How Far to Asgaard? (Take 2)

[Jolanthustrel]

I'm rather crap at this, I've tried to do career threads twice now and both times something has happen to stop my interest in the save. First time I tried this How Far to Asgaard the forum Crapped out for six weeks and I'd picked up a new interesting save while I waited for it to come good. Next I tried to play a career game with a custom DB I made until patch 12.1 was released and stopped my game at 6th of March (as it did for quite a few other people). So heres hoping it's third time a charm, not bad luck comes in threes or I'll forever resign myself to lurking in this wonderful section of cyberspace.

Here is how my game starts

Large DB with all players loaded in Scandinavia and all Scandinavians loaded.

And this is Me, some muppet from Australia with delusions of grandeur.


The goal is to work my way up through the ranks in the Nordic Countries and turn someone into a powerful force.

So anyway, How Far to Asgaard?



I don't know where I'm going, only god knows where I've been.
Staying at HK for the foreseeable future

The Trophy Cabinet
2014 Icelandic Upper League Cup
2014 Icelandic Premier Division
2015 Icelandic Champions Cup
2015 Icelandic Cup
2015 Icelandic Premier Division
2016 Icelandic Upper League Cup
2016 Icelandic Champions Cup
2016 Icelandic Cup
2016 Icelandic Premier Division
2017 Icelandic Champions Cup
2017 Icelandic Premier Division
2018 Icelandic Upper League Cup
2018 Icelandic Champions Cup
2018 Icelandic Cup
2018 Icelandic Premier Division

[Jolanthustrel]

First stop. Iceland

From Wikipedia

Handknattleiksfélag Kópavogs (HK) is an Icelandic sports club from the town of Kópavogur, mainly known for its football and handball teams. The club has a football team playing at the second tier of Icelandic football after being relegated in 2008.

The Club


The Facilities


The Squad

It looks alright until you realise the good players seem to cover several of the same positions. The Depth is pretty thin in quality but I've got nothing in the terms of wage budget to work with as we were already Au$ 100 over budget when I joined. The Media predict we'll finish 9th, the Chairman wants me to avoid religation but in order to get a little extra wage budget I said I'd get a mid table finish. I probably not pushing the envelope but I might get to the sticky part.

[Anost]

The name of your club does not look the easiest to pronounce. Anyhow, looking forward to updates.

[deltablue]

Quite a few in Iceland aren't.

[Jolanthustrel]

Before a ball was even kicked in anger, I got a message that a Consortium was looking to take over the club.

Considering how little time I'd actually been here at HK I really thought this leg of my Journey was going to be over before it had even begun. With a transfer embargo in place and already at my wage budget limit I was really strapped as far as making any modifications to the team was concerned. Though to be thankful it didn't take long to sort out Not that my future was any more secure yet.



But eventually my being an Australian helped the new Chairman with his decision to keep me at the Club. I just have to keep up the strong Steve Irwin Strayn accent anytime I'm around him and tell him stories of drop bears and vegemite.


I still haven't seen a recalculated transfer or wage budget though. :\

[SRL88]

I will stick with HK .

Good luck with your career.

[Jolanthustrel]

With all that excitement out of the way The Icelandic Upper League Cup got underway. I was told to learn from the experience and with in a group with three Icelandic Premier League Teams and 5 in the First Division I felt it would be a good chance to see what the squad could do in competitive matches against my fellow league teams without effecting my title\relegation chances.

Three wins, a disappointing draw, and three painful to watch losses saw us finish 5th in group C. After 5 games we sat second and if we could have snagged wins in our final two games we could have made a push for top spot or at least the best second place spot but it was not to be.




The last game against group winners was especially painful. going down 1-0 late into the first half then from the kick off we worked it into the opposition box and earned ourselves a penalty. We missed. FH took the ball back down field and scored on a counterattack so fast it was blinding. Instead of going into half time 1-1 we went in 2-0 and never recovered.

Next up, the League proper.

[Jolanthustrel]

I will stick with HK .

Good luck with your career.

Thanks SRL, I'll need it. Hopefully I'll see some money from the new Chairman soon

[bjoggi33]

Nice to see you start in Iceland If you need any help with the Icelandic words or something I can translate for you if you want.

[ManUTactician247]

Wow, an interesting read here!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Windfeld

[Dejay]

Good luck with HK!

[deltablue]

You have a bit of extra money anyway.

[Jolanthustrel]

Nice to see you start in Iceland If you need any help with the Icelandic words or something I can translate for you if you want.

Probably more with the extra letters in your alphabet. I'm probably butchering the pronunciation of several of my players names... probably why they're not listening to me

Good luck with HK!

Thanks, I think the set up here is quite good and If I can get everyone to work to their potential then I might have the basis for a good side.

Wow, an interesting read here!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Windfeld

Good to see my New chairman has a little financial sence and some football knowledge

You have a bit of extra money anyway.

Still yet to see it materialise into anything but cash in the bank, hopefully something will materialise in the next transfer window, need a new goalkeeper and prrobably some wide midfielders.

Euro cup and Mid Season updates to come when I get home.

[Jolanthustrel]

The league season started well for HK. It took 71 minutes into our fifth league game of the season before we conceded a goal (although we were knocked out of the Icelandic Cup by lower division side, KH, in the middle of that time) unfortunately for us after that goal was conceded the flood gates opened like the breaking of the golden seal when you've been drinking.

Next game, two goals in Fergie time condemned us to our first defeat in the league which was swiftly followed by three more consecutive defeats.

Back room staff organised a team meeting in which much soul searching was done. Heads were lifted and we scraped our next two game, 1-0

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2012 Review

Icelandic First Division: Thirteen wins, Three draws, Six Loses.

We were supposed to come ninth and battle against relegation instead we found ourselves towards the top of the table with a second place finish which was more than I ever expected. Best I had hoped for was a mid table.

After our early four game loss streak I changed formation to a 5-3-2 as our DM in the 4-1-3-2 formation wasn’t holding back the tide as well as I’d hoped.

We kicked our slump with some solid defence. Thirteen clean sheets was an impressive feat giving us the equal best defensive record for the league, but we were a little toothless in front of goal. 9 goals from our leading striker, Eyþór Birgisson, was good and third in the league only two goals less than the leagues leading goal scorer. Unfortunately support was not forth coming. 4 goals from his strike partner, Samuel Kjartansson, and 4 goals from midfielder, Hafsteinn Briem, were pretty much all else there was. The only team in the league to score fewer goals than us came stone motherless last so you can see why my surprise at promotion was evident.




Icelandic Cup: Crap, nothing else can be said about it. We lost 2-1 to lower division side KH. We were expected to make it to the 4th round, but tripped at the starting line.

Icelandic Upper League Cup: Finished 5th in Group C. Three Wins, One Draw, Three Losses. One bloody nose to a premier league team, two thumpings at the hands of Premier league sides as well. Fifth was probably not too disgracing considering the 4 teams above were three Premier League sides and the 1st division side that beat me to the title.

My views of the season: We defended well but were rather toothless in front of goal and truthfully we probably over achieved.

My aims for next season: Survival pure and simple. A new goalkeeper and a new striker is a definite purchase. According to my Assistant our top midfielders have the potential to be good premier league players, lets hope he knows what he’s talking about.

Career Summary

Season   Team    League              Position   Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------------

2012     HK      Icelandic 1st Div     2nd        Promotion

[SRL88]

Congratulations on promotion .

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks mate, it was a surprise. I even lost the last game of the season 3-0 and still scrapped in because other results went my way. I was rather lucky. Lets hope it holds or I'll be back in the First Division very soon.

[deltablue]

Hope you can survive after a surprise promotion.

[Jolanthustrel]

Icelandic Upper League Cup 2013

Another year, same result.

Unlike last year where we started strong and finished weak, this year we started weak yet finished strong.

We lost the first game due to a goal in stoppage time of the first half and then drew the second because of a late equaliser. The next two games were lost due to own goals before we finally found our feet and strung together three consecutive wins. They were especially pleasing since ÍVB and Stjarnan were my first opponents in the Icelandic Premier League for the season and gave me hope of a strong start to the season.

[Jolanthustrel]

Icelandic Premier League 2013 halfway point

11 games, 2 wins, 8 draws, 1 loss, and 6 games where we were kept scoreless. Seriously, we couldn’t score in a brothel, even if we were dragged into the back room by our unmentionables. Fortunately we’ve also kept the other teams scoreless 6 times.

I hope the doctor that worked on my midfielders’ legs and implanted the cannons will implant a targeting system in their eyes next offseason so they can at least shoot straight.

I don’t know why the Icelandic betting agencies keep giving such generous odds for the draw. I’d be raking in the money if I could bet on it. My next 4 games the draw is paying $3.20, $3.00, $3.00, $3.25 and I’m willing to put good money on at least 2 of them being drawn.


I also got a parent club, AaB in the Danish Superliga, I’ll be hoping to take advantage of that and seeing if I can find a striker who knows where the back of the net is.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2013 Review

Icelandic Premier Division: Eight wins, Eleven draws, Three Loses.

Once again we were supposed battle against relegation, finishing 12th, instead we found ourselves towards the top of the table with a fourth place finish, qualifying for the Europa Cup along the way. Strangely though we still scored 24 goals and conceded 18 one more than last year. Like last year the only teams to score less than us were relegated but we still had the best defensive record in the Premier Division. Worst part about conceding 18 goals were some of those goals were scored by us.

I kept the same 5-3-2 formation which is probably why we lack teeth in front of goal, but we seriously have no one who can play on the flanks any further up field than fullback. I should probably look to that during the transfer window.




American Goalkeeper, Joseph Bendik, kept 11 clean sheets behind our five man defence. Could have been more if we didn’t put several goals past him ourselves.

Icelandic Cup: After last year’s debacle, we improved some. Entered in at the third round and expected to reach the quarter finals we found ourselves with a rather plum draw right through to the final. Where we unfortunately lost 3-2 to Fram



Icelandic Upper League Cup: More of the same from last season.

My views of the season: We again over achieved, My defensive setup is starting to rankle a little with the fans as they say were not playing exciting enough. If we were losing then I’d probably have to change my ways but until we stop being successful it’ll just have to stay.

Captain Hafsteinn Briem bossed midfield, 11 goals and 11 assists across all competitions including two in our close Icelandic cup defeat where single handed, he dragged us back into the game… and my coaches say he doesn’t handle big occasions well. He really blossomed with the run home being instrumental in many of our final victories. That snatched us 4th spot.


My aims for next season: Build on what we’ve got, my defence is solid enough and I’m seeing some potential youth talent come through. Such as right back, Gauti Borgþórsson, who’s already been capped at U21 level 3 times and a striker that was called into the Icelandic U19’s squad almost days after he turned up in my squad. It’s probably premature to pin my hopes on them, but to me it is exciting.

