ghostwriter Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 This was originally a game for Big Euro Challenge over on the CSE forum but I am not getting FM14 and I wish to continue playing this game (and updating) so I thought I would transfer it over here so I can continue to do both for a lot longer. I am far from completing it (win La Liga + CL) and even if by some miracle I do manage that, I may well change clubs (maybe even country) and try to do the same thing all over again. I am several seasons in so I have some updates to post which I will do over a couple of weeks until I catch up with where I am now. Anyway, here we go... Peña Deportiva Santa Eulalia They are from Santa Eulalia del Rio (or Santa Eulària des Riu in Catalan) which is the 3rd biggest town on the island of Ibiza with a population of 13,000. It also contains the only river on the whole island which flows into the sea here (hence the town's name). The team were founded in 1935 and have basically spent their whole lifetime in the lower divisions apart from 2 excursions into Segunda B which were swiftly followed by immediate relegation. Lets hope their 3rd excursion does not follow suit. They play in the originally named Estadio Municipal de Santa Eulària des Riu which has a capacity of 2,500. The Manager The Team The Squad – does not look too bad but with only 5 defenders (2 of which are dire) and very few left feet, purchases will need to be made. We do have an Angolan international though who looks our best player The Stadium Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted October 31, 2013 Author Share Posted October 31, 2013 Segunda B3 – 2013/2014 After the usual first-Summer wheeling and dealing we started off the season with a home visit from relegated Sabadell where we were promptly thrashed. After picking up only 2 points from our 1st 6 games I was a little concerned, however our next match was against the worst team in the division (they had lost the previous week 9-2 to the only other team with no points!) so that brought us our 1st victory. A couple of weeks later we started a run of 5 wins in 6 which took us into mid-table. Then our defense fell apart as we conceded 28 in 8 games (and that included a goal-less draw!) during which we only picked up 4 points. Although we were still mid-table, the relegation zone was starting to get a little bit too close for my liking. This situation was thankfully soon resolved as a ridiculous 6-3 away win at Reus (they finished 2nd and then went up thru the playoffs, they only lost 2 at home all season and this was a third of their home conceded goals!) started another run of 5 wins in 6 games. This more or less took us safe and the last 10 games basically involved us winning at home and losing away. So in the end we finished in a surprising 7th place which is the best position we reached all season. To be honest, this is not really deserved as we are as close to the relegation play-off as we are to 5th and as close to 2nd bottom as we are the promotion playoffs! We basically stumbled to the top of mid-table in our last few games as everyone else beat each other. We scored a lot of goals and conceded a lot of goals and were just as good away and we were at home. Our form was pretty erratic though, we seemed capable of beating the best and losing to the worst with each coming week. We played in a formation I have never used before which was 4-1-2-2-1, principally because that was the one that suited the players I had, whether I use it next season depends on the Summer arrivals. One thing which helped us was the stability of the team and the lack of serious injuries – 3 players played in every match whilst 3 more only missed games thru suspension, in fact the only 1st choice player not to play at least 32 out of the 38 games was Dos Santos (see later) who only joined in January Final Squad Finances – not really too good, 700k in debt and losing 60k a month, the board is not over the moon about this Transfers – not as many as I usually make for the 1st season and not a bad success rate, 5 were integral parts of the team, 3 were useful bit part players whilst the youths have a lot of promise (Dos Santos is already part of the 5 mentioned), only 2 did not play even one minute Our better players this season were: Best GK – Diego Pastor – our only GK in fact, our only one when I arrived and he looked good enough to not waste wages on another one and then hope for no injuries, he didn’t get any and played every minute, he was solid for the 1st third of the season, pretty awful for the middle and really good for the final third, several good saves and I can count his really dodgy moments on the fingers of one hand which is good enough for this level, no qualms if he is the only GK here next season as well although he should be due an injury at some stage Best Defender – Enrique – very good year, started well and apart from the odd blip he was fantastic, and despite our slightly dodgy defensive record he was so good that he was joint-top for Man of the Match Awards in the division, more MotM awards than clean sheets is quite impressive Best Midfielder – Raúl Casañ– elderly, slow but he was great in the middle of the pitch orchestrating our attacks, good number of assists albeit several from corners and chipped in with the odd goal here and there, he will be off at the end of the season though as he was struggling to last 70mins by the end of the season and I can’t justify giving a 37yo the amount of money he wants, a shame Best Winger – Tiquinho – supposedly our best player when I arrived but to begin with I could not see it, got off to a slow start but from Xmas onwards he was unstoppable and for the final couple of months he was averaging a goal or assist a game, a really good winger for this level and assuming I keep the same formation I would hope for more of the same Best Striker – Emilio Da Silva– wow, on paper he did not seem much better than my other strikers but he certainly was, started off with loads of goals and just continued scoring, and ended up the divisions 2nd top scorer, what was good was his consistency, he just never stopped scoring, he never went more than 3 games without a goal and when he did not score for a couple of games he inevitably chipped in with an assist or 2 to keep things moving along, he was involved in over half our goals, he is 32yo but I would hope to get at least one more year out of him Best Substitute – Rafa – because of Da Silva he only started 2 matches when injuries meant I had to experiment with 2 up front but his impact was principally when coming on with 15 minutes left and us needing a goal, and he often got this goal, to be 3rd top scorer given his time on the pitch is great, he got a goal every 57 minutes he was on the pitch for, unfortunately his contract is too big to justify keeping him and I want to give Tarantino (see below) more time on the pitch so he will probably be off All 6 of those players were at the club when I joined which makes a) my job look easy (not true!) and b) my transfer dealings look unsuccessful (not entirely true but they did fill holes more than excel). To prove that some of my dealings will prove successful, here are 3 youths that my scouts found: Simao Martins – first club, lots of potential, might play a bit next season depending on if any ST arrive during the Summer Francesco Tarantino – Juve youth product, spent his time on the bench with sporadic appearances here and there, played well when called upon, has a mean freekick (got the only direct free-kick we scored all season), has great potential but unless something happens to Da Silva or I change the formation he will probably have another season of being a backup Luca Dos Santos – I did not really want to chuck a 16yo into central defence 2 days after signing for his first ever club but the situation (one of our DCs being in horrific form and him actually being our best DC on paper) meant I kind of had to, his 1st game was not great but from then on he was fantastic, great in the air, and he is improving all the time with the 1st team football which he will probably get a lot of next season, plus he has the honour of being the 1st player I have ever seen in CM/FM coming from the Wallis & Futuna Islands which is a French Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean between Fiji and Samoa with a population of only 15,000 (thank you Wikipedia) Notes Valencia Mestalla were really really bad Prat impressively managed to get relegated despite dropping only 1 point in their 1st 6 games (a draw against us) and winning 2 of their final 4. That can happen if you only win 4 of your other 28 games. Evidently there is not much football to watch on Ibiza (I think we are the only club in the top 3 levels) as we pretty much filled our stadium every week, we sold it out for 14 of our 19 home matches (only 2,500 but still quite impressive for this level), filled it to an average of 96% each match and had the 6th best average attendance in the division. Never been even close to have one sell-out in the bottom division before even with a stadium capacity of 1,000! We were really dirty, 2nd highest number of yellow cards and our left back was the division’s dirtiest player. Aims Cut down the wage bill a bit - doubt I am going to have much choice in this as the board will inevitably insist that it happens, I do have 11 players and £8,000 in wages leaving which will help Another top 10 - doubt I can really mount a promotion challenge so a more deserved top 10 then the one I just got will do Better defensive record - I’d hope I could improve on 66 goals conceded in 38 games 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th Team I Would Like To Play Every Week - Valencia Mestalla (last by a country mile) (H2-0, A4-1) Team I would Not Like To Play Every Week - Alcoyano (13th) - (A1-5, H0-1) Best 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted October 31, 2013 Author Share Posted October 31, 2013 Segunda B3 – 2014/2015 There was nothing to note during the Summer except my reluctance to sign players due to the very expected reduction in wages, only 5 and 2 free loanees arrived and we were below even the new budget. We started off with a disappointing draw at home to Sant Andreu but followed that with 3 close victories before Llagostera embarrassed us at home. We then embarrassed Alcoyana at their place. Another defeat and win and we were safely in the top 4. Then followed some horrible form as 5 draws were bookended by 2 defeats as we shot down to 14th but the table was so close that a couple of wins could change everything, which they did – one win and we were 10th and another one and we 4th! And from then on we never left the top 4... Those 2 wins were followed by 2 more as we closed out 2014 in 3rd but 13 points from 1st and only 10 from the relegation playoff! We promptly lost to Sant Andreu but followed that up with 5 straight wins. With the leaders in poor form, by the end of January, although we were still in 3rd, we had closed the gap to 3 points to the top and we were now 7 points clear of 5th. February and March were just as good as we streaked away from 5th and kept ourselves in the hunt for the title. That idea ended on the 1st weekend of April when we went to leaders Gimnastic (not the same team that were 13 points clear in December) and were thrashed 4-0. That left us 5 points from 1st but a healthy 12 ahead of 5th. The idea now was to hold onto 2nd for a better play-off match. We managed it despite only picking up 2 points from our last 3 games. We faced Alavés (2001 UEFA Cup finalists of course) who finished 4th in their division and were missing half of their first team thru injury. That gave me the idea that we had a good chance. It was not to be as we totally failed in front of goal, we lost the 1st leg 1-0 and it was a goal-less draw at our place. So here is the final table and as you can see, after about November we were never below 4th, never higher than 2nd either. Our defence was much much better but equally we were not as proficient in front of goal either which was mainly due to Da Silva not being half as good as last season. Our home and away records were actually quite similar, a couple more points at home but one more win away. I certainly was not expecting that. It was a shame our form was so poor at the end of the season but I am a bit doubtful that we would have got thru all of the playoff rounds and got promotion – they certainly don’t make it easy for you in Spain! And I dread to think what might have happened next season if we had gone up... The main reason we did so well is our defence, well, our 2 DCs to be exact, both averaging 7.50 and amongst the best players in the division. The attack let us down a bit especially towards the end of the season where Da Silva went over 10 matches without a goal. Again, the 1st 11 was pretty stable (apart from 3 players chopping and changing a bit for 2 wing positions) and there was few serious injuries. This luck will clearly change sometime... The big issue moving forward is the financial situation as I can’t see any way we can make money except thru as sales – the ground is pretty much sold out each week and we are losing 60k a month. The board lowered the wage budget by 25% during the season which meant that we were far above it despite being way below it at the start of the season. Unless I have a team full of loanees or players who don’t like money I will constantly lose money unless the stadium is increased which is not going to happen. And neither is a stadium move as the council have denied it. Final Squad Finances – still pretty horrific, still losing 60k a month, we were close to administration but a re-structuring of our debt brought it under control, as I mentioned above, I can see no way to stop losing money except by not paying our players any money Transfers – not many at all, Lukic and Mario was first choices and fantastic as was one of the loanees (Rubio), Izquier was the only other useful loanee – the other 2 provided bench cover for the final few months, Dorronsoro became our 1st choice GK upon arrival whilst Cuadrado and Fernandez provided cover (Cuadrado never started a game because Serrano never missed one), Theo was a waste of wages who will be off in the Summer Our better players this season were: Best GK – Fran Dorronsoro – I was happy enough with Pastor but he was going thru a dodgy spell and I was slowly losing confidence in him so it was great that at this exact time my scout found someone better, is a much more solid GK, has played in the Adelante and is capable of doing so again, one of the better GKs in the division I suspect, more of the same please Equally Best Defender – Luca Dos Santos – wow, and he is only 18(!!), one of the best DCs in the division (3rd best rating and the top 2 are also DCs – this is a bit strange), never makes mistakes, unstoppable in the air, ridiculous number of interceptions in every match, and still is nowhere near his peak, my assistant says he has Adelante potential but as he has only 2 for judging Potential Ability, who knows, I fear that the chairman might try to flog him in the Summer which would really set us back, 1st thing on the agenda is to get him on a longer contract Equally Best Defender – Marko Lukic – a freebie from Huesca last Summer and I have no idea why Huesca never used him, he is much better than anyone they have, he is much better than most teams have, only slightly behind Dos Santos in ability and a little bit injury-prone but so good, I have the same fear as for his partner as to the chairman accepting offers... Best Defensive Midfielder – Mario – cheating a bit as he played half of his games at MC but he is our best DMC and a very good player, very solid, the odd assist and he breaks up opposition attacks very well, steadily improving as well Best Midfielder – George Saunders – he was solid for the 1st season, but he was simply stunning this time around, the only thing that changed was that I (accidently) changed his mentality from Defend to Support, it seemed to make the world of difference, 2nd top scorer, only player to get a hat-trick this season, very good, unfortunately our current wage restraints means I cannot offer him a new contract, he is the one player in this situation who I really want to come back, if the budget changes (in a positive direction) before the end of his contract there may be hope Best Loanee – Fernando Rubio – the only loanee who was 1st choice, and a great player he turned out to be as well, 1st choice in the attacking MC position, a load of assists, very creative, would not mind him coming back, might be a possibility of another loan spell. Best Winger – Francesco Tarantino – not really a winger (although our best player at both AML and AMR) and only played there because my 2 wingers alternated mild injuries and African Nations Cup duty for the 1st 6 months and by then there was no chance I was dropping him, and I am glad I did not as he was pretty damn good on occasions and is getting better and better every week, 2nd best in the division for assists and chipped in an incredible number of goals for a winger, on paper he is also by far our best striker and that will be where he plays next season Best Striker – Emilio Da Silva – much less wow than last season, got off to a very slow start and although he was pretty prolific in the middle months he finished the season with over 10 goal-less games and was probably one of the reasons we were so uncompetitive in the playoffs, I can’t afford to renew his contract and in January I was annoyed by this but by the end of the season I am quite happy that I was not able to, should still be able to score several goals at this level but Tarantino is so much better (on paper) so I am not too disappointed by his departure, however his 1st season won’t be forgotten Notes Both Gimnastic and Baleares went up thru the playoffs In the 1st 3 months of the season, our wingers scored 3 total flukes via mis-hit crosses And at the other end of the pitch, in one match both GKs scored own-goals, both identical via shots that rebounded off the crossbar Our U19s were pretty average this season but they did somehow manage to beat Barcelona U19s 2-1 at home Last Season's Aims Cut down the wage bill a bit – SUCCESS - 3k down so success, however because of the mid-season cut by the board we are now above the budget and now they are annoyed! Another top 10 – SUCCESS - I was wrong in the sense that I did not think I could mount a promotion challenge, I could. Better defensive record – SUCCESS – 66 to 39 conceded equals total success Next Season’s Aims Promotion Challenge – after last season, I kind of have to aim for this Keep Dos Santos, Lukic, Tarantino – not too sure how much say I will have if offers come in but I shall do my best to discourage offers, I’d like to keep Saunders as well but there is literally nothing I can do about that at the moment Have a prolific strike-force – this is hopefully Tarantino, whether he will be alone up front or not depends on the arrivals and departures in the Summer 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Levante B (19th after winning the title the year before) (H2-1, A2-0) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Gimnastic (1st) – (H1-1, A0-4) Best 11 Overall Best 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 1, 2013 Author Share Posted November 1, 2013 Segunda B3 –2015/2016 Down went the wage budget again in the Summer but with all the players leaving, I at least had a bit of leeway and managed to renew the important contracts (ie. Dos Santos’). Along with that I signed up a few players plus a couple of loanees from Bilbao. Given the lack of wingers I found, I ended up totally changing the formation from 4-1-2-2-1 to 4-1-3-1-1 with 3 MCs (and one DJ) and an AMC. This formation change did not get off to the best of starts as we only picked up one point from our 1st 2 games. Adelante club Santander then visited for the Cup and we absolutely blitzed them 4-0. That evidently woke us up as we proceeded to do the exact same at Alcoyano and then scored 10 more in the next 3 games including an insane 5-3 win at early leaders Orihuela. That took us top, an experience which lasted exactly one match as we beyond horrific for the 1st 20 minutes of Sababell’s visit (0-3). Down to 2nd but only 3 points between 1st and 12th. There followed a poor home goalless draw before our exit from the Cup. And we picked up again, 5 games unbeaten until leaders Reus came to our place and did to us what Sabedell did. Thankfully that did not cause any downturn in form as we promptly took 22 points from the next 24 to retake the top spot. This time it lasted 3 weeks until a visit to Valencia Mestalla. And then another 5 games unbeaten and top spot again. And again we lost it very quickly as we dreadful at Hospitalet, embarrassing at home to soon-to-be relegated Alzira chucking away a 2 goal lead and then even worse at also soon-to-be relegated Badalona. And we lost to leaders Reus as well. If any of those previous matches had gone well we would have been top as Reus were in equally bad form as us before beating us. That left 6 matches to go and after a win against Ontinyent we were back level on points with Reus but unfortunately they found form again. We kept on winning and a playoff place was confirmed with 3 to go, at least 2nd was confirmed with 2 to go and 2nd was confirmed with one to go. So 2nd again and the same playoffs as last season. Alavés finished 4th again in their division but we avoided them this time and got drawn with Lugo. When Tarantino grabbed a couple to win 2-0 at their place, all was going well. And even better when Tarantino put us 1-0 up at h/t. Then it went wrong. Within 15 minutes they had scored 3 and were ahead on away goals. Then Tarantino got another to put us up. And then in the 91st minute, their ridiculously good winger got a 4th so we were out on away goals. FFS! So for the 2nd season in a row we finished 2nd and were the only team in the top 4 of our division not pass the 1st playoff round. FFS! No idea how if we would have managed to pass the next 2 rounds and go up but it would have been nice to find out. We were pretty much in the top 2 for most of the season but not finishing 1st has a huge affect on your chances of promotion in this division and really, we should have finished 1st. Some of our dropped points were plain embarrassing, eg. only 1 point gained against Badalona who finished 18th. Again our home record was not that much better than our away record and we only scored 27 goals in our 19 home matches, yikes (and I have just noticed that we only scored 26 the previous season). Overall we scored 5 less than last season but our defensive record was magnificent – best in the division and 20 clean sheets. One thing we did not have this season was a steady 1st eleven. And that was pretty much because all the injuries we had avoided in the 1st 2 seasons all occurred this season! I can only think of 2 players that did not have at least one injury and one of those was my backup GK who actually played a lot because the 1st choice one slipped a disc and missed over 3 months. Very rarely did we have the same 11 for 2 straight matches. So I guess we will have to try all over again. FFS! There was a takeover, an exceptionally boring one which took place in February so had no impact on transfers but they did chuck in a £775k loan so maybe there will be more money for wages as I will be needing to replace a few players. There are a few out-of-contract youngsters floating around Europe who would, in theory, be better than the players leaving so let hope for that... Final Squad Finances – positive but that is only because of the new owner's loan and by the end of the Summer we will be far in debt again, I managed to lower the wages so we are losing less per month but it hardly helps Transfers – quite a lot of success as Chori, Roger, Tedesco, Reule and Rocha were 1st choice with Moha and Pinto as good backups, Fernando is for the future whilst all 3 of the loanees proved to be very useful and played a lot (Samper is far too good for this division) Our better players this season were: Best GK – Fran Dorronsoro – as last season, a good GK for this division, not really any mistakes and saved us many a time, over half his matches were clean sheets, missed a large chuck thru injury but last Summer, for the 1st time, I bought a backup GK, and this backup has a lot of potential so it not as disastrous as it would have previously been, I think he will probably be 1st choice next season as well unless I decide to give the backup more game time Best Fullback – Francesco Tedesco – another Juve youth product like Tarantino, and is a great player but my word, is he injury prone, he was 1st choice but only played 16 out of the 40 leagues matches this season and missing 6 months thru 2 different torn hamstrings is not too promising, all the backups are probably leaving in the Summer so I simply have to get at least one DL in, in theory he will remain 1st choice but he can only play more often, surely... Equally Best Central Defender – Luca Dos Santos – 1st things first, I managed to sign him for another 4 years last Summer which pleased me greatly and he is also now our captain, secondly he was just as good this season as last, pretty much an identical record apart from missing 2 months thru injury, and even that had a good side-effect as it meant Reule (see below) played a lot, one issue was that he got called up to the Toulon tournament and therefore missed the 2nd playoff match and given the performance put in by our defence I can only imagine we would have qualified if he had been here, again I fear the chairman accepting offers but so far no club has shown that much interest and I hope it stays that way... Equally Best Central Defender – Karl Reule – it was he who was aided by Dos Santos’ injury, came in during the Summer and was scheduled to be a backup, however the injury meant he got a run of games and he was so good that when Dos Santos came back I could not drop him so I dropped Lukic instead, and he showed why I had faith in him as he outshone Dos Santos in several matches and even ended up with more goals, a better average rating and was the runner-up for the signing of the season (behind our ex-player, Saunders), more of the same please Best Defensive Midfielder – Flavio Rocha – cheating a bit as he played at MC until Samper arrived on loan in January as he was our best MC, he is equally our best DMC so he moved back there for the final few months, he was brilliant in both positions and whilst at MC he got 4 assists in one match which is some feat, unfortunately he is also a bit injury prone but he is improving all the time and should turn out to be a good Adelante player so I hope I keep him, need to sort his contract out over the Summer Best Central Midfielder –Abdoul Karim Roger – the 1st player that my Director of Football found that I actually signed and also the first Niger player I have ever had in FM, he is a Vitesse youth product and he played some great matches this year, scored a couple of cracking long-distance goals and was 100% from the penalty spot, as we have not gone up he will probably be 1st choice next season Best Loanee – Sergi Samper – Barcelona player that my Director of Football brought in on loan in January and the moment he arrived I knew he would be fantastic, if he had been here all season we would definitely have won the title, he was magnificent, controlling play, lots of assists, he is out of contract but I clearly can’t afford the £3k per week that he is on! Best Attacking Midfielder – Chori – a freebie from Zaragoza and he was quietly very good indeed, led the team in assists and the 2nd top scorer, and he was the only player who managed to appear in every match (he timed his injury during a 2 week break!), he was rarely the best player on the pitch but he was consistently one of our better performers Best Striker – Francesco Tarantino – moved from the wings to ST to replace Da Silva and I would say that he was a pretty good success, not quite as profilic as Da Silva in the 1st season and he did go thru a few dry patches but overall I am very happy with his contribution, my assistant thinks he has more or less reached his potential but as that is already a “good Adelante player”, I am not complaining, hope no clubs have noticed him, more of the same please with perhaps the odd extra goal Notes In the end only Reus went up As I mentioned we had a very boring takeover, some businessman from Toledo now owns us We scored 2 45 yard goals in the 1st 2 months, one via a quick freekick one via a total fluke from one of our DCs, not too sure what he was trying to do as it is quite difficult to fluke a goal from the centre circle in open play (no bounces, nothing, just straight in) Last Season’s Aims Promotion Challenge – SUCCESS – albeit promotion was not actually achieved Keep Dos Santos, Lukic, Tarantino – SUCCESS – the 1st 2 signed new contracts and nobody showed any interest in any of them, next aim is to get Tarantino to sign a new one, unfortunately Saunders left and he promptly moved to champions Reus where he was fantastic and was voted the best signing of the season! FFS! Have a prolific goal-scorer – KIND OF SUCCESS – Tarantino scored a load of goals but I was kind of thinking / hoping he might get a few more The Coming Season’s Aims Promotion – I will be even less amused if we lose in the playoffs AGAIN Score more goals at home – 53 goals in our last 38 home matches is bordering on embarrassing, our home record is not too bad but more goals and improving our goal difference would be nice Have less injuries – not exactly much I can do about this but if I can get Tedesco and Rocha to miss less than the combined season that they missed this year, it would be a start 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week - Alcoyano B (7th) (A4-1, H2-1) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Reus (1st) – (H0-3, A0-1) with special mention to Badalona (18th!) – (H0-0, A0-1), the only other team we failed to scored against Best 11 Overall Best 11 We had our 1st player reach 100 league appearances this season so it is time to launch this: The 100 League Appearances Club Apps Gls Asts Con MoM AvR Jaime Serrano 105 1 8 - 4 7.09 D/WB/M R (2013-) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 1, 2013 Author Share Posted November 1, 2013 Segunda B3 – 2016/2017 And down again went the wage budget during the Summer and this time it had a much bigger impact as I could basically sign no-one, just a giant German DRC and an average 18yo squad player came in permanently. Nobody important left but the big issue was midfield as we could not offer enough wages for one single player of any ability to come in and replace the previous year’s very good loanees. Eventually I forced a very average MC/AMC to join on loan and he was joined by an equally average ST. This all meant I was forced to change tactics as I did not have enough midfielders in the squad to play a 4-1-3-1-1 formation, I had to put another ST in there to replace the DMC. And that meant I had no substitute MCs of any ability for when there were injuries (hello Rocha). Fantastic. And on top of that Tarantino was out for the 1st month of the season as were 2 of my fullbacks. Even more fantastic. And we promptly started in an appropriate manner with a bad opening day defeat. Although 2 wins did follow suit, 2 more defeats did as well and we never really recovered. Good victories were followed by bad defeats with the very occasional draw chucked in and by Christmas we were...still...midtable. No danger from below but we weren’t really causing any danger up above either. Form after Christmas was of a similar standard. It did pick up a bit in February and March and the slightly dodgy form of 3rd-5th meant that we started to somehow edge a bit closer to the playoff positions. It got to the stage where with 6 games to go, if we won all of them we could probably have squeezed in. Obviously that was not going to happen and we lost game 3 and 4 of that run. However we did win the other 4 matches and somehow finished the season just 3 points from the playoff positions. This was only 8th place though and midtable about sums up our season. I have no idea how we finished so close to 4th place as it would have been entirely undeserved but if we had won even 1 of the 2 games we lost during the run in (and one of them was against an already-relegated team) then...well...I don’t know as we would have been one of 4 teams with the same number of points as 4th place! Better to say that if we had won more than 6 points from 18 (1 point per game FFS!) against the 3 teams that finished in 17th-19th we would have done a lot better. 