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Crazy Canuck on Tour: The Homecoming


rancer890

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FM12 (Latest Patch)

Leagues Loaded, down to lowest tier, no xml files except the US/Canada one:

  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Belgium
  • Brazil
  • China
  • England
  • France
  • Germany
  • Hong Kong
  • India
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Malaysia
  • Mexico
  • Netherlands
  • Northern Ireland
  • Portugal
  • Russia
  • Scotland
  • Singapore
  • South Africa
  • South Korea
  • Spain
  • Turkey
  • Ukraine
  • USA - extends in Canada (Custom File)
  • Wales

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Club: Markham Marauders

Location: Markham, Ontario

Founded: 2012 (or just imagine they began in 2011)

Rivals: Belleville Squires

The Pitch (along with 500 imaginary seats):

Walker Park

Corporate Facilities: Fairly Basic

Training Facilities: Basic

Youth Facilities: Minimal

Junior Coaching: Basic

Youth Recruitment: Limited

The Goal: Get the Markham Marauders to the MLS and beyond

The Task: A youth only policy. I can sign coaches though

The Challenge: This team is in the 8th tier, we start out as an amateur club

I will try to stick with my policy as long as possible and with discipline...

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Some questions you may ask:

1. Why are you doing this?

Because I'm going on the youth only bandwagon and I want to have an enjoyable save without any crash dumps

2. Is Markham your local club?

No, I don't live in Markham but they're the 'most local' one in the custom DB. I don't live near Walker Park though, I don't really travel that way when I'm in Markham. I could have also started with the North York Astros since I have passed by the pitch IRL (not far from uni) but they're aren't at the bottom.

3. So you're finally doing a one club save...

Yes this will probably be a one club save. Unless Everton offers me the job, then it will be a two club save with no restrictions with the Toffees.

4. Is this your final thread for a FM12 save?

Yes. I won't make another one if this one crashes till FM13.

5. Hey!!! That's not Markham Marauder's real logo!!!

It isn't. It's McMaster University's main logo. They just happen to also be called the Marauders.

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So hope this goes well. :)

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2011 Season - Markham Marauders - St. Lawrence Soccer League

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Standings | Past Positions | Fixtures - The St. Lawrence Soccer League consists of only Canadian clubs around the St. Lawrence River. Solid job by us to narrowly win the title and avoid the promotion playoff.

North American Amateur Cup - Cup competition for Amateur clubs. We did really well making it to the Final, but we lost in the Final, most importantly losing out on an extra $150k...

North American Open Cup - Open cup for all clubs. I'm pleased we made it that far in the competition.

Ontario Cup - cup competition for clubs in the province, I didn't really lose much sleep over this, because I didn't want the fixture congestion...

Transfers - we didn't get anyone. We didn't really need to.

Squad - Decent squad. Don't ever trust the star ratings though!

GK - Kyle Piagini

DR - Ian Ferracci

DC - John Tannenbaum

DC - Simon Niksic

DL - Alex Gomez

MR - Frank Stubbs

MC - Valerio Parrotta

MC - Jason Goddard

ML - Steve Rajkovic

ST - Juvaune Campbell

ST - Barrington Smith

Overview | Facilities | Finances

Managerial Stats

2011 Season

Goals for Next Season

  • Survive
  • Improve Youth Facilities


Year Division Tier Position Notes
2011 St. Lawrence Soccer League 8 1st Promotion, North American Amateur Cup Finalists

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Good start Rancer. Good luck going forward :thup:.

Cheers SRL88!

