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Hoppin' around Europe... for now.


CoachFlu

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And so it starts again. Another year, another career.

I didn't quite go the distance in last year's version. I reached 2027, which isn't bad, but I'm hoping to last a few seasons longer this time. As seems to be traditional with me, it may be in the "on a few months, off a few months" style though. :)

Game version: FM12 - latest patch

Database: Large + all current international players (all continents) + all top division players (Europe)

I chose that setup mainly because I'm hoping for a chance to manage a small nation at some point. In the FM10 version of this career, I had loads of fun managing the Guadeloupe national team and I'm hoping for something similar along the lines this time. My settings in the FM11 version made small nations unavailable to manage; hopefully the above settings will do the trick. It increased the amount of players in the dbase from 27k to 61k, putting some extra strain on the system, but that should be offset by the ability to add/remove leagues along the way.

And with that ability, I chose a different set of nations than usual. I tended to go for a mix between the big football nations in Europe (for later in the career) and a number of smaller nations. This time I can hold off on adding the big nations until later, so I'm starting off with just a number of smaller nations where I'll spend the first few seasons.

Since I spent 80% of last year's career in Belgium, I skipped that one as well, for now. It will certainly be added to the game at some point, probably after a few seasons already, but I wanted to be certain to start out somewhere abroad.

Nations (leagues) : Czech Republic (2), Denmark (3), Finland (2), Holland (2), Ireland (2), N.Ireland (3), Portugal (3), Wales (1)

Not a huge load, but it should be more than enough to start out. Apart from Portugal, these are nations where I can't remember ever having managed for any length of time in previous versions. (Probably did manage in Holland at some point, but so long ago that I can't remember.)

I don't have a fixed strategy on when to add/remove which nations. Depending on how the game runs, I may add a few more "smaller" nations fairly soon. And of course all the big European nations will be added in at some point along the way, as it's sort of the idea to move up to managing a top club in Europe.

It's entirely possible that a few non-European nations will be thrown into the mix at some point as well - hence the "for now" in the title. Here, too, I don't have a specific plan yet. As usual, I'll sort of play it by ear.

My manager details: Belgian nationality; favoured club: Club Brugge; past experience: Sunday League Footballer.

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Career overview/achievements etc.:

Season       Club          |  League          |  Country      | Position      |        Achievements          |
---------------------------|------------------|---------------|---------------|------------------------------|
2011        PoPa           |  First Div.      |  Finland      | 9th           |   joined July 25             |
2012        PoPa           |  First Div.      |  Finland      | 1st           |   champs/promotion           |
2013        PoPa           |  Prem.           |  Finland      | 5th           |                              |
2014        PoPa           |  Prem.           |  Finland      | 3rd           |                              |
2015        PoPa           |  Prem.           |  Finland      | 1st           |   champs                     |
2016        PoPa           |  Prem.           |  Finland      | 3rd           |   Finnish Cup winners        |
2016-17     Standard       |  Pro League      |  Belgium      | 2nd           |   joined Oct. 20             |
2017-18     Standard       |  Pro League      |  Belgium      | 3rd           |   Belgian Cup winners        |
2018-19     Standard       |  Pro League      |  Belgium      | 1st           |   Champs / Belgian Super Cup |
2019-20     PSV            |  Eredivisie      |  Holland      | 3rd           |                              |
2020-21     PSV            |  Eredivisie      |  Holland      | 1st           |   Champs                     |
2021-22     PSV            |  Eredivisie      |  Holland      | 2nd           |   Dutch Super Cup            |

International:

Season          |  Country          |        Achievements         |
----------------|-------------------|-----------------------------|
2013 - 2017     | Belgium U21       |  French Youth Inv. 2015 - 3rd place
                                      Euro 2017 group stage
2017 - 2017     | New Zealand       |  
2018 - 2018     | Northern Mariana  | 
2018 - 2020     | U.S.A.            |  Gold Cup 2019 semi finals 
2020 -          | Belgium           |  DNQ for WC22 
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July 25th, 2011

Chapter 1: Finland

Porin_Palloilijat.png

Porin Palloilijat, Finnish First Division

PoPabground.jpg

After a month of unemployment and a few unsuccessful applications, I'm off to Finland for the first step in my career. Luckily the club's short name seems to be "PoPa" so I won't have to spell Palloilijat ever again from now on.

Warm clothes are packed, though it's not impossible that I'll be back home before winter.

PoPatable2011-07-25.jpg

The immediate task at hand: avoid relegation. 13 teams in the Finnish First Division (second tier), which makes for a 24-match season. 15 of those matches have been played, leaving me 9 matches to get out of the bottom four. No time to ease into the job, then - every result will be crucial.

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Thanks for the encouragements and vote of confidence! :) Here's how it turned out:

Oct. 15, 2011

Results:

PoPafixt2011-10-15.jpg

End of season table

Position graph

Well, that was a bit of a turnaround within 9 games. After match 4 and 5 there, I didn't have a lot of hope left, as we had to make up 5 points in the remaining 4 matches.

