[FM11] Cymru fo am byth! (Prestatyn)

[JackJCFC]

This career is proving providing me with the inspiration to keep going on my own Welsh save, KUTGW!

[DSYoungEsq]

Banging on the Door - The 2029-30 End of Season Report

The Welsh Cup (last four rounds)

The League Cup

The Squad.

The Squad's stats (combined).

The Reserves.

The Youth Rated.

Transfers This Season.

Season 2 of the three-year experiment has surpassed expectations. We are at the threshold of greatness, pounding on the door, but unable quite yet to enter.

Europe

We made the EURO Cup run I've been expecting we could for some time now. And I'm proud to say we did it against quite stiff opposition. We weren't given a cake-walk through the luck of the draw, unlike our run of '24-5 to the semi-finals of the EURO Cup. This group of kids is made of stern stuff. Lead by Jamie Kirton up front, and anchored by Darren Burton at the very back, they will take on anyone with a good, solid try.

As noted last update, our first hurdle was "The State-owned Enterprise of Moscow Region Football Club Saturn (Moscow Oblast)", or more conventionally, FC Saturn Ramenskoye. This relic of the Soviet days apparently survived the real-world bankruptcy that resulted in dissolution of the club in Jan. of 2011 (the farm club, Saturn-2, still survives). They put up a good struggle at their home park, but Kirton snagged the vital away goal early in the second half, and we made that stand. The return engagement in Bastion Gardens was a mere formality. In a very unusual result, Kirton was Man of the Match despite not scoring any of the four goals, barely beating out the terrifically in-form Burton and the equally inspiring Ryszard Burda (DC).

I expected the next hurdle to be a bit more difficult to get over: the German Giants of Bayern. They've never lost to us, though we've drawn games against them twice, and they one time thrashed us 0-7. But this is a different team, as we showed right off the bat, sending them home from Wales with no goals of their own, while stuffing two past them. While their defense keyed on Kirton, Didier Habimana smashed two home. The trip to the Allianz-Arena was equally enjoyable, with a four goal composite lead in the bag before we finally let them score.

The quarterfinals were much tougher, with the technically skilled players of Sevilla FC out to block our progress and win a date with either Aston Villa or Liverpool. The game was a testy affair, with back-to-back goals, one for each team, leaving the situation knotted up, until in the 92nd minute, our defense couldn't prevent their striker from getting to a nice cross. This put the onus well and truly on our shoulders, because we not only had to win, we had to overcome their two away goals. Since my team never does anything by halves, we promptly spotted them a two-goal lead, before storming back to take the tie on away goals. I guess my half-time speech was inspiring.

Liverpool succumbed to the Villans, which was a bit lucky for us, as the Second City club finished a poor 8th, while the Merseysiders were clawing their way to 5th place (over the backs of the Blues from western London). Nevertheless, any date with a Premiership team is going to be a real fight. I'm proud to say we stood up tall, and made our mark on them. After scrapping hard to keep them scoreless in our Gardens, we gave up our advantage early at Villa Park. But in the 86th min., our talisman, Kirton, rescued us from what looked certain to be extra time, and sent us through to the Final!

Sadly, that's where we ran into an effective demonstration of just how not-ready-for-prime-time we are. Arsenal have not always been good over the years, but right now, they are on an upswing, and had more than enough firepower to see us off. We held them off in the first half, but they weren't letting us have much of a sniff, and eventually, they overcame us, with three well-deserved second-half goals. We left Nancy proud of our competitive spirit, praised by our opponents, but sad to have come so close, and been still so far away.

Well, there WAS the $2M in our pockets as well!

Wales

Domestically, we won the WPL for the 15th year running. We were never troubled, though we didn't run away and hide quite like we have in some past years. Mostly, that was due to the singular efforts of The New Saints, who appeared to make it their personal goal to smack us down back into reality. Our record of 0-1-2 in the last half of the League season accounted for all but one of the non-win games this year.

Thus, it was with some relish that we played them off the park in the Welsh Cup Final. Well, at least, that's what we said afterward; as you can see, it was a very tight affair, in which they quite held their own, though we did win 2-0. But if they feel good about that, they shouldn't, since I was playing my second-stringers, resting the first team for the following Wednesday evening game against the men from North London. We also dragged home the League Cup for the seventh time running.

