Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY

INTRO

This is my first time writing about a Football Manager game in quite some time, and I haven’t been actively posting on here at all either, so hopefully this’ll come back to me quickly. Please feel free to chip in with any constructive criticism, point out coding errors, anything important I’ve missed etc.

I’ve been lurking on this forum for a while, and it’s made me want to start a new game with more potential for country hopping. Previous games I’ve played have usually been in the top divisions and spending a long time at one club. I want a bit more variety with this though, and with a new laptop I decided it was time to start a game with more leagues activated.

I still play FM 2007, as this is the version I’ve always found more fun, and I’ve never really managed to get into any of the newer games since. 2D dots for life!

A quick note here – obviously with the game being five years old, we know all about the heroes of the game, the players you can sign cheaply early on and set up your team on the road to success for 15 years. I avoid signing them, and mostly use scouting to find new players instead. Though at the level of football I’m starting at here that shouldn’t really make a difference.

I’ve played through a season and a half already so I’ll put an overview of those years in these first couple of posts, after that I’ll probably go for a start of season, halfway through season, end of season update schedule with a bit more detail.

This is the league set up I’ve gone for, with a large database:

Apart from playing in all six countries there are no particular aims I have, just try and win something every now and then! Though with my luck that’s more a hope than an actual plan…

2006 OVERVIEW

First task was obviously finding a job, so off I went on holiday applying for all jobs I could. The first team to offer me the manager’s role was Salyut-Energia Belgorod, in the Russian First Division, so off I went to Russia.

I arrived there in June 2006, where they were about halfway through their domestic season. Salyut were top of the league, so I don’t why they needed a new manager, let alone why they thought I was the right man for the job. The board’s expectations though were to avoid relegation, and the media prediction was 19th (out of 22), so I guess this was a bit of a false position to start with.

That’s what I’m telling myself anyway, as we finished the season in 5th place. I kept the run at the top going for another couple of months, but come September everything fell apart. A streak of nine games without a win (three draws, six losses) sent us hurtling down the table, but a few late decent results halted the decline and left us 5th in a very tight finish.

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2007 OVERVIEW

The expectations for the 2007 league season were a comfortable mid-table finish from the board and the fans, and the media agreed with this predicting 10th place.

A decent amount of money was made available for transfers, and the wage budget wasn’t bad either, so I set about trying to mould the team into one that could challenge.

Mikhail Kozlov was probably the most important addition, very generously being sent to us on loan by our parent club Zenith Peturburg. His 24 goals were vital to the team throughout the year, winning many games for us.

Vladimir Leshonok was also a cracking signing. He’d been with us on loan the previous year, and I definitely had to make it permanent. He added a lot of creativity from midfield, and set up plenty of Kozlov’s goals.

Jean Blaise Bouli had a slow start, probably being wasted on the right wing, while Hristo Alexsandrov scored 12 goals in the first half of the season. When he stopped scoring though Bouli was moved into his spot up top, and impressed with some important goals himself. Next year he’ll see more playing time as a striker. Roman Rebrov was a back up striker who didn’t do much.

Vyachesklav Khorkin and Dmytro Pyvovarenko were rotating the goalkeeper’s shirt between them, neither massively impressed though. Oleg Samsonov was able back up on the right wing, while Igor Shtukin is a top deputy for Leshonok. Piotr Styzej looked decent but never seemed to play well, hopefully he’ll improve or he’ll be chucked out.

Just some dead weight sold for a bit of cash, and some youngsters sent out to gain some experience.

KEY PLAYERS

Despite his misleading name, Aleksandr Khrapkovskiy was possibly my best player. First name on the teamsheet each week, and the only centre back I really had any confidence in. My centre back pairing was usually him and whoever else had the best fitness/morale!

Valentin Okorochkov was an ever-present on the left wing, chipping in with six goals and 12 assists. On the right Igor Zakharov missed an early part of the season with injury, but returned with four goals and 7 assists himself. Lots of our play comes down the wings, so these two always being a threat is very useful.

This was a very up and down year, one or two good or bad results in a row at any time could see us bounce between 5th and 17th. This was probably where we deserved to finish, near enough matching up exactly with the pre-season predictions. A major worry in the second half of the season especially was the appalling display by the defence. Way too many times leads were thrown away, silly penalties were conceded, and red cards were seen. I can tell you right now that in one month six players were fined for their dismissals or poor displays, it was that bad. I’ve got the scouts out looking for some proper defenders, hopefully this will be rectified for 2008. We scored enough goals, just stopping them at the other end has to be the aim.

I wasn’t too sure about signing a new contract, so I delayed it until the end of the season. No one made an offer for me (can’t blame them there!), and nothing available really stood out to me, so I decided to stick with Salyut. I think the attacking side of the squad is pretty good, so if we can get the defence sorted a proper crack at the top of the table isn’t totally out of the question.

Before I do the pre-season update, I’ll just bring you up to speed a bit with a bit more info on Salyut’s status.

Status: Professional

Reputation: Regional

Estimated value: 550k

Stadium: Central Salyut (12,000 all seated)

Fairly basic training facilities

Minimal youth facilities

Parent club: Zenith Peterburg (Russia)

Feeder clubs: Morava (Serbia), Motor Luplin (Poland), Olimpic Donetsk (Ukraine), Vityaz Podolsk (Russia)

It would be nice to get the facilities improved, but so far when I’ve asked I’ve been told there are no funds available.

I have two scouts currently out around Russia looking for new players, their stats for judging current and potential ability are 12/12 and 11/14.