Good start to your career and congrats on promotion.Maybe one day Canada can become a force on the World stage if the players are good enough :D

Well I'll try my best to improve the youth in the country then! Long way to go though. :D

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Good to see you back, rancer! Hopefully this save lasts and there's no computer problems! :)

Cheers cerud. I'm glad to be back (couldn't login via my main internet for a couple days) but I'm happy with this save and this youth only challenge. :)

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2012 Season - Markham Marauders - Colonial Amateur League

Standings | Past Positions | Fixtures | Semi-Final Leg 1 Semi-Final Leg 2 | Final Leg 1 Final Leg 2 - All this was unbelievable. I'm still at a loss of words. We had a great start, terrible middle part, and we narrowly LaSalle to move up into 5th spot and a playoff date against FC Westchester. First leg was alright, till the end when we gave up a key goal, but we did get the away goal. 2nd leg of the Semi-Finals we attacked and didn't hold back all game and we were rewarded with a victory large enough to advance to the Playoff Final against Buxmont, who manhandled us in the 2 meetings this season. First leg, we lost but I was very encouraged by our play, because it was unlike the other times we played them. The 2nd leg, like the Semis, were a do-or-die winner take all situation and once again I told the lads to attack. We dominated regular time to push the game to extra time, where we struck twice and hung on for the win, and thus getting promotion to tier 6, the Colonial Division 2. This promotion was really unexpected, and after we clinched promotion, I did get all excited and punch the air a few times. :D

North American Amateur Cup - It was a bit annoying we lost at the first hurdle, because my finances were so good last year because we went to the Final.

North American Open Cup - We couldn't get to the first round proper again, but at the stage we lost was realistically the most I could hope for.

Colonial Cup - I would have loved to make the Final but we will be in the competition again next season so I'll try my best.

Ontario Cup - There's no prize money till the Semi-Finals so I once again didn't want to create even more of a fixture congestion with this cup.

Transfers - Lost two players to Barrie in the St. Lawrence Soccer League. We didn't miss a beat.

Squad - With much more talent at my disposal there's a clearer indication who can bring in to the next level and who won't contribute as much in the 6th tier next season. Still don't trust the star ratings since 0.5 star Barrington Smith is still very useful. He can shoot penalties unlike the rest of the squad.

GK - Kyle Piagini | Jeremy Nascimento

DR - Emilio Rotundo | Tyler Bishop

DC - John Tannenbaum

DC - Wyn Bourgault

DL - Simon Niksic

MR - Frank Stubbs

MC - Paul Osman | Valerio Parrotta

MC - Jason Goddard

ML - Steve Rajkovic

ST - Radford Sinclair (YP1)

ST - Barrington Smith | Edoardo Varnier

Overview | Facilities | Finances

Managerial Stats

2011 Season

2012 Season

Goals for Next Season

  • Survive again
  • Get enough money to improve youth facilities. Finishing top half in the Colonial Division 2 would mean a 6 figure payout at the end of the season so that's definitely enough promotion for me to finally be able to have enough money to improve facilities.

Year     Division                    Tier     Position                                                            Notes
2011     St. Lawrence Soccer League     8          1st                  Promotion, North American Amateur Cup Finalists
2012     Colonial Amateur League        7          4th                                                        Promotion

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Congrats on promotion! So what league do you go to now in this new North American pyramid?

Colonial Division 2, which is the 6th tier. The Colonial Premier League is the tier above that and then there are 4 professional tiers, from bottom to top: USL Pro West/East, USL Pro, NASL, and finally, MLS. It's going to be bloody hard though to get into the top 2 tiers because you can't promote automatically, you have to beat the worst team that season first.

Great start so far, rancer! I love the fact that your 500 capacity stadium is all-seated :D

It's all seated, you just have to bring your own chairs to Walker Park. :D

And there's also plenty of room for expansion!

Not too bad a start.
Another nice season. Well done.

Cheers deltablue and SRL! :thup:

We'll hopefully settle in a division soon although I won't hold back if we get another opportunity for promotion. We need the money if we don't have good cup runs like this past season.

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2012 Major League Soccer

I will post this every year to see the progression of all 20 clubs in MLS. In short, the 20 teams in this semi-exclusive division are the 19 clubs in MLS right now in the real life season, as well as the New York Cosmos. Top 6 make playoffs, with the seeding rounds 3 vs 6, and 4 vs 5. Those two winners go into a draw to face one of the top 2 teams in the MLS regular season, and the Final consists of a 2-legged aggregate to crown the MLS champion. This setup favours many of the initial franchises as it gives them some security that they won't be relegated easily, and is definitely rewarding if a club from the NASL can knockout the worst MLS club out of the division. The Philadelphia Union defeated the Chicago Fire for the 2011 title.