In all, the international and domestic results demonstrate my faith in these players is well-placed. I am certain that we'll get 10 of the 11 Team of the Year spots (I have doubts about MR, since Simunac only played 12 League games and Eriksen, at 17, was not quite dominant in his efforts). All of the starting eleven are solid players, easily capable, in my opinion, of playing at the Championship level or higher in England. And they click together. Their only trouble is the fact they sometimes play down to the level of a lesser opponent, but even that trend is not as prevalent with these players as it has been in the past.

I don't normally do this, but this season, I feel it's important to provide a bit of an extra guide to the important players on the team:

Jamie Kirton - ST: The force of the team again this season. Scored 57 in 45 played. He's why we are so potent up front. I won't be able to hang onto him, I'm betting. His contract is up for renewal in the coming season, and I'm betting he'll want $60K+/wk to stay, which I won't pay and the Board probably won't authorize. I expect you'll see him sold before the January window.

Didier Habimana - AMC/ST: His ability statistics seem to indicate he's almost as good as Kirton. But while he is certainly very capable, he lacks the speed needed to be truly lethal. Still, 28 goals and 28 assissts in 45 played is quite healthy. The load will land on his shoulders when Kirton is sold. Hopefully, he'll not drop it.

Morgan Raimondo - M/AML: A bit of a surprise. I originally thought Bianchini was going to be the starting left-wing and Raimondo would be the relief, since Bianchini is faster. But Raimondo is more deadly. He produces crosses AND goals.

Ivan Simunac - M/AMR: Wanted by lots of teams. Will be selling him after another year to let Eriksen have his turn. He and Raimondo are perfect bookends to the attack.

Bojan Milovanovich - DM/MC: Unsung hero of the team. Especially useful when I play formations like my 5-1-3-1 that have a defensive outlook. Elissalde will eventually replace him, but he keeps outdoing the expectations, so I don't expect him to go down quietly.

Ryszard Burda - DC/R: If any of my back line are the "boss", this is him. Nothing fancy about him, just solid workhorse. Contributes goals from time to time on crosses from free kicks and the like. Another of my players who is always generating offers.

Enrico Donnarumma - ST: This guy is already indispensable. Will team with Habimana when Kirton leaves, and will do well. He simply has the knack of scoring when he's playing. His overall stats would be higher if his continental appearances hadn't been mostly either mop-up operations or desperation efforts late on. Pleasant guy, too, always quite happy.

Darren Burton - GK: Saved the best for last. In my opinion, this is the most valuable player on the team. I know that GKs are often under-valued, and that's the case here with his dollar figure. But he simply is dynamite when he has to be between the pipes. Would be a Premier League keeper easily, and undoubtedly will be in another couple years when I have to sell him. My philosophy has always been to put a strong 'keeper in the back, and build from there; he's the epitome of this concept. We will sorely miss him when he moves on.

I did add one player this half of the season, a new back-up striker:

José Antonio García Fernández - ST: A good striker, but pricey at $3M from Villareal. It is hoped he might challenge for the job opening when Kirton leaves next year. His arrival meant the departure of Zinkunegi, who never did quite work out.

Next year will be the culmination of the project. My goal is to see if we can win a major trophy, either the EURO Cup or the Champions Cup. I have faith my kids can do it. They have already proved they can do quite a lot at Prestatyn Town FC!

The WPL Player Statistics. Notice all the assists.

Manager Overview.

Finances.

Boardroom Overview.

[DSYoungEsq]

This career is proving providing me with the inspiration to keep going on my own Welsh save, KUTGW!

Thanks, Jack! I've been watching your posts to the Challenge thread, you seem to be on track.