The 2-2 draw against PK-35 didn't do much to restore my confidence, especially since we gave away a 2-0 half time lead, but then a scrappy win against HIFK and a dominant win against KooTeePee - two direct competitors - put us right back in it.

We were still in 10th place, just inside the relegation zone, before the final match day, but just one point behind two teams. One of them was bound to screw up, so I knew a win would almost certainly see us through. And we managed to take our little mini run of good form into the all-or-nothing match and avoided relegation on the last day.

That's a big relief, obviously because it means I still have a job for next season, but also because this team really didn't deserve relegation. There's definitely enough quality in the squad for this division. It was mainly a case of bad management which had put them near the bottom of the ranking.

When I joined the club in July, there were 21 players, of which 5 had been loaned out for some reason, so there weren't enough players left for a full match day squad even if everyone was fit - which is hardly ever the case. So I recalled three of the loan players, signed two new players, brought in an extra striker on loan in late August, and that pretty much covered the bases.

Tactically, I hardly performed miracles. I picked a tactic which seemed appropriate for the players I had available, stuck with it for all nine matches, and by the end of the season the increased familiarity seemed to pay off.

With lots of attacking midfielders but hardly any strikers in the squad, I went for a 4-2-3-1:

PoPatactic2011-10-15.jpg

Next season...

I still have a contract for one more season here, and I'm looking forward to the new season. The only disadvantage, from a playing standpoint, is that it's a fairly short season - only 24 league matches, and the first won't be until April. But other than that, this seems like a decent club to start a career.

With just one club promoting and 4 relegating, it's not an easy division, and with finances rather iffy and some wage budget management ahead of me over the winter, I don't think we can be overly ambitious next season. Still, from what I've seen so far, this team should be capable of a top half finish at the very least.

Game status-wise, I've also added the Norwegian leagues to the game, from next January onwards. I'll likely throw one or two more nations into the mix next summer.

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Apr. 27, 2012

Porin_Palloilijat.png

PoPa, Finnish First Division, pre-season 2012

Right then. First off: dayumn, six and a half months of off-season is loooooong. But anyway, after a gazillion friendly matches, the season is finally about to start.

The squad underwent a slightly more extensive overhaul during the winter months than I originally intended. Many contracts were up for renewal, which was a good opportunity to let go of most of the dead wood in the squad, but a few of the useful players weren't interested in a new contract either. It wasn't quite a page one rewrite, but in total I signed 16 new players plus 4 loan players, so it's pretty close. (A few of the new signings are kids on youth contracts to go in the empty U19 squad though.)

Not all the new signings are equally talented. There were a few cases where the opinions of my scout and my assistant manager seemed to be some distance apart. But all-in-all there should be enough depth in the squad to get through the season without injury crisis, and enough quality to reach the board's objective (which is quite reasonable: stay clear of relegation.)

Among a wide variety of 'decent' players, we do have a handful of key players who should have the quality to carry this team forward:

Juha Tuomi - GK

Last year's three available goalkeepers were all crap, so they were released and replaced by three new ones - one youngster on loan, one very mediocre one, and Juha here. Inexplicably released by FC Lahti (one of the title favorites in our division), we gladly picked him up and hope he'll become one of our stars this season.

Juha Luoma - DRC

Another Juha, one of our most experienced guys, who'll mostly feature from the right back position. Luoma starts his sixth season at the club, he's a local lad and our team captain - pretty much the beating heart of the club.

Petri Viljanen - DLC

Another local lad will use his pace on the other side of the pitch. He prefers the center, but with the players we have available, he'll mostly be used as a left back this season.

Dema - MC

A versatile Brazilian who will mostly be used in the center of midfield. Dema has been loaned out to Premier Division clubs for the past two seasons. Nice for him, but that won't happen on my watch - we can use a player of his caliber very well, thank you.

Henri Scheweleff - AMLC

One of the players I signed when I joined the club last season. Henri impressed in his handful of appearances last fall, and his form might very well be the key to our offensive productivity.

24 matches isn't a lot, and with the bottom four relegating, a stretch of poor form is to be avoided at all cost in this division. The media puts us at 9th, the position we finished in last year. While my nine matches in charge isn't quite enough to make an accurate prediction, I'm fairly confident we can do better than that. I'll be aiming for a solid mid-table season; anything in the 5th-7th range will be good.

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Thanks. :-)

July 2, 2012

Results:

popafixt2012-07-02.jpg

popatable2012-07-02.jpg

Need to start off with a correction: as you can clearly tell by the league table, we're no longer with 13 teams in the league with 4 relegations. We're down to ten teams now, with the bottom two relegating, and we'll all play each other three times, for a total of 27 league matches this season.

Which means we're now one third into the season, and so far we've been doing very well. Second in the league, just two points from top, is better than I expected - though I did secretly hope we'd be able to do a bit better than "mid-table."

Moving up from 2nd place will be far from easy. FF Jaro are currently in the lead; they're the team which relegated from the Premier Division, and they utterly demolished us when we played them (though we did have a bit of a defensive injury crisis at that point, which is luckily back under control now.) We also haven't played 3rd placed OPS yet, who are looking very solid at the back.

