to stay in the driving seat in our qualifying group.



Absolutely devastated. We weren't dominant by any stretch of the imagination but to concede that late on was very disappointing. Still next up we visit Niger.

Edited by GoDawgs, 30 January 2012 - 12:06 AM.

[GoDawgs]

CAN qualifier Niger vs SA

Quietly confident heading into this one, especially after the performance against Egypt. Then this happened....



Furious. Absolutely furious. Terrible defending for all 3 goals something that definitely needs to improve before we go to Cairo for out next qualifying game. Now a game I feel we have to win that game to stay in pole position in our group.

Edited by GoDawgs, 30 January 2012 - 12:06 AM.

[GoDawgs]

CAN qualifier Egypt vs South Africa

I really didn't know how to think heading into this one. On our day I think we have the potential to push the top African teams all the way but after the absolute mess of a performance against Niger I wasn't sure what I would see when we took the field against the Egyptians.



Confused I think is the best way to describe how I feel about this. Totally 100% thrilled too but this was the same team, same tactics that played Niger! Leaves Egypt languishing in 3rd place in the table with us top and Sierra Leone following close behind. I've arranged some friendlies against Eq. Guinea, Cape Verde and Malawi before we meet Sierra Leone in a straight out winner takes all clash to decide who gets to go to Eq. Guinea and Gabon.

Edited by GoDawgs, 30 January 2012 - 12:07 AM.

[GoDawgs]

Friendlies June/August 2011




Reasonably happy with these performances - the Cape Verde game aside - happy about how we are going forward. Less happy that we've only kept one cleansheet so far. That is definitely something that needs to be looked at before out crucial qualifier against Sierra Leone.

Edited by GoDawgs, 30 January 2012 - 12:09 AM.

[GoDawgs]

Final CAN qualifier South Africa vs Sierra Leone

Feeling pretty good after the 3 friendlies leading up to this and having finally nailed down what I thought was my best XI. We were 1 point ahead of them before this game and topping the group so all we needed was a draw to ensure we get to go to Equatorial Guinea and Gabon in January.



Very happy with performance, probably the attacking display since I took charge.

Leaves the group looking like this:



Got a friendly with Zimbabwe to finish 2011 then 2 more friendlies against Ivory Coast and Djibouti before the CAN starts.

Edited by GoDawgs, 30 January 2012 - 12:10 AM.

[GoDawgs]

Friendly South Africa vs Zimbabwe


Just a quick friendly to tinker with my tactics before the CAN and start to figure out what my 23 man squad will be.



Efficient performance and a good way to finish 2011 for Bafana Bafana.

Edited by GoDawgs, 30 January 2012 - 12:10 AM.

[GoDawgs]

2011 round up.


Best eleven





Pretty much spot on, which makes for a nice change as FM best XI's go, stand out player for me would be Siyanda Xulu. Absolutely top class since I handed him his debut and has repaid me with 3 goals. I have high hopes for him as he's only 19 and has already claimed a first team place for the CAN.



World Rankings Graph 2011



Feel like we've made some decent progress through the world rankings up to a year high of 37 having started 10 places below that makes for a successful year I think.

Edited by GoDawgs, 30 January 2012 - 12:11 AM.

[GoDawgs]

CAN build up!

Lined up 2 friendlies against the Ivory Coast and Djibouti to prepare us for CAN group stages.



Disappointed but the quality of our finishing but it was a fairly even game. They just took their chances where we squandered ours. Hopefully we get this out of our system before the competitive games start. Next up a morale boosting game against Djibouti.





Happy enough with this game. Not a perfect performance but good enough. Leaves us with an important clean sheet before the CAN starts.

Our group looks like this -


Looks relatively straight forward, we start with Cape Verde then we play Guinea before the all important game against top seeds Ghana.

Looking forward to getting stuck into competition proper after all the preparation, next update will be the group stage.

Edited by GoDawgs, 30 January 2012 - 12:12 AM.

[Tom.]

Says pics been moved or deleted

[GoDawgs]

Apologies, I was cleaning up photobucket and deleted this album. I'll go back and replace all of the pictures I still have. Sorry!