Career Summary

Season   Team    League              Position   Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------

2012     HK      Icelandic 1st Div     2nd     Promotion
2013     HK      Icelandic Prem Div    4th     Icelandic Cup Runner Up, Europa League Qualification

[deltablue]

Great first season up.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks Delta


Just a few odds and ends before I get into the new season.


Unexpected but an over achieving manager probably should be in the running.


2nd and 3rd rated goals of the year.


Funnily enough in a wrap up of the final round where goal number two was scored, a different goal scored by My captain was called the highlight of the round

Transfers

Sven Vandenbroek: Free, 32 year old Belgian who I bought for his mental skills more than anything. Respectable performances when called upon, couldn’t agree on a new contract and retired once the season was over.

Nikolaj Hansen: Free, 25 Year old Danish defender with a good work ethic who can also slot in at DM. Was at the heart of our defence for a majority of the season. Chipped in with 2 goals in all competition.

Joseph Bendik: Free, 23 year old American Goalkeeper released from Sogndal, kept 16 clean sheets across all competitions. Although my coaches kept telling me to drop him due to poor form :/

Þórarinn Kristjánsson: $7k from Klepp, Icelandic Striker didn’t produce the goods for me this season then broke his leg towards the end of the season. On paper is supposed to be the best striker in the squad, but the game isn’t played on paper.

Rasmus Thelander: Free, 21 year old Danish defender formally from Danish 1st division club AB. One of the regulars in my defensive line along with Nikolaj Hansen 4 goals across all competition and rarely giving away fouls. Only real blemish was an own goal or two.

Milos Glogovic: Free from KF, 33 Serbian defender who wasn’t liked by the fans. Performed credibly when called upon as the third man in my central defensive trio. Was let go at the end of the season.

Christian Mouritsen: $10k from Valur, 24 year old Faroese Midfielder formally a youth product at Man City performed a solid but not spectacular role in midfield partnering Captain Breim and fellow Faroese international Tem Hansen as part of our 3 man midfield. 3 goals across all competitions was a little disappointing.

Morten Seifert: Free from Birkerød, 30 year old Danish striker who was once on the books at PSV. Seifert was supposed to lead from the front with Kristjánsson and last years leading striker Birgisson but only contributed 7 goals in all competitions.

Rene Hansen*: Free, 19 year old German left back\wingback\midfielder capped 10 times at U21 level. Released by Stuttgart and snapped up by me for a sizable chunk of wage during the August Transfer Window. Played 5 games and averaged 7.48 3 assists and a MOM performance leads me to think I might have a bit of a gem for this level.

Mateusz Duda*: Free, 18 year old German right back\central defender like Hansen was released by Stuttgart and has been capped at U21 level for Germany 17 times. Duda wants to wait before committing himself to a nation as he also holds Polish citizenship. Doesn’t have the workrate of Hansen and was a little less dependable also, but he had a high determination. If I could get his dribbling and crossing up a little more I might play him as a right midfielder.

* Newgen

Transfers out were just more dead wood than a lumber yard.

[Jolanthustrel]

Just a couple of Youth Players to come through my squad I thought I'd share

Gauti Borgþórsson

Came into my side at the end of the first season and was rated as one of the best youth products to come though HK in years (doesn't say much though). Also has the potential to be one of the best players in my squad. Started with 1 star rating and third choice RB and finished the season with 2 1/2 star rating and if not for the purchase of Duda would have been the best RB in the squad. Has already been capped 3 times at U21's level for Iceland at only 17 Unfortunately his growth has stalled due to needing to train full time... Now I just need to find some money somewhere to become a professional team.

Gu∂ni Ólafsson

Was the pick of the youth products from the 2013 season Again was rated one of the best youth products to come through the HK in years and has the potential to be one of the best players in the squad. Already 1 1/2 stars He will see some game time off the bench and likely when my main strikers are failing to find the back of the net like usual. Walked straight into the u19's team so there could be something about him but again, his training will stall unless I can get him a professional contract.

Times like this I wish I could sent them on loan to my parent club.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2014 Review

Icelandic Upper League Cup: Finally I can look myself in the mirror and say we did a good job in this competition. Topped Group A with 17 points, Five wins and two Draws. Boring football prevailed as we only scored 8 goals in the group stage but only conceded 2 also.

A semi-final against Group A runner up FH was next. FH were unlucky as 16 points would have gotten then first place in the other two groups but sometimes that’s the way of the world. A 2-1 win with a double coming from defender Rasmus Thelander first dragging us level then a second in Extra time to book our place in the final against Selfoss who also needed extra time to get past last years premier division relegated team Stjarnan.

Upper League Cup Final against Selfoss was a dogged affair settled in the 60th minute by a solitary goal from new recruit Halldor Kristinn Halldorsson


Icelandic Premier Division:

The bookies gave us odds of 9.00 to win suggesting that if we took our chances we would be there or there abouts. The Media suggested 5th place finish was where we’d end up while the board wanted a safe mid-table position.

I was looking to build on last years 4th place finish hoping to get a European spot once again so I said I’d get a top half finish. Wage budget was slashed by a grand and there was minimal transfer budget but being already under budget and letting go a lot of dead wood I still had some wriggle room to bring in players.

Eleven Wins, Eight Draws and Three losses

HANDKNATTLEIKSFÉLAG KÓPAVOGS WIN THE LEAGUE!

Unbelievable! We just limped over the line due to our good Europa League run that left many weary legs at the end of the season. Due to so many games being rescheduled we kept being pushed down the ladder but I didn’t notice that we were still in touch with the leading pack.

With one game left against already relegated Leiknir Raykjavik any position was still possible from first through to forth but retiring striker Heidar Helguson needing one more goal for a career tally of 125 league goals gave us an early lead and we never looked back. Two more goals and the Icelandic Premier division was ours.


Icelandic Cup: Revenge was had by Selfoss in a Upper Iclandic Cup final rematch. We eased past two lower division sides in our third and forth round encounters only to meet Selfoss in the Quarter final. We went down 2-0 in the first half hour and even with the injection of our new French Striker at half time we still couldn’t claw back the deficit eventually going down 2-1

Europa League: I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to European Football. We scored goals at the right time and when we went down we held our heads up and continue to fight. First round 3-0 Agg over Serbian side Rad Boegrad. Second round 2-1 Agg over Swedish side Östers IF after going down 1-0 in the first leg at home in Fergie time before our New French Striker dragged us single handed into the next round with some fabulous goals. Third round we faced AA Gent and got past them on away goals after a 2-1 loss in Belgium followed by a dogged 1-0 win in front of our home fans. Eventually fatigue and superior opponent Dynamo Kiev stopped our golden run 3-0 but even then we didn’t disgrace ourselves.

Along the way we also got the record of the youngest goal scorer in the Europa League \0/

My views of the season: Fan-freaking-tastic. A domestic double, a great Europa League run I couldn’t ask for more! (Except for maybe a few more goals.)

My aims for next season: Rinse and repeat. If I can keep my French striker fit then he should be able to bang in a few goals. In the 7 ½ games he played for me this year he scored 6 goals. Find him a partner and I look forward to what happens. I have a good young strong defensive line and a good goalkeeper to build from the back. Some older players retiring and freeing up more money for a couple more midfielders in case we go on another good cup run.

Season   Team   League  Position   Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------

2012     HK      ID1       2nd     Promotion
2013     HK      IPD       4th     Icelandic Cup Runner Up, Europa League Qualification
2014     HK      IPD       1st     Icelandic Premier League Winners, Icelandic Upper League Cup Winners

[deltablue]

Great pair of trophies.

[ShanghaiNugget]

Good to see ÍA in the top division, they're definitely fallen giants of the Icelandic game. Nice title win and a respectable European run, here's onwards and upwards to bigger things!

[Jolanthustrel]

ÍA were promoted the season after I was. I use to remember signing Grétar Steinsson from them many many years ago.

While my financial situation is pretty good, it's not good enough to turn professional which would really help my youth players better reach their full potential (not world beating but certainly good Icelandic Premier league players). A good champions League run and maybe sneaking into the Europa group stage might help that.

I just did some checking on wikipedia, looks like while I was getting HK promoted, In real life HK got relegated.

[deltablue]

They could use you then.

[SRL88]

Excellent work so far .

[Jolanthustrel]

Just to point out how poor individual goal scoring has been for my team in previous seasons. This is a french striker I bought late ast season just before my Euro cup run.

In seven games across all competitions last year he scored six goals.

Below is what he's done in 13 games so far this season... and I haven't entered June yet.

[Jolanthustrel]

Nice European ranking rise.

I don't know what the Armenians did because they weren't even in Europe.



This is going to be painful

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2015 Review

Icelandic Upper League Cup: Won Group B easily from Selfoss who were the only team we didn’t beat having to settle for a 0-0 draw. We played FH in the Semi Final like last year but this year we won more convincingly. 2-0 in regular time with Goals to Defender Halldór Kristinn Halldórson (45+1) and Jean-François Tison (73) set up a rematch of last years final with Selfoss.

Selfoss took revenge for last years defeat with a 0-1 win in extra time despite having a man sent off in the 90th minute

Champions Cup: 2-1 win over Selfoss. French striker Jean-Francois Tison scored a brace (15, 60) before Selfoss pegged one back late but the result was never in doubt.

Icelandic Cup: Apart from an extra time win over Selfoss in the third round we were never in danger of being knocked out of the cup. The only other goal we conceded was in the semi final but we were already up 2-0 before that happened. The final was a replay of the 2013 Icelandic Cup final where we lost to Fram. 2015 returned a different result as we defeated Fram 2-0 with goals to ever present Jean-François Tison (2) and Portuguese Midfielder Ivo Magalhães (75).

Icelandic Premier Division: A much better effort in front of goal saw us storm the league. Again due to fixture congestion I didn’t realise how well we were going at first glance but once the season finished we were 11 points in front of our nearest competitors.

A completely revamped strike force comprising of Jean-François Tison (9 goal, 5 assists), Niko Kekki (6 goals), and Majeed Waris (5 goals, 8 assists) and a whole host of support from midfield fired 41 goals in the league all the while still managing to keep things tight at our own end. I started switching things up tactically altering from my usual 5-3-2 to a 4-3-3 (flat back four, 3 CM, 3 ST) that took advantage of the three speed merchants up front.

Champions League: We had a spectacular run starting in the second qualifying round with great come from behind win against Lech Ponzan to take the tie 4-3 after being down 2-3 in Poland after the first leg.