But those are just minor concerns. This great start is quite promising, but it's a bit too soon to order any significant amount of champagne. We'll give it another nine matches and see where we stand then, before getting excited about potential silverware this season.

EURO 2012

euro2012tree-1.jpg

English success in EURO'12 - the game isn't always realistic. ;)

As always in European Championships, some high profile casualties in the group stage. Later winners England did well to survive a group of death, at the expense of Spain and France - a group which was surprisingly topped by Belarus. Del Bosque and Laurent Blanc quit their posts; not so Jan Jansen, though Holland finished last in their group behind Denmark, Portugal and Sweden.

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Yep, I've been thinking that as well, but I haven't decided yet. The long off-season is a bit of a deterrent. :)

August 16, 2012

Results:

popafixt2012-08-16.jpg

popatable2012-08-16.jpg

18 matches played, 9 to go, and the situation at the top is pretty clear. It looks like a two-horse race, but it's kinda not. The scoreline in our second match against FF Jaro was much closer, but it was still quite clear that they were the stronger team. Five points isn't a huge gap, so there's still a chance, but they hardly ever drop points, so it's only a small chance.

OPS gave us a bit of a beating as well in July, back when it was still a three or even four horse race, but we just paid them back in kind. With six wins in a row we're in a great stretch of form, and the gap to third place is ten points. In other words, by all indications it looks like we'll finish 2nd this season - which would be a brilliant result, and one which would indeed make it very difficult not to extend my contract.

Olympics 2012

olymp2012tree.jpg

A slightly surprising gold medal winner at the Olympics. Incidentally, Switzerland U23 announced that they were looking for a manager back in May. I was slightly tempted - and considering that they never hired anyone, I probably would have gotten the job - but decided against it, seeing as how the Olympics were smack in the middle of the Finnish season.

If I do decide to stay at PoPa next season, however, I'll almost certainly be on the lookout for a youth international job to combine with it.

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So it seemed...

Oct. 21, 2012

Porin_Palloilijat.png

Porin Palloilijat, Finnish First Division, end of season 2012

Summary:

Media prediction: 9th

Final position: 1st

Finnish Cup: N.A.

Results:

popafixt2012-10-21.jpg

End of season table

Position graph

Well, that was... lucky, heh. For most of the season, Jaro seemed untouchable, but at the end there it seemed like we couldn't lose the title, whatever we did.

They had hardly lost points all season and had beaten us twice, but in our third encounter with them, we managed a resounding 4-1 victory and came to within 2 points of them. Still, the scoreline was harsh on them - they hit the woodwork twice and could easily have won it with a bit more luck - and when we tuned off three days later and the gap was back to five points, everything was 'back to normal.'

But then Jaro choked completely. They picked up only 4 points in their last 5 matches. We came alongside them - in the lead on goal difference - with two matches left to play. Then we choked as well, but just a little less than them - we picked up one point from six, they lost twice. And so, despite 180 frustrating minutes on the bench and some shouting in the dressing room, we managed to win the title anyway. Not that I'm complaining, I'll gladly take it.

PoPa squad

While I was confident that this team was capable of more than simply avoiding relegation, I didn't quite expect us to do this well. But somehow we just clicked, and then mainly offensively. I stuck with the same 4-2-3-1 formation as last season, and unless the lads were having an off day, they managed some great spells where they overwhelmed the opposition's midfield and defense.

Four of our players made it into the division's team of the season:

Juha Luoma - DRC

Our team captain had a great season - though it's a good thing there were no suspensions for yellow and red cards in this division. His stamina is on the low side for the right back position though, which means he was usually only good for 70 minutes or so. Might have to look for a replacement next season.

Dema - MC

Our Brazilian center midfielder, on the other hand, played pretty much every minute of every match this season, and showed why three Premier Division clubs and an Italian Serie B club are interested in him. Extremely useful as a sort of deep lying playmaker (won the most assists in the league award), he contributed with 8 goals of his own as well - mostly from 20 yards or more.

Henri Scheweleff - AMLC

As predicted at the start of the season, Henri's form played a major part in our offensive productivity. With 10 assists and 9 goals, he was by far the most effective of our three AMCs, and he was voted Finnish First Div. Player of the Year.

Osahon Eboigbe - ST

Our Nigerian striker is perhaps not the most talented player in our squad, but he has the right attributes in the right place and fit into our system very nicely. The coaches describe him as a poacher, and there's certainly some truth to that, but he was equally comfortable performing targetman duties and also used his pace quite well. He leads two First division charts: top scorer - by some distance - and most offsides - by an even bigger distance. Not at all bothered about that though.

Next season...

I signed a new two season contract with a few matches left to play. Whether we had finished first or second, our performance this season would make it illogical to resign and start over elsewhere. The long off-season is a bit of a pain, but I'll deal with it. Probably by keeping my eyes open for a youth international job to go along with the PoPa job.

