Hei alle sammen!
I already introduced myself in the National Team Speeches thread so I thought I would post here and focus on what a Norge National Team would look like under my leadership.
Team Development
With the size of our talent pool, maximizing the talent we have is the highest priority I will have as a manager. Assisting with training plans and supporting the managers who are training players is the top way to do this. I would plan on giving a bulk of the scrimmage minutes to top players in the pipeline as well as rewarding managers who commit to maintaining peak game shape on their NT players. These minutes will help club teams' economics as well as boost the experience of players who are being well developed. I will also actively be reaching out to any high potential rookies to encourage positive development of their players. You never know, we may pull a new manager into our group of managers building Norge NT (and U21) players. I will also be open about what our team pipeline needs are and actively reach out to those managers training players who may be able to fill those needs.
Game Day Strategy
As someone who made players for the USA NT, I am a firm believer in maximizing game shape. I understand that there are times where the luck of the game just doesn't fall for a player and you just can't quite get him to 9 game shape, but my lineups will be heavily influenced by the players who are at peak form. This may even sway a game plan if I feel like we will perform better with a different lineup because our usual starter is at 7 game shape and we have a similarly talented backup who is at 9 game shape. Also, stamina is very important, especially for our starters. If you are holding a high level player who has low stamina, don't be surprised if I were to reach out and ask for you to train the stamina up. At the club level, I saw my top tier team make a clear leap when I started training stamina. I expect that there will be some who are also training some other young trainees and I totally understand why you wouldn’t be training stamina in those situations.
Youth Focus
I plan on being strategic with our team’s minutes. In the European competition, if we are truly outclassed, I will likely lean toward playing younger players and building their experience up for future competitions. The approach will be different in the consolation tournament where every game and every point matters. The goal will be to put the best team on the floor and win a game at the knockout stage and continue to build from there.
Communication
Managers who have players on the NT will be hearing from me, as will anyone on our radar that owns an NT prospect. I will communicate directly to you if you are affected by the youth focus and will welcome feedback from all managers of NT or future NT players. Also, I will provide weekly updates via the forums, but will be careful to not expose too much to our competitors as our margins are thin and we need to keep any advantages we have.
Also, I will communicate in English. The only other option is for me to use Google Translate and I do not want anything to be lost in translation. If this is an issue, I will be sure to find a suitable answer to make sure I am communicating to everyone in their preferred language.
I think with some focus and support from the Norge community (as well as some Norge adjacent managers like myself), we could build a squad that can win a couple knockout games at the consolation level and even maybe push to make it to the World Championships. This will take time and commitment from multiple managers, but I believe it is something we can do.
Heia Norge!
JV03