Next was a trip to Estonia where we played Flora Tallinn winning 4-3 on thanks to a Niko Kekki hat trick. The return leg was a much more defensive effort culminating in a 0-0 draw meaning we went through 4-3 again.

Playoff round saw us take on Swedish champions Helsingborgs IF who were dispatched with minimal fuss. Leading 1-0 from the away leg we scored 3 more at home before the Swedes scored themselves but it was too late for them and HK Qualified for the Champions League Group stage and received a nice fat cheque for doing so.

It wasn’t Pretty.

First up was Real Madrid at the Bernabéu who welcomed us to the Champions League Group stage with a 0-5 thrashing. We couldn’t even kick them off the pitch. Later Mourinho criticised the quality of the pitch, this bemused me because if he thought that was bad, he hadn’t yet seen the pitch at our place.

In an effort to recover some respectability I reverted to our old 5-3-2 against Olympiakos at home and held the Greeks to a bore 0-0 draw.

Our second trip to the Iberian peninsular saw us take on Benfica, this was just as fruitful for our opposition who took the pleasure of thumping us 0-7. We conceded 2 goals in the first 5 minutes and a further goal inside the 10th and Benfica never looked back. This game was bizarre as we conceded 3 penalties but no one from my side got a card of any colour.

The return leg was much more respectable as we parked the bus and were quite happy to settle for another 0-0 draw.

When Real Madrid turned up at Kópavogsvöllur I was hoping for another performance like the Benfica one. Madrid scored early but we held them out for the next 40 minutes until they scored two quick goals just before the half. With nothing to lose and every thing to gain I told the guys to go all out and we snatched 2 goals unfortunately we also conceded 2 to lose 2-5 but we drew the second half 2-2 which was pleasing.

Our final game against Olympiakos, was a do or die game where we needed to win to qualify for the Europa League knock out stage. We went to Greece and threw everything but the kitchen sink against Thrylos but Greek Goalkeeper Michalis Sifakis was solid in goal stopping everything that came at him. In the 81st minute our own defences finally were breached and that’s the way the game stayed losing 0-1.

My views of the season: A great season on all fronts, League win, Icelandic Cup Win, Upper League Cup runner up, Icelandic Champions cup win, Champions League Group Stage goals galore. What more can I ask for? Three man strike force worked wonders and my defence handled the missing man admirably.

My aims for next season: More of the same. Another good Champions League run will hopefully help turn the club professional and maybe upgrade the facilities.

Season   Team   League  Position   Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------

2012     HK      ID1       2nd     Promotion
2013     HK      IPD       4th     Icelandic Cup Runner Up, Europa League Qualification
2014     HK      IPD       1st     Icelandic Premier League Winners, Icelandic Upper League Cup Winners
2015     HK      IPD       1st     Icelandic Premier League Winners, Icelandic Cup Winners, Champions cup winners, 
					    Champions League Group Stage

[Jolanthustrel]

With the influx of money from the Champions league, selling out 5 home games while having an average capacity of 91% and sharing a stadium with our rivals the HK board have decided to buy us a brand spanking new stadium. HK-völlur would have been a more authentic sounding name.



This is probably why we didn't turn professional this year so I'm hoping for another good run this year to make that happen.
Not turning pro also probably hindered the keeping of my Star left back Rene Hansen to Dynamo Dresden for $750k + 20% sell on profit. I suppose the glamour of Bundesliga2 couldn't compare to the humdrum of Champions League football

[ShanghaiNugget]

New stadium, nice. I agree there could have been a better name to choose than simply "[Club name] Stadium". What's the capacity of your current ground, and do you know what it will be?

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks mate

The New Stadium, I believe, will hold 10992, and I'll asume it's an all seater. The current stadium we share with our cross town rivals holds 3500 with 1600 seats, so we can't even pack it for european fixtures. It'll be good to play on a freshly laid pitch for the first time in five seasons also.

Incidentally, in game the Icelandic national stadium, Laugardalsvöllur, only holds 9800. Makes me wonder if international matches might turn up at HK Stadium.

I have had a few job offers and what started out as an attempt to be a journeyman save looks like turning into a one club save for the foreseeable future. AIK, IFK Gothenburg, Swansea, Notts Forrest, Birmingham, Brondby, AaB (my current parent Club), Tromso and SK Brann have all come with offers to pry me away from Iceland. Unfortunately I've grown attached to my little Icelandic team and I don't want some other muppet to reap the rewards for my hard work and\or destroy what I've built.

[deltablue]

'destroy' is probably the most likely option.

[Jolanthustrel]

After 2 years of telling me they agreed with my request for increaced youth facilities but the funds just weren't there. After securing my second Chmapions league group stage spot I asked for a third time only for the board to tell me that they would perfer I buy players for the first team that waste money on youth that may or may not turn up. >_<

Fortunately I got them to think about turning professional.

[bjoggi33]

After 2 years of telling me they agreed with my request for increaced youth facilities but the funds just weren't there. After securing my second Chmapions league group stage spot I asked for a third time only for the board to tell me that they would perfer I buy players for the first team that waste money on youth that may or may not turn up. >_<

Fortunately I got them to think about turning professional.

Unlucky having such a bad chairman I asked for professional status after getting to the Champions League group stages for the first time and he accepted.

[Jolanthustrel]

It probably worked out ok in the end, as my traning facilities were down graded towards the end of the season due to 'developments in sports science'. So I asked him that to upgrade them to increase the quality of players I can attract to the club. He liked that idea. So for $1.4M I'll have new trainnig facilities next year to go with my new 10,922 all seater stadium so I shouldn't complain to much.

I'm also now an Icon at the club.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2016 Review

Icelandic Upper League Cup: I’m not even trying any more. Going in with a new 4-2-3-1 Asymmetrical formation to try an accommodate some of the new signings we bought in over the winter we turned in some good performances. Including a 5-0 win against last year’s league runners up Fylkir. We topped the group easily winning 5 and drawing 2 and a +13 For and Against.

The semi final against group runner up Selfoss was taken to extra time before we could finally get the victory. We led 1-0 at the half thanks to a goal from Waris, but new Danish Midfielder Henrik Randrup suffered the misfortune of turning the ball into the back of our own net to level things up. Tison finally grabbed us the winner just after the restart for the second half of extra time.

The final against ÍA was fairly straightforward. Goals to Tison and hot youth striker Gun∂I Ólafsson wrapped up the fame by half time. ÍA scored in the dying seconds of Fergie time but by then we’d already grabbed the trophy for the second time in 3 years.

Although one thing I have noticed is we’re very wasteful in front of goal. Must work on that.


Champions Cup: We took on League runners up Fylkir and while It wasn’t the 5-0 thrashing that took place in the upper league cup. We sill put together a professional performance and won 2-0 thanks to a brace from Majeed Waris.

Icelandic Cup: This started with a bang! 6-3 win by my reserves KR with young Norwegian Striker, Are Slatta, scoring 15 seconds into his first team debut. Breaking club and the Icelandic cup records for the fastest goal. A second goal 5 minutes later and KR were firmly on the back foot. 3 minutes later he turned provider for Birgisson to slot home and the game was all over bar the shouting.

Taking away those first 10 minutes where KR turned up late. The match was relatively even. A penalty miss by Birgisson, denying him a hat trick, in the 89th minute was the only blemish on a thorough thrashing. Selfos, Lower division side Reynir, and Keflavik were also brushed aside by my second stringers on the way to meeting Stjarnan in the final.

Stjarnan didn’t know what hit them. We finished the cup the way we started, with an absolute thrashing, demolishing Stjarnan 5-0.

4-0 up at halftime we took our feet of their throats after the break but Stjarnan never recovered allowing us to successfully defend out title.


Icelandic Premier Division: We won easily. We still had several games left in the season when we wrapped up the Icelandic Premier Division and so I sent out my second stringers to try and keep my first team fresh for the Champions League group stage at the end there.

16 wins 3 draws and 3 losses. It was kind of bizarre are we would win about half a dozen games, have a draw, lose, then repeat the cycle. For the first time this season one of my players hit double digits for league goals, made even more special by being a home grown talent.

Champions League: Ugh, so many trips behind the iron curtain this year. Azerbaijan, Macedonia, Czech Republic, Ukraine. Why can’t I get a trip to Ireland or the Faroe Islands?

After disposing of Qarabag Agdam (5-1), Remora (6-0), and Sparta Prague (3-2) in the knock out rounds we were placed with PSG, Sevilla and Shakhtar Donetsk in the group stage.

I don’t know if it was because we were more experienced or just that we weren’t playing Real Madrid, but we weren’t massacred like we were last season. 3-0 and 3-2 losses to PSG, 2-0 and 1-0 losses against Sevilla and a pair of 2 all draws with Shakhtar, of which both times I led 2-1 with 10 minutes to go only to be undone by tired legs.


My views of the season: We played well for long patches. I still need to find an absolutely lethal striker but as long as the goals come from all fronts I’m not too concerned.

My aims for next season: The board didn’t give me a choice. I’m to win at all costs. A $9M war chest is on offer to buy the players they want, but some of that will be moved to the wage budget. Personal goals will be to have a striker hit 15 goals in the league, go undefeated through the domestic season and to win a group stage Champions league game.

Season   Team   League  Position   Achievements
-------------------------------------------------------------

2012     HK      ID1       2nd     Promotion
2013     HK      IPD       4th     Icelandic Cup Runner Up, Europa League Qualification
2014     HK      IPD       1st     Icelandic Premier League Winners, Icelandic Upper League Cup Winners
2015     HK      IPD       1st     Icelandic Premier League Winners, Icelandic Cup Winners, Champions cup winners, 
					         Champions League Group Stage
2016     HK      IPD       1st     Icelandic Premier League Winners, Icelandic Upper League Cup Winners, Icelandic Cup Winners,
                                   Champions cup winners, Champions League Group Stage

[arinceo]

Lovely progress so far with HK, hopefully you can snag third place in the UCL group stages next season, I'm sure you could have a good run at the Europa League if given the chance.

[Jolanthustrel]

After five years I'd thought I've give you a run down of all the players who've helped me achieve all I've done so far So without further ado I'll introduce.

The Fabulous Baker Boys!

GK Jesse Joronen: Pinched from Finnish 3rd division side Salpausselan Reipas for $75compensation, the Finnish U21 keeper has been ever present between the sticks since his arrival in 2014. In 52 league games he has kept 30 clean sheets and 63 clean sheets in 124 games across all competitions. He currently has 2 Icelandic Upper League Cups, 2 Icelandic Champions Cups, 2 Icelandic Cups and 3 Icelandic Premier League winners’ medals. Last year he started attracting the attention of several clubs including Ipswich, Sheffield Wednesday and Vittoria Setubal.