The team that finishes 20th go into a relegation playoff with the top 3 teams in the 2nd tier NASL (North American Soccer League). It is a 2 round, 2-legged aggregate. The San Jose Earthquakes finished last in 2011 but managed to avoid the embarrassment of being relegated. Toronto FC were really close that 20th spot, but they managed to steer towards some wins after sacking Aron Winter and replacing him with Michael Laudrup.

Here are the 2012 Standings:

MajorLeagueSoccerOverview_Stages-5.png

The surprise winners this year are the Montreal Impact. In only their 2nd season of MLS, they have won the MLS title. They defeated Columbus and regular season winners FC Dallas, before facing the New York Cosmos to see which team would win the MLS Cup in their 2nd season of operation at the top flight, and the Impact came out on top.

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Budgets wise, the highest budget team doesn't necessarily have the best results, as you can see from the poor season by the LA Galaxy.

MajorLeagueSoccerStats_TeamStats.png

There is already a gulf in the Big 3, who are the two New York clubs and the LA Galaxy. The rest of the teams are evenly packed in terms of salary, and it's nice to see that even though parity has been eliminated the richest clubs don't always win. Not too surprised the Revs (ownership doesn't care about the soccer team), Rapids (they always seemed to have smaller budgets than the rest of the league from what I know), and the Crew (small market, and seems more of a college sports town with the success of college football and basketball at Ohio State.)

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MajorLeagueSoccerStats_PlayerStats.png

With the increase of budgets of teams because of the amount of money these clubs make, it's a bit surprising the Golden Boot winner is Chris Wondolowski, a player who has spent his entire career in MLS, mostly with the San Jose Earthquakes. As you can see, he was bought by Montreal which certainly helped with their run to the championship. Many names are still recognizable to me so the league hasn't been entirely run over from players who are just new to the league.

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MajorLeagueSoccerTransfers_Transfers.png

This is definitely the biggest change. With European-like transfer system of buying players instead of the restrictive trading in the past, teams are now spending the money to acquire their talent. At the high end, teams are spending 8 figures to get players, just from other MLS teams. Some Canadian and American players are also getting the opportunity to come (or come back) to MLS to play, the examples here being Michael Bradley, Jose Torres, Josh Simpson, and Edgar Castillo.

These clubs have money to spend, but they aren't acquiring players from the biggest clubs in the world. The only two notable players from Europe are MB from Chievo, and Kyle Bartley, who couldn't get any games with the Gunners and spent the 2011-2012 season with Rangers when they weren't bankrupt, to the Cosmos.

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And that's a wrap for the 2012 MLS Season review! Hopefully, more different segments will be published for the 2nd review in 2013!

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Markham Marauders - Colonial Division 2

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Youth Intake 2013

MarkhamMaruadersYouthCandidatesSquad_Players.png

The best player of the intake:

Anthony Baker

Other players who could make an immediate impact this season:

Odain Walters

Justin Hastings

Annoyed we didn't get a LM or RM but we'll take any good players. All players above 2 stars CA and above will be signed, because of the unreliability of the star ratings and I can't afford all these wages.

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Markham Marauders - Colonial Division 2

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Media Prediction: 20th in a 20 team league

Colonial Division 2 Expectations: Avoid relegation

North American Amateur Cup: Reach 2nd Qualifying Round

Colonial Cup: Have fun

Ontario Cup: Have fun

Transfer Budget: $25.75k

Wage Budget: $95k (currently spending $37,856)

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We're favourites for relegation but I think we got the squad to survive.

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definitely doesn't look like an easy challenge but i'm sure you'll stick to it and eventually get to the MLS, good luck!

Cheers Paul! I will try my best and it's definitely a fun challenge and a bit different. I'm definitely stick with this it's much more rewarding than signing players and going up the ranks quickly.

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You definitely have room in that wage budget! Will your gate receipts and other incomes be enough to balance this out?