As for squad building over the winter, that will depend largely on the wage budget we'll get. Almost all the players I signed at the start of the season are on two-season contracts, which means hardly anyone is scheduled to leave the club to make room in the wage budget. And we'll certainly need some reinforcements, if for no other reason than to cover the five loan signings we had this season to maintain squad depth.

The club's finances are not exactly what you'd call healthy. That said, from the minimal interaction I've had with the chairman, I have a feeling he won't be a total cheapskate, so I expect to have at least some room to maneuver. Still, chances are we'll face a relegation battle next season. But such it goes; I'm looking forward to it.

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Thanks. Success came quite a bit faster than in the previous versions of this career. :)

Jan. 30, 2013

PoPa, Finnish Premier League, pre-season 2013

I didn't find a youth international job yet to keep myself occupied during the off-season, but that's ok. Turns out that for the Finnish top flight, off-season isn't nearly as long as for the teams in the second tier. Five League Cup group matches are scheduled in February. After that we'll have to play a few more friendlies to bridge a month and a half to the first league match, but heck, this is nice.

There'll be a few more league matches than last season as well. 12 teams, playing each other three times each, so that's 33 matches. Only the bottom team relegates, so I'm quietly optimistic that we'll be able to avoid the drop. The media predicts us to finish 10th, adding to my muted optimism.

I'm hoping we'll pull in some decent crowds this season, because financially we're not looking very good - steadily headed towards €1mil debt now.

Luckily, our promotion to Finland's top division attracted the interest of a new sponsor:

popasponsor2013.jpg

Every little bit helps, I suppose.

Despite the iffy finances, the chairman doubled our wage budget, to €11k/week. That's not particularly high, but at first glance it's not all that much below the league average either. No excuse not to be competitive, then.

Last season's key players will remain an integral part of the team. With our scouting range upgraded from Scandinavia to the entire continent, I did my best to bring in a few more quality players, who will hopefully help us to be competitive this season.

Our most important new signings:

Rudy Gestede - ST

An extra striker was high on the list, and I have high hopes for this big French lad. A press conference question about his injury proneness caused some minor concern, but if he remains fit, I'm hoping his physical attributes will turn out to be a decisive factor this season.

Arnor Angeli - AMC

I always try to sign at least one Belgian player at every club I manage, and with the scouting range extended I finally had the chance to do that. Contrary to our new French striker, Arnor's physical attributes leave a bit to be desired, but I'm hoping he'll do well anyway. If not, we do have a fair amount of cover for his position since, like last season, the attacking midfielders will play a key role in our tactic.

Jussi Aalto - AMC

And one of the other lads to fulfill that key role will be this guy, a trequartista, as the assistant describes him, with plenty of experience in the Finnish Premier League, mostly at FF Jaro - last season's antagonists. He also helps keep a balance in the squad between youth and experience.

Tillmann Grove - DL

This plucky little German with a name which sounds like a Gilmore Girls-y town was also released by FF Jaro. He'll be our new hard-working left back.

Bradden Inman - MC

We have a few youthful options to play alongside Dema, our star center mid. This young Australian - released by Newcastle, where he never featured - will likely start as first choice. Depending on how the season goes, we might have to opt for a more defensive-minded player to take his place, but I couldn't pass up on a player with Bradden's estimated potential and he'll get his chance to show what he can do.

Foreigner rules are quite lenient in Finland, so that's one thing I don't need to be concerned about. I also spotted a remarkable rule that trialists are allowed to play in league matches. It's not something I want to make a habit of - too much turnover doesn't seem very healthy for squad consistency and gelling - but with our wage budget stretched to the limit, it's a nice last resort option if injuries should hit us hard.

Even more so than last year, I don't really have a concrete idea about where we stand in relation to the other teams in the league. The five upcoming League Cup matches (all against PRM teams) should tell me a bit more.

I seriously doubt that we'll over-perform anything close to what we did last season, but I do feel relatively confident that we can avoid relegation without too much drama. Time will tell.

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Thanks. :)

March 3, 3013

Results:

popafixt2013-03-03.jpg

leagecupgrb2013-03-03.jpg

Hmmkay. I guess I have a better idea of where we stand now.

Granted, these matches have a bit of a "friendly match" feel to them - 5 subs allowed, empty stadiums, board doesn't care - but still, they should be a decent indicator.

Our domination certainly wasn't as big as the points difference suggests though. The first two matches were clear wins - the one against VPS in no small part because they got a man sent off after 4 minutes - but the last three matches were tight affairs which could have gone either way. So I don't suddenly expect us to mount a title challenge this season, but needless to say, this certainly confirms my optimism about avoiding relegation.

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Cheers, guys. :)

June 19, 2013

Results:

popafixt2013-06-19.jpg

popatable2013-06-19.jpg

I think it's safe to say that our debut season in the Finnish top flight is going well. Despite that, there have been a few frustrations in the first few months of the season.

Clearly, losing the League Cup Final was one of those frustrations. Chances to win trophies don't come cheap at this stage in a career. But we can't really be too depressed about that. We had a great run, but FC Inter thoroughly put our feet back to earth.