DR Mateusz Duda: After being released from Stuttgart late in 2013 I snapped him up on a free transfer. The German U21 international hasn’t quite made the right back position his own as HK youth product, Gauti Borgthorson, constantly pushes him for the spot. While he hasn’t scored any goals just yet, he is part of the wall that is the HK defence. He currently has 1 Icelandic Upper League Cups, 1 Icelandic Champions Cup, 1 Icelandic Cup and 3 Icelandic Premier League winners’ medals. He was also runner up in the Icelandic Young Player of the Year award in 2015.

LB Rene Hansen: Like with Duda he was released by Stuttgart late in 2013 and signed on a free transfer. The German U21 Left Back made the position his own with little effort. At the end of the 2015 season Dynamo Dresden came in with a bid that met his release clause and off he went back to Germany for four times what I could pay him and a full time contract. Not even Champions league football could convince him to stay much to my disappointment. Still remains a favourite player for me. He had during his time at HK 1 Icelandic Champions Cup, 1 Icelandic Cup and 2 Icelandic Premier League winners’ medals. He was also runner up in the Icelandic Young Player of the Year award in 2015.

CDR Halldor Kristinn Halldorsson: Bought from Valur in 2014 for $6k he has become one in the leadership group here at HK. A solid, no nonsense defender he formed part of the defensive wall that allowed us to win our first Icelandic Premier League. Compared to the rest of the squad he’s a bit of a dinosaur at 28 but I see at least another 2 years from him before having to be sold on or let go. He currently has 2 Icelandic Upper League Cups, 1 Icelandic Champions Cup, 2 Icelandic Cups and 3 Icelandic Premier League winners’ medals.

CDL Iain Ryan: Brought in on a free transfer after being released by Liverpool, Ryan had a bit of a slow start to his career in Iceland, some scratchy performances early on and getting minimal game time behind a few other defenders meant I was almost about to release him until an extended of good form turned him from squad player to key defender. 2016 saw his best season so far contributing 7 goals across all competitions with 7.10 rating for the League, 7.74 rating for domestic cups and 7.20 rating in continental competitions. With the club turning professional, a bright future beckons for this English Centre back. He currently has 2 Icelandic Upper League Cups, 1 Icelandic Champions Cup, 1 Icelandic Cup and 3 Icelandic Premier League winners’ medals. He was also named HK Supporters player of the year for 2016.

CD Rasmus Thelander: Signed for free from Danish club AB upon our promotion to the Icelandic Premier League, Rasmus was the core of our defence in our early jaunt to the top flight as well as contributing with 13 extremely valuable goals across all competitions. While still at the club for the 2017 season, I unfortunately see his place becoming less and less secure with the introduction of younger and potentially better defenders nipping at his heels. A valuable servant who’s contributions will not be forgotten when it comes times to say goodbye but nether the less there is no room for sentiment in football you can’t live on past glory forever and we’ll wish him well when the time comes. He currently has 1 Icelandic Upper League Cups, 2 Icelandic Champions Cups, 1 Icelandic Cup and 2 Icelandic Premier League winners’ medals. He was also named HK Supporters player of the year for 2014.

MCR Hafsteinn Briem: What can I say about captain courageous? One of the best midfielders at the club when I joined, Hafsteinn has been out midfield general for five seasons now. Made captain upon our promotion to the Premier League he just went from strength to strength with his inspirational goals right when we needed them. All thought his time at the club is probably growing shorter with the influx of new talent. His influence around the club can never be forgotten. He currently has 1 Icelandic Upper League Cup, 1 Icelandic Champions Cup, and 3 Icelandic Premier League winners’ medals.

MCL Christian Mouritsen: Another Midfield Stalwart. Joining the club from Valur for $10k, the Faroese international joined fellow Faroese International Tem Hansen in the HK midfield. While he wasn’t as prolific a goal scorer as I’d have liked, he certainly made up for that by providing many of them, including a club record 17 assists in 2015. Like a few other players mentioned here, his time is coming to an end with the club turning professional and younger, better talent chomping at the bit to get their chance to make a name for themselves. He currently has 1 Icelandic Upper League Cup, 2 Icelandic Champions Cups, and 2 Icelandic Premier League winners’ medals.

MC Tem Hansen: Tem was the third signing I made after joining the club signing for a free transfer. A more defensive midfielder than Mouritsen and Briem Hansen rounded out the three-man midfield in the early days beautifully. At 32 he doesn’t have much of a future as a player but hopefully I’ll be able to convince him to stay on as backroom staff. . He currently has 1 Icelandic Upper League Cup, 1 Icelandic Champions Cup, 1 Icelandic Cup and 2 Icelandic Premier League winners’ medals.

SC Jean-Francois Tison: Another free transfer, signed late in 2014 after being released by Stade Rennais FC Tison immediately set Kopavogsvollur on fire. 6 goals in his first 7 1\2 games, followed up next season with a club record breaking 21 goals across all competitions and the first player under my management to score a hat trick for the club. He’s starting to fell down the pecking order in strikers as a few more skilful but just as quick strikers challenge for spots, but he still has a few seasons before he’s completely replaced. He currently has 1 Icelandic Upper League Cup, 2 Icelandic Champions Cups, 1 Icelandic Cup and 2 Icelandic Premier League winners’ medals. He was also the winner of the Icelandic Young Player of the Year award in 2015.


SC Majeed Waris: Released by Swedish first div elite club BK Hacken in 2014 Waris joined the club on trial and impressed in his first game scoring a double. Signed to a full contract quickly after that to partner Tison, the U23 capped Ghanaian striker immediately endeared himself to the HK faithful, scoring 10 and setting up 12 more across all competitions in his debut year. He currently has 1 Icelandic Upper League Cup, 2 Icelandic Champions Cups, 2 Icelandic Cups and 2 Icelandic Premier League winners’ medals. He was also named HK Supporters player of the year for 2015.

Reserves:
Joseph Bendik: American keeper signed on a free transfer in our first season in the premier league. Kept 19 clean sheets in 40 games across all competitions. Was replaced in goal by Jorenen and released on a free in 2014.

Atil Valsson: Left sided defender\midfielder who was the main stay in that position until the arrival of Rene Hansen. A solid if unspectacular performer he was released on a free in 2016 and recently signed for IA.

Ivo Magalhaes: U21 capped Portuguese midfielder released by FC Porto in 2014. Currently one of my best Midfielders, Will see more game time in coming seasons. Expecting him to step up in 2017.

Gu∂ni Ólafsson: Youth product of HK, had a storming season in 2016 with 16 goals and 12 assists, including the first double figure league goal tally. Currently holds the record for the youngest goal scorer in the Europa League.

Eyþór Birgisson: Crowd favourite and ever present striker in my first 3 seasons. With the purchases of Tison, Waris, Kekki, and Aleksic plus Ólafsson coming of age, he fell further and further down the pecking order. He signed for Grindavik on a free transfer at the end of 2016.

Bobby Prosser: Welsh U21 Defender released by Man City in 2014. Had early problems settling in Iceland. Seems to have over come these now and partners Iain Ryan in defence.

Morten Seifert: Danish Striker signed in 2013 to bolster my forward line, minimal impact in the league saw him depart at the end of the 2014 with the new blood coming in.

[Jolanthustrel]

Lovely progress so far with HK, hopefully you can snag third place in the UCL group stages next season, I'm sure you could have a good run at the Europa League if given the chance.

Thanks mate
I really think were close to a win and we weren't playing as defensive this year as we were last year when trying to limit the damage. Hopefully a season of Professional training will add some steel to my defensive line in Europe and hone a finer cutting edge for my strikers.

[cpfc543]

Doing really well with HK, hopefully you can get a win in Europe soon. Keep up the good work!

[deltablue]

Beating Sparta's good going.

[bjoggi33]

Cracking season there. Good to see you win the Icelandic Cup as I can't seem to be able to do that :P. Guðni seems like an excellent prospect and we could be looking at the next big Icelandic thing. Good luck with the next season and keep us posted!

[Jolanthustrel]

Yeah, I'm really excited about Guðni too. Also now that we've turned pro it should help him greatly.

[Jolanthustrel]

Icelandic Upper league Cup 2017

HK 1-0 Þór: The beginnings of a new era, our first game in our new home and we instantly smash ‘our old ground’ record by 1020 people. 20 minutes in Australian striker John Aleksic scored the first goal at the ground and the only goal of the game giving us the first win at the stadium also.

Þróttur 0-5 HK: Easy second up win with goals to Iain Ryan, John Aleksic (3) and New Japanese striker\right winger Yoshikazu Ito

HK 3-0 FH: New left winger Mads Hansen scored the first goal in the 70th minute to break the tense deadlock. Dariusz Smolka and Hernan Espindola rounded off the victory with goals in the 79th and 90th minutes respectively to finally put FH out of their misery.

Leiknir R 1-3 HK: Brace to Aleksic and first ever goal to German Midfielder Hubert Hafner put Leiknir to bed. An 85th minute goal was the first put past Jorenen but by then we were never in danger of losing.

HK 2-0 Grindavik: An unhappy return for former HK striker Birgisson as his new team went home with a loss. Another crowd record saw an improvement of the first game by another 12 people taking our record to 4532. Iain Ryan got us off the mark but it wasn’t until Hafner scored in the 82nd minute that the result was put to bed.

Fram 1-4 HK: Hat trick to Majeed Waris and one to Espindola saw brush aside Fram. An 88th minute concede was the only blemish.

HK 2-0 Valur: A third broken attendance record now up to 4603. Hafner got us off to an early start and I thought a thrashing was on the cards but 70% possession and 20 shots on target could only give us one more goal from Aussie Striker Aleksic in the 58th minute.

KF 0-4 HK ULC Semi Final: Brace from Welsh defender Bobby Prosser and a goal a piece from Espindola and Waris brushed aside the first division side without breaking a sweat.

Fylkir 1-0 HK ULC Final: We dominated this game like we did all the others. We didn’t deserve to lose this game and a 90th minute penalty was the final kick in the teeth. Fylkir has become a bit of a bogey side for us of late and this was the third straight loss we’d suffered at their hands we must rectify this.

HK 4-0 KR Icelandic Champions Cup: Smarting from the loss in the Upper League Cup final, the boys came out with a point to prove. A brace from the spot for Prosser coupled with goals from Waris and Magalhaes crushed KR in the last game before the league start.

[Jolanthustrel]

With my Champions league second round Qualifying tie announced, I went back and had a look at all the places I've been in the qualifying rounds. Serbia, Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Macedonia, Czech Republic and now Albania.

I must say "No one has benefited more from the fall of communism than we have.