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2008 - PRE-SEASON

Despite last season’s mid-table finish, the board have lowered their expectations this year. They’d be happy with survival in the First Division. The fans agree, wanting just to avoid relegation. The media predict a finish of 10th, and I’m happier with this. I think we can push for a top half finish, though odds of 33-1 for promotion from the bookies suggest you should keep your wallet in your pocket. At least this means there won’t be too much pressure on the team.

BUDGETS

We were given a transfer kitty of 110k to play with, and most of it was used in the end as 90k was spent. A number of bargains were bought early on in the transfer window, however with time running out a couple of late additions saw bigger bucks spent to convince their teams to let them go.

16.5k a week was available for wages, and by the end of the window 14.5k a week was being paid. The biggest earner is Rebrov, making £875 a week. Average is about £600 for a member of the first team squad. And to be honest, if I’d been paying attention and realising Rebrov was getting that much before writing this I would have tried to shift him. Might have to play him more this season so he’s actually earning it.

A fairly busy time in the transfer market for me, as seven new faces were brought in on permanent deals. Five of them are defenders, two of whom will move straight into the first team line up. Nagibin and Mikadze look a lot stronger than the players they’re replacing, so I have quite high hopes for them. Paid a bit more than I would have liked for Usanov and Yefimov, as I was struggling for centre backs a little bit on the last day of the window. I think if called upon they’ll be able to do a good job though. Streltsov will be my second choice defensive midfielder, as he can also play striker this gives me a bit of flexibility for change in the second half of games if needed. Shubin should be able to cover anywhere across midfield, may be a problem actually getting him into the team too often though as we have five non-Russian players, and only three can be included in matchday squads.

Perhaps the most important signing isn’t shown in these shots though. When Zenith sent us Melnikov on loan for the season, I enquired if we could keep Kozlov another year. And very graciously, they said yes. A repeat of last year’s scoring exploits would be very much appreciated.

No one left the club, so the players I didn’t rate from last season were all dumped in the reserves. I tried to get rid of them all a few times, but unsurprisingly there was no interest.

I’m pretty happy with my squad here, I think the defensive players brought in are much better than the previous options. There’s also a couple of new attacking additions to freshen things up and offer a bit more variety, especially for coming off the bench later on in games.

Here’s the formation I currently use, and my first choice XI for the upcoming season. As you can probably guess, it’s a very offensively minded set up, and the aim is always to score more than we let in.

FRIENDLIES

We played six pre-season games, five against non-league opposition and one against our parent club Zenith. I expected a bit of a pasting from that, but to only lose 1-0 showed some resilience from the team. The next game against recently relegated Orel saw a 3-1 loss, but as the next two matches both ended with clean sheets I’d like to put this down to the defence not being acquainted with each other yet, and still developing an understanding. The final two friendlies were both wins with a few goals scored, so confidence is pretty good going into the season.

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2008 - MID-SEASON UPDATE

I have to say, I was not expecting a start like this. Despite my confidence in the team, a 13 game unbeaten streak to kick things off was a pleasant surprise.

Leshonok got the ball rolling in the opening game of the season, hitting a hat-trick as we beat Rotor 4-0. Unfortunately though Zakharov broke his foot early on and will miss lots of the season. Next time out we went one better, hammering Avangard Kursk 5-0. Kozlov scored twice in that game, carrying on straight from where he left off last year. This was followed up with a couple of draws, and I worried we were dropping back into last year’s inconsistent form, but then things really went well.

Seven wins in a row is always nice, and four clean sheets in this spell was a re-assuring sign that last year’s weakness had been improved upon greatly. One notable point of this run was the 4-0 win over Metallurg-Kuzbass, where Streltsov scored twice from free-kicks, an unexpected bonus. We rode our luck a little at times, it looked like we could have played Baltika all day without scoring until one of their defenders helpfully turned the ball into his own net. This run was then followed up by a draw and another win.

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. We’d fought our way back to being level at 1-1 with Anzhi, but Bokov gave away a penalty with 15 minutes to go. This was subsequently scored, and we suffered our first loss of the season. It took all my restraint not to fine Bokov for this. After this match we sat 2nd in the table, two points under Amkar and 5 ahead of Ural.

A goalless draw against Spartak Nizhniy Novgorod wasn’t what we needed to get back on track, and a 3-2 loss against Amkar extended the gap between them and us. The worst news from that game though was Kozlov breaking a couple of ribs, leaving him out of action for up to two months. Morale was down, and a 5-2 loss against Khimki didn’t help at all.

Luckily, the next match was against bottom of the table side Dinamo Barnaul. It took a couple of penalties, but we managed to beat them 3-1 to get things back on track. Until the very next game, where it took less than 60 seconds for Dinamo Makachkala to take the lead. We scored twice late on, but by then Dinamo were already three up and we recorded another loss. The last game of June saw us visiting Rostov, and when we were 2-0 down at half-time I expected the poor form to continue. The second half was much improved though, and a good point was earned to keep us second in the table.

The board and fans are both delighted with the performances this season, as we’re much higher up the table than they expected us to be. I’m happy with it, but frustrated by the recent poor form and it does feel like we may plummet down the league soon. The transfer window is open for two months now, I don’t plan on doing a huge amount of business but would like to bring in a right winger and a striker. Samsonov hasn’t played anywhere near as well as Zakharov does on the right, and Kozlov’s injury has coincided with the recent bad run.