The bigger frustration about the League Cup Final was that our new French striker Rudy Gestede - who had hit the ground running with 4 goals in 6(2) appearances - was stretchered off in that match. Torn calf muscle, out for 4-5 months, less than a week before the first league match.

4-5 months in Finland is pretty much 80% of the season, and since he was one of only two natural strikers in the squad, I was forced to stretch the wage budget even further and brought in an extra striker: Juanfri.

My frustration about our league performance is pretty obvious when looking at the results. Too Many Draws!

Being undefeated after ten matches is brilliant, but 3-7-0 is a bit too much "everybody goes home happy" to my taste.

But it's undeniable that for a team which just promoted, we're doing quite well. After our league cup showing and the first handful of league matches, potential continental qualification was in the back of my mind, but I've let that thought dissipate now. Who knows, we might still get it (we'd have to finish top three for that), but it would probably be at least a year too soon.

Every league match so far has been a very tight affair which could have gone either way. So far, based on playing everyone once - and some teams twice - I really haven't been able to identify the strong teams from the weak teams. Everybody seems quite equal.

So far I've not changed our 4-2-3-1 tactic, though our weakness has been quite apparent at times: our defense. Or more specifically the space between our defense and midfield.

That's not a sudden realization. The issue was there last season as well, but it was hardly crucial - the effectiveness of our attack gave us enough breathing room to concede the occasional goal and move on.

This season the opposition is a bit stronger, so that space between defense and midfield gets exploited a bit more effectively. And while we're still attacking quite well and scoring regularly, we don't feel nearly as 'sharp' as we did last season.

At the moment, it feels like the season could go either way. We could increase a few percent and go on a winning streak, or decrease a few percent and completely crumble. I'd settle for something in the middle.

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Well, "about to leave" is putting it a bit strongly, but yeah, if progress had been minimal last season I'd have been gone. :)

Aug. 11, 2013

Results:

popafixt2013-08-11.jpg

popatable2013-08-11.jpg

At the end of the last update I said I'd settle for "something in the middle" and I guess that's pretty much what we've got.

Our results play out a bit like a Guitar Hero song, which had its frustrations, but all in all we've been picking up enough points to stay on course for a successful season.

What that specifically means, "a successful season," isn't quite clear yet. We started out with the goal to stay clear of relegation, and it has been pretty obvious from quite early on that that wouldn't be a problem. The board recently allowed me to revise that goal, and mostly with an eye on a higher wage budget for next season, I upped it to "safe mid-table." As soon as I did that, we promptly went on a three match losing streak, heh. But hopefully a successful team meeting followed by a scrappy home win against TPS has put a stop to that.

We haven't been out of the top five all season though, and mostly in 3rd or 4th place, with the temptation of qualifying for Europe agonizingly close. The middle of the table is pretty damn tight though, with still 6 teams in close contention for 3rd place. A stretch of flaky form and we could conceivably end up in 8th place - not bad for a newly promoted team, but it would be disappointing considering where we've been all season.

And our form has been far from stellar the last month. Three losses in a row, only two wins in the last eight matches... It really can't get worse or we'll be sliding down pretty fast.

The frequency of the matches has been tricky to deal with at times. With fatigue, suspensions and injuries, I can't remember when we were last able to field our strongest squad. Actually, I don't think it has happened yet this season. So far our squad depth just about managed to cut it - though with four AMCs out injured, we had to put a rather mediocre kid from the U19s in the lineup for our latest match against TPS. And nevermind the kid, we have some mediocre backup players in the regular squad as well, and they have to fill in regularly.

That match frequency will continue for a while longer - only the last three matches of the season are scheduled a week apart. So it's basically a matter of sink or swim at the moment. Even more so than at the previous update point, it seems impossible to assess where we'll end up. We could finish 2nd, we could drop to 8th.

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Oct. 21, 2013

Porin_Palloilijat.png

PoPa, Finnish Premier League, end of season 2013

Summary:

Media prediction: 10th

Final position: 5th

Finnish Cup: Quarter Final

League Cup: Final

Results:

popafixt2013-10-21.jpg

End of season table

Position graph

Meh. And blah.

If you look at the position graph, you'll understand what that reaction is about. So close to European football, but we threw it away at the end.

After the previous update, we continued with a great stretch of form, with four wins from five. By this point there was a significant gap between the top 5 and the rest of the league table, and with FC Inter winning the cup 4th place would be enough to qualify for Europe, so it was looking quite promising. But then we crumbled.

Granted, apart from Haka and JJK, our schedule was pretty rough, but still, I'm a bit disappointed with our display. Especially the last three matches of the season were quite poor; with the two-matches-per-week schedule out of the way, and most injured players recovered, I was expecting much more. The home match against HJK was very poor. The performance against already-champs-at-that-point Honka was notably better, but we still went home empty handed.

Three points against TPS on the last match day would still have been enough to hold on to 4th place, but again we played quite poorly and we were very lucky to come away with a point. AC Oulu didn't screw up against last placed JJK, and so we miss out on European qualification.

Last season we got away with it, this season not so much.