Well except for maybe the people that lived in the communist countries."

[bjoggi33]

Unlucky with the ULC but congrats on the Champions Cup!

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks bjoggi33,

It really stung to lose and expecially to a last minute penalty, but I'm glad they responded magnificently against KR.

We're seriously wasteful in front of goal. The conversion rate for goals\shots on target\shots taken is pretty pathetic. In a good game where we score 3 or 4 goals, we have about 9 shots on target from 20. When we win by one goal, we have 2 or 3 shots on target from 20.

[deltablue]

Great ICC win.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks Deltablue,

The way the players responded was fantastic, unfortunately they only seem to click like that once every 5 or 6 games. I might have too much competition for their spots I dunno, but they should be a lot better than that.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2017 halfway mark

HK 1-0 Keflavik: First league game in our new stadium and 8291 people come to see what it was all about. Along with being the first ever goal scorer in the new HK Stadium, John Aleksic scored the first league goal in the ground as well to open the season with a win.

Stjarnan 1-1 HK: Pretty pathetic performance. Taking the lead in the 7th minute through Waris I was expecting a goal scoring blitz. It didn’t happen Stjarnan equalised in the 72nd minute and that’s the way the game finished. The players got the hairdryer treatment for that.

HK 2-0 Fylkir: Back on home turf and I was worried about this game. Last season we lost both games to Fylkir on the back of 1-1 draws. History was not to repeat though as a Brase from Frenchman Tison secured the result we were after.

Fram 0-3 HK: Brace to Aleksic and one to Ryan saw off Fram in a spiteful encounter that saw our opposition receive 6 yellow cards.

Haukar 1-4 HK: another feisty encounter that saw a total of 10 yellow cards handed out, 5 a piece, and 5 goals. New German striker, Joachim Oswald scored on debut after 14 minutes, a haukar own goal saw our lead doubled and Tison added a third just before the break. Haukar pulled one back in the 72nd minute before Randrup returned the three goal advantage 6 minutes later.

Huginn 1-2 HK Icelandic Cup: Lower division side Huginn entertained us for this third round Icelandic cup fixture and really but a scare through us. Despite having a man sent off in the first minute they opened the scoring 5 minutes later. Tison legeled the game up for us just before half time but it was an 83rd minute strike from Captain Couragous, Hafsteinn Briem to finally get a positive result. In no uncertain terms I told them they were lucky to get the result and they needed to lift their game.

HK 4-0 Selfoss: The message from the last game still hadn’t quite sunk in yet and at half time we were still struggling to get the break. With nine shots on goal and not one troubling the keeper I really let my strikers know how I felt. It was still ten minutes after the break before they finally put one in the back of the net through a header from New Saudi Striker\Left Winger Ibrahim Al-Subaie. New Greek Defender Xanthopoulos doubled the lead in the 70th minute. Aleksic and Oswald rounded out the scoring in the final fifteen minutes to finally put this game to bed.

Grindavik 0-3 HK: Continuing where we left off against Selfoss, we slammed home another three goals. Stadler opened the scoring at the 37-minute mark before Al-Subaie doubled the lead with a 44th minute penalty. The second half was relatively quiet until Al-Sabaie popped up again in the 88th minute to claim his second of the game.

KR 1-0 HK: Utter shambles. KR exacted revenge for the 4-0 Champions Cup thrashing when league top scorer Kjartan Finnbogasson carved open my defence to add to his already impressive tally. Before this game I hadn’t been kept scoreless in my previous Thirty Eight Premier division games. Needless to say the hair drier came out again.

Fylkir 1-2 HK Icelandic cup 4th round: Goals to Oswald and Aleksic saw us hold a 2-goal lead until late into the match when Fylkir scored with the last kick of the game. A much more even game and probably a fair result.

HK 1-1 IA: Back to our usual wasteful ways. 58% possession, 16 shots on goal, 3 on target. Went down after 9 Minutes due to a defensive mix up leaving Young German keeper Fritz Markle stranded on debut. Oswald levelled things up just shy of the half-hour mark but that’s all she wrote. Even IA going a man down with 20 minutes still to play couldn’t help our chances.

HK 1-0 Valur: Another dominate performance were we only scraped home. Xanthopoulos scored his second in as many games to give us the win in the 82nd minute but we really should be wrapping these up much earlier.

Þór 1-1 HK: If I was annoyed before, I was absolutely Livid after this performance. Niko Kekki put us a goal up just before the half and I told them to push further. Al-Subaie missed a penalty in the 78th minute only to have Þór take the ball back down field and score on the counter. No way we should be drawing against the bottom placed side.

HK 3-1 Haukar Icelandic Cup QF: Same story different day. Only two players had shots on target. Al-Subaie who scored a brace, one from the spot and another from the corner of the six yard box and Defender Ian Ryan who kept peppering the goal with headers. For the longest time I thought this game was going to head to extra time until Ryan broke the deadlock. Al-Subaie’s goal in the 90th minute finally put the result beyond doubt.

Skenderbeu (Alb) 0-1 HK Champions League 2nd round Qualifer: Still we huffed and puffed but could not blow their house down. We got lucky here as they had two goals rubbed off for being off side. Quick French Midfielder, Goncalves, should be given a speeding ticket for finishing the match in only 38 minutes before limping off injured.


Must tell my strikers about the poor strikers in Africa who would love to have the goal scoring oppotunities they have.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2017

Keflavik 0-2 HK: Nil all for the longest time until Iain Ryan broke the deadlock at the 70-minute mark with a nice header. Ryan was denied a brace by a Keflavik Midfielder who got the final touch before the ball crossed the goal line.

HK 2-0 Skenderbeu (Alb) Champions League 2nd round Qualifer 2nd leg: 10,414 people turned up to break the crowd record for the 5th? Time this year. Stadler scored early meaning the Albanians had to score twice now to take the game. Al-Subaie closed up the match after a wonderful through ball from Hafner.

HK 5-0 Stjarnan: A first half demolition job with a particularly good effort from Al-Subaie who scored a hat trick and set up a fourth goal. Fre∂riksson scored one and Waris finished off the scoring in the first half and that’s all she wrote. A dull and wasteful second half that might as well not have been played as all it did was result in injuries for Stjarnan.

Mogren (Mte) 1-2 HK Champions League 3rd round Qualifer: Mogren scored on the half hour mark to take the lead and put us on the back foot before Al-Subaie chipped in just before half time. With the game heading to a draw Hafner scored his first continental goal in the 82nd minute to give us a victory, but more importantly, 2 away goals.

HK 3-1 Mogren (Mte) Champions League 3rd round Qualifer 2nd Leg: Back on home turf a more convincing performance handed us a more comfortable win. Goals from Fre∂riksson and Aleksic putting us ahead 4-1 on aggregate before Mogren got on the scoresheet with a 70th minute strike. Proser then put the tie beyond all doubt five minutes later with a well-taken header. Al-Subaie also missed a penalty in the 50th minute that could have put the result to bed even earlier.

HK 3-1 Fram: Another convincing first half performance put us 3-0 up inside 35 minutes thanks to Ryan, Randrup and Olafsson. Another Jekyll and Hyde performance saw us add no more goals in the second half, while Fram Pegged one back.

HK 2-0 Grindavik Icelandic Cup Semi Final: Xanthapoulos and Oswald put us two goals up by half time. Grindavik had nothing in response and so we slid through easily into the Final. Only blemish was Waris suffering a minor injury that would see him miss the final.

HK 1-2 Keflavik Icelandic Cup Final: How did we lose this. It was ours for the taking before snatching Defeat from the jaws of victory. Bobby Prosser put us ahead early and that’s the way it stayed until the 90th +1 minute. Keflavik scored with the final kick of regular time taking us to extra time. Bought on some subs to replace some tired legs only for BorgÞórsson to pick up his second yellow card in three minutes and get sent off. Olafsson followed him for an early shower to minutes later with a stupid two footed tackle. The comedy of errors was finally bought to a close when Prosser and Joronen had complete brain explosions and managed to put the ball into the back of our own net to gift Keflavik the cup.

HK 2-0 FC København Champions League Playoff: A relatively even contest that saw us take our chances better than our Danish opponents. Fre∂riksson scored just before the end of the first half and Oswald added a second in the last ten minutes of the second half to give us confidence for reaching the group stage again.

HK 0-1 Grindavik: In eight previous encounters with Grindavik I hadn’t lost a single encounter, not even a draw. Not only had I not lost a game against Grindavik in those eight previous encounters, they had never scored a goal against me either! That all changed this game with a humiliating loss.

FC København 1-3 HK Champions League Playoff 2nd leg: Fired up from the humiliating loss in the league we set about qualifying for the Champions League group stage in quick manner with Tison scoring after 2 minutes. At the 20 minute mark Fre∂riksson doubled our lead giving us 2 away goals on top of the two home goals we’d already scored giving me confidence that we were through. I didn’t expect København to be able to score 5 goals to get the win they needed. Three minutes into the second half the Danes scored to make the tie 4-1 and they fought hard but we defended valiantly to keep them out again. On the 81st minute Fre∂riksson popped up to score his second and remove all doubt that we were through to the group stage again.

Selfoss 0-3 HK: Another half hour victory that saw us relax in the second half. Goals to Tison, Ryan and Fre∂riksson had the game sewn up after 27 minutes Selfoss had nothing to counter with and that’s the way the game stayed for the next hour.

HK 2-0 Haukar: Easy victory with goals from Oswald (8) and Waris (46) though our domination should have produced a bigger result. 65% possession, 85% pass completion rate compared to 62% 9 corners to 2.

Fylkir 0-3 HK: Another dominating victory that wasn’t really secured until the sending off of Fylkir defender, Garpur Hé∂insson. Ryan put us ahead in the 20th minute and that’s how it stayed until the sending off. Quick passing move down the right saw Olafsson get the ball and slot home from a tight angle to double the lead. Tison popped up 2 minutes from time to extend the lead to 3 and complete the victory.

IA 1-2 HK: An unusual victory here. It’s not often we go down so early in a domestic fixture. It’s even rarer that we recover to win. IA Striker, Gerrit Spaan, put the home side ahead after only 10 minutes and that’s the way the game stayed until the break. After a bit of a spray at my players during the break they came out firing, Tison scored four minutes into the second half to level things up before a thunderous shot from Goncalves, 25 yards out, gave us the lead with 20 minutes to play. Olafsson had a abit of a brain explosion in the final ten minutes getting himself send off for two bookable offences within three minutes to put a few nerves into the system but we finally got the result we were after.