MOST APPEARANCES

Sergey Kryuchikhin – 19 (1)

Vladimir Leshonok – 19

Jean Blaise Bouli – 17 (2)

Aleksandr Khrapkovskiy – 17

Dmytro Pyvovarenko – 16

Valentin Okorochkov - 16

BEST AVERAGE RATINGS

Vladimir Leshonok – 7.53

Valentin Okorochkov – 7.50

Aleksandr Khrapkovskiy – 7.41

Georgy Mikadze – 7.38

Jean Blaise Bouli – 7.37

TOP GOALSCORERS

Mikhail Kozlov - 9

Vladimir Leshonok – 9

Jean Blaise Bouli – 8

Vladimir Nagibin 4

MOST ASSISTS

Jean Blaise Bouli – 7

Oleg Samsonov – 5

Mikhail Kozlov – 4

Vladimir Nagibin – 4

Valntin Okorochkov – 3

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2008 -TRANSFER WINDOW UPDATE

A bit of a short update here, as there wasn't any action happening this window. I was looking for a new right winger and a striker to cover injuries, but there was no real talent available so I gave it a miss. The biggest news was a 100k bid coming in for Vladimir Leshonok by Spartak. This was immediately turned down, and Leshonok was handed a one year extension to his contract, with a £50 per week wage increase, and the minimum fee release clause was increase for 525k to £5 million in order to put off anyone looking at him.

The first game of July saw a bore draw, but also the bad news that Jean Blaise Bouli would be out of action for a long time. He landed poorly after an aerial challenge, and will miss anywhere from two to six months with a hip injury. With both of my first choice strikers out, I chose to move Vitaly Streltsov up the pitch from playing as a holding midfielder to striker. And this move certainly paid off. We won five games in a row, and Streltsov scored in all of them. He ended August with 10 goals in 10 games, a phenomenal return.

We earned 21 points out of 30 over July and August, enough points to keep us in the running at the top. Amkar have now pulled out a big lead in first place, and it looks like it will be hard for anyone to catch up with them. A decent gap has formed over fourth place Anzhi as well, so it could be a shootout between us and Khimki to grab the second promotion spot. There are 12 games left, and it’s all still to play for.

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2008 - 40 GAME UPDATE

Two games left of the season, a perfect time to bring you up-to-date with what’s been going on at Salyut before the end of the campaign.

August ended with a run of only one win in four, and this indifferent form carried over into September, a poor performance against KamAZ allowing them to score a late equaliser and make it just one win in five. Luckily Streltsov continued his scoring exploits, and his five goals in the next four matches earned wins over Volgar, Baltika, and Anzhi to keep us flying high in the table. After 35 games we were still equal on points with Khimki, battling for second place.

We then only managed a draw at Spartak Nizhniy Novgorod, but at the same time Khimki lost 1-0 to Terek, giving us a narrow advantage over them. Amkar were out of sight with a 17 point lead over us, and they were next to visit Salyut Central. Right from kick-off they went for it, and surged ahead after just 21 seconds. But that was their best 21 seconds of the whole match. Within three minutes we’d equalised, by six minutes we were in the lead, and at half-time we were 5-1 up. No more goals were scored, and the news that Khimki had only drawn completed the good news for the day. We now had a three point lead over them.

At the other end of the table, we now visited the already relegated Dinamo Barnaul, and only increased their worries with a 5-2 whooping. Dinamo Makhachkala were going strong in fifth place and fancied their chances, but a Kozlov hat-trick sent them back home unhappy. Khimki also won both of their games in this time.

Fourth place Rostov mathematically still had a very slim chance of going up, and they were our next opposition. And they gave it a bloody good go, leading 2-0 at half-time. I was fearing the worst at that point, especially as Tsaplin sent a penalty several yards wide just after the break, but somehow we fought back to take a draw. Khimki lost, leaving us four points ahead of them with two games remaining.

And guess who our very next game is against…

A win or a draw and we’re promoted in second place. But lose, and Khimki are right back in it with momentum on their side rolling into the last day of the season.

Place your bets…

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

SALYUT-ENERGIE BELGOROD v KHIMKI

So this game could make or break our season. We just needed one point to confirm our spot in the Premier Division in 2009, whereas a loss would leave everything wide open going into the last game.

We made the perfect start, Pushkarev scoring after four minutes. Leshonok did well to create a bit of space outside the area, and when Pushkarev made a sprint behind his defender Leshonok slipped the ball through for him to run onto perfectly and knock past the keeper. We kept the pressure up and the ball rarely left the Khimki half for the next ten minutes, but we couldn’t capitalise on any of our chances. Khimki did. Against the run of play they broke up the pitch, and their winger was tripped on the edge of the area by Khrapkovskiy. Oleinik stepped up and put his free-kick right in the top corner, Khorkin had no chance of getting to it. Khimki then managed to go ahead, and the travelling fans started to get worried. Boichenko’s effort was heading wide, but Nagibin stuck out a leg and inadvertantly diverted it goalwards, past the stranded Khorkin.

Coming out after half-time 2-1 down, it was case of throwing everything forward in search of the important second goal. And despite all the pressure and chances, nothing was falling right for us. 45 goalless minutes followed.

Luckily, there was three minutes injury time!

Kozlov had come off the bench with twenty minutes to go and was hoping for a good chance, and one eventually fell to him. Samsonov’s cross wasn’t dealt with in a crowded penalty area, and the keeper only managed to parry the ball into Kozlov’s path, who happily tapped in unmarked from seven yards.

42 seconds later the final whistle blew, and the promotion party could get started! A 2-2 draw kept us four points ahead of Khimki, and with only one game left they couldn’t catch us in second.

The final game of the season was against SKA Khabarovsk, an easy 2-0 win to wrap up the season.

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2008 - END OF SEASON REVIEW

Of course, I’m very happy with how this year went. I thought we’d be able to push near the top of the table, but wasn’t sure that we’d quite be ready for promotion yet. Several long unbeaten spells though kept us going, and we stopped giving away the silly second half equalisers that had been a big problem in 2007.