6 points from 6 games against relegated sides. FFS! Despite this shambles, we actually had the join best defensive record in the division, albeit conceding 50% more goals than last season (another reason for why we finished where we did). And on top of that we scored more goals than last season as well. However, we got 18 points less. And given that this is by far the lowest number of points needed for 4th place, we really should have got in the playoffs. One slight positive was our performances in the cups, we reached R2 in the Copa del Rey and the Copa RFEF we reached the quarter-finals and really should have beaten Barcelona B there. Final Squad Finances – the usual monthly leaking of money and limited wage allowance, great. Transfers – nothing to see here, Temme was 1st choice DR (although he is far better at DC), Martinez was nearly 1st choice for the couple of months thanks to injuries, the loanees filled in with Bautista actually scoring more than I thought he would, Salcedo is not very good but he was needed due to the absolutely scarcity of midfield cover options and the fact he hardly wanted any wages Our better players this season were: Best GK – Moha – became 1st choice as he has quite a lot of potential and equally I wanted to give him 1st team football given that Dorronsoro’s wages mean that he is leaving this Summer, played well and 1st team football has improved him a lot, so much that my coaches think he is a solid Adelante player, missed quite a few games because of injury (of course!) and because Morocco’s goalkeeping situation must be pretty dire (he won a cap and got called up to the ACN), I need to buy a new backup GK in the Summer and only if he does not sign a new contract and the new guy is good can I see him not being 1st choice Best Fullback – Marc Temme – Tedesco did play more often this year but he also played less well so this goes to the new DR, signed last Summer and although a much better DC, he is also our best DR, probably one of the tallest DRs in the division and a pretty solid player, very good physical stats, less good elsewhere and he also shoots from long distance far too often, doubt I can get a better DR cheaply (and with the wage issues, the fewer players I sign the better) so I suspect he will stay in this position Equally Best Central Defender – Luca Dos Santos – basically the same as last year, and the year before, which is all I ask of him, brilliant again, fewer goals and MOM awards and we did concede many more goals but I have no complaints, plus no team has looked into signing him so hopefully he will be here a while longer Equally Best Central Defender – Karl Reule – word for word the same as Dos Santos, equally brilliant despite conceding more goals, also the only ever present in the league this season, which clearly means he will be injury-prone next season, he needs a new contract as well Best Central Midfielder –Abdoul Karim Roger – turning into a really good player, our best central midfielder, consistently very solid with a fantastic performance chucked every so often, getting better all the time (got the improved remarkably end-of-season quote from my assistant) and I even consented to doubling his wages (not sure how the board let me do that) so he stays here another 2 years, more of the same please Best Attacking Midfielder – Chori – if he was quietly very good indeed the previous season, he was less quiet and even better this season, similar number of goals and assists but overall his performances were much better and I can’t actually recall him having a bad match, won the Player of the Season as well, another whose wages I had to increase but who certainly deserved them, his value is creeping too close to his minimum release clause (the only way he would accept the wages) for my liking but I doubt anyone will pay it, anything similar will do next season Best Striker – Francesco Tarantino – no new contract (only had I got promoted last season could I ever have afforded what he wanted and even then that would not be sure) so this was unfortunately his last season, much less prolific this time around but playing with a strike partner definitely brought our his generous side as he led the whole division in assists and he ended up being involved in over half of our goals, safe to say he will be sorely missed but I wish him good luck in Salamanca next season, I guess we will see if he is as good one division higher Next Season’s Striker – Simão Martins – that is unless I sign someone better in the Summer (and I hope I do!), as you can see there is a huge difference between him and Tarantino and he is rated as only a good player for the division below us, however all coaches think he has good Adelante potential, I don’t really see that but this was his 1st year as 1st choice, albeit only because I was forced to play 2 up front, he did not do too badly either and if he plays upfront on his own next year (a real possibility) then maybe he will become more prolific We also got a youth product through in Christian Almeida who has bundles of potential and could become a good Adelante player. However he plays left wing which we don’t, he does however look like he could be a good AMC and he is competent in that position so I will fully training him up there and given the huge gaps in our squad, it is not impossible that he might get a few games next year. Notes Just to prove how poor the division was this year and therefore how bad we were, not one of the top 4 clubs managed to pass thru the playoffs so they are all back next season Sabadell nearly went up through the playoffs last season, they got relegated this time around (but took 4 points off us), similar for Terrassa who went from 5th->18th I got offered my 1st job this year by Getafe B who were miles from safety in another Segunda 2B division, safe to say I was not too tempted by it! Another 17 sellouts this season but the council blocked again any ideas we had for a new stadium, not 100% a bad thing as I don’t know how many more people we would get for a matches (and how much income) and the loan we would need would undoubtedly affect the wage budget Last Season's Aims Promotion - ABJECT FAILURE - nowhere near, we did not even spend 1 week in the playoff positions Score more goals at home - KIND OF SUCCESS - yes, 31 is better than 27 so strictly speaking it is a success but we got 8 points less and conceded 7 more goals so I would rather have had last season's record Have less injuries - SUCCESS - Tedesco and Rocha missed considerably less than the combined season that they missed last year (although both got injured in the last game of the season just to mock me), also we had no huge multi-month injuries which is a big improvement and was needed with the quality of the backups The Coming Season's Aims Promotion - hopefully this was just a blip, unfortunately Tarantino's departure makes me wonder but I can hope we get thru tha Good Summer signings - pretty obvious but very important considering how little we could do last Summer and the departures this Summer (Tarantino - new (fantastic) ST needed, Dorronsoro - new (backup) GK needed, Lukic - new (backup) DC needed), plus we might actually have some money as those 3 players plus a couple more out will cut £4,500 off the wage bill, as long as the wage bill is not cut by that much Play better against bad sides – getting 6 points from the 6 games against 3 of the 4 relegated sides is very very bad and I suspect is probably the worst performance against them by any non-relegated side, improvement please 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th Team I Would Like To Play Every Week - Alcoyano (7th) (A4-1, H2-1) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Barcelona B (1st) – (H1-2, A1-3 plus H1-0 and A1-3 in the Copa RFEF) with special mentions to Sant Andreu (7th) – (A0-1, H0-0) and Gandia (19th!!) – (H0-1, A0-0), the 2 team we failed to scored against Best 11 Overall Best 11 The 100 League Appearances Club Apps Gls Asts Con MoM AvR Luca Dos Santos 124 11 3 - 19 7.39 D C (2014-) Francesco Tarantino 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 ST / AM RL (2013-) Jaime Serrano 111 1 8 - 4 7.05 D/WB/M R (2013-) Mario 111 5 14 - 1 7.01 DM / M C (2014-) David Garrido 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 D L (2013-) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GazTheDoood Posted November 1, 2013 Share Posted November 1, 2013 Great update style mate. Just had a read through the first 4, disappointing last season, here's hoping you bounce back (even though you've already played it, you get my point) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 3, 2013 Author Share Posted November 3, 2013 Thanks, Gaz, it is more or less the same style I have always used in the CSE forums with various tweaks along the way. Yes, it was a disappointing season. 2 more seasons to update. Let's see if we manage to escape this division. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 3, 2013 Author Share Posted November 3, 2013 Segunda B3 –2017/2018 Again, I was unable to make the signings I wanted because of wage restrictions, just the 4 players came in and none of them were strikers to replace Tarantino (our best player). We started off with an impressive away draw at Barcelona B and then won our next game. And that was as good as it got for a couple of months. We were pretty dire, hardly scoring, not keeping sheets and turning wins into draws and draws into defeats. By the 11th match we had just kept our 1st clean sheet but were 16th in the relegation playoffs with 11 points and 2 points from safety. And from 1-2 down in our 12th match with a half hour to go suddenly things started to happen. We won 4-2 and then the next 3 to take us up to 11th. However that last win injured the only 2 strikers I had any desire to play. And then leaders Mallorca B visited and chaos ensued. Already down to the bare bones because of previous injuries, first the DR limped off, then I had to remove the DL as a precaution. We were 2-0 up by this stage. Then the replacement DR (who was now at DL) limped off. And then with 10 minutes to go the ST limped off. So we finished the match with 10 men, a DMC at DL, 2 debutant 16yo at AMC and no strikers!And yet, we still won! 5 wins in a row and Dos Santos, our ridiculously good DC, being the main reason for this, in these 5 games he averaged 8.38 and scored 3 goals! With that massive injury crisis it was not too surprising that we only took 1 point from our next 2 games against promotion chasers so we finished 2017 just 5 points from the playoffs. Our good form continued into 2018, with several good wins and only one bad performance (home against Hospitalet) and we were gradually getting closer to 4th place. Following that Hospitalet defeat, we went on a great run of 22 points from 24. After 4 of those games we were 6 points behind 2nd-4th who were all equal on points. After a very impressive victory at 4th placed Alcoyano 2 games later, we went above them into 4th. 2 wins later (and 2 defeats for Alcoyano) and we were 6 points clear in 4th with 4 games to go. However, another injury crisis was evolving with 4 first-teamers out. And none of those 4 games were particularly easy. A visit to Mallorca B was looking good at h/t with us 1-0 up but a red card later and we lost 3-1. A home defeat to 2nd placed Elche did not help but thankfully 5th and 6th were hardly in great form. Game 37 saw us win so with one game to go the table looked like this. And we were, of course, playing at 5th placed Reus in the last game. Don’t lose and we were in the playoffs. Lose and I think we would probably be 5th but with as many as 4 teams possibly finishing on the same number of points, it could get very complicated. Unfortunately it did not get complicated – we lost 2-0 and with only us and Reus on the same number of points, they finished above us on results between us. So, we finished in 5th, and you can see how well we did to get there given our atrocious early season form. Well, that was annoying. 1 more point and we would have had the chance to lose in the playoffs for a 3rd time! It was the Hospitalet and Elche games which really cost us. And all the injury crises we had. And of course, the 11 points we picked up from the 1st 11 games did not help much either. We scored a respectable number of goals and ended up with the joint best defensive record as well. Not much to note in the cups as we weren’t in the Copa RFEF and we lost our only match in the Copa del Rey, albeit in a crazy match where we finished with 9 men (red card and a late injury) Final Squad Finances – the usual monthly leaking of money and limited wage allowance, great. Transfers – not much business but it was pretty successful, Castro became 1st choice DR, Aubry is a fantastic MC who can only get better, Cavusoglu was a perfect utility player whilst although Luzuriaga did not play, he is as good a keeper as our number one Our better players this season were: Best GK – Moha – getting really good, played every game and therefore one of the few to avoid injury, was really good, saved 3 penalties as well, 2 of which were during a run of 5 games where we did not concede, probably one of the better GKs in the division, as mentioned his backup is just as good so there should be no keeper issues for a while Best Fullback – Francesco Tedesco – much better season this time, still a little bit more injury prone than I would like him to be with him missing a quarter of the games this year, the main problem here was that he had basically no backup which caused issues, more of the same with less injuries and a competent backup please Best Central Defender – Luca Dos Santos – oh my God, he was insanely good this season, out of this world, best player in the whole division, averaging near 8 (best ever in this division) and was our 2nd top scorer, an absolute beast, he unfortunately wants to leave though and with only 1 year on his contract left it will either be for lots of money this Summer or on a free next year, curious to see where he ends up as he has a continental reputation which must be pretty unheard of in this division, so far a Ligue 2 team is the only one to show any interest, I suspect that will change during the Summer Best Defensive Midfielder – Flavio Rocha – as I had enough midfielders this year I was able to mainly play with a DMC and this is the guy that was there, getting really good and would certainly not look out of play a division higher, also had the added bonus of him for some reason signing a new contract for less money than before, I will need to do the same sometime next season Best Central Midfielder – Abdoul Karim Roger – he really is good, ran our midfield, controlling the play, unfortunately he is another one who is injury prone, nearly missing half our league games, pretty sure we’d have been comfortably in the playoffs if he had played a few more games Best Attacking Midfielder – Chori – a wonderful player, for the first 80% of the season he was probably our most important player, but he then had a “bigger club” strop and his performances went straight downhill for the last couple of months which is another reason we did not get into the playoffs, like Dos Santos he will either be off for some money (unfortunately not more than his £300k release clause) or, if his mood improves, he will stay and leave on a free next year Best Striker – Simão Martins – he is no Tarantino and when he started off with 1 goal in the first 10 matches and some very dodgy performances I was really worried for our season, however, he soon started scoring and he became pretty prolific, so many games where he scored the only goal, I am now not too concerned about getting someone in who is better, he is perfectly good enough for this division, a few more goals would not go amiss though Notes Tarantino had a solid season in the Adelante with Salamanca, hitting double figures for goals For the 2nd season in a row, not one team managed to navigate the playoffs and get promoted which is pretty embarrassing for all concerned, and is probably a record of some sort as well I got offered 2 jobs this year by Algeciras and Amorebieta but neither would have been tempting even if I had been able to move clubs Ejea were historically bad, 3 wins, 1 draw and 34 defeats, oh and conceding nearly 4 goals a game Last Season's Aims Promotion - FAILURE- not as abject as last year's attempt but we will now be spending a 6th season in this wonderful division Good Summer Signings - SUCCESS - apart from not replacing Tarantino (which did not turn out too badly), all the new players either contributed (new DRC) or would have done so if needed (new backup GK), just unfortunate that the wage-bill would not allow us to sign any more players Play Better Against Bad Sides - SUCCESS - from 6 points in 6 games against 3 of the bottom 4 to 26 from 10 games against the bottom 5, jut the 2 draws against Constancia being the small blip The Coming Season's Aims Promotion - please, finally... Sort Out The Dos Santos And Chori Situations - our best 2 players both would really like to leave and, unless they change their minds, they will be doing so next Summer at the latest, however if they are grumpy and perform badly I would rather get loads of money for them this Summer, but if they leave I will need some great replacements, hopefully this whole things gets resolved sooner rather than later in one way or another Better Squad Depth - there were far too many games where there was at least one player on the pitch who I did not want to be be there, they were at the club because they were cheap and they were on the pitch because I had no other choice, I would like this occur much less frequently next season, however this is obviously all dependant on the wage budget that the board deigns to give us 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Gava (16th) (H3-0, A2-0) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Elche (2nd) – (A0-2, H0-1) Best 11 Overall Best 11 The 100 League Appearances Club Apps Gls Asts Con MoM AvR Luca Dos Santos 162 18 4 - 30 7.51 DC (2014-) Mario 143 9 16 - 3 7.01 DM / M C (2014-) Jaime Serrano 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 D/WB/M R (2013-) Francesco Tarantino 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 (ST / AM RL (2013-17) Chori 113 25 34 - 19 7.31 AM / M C (2015-) David Garrido 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 D L (2013-17) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 3, 2013 Author Share Posted November 3, 2013 Segunda B3 –2018/2019 And this Summer was even worse for transfers and was nearly a disaster. The most we could offer a player was £375pw which clearly no-one of any ability was going to accept. So I went down the loan route but out of the 50 or so players I tried to get, just one chose to come here and that was probably because he was from our parent club. That was until deadline day when I tried to get anyone in, and saw that a load of these failed loanees were now transfer-listed. This, thankfully, motivated them a bit more to join us so in the end I got 8 in for the season. Which was too many and a couple could not be registered but I was pay nothing for them so no problem. The only issue was that there was not 1 single attacking player amongst these 8, however there was our best DR and a great backup DC so that was good. There was some good news with regards to my own players as well as no offers came in for either Dos Santos and Chori and both removed themselves from the transfer list, both will probably be leaving this Summer though (Dos Santos for sure). After 2 slightly disappointing draws we improved considerably and stayed unbeaten for our 1st 9 games, albeit with too many draws and very few clean sheets. We then hit a typical position-orientated injury crisis which of course fell during a week where we had 3 games, this time 5 MCs were out and I had to get very creative with who I played. This took us out of the cup (of course, in extra time just to knacker my remaining players more and via a 91st minute equaliser and 121st minute winner! ) and our 1st defeat, we were still up in the top 4 though. We kept on playing well and winning against teams we nearly always stumble against no matter where they are in the table. By game 15 we were top and in the midst of a run of 6 wins in 7 conceding only 2 goals. This took us to the New Year where we were top by 2 and 9 points clear of 5th and looking good for the playoffs. We then a goalkeeping crisis as my no.1 went off to the African Nations, my 2nd choice had broken his leg a couple of months previously and my scouts had only just found someone willing to sign on the cheap wages we could only provide but who signed too late for the 1st game of 2019. Which we lost, and the 2ndas well when the cheap option signed up. We then chucked away a win at Barcelona B and 7 goals had been conceded in 3 games. Thankfully we calmed it down a bit and then our no.1 returned. And 5 clean sheets followed. By this stage, it would have taken a historic collapse to fall out of the playoffs so our focus was on winning the title. And Valencia Mestalla were posing us problems with this. And when we lost at Reus (where despite conceding the penalty which resulted in the only goal of the match Dos Santos still managed to be MoM!), we were 2 behind them. And suddenly an injury crisis coincided with a week with 3 games (again!). We struggled past Huesca and and the next match at a relegation threatened side was just the place where we usually slip up. Not this time...3-0, 7 minutes, 5-0, 25 minutes and we even chose this perfect time to get our 1st red card of the season, we won 6-0. One win later and we were confirmed as being in the playoffs. One more and we need 4 points for the title. And despite 2 dodgy defeats via comedy own-goals, penalties and lots of woodwork we were champions as Valencia Mestalla hit a bad patch. We finished off with 2 wins to put us in form for the playoffs Palencia were our opponents and a 1-1 draw at their place set us up nicely. And a Chori goal in the home leg confirmed promotion Much less stress this time, it helps winning the title! And then we promptly beat Cadiz on away goals to win the whole league. As you can see, we won the league quite convincingly in the end, and from when we first hit 1st we stayed there for pretty much the whole season. Much better and we were clearly the best team in the division, again it was our defence which proved the difference as although we scored a fair few goals (3rdbest), we did not really run riot very often. We never really hit bad runs either, only once did we got more than 2 games without a win and twice we went on 5 game winning streaks. Final Squad Finances – the usual wage problems (albeit more extreme this season), plus we nearly went bankrupt before a solution was found, this meant that we could offer a bit more money and managed to renew some contracts Transfers – 9 loanees and a panic GK buy because of the African Nations and a broken leg. Of the loanees, Hernandez was first choice and great whilst Serrano, Valcarcel and (eventually) Mozo were useful squad players, Ranera was as well until he had a season ending injury in February and so got sent back, Suarez would also have been very useful had he survived more than 1 month before breaking his leg and being sent back as well, the other 3 hardly played any minutes at all, the GK actually has some potential so I suspect either him or the backup will go out on loan somewhere next season Here are some of those who helped us do wonder this season, basically our best 11: Best GK – Moha – still getting better and better, one of the best in the division and when he was away in Africa we conceded a quarter of our goals in 3 matches, another couple of penalties saved as well, already rated as a good Adelante player and his backup is not far behind so GK is not a position I am looking to strengthen at all Best Fullback We Own – Francesco Tedesco – very solid season, very similar to last season, including being a bit more injury prone than I would like and there being no backup I was 100% confident with, the loanee who was here to cover him breaking his leg after 1 month did not help at all, I need another DL no matter what, whether the new guy is 1st choice or a backup remains to be seen Best Loanee – Jaume Hernandez – I was happy enough with Castro or Temme playing at DR but it was probably our weakest position so when this loanee arrived and was rated much better than either of them, I was very happy, he played much better than they would have as well, I will probably try to get him here for a 2nd season as he is definitely good enough for the Adelante Best Central Defender – Luca Dos Santos – oh my God, he was just as insanely good this season as last year, again out of this world, again best player in the whole division, again averaging near 8 (2nd best ever in this division behind his effort last year), an absolute beast, however he never showed any inclination to sign a new contract and is off to Ligue 1 this Summer, he will be sorely missed as I could have seen him staying here and being good enough for La Liga but I can hardly blame him for leaving, I think he will be great at Le Havre as well and I will be following his progress closely Best Central Defender Next Year – Marc Temme – not much of a drop thankfully, all I now need is a partner for him, played his 1st season for us at DR but moved to DC last season, and this season he was just as good as Dos Santos for the majority of the time, scored goals, defended like a king, a good reason as to why we conceded so few goals, should easily be good enough for the Adelante Best Defensive Midfielder – Flavio Rocha – very good player when he is fit which is unfortunately not as often as I would like, he has missed most of 2019 so far and was only just back to fitness for the playoffs, when he did play he was great and all 3 of his goals were spectacular long-range efforts, another who should fit in a division higher Best Central Midfielder – Abdoul Karim Roger – he really is very good, ran our midfield, controlling the play, led the whole team in assists and was probably our 2nd most important player, he has also sorted out his injury issues and hardly missed any games, so far he is still the only player my Director of Football has found for me and that alone has justified his employment 2nd Best Central Midfielder – Zeynel Çavusoglu – no idea what happened here but last season he was a solid unspectacular utility player, this season he turned into a prolific all-purpose awesome midfield beast, played nearly every game, fantastic performances and goals everywhere, at one moment just before Christmas he was even our top scorer, he is even better at DMC but Rocha is better so he stays at MC except on the numerous occasions he is injured, he is getting better and better so should adapt to the division above without many issues 3rd Best Central Midfielder – Michaël Aubry – had quite a quiet first season but now he has settled down he has proved his worth, and is worthy of mention despite not being as awesome as his midfield partners, pretty much ever present, very solid play and lots of assists, and avoided the injuries which slightly plagued him last year, he is improving all the time and with these 3 players all I need to get this Summer is some good backups Best Attacking Midfielder – Chori – still a wonderful player and as he got over his “bigger club” strop during the Summer, he was great for the whole year, goals and assists all over the place, our team would have not been half as good without him in it, would love him to stay but he has so far shown no inclination to sign a new contract but equally no-one has showed any inclination to sign him, I am nearly certain he will leave at the end of the month but maybe promotion and a higher wage budget may tempt him to stay Best Striker –Simão Martins – he is no still Tarantino but he is getting better and better all the time and is now a very good striker for this level, pretty prolific and chucked in a load of assists as well, although I think I should sign a new ST for next season I would not be too distraught is he was our number 1 next year, I can’t imagine myself having said that 2 years ago, that is how much he has improved Notes Tarantino is in La Liga! Well, for half a year anyway - Ponferradina bought him from Salamanca in January for £1.4m but he could not save them from relegation so we will meet again next year England won last Summer’s World Cup beating Spain in the final We were the only club to pass thru the playoffs and get promoted, this division is really not good at winning 2-legged matches, we are just the 2nd team in 4 years to go up 2 more jobs offer this year, from Linense and Logrones Bacary had a pretty good season for Hospitalet, he had already broken the previous divisional goalscoring record in January The council still won’t let us have a new stadium but we are obliged to expand our current one. Sharing a 10,000 all-seater for one season while this happens might not be the worst thing ever Last Season's Aims Promotion - SUCCESS - finally! Could not have really asked for more, title and won the playoffs Sort Out The Dos Santos and Chori Situations - SUCCESS - in the sense that nobody wanted to buy them, they removed themselves from the transfer list and then were both fantastic throughout the season, only downside is that neither will stay (well, Chori still has to confirm but will undoubtedly be off) Better Squad Depth - KIND OF SUCCESS - until August 31st it was abject failure but then all the loanees arrived, however, they did not cover any attacking positions and seemed a bit injury prone so there were still games where I was forced to play players I would have preferred not to, namely some U19s, Almeida is improving all the time so I did not mind playing but the other 2 found themselves playing more (ie. at all) than I would have wanted The Coming Season's Aims Avoid Relegation - pretty obvious really, taking 6 years to go up to then immediately go back down again would do more than annoy me Replace Dos Santos And Chori - although only Dos Santos has confirmed his departure, I am guessing that Chori will also be off and as they are pretty much our 2 best players and we will be playing in a division higher replacing them might not be that simple, we have nobody here already to replace them so it will either be via freebies or loanees... Better Squad Depth - I reckon our 1st 11, even without Chori and Dos Santos, should be more or less good enough for the Adelante, our squad, even with all of this season's loanees, is however definitely not and there are holes all over the place, I am guessing the wage budget will be slightly (excessively!) restrictive again so I would not be surprised if we are relying on a lot of loans again 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 –5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 –1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Orihuela (20th) (H4-1, A6-0) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Cornellá (4th) – (H1-1, A1-2) + Mallorca B (14th) – (H0-0, A1-2), the only teams we did not beat at least once Best 11 Overall Best 11 - still using the formation of the 1st couple of seasons but that is probably just a way to shoe-horn in the 2 wingers we had at that time, plus we switch between 4-1-2-1-1 and 4-3-1-2 quite a bit depending on injuries The 100 League Appearances Club Apps Gls Asts Con MoM AvR Luca Dos Santos 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 DC (2014-) Mario 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 DM / M C (2014-) Chori 154 36 44 - 11 7.31 AM / M C (2015-) Simão Martins 133 51 22 - 4 7.16 ST (2013-) Jaime Serrano 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 D/WB/M R (2013-2018) Abdoul Karim Roger 125 13 31 - 15 7.36 DM / M C (2015-) Francesco Tarantino 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 (ST / AM RL (2013-2017) Marc Temme 115 4 6 - 11 7.37 D RC (2016-) Moha 112 - - 101 0 6.98 GK (2015-) Francesco Tedesco 107 3 10 - 2 7.20 D L (2015-) Flavio Rocha 104 7 17 - 3 7.24 DM / M C (2015-) David Garrido 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 D L (2013-2017) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