[DSYoungEsq]

The Years of Youth Part II: The Year End Summary - 2029/30

Results:

WPL: 1st 16 pts. ahead of The New Saints (P36 W28 D1 L3 F107 A13 GD+94 Pts85)

WC: Won 2-0 v. The New Saints

LC: Won 2-0 v. Afan Lido

Europe: Won 1st tie v. AIK (SWE) 9-2 3rd Qualifying Round UCL (Champions)

Won 2nd tie v. Litex Lovech (BUL) 9-3 Playoff UCL (Champions)

Finished 3rd UCL Group F W1 D4 L1 Pts 7

0-1-1 v Besiktas (TUR) 0-1 H, 0-0 A

1-1-0 v Cagliari (ITA) 3-2 H, 2-2 A

0-2-0 v Real Madrid (SPA) 1-1 A, 1-1 H

Won EURO Cup 1st Knockout Round v. Saturn Kamenskoye (RUS) 1-0 A, 4-0 H

Won EURO Cup 2nd Knockout Round v. FC Bayern (GER) 2-0 H, 2-1 A

Won EURO Cup Quarterfinal v. Sevilla FC (SPA) 1-2 H, a3-2 A

Won EURO Cup Semifinal v. Aston Villa FC (ENG) 1-0 H, 1-1 A

Lost EURO Cup Final v. Arsenal (ENG) 0-3

Prestatyn Town FC Honors

WPL Player of the Year:

Didier Habimana. A bit of an upset; I think they were simply tired of voting for Kirton.

WPL Young Player of the Year:

Jiri Vachal Jack-of-all-trades at the back who is getting a LOT of attention from other clubs, mostly I assume for his versatility.

WPL Team of the Season: As I predicted, ten of the eleven this year: – Darren Burton, Luca Costantini, Radomir Krstic, Héctor González Soriano, Ryszard Burda, Sam Johnson, Gareth Collins Y17, Morgan Raimondo, Jamie Kirton, Didier Habimana. Simunac simply didn't have enough games (12).

Fan's Player of the Year: Jamie Kirton. The fans aren't tired of voting for him!

WPL Manager of the Year:

Douglas Young. Order is restored to the universe.

Records by PTFC and/or its Players:

WPL:

Attendance (Game): 2847 Bastion Gardens, PTFC v Aberystwyth Breaking record from 1997!

Attendance (Season): 1888

PTFC:

Fastest Goal: 16s Didier Habimana v. Airbus 1/5/30

Attendance (Season): 2201

News for Prestatyn Town FC:

Prestatyn rose to 18th! Our excellent year produces strong results in the rankings. Pretty rarified air for us!

The Wales Season Summary.

We had a profit of $4.5M on turnover of $32M

Didier Habimana and Ryszard Burda join the PTFC All-time Best 11. Habimana, maybe. Burda too young yet to be ranked that highly.

News about Wales and the World:

The Welsh renaissance is still ongoing, up now to 62nd. Wales still have a long way to come back. Helped by their run to the playoffs for the upcoming World Cup, but didn't make the finals.

The WPL European reputation ranking recovers last year's loss, rising back to 17th. Hard to see how it will ever make 3.5 stars.

Wales don't change in Europe placings. We are down to 15th place again, which means the seedings stayed the same.

European qualification was really crazy this year. We are Champions, and 2nd place TNS get the "Best Third Place" spot in the UCL. The top EURO Cup spot would be ours, since we won the Welsh Cup, but we are in the UCL, so the next choice should be TNS as losing Welsh Cup finalist, but they also already are in the UCL. The slot has been given to Llanelli, but whether that's because of their 3rd place finish, or because they were the losing Welsh Cup semi-finalist to us is unclear. Neath gain a spot for winning the playoff, but that should be the #3 EURO Cup spot, and the #2 spot should go to Afan Lido, for finishing fourth. Instead, it was given to Haverfordwest, presumably for having lost the playoff final to Neath. As I suspected, the move by the WPL up the table to give it five places in Europe has created some programming confusion.

[Saxonaitor]

Jesus man! I really don't know what to say!

Amazing, totally jaw uttering stuff! Your also an alright manager I guess

Keep it up please, I'll be reading along

[Raware]

An excellent season DSYoungEsq despite the UEFA Cup final defeat. PLEASE can I have one of your strikers? Whie Kirton is obviously the star of the show I wouldn't mind having Didier Habimana or Enrico Donnarumma!

I do admire your continued enthusiasm in this save and the way in which you continue to write it leaves me utterly immersed . I'd put my money on this thread sweeping the awards at the awards ceremony this year .