I have no interest in actually spending a lot of wages. We lost money every month unless we got prize money from the cup competitions and the end of season bonuses.

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2013 Season - Markham Marauders - Colonial Division 2

Standings | Past Positions | Fixtures - A solid season when we were tipped for relegation. I was really excited after the 19 game mark when the league got split because that guaranteed a 6-figure payout at the end of the season. We could have finished 6th and pocketed an extra $20k ($130k for finishing 8th vs $150k for finishing 6th) but i'll live with 8th which is a very solid mid-table finish.

North American Open Cup - Lost in the same round as all the other times.

Colonial Cup - disappointed we lost in the 1st Round considering last year's run.

Ontario Cup - no big deal for now...

Transfers - I released a few players who were mostly useless.

Squad - A 5 star starting XI...but hopefully new players can challenge the current ones for places on the squad in the upcoming intake.

Key Players:

Anthony Baker - Our leading scorer this season. He did a solid job considering this was his first year playing football against other semi-pro clubs

Emilio Rotundo - a solid season overall by Rotundo. He had some bad games but overall I was really pleased with his performance

Frank Stubbs - he's got crappy attributes, but he can still score and dish out assists at this level. He's just a really solid player from our humble beginnings as an amateur club

Youth Players:

2012 - Radford Sinclair - What a terrible season after so much promise in 2012. He's considered more talented than Baker but scored 0 league goals all season. It's been 1538 minutes (nearly 26 hours!) since his last goal in a competitive competition in the first cup game of the season.

2013 - Anthony Baker

Overview | Facilities | Finances | Affiliations

The money from the affiliation isn't much, but it'll cover the wages of 2 youth contracts and half the wage of a 3rd one so any money helps. I have no interest in loaning their players and will reject it.

Managerial Stats

2011 Season

2012 Season

2013 Season

Notes/Goals for Next Season

  • I'm really happy with the season. I was even kind of thankful I didn't go into the playoffs again...because we had trouble against the top teams in the league as you can see from the results.
  • Build on the past season finish. We need more quality though and more of our players need to perform.
  • Get enough money to improve youth facilities. I think we need closer to $500k so we might be a year or (at worst) two years away from improving them barring an epic collapse down the standings by us next season. However, we do have adequate junior coaching so that will help.

Year     Division                    Tier     Position                                                            Notes
2011     St. Lawrence Soccer League     8          1st                  Promotion, North American Amateur Cup Finalists
2012     Colonial Amateur League        7          4th                                                        Promotion
2013     Colonial Division 2            6          8th                                                              N/A

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Good progress rancer. Probably good not to fly up the leagues as the quailty will catch you up too quickly. Still, consolidation in that division is more than respectable. Hopefully this downloaded league structure is more stable than the last one you had.

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Congrats on the promotion in 2012 and well done or surviving in your first season at tier six level.Hopefully you can show improvement in 2014 and that it gives you some good youth players :D

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Good start to your career so far.

Nice layout as well, very easy to read.

I support Everton as well, nice to see you do to, I wonder if they'll ever come in for you. :D

Cheers Tricky-Jigsaw. I'm a very slow writer of updates so for me, short and to the point is my kind of style.

Everton already sacked their manager once already....but for me to even have a chance at the job I have to get Markham into MLS first! It's nice to see another Everton fan, need more of them around here. :D

Good progress rancer. Probably good not to fly up the leagues as the quailty will catch you up too quickly. Still, consolidation in that division is more than respectable. Hopefully this downloaded league structure is more stable than the last one you had.

Cheers Raware. I hope so too! We were a bit lucky with the results this season (heck I think we were lucky every season I managed...) but I just wanted to finish in the upper half of the table for the money so now I know how we stack up it's time to see how far I can push for another promotion.