Porin Palloilijat Squad

All that said, we probably pretty much finished in the position we deserved to finish. I really don't see this squad getting anywhere in Europe. Then again, we would've had ten months to prepare for that. But still, I suppose ignoring the way it played out, 5th place is actually a very good result. This was our debut season in the top flight, after all.

If we want to finish higher next year, we'll need to strengthen the squad. Too many of our guys are decent players for this division, but aren't really good enough to make a significant impact. Especially our attacking midfielders - the key area in our current tactic - underperformed a little.

Our defense could certainly use some strengthening as well, although - despite an obvious vulnerability due to the space between defense and midfield - our defensive record is quite acceptable.

Our key players this season:

Juha Tuomi - GK

Our young goalkeeper was outstanding this season - voted 3rd best keeper in the league. He's a big reason why our defensive record was quite acceptable despite our defense regularly being outplayed. Which is a good indication that we do need to sort out our weakness at the back, I suppose.

Dema - MC

Again one of our key players in midfield. Like last year, he finished with the most assists in the league. Not as many goals this year, but we can't have it all. He'll remain an integral part of next season's squad.

Jani Bäckman - AMC

Really our only AMC who was up to par this season. Guys like Scheweleff - outstanding last season - and newly signed Aalto and Agneli were largely disappointing, but Bäckman produced the goods, especially in the second half of the season. No assists at all in the league is a bit worrisome for an AMC, but with 14 goals he's our topscorer this season.

Juanfri - ST

This Spanish lad started as our 3rd striker, and was only signed just before the first league match because of a nasty injury to our French striker. He took some time to get going, but by the end of the season he was the only striker in form (due to injuries/match fitness issues for the other two). So he kept the other two out of the team during the last stretch of the season, and was just about productive enough to win the league's "rookie of the year" award.

Next season...

Finances

The prize money brought our debt briefly under €1mil again, but that won't last long. Looking at the numbers, turning this club into a break-even club seems nigh impossible without selling off half a dozen key players per season, which I'm not planning on. So, like always, it'll be a bit of a wait and see what the board gives us, wage budget-wise.

I already increased the wage budget a bit by revising our goals mid-season, and we have some players leaving the squad, so we should have some room to play with, hopefully enough to strengthen the squad.

Because it's clear that, after this season's 5th place, I want to do better next season. Our performance this season has clearly shown that this is really not a very strong league. It's not like Ukraine or Portugal where you have some clubs like Shakhtar or Porto to deal with; the gap between top clubs and relegation battlers is much smaller in Finland.

Not that I'll necessarily be aiming to win the title next year, but I certainly want to finish a few spots higher and qualify for Europe.

I don't think it will take all that much to get there. Just replacing a few decent players with "key players" should be enough.

In practice it might boil down to a bit more than that, since we have quite a few players whose contracts are running out. One new signing has already been arranged - a Finnish international requesting a rather lucrative contract - which I in part agreed to because I was hoping we'd qualify for Europe. Hopefully the board leaves us some room to play with beyond that.

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Thanks, everyone. :)

Yeah, missing out on 4th place was a bit disappointing at first, but I'm over that now. Gives me a nice goal for next season.

(And I agree, KooTeePee is a great team name. All those abbreviation-teams in Finland gets confusing, but at least that one stands out.)

Meanwhile, in other news...

Dec. 1, 2013

belgiumU21job.jpg

So I finally got my youth international job, and a nice one at that. (My manager's - and RL - nationality is Belgian, so I'm motivated for this job.)

The offer didn't come out of the blue, I actively applied for it after the Belgium manager retired and U21 manager Dury was promoted to the senior job. Apart from a number of U23 jobs, I think this might have been the first youth international job which became available in this game, not entirely sure.

Qualifying matches for Euro U21 2015 should start next June. Looking forward to it.

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Jan. 30, 2014

PoPa, Finnish Premier League, pre-season 2014

Still two and a half months to go before the first league match, but we're about to dive into the League Cup again. I kinda like how the whole League Cup is played before the league starts - that gets it out of the way, and it's a nice test of where you stand, with still time to strengthen the squad if necessary.

Barring long term injuries like last year, I'll probably wait until July to see if we need any more reinforcements, when most of Europe's contracts end. This winter, almost all of our new signings turned out to be Finnish. That's not a bad thing, obviously. We do play in Finland, after all, and they tend to be a bit more affordable than foreign players. Wage-wise, that is - like always, all the new players are free signings.

Our defense got a bit of an overhaul.

The full backs are a bit of a high maintenance position in our tactic. With no real wingers, they end up doing a lot of mileage along the sidelines and regularly have to be subbed before the 90 minutes are up, and often aren't fully recovered for the next match. We'll need to replace a few more backup backs by slightly better backup backs next season, but this season's reinforcement is pretty fun:

Daniel O'Shaughnessy - DL

That's right, the kid's Finnish, and nope it's not a regen resulting from a screwed up name-generator module - he's a real player. And since I suspect that O'Shaugnessy isn't a particularly common name in Finland, it's safe to assume that he's related to Patrick O'Shaughnessy, a young right back/utility defender who's been at the club for two years now. They're both sort of first/second pick for their position with not much in it, so we should have plenty of matches this season with the O'Shaughnessy brothers - from Finland - defending our flanks. For some reason I find this much more amusing than it probably is.