[DSYoungEsq]

Germany 2030

Group B results in detail.

My fears turned out to be well-founded, coming into this tournament. We failed to show up at just the wrong time, and it cost us progression to the knock-out rounds. Given that we managed a scoreless draw with the Argentines, we certainly showed we have the capability to play at a top level. But we also can stink it up good.

Coming into the tournament, I had plucked Robert Soderlind - DR from obscurity (he never had a youth cap!) and installed him into the right back position. He was replacing an aged duo of performers who were no longer up to snuff. In his eight appearances prior to the World Cup, he had managed an average rating of over 7.3, and he didn't tire out as easily at the end as the older huffer-puffers did. The press had trashed me for the repeated selection of Soderlind over the aging heroes, but I was confident he'd do well.

So, of course, in our first game against Mexico, he gets tossed from the game in the third minute of play! This forced us to reform as a 4-3-1, and hope to withstand what I knew would be heavy Mexican pressure. Amazingly, we almost managed to gain a result, even leading at one point 2-1, but eventually their star striker got going, and it was curtains for us.

From there, the group result was a forgone conclusion, unless Los Tricolores were lucky enough to take down the Argentines, too. They weren't, and although we managed a draw against them, we needed the win and couldn't manage that. So we were sent home much more abruptly than we wanted.

We can't complain that hard, as it turns out. Argentina went on to win the whole tournament, and Mexico went out to Portugal, the losing finalists, who as you will recall, were the team that finished first in our qualifying group. So we can chalk the whole WC '30 experience up to some bad luck when it came to who we were drawn against, with the exception of getting Switzerland for the playoff.

At the end of our run, I had had enough of the Swedish team. For whatever reason, under me they are quite hit-or-miss. Maybe I don't have the tactics right for them, or maybe I should accept that they managed a massive over-achievement with me in Portugal two years ago, and just got unlucky here in Germany. Whatever the reason, I terminated my relationship with the Swedish FA at once, not bothering to wait to see if the FA would retain me after the tournament. Sweden have an easy draw for Euro '32 qualification, so there's no real challenge there, and I'm not going to continue to beat my head against this wall all the way through the WC '34.

As for the tournament itself, outside of our efforts, there weren't a lot of truly shocking results in the group stage. Nigeria getting first place over the Germans, and Senegal taking top spot in a group with Japan, Norway and the Dutch probably are the most interesting placings. The obvious under-achievers are the Dutch, who managed only 1 point from their group; right behind them are the Czechs who failed to gain a single point! The Portuguese took down the English in their group game, which slotted the Three Lions against the Azurri, who in a typical display of Italian discipline won 1-0.

Otherwise, the knockout round was pretty much according to Hoyle, with the USA going through on penalties and Mexico in extra time in the two games one might have considered close toss-ups. The top half of the table was pretty inevitably going to produce the Portuguese, who are playing well; the bottom half had all the drama, with Argentina knocking out the Italians in a thriller, while Brazil outlasted Spain, only for the Argentines to send the samba dancers home the same way.

The final was a close, tough affair. In a relatively innocuous seeming sequence, the Iberian defenders managed to lose contact with a second-half substitute striker for the men in blue and white, and a throw-in to a close-by midfielder was promptly controlled, then whipped into the middle where the striker one-timed it past everyone into the old onion bag. And that, as they say, was that.

Going foward, I'm going to stay away from international managing unless I can get either Wales itself, or can land one of the truly big names, like England, Italy, Spain, Brazil, etc. Well, maybe not Brazil; I like to hold a job for more than one or two games!

[DSYoungEsq]

Jesus man! I really don't know what to say!

Amazing, totally jaw uttering stuff! Your also an alright manager I guess

Keep it up please, I'll be reading along

An excellent season DSYoungEsq despite the UEFA Cup final defeat. PLEASE can I have one of your strikers? Whie Kirton is obviously the star of the show I wouldn't mind having Didier Habimana or Enrico Donnarumma!

I do admire your continued enthusiasm in this save and the way in which you continue to write it leaves me utterly immersed. I'd put my money on this thread sweeping the awards at the awards ceremony this year .