Edit : Only have pictures going back as far as the 3 friendlies before my final CAN qualifier against Sierra Leone. I'll go back and put all these screenshots back in. For the posts further back than that I'll just type in the results, scorers etc. Sorry again for any inconvenience.

Edit 2 : I'll just go back and retake the screenshots, will be back up soon!

Edited by GoDawgs, 30 January 2012 - 12:00 AM.

[GoDawgs]

All images should now be working again.

[Cupid Stunt]

Tshabalala

[GoDawgs]

CAN group stage


I was confident of negotiating this group with minimal fuss and was hoping we could get wins against Cape Verde and Guinea which would take the pressure off for the final game against Ghana, a team I thought was potentially the strongest team in the tournament.



This was a solid start to the group for us, massive upset in the other game in this group as Guinea beat Ghana in a 5-3 thriller!!!



I was very happy with this and the match stats are fairly misleaded. I underestimated Guinea and that nearly cost us as they were all over us during the first 15 minutes before I changed the tactics slightly and after Eric Matoho scored we started to get a foothold in the game and after the second goal we were home and dry. In the other group game Ghana imploded against Cape Verde losing 2-1 and losing Michael Essien, John Mensah to suspension and Asamoah Gyan to injury, this gave us a great chance to top the group and get a positive result against a weakened Ghana side.



Not as easy as I had anticipated but a win is a win. We will need to improve our finishing in the knockout stages if we are to go on and win the tournament. Excellent defensive display though with Eric Matoho being the stand out performer. This result leaves the group looking like this.



I am genuinely concerned about Guinea, their star play Ismael Bangoura looks to be in fine form and I'll definitely be wary of them should we play them again. Anyway onwards to the quarter final where Algeria await us!

[GoDawgs]

CAN Quarter Final vs Algeria.

I was a little bit uneasy coming into this as we had a few injuries to some important players like Teko Modise, Aaron Mokoena and Matthew Booth. This concern was only compounded when we made a terrible start to the game.



Absolutely shocking start, 2 sloppy goals conceded and we were looking dead and buried before Pienaar scored a great individual goal to give us a little bit of hope heading into the second half. We absolutely dominated the second half but just couldn't finish (something that seems to be a bit of a recurring theme) before Kermit Erasmus scored a scrappy goal with 20 seconds left to play. We then dominated extra time too but couldn't put it in the net before we went to the drama of penalties.



So so relieved. We should have put this game to bed long before it came to this but at least we won. This means we progress to the semi finals where we'll play the Ivory Coast.

[GoDawgs]

CAN Semi Final



Biggest game of my South African career so far, I wasn't overly optimistic. They may be missing Drogba but they still have plenty of players that play in the big European leagues. I was hoping to at least be competitive but then this happened....


An excellent result and performance. The defence was infinitely better than the showing against Algeria but I am concerned that the 120 minutes we played before this will catch up with us during the final. Fortunately Pienaar's injury is not as bad as it appears and he should be fit to play a part in the final.

In the other semi final Guinea bear Nigeria 3-1 with Ismael Bangoura scoring a brace. I am very very worried about the Final, Guinea have been underestimated all tournament and are playing far better than we are having watched the semi final.

[alilane4]

Niice, good stuff.

[GoDawgs]

CAN 2012 Final


Nervous going into this, Guinea are in far superior form to us and Ismael Bangoura is play fantastically. Still we have everyone apart from Teko Modise back from injury and with no suspensions we're in as good a shape as I could hope for.



Relieved we came back but the real turning point was Bangoura's injury. After that we started to take control and I'm a little disappointed we didn't wrap this up in normal or extra time. So for the second time in the tournament we have to rely on the drama of penalties. This is what happened.



We are champions of Africa!!!! Great result today and for South Africa's reputation in world football. This is just the first step though, I want to carry this success into the World Cup qualifiers and hopefully I can begin to dominate Africa with this South Africa team.

[alilane4]

Guinea in the final? That's not even a contest.

However, good work and a good win. Well done.