AC Milan 4-0 HK Champions League Group Stage: I never expected a win at the San Siro but I hoped to put up a better fight than this. Up and coming Italian striker, Graziano Caria, scored a hat trick to put the game to bed in the first half as he showed my strikers what lethal finishing can do. 3-0 at the break and I really let my team have it, they were playing awful and needed to know it. A second half fight back really showed what we could do when we are prepared to play and we almost kept them scoreless until a last minute goal from former Athletic Bilbao midfielder Javi Martinez won Milan the second half as well.

HK 1-0 KR: Title on the line here, we win the league is ours, we lose as we have to wait another week. Disappointed with the crowd as only 7791 people turned up to see us lift the trophy thanks to a goal from Al-Subaie in the 18th minute. The League is now ours for a 4th consecutive season.

Valur 3-1 HK: This defeat consigned Valur to relegation. They put up a brave fight hitting back straight after we scored through Goncalves in the 35th minute. 1-1 at half time it wasn’t until just after the hour mark that Tison scored his 25th league goal for the club to hand us the lead. Al-Subaie added a third fifteen minutes later to hand us victory .

HK 1-0 Þór: 10,396 people turned up to see us display the league trophy giving us a new League crowd record. Our fourth home game of 10k plus people and first in the league witnessed a scrappy victory against our relegated opponents. Al-Subaie scored the only goal of the game in the 35th minute.

2017 ICELANDIC PREMIER DIVISION AWARDS

Footballer of the Year: Heart of my defence, Iain Ryan.
Young Footballer of the Year: All three places taken up by my own players. Cedric Goncalves, John Aleksic, and Joachim Oswald.
Golden Boot: Runner up Ibrahim Al-Subaie
Goal of the Year: Third Place Joachim Oswald
Team of the Year: Iain Ryan, Mateusz Duda, Ibrahim Al-Subaie


I still have 5 Champions League games but the Icelandic Season is over.

[deltablue]

Excellent beating Copenhagen, as they're one of the strongest sides below the top leagues.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks Deltablue,

On paper they're probably stronger than we are, but I think we took our chances better in these games. They were probably a lot closer than the final scoreline suggests.
I was hoping that a good showing against them might put us in good stead for the group stage. Alas I got AC Milan, Liverpool and Shakhtar (2nd year in a row). last year we had two 2-2 draws against the Ukrainians after leading 2-1 and 2-0 at the 80 minute mark in both games, this year I hope to surprise them.

[Jolanthustrel]

HK 1-2 Liverpool Champions League Group Stage: A cracking start as French Midfielder, Cedric Goncalves, Put us a head after 43 seconds with a well hit strike from 30yds out. Unfortunately for us Liverpool hit back five minutes later as Suarez turned one of my defenders inside out and slotted home between the keeper and near post. The match went into the break 1-1 and we were holding our own reasonably well. The second half started well also and we kept Liverpool scoreless until the 78th minute when Skrtel knocked in a scrappy goal from the inside the 6yd box. That’s the way the game stayed until fulltime, although we were denied an equaliser by the crossbar on the 83rd minute when Fre∂riksson tried to lob Reina but put a little to much on it.

HK 2-1 Shakhtar Champions League Group Stage: Finally cracked it! Our first group stage win. Buoyed by our good performance against Liverpool we came out firing. After withstanding some early pressure Joachim Oswald grabbed the lead in the 26th minute. John Aleksic then doubled the lead 5 minutes from half time to give us a comfortable lead going into the second half. The game stayed 2-0 for the majority of the second half until Shakhtar striker, Lacina Traore, scored in Stoppage time to peg it back to 2-1 but we held on for the next two minutes to see out the result.

Shakhtar 2-1 HK Champions League Group Stage: ARGH! Of the 7 goals I’ve conceded against Shakhtar, 5 have come from Lacina Traore, He opened the scoring in the 13th minute to give the Ukrainians the early lead. Xanthopoulos pulled us level again with a header from a corner on the 20th minute and for the next hour that’s the way the game stayed. In the 87th minute we finally broke and that man again, Lacina Traore, killed off our deserved draw.

HK 0-2 AC Milan Champions League Group Stage: Another brave performance against a top class side. We kept Milan scoreless in the first half unfortunately I must have kept my team in the sheds a little too long as the Italian giants scored 26 seconds after the restart through Mexican Attacking Midfielder Erick Torres. Former Man Utd striker Macheda added a second in the 76th minute to kill off the match. Milan had too much class but a valiant performance from our boys saw a respectable result.

Liverpool 2-2 HK Champions League Group Stage: The one that got away. If I was unlucky not to draw the game at home, I was even unluckier not to get the win at Anfield. It may have been a weakened Liverpool team, but we dominated and deserved to get all three points out of this game. BorgÞórsson conceded an early penalty which Daniel Agger slotted home to give the Reds lead in the 10th minute. Al-Subaie then responded in kind from the spot on the half hour mark to take the game into half time 1-1. On the 70 minute mark Henrik Randrup hit a stunning strike from 25yds out to give us a deserved lead. BorgÞórsson rounded of a horror match by scoring an own goal to hand Liverpool a draw, yet somehow managed a 7.5 rating?

Unfortunately for us Milan drew with Shakhtar giving them 5 points consigning us to last for the third year in a row.

[deltablue]

Good few points there.

[Fantastic]

Didn't even see this thread. Congratulations on actually getting a foothold in the Champions League.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks Delta.

We were so close to that Europa knockout round spot. If we'd managed to hold Shakhtar to the draw away or not concede the own goal against Liverpool it would have been us and a little more money in the bank coming my way.

Hi Fantastic,

Thanks. I'm hoping I can snag third in a group stage soon and help the Icelandic co-efficient move along a little quicker. Going to drag Icelandic football up if it kills me.

[Jolanthustrel]

Legend in my own bath water


Both the Manager and Assistant Manager are Legends at the club (although to be fair, he was a legend before I got here)


Seriously $8k a year?

[deltablue]

Legendary!

[bjoggi33]

Nice one getting on the legend list. I'm not even a Favoured Personnel yet .

[Jolanthustrel]

HK 1-2 Liverpool Champions League Group Stage: A cracking start as French Midfielder, Cedric Goncalves, Put us a head after 43 seconds with a well hit strike from 30yds out.

That goal is Number three

[Jolanthustrel]

Wha? Good form? I expect more than 2 goals from 14 games for a striker to be in good form.


Interesting, $13M to build a 10922 seater stadium. $10.25M to add another 5461 I've only packed it for Champions Leagues games and only two or three IPD games a year get more than 10k people turn up. takes the Stadium capacity to 16383


YAY! hopefully it will help do something.

[bjoggi33]

At least you got a stadium that fits more than 1100 people in the CL .

[Jolanthustrel]

Ouch

How many Group stages have you gotten to? Surely if you've gotten to at least 2 you'd have enough money to build a new Stadium. Have you asked? Because I had the money on hand they just built mine.

Gah. I'm annoyed with my new Captain. Less than a week after officially giving him the Captain's Armband and on the morning before an important Champions League Fixture he comes in and says he want to move to a bigger club. Unlike the last couple of people who I told to wait a year. He doesn't want to wait that long.

Also, my star players are being head hunted and the youngsters I'm looking at to replace them either cost more than I'm willing to spend (I got short arms and deep pockets) or don't look good enough right now to help my Champions League push and I refuse to turn HK into a retirement fund to ageing players.

[bjoggi33]

I just made my second Group Stage. The option for stadium and all that stuff has been grayed out since the beginning so don't know what to do about that .

Unlucky with the youngsters wanting to leave, my players have never wanted to leave expect for once when I sold my star defender to Rosenborg.

[Jolanthustrel]

Gah! I just asked my Chairman to relay the pitch to save our players getting injured. He said Injuries are a part of the game and I should learn to deal with it. Maybe if he'd put Synthetic turf down to start with it wouldn't have deteriorated.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2018 Review

IULC – Phoned it in. Only conceded 2 goals all tournament. A 0-0 draw with IA was the only blemish, though this was rectified with a 4-1 Semi Final win. KR brushed aside 3-0 in the final.

Icelandic Champions Cup – Beat Keflavik 3-0 thanks to a second half Joachim Oswald Hat Trick.

Icelandic Cup – Small blip in our first up game as FH took a second string reserve side to penalties. No more goals conceded all tournament as we took revenge on Keflavik for last years Icelandic Cup Defeat with a 3-0 win.

Icelandic Premier Division – A better first half than second half first 11 games saw 10 wins and a draw with a 36-3 +33 Goal Difference. Second half saw 9 winds 2 draws and a loss for 15-3 +12 For and against Cant help thinking that Selling Goncalves and Al-Subaie made a big difference to the team performance for all the wrong reasons.

Champions League – Qualification was a breeze although FC København did give us a scare before we came good and won 4-2 on aggregate. Group stage is a whole different monster and I’m still unable to crack third spot, although if I hadn’t sold Goncalves and Al-Subaie I might had had a better chance in group stage.
Qualifying Fixtures | Group Stage Fixtures


Key Players

Didier Simondi: 17 goals and 13 assists
Carlos Cunha: 6 Goals and 17 Assists
Iain Ryan: 11 goals 3 Assists
Fritz Markle: 19 Conceded 30 Clean Sheets

Awards

Footballer of the Year: 1st Carlos Cunha, 2nd Markus Stadler, 3rd Iain Ryan
Young Player of the Year: 1st Didier Simondi, 2nd Joachim Oswald, 3rd Ronaldão
Golden Boot: 3rd Ibrahim Al-Subaie
Goal of the Year: Didier Simondi
Team of the Year: Fritz Markle, Ronaldão, Iain Ryan, Andrey Semenov, Carlos Cunha, Markus Stadler.

[bjoggi33]

Nice season. Unlucky on the one loss in the league .

[Jolanthustrel]

Nice season. Unlucky on the one loss in the league .

Thanks mate, So close to my undefeated League season. My first 50+ goal season also so chuffed about that, but at the halfway point I was looking at more than 51 goals.



I bought a Spanish Midfielder during the off season (well for the majority of Icelandic clubs that aren't HK) as well as an Argentinian Midfielder. The Spanish Midfielder had a whinge that there was too much competition for his spot. I reassured him he was in my first team plans. 2 weeks later he tells me that he wants a transfer because he wasn't getting First team football. At this point I only played two champions league games that he couldn't have been regestered for. Not to mention the fact it was still at least 2 months away from starting the Icelandic Upper League Cup. No one else was playing First team Football either you nitwit! That was all in less than 2 months...

I accepted his transfer request and immediatly offered him to everyone, no reasonable offer will be refused. Then he was then homesick and I told him I was looking at selling him to a club more like home, he said that would make him feel worse so I told him to go home. Thankfully he was only bought in on a free.