Thank-you, you two, for the kind compliments. I'm doing decently as a manager, though my Sweden experience makes clear I'm not completely comfortable with changing tactics to meet the needs of a squad I can't hand-pick. And Raware, you can have Didier Habimana anytime you like. He'll only cost you $5M.

[Raware]

Tough luck in the World Cup. While you was always going to finish being the Argies, I thought you might be able to squeeze past Mexico, but I always find them a funny side in that sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not. Probably the right decision to leave too. Hopefully the Wales job comes up soon!

[Flamers]

You must be pretty high up the order for the Welsh job now...

[Nobby_McDonald]

Take Prestatyn and Wales to greatness...

[DSYoungEsq]

Prestatyn Town FC: The Best Eleven (20 Years Worth)

Where they are now.

It's time again to debate the club greats. The debate should have some real substance to it, now that we have 20 years of players to choose from. Who among the 18 from our last effort will we keep, and who's been surpassed?

The issues facing us remain the same: 1) formation has much to do with who gets selected, and 2) it's very difficult (more so now than ten years ago) to compare great players now to great players at the beginning of my tenure. But I'll endeavor to apply much the same reasoning as I did at the last go to resolve these issues.

One restriction remains from the last effort: a player must play three full seasons with us before they can even be considered. I can't stretch it longer than that because recently, my players have averaged about that long in our team. Then they go on to bigger and better things.

The selection by the supporters club is much less "accurate" this time than last. As you may recall, at the 10-year mark, I only had to make some minor tweaks. Now, they've got the midfield hopelessly muddled, and the subs bench is filled with people who are there for the wrong reasons. With that in mind, here's my go at it:

'Keeper:

Darren Burton will one day be accounted the best 'keeper of the first 25 years of my reign here. But right now, he's only got 2.5 years at the helm, so he can't be considered. Ollie Watts was decent enough, but it was Ben Brooks who oversaw our first surge to glory in the early '20s. He and Matty Long are about 50/50 as to who was better, but I'll let the supporters have their way on this. A shoutout here for Martin Morris Y1, who after leaving here had 5 good years for Llanelli, then sat on their bench for a while before finally moving to the second tier of Welsh footie, where he plies his trade for Bridgend, and does quite well.

Central Backs:

My disagreements with the supporters start here. The reason has much to do with the basic problem we have at the club: really good players don't stay long enough now to make their mark. So we have a lot of people who were good who played central back, but many of them don't have much longevity. And the supporters newest pick, Ryszard Burda, doesn't have the longevity yet to be included.

There have been two real spells of excellent football from the club. The first came during the period 2012 to 2015, when we crawled out of the middle of the pack and established ourselves as the premier team in Wales. The second came in the period 2023-2026, when we first made a serious inroad into Spring European footie, then had our "perfect" season. Instrumental in the second run was Chris Turner, whose 5 years here in the middle of our back line solidified our defense. So I agree with the supporters on his selection.

But the selection of Burda is unsupportable, both because he's not got enough time, and because his stats aren't good enough, yet. In his place, I will stubbornly insist on placing Byron Anthony, who was instrumental in our first spell of excellence. Other possible choices, like Josh Kay or Tom Williamson or Dan Wylde never managed to dominate our back line's efforts like Anthony and Turner did in their respective eras. He would have never made our modern team, but the team owes too much to Anthony to leave him out of the best-eleven.

Outer Backs/Wingers:

Schooley and Stamp are not bad choices. Thomas Andersen, to his credit, played right back for us longer than anyone, but he was almost always second-string at the position. James Schooley was there during the magical run in the EURO Cup in 2024. I give him the nod over Gareth Tait on that basis. Jordan Stamp was the first player to really grab ahold of the left back position and make it truly his. He knocks James Bloom aside and takes the spot.

Central Midfield:

I've said above that the supporters totally make a hash of the midfield, and I now have to support that claim. Part of why they do so is that they are apparently still straight-jacketed into my old 4-0-2-2-2 formation, which relied upon two true MCs to work. The problem is, for a large portion of the time I've managed here, we've used a 4-1-2-1-2 wide diamond. Instrumental in that formation is a solid DM, who may not have great MC skills. It also utilizes someone in the AMC slot, and that person also might not be a choice for MC. This alone accounts for the selection of Dean Young by the supporters, who was a very average player for us and never really my first choice anything.