duffy89 Posted November 3, 2013 Share Posted November 3, 2013 This is a great read ghostwriter, great effort getting promoted after so much hurt! Good luck next year! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltablue Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 Well done getting out of that tough league. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 4, 2013 Author Share Posted November 4, 2013 Thanks. It definitely was a struggle thanks mainly to our ineptitude in the playoffs (a trait seemingly shared by other teams in our division) and the wage issue. As you will see, that latter issue will rear its ugly head again... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 4, 2013 Author Share Posted November 4, 2013 Liga Adelante –2019/2020 Let’s start with the good news, Chori, our best AMC and probably most important player, eventually signed a new contract which I was never expecting him to do. The rest of the Summer was solely bad news... Promotion did not seem to make any difference to our club as we still had a local reputation, 3 scouts, the ability to only scout Central Europe and most of all no wage increase – stuck at £12k, that should attract the players! However it turned out that it made no difference if we could attract players or not as, because of the stadium redevelopment, we fell into administration again and were under a transfer embargo. And it took the board until the 1st day of the season to get us out of administration. No signings meant that we entered our 1st match of the season with the following squad – 13 pros including 3 goalkeepers and 2 injured outfielders, 1 good U19, a load of not very good U19s and a load of not very good over-19s who never bothered to leave the club at the end of their youth contracts and who I forgot about. Fantastic! This match predictably ended in defeat, although 2-0 was not actually that bad. Thankfully I was able to sign a load of (cheap) players before the next match – 7 Central Europeans including bizarrely, not 1, not 2 but 3 German Turks. 2 more defeats followed and we were bottom before we started to gel. 3 wins out of 4 and we were out of the relegation zone and I started to realise that we might actually be OK in this division. This thought was not, however, helped by the absolute pasting that Oviedo gave us at home and nor by the embarrassment that was our 4-0 defeat at the closest thing we have to a rival in this division, Atletico Baleares, 0-2 after 7 minutes, 1 red card and serious injuries to 3 of our 1st 11. Another defeat and a 4 game run without a goal and I had a mild panic. So when we equalised at home to 2nd bottom Cordoba we carried on attacking, they obviously got the winner. A visit to 2nd place Almeria did not promise much but we left with a stunning 2-1 win. 2 games later and we beat runaway leaders Hercules 1-0 at home. No idea how either of those results happened except that our striker was in the midst of a run of 7 goals in 4 games. So bad were all the injuries etc. that it took until Xmas for us to actually be to put out what I thought was our best 11 and it got us a victory so we entered the 20s in midtable but given that there were 10 points between the playoffs and the relegation zone it was hardly a very safe position. We started off the year with a bad home defeat but then some great form with 3 straight wins without conceding a goal. That took us to the edge of the playoffs but it was still ridiculously close with 4 points separating 6th and 16th, and this was after 23 games! I actually started to think about the playoffs so this obviously resulted in us drawing 3 straight winnable matches. This was part of a 9 match unbeaten run, unfortunately including 6 draws. This meant that with 8 games to go we were 9th but only 2 points from the playoffs. Our previous record unbeaten run was also 9 games so we had a chance to beat it, unfortunately we were visiting runaway leaders Hercules, and they promptly thrashed us 3-0. How runaway were Hercules? Well, with 7 games to go this clinched them the league title, and remarkably there was a bigger gap between 1stand 2nd than there was between 2nd and the relegation zone! Ridiculous! Losing to them was acceptable, what was not acceptable was going in at halftime 4-0 down to Cadiz in our next match, the Cadiz team we beat in the playoffs last season. And losing at already-relegated bottom club Xerez in our next match was not great either. And although we did win our next 3 matches, all at home, the fact that the score in each one was 3-2 did not inspire much confidence. However this meant that with 2 games to go we were only 2 points from the playoffs but still in 10th place! A cracking win at Alaves meant that going into the final game of the season the table looked like this. 7 teams, 3 playoffs positions and we were playing one of them, Valladolid. I had no idea of the permutations but a victory would give us a good chance. Unfortunately we had 5 of our 1st team out thru suspension, international duty and injury and we lost. Mainly because the replacement DC was dreadful, never before in this save had I seen a player get a rating of less than 5, he got 3.1! So we finished 9th, and if we had won at Valladolid we would have made the playoffs. As you can see, once we dug ourselves out of our early season hole, we were pretty solid for the 2nd half of the season. I have the usual feeling in this type of situation – give me 9th at the start of the season, I’d be very happy but to be that close to the playoffs does grate a bit. Even more so when I look at some of the games that we chucked away. And I am not a fan of winning more games than losing and having a negative goal difference. We scored an average number of goals but defensively we did fall apart a bit more often than I would have liked. And rather unexpectedly, we were the 2nd dirtiest team in the division. Unfortunately a few of the players have started to get wage ideas about their station, my best DC and 2 of my best MCs are off at the end of the season after refusing to even discuss terms whilst my main ST (who has been here since the 1st season) currently wants over £3k per week which, even if I could remotely afford it, he certainly is not going to get. Final Squad Finances – yes, that really is profit, once the stadium money issue was sorted out we were doing well, mainly because of TV money and our ridiculously small wage bill (40% of any other team) and with our shiny enlarged stadium we should be getting even more money Transfers – out of the 7 desperation buys in August, Topcu and Zeybek played a lot and Zeybek actually became one of our 1st choice DCs by mid-season, Corda and Bouet were useful squad players, Buchmann was kind of 1st choice DR for a couple of months but got dropped, Bizan and Piga hardly played, as for the others Vera came in late and was a useful sub and did well when Martins was injured, Camara is a teenage Guinean ST who spent most of the season in the U19s, he will be very good so I will be keeping an eye on him, the 2 January arrivals were released by Porto and both will be very good and both were 1stchoices by the end of the season Here are some of those who helped us this season: Best GK – Moha – a good solid season and he is definitely good enough for this division, could have done with a few more clean sheets and on the odd occasion his kicking was really bad, at least 2 goals were directly because of this, there are a couple of good GKs available and I may bring in one to give him some proper competition Best Fullback – Francesco Tedesco – the best fullback this season but he certainly won’t be next season and he wasn’t even 1st choice by the end of the season, however he played very well so he gets in here, the backup issue showed its face again at the start of the season as I had to play a 17yo for the 1st 2 months, that problem was finally solved in January and it was solved by bringing in someone better so after a while I gradually introduced the new guy and he stayed on the bench, which is where he will probably spend most of next season as well Best Central Defender– Marc Temme – a very good season, in fact he actually broke the Adelante average rating record, a bit odd that he managed that given our defensive holes, far too many MoM awards as well, a striker could score 2 goals and assist 1 and Temme would be the MoM, in any case, he is off back to Germany having shown no inclination to sign a new contract and this is a big shame as he is by a country mile our best defender, at least one new DC will need to be signed Best New Signing – Necati Zeybek – one of the many German / Turks I brought in and the best so far, played all over the place until he settled in at DC and more or less became 1st choice for the rest of the season, played solidly but I think I can find better, however with Temme leaving I would like some continuity so it is likely that he will stay more or less 1st choice for a little longer Best Defensive Midfielder –Flavio Rocha – still playing very well and still injured far too often, I have counted and since his arrival 5 years ago he has had 15 injuries and missed over a year of football, not ideal, as he is our best DMC and plays great when he is fit I have not yet given up with him but I have at least made sure I have some good backups... Best Central Midfielder – Michaël Aubry – quite brilliant, a lot less assists this year but overall much better play and this in a higher division, our midfield revolved around him and he has become one of our most important players, so much that he won the Player of the Year Award, a couple of clubs have sniffed around him but I am hopeful he will stay at least another season 2nd Best Central Midfielder – Abdoul Karim Roger – much quieter this year and became less important which worked out well as he is off back to Holland in the Summer as he never even entertained signing a new contract, he still played very well and I would have loved to have kept him, replacing him will not be that easier especially as another of my really good MCs is also leaving on a free Best Attacking Midfielder – Chori – just as good in this division as the one below, as many goals and good performances, only thing lacking was the assists, am very happy he signed that new contract, however given his reluctance to sign it I would not be surprised to see him not want to sign a new one so next season may end up being his last one, hopefully I will have replacements already settled in Best Striker – Simão Martins – not bad at all, a very solid season in this higher division with several goals and assists, however he deemed himself worthy of a huge contract, one which we were unable to offer, and one that I probably would not have offered him even if we could afford to, don’t really understand as I am very doubtful that another club in this division will pick him up especially on the money he wants but let’s see, I suspect I should be able to pick up a better striker from somewhere, better on paper at least... Notes We got giant-killed in the Cup by a 2B team, albeit one that continued giant-killing all the way to the quarter-finals, which made it a little less embarrassing Tarantino is back in La Liga! Ponferradina went straight back up We are back in our own newly expanded stadium but they are now going to do more work, and also I realised that the stadium where we relocated to during the works is about 200km away on the mainland, not exactly convenient. I know we are the only club on Ibiza but surely we could have shared with one of the Majorcan teams No club came up from our old division again this season, all 4 clubs lost every tie in the playoffs, so just the one club in the last 4 years has come up (us), this is getting beyond embarrassing Just the one job offer this year, from Lleida Last Season's Aims Avoid Relegation - SUCCESS - once we got some signings in and a bit of cohesion we were very good and never in danger Replace Dos Santos And Chori - KIND OF SUCCESS - 1st of all Chori never left so did not need replacing plus I got a very good backup / future replacement in January, however I never did really replace Dos Santos, a load of players came in but none had anywhere near his ability and it took until about January before I settled on one to partner Temme and even he had the type of occasional dodgy moment that Dos Santos never did Better Squad Depth - SUCCESS - until the 1st match of the season, this was the biggest fail you could imagine as, because of being in administration, we could not sign anyone, however after that we did make several signing and in all positions, it took until January to get a good DL and he is in fact better than Tedesco, so a 17yo had to play during his frequent injuries The Coming Season's Aims Mid-table - given how close we were to the playoffs, I could be ambitious and aim for them but I shan’t be doing that, especially given all the departures and the unpredictability of this league so solid midtable will do nicely Adequately Replace All The Departures - with our best DC, 2 of our best MCs and probably our best ST all leaving, we are going to need to make some changes, all could, in theory, be replaced internally by players who are not as good but have great potential but that is not the ideal situation, I expect a good few new arrivals Concede Fewer (And Less Embarrassing) Goals - our defensive record was not that bad on paper, 1.5 per game, but it was amongst the less good in the division plus there were far more horrific defensive errors than I have ever been used to, but with potentially ¾ of our defence changing, I fear this might not be easy 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Tenerife (17th) (A3-1, H3-1) + Deportivo (21st) (A3-0, H3-2) – the only 2 teams we did the double over Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Murcia (11th) – (A0-2, H0-1) – only team we failed to scored against Best 11 Overall Best 11 - it has finally changed to our current formation so quite a lot of the earlier players (ie. wingers) are no longer there The 100 League Appearances Club Apps Gls Asts Con MoM AvR Luca Dos Santos 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 D C (2014-2019) Chori 190 47 47 - 14 7.31 M / AM C (2015-) Mario 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 DM / M C (2014-2019) Simão Martins 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 ST (2013-) Moha 154 - - 163 0 6.98 GK (2015-) Abdoul Karim Roger 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 DM / M C (2015-) Marc Temme 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 D RC (2016-) Flavio Rocha 131 7 22 - 4 7.22 D L (2015-) Francesco Tedesco 129 3 11 - 3 7.19 D L (2015-) Jaime Serrano 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 D / WB / M R (2013-2018) Francesco Tarantino 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 (ST / AM RL (2013-2017) Zeynel Çavusoglu 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 D / DM / M C (2017-) David Garrido 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 DM / M C (2013-2017) Michaël Aubry 102 7 23 - 5 7.28 M C (2017-) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 6, 2013 Author Share Posted November 6, 2013 Liga Adelante –2020/2021 Finally some money! With the stadium expansion complete and us being in profit due to TV money the board decided to relax slightly their restrictions. That meant the wage budget went from 14k per week to the giddy heights of 35k and we had over a million to spend. Not that I actually spent any money though; as our scouts were focused on freebies that was mainly what was available. Plus, after 7 years of no money I was a bit unused to this spending ability. As with previous summers all our signings were free transfers who had been released by previous clubs. 11 of them came in, a mixture of 1st teamers (DC, DR, MC and ST), squad players and a few usual youths. Out went the 3 who signed contracts elsewhere plus Martins who wanted too much money (he later signed up with a 2B club in January). I also sold a couple of reserves and sent out some youths on loan. And the season initially got off to a great start; 15 seconds into our first match and our new ST had scored our quickest ever goal. However, our defence had something to say about that, conceding a couple of comedy goals and generally falling apart, 2-4 it ended. And when we conceded 3 in 4 of our next 5 matches resulting in 4 defeats and a 0-0 in the other, I realised we had a problem. 2 straight goalless goals calmed us down a bit and they were followed by 2 1-1 draws. Thankfully in game 11 we finally got our 1st win, at Las Palmas and followed that with another at Valladolid. We were still in the relegation zone but were at least edging towards the edge of it. And then it went wrong again with 5 straight defeats plummeting us back deep into the relegation zone. An away draw was followed by, finally on 20thDecember, our 1st home win of the season, although given that it was against the worst team in the division it was not that much of an achievement. So we entered 2021 5 points from safety which is probably closer than we deserved. We started off the new year with another home win but this was again against a really poor relegation threatened side (seemingly like us). This finally got us moving as we hit a 7 match unbeaten run which dragged us up to 19th which was actually only 6 points behind 11th! This run was halted in our next match by a Sociedad team which had just appointed Robin Van Persie as their new manager. Despite this being followed by 2 draws and a defeat we were still close to safety and when we got 2 straight wins we finally reached safety for the first time all season. We then became the most boring team in the division this season, and probably for a long while before this season as well; 4 straight 0-0 draws which dropped us back out of safety. By a quirk brought on by postponements because of international call-ups the first 2 of those matches were our 3rd and 4th in a row at home and the final 2 were the first of 5 straight away matches. I was expecting defeat on the neighbouring isle against Mallorca but a Zeybek free-kick brought us a win and our 5th clean-sheet in a row. This left us with 8 games to go and there are 4 things to note after this match: Alcorcón clinched the title! Leganés were relegated! We had got to 42 points which was enough to avoid relegation last season yet we were still in the relegation zone. WITH 8 GAMES TO GO!! We were only 11 points from the playoffs! The division is insane this year. This run was ended by Cordoba next up before the performance of the season brought us a 3-0 against Atletico Baleares who were 2nd. Champions Alcorcón then visited and I was hoping that they might have relaxed a bit, nope, they absolutely and utterly battered us 5-1 and we were lucky it was not more. We then promptly went to Leganés and did the same thing to the bottom team, 4-0. 3 points clear of relegation and still 3 points clear when we thrashed Puertollano 4-1. That left 3 matches and in a nice coincidence they were against the teams in 19th, 20th and 21st, one of which was Almeria, who were 3rd when we played them in January! One win might be enough. Well, losing 0-1 to Tenerife did not help but it meant no change. We should have beaten Cadiz but could only manage a goalless draw. That relegated them and left the table looking like this. For us to go down all of Recreativo, Las Palmas and Almeria (playing us) had to win. Literally no idea what would happen if all 4 of us ended on 51 points. So for the 3rd time in 4 seasons it came down to the last game of the season. And for the 3rd time it was an exceptionally unexciting game where little happened. At least this time, we won... Turned out that we would have been safe even if we had lost that match but that win lifted us to 14th place which is the highest we had been all season. That graph makes it look a little worse than it was as although we were in the relegation zone all season, after Christmas we were never stranded and always seem in some kind of control, it just took time, a lot of time, too much time! That was not exactly what I was looking for but it was mainly down to our awful start as in 2021 we were one of the form teams in the division. We also became rather dull, barely 2 goals a game and 9 0-0s. After conceding 16 in our 1st 6, we only conceded 31 in our final 36 and that includes the 1-5 against Alcorcón. Although it sounds rather (very) stupid given that we only confirmed safety on the last day of the season, with a bit more luck the playoffs weren’t entirely out of reach, only 10 points away. As I mentioned earlier, this division is insane – this year it consisted of one ridiculously good side, one ridiculously bad side and 20 sides of more or less equal ability, from 2nd to 21st there were 22 points, from the playoffs to the relegation zone only 15! Almeria were 3rd at Christmas, they got relegated. Puertollana were 10th with 6 games to go, they finished 2nd, and one of those 6 games was our 4-1 thrashing of them (and they were predicted to finish 21st!!). And Atletico Baleares did the opposite, 2nd with 4 to go, 9th 2 games later, they finished 8th. Crazy. One good thing is that no first choice players are leaving this Summer, just a dodgy DC and 2 backup STs so hopefully there should be some continuity next year. Final Squad - pretty international, not that many Spaniards have been willing to sign for us on the wages we could offer, maybe now we can pay a little more that may change Finances – more profit, we may have more than doubled our wage bill but it is still the 2nd lowest in the division, plus having quadrupling the capacity of our stadium helps and it is nearly sold out every week, they like their football on Ibiza Transfers – mainly success, Diakité, Dziri and Saidi were first choices as was Burrezo for the 2nd half of the season, Peraza saved our season (see below), Proshin was part of our early defence but that did not last for long but still could be good next season, Campos was backup, Buck is very promising, Insua was dreadful, the rest are young and did not play much Here are some of those who played OK this season: Best GK – Moha – once our defence sorted itself out after the 16 goals conceded in 6 games start, he was great, conceding less than a goal a game, playing very well, making a lot of saves and keeping a lot of clean sheets, his rating is lower because of that start, more of the same please Best Fullback – Bruno Perrin – a Porto(!) youth product who joined 18 months, played at the end of last season and became 1st choice this year, and a very good player he is as well, improving all the time and he is only 20, he has all you need for a fullback, contributed a good few goals, I think I will be happy with him in this position for a long while and I won’t be surprised to see him play for Switzerland at some stage Best Central Defender – Necati Zeybek – I did not really intend on him becoming one of our 1st choice DCs and he started on the bench but given the start made by the other players there he quickly came in, and he did very well, shoring up the defence nicely and contributing a fair few goals as well, given the Rocha situation (see below) I have a temptation to move him to DMC (his natural position) but that is dependent on another good DC coming in, otherwise if he continues at DC and plays as well again then I shall be happy Best Player I Should Have Bought Last Summer – Tanaúsu Peraza – and he was available last Summer but I passed up on him and signed other DCs, which turned out to be unwise, his arrival in January totally turned our season around, he was an absolute rock, we only conceded 15 in the 18 games he started (10 in 17 if we forget about Alcorcón) which compares very well with our pre-Christmas form, I dread to think what would have happened if he had not joined and I also now wonder what would have happened if he had been here all season, I guess I will soon find out, providing he is as good next year Unluckiest Player - Flavio Rocha – oh dear , started off as the usual 1st choice DMC, solid if unspectacular but thankfully injury free, probably a record period for him, then just before Christmas he tore a hamstring and missed 3 months, his replacement (see below) did fine and I did not want to rush an unfit player back whilst during a critical run so he only played the odd game here and there until this happened, I suppose it was inevitable, the most injury prone player I have ever had in CM/FM gets the king of all injuries, unfortunately I think this is probably the end of his Santa Eulalia career, he won’t be back before February at the very earliest and to get back to his previous level, to oust the incumbent and to play well enough to convince me to give him a new contract before the end of the season will be a tough ask Best Defensive Midfielder – Carlos Burrezo – the recipient of Rocha’s misfortune, was on the bench until his 1st injury and was solid enough, I was gradually reintroducing Rocha when the 2nd injury occurred so he continued as 1st choice, played perfectly well enough, unspectacular, pretty invisible which I guess is what you want from a DMC, not sure yet if he will continue as 1st choice next year or not, in any case he will play a fair few games Best Central Midfielder – Michaël Aubry – another great season, the only thing lacking is a few goals, then again that is something that was lacking from everyone, ran midfield, was everywhere and generally played very well, hope for something very similar next season, only issue is that he had a couple of mumbles about bigger clubs so I am not 100% sure if I will be able to sign him to a new contract or not Best Attacking Midfielder – Chori – cracking season, more goals, more assists, but a lower rating which is because this year he did go missing a lot more often than on previous occasions which did pose a problem during our (numerous) dodgy runs, if he can avoid that he will do great, I also (unexpectedly) managed to sign him to a new 2 year contract which hopefully means he will be around for a bit longer, however he still has the £500k release clause so there is always the risk that someone may trigger it Best Striker – Mohamed Diakité – a great 1st season and was voted the Adelante signing of the season and our Player of the Year, much better on paper than Martins (who he replaced) and thankfully better on the pitch as well, great start with the 15 second goal in our 1st match, went on a couple of great runs, average of a goal every other game and he is getting better all the time, could just have done with Mali not noticing how good he is and calling him up to the African Nations, more of the same and a new contract please Notes Nothing to note about in the Cup, out in our 1st match again Tarantino is back in the Adelante as Ponferradina came straight back down, he is on the transfer list as well, little to note about the other players who have left us over the years Not sure this stadium expansion was enough, we pretty much filled it up for every match since it became all-seater Team promoted from our old-division shocker!!! Alcoyano won the title, got promoted and won the playoffs Mallorca went up via the playoffs Alcorcón were insanely good this season, setting a load of records that will probably stand for years, 103 points, 113 goals, 1 defeat all season and in Vanderley they had the best player this division will have seen for a long long time Last Season's Aims Mid-table - KIND OF FAILURE - not a total failure as we did actually finish in mid-table, it is just that it took 42 games to get there! A relegation battle was definitely not what I was aiming for but at least we survived Adequately Replace All The Departures - SUCCESS - OK, it took until January to adequately replace our best DC and one of the MC replacements was already at the club but they were all adequately replaced in the end, with a new and better DR as well Concede Fewer (And Less Embarrassing) Goals - KIND OF SUCCESS - difficult to say as we started the season off by conceding lots and lots of goals, a fair proportion of which were embarrassing but for the 2nd half of the season we were great in defence and I can’t recall any embarrassing moments so far in 2021 The Coming Season's Aims Mid-table - a slightly more stable mid-table this time please although if the division plays out similar to this year then unless we are 20 points clear in 1stwe will be always looking over our shoulder no matter what59 goals in our first Adelante season was not bad, 48 last season is not great, that is very little over 1 a game and that includes 2 games in the last 6 where we scored 4, something above the 1st season total would be nice Score A Few More Goals - 59 goals in our first Adelante season was not bad, 48 last season is not great, that is very little over 1 a game and that includes 2 games in the last 6 where we scored 4, something above the 1st season total would be nice Be Better In The Air - we conceded a division leading 11 goals from corners and I’d say another high number came from crosses in open play, at a guess over half of the goals we conceded originated from the wings in some way, I know our full backs are a bit rubbish in the air but I expect more from our DCs 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 –5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 –1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Leganés (22nd by a country mile) – (H2-0, A4-0) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Alcorcón (1st by a country mile) – (A0-2, H1-5) Best 11 Overall Best 11 The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 230 61 56 - 18 7.29 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 189 - - 203 0 6.96 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 154 8 23 - 4 7.18 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 136 7 28 - 8 7.28 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 119 5 9 - 5 7.09 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 7, 2013 Author Share Posted November 7, 2013 Liga Adelante –2021/2022 Very quiet Summer as only 3 players came in although one actually cost money! A whole £75k for an AMC of equal ability to Chori who would provide some competition at the very least. The other players were a DRL who was scheduled to be a backup but became 1st choice and a very backup ST who ended up playing 0 minutes all season. A load of loan spells and Tedesco leaving were pretty much it on the out side of things. We got our 1st home win of the season a bit earlier than last year, game 1 with a 1-0 over Las Palmas. This was followed by losing at Murcia. And then 30 points from 36. Highlights of this run included a 5-0 pasting of Alavés and then visiting a Real Sociedad side that had won 5 out 5 and whipping them 5-1, probably the best result of my reign here. That put us in the playoffs and a couple of games later we were 2nd on goal difference. This run was halted abruptly by Oviedo and we then totally embarrassed ourselves at home to a Castilla side that had lost 7 on the trot by losing 1-2. And one point from our next 2 games made it 4 without a win and we were edging our way away from the top 2 spots. However, it was pretty close as our last match of 2021 brought us a 2-0 win and, with other results going our way, to within 2 points of top. 2022 started with 2 red cards in the 1st 9 minutes and hence us playing 80 minutes with 9 men! Not ideal. We actually did OK but tired towards the end and conceded 2 goals. Recently relegated Gimnastic were dismissed in a great performance before we chucked away 3 points at Las Palmas by conceding 2 late goals. Our bête noire, Murcia, 1 draw in 6 games against them, visited and were surprisingly leaders at this stage, but we finally got our 1st victory over them to most safely into the top 6. One issue we had at this moment was a total lack of clean sheets, 12 games and counting. This was until we visited Alavés, unfortunately we also failed to score. Our home form then totally fell apart whilst our away form was great, 3 straight home defeats (all 0-1) were interspersed with 3 straight away wins. Relegation threatened Eibar were the nadir at home whilst promotion challenging Ponferradina were the away highlight. We halted the home defeats but 2 straight draws against eminently beatable opponents were hardly ideal and made it 5 home matches without a win. And one point from the next 2 away matches made it 4 games without a win and we were on the very edge of the playoffs and in pretty dodgy form (and the worst home form of the whole division). However it was all very close as all the teams involved were basically beating each other and also losing to the occasional dodgy team like we were doing. And then, suddenly something happened, mainly it was Chori becoming ridiculously awesome but overall we just started playing really well. When Oviedo scored an early goal I had the feeling of a 6th home game without a win but then Chori scored 2 in 2 minutes and we hit total control. Another early goal for the opposition against Castilla brought more worries but another Chori double brought us another win. And it was a similar story against Melilla, another early goal, another Chori goal to equalise and we got the winner in the 2nd half. That took us to 3rd and only 3 points behind Las Palmas in 2nd (against who we won the head-to-head). We were utterly brilliant against our Atletico Baleares to give us our 4th win in a row and to leave us needing 2 points from our final 3 matches (all against promotion challengers) to guarantee the playoffs. Another great performance against Racing and we were in the playoffs and more importantly Las Palmas lost to leave us in 2nd and 2 wins away from La Liga. And when they lost before we played our penultimate match suddenly we were 1 win away. The usual early goal from Gimnastic was followed by the usual Chori double and very unexpectedly we were in La Liga! And to close the season another Chori goal helped us to a 2-1 win over Osasuna dumping them out of the playoffs. So we finish very clear in 2nd which is equal to the highest position we reached all season. WOW! That was unexpected, even with 7 games to go I would have been overjoyed with the playoffs and with 3-4 to go, I thought 2nd was far out of reach. To close the season with 7 straight wins was remarkable especially given our earlier home form. Las Palmas losing their last 3 matches also helped. The main reason we won those final 7 matches was that Chori suddenly became superhuman, he scored 10 goals in them and played as well as he has ever done. We had the best defensive record in the division whilst also scoring a fair number of goals. Our home and away records were nearly identical which made our away one the best in the division. After last year’s nightmare I was not really expecting this. One thing that definitely helped us was that there was only 1 change to the 1st eleven and only 2 players that I obtained during the season played any role at all so there was a lot of continuity. This will certainly not be the case next year as the squad is in no shape for La Liga; the 1st 11 might do OK but below that we do have some very non-La Liga quality players. Final Squad – suddenly become a bit African (with Friench nationality), this will cause a problem next January with the African Nations Cup, still not very Spanish and I suspect it will become worse this Summer as they will undoubtedly cost too much money Summary Finances – less profit this year, the stadium was pretty much sold out most weeks but the wages went up again, I worked out that the break-even point was somewhere between £40-45k per week which we passed when I renewed a few contracts, we should get loads of TV money though next year Transfers – very calm, Camara was 1st choice, Gutierrez was a good rotation player, Vicente played not one minute as we did not have any major ST injuries, Walter was better so was brought in in January just in case there were any in the last few months, there weren’t so he hardly played, Revulcaba is a very very promising Mexican / French GK Here are some of those who starred this season, in fact it works out as our 1st 11: Best GK – Moha – great season, best so far at the club albeit considerably helped by the defence in front of him, made a lot of saves and was generally great, one complaint could be that on too many occasions the 1st shot he faced resulted in a goal, not as confident about him coping with the top flight as I am about some players, I doubt I will get a replacement but let’s see Equally Best Fullback – Lacine Camara – was initially signed as the perfect fullback backup, however an injury to our DR put him in the team straightaway and he never left it, as good at DL as he is at DR he played in both positions equally well, should be good enough for La Liga and if he is not then he will be a great backup Equally Best Fullback – Bruno Perrin – brilliant player, the moment my scouts found him 2 years back I wondered why on earth Porto had let him go, played really well this season, was called up twice to the Swiss squad, once he got injured, the 2nd time he did not make the cut for the World Cup, he will undoubtedly win his 1st cap soon, should easily be good enough next season Best Central Defender – Tanaúsu Peraza – was as good for the whole season as he was for the half season he played last year which is what I was hoping for, not the most cultured player but he is a brute of a defender and very good in the air, partners Zeybek really well and was missed when he was out for 2 months towards the end of the season Best Utility Player – Necati Zeybek – played most of the time at DC but covered at DMC and MC on a regular basis and was just as good there, had another great season and is now worth the most of any of our players, not bad for a player signed 3 years solely because he wanted low wages, should be 