*headdesk*

[bjoggi33]

Maybe he didn't like the cold weather .

[Jolanthustrel]

LOL maybe. He came back played one game and now wants to be taken off the transfer list.

Ronaldão turned up last year just before Christmas and found it hard to adjust to life in Iceland so I sent him back to Brasil for a month. Coming from Brasil that doesn't have winter to Iceland in December must be a bit of a shock to the system, especially for an 18 yo. Only happens with South Americans and Those from the Iberian Peninsular for me.

[Jolanthustrel]

Whoo Didier Simondi, 5 goals perfect 10 rating!

[Jolanthustrel]

Champions Qualifying Round 2

I was flung so far into eastern Europe I ended up in Central Asia...

Kazakhstan

Leg 1: HK 6-1 FC Aktobe. We weren't as accommodating as their last Icelandic host. According to Wikipedia they played FH in 2009/10 and won 4-0 I had to restore Icelandic Pride and did so with Gusto.

Leg 2: FC Aktobe 0-3 HK. Wasn't as lethal as I'd have liked, but the job was already done.

Champions Qualifying Round 3

I'm wondering if there are any Eastern European nations I haven't visited yet?

Moldova

Leg 1: HK 1-1 FC Sheriff Tiraspol Disappointing draw, especially when their goal was an own goal by us.

Leg 2: FC Sheriff Tiraspol 1-5 HK. Sheriff to an early lead that shocked us into action. After a brace from Fre∂riksson and Hattrick from Simondi, we shot the Sheriff and didn't spare the deputy before running off into the Playoff round where we face Belarusian side BATE Borisov

Im running out of Countries that were from behind the Iron curtain to visit.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2019 Review

IULC – Won every game culminating in a 1-0 final over KR. Breaking a few Records along the way

IULC Records Held by HK
Highest Average Attendance: 9306 – 2019
Most Games Won in a Row: 13 -7.4.18-4.5.19
Most Games Without Losing: 20 20.3.13-26.4.15
Most Team Goals: 33 – 2019
Most Assists: John Aleksic 10
Highest Average Rating: Joachim Oswald 8.74 (5 appearances) 2019


Icelandic Champions Cup – Beat Grindavik 7-1 they didn’t bother turning up, we even scored their goal for them.

Icelandic Cup – No slip ups this year. Cruised through to the final before beating Fylkir 3-0

Icelandic Cup Records held by HK
Highest Attendance: 15938 Vs Keflavik IC QF 2019
Highest Average Attendance: 15938 – 2019 (1 game)
Most Games Won in a Row: 14 - 3.6.15-15.5.17
Most Games Without Losing: 14 - 3.6.15-15.5.17
Most Team Goals: 21 – 2019
Top Goal Scorer: John Aleksic 8 – 2019
Highest Average Rating: John Aleksic 9.07 (4 appearances) 2019
Fastest Goal: Are Slåtta 15 seconds Vs KR 3rd round 1.6.16


Icelandic Premier Division – Our first undefeated season. We were phenomenal! No last minute slips of concentration, no not turning up. We were lethal in front of goal and rock solid in defence. While we conceded three more goals than last year, we made up for that fact by scoring an extra twenty two.

IPD Records held by HK
Highest Attendance: 16209 Vs FH 28.5.19
Highest Average Attendance: 15414 – 2019
Biggest Win: 7-1 Vs FH 28.5.19
Most Games Won in a Row: 23 - 29.9.18-28.9.19
Most Games Without Losing: 27 - 3.9.17-17.9.18
Most Games Without Conceding: 9 – 10.6.18-12.8.18
Most Team Points: 66 2019
Most Team Goals: 73 – 2019
Top Goal Scorer: Didier Simondi 25 – 2019
Most Goals in a Match: Didier Simondi 5 Vs FH 28.5.19
Highest Average Rating: Didier Simondi 8.06 (20 appearances) 2019

Champions League – Qualifying
Three more trips behind the old Iron Curtian as we took on FC Aktobe of Kazakhstan (9-1), FC Sheriff Tiraspol of Moldova (6-2) and BATE Borisov of Belarus (7-2) This season I was seeded in all the Pre Group stage rounds which meant I wouldn’t draw FC København for a third consecutive year.

Group Stage

Group stage looked tough with Man Utd, Marseilles and Celtic but I had hoped if United and Marseilles could keep Celtic quiet then I might have a chance against them. They kept their part of the bargain and so did I.


HK 2-1 Celtic
OM 2-0 HK
Man Utd 2-2 HK
HK 1-2 Man Utd
Celtic 0-3 HK
HK 1-1 OM


Awards

Footballer of the Year: 1st John Aleksic, 2nd Carlos Cunha
Young Player of the Year: 1st André Flückiger, 2nd Ilija Jelic, 3rd Ronaldão
Golden Boot: 1st Didier Simondi
Team of the Year: Fritz Märkle, Gauti Borgþórsson, Carlos Cunha, John Aleksic, Didier Simondi
Manager of the Year: Me



In other News

More ground expansions...



And scratch what I said about not Drawing FC København, I got them in the Euro cup draw

[Jolanthustrel]

Europa Cup Run

1st Knockout Round

FC København 1-2 HK Continuing my battle with København to be kings of Scandinavia. Disappointed to concede the goal but we were already two away goals up at that point.

HK 3-1 FC København Went down two goals early and at half time had some stern words with my players. they responded the way I'd hoped and so we kicked on in the second half to score three unanswered goals and take us to the next round. 5-2 on aggregate

2nd Knockout Round

On my first ever trip to europe I was eventually knocked out of the Europa Qualifying rounds by Dynamo Kyiv. This time we took revenge...

Dynamo Kyiv 1-3 HK We scored in the opening minute, they hit straight back in the third. We fought hard and found our reward with another two goals in the 25th and 49th to take the first leg

HK 4-3 Dynamo Kyiv A great game for the neutral, or an absolute coach killer Kyiv scored two in the first 13 minutes then I hit back straight after their second goal. in the 24th and 26th minutes we scored another 2 to give us the lead 3-2 and 6-3 on aggregate Kyiv leveled the match in the 34th minute before we finished the scoring in the 38th minute and that was it for goals in the match. we took the tie 7-4.

Quarter Final

HK 2-0 Manchester City This match included a first for me. The first time one of my players has returned to play against me in Continental Competition. Milton Favre an Argentinian\French Midfielder whom I picked up for £3.3M before City took him off my hands 6 months later for £5.75M returned to HK Staduim but it was an unhappy return. he picked up a yellow card and city lost the match. If he didn't leave he could still be playing Continental Football, sucker.

Manchester City 1-1 HK City huffed and puffed but they couldn't blow our advantage down. They took an early lead buy we equalised on the hour mark to kevel up the match and give ourselves an away goal. No matter what they threw at the Flying Fritz he took the MotM award with 14 saves including one from the spot. That would be some great fantasy points right there.

Afterwards the Man City Manager Paulo Bento told the media he's not my biggest fan. I'd be hurt if I gave a stuff. I'm still in Europe, you're not!

[Jolanthustrel]

All good things must come to an end

Europa Cup Semi Final

[deltablue]

Good run though.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks Deltablue,

I felt once we drew København we'd have a good run, we ultimately could have drawn Leverkusen in that first round and not gome anywhere so I got lucky, but we milked it for all it was worth.

Thankfully I went on a youth spending spree at the end of last year so Ultimately they played the ULC while my 'first team' played in Europe.

[Jolanthustrel]

Mateusz Duda is the first player I've bought to take up Icelandic Citizenship, with the hopes of playing Internationally for Iceland. Unfortunately for him Icelandic RB Gauti Borgþórsson is also ahead of him in the pecking order at the club. English Defender, Iain Ryan, and Portuguese CM, Ivo Magalhaes, are also close to taking up Icelandic citizenship and should also be in contention for positions in the Icelandic National Team.

I kind of feel sorry for Poland though in regards to Mateusz Duda. First he feels he'd only accept a call up from the German national team, then he goes for Iceland Poland never got a look in.

[Jolanthustrel]

Damn add\remove leagues bug. I now have over 300k players in the game and it's really grinding. If I hadn't updated to 8GB RAM it would be even more painful. While the Matches still play with good speed, getting through the long Icelandic winters is starting to take its toll in boredom.

I might shelve this game for a bit. I recon I'm just one good european season from geting automatic Group stage status in the Champions League so I'm disappointed in leaving just short of that goal. I'm also getting tired of my reputation being dragged down by the rest of the Icelandic teams who just fight it out for 2nd place and having my players whinge that they want to move to bigger teams.

[cswalk08]

Just read up on this career. Fantastics work! You had one hell of a run in the Europa league. Shame about the bug and speed issues you're dealing with. Best of luck in resolving them and hopefully you can continue this great save.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks mate,

It's been a lot of fun. I've really grown attached to this team and the players who've come through the club. I'll try to push on through this season and give a 10 year update to wrap things up then just update European Achievements if I continue.

[Jolanthustrel]

English Defender, Iain Ryan, and Portuguese CM, Ivo Magalhaes, are also close to taking up Icelandic citizenship and should also be in contention for positions in the Icelandic National Team.

Both have now made their Debuts for the Icelandic National Team. Ivo Magalhaes interestingly made his debut for his adopted country against the country of his birth.

[nie jem frytek]

Any updates?

[Jolanthustrel]

Well I've loaded up this save again. Expect to see a few updates coming over the next week.

[deltablue]

Welcome back.

[Jolanthustrel]

Just realised I'm 2 seasons behind on updates, 3 with the current season I'm playing... anyway, here's the first of them.

Season 2020 Review

Icelandic Upper League Cup: Won easily by my reserves as the first team was pushing through the knockout stages of the Europa League. Guthni Olaffson lead the tournament with 9 goals while Irish Winger, Ellis Ross, chipped in with 7 assists. The final was very one sided as we beat Fylkir 4-1.

Icelandic Champions Cup: Another one sided affair as we scored all four goals in a 3-1 victory over Keflavik.

Icelandic Premier Division: Won 21 Drew 1, only blemish on an almost perfect league season was a 3-3 draw with Keflavik when my players probably had an eye on the up coming fixture against Bayern Munich. Scored 91 goals helped by Croatian Striker, Dario Zivkovic scoring 12 goals in the final three games of the season almost snatching the golden boot from Didier Simondi.

Champions League Qualifying Rounds: Dinamo Bucharest (8-1 agg) Mogren (5-1 Agg) and BATE (7-2 Agg) were all brushed aside rather convincingly to reach the group stages thanks to 9 goals from Didier Simondi. The only blip being a first up draw against the Montenegrin side Mogren.