The supporters also are baffled about what to do with Kevin Irvine. Kevin played all over for me: MR, MCR, MCL, DM. He was a very good player. He probably was one of the best true MCs to play for us. However, he cannot be included as either a DM or an AMC, because better players at each position exist. I will relegate him to the bench of this team.

Instead of Young and Irvine, I'm going to go with the duo from the last selection 10 years ago: Owain Tudur-Jones as the DM/MCL and Tomas Gregg Lopes da Silva as the AMC/MCR. The selection of Tudur-Jones is still solid, though one day Bojan Milovanovic may establish that he was even better at DM. The choice of Lopes da Silva has all the same issues it did ten years ago, but I will make it for all the same reasons I did then: no better AMC candidate, no other good place to put Lopes da Silva, preference for the wide diamond formation over the 2-2-2 formation.

Wide players

The trouble with the selection of wide players is that the best right wing was also the best left wing: Kieran Djilali. Kieran was naturally better on the left, so I'd prefer to let him take that spot. But the right side has been a problem for me for all 20 years I've managed here. Really good right wingers get snapped up by other teams; most of the time, I'm forced to play players at MR who are rated better elsewhere. The history of the club is replete with examples: Kevin Irvine, Mark Bradley, etc. So finding a really good MR is difficult.

My choice is not really the best MR we've had. However, Michal Bortnik deserves to be priased for the fact that he has stayed with us for 10 seasons! He's never played badly, and in his early years, was actually one of my first-choice players for the position. Yes, players like David Barron and Andy Pearce were better at the position, but they were here and gone so fast, it's hard to even remember them. I'll reward Bortnik for incredible loyalty (I even once tried to push him out of here, and ended up re-signing him when we had an injury crisis and I needed his help at the right side!).

On the left, Tom Rogers is only put there by the supporters because they want to put him somewhere. He almost always played striker for me, so I'll push him aside for Djilali. Rogers can go to the bench.

Strikers

The first pick here is incredibly easy. Jamie Kirton is clearly the best player the club has ever had, at any position. He's obvious.

Didier Habimana MAY be the second best striker we've ever had, but the evidence isn't strong in support of this claim. Stuart Fleetwood had an almost identical strike ratio in the WPL, and that's despite playing with a far weaker team (though in Habimana's defense, he's had to play next to Kirton). Tom Rogers had a must better strike ratio than either of them did. John Gibson was even better than that. If Didier has a really good year once Kirton leaves, then he can be made striker #2 on this team. Until then, Stuart Fleetwood's accomplishments are still unparalleled, given what he was working with at the time.

Subs:

Here, as ten years ago, I will try to follow my usual pattern of a sub bench: 1. GK, 2. FB (preferably a versatile one), 3. Midfielder (preferably one who can play left and right), 4. DM, 5. ST. In Cup matches, the GK and the DM are set aside, since we are allowed only three subs. In Europe, we get seven, so I add: 6. Fullback (usually one who can cover whatever position #2 can't) and 7. Offensive person (often a winger). So we aren't going to just find the next best 7 players; they have to fit the criteria.

1. GK – Matty Long.

2. DR/C/L – Tom Williamson. I agree with the supporters here. There were others who were more versatile, and I salute them all (especially Dan Wylde and Jiri Vachal. but I trained Tom into being a DC/L specifically so he could fill this slot, once he became second choice to Turner and to shorter-term players like Roddy Morrison and Jack Hayward. Tom did a lot of good things for us as the fifth fullback, especially against tough European teams.

3. MC/R/L – Kevin Irvine. I swap him with Bortnik, who is on the First Team. The supporters are right to include him. He was here for a long time, and did a lot of very important work for us at many positions. In his later years, he was in this sub slot a lot. He also was WPL PoY at least once.

4. DM – Bojan Milovanovich. The DM sub slot was his for several years, while we still were playing 4-0-2-2-2. Upon our return to 4-1-2-1-2, he took over the starting position at DM. Not as completely dominant as Tudur-Jones, but I believe at least as effective in the position.