1st choice next season no matter where he plays Best Defensive Midfielder – Carlos Burrezo – became 1st choice on merit this season, was again very solid and unspectacular, I should probably have made him our penalty taker and that would have bumped up his scoring rate, I doubt he will be 1st choice next season but should be good as a backup Equally Best Central Midfielder – Michaël Aubry – another great season, a few goals but fewer assists but was consistently very good and controlled the middle of the pitch, one of our best players and I imagine he will be 1st choice next season but let’s see who arrives Equally Best Central Midfielder – Brahim Saidi – probably an even better player than Aubry, much improved in his 2nd season here, is our Deep Lying Playmaker and does the role really well, a few goals and assists and is an important cog of our team, also got picked by Morocco for the World Cup and picked up his 1st caps in the process 3rd Best Central Midfielder – Ayhan Topçu – 3rd season here and like Zeybek he was only signed due to his low wage demands, has been very solid especially the last 2 years, his rating shot up this year as he started taking corners which led to a lot of assists, despite all this he is the midfielder most at risk of a new signing replacing him, would expect to see him start next season on the bench Best Attacking Midfielder – Chori – WOW! 7th season here and his best season yet, he was our most important player, he single-handedly took us to promotion at the end of the season with his 10 goals in the last 7 games, even before that he was very good, our coaches only rate him as our 3rd best AMC but despite this I think he should be good in La Liga as well, he still has the issue of the £500k release clause, nobody has looked at it yet but there is always the risk Best Striker – Mohamed Diakité – good solid season, 15 goals is the same output as the previous year, rarely had a bad game and combined very well with Chori, I just think that a lone ST in a promotion winning team should be scoring a few more goals and taking more of the chances, he does miss a few, plus he was offside the most times in the division for the 2nd straight year, can’t really see him as 1st choice next year to be honest Notes We won a Cup match...and then lost in the next round Some more of our ex-players will be in various top flight leagues next year – at Murcia there is Reule (great DC from 5 years back) and Pinto (not great ST, expect they will sell) whilst Dos Santos (godlike DC) is moving on a Bosman from Le Havre (Ligue 2) to Hamburg. Tarantino moved to Serie B last Summer The stadium expansion was definitely not enough, we pretty much filled it up for every match with 19 sellouts, and I expect the board will want to expand it again for La Liga Las Palmas went up via the playoffs Puertollana, who were promoted last season, were historically bad in La Liga, 1 win and 10 points all season, hopefully we can at least beat that Sociedad sacked Robin van Persie dutring the season, and promptly appointed Patrice Evra Austria have a ridiculous midfield – both Lars Stein and Mario Grote are stars for Madrid USA have a pretty good attack – Chris Alamo at Juve and Mike Robles at Man U Last Season's Aims Mid-table - ALL KINDS OF SUCCESS - not much really needs to be said here Score A Few More Goals - SUCCESS - 69 goals is 21 more than last season Be Better In The Air - SUCCESS - only 3 goals conceded from corners which is 8 less, plus in general we were more steady at the back The Coming Season's Aims Avoid Relegation - I was going to say “don’t embarrass ourselves” or “do better than Puertollana” but I will try to be more optimistic, we have a lot of players who should be good enough for La Liga but I don’t think our squad is anywhere near good enough, this is going to be a challenge Buy And Sell Players - so far I have bought 1 player for £75k and sold 4 players for around £80k. In 9 years of management. Everyone else has joined or left for free. For us to survive next year I think we are going to actually have to spend some money and get players from further afield (hopefully I will be able to scout worldwide), there are also a few players who I would like to sell as I can’t see them ever appearing for us in La Liga, a couple of youth products plus some of my cheap signings from the last couple of years Keep The Stars - “stars” maybe a bit of an exaggeration but basically the players who have got us this far and who I feel can become great La Liga players, namely Perrin, Zeybek, Peraza, Aubry, Saidi and Chori plus maybe a couple others. I suspect with our change in reputation there may be a few offers. I’d rather keep quite a few others as well but that depends on whether there is any interest in them. Plus I don’t want to change the squad too much 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 –5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 –1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Gimnastic (9th) – (H3-1, A3-1) + Xerez (19th, relegated) – (H3-0, A1-0), 2 of only 3 teams we actually did the double over Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Tenerife (12th) – (H1-1, A0-1), 1 of only 2 teams we did not win a game against Best 11 - interestingly they put Chori at DMC(?!) to accomodate the 2nd AMC Overall Best 11 – no changes A couple of German Turkish newcomers here... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 270 81 63 - 24 7.32 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 231 - - 243 0 6.97 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 173 11 32 - 9 7.30 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 130 5 10 - 5 7.09 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 112 12 6 - 7 7.32 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 111 8 19 - 1 7.12 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltablue Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 Well done on another promotion after just a few years. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 8, 2013 Author Share Posted November 8, 2013 Thanks, yes, it was a lot quicker this time! And very unexpected as well given how we had struggled in the previous season. Not the tough bit starts. Staying up... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 8, 2013 Author Share Posted November 8, 2013 La Liga – Summer 2022 Not that an eventful Summer, in the sense that the only players that left were the ones that I wanted / forced to leave. Unfortunately these were obviously not the best players in the squad so I did not get much money for them. There were also a load of loanees going out – a few prospects but the majority being players in their last year of contract that I failed to sell. However, the Summer was very eventful for players coming in. The first thing I did was ask the board that it was a good idea to be able to scout the world and after a bit of convincing they agreed to it. First in were 3 players for free that had been released by their previous clubs before signing a Costa Rican GK also for free. I then finally made a purchase as a Brazilian came in from Croatia who was swiftly followed by somebody else from Croatia – a real Croat. Another freebie and then I splashed the cash, all £2m of it, on a 17yo! A very promising 17yo but not one who will play much this season. After some more defensive (and free) cover came in, the 2nd big purchase of the Summer was the ST I had been looking for, an 18yo Brazilian. I then signed up my former star striker from the 1st season, Emilio Da Silva, as a scout and sent him to his homeland of Uruguay. 2 days later he got back with recommendations for half the country. Amongst those was a fantastic GK who joined up plus there will be 2 16yo joining in 2 years time when they turn 18. And finally an agent recommended me a Trinidadian DC who my scouts told me was great so although I did not need another defender he joined. Transfers The Incomers So, here are the newcomers and there are quite a few, in order of signing: Javi Luque – Spanish U21 international from PSG’s academy, my scouts loved him when they found him last year so when he got released I signed him up, he will be the new DR, not a position I was really looking to strengthen but this guy was too good to turn down, not really too sure why PSG did not keep him and I am looking forward to see what he can do Melih Aksoy – 3rd German / Turk currently at the club (and 5th overall), from Bayern’s academy, I tried to sign him up at the start of the year before he got released as other clubs were interested but he wanted a stupidly low release clause so I waited, no clubs offered him a contract so I pounced when he got released, very good player who can get even better, won’t start as 1st choice and will be mainly cover and will probably get quite a few games Alejandro Morán – Argentina DC from Bordeaux’s academy who gained French nationality whilst there, very promising player who has the potential to be very very good, was thought of as more cover as I presumed I would get a better DC in but in fact he has started the season as 1st choice and will probably stay there unless his performances go down Edinaldo – was found plying his trade in Croatia, was got quite cheap as he had a huge strop with his club when they sold one of their best players (and fellow Brazilian), is a really good player and already our best MC and AMC in all roles, despite this I am not sure he will be 1st choice to begin with given how well all those players played last season, will definitely play a lot though, only problem is that he did not spend enough time in Croatia to get a passport so is still non-EU, but he did spend enough time there to learn Croatian which has the unexpected bonus of pleasing the other arrival from Croatia (see below) Luis Aguilar – recommended by an agent and when my scouts told me his potential I signed him up straight away, I would not normally “waste” a non-EU role on a backup GK but he was free and not wanting much wages plus he will get a Spanish passport in 2 years time, he was going to be 3rd choice this season but when I signed up the Uruguayan (see below) that meant I had too many GKs and too many non-EU players so he will sit out this season and then I will try to get him a loan spell next season, once he gets the passport I will re-evaluate Stefan Rasic – found last year by my scouts, only 17yo but could be very good in the future, already he is not bad, in the U19s this season and probably won’t play much at all but he is our 3rd/4th best DMC so that is not totally out of the question Alexander Mees – German DC who I was not fully convinced about signing but my svouts said he had massive potential and is already a good player and I really needed central defenders, was pencilled in as the main DC backup (with Zeybek) but then Brown happened (see below) so he has become a little superfluous and barring injuries and very poor form I don’t think he will play that much this season Hazem Abdel Gawad – my record signing, and yes has only just turned 17(!) but he is already our 4th/5th best DC and every single scout / coach has given him 5* potential so I could not turn him down, will get the odd game this season but he will mainly be in the U19s but given that his 1st 4 appearances there have resulted in 4 MoM awards I am not sure how long I can justify keeping him there, one curiosity is that when I opened negotiations with Lierse he was an Egyptian U21 International who had just got a Belgian passport thru residency but when he arrived he had become a Belgian U21 International! Yacine Ben Haddou – been on my shortlist for a couple of years and only signed now as I realised that I did not have many players comfortable at DL and he has the added bonus of being a good DC as well, solely here as backup, I doubt he will start many games but he should make his fair share of benches Fábio Roberto – I realised sometime in August that I had not signed an ST so set about that, this guy was not the best available on current ability but he is another with consensus 5* potential and was not that expensive compared to some options, already a good player and can only get better, one thing that does perturb me a bit is that he is very very aggressive, only 18 and in a new country so not sure how long he will take to settle, will start behind Diakité but will hopefully take over at some stage Mauricio Tejera – one of hundreds of players found by my Uruguayan scout, was not looking for a new GK but this guy is better than Moha and too good to turn down, can get even better as well, drawback is the non-EU passport, as he was signed after the 1st match he will start on the bench but I suspect he will be 1st choice at some stage this season Anthony Brown – an agent recommendation and when my scouts got back and told me how good he was and I had checked that Trinidad is a Cotonou country and therefore counts as EU I signed him up, he is one of our best DCs but a new country and new language means he won’t start straightaway To The Faithful Departed Only one player of note left this Summer: Fabio Rocha (career) – 7 years here, 2 of which were spent injured(!), despite that his 1st 5 were great and very important to our promotion, started off at MC but moved to his natural position of DMC and stayed there, unfortunately in year 6 he picked up his worst injury and missed 9 months and that was the end of his time here, was on the bench for the last few months last season but he had lost a lot of ability during his layoff so there was no question of him staying, he should be picked up by a 2B club I would think I am relatively happy with all that. Yes, I probably signed too many players but out of the projected 1st-teamers only Mees could be seen as a bit superfluous and that is only because of Brown’s arrival. All the rest should play a bit. And thankfully there were no key departures, mainly as nobody wanted to buy them so all the 1st 11 from last season are still here. The only other issue is that I already have 4 non-EU players so not only does one have to sit out but it means I can’t sign any for the next 2 years. But I did make sure that they are all Latin American so only need 2 years to get a Spanish passport. I also paid a bit of attention to the languages with many Spanish speakers arriving and the French, German and Turkish speakers should be able to communicate with the others already here. Despite all the new arrivals there were only 2 changes to the lineup for the 1st match at home to Villarreal as Luque came in at DR and Morán at DC as Zeybek moved to DMC. And this La Liga lark seems quite easy, 2 min in and we had scored a penalty and we got a 2nd in the 2nd half and never looked like losing. And at Zaragoza we played really well as well and we only lost because they scored with their only 2 shots on target. A promising start. Notes: This Brazilian has an awesome name, pity he was not good enough for us England retained the World Cup! There was a bit of a Europe-wide managerial merry-go-round:- Mourinho finally left Madrid and has taken over at Man U replacing Luis Enrique who is the new England manager replacing Roberto Martinez who is now the new Zaragoza manager. AVB is the new Madrid manager Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 10, 2013 Author Share Posted November 10, 2013 La Liga – January 2023 Having started with a win and a defeat we got another solid win in at home to Murcia, the type of game we need to win to stay up before losing to a penalty at Atletico. We then visited Getafe and erm, thrashed them. This is a Getafe side who finished 4th last year and have, amongst others, England’s 1st choice DR in their ranks. Next up was the Nou Camp and we played really well and held on until Lukaku got an 85th minute winner. 2 wins later and we were in the upper reaches of midtable and doing surprisingly well. And then it went wrong. Malaga visited and our DL Perrin gave away a penalty after 18mins, and 5mins later he got a 2nd yellow. 10mins later and they were 3-0 up and 2 more 2nd half goals made it embarrassing. (And 3 days later in a cup match Perrin got another red card). In the next 2 games we conceded 7 more and obtained 2 more defeats and I feared things were going to take a turn for the worse. Despite a win at Granada next up, I was not entirely wrong as that is the last win we have got so far. We got 2 draws, one of which we should have won but worthy of note as finally in our 14th game of the season one of our STs scored a goal. Next up was a visit from Madrid and we were never at the races, 0-3 at h/t was how it finished. Valencia’s visit was even worse and as a result I dropped my GK, Moha, for the 1st time in the next game. Which also ended in defeat. A visit to Bilbao resulted in another 4 goals conceded including 2 more penalties one of which was Perrin’s 3rd concession of the season. Celta’s visit was another 4 conceded (but no penalties) before Getafe came away with a win (via of course a penality). This prompted a tactical change but it made little difference as Villareal got 5 including, wait for it, 2 penalties – the 7th and 8th we have conceded this season. So, we are currently in 14th place and 5 points clear of relegation. The teams below really are not that great so the main danger comes from our own horrific form (7 defeats in a row, 24 goals conceded). If we can sort that out soon, we should be OK. The main issue is scoring goals, it was OK at the start of the season when Chori was banging them in and our defence was solid but since the defence fell apart and Chori stopped scoring it has been a nightmare. Only one of the STs has scored a goal and Diakité only has 2. This needs to change. Before this run our defence was playing well but something has happened and all confidence has gone. If we could stop conceding penalties that would be nice as well January Transfer Window Only 1 arrival as my Director of Football found Marek Havilcek playing for Empoli, recently relegated from Serie A, my scouts loved him so he came in. He also prompted the tactical change as I now have a lot of AMCs so have moved to 4-2-3-1 to see if that can create more chances. On the way were just 2 loanees, namely my 4th choice GK and Mees, one of the new DCs who had not played a minute so far. There is also a Belgian ST coming in in the Summer. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 12, 2013 Author Share Posted November 12, 2013 La Liga – 2022/2023 Thankfully, despite the 7th defeat in a row, our new tactic did start to prove fruitful as first of all we got a creditable draw at home to Zaragoza and followed that with a win at Murcia, 1st win in 11 and 1st clean sheet in 15. Unfortunately Barcelona were next up and they had won 8-0 in midweek away at Villareal. We did not do too badly but 2 late goals made the score worse. Betis then visited and it was a strange game as 2 “glitches” that I had never seen before gave each team a goal, thankfully ours ended up being the winner. We did not embarrass ourselves at Atletico before we got a draw at bottom club Levante. We then went to Malaga who had started our awful form late last year and promptly thrashed them 3-0 with our ST signed in the Summer finally showing some form. A come-from-behind win at home to Sporting brought us to 13th and 12 points clear of relegation. 29 seconds into our visit to Alcorcón and Diakité had given us the lead, however they got 2 before half-time and I was expecting the worst. Which never came as one of our AMCs got 2 and we won 3-2. A goalless draw was followed by throwing a game away at home to Espanol, missed penalty to make it 2-0 and 2 dodgy pieces of defending. Despite Perrin getting his 3rd red card of the season we beat Las Palmas. And that made us mathematically safe. Which was good as our form totally fell apart. First up was our 1st visit to the Bernabéu and somehow we got to half-time 1-0 up. They were unamused and scored 5 in the 2nd half! Sevilla and Athletic at home both resulted in defeats before a spurring comeback against Valencia was destroyed by an injury time winner. Finally in our last match we got a point, which should have been 3 at Celta. This run could kind of be excused those as all 5 of those sides finished in the top 8. This all meant we finished in 12th which is around where we spent pretty much all of the 2nd half of the season. That’ll do. And we were actually voted as the Revelation of the Year. Survival is all that I was looking for and we got it relatively comfortably in the end, our only worry was at the beginning of the year and the 7 defeats in a row. We pretty much beat most of the teams we needed to beat and lost to those we were expected to lose against. That said, I would have preferred a couple more closer matches against these teams and a bit more consistency. Our defensive record ended up being pretty horrendous, despite our defence in general playing very well, it was just that when we lost we often got thrashed, we conceded 5 in 3 matches and 4 in 4 more and it was the joint 3rd worst. And upfront was not that great either, our 3 STs combinded for a grand total of 9 goals! Thankfully Chori got a few and our other midfielders chipped in but still only teams in the bottom 5 scored less than us. And penalties, well, we hit a grand total of 10 conceded by the end of the season... We already have a few signings lined up for the Summer, an out-of-contract teenage Russian ST who actually arrived a few weeks ago, a Belgian ST, a Croatian ST (you can sense a theme here...! ) and 3 very promising 15yos (2*GK, 1*AMC) and an unnecessary but very cheap 18yo GK. I will be needing some MC / AMCs although I have a couple out on loan who might do as backup and probably at least one fullback. Some of the Adelante players will be leaving. Final Squad – several newcomers and it has a bit of a South American flavour to it now. Summary Finances – profit, profit, profit, pretty much only because of the TV money, our wage bill is about to hit £100k per week which is the 2nd worst in the division, all 3 of the promoted clubs pay a third of what the next club does Transfers – loads in, with some resounding success (Morán, Edinaldo, Luque), some promise (Gawad, Aksoy, Fabio Roberto once he finally scored his first goal, Brown whenever he got a chance to play, Havilcek before he was out for 3 months) and some performances that I hope get better next year (Tejera), the others hardly played for various reasons Here are some of the better players: Best GK – Moha – erratic, started off well but then tailed off badly and got dropped, then came back, then got dropped again, then got injured, Tejera is better but he certainly did not show it and perhaps I should have kept with Moha given how many goals were conceded when he did not play, no idea who will start 1st choice next year but if it is like this year then probably neither will be 1st choice the season after Equally Best Fullback – Javi Luque – signed to be the new DR and the new DR he most definitely was, a very promising 1st season, played very well and his average would be much higher if he had not had a 2 or 3 utterly dreadful performances, is improving all the time and not close to his full potential yet, 1stchoice again next season Best Central Defender – Tanaúsu Peraza – he was so good last year that I could not envision dropping him so even though he is our worst DC on paper he started the season, and played so well that he never got dropped unlike all his partners who during our dodgy Winter run were playing musical chairs with that position, solid tackler and great in the air he is just a bit simple with the ball at his feet which is not really a problem, even if I sign better players he will remain 1st choice until his performances dictate otherwise Best Defensive Midfielder – Necati Zeybek – ok, we don’t currently play with one but for the 1st half of the season he played there and was pretty much the 1st name on the team-sheet, when we changed to the new non-DMC formation, he was a backup MC but this coincided with him signing a contract with Trabzonspor having wanted too much money from us so it got us used to him not playing and so worked out quite well, would rather he had stayed but for a player signed principally because he was cheap he has had a great 4 years here, he has turned out a load better than I ever expected him too Best Central Midfielder – Ayhan Topçu – utterly brilliant, miles better than he ever was in the Adelante which was a bit unexpected, the assist total is because of him taking corners but even taking that away he was fantastic, dominate in midfield, controls the midfield and is great moving forward even in the defensive role he has in the new formation, for a player signed for the same reasons as Zeybek he has been beyond a resounding success, he has actually become one of our most important players and is pretty much the 1st name on the team-sheet, deservedly voted our Player of the Year, he our most valuable player and I hope no-one shows any interest in him 2nd Best Central Midfielder – Brahim Saidi – pretty damn good, our DLP was great with 3 MCs and now even better in a partnership with just Topçu, just as good as last year in the division below, and he is getting better and better week by week, the 1st thing I need to do this Summer is sign him to a new contract whilst hoping that no-one attempts to sign him Best Attacking Midfielder – Chori – great 1st La Liga season, our top scorer and for the 1st couple of months he was basically our only scorer, not as many assists as before but that is principally because none of the strikers put away the chances he provided, worked well as a sole AMC and just as well as part of the 3, like Peraza he is nowhere near our best player on paper in his position but until he declines he will play 2nd Best Attacking Midfielder – Daniel Gutierrez – our 1st ever purchase 2 Summers ago and for the 1st 18 months he was a very solid backup, we then changed to a 3 AMC formation and when Havilcek got a 3 month injury he came in, and he performed very well indeed and this regular football has brought out some improvement in him as well, however I expect another AMC to arrive in the Summer so he will probably be back to being a very solid backup next season Best Striker – Mohamed Diakité – not exactly fantastic but he did play better than the 5 goals he scored but still, he scored 5 goals all season which is pretty embarrassing for an ST, the Brazilian, despite being even worse in front of goal this season, is getting better all the time and with a season of settling behind him I think he will probably get the shout next season, plus there are 2 other STs coming in who are aiming to take his spot, hence a backup role next season is likely Notes We got Atletico in the Cup, so we did not last long We have a new stadium coming! Which was really needed as we had the lowest average attendance in the division but the fullest stadium with 17 sellouts. At a guess, 23,000 should be enough for a while given that it is nearly twice the size of the town and just under 20% of the population of the whole island but let’s see... It was the expected close Madrid, Barca stuggle for the title, a draw at Granada for the former with 3 matches to go gave the title to Barca Hercules, Oviedo and Sociedad are coming up from the Adelante My scout discovered Amílcar Bareiro during the South American U20 Championships, he is 15, FIFTEEN! I can pretty much guarantee that he will be amongst the best midfielders (if not the best) in the world in 10 years time, I very much aim to sign him before anyone else finds him The 2 biggest transfers worldwide during the January transfer window were both for £25m and both for GKs! Laerte and Andrea Massimi were the players Last Season's Aims Avoid Relegation - SUCCESS - only for about 2-3 weeks in January did relegation become even a mild concern and once we sorted out our form we were never in trouble Buy And Sell Players - KIND OF SUCCESS - well, we did buy lots of players and we did sell a few but we never got any kind of money for the ones who left (no 6 figure sale yet), thankfully the TV money makes this possible Keep The Stars - SUCCESS - not one offer was made for the 6 mentioned, all started as 1st choice but only 4 were 1st choice by the end of the season and the other 2 are leaving on free transfers, Saidi is a real star and Perrin may perhaps become one, the other 2 staying are playing much better than their ability suggests The Coming Season's Aims Comfortably Avoid Relegation - I have already experienced in previous games the problems that a 2nd season can give so I am not aiming for mid-table or anything as that will just spell trouble. Safety, no issues and more consistency will do Better Goal Difference - we scored too few and we were thrashed far too often and -25 is not a good goal difference Give Away Fewer Penalties -10 is surely a record for the club and maybe the division, we did sort it out a bit in the 2nd half of the season but I would like this to last the whole season this time 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Murcia (19th, relegated) – (H1-0, A2-0) + Betis (16th) – (A2-1, H2-0), the only 2 teams we did the double over Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Real Madrid (2nd) – (H0-3, A1-5) Best 11 Overall Best 11 – the 2 TUR / GER players come in Just Perrin joined the club this year... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 308 93 66 - 25 7.30 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 254 - - 277 0 6.95 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 148 13 29 - 6 7.21 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 108 2 15 - 4 7.14 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 13, 2013 Author Share Posted November 13, 2013 La Liga – Summer 2023 Most of our business this year was done before the transfer window actually opened. In addition to the aforementioned 3*15yo, Croatian and Russian STs, a Belgian AMC/ST and a teenage GK, I also signed up 2 French players straight after they were released by their clubs. They mainly arrived on July 1st and that was July’s business done. In the 1st week of August my Director of Football found an 18yo AMC in Segunda B whose purchase, after some very positive scout feedback, was approved by me. I then set about looking for some fullbacks, this resulted in 2 teenage DR/Ls coming in, both for over £1m. And that was it. On the way out were some free transfers, most of whom had been out on loan last season and both Aubry and Zeybek who had signed for top-flight clubs in their homelands. Multiple loanees went out, as last season this consisted mainly of players who I had failed to sell. However I did manage to sell a few players, a German AMC left for a (club-record!) fee of £150k whilst 2 defenders who hardly played last season both left for newly-promoted Adelante club Lugo for a total of £115k. Transfers The Incomers So, here are the newcomers, more or less in order of signing or arrival: Roman Ageev – an agent recommended him in May, I was not expecting much but my scouts absolutely loved his potential and as he did not want excessive wages, I signed him up, not too sure what to do with him as I doubt he will get any game time here this season what with us only playing one up-front and I don’t want to send him out on loan this year, his birthday is a bit frustrating as if he was born 8 days later he could have spent the season in the U19s which would have done him a lot of good Franck Paris – kind of Zeybek’s replacement, released by PSG who do seem to release some ridiculously good players including Luque last year, has a huge amount of potential and is already a solid player, will probably be a rotation player as his best position is DC where he won’t be needed, he is kind of Topçu’s backup at MC but he hardly ever gets injured so not sure how much he will play Pape Diallo – this guy will, however, play a lot, a Lyon product and the moment my scouts found him I wanted him, will be an immense player one day soon, as we play 3 AMCs he will definitely be needed a lot, won’t start as 1st choice but I won’t be surprised if he wins the position at some moment Gunter Smets – had been on my shortlist for a while and my Director of Football has pretty much tried to sign him every transfer window since, he was the one who offered him the contract, not sure if I was going to do the same but I decided to accept it and I am happy I did, was initially thought of as an ST but that won’t be happening, will be part of the AMC rotation and he played so well in preseason that he started the 1st game, only on a 1y contract though which will need resolving Jan Hruska, Frank Nørgaard, Anders Neilsen– all 15yo, all with fantastic potential (the GKs 5*, Neilsen 4.5*), all relatively cheap, will be in the U19s for a couple of years and then we can re-evaluate Frédéric Messi – one thing I really did not need was another GK, that is 7 now with another one arriving next Summer (I have noticed in past games that I seem to collect them), but he has potential close to the ones above, was ridiculously cheap and wants peanuts so there was no downside, was not sure what to do with him until I realised that his age means he does not need to be registered so he is now our 3rd choice this season and will be in the U19s as well Domagoj Mrmic – freebie Croatian ST, turned down a couple of other clubs for us, already a pretty good player, won’t be 1st choice to begin with but he should end up playing a lot Iñigo Gomez – a DoF find and when my scouts got back to me, I was very happy for the find, was not really looking for another AMC but he is already a solid player and his potential is sky-high, plus he was relatively cheap, will probably make the odd cameo appearance but he is one for the future Nadir Matola – found by the same scout as Messi, already our 2nd best DR and DL and still only 18 and has plenty of room for improvement, will rotate in the backup role but will undoubtedly make several appearances this year and I suspect that he will be 1st choice within a couple of years Ivica Micic – another Croatian and another teenage DRL, I possibly over-paid a little bit but he should prove worth it, will mainly play for the U19s and I doubt he will play much this season except in dire injury situations, another one to be excited about in a couple of years time I have also signed another Uruguayan but as he is only 15 he won’t be here for a while, he looks a fantastic prospect and possesses an invaluable Italian passport as well. To The Faithful Departed Three players of note left this Summer: Necati Zeybek (career) – 4 fantastic seasons here, came on a free transfer from Germany having been out of football for a while, main reason I signed him was because he hardly wanted any wages, was pencilled in as a backup but he never was until his final 6 months here, would have liked to have kept him but I have got replacements in Michaël Aubry (career) – came from Monaco on a free and spent 6 great years here, each season playing better especially considering the promotion to the Adelante, like Zeybek he was 1st choice last season until the formation change and by then he had signed on in France in any case, if he had left a year ago I would say that he would be sorely missed, now less so Milton Castro (career) – came from Celta on a free and had a curious 6 years here, he is a better DC but he played the most at DR and played more in the Adelante than in Segunda B despite not getting any better, hardly played in our promotion season and just one sub appearance last year, is probably one of the 1st regens to reach 100 caps as well albeit for a horrifically bad Bolivia side, back in the Adelante now at what is probably his level, he is worth more than I sold him for but I just wanted rid before his contract ran out next year No complaints about that Summer’s business, I got most of the players I wanted. The 1st 11 won’t change much but the squad is a lot stronger and bigger as well as I got a few U19s who don’t need registering. We have just played the one match and there was only one newcomer starting in Smets, he played OK as we lost 0-1 at Sporting, we probably deserved at least a point. Notes Fabio Roberto, the not-entirely prolific teenage ST I signed last summer helped Brazil win the U20 World Cup and was also the top scorer in the whole tournament, bodes well for season ahead Remember Flavio Rocha, our very good but perennially injured midfielder who left the club last summer. Well, he never signed onto another club and has now become a coach, and a pretty good one and still only 28, once a space materialises I intend to sign him up Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 14, 2013 Author Share Posted November 14, 2013 La Liga – January 2024 After the 1st defeat, we only picked up 1 point from the next games. We finally got our 1st win when Celta visited before turning victory into defeat against Villareal. Bottom club Las Palmas were dispatched before 2 more defeats followed. Oh dear. Thankfully 2 very poor sides then visited the island and both were dispatched although only winning 1-0 against Hercules when playing against 9 men for more than a half was not great. A visit to the Nou Camp obviously resulted in defeat but 0-2 was perfectly OK but still meant we were floating around the relegation places. So far, our defence had been playing quite well but I was well aware that at some point it would fall apart and we would embarrass ourselves, however I was not really expecting it when we visited newly-promoted Sociedad. We were 0-5 down after 70 minutes and the 2 goals we did score at the end made no difference to my mood. We put this behind us by beating a very good Malaga side, albeit very luckily with a 93rd minute winner. There followed 4 straight away games and this was the moment it went very wrong. The 1st 2 defeats weren’t bad, taking the lead 3 times against Betis, them equalising 3 times and then scoring 3 in the last 20 minutes was bad. But not as bad as our visit to the Bernabeu, 0-1 at half time was acceptable, them scoring 5 in the 2nd half to condemn us to our worst ever defeat was horrific. That made it 8 away defeats in a row and dropped us into the relegation zone on goal difference. Thankfully equally relegation-threatened Sporting visited and we scraped a win via a 94th minute own goal. So, at the end of January we find ourselves in 16thplace. Not fantastic but I am not panicking yet especially as it is pretty close down there. That said our only wins in the last 9 games have been come-from-behind wins with winners in the 93rd and 94th minute. This season is similar to the last one insomuch that we started OK(ish) and then around Christmas our form capitulated and our defence has gone walkabout. We have 1 less point but have played 2 games less compared to last year. Basically we need to sort out our away form and beat the teams around us. And yes, that is Alcorcón in 1st place by 3 points, they have a ridiculously good striker (here he is 3 seasons back in the Adelante, he has now been capped by Spain) and some pretty good defenders. Doubt they will hang on but it is good to see some other sides doing well... January Transfer Window 2 January arrivals as a Swede I signed during the Summer, Pontus Österberg, arrived when his contract ran out, he will be cover for the moment. Also Luis Alberto (the one at Liverpool in reality) signed up for the rest of the season to provide another offensive weapon. On the way were a couple of loanees. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 16, 2013 Author Share Posted November 16, 2013 La Liga – 2023/2024 February started with a defeat at Espanyol before we had 3 straight home matches. A goalless draw against Athletic seems OK on paper but given that we had 21 shots we really should have won, we did win against Getafe before Madrid was nicer to us than last time. Another away defeat was followed by severe annoyance as we chucked away a 2 goal lead with 3 minutes to go, at a side below us in the table as well. A simple home win against the worst team in the division and we were 7 points clear of relegation. We then decided to throw as many points away as we could, 2 home leads with little time remaining resulted in only 1 point. Yet another away defeat and then I have no idea how we failed to beat Oviedo but not only did we not score, they did. A 3rd away defeat in a row and suddenly we were 1 point above relegation with 7 games to go. A quick check at the fixture list and I realised we had an issue, yes 5 of the games were at home but 6 of them were against teams in the top 7. Yikes, relegation suddenly seemed a real possibility. We started this run with a home draw before Barcelona visited. I decided on a slight change of tactic and err, it worked! And I got congratulated for it! Not sure what happened there, especially as they are a really good Barcelona side. We then went to Malaga and again, I have no idea what happened! Suddenly we were well clear although a home defeat to Alcorcón did not help. However that meant we needed 3 points from our last 3 games to be safe. A draw with Zaragoza was followed by a total utter embarrassment of a visit to Valencia. And that left the table looking like this with one game to go. Given that the 2 teams below us had to visit Barcelona and Alcocórn and we had Betis coming to our place, I felt quite confident. In the end we got a draw, although we managed to chuck away another win from 3-1 up. Everyone else around us lost so we actually made it to 14th place. As you can see, the whole season was a bit of a struggle. That was not great, it was a similar season to last year but we were much closer to relegation this time. 5 points less, 2 more goals but the same conceded does not really constitute progress. Our main problems this year were chucking away leads (over 10 points were lost in the last quarter of games) and a horrifically bad away record, 7 points from 19 games was the worst by far in the whole division. I actually felt our defence was a bit better this year but there were too many total and utterly collapses (conceding 12 in 2 games for example). Our strikers did actually score some goals this year although Chori was top scorer again. The best part of our team was the 2 MCs who are both stunning. Just 3 players signed up so far, 2 18yo Uruguayans I signed up a couple of years back and an Albanian defender / midfielder. I need to see what to do about my GKs whilst getting rid of some of the fringe players would be good as well. Final Squad Summary Finances – more steady profit but as the wages go up it becomes less and less and I suspect in a couple of years the wage bill will overtake the TV money and then we might have issues Transfers – a load more in, Diallo is the big success whilst players like Paris, Smets and Mrmic played a bit and did OK, most of the others are very young and promising Here are some of the better players: GKs – Mauricio Tejera and Moha – I refuse to use the word “best” here as both were as bad as each other, Tejera started quite well but got dropped as conceding 12 in 2 games, he regained his place a few weeks later, did averagely again and then got injured so Moha finished the season, Tejera is supposedly the better GK but he concedes far too many goals whilst Moha wants a new challenge, I need to work out what to do over the Summer Best Fullback – Javi Luque – a strikingly similar season to last year, some outstanding performances were mixed with occasional dross, thankfully there were a couple more of the former, hopefully as he matures the dross will fade out, should be 1st choice next season although his backup is getting better and has far more potential Best Central Defender – Tanaúsu Peraza – again he played far far better than he should do, on paper our worst DC but on the field he is our best, despite that he was not quite as good as last season and he is on a yearly contract at the moment and I am tempted to gradually integrate one of the younger players in, let’s see Best Teenager – Hazem Abdel Gawad – and here is the one who is already integrated, our record signing from 2 years back played a lot this year and became 1st choice, still only 19, already an international, he was pretty good this year and can only get better and better, in a few years he will be immense, I aim to play him a lot next year as well as he continues his development Best Central Midfielder – Brahim Saidi – unbelievably stunning, he has suddenly turned into one of the best MCs in the whole division, controlling midfield, utterly brilliant, the best season any MCs has had at the club so far, and he is still improving, he is now worth 8 figures, by far the most at the club, and he has signed a new long-term contract so I am not sure I would accept any offers made for him (if I could actually refuse them!), I would be delighted if he was close to as good next year as well 2nd Best Central Midfielder – Ayhan Topçu – proved that last year was no fluke, the only difference was a lack of assists and that was because we hardly scored from corners this year, plus his role is much more defensive than it was before which suits him well, our 2nd most valuable player and another I would be loath to sell, if I can keep him and Saidi together at MC for a while then fantastic Best Attacking Midfielder – Chori – 9th season, 9th year here and even better than last year, more goals, more assists, better rating, our top scorer again, he really is fantastic despite being our worst AMC on paper, he is still actually improving a bit, not sure how long he can continue like this but I intend to find out, he is about to hit 30 but until I see some decline I expect he will be 1st choice Best New Signing – Pape Diallo – the only new signing who was a 1st team regular but even if he wasn’t the only one he would probably still be the best, started off a bit slow but nailed down the 1st team spot around Christmas and never looked back, his 2nd half performances were a joy to behold and he works well with Chori, and he is nowhere near his full potential, more of the same please Best Striker – Fábio Roberto – 2nd season here and much much better, with his age and a new country he just needed a year to settle, a great U20 World Cup last year helped give him confidence as well, a good number of goals and he led the team in assists, has a good understanding with the AMCs, he is already a good player but nowhere near the finished article, a few more goals would be nice but if Chori is scoring them instead then I can cope with that Notes We got Las Palmas in the Cup, we failed to even score a goal which was pretty embarrassing, we are dire in this competition but it has been a while since we actually faced a lower league club Barcelona’s embarrassing defeat to us did not stop them winning the title, it went down the final game though. Alcorcón who were leading in January dropped away a bit but still managed to finish 3rd and get direct entry to the CL group stage which is no small feat for a team that was in the Adelante 3 years back The stadium construction has been delayed 5 months so we will have to wait a bit longer before moving in Granada, Murcia and Levante are coming up from the Adelante, all 3 are coming straight back up after relegation last year I got a load of job offers this year but all were from Adelante clubs Our home match against Madrid was postponed 6 times(!), initially because of International callups but then because of their European and Cup matches The European Golden Shoe went to....a 34yo Jay Rodriguez playing for Reading!! Last Season's Aims Comfortably Avoid Relegation – KIND OF SUCCESS – insomuch that we did avoid relegation, however it was far from comfortable and if we had not managed to beat Barca and Malaga then we would have had problems. Better goal difference – FAILURE – -23 is not much better than -25 and neither is conceding the same number of goals Give away less penalties – SUCCESS – evidently the end of the previous season was not a fluke as we only conceded a couple this year The Coming Season's Aims Comfortably Avoid Relegation - let’s see if we can do it a bit more comfortably this year Better Away Record - 7 points from 57 available, safe to say that improvement is needed Trim The Squad - 11 players are out on loan and over half of those have no future at the club plus there are several fringe players who hardly played, as we are only competing in the league we don’t need that big a squad and it would be good to see some players off the wage bill Sort Out The GK Situation - neither Tejera nor Moha seem to be good enough, with the Uruguayan teenager coming in that will make 8 GKs at the club, him and the other 3 teenagers are for the future so I am tempted to try out the 2 that have been out on loan, otherwise I might need to buy another one 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Las Palmas (20th, relegated) – (A2-0, H2-0) – one of only 2 away wins along with Malaga who we also did the double over Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Real Madrid (2nd) – (A0-6, H0-2) Best 11 Overall Best 11 – no changes Saidi and Peraza being the 2 newcomers... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 345 108 71 - 29 7.30 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 183 13 30 - 9 7.24 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 137 2 16 - 4 7.09 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 133 7 14 - 10 7.31 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 123 4 3 - 15 7.45 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 17, 2013 Author Share Posted November 17, 2013 La Liga – Summer 2024 The first arrivals were an Albanian midfielder who arrived on a Bosman from Croatia and the 2 Uruguayans I had signed up a couple of years back who arrived having turned 18. Next up were 2 very promising Greek U21 players and then an Icelandic backup MC. My Director of Football found a freebie Russian ST who looked promising. I then made a decision on the GK situation and got in a French guy on loan for the season. Finally a Czech youth arrived. On the way out were quite a few players. 3 backup players left for money while there were far too many loanees again. 6 players were listed but moved away just for the season although their wages are being paid and I am getting about £25k per month for them. Most notable amongst them is Moha who went to newly promoted Levante where he is currently 1st choice. If he does well there it will make me look a bit stupid. The rest of the loanees were younger players who might have a future at the club and mostly went to the Adelante. Transfers The Incomers So, here are the newcomers, more or less in order of signing or arrival: Mergim Hoxha – an Albanian who has picked up a Croatian passport, if he had already got this passport last Summer I would have tried to buy him then but instead I had to wait until his contract ended, there were 2 midfielders in Croatia I wanted but I only got this guy, the other one went to Celta, he looks fantastic for his age and will be our 1st choice DMC Martín Suárez, Nicolás Godoy – both signed 2 years ago when 16 but arrived this Summer, Suárez has disappointingly not improved much and does not look like he will ever be the GK solution, however Godoy looks like a great prospect, both will be in the U19s this year Miltos Eleftheroudis, Todoris Georgakopolous – both Greek, both found by my scout this Summer, both look very promising especially the latter who could be something very special in a few years time, I doubt either will play this season and will stay in the U19s for a while Fannar Hafþórsson – found transfer listed in Germany, a good player and not very expensive, he is now the new backup of Saidi for the DLP role, in theory I hope he plays as little as possible as that means that Saidi has stayed fit but in any case there is the African Nations this year so I guess he will at least play a few games Alexandr Mironov – like Ageev last year he is not really needed but he was free and did not want many wages, 4th choice this year which means that if we stay with 1 up front he won’t play, if we change to 2 STs he might get the odd game Nuno – this season’s GK, on loan from Lyon where he has never been 1st choice, this is in fact his 5th season away on loan, he was brilliant in Ligue 2 last year and he actually had a season in La Liga with Osasuna 5 years back so speak Spanish already, looks like a solid GK, whether he is an improvement on what we have remains to be seen but if he is not then he is only here for the season Jiri Jirasek – another promising young midfielder, a bit more developed than the 2 Greeks, he has only 1 season left in the U19s and probably then a loan spell after, let’s see how he develops To The Faithful Departed Only 1 player of note left permanently this Summer and even that is pushing the definition a bit: Lamine Camara (career) – only mentioned here as he was 1st choice in our Adelante promotion season where he played very well, the last 2 seasons in La Liga he has been Luque’s backup but he is not really good enough for this level and his contract was up next year so I wanted rid Not a bad Summer although I am wondering if I have actually strengthened the squad enough, only 2 new 1st teamers but I am banking on the younger players becoming much better. However 3 matches and 1 point and the performances therein so far does indicate that this might be another depressing fight against relegation but it might be a bit early to tell. Notes Pape Diallo, one of my AMCs was the 2nd best player at the Toulon tournament which was won by France Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 18, 2013 Author Share Posted November 18, 2013 La Liga – January 2025 After the 1 point from 3 games start I was despondent when a very good Zaragoza side visited but out of nowhere we totally outplayed them to win 2-0. That was definitely a false down though as we promptly picked up 2 points from the next 7 games mainly via an inability to defend crosses and finish chances. Thankfully we had a run of easy (on paper) fixtures and 7 points were gained from 3 games. The 3rd match against a really bad Oviedo side was the 1st in our shiny new stadium. The 2nd and 3rd matches there did not however go very well, Sociedad outplayed us and then Betis, one of the few teams below us in the table and who had picked up 2 points from 8 games away from home, came and won 2-0. Marvellous. One defeat later (which put us in the relegation zone) and we visited the Nou Camp. I was obviously expecting to lose. I was not however expecting to go into half-time 6(SIX)-0 down. And when they scored 2 more early doors in the 2nd half, I had visions of double figures. Thankfully they took the foot off the pedal and we actually got a goal back. Our worst ever defeat and one that I hope is never bettered (worsed?!). An average Atletico team visited next and out of nowhere (again!) we were magnificent. Totally outplaying them in a 2-0 win. Next up we visited Athletic and we came from 1-0 down to go 2-1 and then...in the 91st minute they scored a ridiculously good 30 yard freekick! FFS, our 1st away win of the season cruelly denied. We then battered Levante, finally scoring in the 86th minute and then...they equalised in the 91st minute. FFS again! 4 points just thrown away. 4 points that might be very important come the end of the season as we find ourselves in 17th place just 2 points above the relegation zone. Both Murcia and Oviedo are pretty horrendous so it is probably between us and the teams around us for that last relegation place. Safe to say I am concerned. We enter a match and I have literally no idea what is going to happen, how a team that lost 8-1 can come out and totally outplay the next 3 sides we play, I have no idea. We look fantastic one day and then be utterly dire the next time. Hopefully we can find some kind of consistency from somewhere and pull away a bit. Otherwise the Segunda here we come which might be, in some ways, a relief given how our 2.5 years in La Liga have gone so far... January Transfer Window 2 January arrivals as 1st a 3rd Greek U21 International, Christos Tamamis, signed on. A very promising fullback who will be U19-bound for a couple of years except in injury crises. I then absolutely obliterated our transfer record. We had changed tactics again to go with 2 upfront to try to get some goals and we did not really have enough STs for that. So I bought another one. A very good one. One who was also quite expensive. The moment my scout found him, I knew I wanted Sascha Müller, he cost £8.5m but he should be worth it as he looks pretty damned good especially on the technical side of things. He and Fábio Roberto should make a hell of a strikeforce once he settles. As his name does not indicate; he is Chilean, as his name does indicate; he also has a German passport which is a nice added bonus. Another bonus is that he signed on for 4 years and on very little wages. He will be phased into the team and probably quite soon as he is also our 2nd best AMC. On the way out on loan to the Adelante is my 17yo Danish GK was is very good already and probably our future no.1 and probably not too far into the future either. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 19, 2013 Author Share Posted November 19, 2013 La Liga – 2024/2025 And that 3 game unbeaten run continued apace as we dispatched Getafe at home before travelling to 4th place Zaragoza and somehow coming away with a 1-0 win and our 1st away win of the season. We then thrashed Alcorcón. Obviously this was too much good form for us to cope with so we struggled almightily at home to Hércules before escaping with a draw. That made it 7 games unbeaten. However, all the other teams around us had suddenly found form as well so we weren’t really edging further away from the relegation zone. 2 difficult away matches resulted in 2 more draws and in the 1st one our GK even got a MoM award, the first for one of GKs for a long time, perhaps even ever. Then a good Espanyol side visited and whipped us, end of 9 match unbeaten run and then we played really well at the Bernabeu and could even have escaped with a point instead of a 1-0 defeat. And that, coupled with the continued form of the other teams, dumped us back into the relegation zone. And there followed a ridiculous match at bottom club Murcia. First up Saidi got a 2nd yellow after 15 minutes and they scored from the freekick. We equalised, they took the lead and we had 15 minutes left for an equaliser. We then scored 2 for an unlikely win. Next up, a very good Valencia side came to the island and outplayed us like you can’t imagine. We then scraped a win at 2nd bottom Oviedo before being very lucky at home to Granada. After a defeat in our next game, we were 6 points clear with 4 games to go. We were totally dominant against Malaga but Saidi had a moment of stupidity and they equalised with their only shot on target. A win would have confirmed our safety. Instead Barcelona visited and promptly thrashed us. Obviously the 2 teams that could overtake us got very unlikely wins so we were still not safe. But we were safe before the next match thanks to a Getafe defeat. And we promptly celebrated by doing unspeakable things to Betis, 4-0 at their place and one of our best ever performances, no idea where that came from. The final game of the season was my 500th in management but defeat ensued. So, we finish 14th again and this is depressing similar to last season’s graph. Well, that was hardly much better than last year, we started much worse and finished better and we confirmed our safety a week earlier this year. We got 6 points more and did concede a few less but really, it was nothing to shout about. We did actually play quite well after Christmas but given how bad the 1st half of the season went we needed to. One change this season was that our forwards actually scored goals, nearly 30 between them. Possibly because, after 9 goal-filled fantastic seasons, Chori finally lost his place to Diallo. However, again our best players were the 2 MCs plus Peraza at DC. I have only a Belgian DM/MC coming in so far but I would like to buy a really good DC and probably get another GK in on loan. I don’t want to buy a permanent replacement mainly because I am really excited about the 18yo Dane but he’s not quite ready yet. I also have a lot of midfielders that I would like to leave. Final Squad Summary Finances – more steady profit apart from obviously the £8.5m I spent in January, the new stadium is taking the gate receipts to new levels, curious to see how many season tickets we sell this Summer Transfers – just the 2 first choices in Nuno (solid) and Hoxha (really good) whilst Muller kind of became one after his arrival and Hafþórsson was an OK backup, the rest are youths who have shown varying degrees of promise Here are some of the better players: Only GK – Nuno – not a bad season but whether he was actually an improvement on the Moha and Tejera is debateable, did not really have any shockers and did make some fantastic saves and even managed the rare (for our GKs) feat of getting an MoM award, I would not complain too loudly if he wanted to come back for a 2nd season on loan, he has 1 year left on his contract so he might be open to that Best Fullback – Nadir Matola – after one too many erratic performances from Luque I decided to give this guy a run in the first team, he has much more potential and I wanted to see how good he could be, the answer is “pretty good”, is a great defender but it is his forward runs that caught my attention, his physical abilities really caught out some teams and if he could finish better he would have had several goals, and he is only 20 and nowhere near his full ability, he is staying in the team Best Central Defender – Tanaúsu Peraza – and again he played far far better than he should do, on paper our worst DC but on the field he is our best, I wanted to drop him, I wanted him to leave this Summer but his performances prevented me from doing so, he is now here for another year, he is turning 31 so this really might be his last year plus I aim to buy a new DC in the Summer and it would be his place he is taking Best Teenager – Hazem Abdel Gawad – only for a couple more weeks but not many teenagers have been in 80 games in La Liga, played well again and more consistently, my only concern is that his development has stalled a little bit, he has lot a bit of his potential, hopefully this will pick back up again next year, theoretically he should be safe no matter who I buy at DC but let’s see... Best Defensive Midfielder – Mergim Hoxha – came in on a free from Croatia, had no issues at all about settling and made the position his own, was really solid, I can’t actually recall an especially bad performance and he was simply brilliant on occasions, much better than I was ever hoping for from a 21yo, he still has improvement in him and I am looking forward to see it Best Central Midfielder – Brahim Saidi – unbelievably stunning again, he confirmed that last season was no fluke; he really is one of the best DLPs in the division, although he had a few less assists he was much more consistent and had a higher rating as well, still improving a bit although I think he is close to his peak now, no clubs have shown any interest in him either which is great, if he could cut down on the yellow cards that would great as well 2nd Best Central Midfielder – Ayhan Topçu – really really good again, better than last season and close to what he achieved in our 1st La Liga season, a rock in MC and with several assists this year as well, his partnership with Saidi is going from strength to strength, he also picked up his 1st Turkish cap this year, more of the same please Best Attacking Midfielder – Pape Diallo – when we moved from 2 AMCs to 1, he was the clear choice above Chori and so for the 1st time ever Chori got dropped and pretty much never played again, and I was certainly never going to drop this guy, he is getting really good and chipped in with several assists and goals, less than Chori ever did but he is definitely a much better player and we were playing with 2 up front, will be 1st choice again next season and there should be more improvement to come Best Striker – Fábio Roberto – 3rd and best season so far, still improving all the time, he is now a Wonderkid, scored a fair few goals and set up several assists as well, an important player and frightened many a team so far, would still like a few more goals but if he can share them with the other ST that is fine, looking forward to seeing how his partnership with Müller develops Notes We got Sevilla, another La Liga side in the Cup, and fell at the 1st hurdle for 3rd straight year to a 3rd straight La Liga side We conceded 6 penalties in the 1st 12 matches of the season, first 2 hit the woodwork, next 2 were saved, next 2 were scored, we did not concede any more Our U19s were 3rd in their league, best so far, mainly due to the 3 Greeks, 2 Uruguayans and 2 Danes and nothing to do with any of our youth products! Madrid won the La Liga for the 1st time in 3 years We weren’t the only side to being utterly humiliated by the top 2, both Sociedad and Bilbao suffered as well, however Bilbao also suffered a 2nd much more humiliating thrashing as newly promoted Hércules did this to them Villarreal, Gimnastic and Puertollano are coming up from the Adelante Last Season’s Aims Comfortably Avoid Relegation – KIND OF SUCCESS – [copy paste from last year] insomuch that we did avoid relegation, however it was far from comfortable Better Away Record – SUCCESS – 19 points is a lot more than 7 and is the 13th best in the division Trim The Squad – KIND OF SUCCESS - we did sell a few players but several of the ones I want to get rid of went out on loan again, I will try again this Summer Sort Out The GK Situation – KIND OF BUT NOT REALLY – the loanee postponed the decision for a year and I did send 6 out on loan, however I do now know who I would like to be our next 1st choice keeper, and that is the 18yo Dane who went out on loan to the Adelante for 2nd half of the season, the thing is that he is too young so I need another temporary solution which will be either a) get another loanee in, b) play either Tejera or Moha or maybe one of the other 2 senior ones or c) get an old guy here for a season, if all that fails I could d) just play the 18yo The Coming Season’s Aims Comfortably Avoid Relegation – until it actually happens, I will aim for this Better Goal Difference – we have gone from -23 to -21 to -18, steady improvement but not really very impressive, less heavy defeats and playing better against lesser opponents please Trim The Squad – I got rid of some deadwood last season but I want to get rid of more, especially those with 12 months left on their contract 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Zaragoza (5th!!) – (H2-0, A1-0) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Barcelona (2nd) – (A1-8, H1-4) - oh dear, oh dear :o Best 11 Overall Best 11 – no changes no newcomers... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 211 14 37 - 12 7.27 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 172 2 19 - 4 7.07 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 159 10 18 - 13 7.35 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 158 5 3 - 17 7.47 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 20, 2013 Author Share Posted November 20, 2013 La Liga – Summer 2025 It was a very quiet Summer on the incoming front. The only Bosman was a Belgian DM/MC from Genk before me and the Director of Football combined to buy a new DC. I was going thru the list of DCs on my shortlist and found a guy I liked and was about to bid for, before I discovered that the DoF had got there first! I let him do all the hard work and the new DC (Argentinian) came in for £5.25m. An agent recommended me a young Icelandic MC with a very low minimum release clause and some promise so he joined. I decided that another GK loanee was the correct option for this Summer and I got the current Italian U21 1stchoice from Juventus for the year. And hoards left. There were several noteworthy departures (see below) but the main ones were Moha and Chori, both stars and stalwarts from since our Division 2B days but who have fallen out of favour recently. I managed to make over £3m from the 10 players I sold, a Brazilian I bought upon promotion 3 years back being the most expensive at nearly £1m. 10 loanees went out although this time only 3 were for players I had tried to sell, the rest were promising players for whom having a ‘B’ side would be useful. Transfers – as you can see we are definitely trying to help Levante to stay up (or hinder depending on how the 4 players do) and 3 Segunda clubs received 2 of our players each. The Incomers So, here are the newcomers, more or less in order of signing or arrival: Mohamed Benali – international team-mate of Gawad and actually younger than him, a very good and promising young DMC, he will be Hoxha’s backup and will probably play a good few games, should be a damn fine player in a couple of years Omar Silvani – the DC that both me and the DoF wanted to buy, pretty expensive at over £5m but he looks like a great player, could maybe do with bumping up his marking a little bit, I don’t play with ball playing DCs but if I did he would be perfect, he replaces Peraza in the 1st 11, possibly unjust given his rating but this guy is (on paper) much better Kári Steinn Þórðarson – not sure I really needed another Icelandic backup MC but when an agent recommended him playing out in Madeira, my scout said he had a good amount of potential AND he had a ridiculously low buyout clause I was tempted, he is about the same level as his compatriot but has a lot more potential and is OK with being a rotation player so he will be 1st choice backup MC (I need to stop buying Icelandic players, the time needed to find all the symbols...) Tommaso Guerra – this season’s GK, I decided that the teenage Dane was too young so he went off to the Adelante for a season and this guy comes in, U21 international and dubbed the new Buffon, he is going to be very good and I am nigh on certain he will play for Italy in the next few years, he is already a bit better than what I have, he might take a few games to settle but regular football should do him the world of good so I am hoping for improvement all the way thru the season To The Faithful Departed Loads left permanently this Summer and here are most prominent: Moha (career) – best GK we have had so far, 1st choice all the way thru Division 2B and the Adelante and performed very well and far better than I ever expected him to, to be honest I should have given him more of a chance in La Liga as well instead of buying the Uruguayan and chopping and changing all the time, instead the 1st 2 seasons were a defensive mess and I cut my losses and chucked him out on loan, he has gone back to the same club this year but probably only as a backup Mohamed Diakité (career) – 1st choice ST for the last 2 Adelante seasons, solid player but never scored as much as he should have done, is not really La Liga standard and that showed in his performances over the last 3 years, he went to the same La Liga club as Moha so curious to see if he does any better there Chori (career) – the best player the club has ever had and probably the most important we ever will have, 1st choice from season 3 in Division 2B all the way to season 3 in La Liga, our record appearance maker and scorer, he hit double figures for 7 seasons in a row, he never looked like a fantastic player but he loved the role I played him and was much better than every other AMC I had until I reached La Liga, felt a bit guilty about selling him as I could have kept him on as a backup and let him leave on a free at the end of the season but at least he can play regularly now Edinaldo (career) – mentioned mainly as he went for record money and was an important part of our 1st La Liga season, however he was only really 1st choice in that 1st year and his contract was up next Summer so thought it better to see what I could get for him, was not expecting to sell him for so much so am happy with that Daniel Gutíerrez (career) – mentioned only because he was our 1st signing that cost money, was never really 1st choice but he had a good 1st La Liga season, however once we stopped playing 3 AMCs he was never going to get many games so a year out on loan and then a sale for more than I paid is a good return That was more a squad-cleansing exercise than improving the squad although the new DC is definitely better than what we had and in theory the on-loan GK is also an improvement. The rest of the first 11 is exactly the same. I am hoping a year more of experience and improvement will make a change. However 3 matches, 1 point and 7 goals conceded looks depressingly similar to all our previous seasons. I can only hope things pick up otherwise Relegation Battle 4 will loom. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 21, 2013 Author Share Posted November 21, 2013 La Liga – January 2026 The usual 1 point from 3 games start became 1 from 4 as we lost at Celta. Thankfully 2 home games against supposedly inferior opposition brought 2 wins before 2 games against considerably less inferior opposition brought 2 defeats. Then it was a visit to the Bernabeu and we were really good; we got a 1-1 draw and had a few chances to win it in the final few minutes. And when we followed that with a good home win against Sevilla and an away win at Gimnastic I started to think that this season was going to go in a positive direction. We should have beaten Zaragoza at their place but ended up losing, however 4 points from the next 2 games took us to the giddy heights of 10th. And then, obviously, it started to go very wrong. 4 straight defeats without scoring a goal. Losing at Barcelona and Atletico are not that bad results, losing at home to Athletic and in particular Levante really are. And just when I thought we were about to get a win at home to Alcórcon, they score a 90th minute equaliser thru a defensive error. And a possible win against Sociedad is wiped out by a 76th minute equaliser. FFS! And in the final match of January, Malaga come back from a goal down with 20 minutes to go to get a win. So 7 points chucked away in the last 3 games. That all leaves us in 16th place which is usual by our standards. Apart from throwing away points left right and centre our main problem is quite obvious – 17 league goals in 22 matches is by and far the worst in the division. Our defensive record is actually really good but you can’t win games if you can’t score goals. And we can’t. Not too sure what has changed since last season, our tactics are exactly the same. We do have a 5 point gap to 18th so a bit of leeway and Puertollana and Gimnastic look pretty dire so there is probably only 1 position to play for. I am not panicking just yet but a few more goalless defeats and I shall be. January Transfer Window 3 players arrived in January. First thru the door was Dario Viganò who I signed up a couple of years back and arrived from Uruguary upon his 18th birthday. Our 4th Uruguayan and he has the potential to be by far the best, my coaches think he is better than any of my scouts did and he has plenty of room for improvement. And he has the very added bonus of having Italian ancestors so no waiting for 2 years before he get an EU passport. My Director of Football then took over and signed 2 players. One is Isaac on loan for rest of the season. I don’t need him but I am hardly paying him any money and it let me loan out one of my other DCs for 1st team football. My 2 first choice DCs have played every league game so far so inevitably an injury will occur at some time and he might be needed. And if not, no bother. His 2nd purchase was Josip Kovac, another Croatian with huge potential. He had been on my shortlist for a while but if I had realised how cheap he could have been bought for I might have signed him up sooner. Looks like he could be fantastic although I doubt he will play much (if at all) this season. This let me chuck out the first Icelandic MC on loan to Levante (5th ex-player of ours at them) Notes Spain aren’t going to the World Cup, Perrin (my DL) and Switzerland knocked them out of the playoffs We actually had a Cup run this year, we got drawn with our 4th straight La Liga club (Atletico) but finally won one of them, we then beat Sevilla as well but in the quarter-finals we drew Madrid so that was the end of that SNOW! – we finally encountered some as our league match in Madrid against Atletico in December was in a blizzard and needed orange balls Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
shnen Posted November 23, 2013 Share Posted November 23, 2013 how could you be so heartless as to sell Chori? great thread! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 23, 2013 Author Share Posted November 23, 2013 I know! I kind of regretted it immediately but he was hardly going to play and he deserved better. But he was a club legend (the only one so far) and it would have been quite appropriate for him to see out his career here and mentor a few of the youngsters. If he retires as a coach I will do my utmost to bring him back no matter how good he is... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 23, 2013 Author Share Posted November 23, 2013 La Liga – 2025/2026 And the run of chucking away points continued apace as 3 straight draws were dragged from the jaws of 3 straight victories, admittedly the equalisers were less last minute but still, that is now 5 points we have picked up from 6 straight matches where we were leading. That made it 12 matches (including the Cup) without a win, a glorious new club record. I was not expecting much from a trip to Hércules (although they aren’t that great) but thankfully we took a 2 goal lead this time before letting them score and so we held on. And then, boom, we lost our route to the net again, no goals at home to Espanyol at home left us 4 clear of 18th, 2 straight goal-free away defeats made no difference as everyone else lost but a 1-0 defeat at home to Madrid and wins below left us 1 clear of the relegation zone. Happily next up was a home match against the bottom team and although we did win it was very far from convincing. 2 respectable away goalless draws late and it was 1 goal in 7 matches (albeit only 5 conceded). A trip to Bilbao did not promise much but an early goal and a wonderful solo Matola strike and we got an unexpected win (no late goal conceded either). Another goalless draw made it 4 games without conceding (albeit only scoring 2!) and completed a run of 9 games with only 8 goals. It also took us to the edge of safety. We actually took the lead at home to Barcelona but conceded 2 first-half goals. We were dire at Levante where a victory would have made us mathematically safe. And then a Celta equaliser in their penultimate match meant we need one point from our last 2 games. Alcocórn took lead at their place but 2 first half goals gave us the win and safety and put them into all kinds of trouble. We finished off the season with an impressive win of Atletico although they did have nothing to play for. So, we actually finished 13th this year, one position higher but this graph looks depressingly similar to the ones from the previous 2 seasons. 2 points less and although there was infinite improvement on one side of the ball (19 goals less conceded), on the other side of the ball it was a nightmare (16 goals less scored). That all made us by far the most boring club in the whole division; if we had not scored a 2nd goal in our last match there would have been an average of exactly 2 goals per match, there were only 4 clubs that had less than 100 goals in their matches, we had 77! Our defensive record was actually the 5th best in the whole division and the best outside of the top 6. However, a total of 31 goals scored in 38 games was the worst in the whole division. Not entirely sure how that happened although all 3 strikers going on at least 1 run of not scoring for over 10 hours does not help. Our best players were again the 2 MCs and the new DC was utterly brilliant. One thing I was very lucky with this season was injuries. Apart from the 2 fullbacks who consistently rotated them and Müller missing 3 months, the other 8 members of my 1st choice team all played 32 or more league games and that figure would have been 35 if Saidi had not had a 3-match ban for a red card. Coming in so far I have a backup ST and a teenage Paraguayan MC. I was just planning on maybe a DL, another DC, an AMC and well, I guess an ST if my current ones continue to refuse to score as they are the positions I feel I could improve but to do that might have involved a bit of selling. That is, until this happened, However, I now have loads of money and little wage restraints so I am not certain what to do. I have some fantastic youngsters who I would love to bring into the team but now with the money I could just buy some already great players. Let’s see One good thing that the new guy is doing is improving the facilities. One bad thing (for me) is that he will probably want us to do better than struggle against relegation each year... Final Squad Summary Finances – this is before the takeover, now I have no financial worries at all Transfers – Silvani was immense and one of the best DCs in the division whilst Guerra is the best GK we have so far had in La Liga, Benali and Þoðarrson were solid backups (and Benali is going to be immense in a couple of years), Viganò and Kovac are for the future whilst Isaac was not needed, on the way out I did well to get as much for some of the players given their performances for their new clubs Here are some of the better players: Best GK – Tommaso Guerra – very good GK and one of the principal reasons we had such a good defensive record, lots of clean sheets and some immense performances, as I had hoped he improved all the way thru the season and Juve should be very grateful for the 1st team football I gave him, I have even fewer doubts now that he will play for Italy one day in the not too distant future, I don’t plan on him coming back for another year but if he is available I don’t think I would turn him down Best Fullback – Nadir Matola – he is starting to get very good indeed and is now a wonderkid, constant improvement all the way thru the season, a couple of goals, some great runs (one of which ended with a goal of the season contender) and a lot of great performances, still nowhere near his full potential, more of the same please although as he is at the World Cup I am bit concerned other teams might spot him Best Central Defender – Omar Silvani – last summer’s big signing and oh my God was he good, best average rating in the whole division, team of the year, our Player of the Year, that good, along with the GK he is the reason we conceded so few, performance after performance of great defending, brought his partner up to another level as well, looking for a similar defensive record next season 2nd Best Central Defender – Hazem Abdel Gawad – best season so far and although not as good as Silvani he is not far behind (and was 2nd in the Young Player of the Year Award) and still has lots of potential, the same issue as last season remains though and that is the fact that his attributes are pretty much staying static, I am mildly tempted to bring in another DC but let’s see Best Defensive Midfielder – Mergim Hoxha – similar to last season, not quite as good but some very solid DMC work, another who is constantly improving although he has not got far to go to reach it, he is one of the 1st names on the team sheet and he shall remain so Best Central Midfielder – Ayhan Topçu – somehow even better than before, his best ever season at the club, just really solid in his defensive MC role, blocking the oppositions attacks and creating the odd one himself, only thing is that our coaches don’t rate him that highly so it could be the same situation as Peraza in that if I got a better player on paper he would perform even better in the role, but I don’t think I will be doing that just yet 2nd Best Central Midfielder – Brahim Saidi – pretty much word for word for what I wrote last season, brilliant, one of the best DLPs in the division and part of the best MC partnerships in the division, however he still has the same yellow card issue, the reason he is only the 2nd best is because his rating was a little lower and Topçu was even better this time, he requested a transfer as I never offered him a new contract but since the season’s end I have got him to sign a new 4 year one so he will be around for a while longer Best Attacking Midfielder – Pape Diallo – best season so far, very creative and ever-present (apart from a 3-match ban), scores far fewer than Chori ever did but he is a much better player, his value has shot up and I need to sign him to a new contract, I am wondering whether I need to bring in some competition for him, I have 3 very good youths but nobody who is close to his level yet Best Strikers – Fábio Roberto and Domagoj Mrmic – both are good players but really 16 league goals between them is pretty embarrassing, and Roberto going nearly a day without a goal is just humiliating, I realise now that he is not going to be the superstar I once thought he would be, I am probably going to keep both here and give them another season to try to score goals otherwise then there will be changes Notes Alcorcón’s relegation is an impressive achievement as they finished 3rd and 6th the 2 previous seasons, reached the Europe League semis this year and last and reached the Copa del Rey final this year (hence EL next year as well), that probably explains why they went down as their squad could not cope with 65 matches, they have some great players including 3 current Spanish internationals 6 of our players went to the World Cup – Saidi, Matola, Gawad, Perrin, Müller and Mrmic (1st caps) The only club with a 100% record against us in our 4 La Liga seasons is Valencia, they basically always thrash us 2 of the 3 teenage Greeks I bought 2 years back (Todoris Georgakopolous and Miltos Eleftheroudis) are now full internationals without hardly ever playing a game for us, the former is the youngest ever player for their national team, think I need to get some 1st team football into them next season I sold one of my fullbacks, Abdelhakim Dziri, for peanuts 3 years back, he got relegated with Lugo and after half a season in Segunda B he moved to Racing for £475k and now this January he moved PAOK in Greece for £2.2m(!), think I might have been able to get more money for him than I did... 4 of my ex-players are now employed by us as coaches (2*Portuguese (including Rocha, the permanently crocked DMC) and Lukic who was our best DC in season 2) and scouts (Da Silva who was our top scorer in season 1) Matches between Athletic and Barcelona are entertaining affairs, after the 8-0 at the Nou Camp last year we had this match in Bilbao to finish of the season Betis, Murcia (where the 19yo GK was on loan and 1st choice) and Osasuna (my 19yo Uruguayan DR spent the season here) are coming up from the Adelante Last Season’s Aims Comfortably Avoid Relegation – KIND OF SUCCESS – [copy paste from last year] insomuch that we did avoid relegation, however it was far from comfortable Better Goal Difference – KIND OF SUCCESS - -15 is not really that much better although it continues our improvement, we did have less heavy defeats and but hardly played better against lesser opponents and we did not score goals Trim The Squad – SUCCESS – lots more players sold last season and I am much happier with the squad than I was, however there are a few more to get rid of this year The Coming Season’s Aims Comfortably Avoid Relegation – until it actually happens, I will aim for this Score More Goals – more than 31 in 38 games should not be hard to achieve, surely... Spend Money Wisely – I have lots of money now, I could go out and spend £20m on a free-scoring (until he joined us) ST if I wanted but I am not sure that I do want that, the squad is pretty settled so I don’t want to make too many changes 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th 25/26 – La Liga – 13th Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Hércules (14th) – (H2-1, A2-1) Teams I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Barcelona (1st) – (A0-3, H1-2) + Valencia (3rd) – (H0-2, A0-2) + Levante (12th) – (H0-2, A1-3) Best 11 Overall Best 11 – no changes Lots of newcomers... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 2025 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 2025 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 247 14 42 - 12 7.30 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 201 2 19 - 4 7.06 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 191 11 23 - 16 7.37 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 159 5 3 - 17 7.47 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Fábio Roberto BRA/ESP AM RL / ST 2022 124 38 18 - 4 7.04 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Hazem Abdel Gawad BEL/EGY D C 2022 117 7 1 - 8 7.28 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 Pape Diallo FRA/SEN M / AM C 2023 103 11 19 - 5 7.25 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltablue Posted November 23, 2013 Share Posted November 23, 2013 I'm sure you'd like to push on soon after a few years in the same place, even if it's a very good place. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 24, 2013 Author Share Posted November 24, 2013 Indeed I do, and now I have loads of money, I don't think I am the only one who will want us to push on. The new chairman will want value for his money and mild relegation battles and lower mid-table finishes are not what he paid for... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 24, 2013 Author Share Posted November 24, 2013 La Liga – Summer 2026 Money! Lot of money to spend! However, that also meant we had slightly higher expectations than before – the new chairman wants a mid-table finish and the cup quarter-finals whilst the media think we will finish 9th! All of that is better than we have so far achieved. I did not really spend very much of that money until we hit August. The 1st arrival was a Spanish ST who had spent his whole career in Italy before my DoF found a great Ecuadorian GK and then signed up a Serbian M/AMC who I had been eyeing up for a while. Around £8m they cost in total and that was it for July. On August 1st, a Paraguayan MC arrived and then I started spending hoards of money, £10m on a French / Croatian DC from PSG and then £8m on a new DL (albeit far from my 1st choice). There was also the arrival of a Portuguese international ST on loan from Arsenal. On Deadline Day, for the 1st time a player I wanted to keep got sold. Hoxha my brilliant DMC had an £8m release clause that I was slightly unaware of – Valencia weren’t unaware of this. The most annoying thing was that when he signed 2 years back he had a stupidly low release clause so I got him to sign a new contract last Summer, I should have noted the value of the new clause and got him to sign another new contract this Summer. Anyway, this meant I needed a new DMC and my DoF found a great one at Anderlecht so he signed up. Apart from Hoxha, all the departure were players I was aiming or at least contemplating to get rid of. I guess the most surprising were Luque, the Spanish DR, who had been overtaken by Matola and would have wanted too much money to sign a new contract and Paris, a promising D/DM/MC, who hardly played last year. Transfers – have money, will spend much more than receiving from sales The Incomers So, here are the newcomers, more or less in order of signing or arrival: Carlos Valero – an Inter youth product whose sole experience of Spanish football came from some La Liga loan spells a few years back, he moved to Empoli 2 years back and scored 50 goals in Serie B the last 2 seasons, he evidently knows where the net is but whether this is a level too high for him remains to be seen, in any case I doubt he will be 1st choice and will be more of a squad player Walter Carcelén – after 2 seasons of loan spells, I decided that I was going to actually own our 1st choice GK this year, normally this was going to be the 19yo Dane but when my DoF started negotiations with this guy my scouts were very complementary so I signed him up, 1st choice although he may rotate with the Dane a bit as he still has ridiculous potential and I would like some 1st team football for him Kosta Gligic – had been on my shortlist for a couple of years and I was going to try to sign him so when my DoF did all that for me I was not complaining, looks like a great player and is essentially a replacement for Diallo which might be a bit unfair as he has done nothing wrong, however this guy is better Amílcar Bareiro – I first pointed out this guy a few years back as he was one the best 15yos on the planet, unfortunately he has not really developed that much since, however he was definitely worth signing on a free transfer as even if he does not work out I can flog him for quite a bit, he is in the Adelante this year as I have too many non-EUs João Santos – I needed goals and a new ST seemed like a good way to start, the best value for money was on the loan market where there were a lot of ~30yo STs and this guy looked the best and Arsenal did not want much money, is a very good player and has played for some great clubs (Arsenal*2, Man City, Bayern), however he has hardly played in the last 4.5 seasons so there might be some rustiness, is pencilled in as 1st choice Bruno Ban – pretty expensive, especially for a player who never played a game for PSG but he has had some great loan spells especially at Malaga last year and whilst already a great player he has the potential to be a superstar, replaces Gawad (whose development has really stalled) in the team, added bonus is that given his Malaga loan spell he already speaks Spanish Zivorad Todorovic – very young, very cheap, lots of potential, U19s for a while Federico Frejuk – Perrin had not really showed himself to be good enough so I was on the look for a new DL, I never managed to agree terms with my 1st choice so my DoF found this guy as an alternative, and a pretty good alternative he is, he is never going to be the superstar that Matola on the opposite flank will be but he is a great DL, he goes straight into the team Emile Dumont – the Hoxha replacement, at £1.5m more than I sold Hoxha for he does not really represent value for money but he is a fine player, the same level but just with less potential, he goes straight into the team in the Anchor Man role To The Faithful Departed Loads left permanently this Summer and here are most prominent: Tanausú Peraza (career) – no idea how he was so good but good he certainly was, one of the most important players we have ever had, saved us from relegation in his 1st 6 months and then led us to promotion the next year, consistently brilliant despite no coach ever really rating him, eventually as he got older I decided that I could do a bit better so last Summer he got replaced, I guessed he would probably play a bit this last season but my 2 DCs never got injured so he just got a run out in the last match, should find a job in the Adelante to wind down his career Javi Luque (career) – a freebie from PSG, he was our 1st choice DR for the 1st 2 years and then was a backup to the majestic Matola, solid player but he was never going to be brilliant, he was already on a lot of money for his ability and with his contract up next year I was open to offers and offers came in for a nice amount of money, he should be back in this division next year as it will be a miracle if Alcorcón don’t come up Mergim Hoxha (career) – the one I did not want to leave, he was only here 2 years but I had eyes on him staying for a long while, had been pretty solid and was only ever going to get better and better, Valencia have a great player Think I spent that money relatively wisely and the 1st 11 is definitely stronger. Already for the 1st match I have a new GK, DL, DC, DMC (once Hoxha left), AMC and the on-loan ST. Hopefully not too much change. And finally we got off to a good start. A solid victory of Sociedad was followed by a late equaliser at Getafe and the only reason we did not beat Malaga was because Saidi got sent off before half-time Notes: I now only have 3 ex-players on my staff as one of my Portuguese coaches (not Rocha) is now the manager of newly-promoted Segunda team Albacete. At 31yo, he must be the youngest manager in the top 3 flights and I guess one of the youngest ever. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 25, 2013 Author Share Posted November 25, 2013 La Liga – January 2027 After staying unbeaten for the 1st 3 games we visited Atletico and somehow only lost 0-1 despite them having 28(!) shots at goal. 2 games and 4 points later Valencia visited and in our 9th game against them we finally avoided defeat, and better than that we got a win. And then we promptly lost to a dire Murcia team. Hmm. But after beating Celta we were up to 6th. Cue collapse and 1 point from 3 games. We whipped Athletic at their place before 2 goals and 1 point from the next 4 games continued our form. 2027 started with, out of nowhere, us destroying Hércules and then pretty much destroying Granada as well, the only problem being that we failed to actually score a goal, and they did . 2 pieces of dodgy defending cost us at Sociedad before we closed out the month with 4 points from the next 2 games. And that leaves us totally in mid-table in 9th place, 6 points from 6th (and Europe) and 6 points from 18th (and relegation). Excluding the top 5, the table is so compact this year that I feel in no way safe but equally a few good games and we could challenge for Europe. Our defence is even better this year, the main issue is again our lack of goals, and again we are seriously dull, 2 goals a game. Anything around mid-table will do for the moment. January Transfer Window Nothing really of note, one guy went out on loan whilst I signed a 16yo. Don’t know why Zaragoza were willing to let José Ignacio Meseguer go so cheap but I am happy they did as he could turn into something really good. And in some unexpected news the reigning European Golden Boy is joining in the Summer on a Bosman from Bordeaux. He is an AMC/ST and quite frankly brilliant . Not entirely sure why no other clubs showed interest. Notes The managerial career of the Portuguese coach who left in the Summer did not go very well. After just 6 months at Albacete he was sacked. Again we were drawn with a La Liga side in the Cup and after last year’s heroics we reverted to norm and crashed out at the first stage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 26, 2013 Author Share Posted November 26, 2013 La Liga – 2026/2027 Our mid-table non-goalscoring form continued as we eked out a dull 0-0 at home to Getafe before picking up just 1 point from the next 2 games. A solid 1-0 home win later and we visited Valencia where we got our traditional 0-1 defeat against big clubs – concede relatively early scrappy goal, play quite well but hardly create any chances at all but don’t look like conceding either, lose and one of our DCs is MoM. That took us down to 13th but somehow only 2 points from 7th! A win at home to Murcia, defeat at Celta and a win at home to Osasuna (both wins obviously 1-0 despite both clubs being deep in relegation trouble) later and we were 9th and 3 points from 6th and a certain European place. 