As you can see, having four players score double figures was very important to our success – we didn’t have to be overly reliant on one player, as if they were missing another could fit in and do just well. Kozlov didn’t score as many as last year due to his injury, so Leshonok and Streltsov top-scored with 19 goals each. This was particularly impressive as Leshonok was playing from midfield, and Streltsov was originally signed as a backup defensive midfielder.

With 15 assists from the right wing, Samsonov helped create more goals than anyone else in the team. A fair amount came from the other flank as well, Nagibin breaking forward a lot from left back to set up 13 goals.

The top performer for the season had to be Leshonok though, with an average rating of 7.57. This earned him eight man of the match awards, and he also won the First Division Player of the Year award. The values of the players show just how highly rated he is, his value of 210k is much higher than anyone else. We might be busy this winter knocking back offers for him.

At the end of the season most of the players saw their wages rise due to promotion clauses, we're now over budget but this should be fine when we get given an updated figure for 2009. Rebrov is the joint highest on £1,100 a week, his contract is up and won't be renewed.

AROUND THE WORLD – 2006 TO 2008

European Championships 2008: Netherlands 0 – 0 Spain (Netherlands win 5-3 on penalties)

African Cup of Nations 2008: Cameroon 1 – 0 Egypt

Asian Cup 2007: Australia 3 – 1 Iran

North American Gold Cup 2007: USA 1 – 0 Brazil U23

Oceania Nations Cup 2008: New Zealand 3 – 0 Fiji

Copa America 2007: Colombia 0 – 1 Brazil

Confederations Cup 2007: Italy 3 – 1 Egypt

Olympics 2008: Spain 3 – 1 Italy

Club World Championships 2006: Barcelona 1 – 2 Internacional, 2007: Manchester United 2 – 0 Internacional, 2008: Real Madrid 2 – 0 Sao Paolo

UEFA Champions League 2006/07: Liverpool 1 – 1 Manchester United (Manchester United win 4-1 on penalties), 2007/08: Marseille 2 – 3 Real Madrid

UEFA Cup 2006/07: Palermo 1 – 4 Barcelona, 2007/08: Atletico Madrid 1 – Manchester City

English Premier League 2006/07: Chelsea, 2007/08: Arsenal

Italian Serie A 2006/07: Internazionale, 2007/08: Internazionale

German Bundesliga 2006/07: Hamburg, 2007/08: Werder Bremen

Russian Premier League 2006/07: CSKA Moscow, 2007/08: CSKA Moscow

Dutch Eredivisie 2006/07: Ajax, 2007/08: Ajax

Swiss Super League 2006/07: Basel, 2007/08: Basel

World Player of the Year 2006: Miroslav Klose, 2007: Lukas Podolski, 2008: Wayne Rooney

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2009 - PRE-SEASON

Status: Professional

Reputation: National

Estimated value: £1.2 million

Stadium: Central Salyut (12,000 all seated)

Fairly basic training facilities

Minimal youth facilities

Feeder clubs: Morava (Serbia), Motor Luplin (Poland), Olimpic Donetsk (Ukraine), Vityaz Podolsk (Russia)

The youth and training facilities are currently being improved, the moment promotion was achieved I asked for this and the board agreed it was necessary. With promotion our reputation has risen to national, and the value of the club has more than doubled. We have lost our parent club though, now we’re in the same division as Zenit St. Peterburg the link has been terminated.

Our scouts are now able to look all over Europe, though with the restriction to only three non-Russian players allowed in the matchday squad there’s not really much point of them leaving the borders.

The board and the fans both expect us just to battle bravely against relegation, while the media predict we’ll finish in last place, 16th. My aim is just to prove them wrong and finish outside of the bottom two. Any higher up the table will just be a bonus.

BUDGETS

We were given a transfer budget of 300k, but weren’t able to spend any of it. Plenty of offers were made, but we were turned down by so many players who decided to sign for more established Premier League clubs instead. We’re way under the wage budget of 33.5k per week, spending just 15.5k of it.

As previously stated we had a lot of trouble trying to bring in new players so the only real addition to the squad was Pomerko, an out-of-contract left winger who will act as back up. Luckily, despite our link with them behind cancelled, Zenit allowed us to take Kozlov on loan for a third successive year.

There were no major transfers out, just some players who weren’t good enough for the First Division last year let alone the Premier League now, and a few young players who were never going to make it. As is standard, a few players too old for the youth club but who may have potential were sent out to a feeder club.

It’s pretty much the same squad as last year, so it will be a tough season ahead of us. With any luck we’ll be strong enough to keep out of the bottom two, but I expect a few hammerings along the way.

FRIENDLIES

Our pre-season results weren’t very good at all. Our only win was against our feeder club Vityaz Podolsk, and a draw away at top Polish side Wisla Krakow was decent. We should have done better at Polish side Widzew and Belarussian team Naftan though, only managing goalless draws, while losses at Terek and Lada were very poor, especially as we’d now left them behind in the First Division. To cap things off, Leshonok and Kozlov both suffered injuries that will mean they miss the start of the season.

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2009 – FIRST GAME OF THE SEASON

A great start to the season. Obviously the early sending off gave us a massive advantage, and we made it count. There was never any doubt about the result from this point as we completely bossed the game, and we probably should have scored a few more.

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2009 – MID-SEASON

The season got off to a cracking start, with a 2-0 win over Kuban. A disappointing loss to Amkar followed, as they were promoted alongside us last year we hoped to gain 3 points from them, but we were comfortably defeated. Our mood didn’t drop however, and we were flying high in third place after wins over Spartak Nalchik, Luch, and FC Moscow.

Our next games were against two of the bigger sides in the division though, and Torpedo Moscow and Saturn both narrowly defeated us 1-0. Leshonok tore his calf muscle in the second of these matches, putting him out for several months. His creativity was missed in the next game against Tom, where we got absolutely hammered, but poor finishing on the opposition’s part gave us the opportunity to sneak a 2-0 win, being clinical with our own chances. Pomerko proved he was a decent acquisition scoring in this match, and then again the next week to grab a point against Shinnik.