Congrats on the promotion in 2012 and well done or surviving in your first season at tier six level.Hopefully you cam show improvement in 2014 and that it gives you some good yoth players :D

Thanks B.W.G. I have received your blessing now. :D

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A good solid season of consolidation, and not too far off the top six either

Personally, two Everton fans around here is more than enough :D

Nah, we need more. Or just one more than Liverpool fans. :D

You may now resume flying up the leagues :D

Will try my best deltablue! :lol:

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RickyNakanoNews_Inbox-4.png

I would move if this was a normal career game, but I'm staying with Markham for the duration of this save unless Everton (and now) Rizhiquan come for me. The latter feels like a local club because I got connections with Guangdong province. It's not the right club I would choose if I wanted to manage in China anyways (that would be one of: Beijing Guo'an, Tianjin TEDA, Shandong Luneng, Guangzhou Hengda, Guangzhou Fuli, or my favourite one Guangdong Rizhiquan).

But nice to see how my rep is like in this save. :)

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2013 Major League Soccer

MajorLeagueSoccerOverview_Stages-6.png

Quarter-Final (2 leg aggregate)

(6) Philadelphia Union 1-3 Seattle Sounders (3)

(5) LA Galaxy 4-2 New England Revolution (4)

Semi-Final (2 leg aggregate)

(2) Chivas USA 2-5 Seattle Sounders (3)

(1) Sporting KC (a) 1-1 LA Galaxy (5)

MLS Cup Final (2 leg aggregate)

(1) Sporting KC 3-4 Seattle Sounders (3)

Another exciting MLS season has come to a close, with the Seattle Sounders being the first West-Coast based team to win the 'new' MLS. Last year's finalists Montreal Impact and the famous New York Cosmos didn't have the best of seasons, and finished in the bottom half, with the free-spending Cosmos only 6 points off from having to deal with the Relegation Playoff. The schedule format in the league (actually the schedule format for all the American leagues), 1 game against each opponent, before the league splits into 2 and you have to play another 9 games to determine the playoff seeding at the upper half, and determines who goes into the playoff at the bottom half of the table. A bad start could already mean you're behind the 8-ball because you're scrambling to just get into the top half of the table after 19 games, just to have a chance to get a playoff spot and lift the trophy at the end of the season.

So despite the lack of salary cap, there is still a lot of parity in the league in the early goings for now. The finalists of the 2011 MLS Cup, the Chicago Fire had to leave with tough Relegation Playoff round, but they defeated FC Edmonton and the Puerto Rico Islanders to remain in the league.

MajorLeagueSoccerStats_PlayerStats-1.png

A bit more change from last season, but this league is still very reliant on players before this new formation: American players (some coming back to America from Europe or Mexico) and South American players.

MajorLeagueSoccerStats_TeamStats-1.png

Only one of the 3 big spenders managed to make the playoffs. The club in 4th had to avoid the embarrassment of being the first ever club to be relegated in the history of American soccer. Some clubs increased salary last season, like the Revolution, and that paid off with a playoff appearance.

MajorLeagueSoccerTransfers_Transfers-1.png

Gotta love no salary cap in MLS...still waiting for a star player from Europe to get transferred to MLS though.

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2014 World Cup - Hosts: Brazil

The group stage draw results:

Group A - Ukraine, Brazil, Australia, Gabon

Group B - USA, Spain, Sweden, Uruguay

Group C - Morocco, Chile, Austria, England

Group D - Mexico, Italy, Ivory Coast, Paraguay

Group E - Colombia, Japan, France, Greece

Group F - Senegal, Canada, Russia, Croatia - we finished in 4th in the Hex and had to go though the hard way (the playoffs) to get to Brazil

Group G - Argentina, South Korea, Turkey, Jamaica

Group H - Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, Slovenia

Notable absentees:

CAF - Nigeria, Egypt

AFC/OFC - New Zealand

UEFA - Germany, Netherlands

CONCACAF - Honduras

CONMEBOL - none

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Markham Marauders - Colonial Division 2

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Youth Intake 2014

MarkhamMaruadersYouthCandidatesSquad_Players-1.png

At least the new candidates have some positions i need depth in, although maybe it was a bit overboard with the amount of wingers I got. :D

Still looking for that 5 star CA 'keeper so I don't have to keep resigning my current one and save some wages in the process.

Angelo Carmelo Matheson - I shortened his name because the nickname was too long is fit his entire name, but I think he can challenge for a spot in the first team in the 2014 season.