2 draws (and only 1 goal) followed and we were in 7th and only 2 points behind 6th but still only 8 points above relegation. This with 7 games to go! When we beat Athletic at their place, we were in 6th on goal difference. And 20 points behind 5th! And then there was the 2nd double whammy of Madrid and Barcelona in consecutive matches. First up we got utterly thrashed at the Bernebeu, it was 1-3 but it could have been much more. Then newly-crowned champions Barcelona visited and when they went 1 up early doors, I expected the same but we held on until half-time and then one of my non-scoring STs (Fábio Roberto) suddenly remembered where the goal was and not once but twice as well! A great win. He got another goal, a very late equaliser at a very good Sevilla side and with everyone around us pretty much beating each other up we were in 6th and with 3 eminently winnable matches to go. 1st up was a home match with Levante and we weren’t very good, they got an early goal and our STs reverted to their usual fare. And that defeat dropped us to 9th but we were part of a ridiculous 7 (SEVEN!) clubs all on 46 points . We dominated Hércules and got an early goal but they equalised. We then got our 1st penalty of the whole season. And promptly missed it! FFS! Thankfully most results went our way so it left the table looking like this as we entered the last game of the season. Espanyol had won the Copa and suddenly from nowhere they were being a useful part of the equation instead of taking one of the spots away. It meant we only had to finish above Levante and we’d be in the Europa League. You’d think a home match at Granada would be ideal. You’d be wrong, we lost another 0-1. And to make things worse, Levante lost as well so we’d have been in Europe if we had won. FFS! So we finished in 10th, which looking at this seems about right. However, I cannot believe that we failed to finish 7th, we did not deserve to but no-one else wanted it and just 1 win from those 2 relatively easy home matches would have done. Never before and never again will a total of 49 points from 38 games be enough for 7th. 61 was needed last year. You can clearly see the problem, it is the same as last year, we can’t score goals. Clearly we don’t create enough chances but equally the chances we do create the STs refuse to finish. Defensively we were great, 1 goal a game put us joint 4th in the division. Unfortunately 1 goal was often all the other team needed to win. There were 12 1-0s, we only won 4 of them. Somehow we were even more boring than last year, less than 2 goals per game, 15 less than any other team. Coming in so far I have the European Golden Boy and some French teenagers who all cost around the £1m mark but who could all be brilliant in a few years time. One signing I definitely intend to make is an ST, and probably for quite a lot of money. I now just need to select the right one! On the way out will be several players, nothing is lined up yet but I can see Perrin (DL), Mrmic (ST) and perhaps surprisingly Gawad (DC) and Diallo (AMC) all leaving plus maybe a few more. Gawad as his development really has stalled and his potential has just collapsed and he will only ever be a backup here. I think a fresh start might do both of us some good. Diallo because Gligic is better plus the European Golden Boy plays in the same position as him and is 10 times better and I should be able to get a lot of money for him Final Squad – the stars rating has shot up for a few players, a week ago I had no 5* players, now I have a few, strange Summary Finances – we are losing money every month as all the signings the DoF make involve lots of monthly payments, however the Chairman is chucking in money whenever he feels like it so no worries here Transfers – pretty much total success, Ban was fantastic, Gligic was great, whilst Frejuk, Dumont and Carcelén were solid as well, both Santos and Valero got off to good starts but then totally failed to score any goals after that, the rest were youths, only downer was Hoxha leaving Here are some of the better players: Best GK – Walter Carcelén – good 1st season, ever present and only missed 3 games when I gave the 19yo some 1st team minutes against supposedly weaker opposition, some cracking saves and few errors, he did have some issues with high balls occasionally which concerned me a bit, a few more clean sheets would be nice as well, hopefully he should be even better in his 2nd season here Best Fullback – Nadir Matola – wow, he is getting scarily good, goals, assists, ridiculously forays forward, and he is solid at the back as well, opposing left-sided players have no idea what to do with him, and he is nowhere near his full ability yet, he could do with being a little bit less injury-prone though, I can’t remember which scout found him in deepest Congo at the age of 18 but I hope he is still employed by the club as he deserves a job for life for having found him Best Central Defender – Omar Silvani – just as (fantastically) good as last year, solid as a rock and he is the main reason for our great defensive record, I can’t actually recall him having a bad game, Player of the Year again, our coaches don’t seem to rate him as highly as I do but he is staying unless someone offers stupid money for him, more of the same please 2nd Best Central Defender – Bruno Ban – last Summer’s big signing had a great year, not as good a rating as Silvani but that was because he did have the very very occasional bad game, but apart from that he was godlike, on paper he is already better than Silvani and he should be one of the best DCs in the country if he reaches his full potential, the French manager has noticed this as well and called him up to the national squad a couple of times Best Defensive Midfielder – Emile Dumont – slightly panicky signing on Deadline Day due to Hoxha’s unexpected departure but it paid off, had a slightly slow start but once he settled in he was very good, did not create very much nor get forward but that is not his job, and he did his job very well, he is a very good player and I am hoping he will kick on next season Best Central Midfielder – Ayhan Topçu – and again, he was fantastic, just as solid as always in his defensive BWM role, he was out for a while and I was thinking it might be difficult to get his place back but no, he came straight in with MoM awards and refused to be dropped, the coaches still don’t really rate him but I guess he must just be perfect for this position, only issue is that his position might become a bit less defensive next year as I try to get my STs to somehow score a few more goals and I am not 100% it would suit him, let’s see 2nd Best Central Midfielder – Brahim Saidi – hmm, I thought he had done quite well this season until I looked at his stats and saw that he missed a third of the matches because of injury and ACN duty and only contributed 1 assist, a record low for him, plus his rating was down and my coaches don’t really rate him that highly anymore either, I am still quite happy with his performances but I am starting to wonder if a better player could be found Best Attacking Midfielders – Kosta Gligic and Pape Diallo – Gligic because he is the better player and had a great 1st season in Spain and he should really kick on next season even with the European Golden Boy probably taking his 1st choice place, Diallo because even though he was a backup he played quite a lot (mainly at MC replacing Saidi) and he had a couple of monster performances, however given the European Golden Boy’s arrival his playing time would be severely dented so I am very tempted to sell as given his current value I should be able to get a small fortune for him Best Striker – n/a - it is getting worse and worse, 5 STs, 21 goals, a top scorer of 6, only Fábio Roberto averaged over 7 and that was because of that ridiculous performance against Barcelona, the rest of the time he was average, no-one deserves to be mentioned here Youth Candidates - first year with a shiny new youth academy so I was hoping for something and well, I did not get it. Emilio is the best but I doubt he will play much above Adelante level Notes Espanyol won the Copa del Rey which was an impressive achievement as they beat Barcelona over 2 legs in the semis and then Madrid in the final, all whilst being very mid-table in the league Remember Luca Dos Santos, the brilliant DC we had in Segunda 2B, well as I have previously documented he went to Le Havre and then Hamburg, he is still there and an agent recommended him to me this year, my scouts say he is only just behind our 2 current DCs in ability, that shows how much he outclassed most other players all those years back Tanausú Peraza never found another club and promptly retired, he had a very strange career as he was very average for every club except us where he was quite simply brilliant Angola have 2 world-class goalkeepers – both Pedro Vieira and Ricardino Santana play in the Bundesliga, the former was born in Belgium and actually played a friendly for them before committing to Angola, the latter was born in Portugal It was Hércules’ turn to get thrashed in the Nou Camp this season Oviedo, Santander and Alcocórn (after a bigger struggle than I expected) are coming up from the Adelante Last Season’s Aims Comfortably Avoid Relegation – SUCCESS – finally! Score More Goals – NOT REALLY, NO – 36 is more than 31 but it is still less than 1 a game and we are not going to get anywhere doing that Spend Money Wisely – SUCCESS - £35m spent and all the expensive players were 1st choice and played well, can’t ask for more than that, well, apart from some goals from the 2 STs I signed but as one was free and the other on loan, I can’t really count them here The Coming Season’s Aims Solid Mid-table – having now comfortably avoided relegation, this is the next step up the ladder, having thrown away a chance to play in Europe we could perhaps aim for that but I suspect this year’s table was a bit of a one-off so it would be more difficult next year Score More Goals – 67 in our last 76 La Liga games is dire beyond belief and signing better players made little difference so I may have to tweak the tactics a bit Sign A Striker Who Can Score – related to the above, a top-scorer of 6 is possibly even more embarrassing than the previous statistic, I have loads of money so I doubt the one I buy will be cheap, let’s hope he proves his worth 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th 25/26 – La Liga – 13th 26/27 – La Liga – 10th Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Hércules (14th) – (H2-1, A2-1) Teams I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Real Madrid (3rd) – (H0-1, A1-3) + Atletico Madrid (5th) – (A0-1, H1-3) with special mention to Zaragoza – (H0-3, A1-1) in La Liga and (A0-2, A0-1) in the Copa del Rey Best 11 Overall Best 11 – no changes Nobody coming in this year... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 2025 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 278 14 47 - 17 7.32 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 2025 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 214 11 24 - 16 7.37 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 206 2 19 - 4 7.05 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 2026 159 5 3 - 17 7.47 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Fábio Roberto BRA/ESP AM RL / ST 2022 142 43 20 - 5 7.04 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Pape Diallo FRA/SEN M / AM C 2023 132 16 21 - 6 7.25 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Hazem Abdel Gawad BEL/EGY D C 2022 128 7 1 - 8 7.26 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brucehum Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 Congratulations! Very nicely done... I did manage that exact same team for a short time in my 2013 save. Nice to see it doing well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavtheMan Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 I've played on the hallowed turf at Santa Eularia (I say played, I had a kickabout with my brothers and my cousin who used to play for them when I was on holiday). have you had a new stadium or expansion? because the ground in real life is an absolute shed, 2,500 capacity is ambitous at best. I haven't read in great detail so apologies if you mentioned it and I missed it Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 28, 2013 Author Share Posted November 28, 2013 Brucehum - Thanks, progress is being made. Slowly but surely and aided substantially by a board who have no financial fear! Davtheman - Yes, we got a new stadium at the end of 2024. This is what (I think) their real-life stadium looks like. The one you played on? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted November 28, 2013 Author Share Posted November 28, 2013 La Liga – Summer 2027 Thankfully the boards objectives did not change much although they would like us to reach the semis of the Copa del Rey, given our previous in this competition that is highly unlikely to happen! The media think we will finish 7th which is not stupidly unreasonable, however the bookmakers have gone insane and think we are 5th favourites, we were 2000-1 2 years ago!! It actually turned out to be a relatively quiet Summer, on the incoming front anyway. 5 players arrived on July 1st including the European Golden Boy. And that was it until the final day of the month when a backup MC arrived. All the way thru the month I had been trying to negotiate with Ajax for one or both of their brilliant STs but I was not willing to spend £30m+ so I looked for alternative options. One of those was a Spanish international at Athletic who wanted to leave. They would not accept anything less than £22.5m so that is what I had to pay. Over double our record transfer. For under a tenth of that came in an English fullback from Getafe as a rotation player whilst for hardly anything I bought a Danish youth. And that was it; 2 1st teamers, 2 backup / rotation players and 5 15/16yos. On the way out however, there was much more activity. I started early and got everyone out the door before the end of July. That included Perrin my former 1st choice DL and above all Diallo who has been at AMC for the last few years, nearly £10m for him. The rest had hardly played the last couple of years. Once that was done and dusted, I sorted out some loan spells for the youngsters. Transfers – thanks to Diallo and some of the other sales we weren’t a million miles from breaking even, however we were the biggest spenders in the division The Incomers So, here are the newcomers, more or less in order of signing or arrival: Adama Cissé – this is the European Golden Boy, and what a player he is, he had been on my shortlist ever since he was 16 and he has continued improving and still has some way to go, already a French international, I don’t entirely understand why nobody else was showing interest, the initial intention was to play him at AMC as that is his natural position but I decided that Gligic was too good to drop (or play at MC) and I do need a 2nd ST so that is where he will play, looking forward to see what he can do Moussa Diakité – found playing in Norway, my scouts rated him much higher than my coaches do, the truth is probably in-between, he will be a back-up DLP which in all honesty is probably not entirely needed, will get the odd game here and there and he will probably be happy with that, doubt he will ever be 1st choice unless he shows massive improvement, I can probably seeing him going the same way as the 2 Icelanders, 1 season as a backup, then hardly playing and being sold the next Summer but let’s see... Eneko Calvo – the £22.5m guy, was not exactly my 1st choice and he is certainly not worth that amount of money but he is exactly what I need in the way of a goalscorer, he may not look fantastic on the technical side of things but mentally and physically he is unstoppable and he has scored 166 goals for Athletic over the last 8 seasons, it took a lot of salary negotiation as he was on a lot more there but I managed it, I should be able to get a good 3-4 seasons out of him before he declines too much, hope him and Cissé can get a good partnership going, he is also going to help shirt sales Gürçay Karael – was not entirely looking to buy another fullback but when another team bid for him, I jumped straight in, has been on my shortlist for years but he always seemed too expensive, he certainly was not this year, has been at Getafe for 7 seasons, between 2020-2023 he was 1 of England’s 1st choice fullbacks (Turkish parentage as you can probably work out), very good player and although brought in as a backup he is actually more or less the same level as Frejuk at DL so let’s see Bamody Sako, Elie Lecomte, Benjamin Vincent, Gonzalo Royo, René Thygesen – all young, all relatively cheap (£375-£1.4m), all with loads of potential, all in the U19s for a while and maybe the odd 1st team bench in an injury crisis, if my shiny new youth academy does not want to produce good youngsters then I shall steal them from elsewhere, at a wild guess I would say that Lecomte and Vincent look the most promising To The Faithful Departed 3 players worthy of mention left this Summer: Bruno Perrin (career) – one of my favourite players so far, came in 6 months after being released by Porto and I knew straight away that he would be our 1st choice DL in La Liga and he would play for Switerland, both came true with 30 months, was one of our most important players in our Adelante years, had hoped he would kick on in the La Liga but after 4 years (and comparing him to Matola) I realised that he probably was not cut out for it and bought a replacement, I wish him all the best in Greece where he will be on the opposite side of the pitch to Dziri, one of my former DRs Domagoj Mrmic (career) – a freebie from Croatia 4 years back, he was a backup for the 1st year and actually became 1st choice for more or less 2 seasons, a good solid ST but like most of his colleagues he was not entirely successful at locating the net, I gave up with him last Summer and he became a sub for his final season, am very happy to get so much money for him and he should do well in the Adelante Pape Diallo (career) – a freebie from Lyon he was a great player for us, in fact he was so great that selling him might not make that much sense, however both Gligic and Cissé are much better than him (on paper) and it made more sense to sell him with his value so high than to keep him as a backup for a year whilst also preventing some of the younger players get game time, my most successful free transfer so far, my record sale, I am also quite happy he has gone back to France and not to another La Liga club I am relatively happy with that, 2 new STs and a backup defender plus lots of potentially brilliant youths. And I got rid of a lot of dead wood for a lot of money as well. The 1st game was, theoretically, one of the easiest, home against Oviedo. It was more of a struggle than I would have like but a Cissé’s 1st goal did the business. He then got one more at Sociedad, but they equalised, so he got another and we held on thanks to monumental performance from our GK. And he got 2 more at home to Celta as we strolled to a 3-0 win, our biggest for years. So after 3 games we are...erm...top! And the only team with a 100% record. We clearly won’t stay here but when both Barcelona and Madrid are having strange results, you never know how things will pan out. In any case, that is just the start we were looking for and Cissé already has 1 less goal than our topscorer last season! And the GK who performed miracles is actually the young Dane, the 1st match is the sort of one I want to give him 1st team experience in but he played so well I kept him in and then he was magnificent in the 2nd match so I could not drop him. As he has just turned 20, he will have to have a rest at some time but if he keeps playing like this it will be difficult... Notes: As you can see from the above screenshot Murcia bought 2 STs and a DC from me for £7m and have an AMC on loan. Last year, they already bought Aksoy (my old M/AMC) from us last year plus a German M/AMC from Mallorca who played for us in the Adelante, this Summer they also bought Luque (my old DR) from Alcocórn, it is going to be quite a reunion, kind of hope they get promoted this season Valladolid are also quite dependant on my (ex-)players as well Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavtheMan Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 Yeah that's the one. From what I remember the pitch was rock hard, if you tried a slide tackle I'm pretty sure you'd take the skin on your leg clean off Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted December 1, 2013 Author Share Posted December 1, 2013 La Liga – January 2028 3 wins out of 3 became 4 with an impressive thrashing of Levante at their place with the £22.5m man getting his 1st 2 goals. Next up was our 1st proper test was we visited Atletico and somehow came away with a 1-0 win, mainly because our GK saved a penalty and our defence was strong. A 4 point lead! Next test came with a visit from Barcelona, a test we totally failed as they strolled to a 3-0 win. And one point from the next 2 games weren’t great either. We struggled past Granada before we should have won at Hercules, although equally we should have lost as well given that their only shot on target was a penalty, which our GK saved. We were back in 4th at this stage. Athletic and Villarreal were dispatched despite us having a DC injury crisis which meant we had a 17yo making a couple of appearances. Valencia are a great side with an insanely prolific ST who curled in an absolutely sublime freekick to get a win at our place, down to 5th. We were mighty lucky to escape Alcorcón with a draw as it took a last minute winner from Cissé, his 1st goal for 10 hours. We were coasting to victory at Espanyol before 2 late goals caused us issues. Then our GK saved his 3rd penalty of the season to help us to a 1-0 win at Sevilla. We ended 2027 in 4th and with an unlucky 0-1 home defeat to Madrid. However, we started 2028 with a magnificent 4-0 win over Racing, one of the most complete performances we have so far produced. Which was followed by one of the more incomplete performances we have so far produced (this season), a 1-3 defeat at mid-table Getafe. Oviedo are not a very good side so being 2-0 up after 30 minutes at their place was not unexpected; them getting pulling it back was not and it took a very later winner to get us the 3 points. Sociedad were clincically dismissed before we closed out January with dull 0-0 at Celta. This leaves us in 5th place, 7 points ahead of 7th and 9 behind the leaders. I am pretty happy with that, if we can keep this up then we should be in the Europa League at least. But for a couple of dodgy performances our defensive record is very good whilst the biggest change is that we are actually scoring goals! Admittedly Calvo, the £22.5m guy has not exactly been prolific, only 5 so far and a 4 month gap without a single one but his play has been pretty good in general. Cissé has been very good and is already in double figures although given that he had 5 after 3 matches I could have expected a few more. He also won his 2nd consecutive European Golden Boy award. Our 2 DCs have been awesome, especially Ban. January Transfer Window The worst news possible greeted the start of the month as PSG offered £19m for our phenomenal DR, Matola, pretty much the one player I would accept no offer for. Ever. Unfortunately this was his minimum release clause so I immediately offered a new contract. A couple of days later he won the African Young Player of the Year award and thanked me. And then he signed a new contract turning down PSG. Unfortunately this new contract only upped the clause to £22m. It took PSG a couple of days to notice this but once they did, another offer came in. And that was that, he was off. As he is pretty much irreplaceable, I wanted to be sure about who I bought to try to replace him. The DoF made a couple of offers for players on my shortlist but I decided that none there were good enough so I opted to try to get by for the season with what I had. I did however buy a new DL as I am not entirely convinced with the Argentine the DoF bought 18 months ago even if he did cost over £8m. When Benfica listed Oscar Riveros for £14.5m I dived straight in, a much better player in every way and he goes straight into the side. On the way out were just a couple of loans. I have a string of free signings lined up for the Summer – one of the Ajax STs I tried to sign last Summer, a Dutch international DC from Genoa and a very good utility French midfielder who is so versatile that I already have no idea where to play him To The Faithful Departed Nadir Matola (career) - quite simply brilliant, bought from Congo 4.5 years back for £1.2m and after 18 months of backup work and development he went into the 1st team and never looked back, he could do everything, a great defender but his forward runs scared the living daylights out of all opposition, he would start at his own corner of the box and end up anywhere near the opponents box with a shot, if his shooting ability was a little better he would have scored loads, and he was not at his peak yet, I had dreams of him being here for the whole of his career but unfortunately that won’t be the case, I think it will take a while to find a suitable replacement Notes And again we got a La Liga side in the Cup and again we lost, this time to Villarreal, 0-1 at their place and then they got a late winner here as we pushed desperately for a goal. This was in the middle of the DC crisis I mentioned earlier and the 2nd match ended with us having to 17yos at DC. The 1st Classico of the season was Madrid 5-0 Barcelona! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted December 5, 2013 Author Share Posted December 5, 2013 La Liga – 2027/2028 February started as January finished, with a dull 0-0 draw. And dull 0-0 draws when they are at home to Levante are not really acceptable results. The game was notable as I had to play a 16yo at DR for the whole match due to injuries, the result of Matola’s depature and a lack of replacement. He is our youngest player ever. I was not expecting much from a visit to the Nou Camp but I was at least hoping for better than a 0-4 thrashing. 2 straight wins took us back into 4th and a draw with Zaragoza let Atletico past us into 5th. We then visited Granada and it was a nightmare – our worst performance by far this season resulted in a 1-4 defeat. We recovered from that and rolled off 3 straight wins to put us back into 4th with 7 games to go. That started with a visit from Alcorcón. They might be better than normal newly-promoted sides but they are still a newly promoted side so deservedly losing 1-2 to them is far from good. A 1-1 draw at home to Espanyol was not great either. We were still 4th so 2 wins could have put well clear. Especially as our next 2 matches were visits to Valencia and Real. However, we managed to escape both of those matches with 1-1 draws which was better than I ever expecting and had ramifications for the title race as well. We were still 5th and moving far away from 7th where 6th would guarantee us European football. And draw no.4 in a row at home to Sevilla (0-0 this time) coupled with other results did guarantee us at least the Europa League next season. And yet another draw dropped us to 6th and left the table looking like this with one game to go. We need to hope that Atletico lose to Oviedo (unlikely) and make sure we win our match. However, just look at the top 3, the title race is much more exciting. We were great at Racing (finally!) but Atletico also won. As did all of the top 3. However Zaragoza did lose. This meant that we end in 5th place. And as you can see we were never really lower than 6th. That was much better. But really it should have been even better. Only 1 win from our final 7 matches prevented us from getting into the CL. I might not have been expecting to draw in Valencia and Madrid but losing to Alcorcón at home plus some of the other draws cost us dearly, hopefully one year we will be able to close out a season. But finishing 5th instead of 6th is good as we go straight into the EL group stages rather than having a qualifying round. The main difference this season was that we finally started to score goals, joint 6th in the division. Defensively we actually conceded 1 more goal than last season but that was mainly due to the 2 disasters against Barcelona and the Granada embarrassment. We did keep a lot of clean-sheets. And I was voted the 2nd best manager in the divison. As mentioned, I have a Dutch DC and a utility French midfielder coming in. I also have a Dutch ST signed up but he damaged his ligaments in April and is injured until December. Marvellous, as that will take some recovering from and I am guessing that this 1st season will be a bit wasted. I was planning on selling 2 of my STs but I am going to have keep one of them for emergencies until at least January. The only other position I really need to improve is DR whilst I may have a little look at other MC but not sure yet. On the way out will be a few players... Final Squad – nearly everyone has been capped Summary Finances – we are still losing money every month and the chairman is still chucking in money left, right and centre Transfers – both Cissé and Calvo were relative successes, Karael was a very unexpected success, Diakhaté was OK, whilst most of the youths a) are really promising and b) played some minutes in a 1st team match Here are some of the better players: Best GK – Frank Nørgaard – wasn’t supposed to be 1st choice yet, was planning to just play him in the easier games this year like last year, one of these easier games was the 1st of the season and he was so good in that and the 2nd match that I could not drop him, and he continued being brilliant, 3 penalty saves, string after string of great performances, just the one game against Granada where he played badly, probably the best 20yo GK in the world, nowhere near his peak yet, hope I have not played him too much too young, I will still give him the occasional rest next season Best Fullback – Gürçay Karael – clearly Matola is the best but as he is not here anymore so here is the 2nd best, and to be honest, he was really good as well, bought as a backup but injury meant he played the 1st 2 months at DL and was brilliant, when the other DL got fit he got injured himself but then Matola left and no replacement arrived so he spent the rest of the season as 1st choice DR, hopefully I will get a better DR in the Summer and he will become a very solid backup next season Best Central Defender – Bruno Ban – wow, really really good, a distinct improvement on his 1st year here, pretty much the best DC in the division, in the team of the year and our Player of the Year, an absolutely brilliant player, well worth the £10m he cost, and he has still not reached his potential, I hope he stays for a long long time 2nd Best Central Defender – Omar Silvani – another good season although not as good as his previous 2 and he was totally overshadowed by Ban, still not rated by the coaches and a theoretically better player is arriving in the Summer who is pencilled in to take his place, which is not entirely fair given his performances so far, in any case with Europe he will still play a load of games next year Best Defensive Midfielders / Belgians – Emile Dumont and Mohamed Benali – slightly cheating as there a large stretch of the season where they both played MC but apart from that one or the other was at DMC all year, Dumont was much better this season whilst this was Benali’s 1st year as 1st choice, by the end of the season Dumont had kind of replaced Topçu in the defensive MC role and Benali was at DMC where he has the potential to become one of the best in the division, can see the same happening next year Best Central Midfielders – Ayhan Topçu and Brahim Saidi – both very solid but not as good as previous years and both had month-plus injuries which gave other players the chance to win their positions and then pretty much keep them afterwards, Topcu never really became 1st choice again whilst although Saidi did win his back and actually play quite well I think he is going to lose it again next season to the French utility player who looks like an ace DLP (amongst other positions), both will stay for a while longer as great rotation options but I think their 1st choice days are probably over Best Attacking Midfielder – Kosta Gligic – a brilliant season, totally justified my decision to sell Diallo and to put Cissé at ST rather than at AMC, he was pretty good for the 1st half of the season, for the 2nd half, he was unstoppable and one of the best players in the division, goals and assists all over the shop and he is still improving, hopefully he will continue in this vein next season Best Striker – Adama Cissé –good solid 1st season, but given his ability and his start to the season I was expecting a bit more and a 10 hour gap between goals was not ideal, however 15 goals is the most any of our players has so far scored in La Liga, he is getting better and better and hopefully, with one season under his belt, he will be even better next year, was also voted the La Liga Signing of the Season 2nd Best Striker – Eneko Calvo – he clearly was not worth the money but I never expected him to be, very solid season without hardly ever being spectacular, possibly not as many goals as I was looking for and it is his lowest total in his 9 La Liga years but he and Cissé have a good partnership and hopefully it should bloom next season, he will stay 1st choice for at least another year Youth Candidates - not much to shout about this year either, Sergio Ibáñez is the best but will clearly never be any more than a backup. Notes Celta, who beat us to a Europa League place last year, are the 2nd team in 3 years to play in that competition whilst also getting relegated, here’s hoping the same does not happen next season One of the reasons that Valencia are so good is because they have an absolutely ridiculous ST. Valentin Razhdev was unplayable last season. He has had a slightly odd career as until 3 years ago he was pretty rubbish 8 players got called up to the European Championships – 3*Belgians, 2*French plus Topçu, Calvo and Gligic Malaga, Cartagena(!) and the Santa Eulalia Old Boys Club (Murcia) are coming up from the Adelante Last Season’s Aims Solid Mid-table – SUCCESS – never out of the top 6 all season Score More Goals – SUCCESS - 54 goals in 38 games is considerably better than our previous efforts of 31 and 36 Sign A Striker Who Can Score – RELATIVE SUCCESS – I signed 2, although I would have quite liked returns a better than 15 and 11 it was the 1st season at the club for both so hopefully at least one kicks on next season The Coming Season’s Aims Secure European Football – I could perhaps aim for the CL as we should really have achieved it this season but I cannot see us passing any of the top 3 so that would only leave one place up for grabs, another top 6-7 finish will do Qualify From Our Europa League Group – we go direct to the group stages which is good, doubt we will be highly seeded but I would like our 1st European experience to last until the new year at least Play Better Against The Top 3 – Real, Barca and Valencia are by far the best teams in the division and we only managed to get 2 (very surprising) away draws with them this year, 3 defeats and no goals at home is not good and needs improving 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th 25/26 – La Liga – 13th 26/27 – La Liga – 10th 27/28 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Racing (12th) – (H4-0, A2-1) Teams I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Barcelona (2nd) – (H0-3, A0-4) Best 11 Overall Best 11 – no changes Just Silvani in this year... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 2025 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 299 15 52 - 17 7.33 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 2025 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 239 14 26 - 17 7.35 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 2027 206 2 19 - 4 7.05 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 2026 159 5 3 - 17 7.47 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Fábio Roberto BRA/ESP AM RL / ST 2022 143 43 20 - 5 7.04 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Hazem Abdel Gawad BEL/EGY D C 2022 138 7 1 - 8 7.25 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Pape Diallo FRA/SEN M / AM C 2023 2026 132 16 21 - 6 7.25 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Omar Silvani ARG/SPA D / DM / M C 2025 101 4 1 - 21 7.75 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltablue Posted December 6, 2013 Share Posted December 6, 2013 Good season qualifying for Europe. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hungoth Posted December 6, 2013 Share Posted December 6, 2013 really great read I admire your persistence Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted December 10, 2013 Author Share Posted December 10, 2013 Thanks, it only took 15 seasons to get there! With 6 seasons in La Liga. And the injection of ridiculous amounts of money from the chairman! But I got there! Next stop the CL. And then working out how to do better than Real and Barca (and Valencia for that matter...) And yes, I am really enjoying the game so I shall persist a lot more. I am now nearly up to date with where I actually am in the game. By the end of this coming season I should be "live". However, real life has got in the way so I have hardly played the last couple of weeks... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted December 10, 2013 Author Share Posted December 10, 2013 La Liga – Summer 2028 And what a thoroughly boring Summer it was. Apart from just before the transfer window opened when our free-spending chairman decided that he would prefer to stop being so free-spending and just be a normal chairman. Not great. Not great at all but hopefully the TV and prize money should help cover our wages and other expenses. In any case, we have a lot of money in the bank at the moment so no panic yet. And at least the board’s expectations did not increase again, indeed after foolishly wanting us to get to the Copa semis last year they have realised that this is highly unlikely and tempered their enthusiasm to the quarters. When the window opened the 3 Bosmans arrived including the one with cruciate ligament damage who is out until Christmas. And that was it until the last day of the transfer window. I did make some exploratory bids for players but I decided that they were no worth the money their clubs wanted so did not pursue them. And even the business on the last day of the transfer window was not very exciting, just 3 very promising teenagers. On the way out were several players who had hardly played recently including our 2 biggest signings upon promotion: Fábio Roberto joined the freshly promoted Santa Eulalia Old Boy’s Club for a surprisingly large fee whilst attempts to sell Gawad failed so he went off to Portugal for a season long loan. Apart from selling the backup MC I bought last Summer for more money than I bought him for, none of the other sales were that noteworthy. And I closed out the window with 3 youngsters out on loan and 2 players who no-one wanted to buy to our feeder club There were panicky situations with both Gligic and Cissé as twice there were newspaper articles saying Man City were going to trigger their release clauses. Release clauses of around £20m that I was not 100% aware of! I quickly offered both new contracts but while Gligic signed with no issues, 3 clubs tried to buy Cissé. Thankfully he turned them all down and signed a new contract. Their new release clauses are around the £40m mark but I think I will need to get them to sign new contracts next Summer as I would not be surprised if clubs were still interested at that price. Transfers – 1st ever significant profit The Incomers So, here are the newcomers, more or less in order of signing or arrival: Erik Jansen – joined on a free from Genoa where he has spent the last 6 years being a very solid performer, however he is certainly not ever going to be a superstar like Ban so I suspect he will be here playing regularly only until said superstar appears from somewhere, is better on paper than Silvani so will start ahead of him but let’s see if he keeps his place Anton Monte – the injured ST, I tried to sign him last year but Ajax wanted something approaching £30m which is clearly far too much, I then spotted his contract was up this year so bade my time, we managed to beat a few good clubs to his signature, but then he did his cruciate ligaments and is out until Christmas, and now I have no idea what to expect upon his return, hopefully he keeps his ability although it has to be said that he was never the most prolific at Ajax, that said I don’t where they were playing him, I fear this 1st season might be slightly lost Arnaud Tarfaïa – came from Nantes where he had spent 4 years following a £6.5m move from Marseille, looks a great player but initially I had no idea what to do with him as he is our 2nd best DMC, 2nd best MC and 3rd best AMC, however upon further inspection, he is our best Deep Lying Playmaker so will fit in nicely replacing Saidi in the team, and given his versatility he may pop up in the other positions occasionally as well, was great in the friendlies and has already got his 1st French caps Kadir Varol, Hakan Payasli, Adin Dzeko – [copy paste from last year]all young, all relatively cheap (£800k-£1.3m), all with loads of potential, all in the U19s for a while and maybe the odd 1st team bench in an injury crisis, if my shiny new youth academy does not want to produce good youngsters then I shall steal them from elsewhere, don’t know why Bayern were willing to let the 2 Turks go so cheaply as both may turn out to be pretty good, however I am most excited about Dzeko who, upon first impressions, looks like he really could be something To The Faithful Departed Just 1 player worthy of mention left (permanently) this Summer: Fábio Roberto (career) – came in for nearly £2m upon promotion and I guess, overall, he was a bit of a disappointment, he had the potential to be a superstar but rarely showed it, he did have 2 pretty good seasons where he was our top scorer but once the chairman starting chucking money into the club I was always going to find better players which I did in Calvo and Cissé so he hardly played a game last season, am very happy with the amount I got for him and am happy that he has gone to Murcia where he can help all our other ex-players survive relegation Possibly a bit quieter than I was looking for but I like to think that it is quality over quantity. 2 of the players who have joined go straight into the 1st team and if Monte had not been injured he would probably have been close to it as well. One noticeable thing is that I did not buy a Matola replacement for DR. I tried but did not find a player with the right ability:price ratio. I did however notice that the 17yo Danish DR that I signed last Summer is coming on leaps and bounds so I find myself in the same position that I was in with his compatriot (Nørgaard) 3 years back: namely he is probably our future DR so I don’t really want to buy a permanent replacement but he is too young to start. Murcia helped me make up my mind by offering to loan him for the season. That means he will have a season of La Liga football under his belt so he might be ready to play for us next season. Plus they are paying me more for his presence this season than I paid to buy him outright last Summer! This season, however, we will be stuck with the players we finished last year with. We have started off with a solid home win, a slightly unlucky away defeat and a crazy match at home to Racing that we should have won but got a 3-3 draw thanks to 2 stunning goals from my backup AMC, one of which was the goal of the month. Notes: Murcia are now getting ridiculous, in addition to the 6 ex-players they already had last season they bought Fábio Roberto and loaned my young Danish DR to make it 8 of our alumni at the club. They have been of varying success eg. the 17yo DR is (presumably / hopefully) pencilled in to replace Luque who was our DR for the 1st 2 La Liga seasons. Since leaving 2 years back he has been a bit of a disaster and despite Murcia getting promoted he was voted the worst signing of the Adelante last season Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted December 24, 2013 Author Share Posted December 24, 2013 Peña Deportiva Santa Eulalia – La Liga – January 2029 Our slightly average start to the season continued with 2 draws, the 2nd of which involved my 18yo DC (on as a sub due to injury), who was making his La Liga debut, scoring a late own goal. And because of that injury he had to start the next match as well. Which was at the Nou Camp! And we had our 4th and 5th choice DCs playing! Yikes! And an absolutely insane match ensued. That win certainly kick-started our season in a big way as we followed that up with 5 straight wins. Some wins were good – thrashing Atletico, some wins were less good – taking 76 minutes to get a 1st goal against Hercules, chucking away a 2 goal lead at Granada and needing a 92nd minute winner. That run took us to the giddy heights of 2nd and only 2 points behind the leaders. The run was brought to a rude halt by Alcocórn before we came back from 0-3 down to snatch a draw at home Athletic. Next up was a visit from our feeder-selling club (Murcia) who weren’t doing great and as we had a very important Europa League match in mid-week I rested a few players. It was a gamble that paid off as we got a simple victory. We were now 6th but there were only 3 points between 1st and 8th. It was starting to look like one of the crazy Adelante seasons we had a few years back. Unfortunately our form then went to pot, we had 30 minutes against 9 men to find (at least) an equaliser at Betis but failed before playing well in the Bernebeu for 80 minutes until our AMC got a direct red card and Madrid got a 90th minute winner from a 19yo sub on his debut. Espanyol made it 3 0-1 defeats in a row to finish off 2028 and leave me a bit concerned. We had 3 straight matches against Valencia (spoiler – we were still in the Copa del Rey) and the league match brought a very welcome win and a 3 month injury to their star ST. However 1 point from our last 2 January matches was not great. This means we are in 8th place (screenshot taken a few days late). That run of 8 points from 9 games has taken us far away from the top of the table and to the edge of the European qualification. Not fantastic but we are still in contention for some kind of European place. Surprisingly given the last couple of years, it is our defence that is causing a few issues, too many goals conceded and too few clean-sheets, injuries and still not having a natural (and great) DR are not helping. As you can see Barcelona are having a very off season. Europa League We got an acceptable draw in Ajax, Lille and Sturm Graz and when we started off with a great 2-0 home win against Lille I was feeling confident. That feeling disappeared within the 51 minutes it took Ajax to be 4-1 up in our next game. A goal-less draw at home to Graz and we went to Austria needing a win. Which we did in spectacular fashion, our AMC getting 3 goals and 2 assists in a ridiculous 1st half, the 1st hat-trick by any of our players for over 7 years (no ST has scored a hat-trick for us since 2017(!!), dearie me). We were horrific in Lille so needed to at least equal their result on our final game, which was at home to Ajax. Thankfully, as mentioned I could rest a few players beforehand and we were pretty good in a 2-0 win. That left us 2nd in the group and next up we have a trip to Russia to face Zenit. January Transfer Window No arrivals and just 3 loans out, the most noteworthy being one of last years signings, a French / Portuguese AMC going off to Benfica for the rest of the season. That they want him indicates a lot of potential. 4 Bosmans are arriving in the Summer, 2 very promising 16yos that PSG mysteriously only gave 1 year pro contracts to, a 21yo Basque ST whose contract Bilbao evidently forgot about and an experienced Uruguayan DRL. Notes We finally got a good draw in the Copa as we beat Almeria, our feeder club, and then Cadiz, the clubs currently in the bottom 2 of the Adelante. Valencia however were a bit too strong for us but at least we won the league match between the 2 cup matches That stat about no ST scoring a hat-trick for 12 years does not apply to ex-STs as Fábio Roberto did something for Murcia that he never managed here. In a quite frankly extraordinary match at Espanyol, another of ex-STs in Mrmic also got 2 more. Speaking of Murcia, we have a 17yo DR on loan there, and not only is he a regular and playing very solidly for a relegation threatened side but he has also become Denmark’s youngest ever international. Pretty sure he will be with our 1st team next season. After losing 5-0 at the Bernebeu last season, Barcelona weren’t exactly much better this season. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted December 27, 2013 Author Share Posted December 27, 2013 La Liga – 2028/2029 February started with 2 good wins and 5 goals for my 2 STs. A visit from a not very good Malaga side brought an embarrassing 2-0 defeat whilst a visit from Barcelona brought an equal number of points before we got a solid albeit goal-less draw at Sevilla. A 4th game without a win followed at Atletico which dropped us to 9th place. There followed a theoretically easy run of games. That started with a thoroughly unconvincing come-from-behind win at home to Levante. We got off to a flyer at Hércules, 3-0 at h/t, but they got 2 quick goals back to panic us but thankfully we got 2 more late in the game. Then things got embarrassing. A home draw against relegation threatened Granada was bad enough but that was nothing compared to the visit of Cartagena. When they arrived on the island, they were rock-bottom with only 2 away points all season. When they left, they were still rock-bottom but now had 5 away points for the season. One of the worst results we have ever had and we even put out a full strength team. Dearie me :o. A win in Bilbao was better, a home draw against Alcorcón was not. Betis are a good side so a home win against them was a good result and when we then beat the Santa Eulalia Old Boy’s Club we now one point behind 7th (and European football) and only 5 behind 5th with 4 games to go. Unfortunately they weren’t very easy games. First up was a trip to Espanyol where we got a very good win and climbed to 7th. However a visit from Madrid brought them a win and the league title (we were bizarrely favourites for this match!) but kept us 7th. A home game against Getafe was the easiest of the 4 games but we were very uninspiring and a late winner for them dropped us to 8th. And given our last match was a visit to the Mestalla and 2nd place Valencia, it pretty much ended our European hopes. It did as another 0-1 ended the season. And Getafe over-took us as well so we ended up in 9th place. And given our positions over the season, I can’t really complain too loudly. That was not really what I was looking for. 9 points and 4 positions less. We did actually score more goals but we also conceded more as well, only 8 though which is not too bad especially considering that we still have the same DR issue we have had since Matola’s departure, insomuch as he have never been replaced and I am getting by with 2 pretty average players there. The main problem was losing close games against inferior opposition and less draws. And well, the overall cause of this decline can only be playing in Europe for the 1st time. Although the squad was big enough and probably good enough to play in both, the fact we went so far in the Europa League (see below) meant that we were playing 2 matches a week from February onwards and always chopping and changing the team, we played an unchanged team in the last 2 games which was for the 1st time since at least January. Europa League We had qualified from our group and had Zenit in the 1st knock-out round. We got a solid 1-0 home win to take to Russia where an early penalty calmed our nerves and pretty much decided the tie. Next up was another trip to Russia, this time further south to Kazan. They have a couple of great players that I am very much interested in. We were at home first again and we took any early lead and then missed a few chances before h/t. Things went downhill in the 2nd half as the 2 aforementioned players (of course!) scored 3 goals between them. We got a late goal to give us some hope. An early goal in Russia made things interesting until they got an equaliser just before h/t. That was the end of it. Or so I thought. 18 minutes to go, we took the lead in the match, 3 minutes later we took the lead in the tie, 11 minutes later we put it beyond their reach. A great win. And who did we get in the quarter-finals? The only other remaining Russian side! Spartak Moscow this time. And we were great, a slightly lucky 2-0 win at home (2 Spartak penalties saved) was followed by an Eneko Calvo hat-trick in Moscow (as per the stat in the previous post, this is the 1st by a Santa Eulalia ST for over 12 years!). Ibiza 3-0 Russia Portugal were up in the semis with Porto. And there the dream ended as they were just too good for us. It was probably a blessing as we would have faced Man City in the final. They have a fantastic side and, given what they did to Porto (5-1), they would have done very nasty things to us. It was a good run though. Arriving in the Summer we have the 4 players mentioned in January (2*16yo, a 21yo ST and an experienced DRL) plus a 16yo GK I signed during Spring. I have my eye on a couple of others especially as I fear that Cissé will get his minimum release clause activated. However, the lack of European football will mean considerably less games and squad rotation so there may be few players not playing much next season so I might consider moving a couple on. Final Squad – a large number of 2nd nationalities Summary Finances – now that the chairman is no longer bankrolling us we have issues, losing £3m per month and we are not far from being in debt Transfers – both Tarfaïa and Jansen were 1st choices whilst the youths are developing nicely in the U19s, however Monte's season was ruined, as expected, by his injury, he did play a bit but was never fully fit nor anywhere near 1st choice, hopefully next season will give him a chance Here are some of the better players: Best GK – Frank Nørgaard – not quite as good as last year, more goals conceded and half as many clean sheets, his average rating was down a bit as well, he still very young though and still has the same immense potential so he has no worries about losing his place, he will hopefully be playing here for a long time to come Best Fullback – Oscar Riveros – not exactly fantastic but still our best fullback as Karael was really not great far too often, I was kind of expecting a bit more for my £14.5m but he still has a few more years to impress me, solid but unspectacular so far and, as I will forever compare every fullback to Matola, solid but unspectacular is not really enough, I would like some more next year Best Central Defender – Bruno Ban – not quite as brilliant as last season but still really good, and good enough for the La Liga team of the year and our Player of the Year, he really is one of the best DCs in the division, we conceded a few more goals this year but the number of games we played surely had an effect, hopefully with no Europe he will return to his imperial best, if I could find a partner of similar ability we would set for years Best Defensive Midfielder – Mohamed Benali – for the 1st half of the season he was solid but very unspectacular but then was out for a very busy post-Christmas month, when he got back he played much better than before and finished the season very strongly, hopefully that continues into the new season Best Central Midfielders – Arnaud Tarfaïa and Emile Dumont – both very good in their roles, they have pretty much taken over from Saidi and Topçu and both performed as well as them, Tarfaïa got off to a fantastic start but towards the end of the season he petered out a bit, meanwhile Dumont was solid all the way thru, more of the same will do nicely although the coaches still don’t rate Dumont that highly and I would not be totally shocked if I got someone in to challenge him in the Summer Best Attacking Midfielder – Kosta Gligic – a bit disappointing this year but that is mainly due to the ridiculous number of injuries that he got on a regular basis (6 injuries and nearly 4 months missed), just when he was refinding his form he got another injury, hopefully next year he is injury free and he can repeat last season, good news is that he signed a new 5-year contract a couple of months ago with a huge minimum release clause so that should keep him here for a while 2nd Best Attacking Midfielder – Iñigo Gomez – 6 years here after being found in Division 2B by our DoF and until a couple of years back he was just a rotation option, now he is the 1st choice backup (excepting Cissé), because of Gligic’s numerous injuries he got a lot of games this season, he started the season off on fire especially in Europe but he got an injury himself so did not play much until the final couple of months where he again often impressed, he can’t be a million miles away from the Spain squad but with no Europe he probably won’t play half as much next year Best Striker – Eneko Calvo – overall a better season than last year, much better overall play in La Liga, albeit not many more goals, and he was very good in Europe, he maybe played too many matches as I have calculated that he only missed 3 games all season but he has so far never got injured and he keeps his fitness very well, I see at least one more season as 1st choice and then we will see 2nd Best Striker – Adama Cissé – again I was kind of expecting better than 15 goals in nearly 50 games, he did get a lot of assists and has a solid partnership with Calvo but I think he is capable of much more, one issue may be that I am not playing him in his best position (AMC) because of Gligic’s prowess, he did play there a bit but I preferred Gomez rather than move Cissé there and play a backup ST, I am also very fearful that he will be off in the Summer as he has a £37.5m release clause that he is not budging on and there are a couple of rich English clubs sniffing around Youth Candidates – again, pretty much the square root of f*ck all, Francisco Javier Fernández is the pick but he is not great and I am already signing a better 16yo GK in the Summer Notes The Santa Eulalia Old Boys Club (Murcia) survived quite easily and that is mainly because the STs we sold them the last 2 summers worked out where the net is, something they never really managed here. Fábio Roberto matched his best Santa Eulalia tally of 14 despite missing over 2 months with injury and was voted the 2nd best signing of the season whilst Domagoj Mrmic got 19 goals and 12 assists (both top 10 in the division). Following the ridiculous Espanyol match from before Christmas, here is another example of their scoring prowess, it would have been nice if they could have done that when playing for us As you saw Madrid had no issues with retaining the title whilst Barca had their worst season for 25 years Coming up we have Celta, Puertollano and Albacete. This is Albacete’s 3rd straight promotion from the Tercera Division. I repeat, this is their THIRD CONSECUTIVE PROMOTION!! They had never played above Division 2B until this season. That is ridiculous. I doubt any “human” manager could have managed that. Last Season’s Aims Secure European Football – FAILURE – and we did not deserve to either Qualify From Our Europa League Group – GREAT SUCCESS – it took until the final group game but a good performance put us thru, I was then overjoyed to reach the semis Play Better Against The Top 3 – TO A CERTAIN EXTENT – we did get 2 wins against them including the ridiculous match at the Nou Camp but they easily beat us in the other matches and they are all so much better than we are The Coming Season’s Aims Secure European Football – with no distraction of actually being in Europe next season, we have no excuse this time Sort Out The Home Record – 6 defeats is pretty dire and some of the teams we lost to (Cartagena, Malaga and Getafe for example) make it even worse, some of the draws were nothing to write home about either. This is not entirely a new thing as we had only the 8th best home record the season before Finish The Season Better – this season it was 3 straight defeats to lose a European place, last season it was 6 straight draws to lose a CL place, the season before it was no wins in the last 4 games to lose a European place. We seem to fall apart after Game 30, can we please do better next time 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th 25/26 – La Liga – 13th 26/27 – La Liga – 10th(Copa del Rey quarter finals) 27/28 – La Liga – 5th (qualified for Europa League) 28/29 – La Liga – 9th (Europa League semi finals, Copa del Rey quarter finals) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Hércules (19th) – (H3-0, A5-2) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Barcelona (1st) – (A0-1, H1-3) Best 11 - Gligic slightly surprisingly on the bench Overall Best 11 – just some changes to the bench 3 new arrivals squeezing in at the bottom... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 2025 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 320 15 54 - 17 7.31 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 2025 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 255 15 29 - 19 7.35 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 2027 206 2 19 - 4 7.05 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 2026 159 5 3 - 17 7.47 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Fábio Roberto BRA/ESP AM RL / ST 2022 2028 143 43 20 - 5 7.04 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Hazem Abdel Gawad BEL/EGY D C 2022 138 7 1 - 8 7.25 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Pape Diallo FRA/SEN M / AM C 2023 2026 132 16 21 - 6 7.25 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Omar Silvani ARG/SPA D / DM / M C 2025 117 5 1 - 23 7.70 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Bruno Ban FRA/CRO D C 2026 102 8 2 - 20 7.59 Mohamed Benali BEL/MOR DM / M C 2025 102 1 4 - 1 7.05 Emile Dumont BEL DM / M C 2026 100 1 3 - 5 7.26 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted January 2, 2014 Author Share Posted January 2, 2014 La Liga – Summer 2029 First things first, the chairman realised that without chucking in loads of money we were going to continue losing loads of money so he chucked in more money. Pretty much all of the incoming business was done very early on. In addition to the 5 players I had signed up already, I had our big Summer purchase also arriving on July 1st. For £14m a quite brilliant Serbian MC arrived from the Ukraine. And within the 1st week of July 2 Italian fullbacks had arrived from Juventus for £8.5m. And that was it apart from a 16yo in the middle of August. There was much more activity on the other side. First up, in a totally expected move, Chelsea offered the minimum release clause for Adama Cissé. As he had refused to budge on this clause, there was nothing I could but watch him leave. I did get £37.5m though which did soften the blow. And then, in an unexpected move, Arsenal offered over £11m for Gomez, my backup AMC. I had a long think about it and decided that it was far too much money to turn down for someone who would hardly play this season and for a position where I have a couple of promising youths. I accepted and off he went to London, a move which would have delighted Barakaldo, the small Basque club where he started his career. I then set about selling all the fullbacks that the new signings would be replacing. I managed to get £8m for the 3 of them and during all this I also sold a young Danish AMC who had not really broken thru for £1.5m. Next up I decided to sell my 3rd choice GK who had been here for 6 years without ever making an appearance, for someone who cost £22k I was delighted to get £1.2m for him! And then my freebie ST from 3 years back left for £2m+. There were loads of loans going out, a mix of promising youths I had bought and less promising youths that we had produced. Transfers – a lot of profit The Incomers So, here are the newcomers, more or less in order of signing or arrival: Ekaitz Zurro – a fantastic free signing from Bilbao, was 1st choice for them last season, in fact he has pretty much replaced Calvo in their lineup since he came here 2 years back, and I hope he will do the same thing here in a couple of years once Calvo leaves / retires, at the moment he will be a backup but will undoubtedly play a fair amount Javier Rodriguez –a freebie from Portugal, and he was pencilled in for the utility backup role, however with the 2 Italian fullbacks arriving, I am not sure how much he will play, he will probably rotate a bit but he won’t play half as much as I thought he would when I signed him, he is only on a 1 year contract and I am already thinking that might be how long he stays here Tomislav Masic – the big Summer signing and what a player he is, has been brilliant for each club he has played for, looks like the perfect DLP and well worth the money I paid, I am looking forward to seeing him play although I expect he will take a little while to settle in, having Gligic at the same club will help, Serbia’s midfield is scarily good and I am happy that they both play here Sergio Cancian – I needed a new DR, I assumed it would be the 18yo Dane rotating with Godoy (see below), that was until my scout found this guy listed at Juve, he came ridiculously cheap for his ability and goes straight into the 1st eleven although I will give the Dane some game time as well, as with most Italians (it seems) he has already spent a couple of years on loan in Spain so he no linguistic problems either Jonathan Saraniti – with hindsight, this signing was a little superfluous as I already had Rodriguez for this role and this guy was much more expensive than his compatriot, he does have more potential though but I have no plans on dropping Riveros just yet so he will rotate the backup role with Rodriguez for a season but given I paid money for him he will probably play more, another Italian who has already been in Spain on loan Armand Fofana, Ousmane Keita, Slavko Djurdjevic, Edith Escrivá – [copy paste from last year]all young, all relatively cheap (free-£750k), all with loads of potential, all in the U19s for a while and maybe the odd 1st team bench in an injury crisis, if my shiny new youth academy does not want to produce good youngsters then I shall steal them from elsewhere, PSG bizarrely only gave their 2 youngsters 1 year pro contracts so I swooped as soon as I could, I needed a young GK and, although my academy did produce one after I had already arranged Djurdjevic’s purchase, this guy is tons better, Escrivá may have a girl’s name but he is also a useful and dirt cheap prospect, I would say that the 2 French guys have the best hope of progressing the 1st team especially Keita with his versatility To The Faithful Departed Loads here, some because they were great for us, some because I got loads of money for them: Adama Cissé (career) – the best player (on paper) that we have ever had, and maybe will ever have, I still have no idea why no-one else tried to sign him on a free 2 years back, despite his ability he never showed as much as I wanted here probably because I never played him in his best position (AMC, blame Gligic), I pretty much knew since January that he would be leaving so I was ready for his departure, and nearly £40m is good compensation, he will probably become the best player in the world in a couple of years Hazem Abdul Gawad (career) – given that this is what he looked like when he joined 7 years back, he can only be considered a huge disappointment, I thought he might become one of the best DCs in the world, now we have a couple of the 18yos who are better, from 5* potential to 2* reality, he was 1st choice for 3 years and in 2 of those he did play very well but it then went downhill, he is worth more than I got for him but I just wanted him gone Iñigo Gomez (career) – an unusual good bit of business by my DoF, signed from Division 2B for basically nothing 6 years ago, he spent the 1st few years hardly playing but getting better, then 2 seasons as a good backup, I can’t believe that I got so much money for someone who would never have been 1st choice here and who would have hardly played this year, I wish him good luck in London Federico Frejuk (career) – signed by my DoF for quite a lot of money but he was not worth it, it took one season for me to realise that he was not quite good enough, then injury and Karael dropped him to back up and with Riveros’ arrival that is where he stayed, I got more money for him than I expected (still a loss though), bit bemused as to why Valencia wanted him, surely they could get better and cheaper DLs than him even if he is only a backup Gürçay Karael (career) – signed as a cheap experienced backup, he played much more than I expected, half a season as 1st choice DL followed by 1.5 seasons as 1st choice DR which was 1.5 seasons more than I would have wanted but with Matola’s departure and nobody good enough available I was stuck with him, he did OK but we would have done better with a natural DR, was hardly going to play this year so I got rid, I could maybe have got more money for him but I am very happy to get his £40k a week off of the wage bill Nicolás Godoy (career), Carlos Valero (career) – mentioned mainly as I got nearly £5m for them rather than the fact they were great for us, that said Godoy has been the best Uruguayan so far (5th one arrived this Summer), came as an 18yo and after 12m in the U19 and 12 more in the Adelante, he became a solid backup, never more than that, thought he would stay as backup this year as well but the arrival of the Italians put pay to that, very happy to get some much money for him, Valero was a freebie who was OK for one season and then hardly ever played, again I got good money for his performances here Not a bad Summer at all. Obviously losing Cissé is a big blow and neither he nor Gomez have been directly replaced but I have very promising youths available plus I hopefully improved the fullback position considerably. With regards to that, 3 have left and 3 have arrived. Let’s see if that improves matters. I also, pleasingly, managed to sell every player I wanted to. We have started off with 2 defeats and are one of only 2 teams with 0 points after 2 games. However that sounds a lot worse than it is as the fixture calendar was really not nice in giving us 2 of our hardest fixtures straightaway. We were unlucky to lose 0-1 in Sevilla and then Madrid came and won 1-0 at our place. Both performances were fine, however a goal or 2 would have been nice Notes: Murcia have calmed down a bit, they got rid of 3 of my ex-players, however, unbelievably they signed another one(!), this time one of the 2 Icelandic MCs I had a few years back, and they signed him for a lot more than I had sold him for as well. So they are down to 5 Santa Eulalia alumni now There has only been one youth product who was a success at the club. Christian Almeida made several Division 2B appearances and then when we got promoted he wandered off on loan and was sold for £150k. He has just retired and at the age of 28(!) he is now the manager of a club who were relegated from Division 2B last season. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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