Our form was very hit and miss from here onwards though, and we picked up a couple of heavy losses, 3-1 v Zenit and 4-0 v CSKA Moscow. Against CSKA though we did register our largest ever attendance, as there were 11,894 people present for the battering we took. A Streltsov hat-trick helped us to a 4-1 victory over Krylja Sovetov, but we then went four games without a win, picking up just 2 points from this run.

In August we got our revenge on Amkar, beating them 2-1 at home, and a 2-0 win over bottom side Luch was a good result. This was sandwiched however by a pair of 4-0 thrashings, as we were completely played off the park by Spartak Nalchik and FC Moscow.

At the start of September we sit seventh in the league, comfortably above the relegation area and still in with a chance of the very unlikely prospect of European football next year. With our current from though it’s more likely we’ll slip down the table a few more places.

TRANSFERS OUT

The only movement out of the club was Usanov, a signing from last year who never really made a first team spot his own. He started moaning a bit, so when a bidding war started I was happy to let him go to highest bidding team. As a leaving present, he was kind enough to get sent off in his last game for the club. A two-week’s wages fine, and if my mind hadn’t already been made up, it certainly would have been now.

TRANSFERS IN

Crnogorac is a Bosnian centre back, and the replacement for Usanov. He can also play defensive midfield, so should be a useful addition to the squad. I noticed in the rules for the Russian Premier League we’re actually allowed eight foreign players in the matchday squad, a lot more than the First Division allowed us. Ralph also came in, a Jamaican striker. To be honest, I messed up here. Thought I was bringing him in on a free transfer, not 300k, 75% of my budget. He better score goals and be worth it.

MOST APPEARANCES

Vitaly Streltsov – 20

Alexey Pomerko – 19

Sergey Kryuchikhin – 19

Igor Shutkin – 17

Vyacheslav Khorkin – 15(1)

BEST AVERAGE RATINGS

Andrey Tsaplin – 7.47

Vitaly Streltsov – 7.20

Alexey Pomerko – 7.11

Sergey Mitin – 7.07

Nikolay Yefimov – 7.07

TOP GOALSCORERS

Vitaly Streltsov – 9

Alexey Pomerko – 4

Mikhail Kozlov – 4

Igor Shtukin – 3

Andrey Tsaplin - 3

MOST ASSISTS

Vitaly Streltsov – 6

Alexey Pomerko – 4

Artem Shubin – 3

Oleg Samsonov – 2

Sergey Kryuchikhin - 2

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2009 – END OF SEASON REVIEW

September’s results were a mixed bag, with a draw versus Saturn, a loss against Torpedo Moscow and a win over Tom, however this followed by an awful run of four defeats in a row. There was still a comfortable gap above the relegation spots, but we plummeted down the table to 13th place. Luckily the last three games of the season gained us seven points, and we recovered to end the season in 9th. This was a very good first season in the Premier League, and we easily avoided the prediction of relegation most people had for us.

As you can see below, we found scoring a lot more difficult in the Premier League. Streltsov was the only player to reach double figures, and so was our top scorer with 14 goals. Ralph scored 7 goals since joining in August, but his league record was a disappointing 3 goals in 11 games.

Streltsov was also the most creative player, providing 7 assists for his teammates. Kryuchikhin and Pomerko each did well also, setting up a further 6 goals each.

Over the season Tsaplin was our strongest performer with an average rating of 7.25 from left back, while Pomerko, Streltsov and Yefimov also all played well. Crnogorac was a good addition to the team in August. Leshonok’s season was massively disrupted by injury, while Kozlov really struggled with the step up the big leagues, only finding the net on four occasions.

CAREER HISTORY – 2006 to 2009

I’ve signed another two year contract at Salyut. I saved a backup copy as a test to apply for other jobs, the only ones that didn’t reject me were in the Conference North or South so thought it was better to stay where I was for now.

AROUND THE WORLD – 2009

North American Gold Cup 2009: Mexico 7 – 0 Panama

Confederations Cup 2009: Brazil 1 – 0 Italy

Club World Championships 2009: Liverpool 4 – 0 Racing Club

UEFA Champions League 2008/09: Liverpool 2 – 1 Arsenal

UEFA Cup 2008/09: Fiorentina 1 – 3 Newcastle

English Premier League 2008/09: Arsenal

Italian Serie A 2008/09: Internazionale

German Bundesliga 2008/09: Werder Bremen

Russian Premier League 2009: CSKA Moscow

Dutch Eredivisie 2008/09: PSV Eindhoven

Swiss Super League 2008/09: St. Gallen

World Player of the Year 2009: Fernando Torres

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2010 - PRE-SEASON

Status: Professional

Reputation: National

Estimated value: £1.5 million

Stadium: Central Salyut (12,000 all seated)

Average training facilities

Adequate youth facilities

Parent club: Sheffield Wednesday (England)

Feeder clubs: Morava (Serbia), Motor Luplin (Poland), Olimpic Donetsk (Ukraine), Vityaz Podolsk (Russia), Lokomotiv Minsk (Belarus)

The youth and training facilities have been upgraded for the second year in a row, which can only help. We don’t seem to have had any players from the youth team make an impression on the first team squad yet, so someone coming through the ranks would be nice.

I might try and cancel the Sheffield Wednesday link soon, they haven’t tried to send us anyone on loan and anyone I’ve enquired about has turned us down, so it’s a bit of a waste of time.