All players with bids I will be signing, all who aren't signed on the first day will probably not be signed by me. I do have to be a bit wary of how much money we're spending.

As for our club reputation, we're only predicted to finish 19th so our rep has gone by from last year (we were predicted 20th) but I'll be happy to expect the same from last season.

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I just sacked Daniel Hudson as an Ass Man and replaced him with Ahmad Manning, a former player on his first job as a backroom staff member.

I don't mind paying him a bit of wages, since he's only paid a bit more than a youth player, but he's a big improvement and hopefully he'll help figure out the best youths during the intakes.

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Tough group for Canada although it does suck to be USA with that Group.Looks like you had a very good youth intake and best of luck for the new season.

I feel my ass man lied to me. It looked too good to be true and the star ratings aren't too impressive now...so I sacked him and replaced him with someone better. :)

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I just sacked Daniel Hudson as an Ass Man and replaced him with Ahmad Manning, a former player on his first job as a backroom staff member.

I don't mind paying him a bit of wages, since he's only paid a bit more than a youth player, but he's a big improvement and hopefully he'll help figure out the best youths during the intakes.

He is FAR better, JPA, JPP is worth a lot of money in my view.

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He is FAR better, JPA, JPP is worth a lot of money in my view.

Yeah, I didn't really care till the part where the last batch seemed too good to be true and I also thought it would be a wise investment to actually pay for a backroom staff member now since we're aren't making much profit but making a bit of money nonetheless. He was also cheaper than the other options who wanted like $15,000 which was way too much who weren't that much better so happy to sign my new Ass Man who is much cheaper.

Seconded, good call on the assistant front. Your original guy was pretty shambolic!

Yeah definitely! Good thing he wasn't on a wage to begin with! I might start paying the other members of my staff, probably starting with the physio so we get less injuries this season....

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2014 FIFA World Cup - Hosts: Brazil

Group Stage

Group A - Brazil, Ukraine, Gabon, Australia

Group B - Uruguay, USA, Sweden, Spain (they drew Sweden, and lost to Uruguay (1-3) and USA (0-2)!)

Group C - England, Chile, Austria, Morocco

Group D - Mexico, Paraguay, Italy, Ivory Coast

Group E - Colombia, Greece, France, Japan

Group F - Russia, Croatia, Canada, Senegal (Canada beat Senegal 2-1, lost to Russia 3-0 and Croatia 5-2)

Group G - Argentina, South Korea, Turkey, Jamaica

Group H - Portugal, Slovenia, Saudi Arabia, Ghana

Second Round

USA 1-0 Brazil

Uruguay 2-0 Ukraine

Paraguay 0-1 England

Mexico 0-0 (p) Chile

Croatia 1-3 Colombia

Greece (p) 1-1 Russia

Argentina 0-1 Slovenia

Portugal 2-0 South Korea

Quarter-Final

USA 0-1 (e) Chile

Uruguay 1-0 England

Colombia (e) 2-0 Portugal

Greece 1-0 Slovenia

Semi-Final

Chile 1-0 Greece

Uruguay 4-1 Colombia

3rd Place Playoff

Greece 0-1 (e) Colombia

Final

Chile 0-2 Uruguay

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Awards

Best Goalkeeper - Joe Hart (England/Man City)

Golden Ball - Alan Dzagoev (Russia/CSKA Moscow), Theo Walcott (England/Arsenal), Gaston Ramirez (Uruguay/Valencia)

Golden Shoe - Pato (Brazil/AC Milan), Edison Cavani (Uruguay/Tottenham), Mario Mandzukic (Croatia/Lazio)

Best Young Player - Joao Bolano (Colombia/At. Madrid)

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So a crazy World Cup comes to an end. Can't wait for Russia 2018. :D

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Much better assistant. They are definitely worth the money you pay them if you use them well.

Also added a Fitness Coach, and Physio. Unfortunately I seem to have more injuries after I signed the physio!!!

I also requested and received a junior coaching upgrade, we are now at 'Average', so hoping for better youths in the future.

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