Our center backs got a bit of an upgrade as well:

Roope Heilala - DC

Just a temporary upgrade in Roope Heilala's case... Some of these Finnish names are really amusing.

A veteran who's not all that pacey, but he replaces a slightly poorer veteran who was even slower, so he should be a useful one-season signing.

Declan Dally - DC

Our other new center back has youth and pace, and plenty of margin for development. Released by Man Utd and part of the Wales U21 squad, he's our only foreign signing this season (not counting a few kids on youth contracts, that is.) I have a feeling one season of regular football will turn Declan into one of our stars by next season.

Our attacking midfielders weren't really as good as I hoped last season, so that area needed some strengthening as well. Here, too, we went for youth, signing a 17yr old who'll need a bit more time to develop and a 19yr old Joel Pohjanpalo who's already good enough to fit straight into the first team and will hopefully turn into one of our key players as well the coming seasons.

Whether it will be enough to turn our AMC-department into a well-oiled machine remains to be seen. If necessary, I might clear some room in the wage budget to bring in an established, foreign AMC whose contract expires at the end of June.

Finally, our most high profile signing this winter:

Sakari Mattila - MC

This current Finnish international was released by Udinese - though he spent most of his time on loan at Serie B Ascoli and Swiss club Bellinzona. His wage demands were rather hefty - with a 'match highest earner' clause he wouldn't budge on. I partially signed him because I expected to qualify for Europe, which we didn't, but that's ok. I think he's just the kind of signing we need to bring this club up a notch. He should form a great partnership with Dema in the center of midfield, with Mattila filling more of a defensive role - something we missed a bit last season.

The media predicts we'll finish 6th and the board expects a respectable mid-table finish, which should be doable. Our wage budget is €17k/week now, so it stayed at the level it was after I adjusted our expectations halfway through last season. Which means I can have no complaints about our chairman, really. Considering our financial situation, I wouldn't have been surprised if the wage budget had been lowered.

I think €17k/week probably puts us among the 4 or 5 highest spending clubs in Finland, so there's a bit of pressure on me to produce the goods pretty quickly.

Our sponsor income doesn't quite match our status yet:

2013sponsorstats.jpg

Even when we reach the top end of that scale, though - which will take a few years anyway - it won't be enough to make us break even, though it will help a little. There's some growth margin in our weekly attendance still, but I think the only way to clear this club's debts will be to do well in Europe. (in other words, reach a group stage) That will take a few years as well, so we better not waste any more time and make sure we qualify for at least the Euro Cup next season. That'll be the goal this year; anything less and I'll be disappointed.

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Superb stuff Coach, how are you finding Finland compared to Belgium from last year?

Different, mainly, which in itself is a good thing, considering I spent a gazillion seasons in Belgium last year. :lol:

Being Belgian, though, I obviously know the Belgian leagues better than any other leagues, so that's a plus. (I added the Belgian top two divisions to the game now, by the way.)

I do want to spend some time in Belgium in this career as well - just not as long as last year. Perhaps a few years at a top division club there, maybe Club Brugge again. Mainly I wanted to do the whole building up reputation thing somewhere other than Belgium this year, replacing last year's 8 or 9 seasons in the Belgian second and third tier.

I'm finding Finland much more fun than I expected. It's a "cute little league", kinda sorta. Especially the top flight, that is. The off-season in the second tier is insanely long, so I don't think I could have handled that for more than two or three seasons before throwing in the towel, especially in this early "new game version, want to play" stage of the career.

That said, I'm a bit ambiguous about our early success. I'm used to struggling much longer in careers like this before success finally comes, and in a way that's part of the fun.

Then again, it's also fun to do well, and to have a goal which feels within reach. And in a way it's struggling on a different level. It's "only Finland" really, so even if I do qualify for Europe here pretty soon, or even win the title, that won't be enough to get me noticed by top clubs straight away. There are still a few steps to go before I reach that point.

So, yeah, I'm pretty glad that I landed at this club. Usually it takes me a few clubs before I land somewhere where I find myself thinking two or three seasons ahead. I'm not thinking very long term here - perhaps two or three more seasons, qualify for Europe this season, title next season, then I'll see. Something along those lines. It's still a stepping stone club for me, but one where I'm in no huge hurry.

Of course I could still fail horribly and get sacked, or a good offer could come along, but at this point it would have to be a very tempting offer to make me leave before bringing some sort of success to PoPa.

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April 14, 2014

Finnish League Cup:

popafixt2014-04-14.jpg

lgcupgrB2014.jpg

Not an undefeated group stage, this time, but we made it to the next round quite easily.

Obviously the League Cup is a good opportunity to see how the new players fit in before the league matches start. Apart from the players themselves, I was also interested to see how the new tactical tweak would work out.