The board and the fans both expect us to stay clear of relegation this year, while the media expect us to finish just outside the relegation spots in 14th place. I’d like to aim for mid-table again, and try to avoid any of the long runs of bad form that blighted last season.

BUDGETS

We had a transfer budget of 964k, though barely any of it was used. There’ll be plenty to spend in the mid-season transfer window if necessary. The wage budget is 33k for week, 20k is being used so there’s plenty of room for additions to the squad.

Malyshev has been signed as backup left-back, while Serov will go into the under 18 squad. Matic will probably go straight into the team as my first-choice defensive midfielder. Kozlov has been brought back on loan for a fourth year, he didn’t have great time last year but he’ll do as another option up top.

There were no major losses again this year, Zakharov and Pushkarev hadn’t got much playing time recently and their contracts had run out. Bokov also retired, though is staying on as a coach. A few reserves who weren’t good enough were let go, and the usual loans to a feeder club happened.

Hopefully this should be good enough to grab a mid-table spot again, and hopefully improve our reputation. A few players aren’t signing new contracts at the moment (Leshonok, Kryuchickhin), while Streltsov has made noises about wanting to move to a bigger club, so decisions will have to be made in the next transfer window whether to sell them or keep them to the end of the season and possibly lose them for nothing.

FRIENDLIES

Our pre-season form was pretty good with five wins and a draw, including trips to Slovakia, Poland, and Belarus. None of these were against top level competition though.

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2010 – END OF SEASON REVIEW

I could write a few paragraphs about our performances throughout the season, but instead I’ll sum it up in just two words – complete rubbish. As such, we went into the last game of the season with a 50-50 chance of relegation.

We were in 14th place with 22 points, Rostov were in 15th place with 22 points. We were playing 13th place Tom at home, they had 12th place Dinamo Moscow away. All we needed to do was equal or better their result.

And things didn’t look good early on. After 19 minutes we went one down, Styzej switching off at the back to let the opposition striker in. At half-time I tore into team to get them to perform better, not letting them know that Rostov were also one down. All Rostov needed was one goal and they’d have the advantage, we couldn’t risk not getting a result ourselves.

And it paid off. Streltsov had been experiencing a horrible season so far, only netting twice, but he made up for that by nodding in Samsonov’s cross. Minutes later their keeper stood no chance with a Matic piledriver, and Streltsov completed the scoring five minutes from time with a nice free-kick round the wall. A 3-1 win kept us in the Premier League, and Rostov were relegated after their 1-0 loss.

The main problem we had was that nobody really played well. Last season was a great achievement staying up in the Premier League, but that was so close to being thrown away this time with constant sub-standard performances. At no point did we record back-to-back wins, and our longest unbeaten streak was just four games.

Goals were even harder to come by this season, as shown by nobody getting into double figures. Kozlov did the best, more than doubling last season’s tally to end up with 9 goals. Ralph finished just behind him with 8. Cadikovski was an important signing. He was near the top of the First Division scoring charts, so we snapped him up for 60k in the summer transfer window. He only scored four for us, but two of these were in his first two games and won us four points, vital to keeping us in the division.

Of course, to score goals you need chances created for you. And when your top creator is Bouli with just 5 assists, there are real problems.

Leshonok missed large chunks of the season again with injury, but he was by far our best performer when fit with an average rating of 7.31. Worryingly, nobody else who started 10 games or more had a rating of over 7.00.

SALYUT-ENERGIA BELGOROD

2010 – RESIGNATION

This was my last year at Salyut. I hadn’t really enjoyed the season, and didn’t fancy another relegation battle. We don’t have the reputation or money to be able to attract the calibre of player we really need to improve the team, and with the contracts of Ralph, Bouli, Leshonok, and Kryuchikhin expiring the squad will be decimated anyway. I wish Salyut the best of luck, but I’m on my way to the job center.

AROUND THE WORLD – 2010

World Cup 2010: Colombia 0 – 0 Russia (Colombia win 4-2 on penalties)

African Cup of Nations 2010: Senegal 1 – 2 Cameroon

Oceania Nations Cup 2010: New Zealand 4 – 0 Fiji

Club World Championships 2010: Corinthians 0 – 5 Arsenal

UEFA Champions League 2009/10: Porto 0 – 1 Arsenal

UEFA Cup 2009/10: Hamburg 3 – 0 Sporting

English Premier League 2009/10: Arsenal

Italian Serie A 2009/10: Juventus

German Bundesliga 2009/10: Hamburg

Russian Premier League 2009/10: CSKA Moscow

Dutch Eredivisie 2009/10: Ajax

Swiss Super League 2009/10: Basel

World Player of the Year 2010: Adriano (Chelsea)

HERACLES ALMELO

2010/11 – TAKING OVER

During my three months of unemployment the Lubeck chairman made several enquiries about my availability, but with them struggling in the German North Regional Division I wasn’t interested. It was looking like my time on the dole may be a long one when an offer came in from the Netherlands. Heracles had just sacked Cees Lok, and within a couple of days I was unveiled as their new manager.

Status: Professional

Reputation: National

Estimated value: £3.5 million

Stadium: Polman Stadion (17,285 all seated)

Average training facilities

Adequate youth facilities + Youth academy

Parent club: Monaco (France)

Feeder clubs: Pau (France), WHC (Netherlands), Drachtster Boys (Netherlands)

The media had predicted a top 3 finish in the First Divison at the start of the season, but obviously that isn’t going to happen. I’ve got six games left to get the safe mid-table position the board expect, though the fans aren’t happy that an unknown has taken over and would prefer someone with more Dutch experience. There’s no relegation from the Dutch First Division, so at least the amount of damage I can do is limited!

The squad isn’t huge and is lacking in wide players, so it will be case of trying to bring in as much talent as possible in the summer. The scouts will be sent out immediately so we’re ready.