Champions League Group Stage: Feyenoord, Olympic Marseilles, and Bayern Munich all stood in my way at the group stage. A first up 1-2 loss to Bayern followed by a 0-0 draw against Feyenoord had me worried about missing the knockout rounds of both European Comps, then a trip to the French Riviera kick started our campaign again. 0-1 win in France thanks to a goal just after half time from Carlos Cunha followed by a 3-0 win back on home turf including two goals minutes either side of the break shell-shocked OM.

Bayern once again reminded us that were still a small fish in a big pond with a 3-1 defeat meaning we had to match OM’s result against Bayern to go through to the Champions League Knockout rounds if we lost and OM won or drew we were back in Europa Knockouts.

News came through from France that OM had won 2-0 but that didn’t matter, we beat Feyenoord 3-1 to snatch second spot on results between us and OM, a better for and against also sealed the deal.

Awards:
Golden Boot: Didier Simondi (27), Dario Zivkovic (22)
Footballer of the year: 2nd Carlos Cunha, 3rd Iain Ryan
Young Player of the Year: Ronaldao
Goal of the Year: 1st Matej Baglama (Curled effort from 18yds)
Manager of the Year: Me
Fair Play Team of the year: 2nd HK
Team of the Year: Fritz Markle, Iain Ryan, Carlos Cunha, Didier Simondi,

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2021 Review

Champions League Knockout Rounds (2020/2021): Man City took revenge for their defeat in last seasons Europa Cup Quarter Final. We lost 2-0 at home and with nothing to lose I tried to play an overload style but we lost the return leg in Manchester 3-1 to bomb out 5-1 on Aggregate.

Icelandic Upper League Cup: We scored goals for fun. Apart from a first up 2-1 win over cross town rivals Brei∂ablik we never scored less than 4 goals for the rest of the competition. 4-0 Vikingur, 9-1 Selfoss, 4-3 IBV, 4-0 KR, 11-0 Valur, 6-2 Þrottur, Semi Final 7-1 FH, Final 6-2 IA

Icelandic Champions Cup: Another one sided affair as we defeated Grindavik 4-1

Icelandic Cup: Another competition we just phoned in. Only the final against Keflavik gave us any issues as we only won 2-1.

Icelandic Premier Division: Won 21 lost 1, only blemish on an almost perfect league season was a 2-1 loss with Grindavik. Again just before a Champions League fixture so maybe the concentration wasn’t completely on the game at hand. This season saw us crack 100 goals in the league finishing up with 106 for and only 7 against. Such an amazing development since only 5 years ago we’d only scored 39 goals in the league.

Champions League Qualifying Rounds: My good European runs have started to pay off for Iceland’s co-efficient. This season we were placed into the third round qualifying instead of our usual start in the second round. We brushed past Skenderbeu of Albania (9-0 agg) and Sheriff of Moldova (6-1 Agg) to ease into the group stage.

Champions League Group Stage: PSG, Olympiakos, and Bayern Munich met us in the group stage. We started the group stage with a 2-1 loss in Paris before coming home to stun Munich by the same score line. Then Olympiakos felt our wrath. We’d met before in my first group stage where the results were 0-0 at home and a 1-0 won to the Greeks to see them into Europa. Those results were not repeated. 5-0 win at home was just the warm up to an 8-1 thrashing in Greece. Didier Simondi scoring 8 goals over the two legs (2 at home, 6 in Greece).

PSG were welcomed to Iceland with -4’C temps but after our goal scoring exploits against Olympiakos I thought we might be in with a chance but the French resisted our attack and scored just before the break. Fortunately they left us enough time to level things up before the halftime whistle and that’s how the game remained until fulltime.

Out for revenge for their loss earlier in the group stage, Bayern burst out of the blocks with goals in the first and tenth minutes. We never really recovered after that and were always playing catch up. South African striker Abduraghmaan Brown dragged one back on the hour mark but Bayern were too good at home and we lost 2-1. A draw with Bayern probably would have seen us through to the Champions League knockout stages as Bayern, PSG and ourselves would have finished on 11 points but we fell just short and were relegated to Europa again.



Awards:
Fair Play Team of the year: 2nd HK
Footballer of the year: 1st Andrey Semenov 2nd Guido Vanhamel, 3rd Iain Ryan
Goal of the Year: 1st Dario Zivkovic (Takes on two players before scoring with a powerful shot)
Golden Boot: Dario Zivkovic (23), Didier Simondi (19), Abduraghmaan Brown (14)
Young Player of the Year: Ronaldao
Manager of the Year: 2nd Me
Team of the Year: Fritz Markle, Gauti Borgþorson, Andrey Semenov, Iain Ryan, Ronaldão, Didier Simondi, Guido Vanhamel, Dario Zivkovic

[ashton321]

Good stuff this mate just read from start to finish you have some amazing progress well done

[deltablue]

Getting decent in Europe now I see.

[Jolanthustrel]

Good stuff this mate just read from start to finish you have some amazing progress well done

Thanks mate, I got lucky early on and have built solidly on that ever since.

Getting decent in Europe now I see.

Yeah if we get a favourable run we can go far. If we can miss the real BIG clubs, I recon we could snatch the Europa League, I just have to learn to avoid Man City now. After beating them in the Europa League QF a few seasons ago, they've blocked my progress in the next two seasons. Paulo Bento really doesn't like me for some reason. French team Managers also hate me\my style of football. :\

Next season in europe, Iceland have an automatic Group stage spot.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2022 Review

Europa League Knockout Rounds (2021/2022): Galatasaray gave us a scare in Turkey, Going a goal up early before we were able to pull one back just before half time. They scored again to make it 2-1 with fifteen minutes left to play but some heroics from Brown and Zivkovic in the final ten minutes snatched a 2-3 victory. The return leg was a 3-0 win to us with Zivkovic grabbing a brace and Simondi grabbing one to take the tie 6-2.

Next up Monaco, WE drew 1-1 with the Monegasque team scoring shortly after the halftime break through Argentine Striker. Arevalo. Monaco hit straight back after the restart and that’s the way the game finished and thankfully for us, with a vital away goal. The return leg saw another tight affair, up 1-0 at the half thanks to Zivkovic Monaco then levelled things up with a goal just after the hour mark. With extra time looming French winger Jacquot popped up to slot home the winner with 7 minutes left on the clock.

A scrappy affair in the Quarter final vs Man City knocked us out of the competition. A 1-0 loss it in Manchester followed by a 0-0 draw at home was the best we could muster and we were knocked out of Europe once again to Man City.

Icelandic Upper League Cup: We again scored goals for fun. 45 goals scored, 3 conceded in nine games. Our ‘worst’ result was 3-1. A semi-final 12-1 thumping over cross town rivals Brei∂ablik was the highlight of the cup that culminated in a 4-0 win over Leiknir Raykjavik.

Icelandic Champions Cup: A repeat of the ULC final almost even down to the goal scorers as Simondi scored his second hat-trick in 2 games.

Icelandic Cup: Won again, beating Keflavik 3-0 in the final. Only goal we conceded was against lower division side Neisti Hofsos.

Icelandic Premier Division: Won 20 Drew 2, 87 for 6 against. Internationals took a whole host of players for one of the draws while the other draw I put out a severely weakened side to rest my stars for the Champions league group stage. Still disappointing to draw, I thought they should have been up to it.

Simondi scored 30 goals in the league, and missed two games through international duty and a rest. I’m really going to miss him when a big team puts in a bid too good for my chairman to refuse. He currently had 110 league goals from 89 games.


Champions League Qualifying Rounds: Bohemians (Ire) were dispatched with ease, 5-2 in Irelamd then 6-0 at home for 11-2 aggregate win. BATE Borisov stood between us and the Champions League group stage. In a tie that was tougher than it should have been we drew 1-1 on Belarus before a 1-0 win at home put us through. (I did win that home tie 6-2 but the game crashed making me replay it.)


Champions League Group Stage:

Barcelona 2-0 HK: Barcelona cruise past HK at Camp Nou
HK 3-2 Fiorentina: Simondi’s 50th goal of the season sees HK past La Viola
HK 11-0 Young Boys: Young Boys Spanked in Iceland
Young Boys 1-3 HK: Simondi brace helps HK see off Young Boys at Wankdorf
HK 3-3 Barcelona:HK & Barca warm up cold Icelandic night with high scoring draw.
Fiorentina 1-2 HK: O.G. brace sees HK out of the Group Stage

Awards:
Footballer of the year: 1st Iain Ryan 2nd Ronaldão
Goal of the Year: 2nd Abduraghmaan Brown (Curled past the keeper from the edge of the area) 3rd Didier Simondi (Takes on two players before scoring with a powerful effort)
Golden Boot: Didier Simondi (30), Dario Zivkovic (14)
Young Player of the Year: 1st Martin Krsko, 3rd Nicolae Constantin
Manager of the Year: 2nd Me
Team of the Year: Martin Krsko, Iain Ryan, Ronaldão, Didier Simondi

[deltablue]

Seemed like Man City was close.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks Delta,

Yeah, I was disappointed not to at least score at home. While against the smaller sides we can be devestatingly leathal we're still lacking the cutting edge against the bigger sides. Yery wasteful in front of goal. Man City are starting to become a bit of a bogey side at the moment. I'm hoping to avoid them in the knock out stages of the Champions league.

[Jolanthustrel]

10 Years On
HK's best overall 11

Name              Pos  Apps   Gls   Rat

Fritz Markle      GK   204     0   7.05
Mateusz Duda      DR   152     0   7.20
Iain Ryan         DC   296    48   7.41
Andrey Semenov    DC    92    12   7.57
Ronaldao          DL   169     1   7.49
Carlos Cunha      MC   172    26   7.49
Guido Vanhamel    MC    99     9   7.33
Didier Simondi    AMR  181   215   8.19
Sebastien Jacquot AML   97    39   8.06
John Aleksic      SC   156    79   7.56
Gu∂ni Olafsson    SC   123    61   7.38

Reserves

Jesse Joronen     GK   156     0   6.83
H. K. Halldorsson DC    89     4   7.06
Ivo Magalhaes     MC   101    11   7.18
Hafsteinn Briem   MC    97    25   6.99
Joachim Oswald    SC   101    54   7.43
Gauti Borgþórsson DR   141     2   7.34
Dario Zivkovic    SC    86   100   8.13

Iain Ryan is club captain and since taking up Icelandic citizenship also national captain.
Mateusz Duda and Ivo Magalhaes have also taken up Icelandic citizenship and played for Iceland.
Gauti Borgþórsson & Gu∂ni Olafsson are both Youth Products and also play in the national team.
Didier Simondi has been named in the World Team of the Year starting XI in 2021 and 2022