It's just a one click tweak, really. We play an attacking 4-2-3-1, with 2 MCs, 3 AMCs and 1 forward. Last season we played with one of the MCs in a support role (our deep-lying playmaker, Dema) and one in an attacking role. The latter could regularly be found at the edge of the box, or even in the box, providing a numerical advantage and getting an occasional scoring opportunity. (Young Aussie Bradden Inman, who mostly filled that role, scored 8 goals last season.)

The down side was that, if we lost the ball, our midfield was wide open for counter attacks, and that space regularly got exploited by the opposition.

So this season that midfielder has been switched to a defensive role, filled by our newly signed Finnish international. It's still far from a defensive formation, but I'm hoping letting one midfielder hang back a bit will at least make the boulevard a bit less wide open for the opposition's attackers.

So far I'm still a bit undecided whether it's the right move. Then again, five clean sheets in seven matches (including the Quarter and Semi Final) should speak for itself; we certainly didn't achieve anywhere close to that last season. Still, as much of that, maybe more, is down to the beefed up defense as to the new tactical tweak. And, especially in the group stage, we didn't seem to score nearly as often as I'd have liked. I guess it's a bit of a trade-off.

Anyway, back to the League Cup.

So, like last year, we made it to the Final again. And, like last year, so did FC Inter, so we had a chance at a rematch. Last year we didn't stand much of a chance and they thumped us 4-2. This year, it was a much closer Final:

FC Inter - PoPa: (p)1 - 1

So close, in fact, that I'm absolutely disgusted about this result.

I blame our veteran AMC Jussi Aalto. He got several very good chances to double our lead, but blasted them all over or wide. His last chance came with 92'40" on the +3 clock - despite telling the lads to retain possession, but okay, it was a nice attack. But of course it ended up in the side netting, and of course Inter scored from the resulting kick-out, mere seconds before the final whistle.

No extra time in the League Cup, so in the space of 30 seconds we went from getting ready to pop the champagne to getting ready for penalties. Where, of course, Aalto was one of the guys who missed, ensuring that he'll be put on the bench until further notice, and there will have to be some serious injury crisis before he gets off it.

We're getting into a bit of a "close but no cigar" habit here. Two lost Finals and a last matchday throw away of continental qualification, in the space of little more than one season. Time to break that trend soon.

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I'm not so sure about that... :)

June 18, 2014

Results:

popafixt2014-06-18.jpg

popatable2014-06-18.jpg

I'm not sure what the hell happened there. Decompression after dramatically losing the League Cup Final? One minor tactical tweak turning the whole squad into clueless idiots?

In any case, we reverted back to last season's tactic from the FC Inter match onwards. In other words: all midfielders fully focused on the opposition's goal, leaving the defense entirely to our back four.

To be fair, I don't really think that was the deciding factor in our performance. It was a combination of several things, mainly our inability to convert chances into goals and our defenders making one stupid error after another.

It was more than a bit worrisome to be dead last with 0 points after 4 league matches, but somehow we managed to turn it around, with six wins from the last seven matches. And so, despite that horrible start, we're actually almost back on schedule, and have two points more now than last season at this point, when we were still undefeated.

Hopefully these wasted points don't come back to bite us in the ass at the end of the season.

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Yep, qualifying for Europe remains the goal. :)

World Cup 2014 (Hosts: Brazil)

wc2014tree.jpg

After the European Championship two years ago, England now also become the World Champs, with two goals by Jermain Defoe in the Final against Spain.

Also like in the European Championships two years ago, Holland failed to make it past the group stage, but the Dutch FA retain their confidence in Jan Jansen.

No other surprises in the group stage (though of course France failed to qualify for the tournament altogether.)

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Aye, and they even won a penalty shootout. :D

August 10, 2014

Results:

popafixt2014-08-10.jpg

popatable2014-08-10.jpg

We continued our good form for a bit longer, with great wins against Honka - defending champs and current leaders - and Haka - granted, not a great team, but this was the first time we managed to beat them in five matches. But then we had another poor stretch of four matches, and after that we clawed our way back to some good results.

In other words, we're not particularly consistent this season. Of course being consistent isn't an easy task in a league which has so many mid-week matches, making a sort-of rotation system for some positions almost inevitable. But still, for a team which is aiming for continental qualification, we're throwing away too many points.

After last season, I was hoping we'd make a small step forward this season and be able to establish ourselves easily as one of the top three or four teams in this division. But it doesn't really feel as if we've made any progress at all, and we have to battle like maniacs for every point.

With either Honka or Inter set to win the Cup, 4th place will be the last Euro Cup spot, and we're currently 4th. The table is slightly deceptive though: the three teams behind us have a game in hand, and FC Inter has two games in hand. So in effect it's three teams with a small but clear gap, and several other teams - including us - battling it out for the last spot. And we wanted to be in that top three, not in the second group fighting over the scraps.

Of course the gap isn't that large, and 11 matches is plenty to still finish comfortably in the top three. We'll have to step it up a notch then, though, and find our best form again.

It's actually really simple: if we finish 4th, our season will be a success; if we finish 5th, it can be considered a blah season. I'd rather not have another near-miss.

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