HERACLES ALMELO

2010/11 – END OF SEASON REVIEW

One draw, and five losses, and eliminated from the cup. At least the one point ensured it could have been very slightly worse.

Everyone is rubbish, no need for stats here. I’d be happy clearing everyone out if there was any chance that anyone else would want them. Hopefully we can strengthen over the summer, otherwise next season could easily see us end up bottom of the league.

AROUND THE WORLD – 2010/2011

Asian Cup 2011: Japan 0 – 2 China

North American Gold Cup 2011: USA 1 – 0 Mexico

Copa America 2011: Mexico 0 – 1 Brazil

Confederations Cup 2011: England 3 – 2 Netherlands

UEFA Champions League 2010/11: Valencia 1 – 0 Real Madrid

UEFA Cup 2010/11: Sampdoria 1 – 0 Monaco

English Premier League 2010/11: Arsenal

Italian Serie A 2010/11: Atalanta

German Bundesliga 2010/11: Werder Bremen

Dutch Eredivisie 2010/11: Feyenoord

Swiss Super League 2010/11: Basel

HERACLES ALMELO

2011/12 - PRE-SEASON

Status: Professional

Reputation: National

Estimated value: £3.7 million

Stadium: Polman Stadion (17,285 all seated)

Average training facilities

Adequate youth facilities + Youth academy

Parent club: AZ Alkmaar (Netherlands)

Feeder clubs: Pau (France), WHC (Netherlands), Drachtster Boys (Netherlands), Fuerteventura (Spain)

The youth facilities are currently being upgraded. Our link with Monaco was cancelled; as they weren’t in an active league they didn’t have a reserve or youth squad, so there was no one to send to us on loan. We’ve now got AZ from the Eredivisie as our parent club instead.

The media expect us to finish in 11th, and the fans agree as they want mid-table safety. They’re not protesting against my appointment anymore, so that’s nice. The board want me to invest in new players and rebuild the squad, which is certainly what I am doing. No idea what that means in terms of an expected league placing though.

BUDGETS

I was given a transfer budget of £1 million, and used about 350k of it. The wage budget is 54.5k, and 51.5k of this is currently being used.

Fledderus and Nahrwold were both signings arranged by the previous manager. I’m not convinced Fledderus will be any use, but Nahrwold was looking handy up front until a hip injury put him out for a few months. Garcia will be my new right winger, and Vormer will be the new defensive midfielder. Genchi looks pretty class and is on a high wage to be with us, I’ll be relying on him for goals. Durosier has a ton of potential, but he’ll also get a few shots up front this year to blood him into the team.

AZ were pretty generous with their loans to us, Pannekoek will probably be my first choice keeper, and Pattinasarany and Kleiman are both good enough to be used regularly.

Nothing major here, a few aging players who were past their best and a few youngsters not good enough to make it.

I think there’s a lot more strength in depth now, and the attacking end of the team looks a lot better. There’s goals in this team, and since the scouts didn’t rate many defenders they looked at too highly, hopefully that means the ones already with the club are of a sufficient quality.

FRIENDLIES

The pre-season friendlies went well – WHC and Drachtster Boys got the expected thrashings, Brondby were beaten 3-0 and we managed a very creditable one-all draw with AZ.

HERACLES ALMELO

2011/12 – MID-SEASON

* First up, an attempt at a brief explanation of the ridiculously complicated relegation/promotion situation between the Eredivisie and the First Divison. 18th place from Eredivisie is relegated, winners of First are promoted. The First Division is split into six periods, with a winner for each. These six teams enter the play-offs, along with the two highest finishers in the league who didn’t win a period. If a period winner is promoted automatically, or has already won a period, the next highest team in the league gets in. The teams finishing 16th and 17th in the Eredivisie are also involved.

The First Round sees the lowest four finishers involved from the First Division play in two matches. The losers are knocked out. The winners then go the second round, where the four highest finishers involved and the two Eredivisie clubs join them. This is effectively a quarter final, with the four winners going through to the Third Round. The two matches in this round determine who will play in the Eredivisie next year. If it’s an Eredivisie side who win, they stay up. If it’s a First Division side, they’ll take the place of the eliminated Eredivisie club. I think that just about makes sense, if not, get on Google.*

The season started with a cracking 5-0 win over Volendam, including a hat-trick from Nahrwold. Of course, a win this big this meant impending bad luck, and in the 2-2 draw with Telstar that followed, Nahrwold suffered a hip injury to put him out for several months. We then lost 2-1 to TOP, a game we should have won easily. Instead, Pannekoek in goal made two stupid errors to give away the points. He then criticised my team-talk in the press, leading to a two weeks’ wages fine, and his loan deal being terminated. A couple of 1-1 draws against Veendam and Den Bosch took us to four games without a win, and a loss to Haarlem made it five. We ended Period 1 in 15th place, with a record of 1-3-2.

Period 2 started in a similar manner, with three consecutive draws. We were getting hard to beat, but we couldn’t hold on to leads. We ended the eight game winless streak with a 2-1 win over Fortuna Sittard, Netteb and Durosier getting the goals. Durosier made it two goals in a week next time out, contributing to a 3-0 win over Emmen. Period 2 ended with a thrashing though, NAC Breda dominating the game and winning 5-2. Our record was 2-3-1, good enough for 9th.

There have been too many games where we don’t look like scoring at all, and in Period 3 that lead to a goalless draw with Eindhoven and 1-0 losses against RBC and Zwolle. We also picked up a point against Excelsior, Nahrwold scoring on his return, and gained wins over Omniworld (2-1) and Dordrecht (2-0). Genchi and Durosier bagged the goals in both of these games. Our record of 2-2-2 again put us in 9th place, not troubling the teams near the top.

Period 4 was much improved, as we went the whole period unbeaten. First up was a comfortable 3-1 win over MVV, and then a 2-0 victory against Telstar. We should have beaten TOP, but Genchi missed a penalty and we had to settle for a goalless draw. Between Genchi and Colin we must have missed half a dozen penalties so far this year, we could be doing so much better if we had anyone to put them away. Next up was a 2-1 win over Volendam, and draws against Veendam and Haarlem took the unbeaten streak to six games. Durosier came off the bench to score on three occasions during this time, he’s proving himself as a bit of a supersub. Our record of 3-3-0 was good, but not quite good enough as we took 2nd place for the period. In the overall league standings we sit in 8th spot, so it looks like we’ll need to win one of the last two periods to get into the play-offs.

TRANSFERS OUT

Pannekoek’s loan was cancelled and sent back to AZ when he bitched about a team-talk, despite him being the reason for the loss. Joining him on the way out was Coster, an ineffective left winger, and Horsten, who was a dodgy centre-back. With him out of the team we started playing much better.

TRANSFERS IN

When Pannekoek was let go, we needed to bring in a new goalie. So we brought in two who were currently without a club, Graafland and van Loo. Both were better than what we had already, and van Loo went straight into the first team. Girard is also a keeper, but one for the future. Hendriks was signed on a Bosman when his contract expired, he can play either centre-back or left-back and should be good enough to play whenever needed.

MOST APPEARANCES

Jurgen Colin – 28

Guiseppe Genchi – 26 (2)

Guus de Vries – 25 (1)

Lorenzo Netteb – 21 (2)

Luwama Garcia – 17 (10)

BEST AVERAGE RATINGS

Roger van der Zwan – 7.32

Zarko Grabovac – 7.27

Henk Swart – 7.27

Ilias Haddad – 7.22

Guus de Vries – 7.19

TOP GOALSCORERS

Guiseppe Genchi – 15

Laurent Durosier – 9

Lorenzo Netteb – 7

Ilias Haddad – 6

Lesley Nahrwold – 5

MOST ASSISTS

Guiseppe Genchi – 10

Guus de Vries – 5

Lorenzo Netteb – 4

Roger van der Zwan – 4

HERACLES ALMELO

2011/12 – END OF SEASON REVIEW

Period 5 started well with a 2-0 win over Den Bosch, Netteb and Genchi scoring the goals. This result pushed us up to 6th in the league, but that was the peak of the season. It was after this game that Brian van Loo broke his leg, and everything went to pot from there. The next five games saw losses against ADO Den Haag, Fortuna Sittard, and AGOVV, and draws against Cambuur and Emmen. The match with Emmen was a 4-4 goalfest, both defences should have been ashamed of themselves. We should have won this game but we missed yet another penalty, Garcia the culprit this time. Our record for the period was 1-2-3, putting us in a very poor 18th. In the league table we’d fallen to 10th.

With the poor run of form we were on we wouldn’t have expected a result against NAC Breda, but somehow we snatched a 1-0 win, the goal coming from Nahrwold. That was our last win off the season though. Last year, when I first joined the club, we went six games without a win. The players must have enjoyed that as they decided to end this season going seven games without a win. We took three draws in succession, before losing to Omniworld. We only scored one goal during this time. A two goal lead was then thrown away against Excelsior, and we had to leave with only a point. The final two games of the season saw us get hammered by MVV and Zwolle. A terrible end to the season, as we plummeted down the table to finish in 14th place.

The board was disappointed by the final league position, and so was I. That end of season collapse was embarrassing.

Genchi was our top scorer for the season, ending with 18 goals. While this looks like the one-in-two ratio you hope for from a striker, it’s not as good as it sounds as half of these came in cup games. If he’d scored a few of the penalties he’d wasted he would have ended with a dozen+ in the league. Durosier finished with 11 goals, a very good return for a youngster who’s appearances were mostly from off the bench. He earned the title supersub this year. Nahrwodl did well to grab 8 goals in 15 appearances, I think if he hadn’t suffered a couple of long-term injuries he would have been pushing Genchi to be top scorer.

Genchi impressed more in terms of creativity though, presenting his team-mates with 11 assists. He was the only player to end up in double figures, the next best were the full-backs Colin and de Vries with 7 and 6 each. The four wingers should be ashamed of themselves, only managing 10 assists between them. What a waste of space.

Nahrwold was the best performer over the whole season, with an average rating of 7.27. This was over only 15 appearances though, in terms of players who’d played a large part of the season Swart, de Vries, and Haddad all finished with ratings of over 7.10.

We used seven different goalkeepers throughout the year, van Loo was the only one who looked impressive. Texier came in late and did okay, but he played during a spell of the season when everyone else was awful. The other five goalies ranged from a bit useless to completely and utterly useless.

AROUND THE WORLD – 2011/12

European Championships 2012: Portugal 1 – 1 Italy (Italy win 4-3 on penalties)

African Cup of Nations 2012: Nigeria 1 – 3 Cameroon

Oceania Nations Cup 2012: New Zealand 5 – 0 Solomon Islands

Olympics

Club World Championships 2011: Valencia 4 – 0 Racing Club

UEFA Champions League 2011/12: Barcelona 2 – 4 Liverpool

UEFA Cup 2011/12: PSV Eindhoven 2 – 0 Lille

English Premier League 2011/12: Arsenal

Italian Serie A 2011/12: Atalanta

German Bundesliga 2011/12: Aue

Russian Premier League 2011: CSKA Moscow

Dutch Eredivisie 2011/12: Ajax

Swiss Super League 2011/12: Grasshopper

World Player of the Year 2011: Fred (Valencia)