5. ST – John Gibson. I still regret not keeping ahold of this striker. He has one of the best all-time goals-per-game ratio for our team: 92 goals in 122 games! He barely qualifies for consideration, with only 3 years at Prestatyn, but what a three years they were!

6. FB – Craig Tawton. Maybe Josh Kay really was better, but for my money, Kay was simply too unreliable, both as to temperament and diligence in defensive duties. Tawton was a rock. I will note that we've had a plethora of decent defenders over the years.

7. Offensive player - Tom Rogers. Was both striker and left wing when needed. Deserves placement SOMEWHERE in the team, this is the spot.

Also worthy of consideration:

Gareth Tait – DR Was the pick at DR 10 years ago, and it can't be said Schooley was THAT much better.

Thomas Andersen - DR Spent 7 years here (one of which he was on loan to Red Star Belgrade). He's the Michal Bortnik of the DR position.

Mark Bradley - DRC/DM/MRC Hugely successful player for the club, and ended up able to play an incredible number of positions off the bench.

Sam Johnson - AMC/ST Played in the AMC position for a few years; I resurrected the 4-1-2-1-2 in large part to utilize his talents better.

[Dan BHTFC]

Great run in Europe!

In my current Wales save I've managed to get TNS into the Champions League Group Stage in the 17/18 season with only home grown players and loan signings, I think I'll spend my £6million in bringing in some better quality players and improving the facilities

[Raware]

Excuse my ignorance if I've failed to notice, but D Young in midfield...that isn't your son is it?

[Vizrahen]

Tough luck in the World Cup. While you was always going to finish being the Argies, I thought you might be able to squeeze past Mexico, but I always find them a funny side in that sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not. Probably the right decision to leave too. Hopefully the Wales job comes up soon!

In my current save as Fleetwood town, Mexico won every competition including the world cup between 2022-2026. Early in the game it generated no less than 8 Mexican wonderkids, 2 of which i had the opportunity to sell for a combined 80 million euros, of course by opportunity i mean that the board took it into their own hands. Mexico was ranked 1st for a while after winning the world cup, gold cup twice, copa america, and confederations cup. Six of the Mexicans made it into the world's top 11, and 8 of them on the best 11 in the copa america.

[JackJCFC]

Whats your average attendance like now compared to what it was when you started?

[DSYoungEsq]

[DSYoungEsq]

Prestatyn Town FC: A twenty-year restrospective

Purpose:

As stated ten years ago, the purpose of this retrospective is to try and provide some idea of how the team have progressed on the way to the stated goal: winning the Champions League. In it, I will be looking at various measures of our progress. They are not the only such measures, nor can we be certain they are the definitive measures. But they should provide a reasonable range of data for reaching at least a good guess. After 20 years, my guesses should be even better.

Results:

A) The Welsh Premier League

Clearly, the results of Prestatyn Town Football Club in the Welsh Premier League show that the team is quantitatively and qualitatively better than it was 10 seasons ago. The progression of results is shown here:

[u]Season[/u]    [u]Position[/u]     [u]Points[/u]     [u]GS[/u]     [u]GA[/u]
2010-1        6th         34       25     36
2011-2        4th         50       44     32
2012-3        1st         68       56     24
2013-4        1st         63       52     30
2014-5        2nd         64       63     27
2015-6        1st         70       57     25
2016-7        1st         79       70     24
2017-8        1st         72       74     35
2018-9        1st         72       62     19
2019-20       1st         81       89     25
2020-21       1st         77       67     17
2021-22       1st         77       76     25
2022-23       1st         82       72     12
2023-24       1st         92       95      7
2024-25       1st         84       95     19
2025-26       1st         86      109     19
2026-27       1st         96*     122     10
2027-28       1st         84      106     25
2028-29       1st         79      116     17
2029-30       1st         85      107     13

Sadly, these numbers have lost much meaning in deciphering our quality. After the '23-'24 season, when we made our first run at perfection and ended with only 2 draws as blemishes, and an incredible 7 goals allowed, our focus stopped being the WPL. In the next season, which saw our first run at European silverware (ended in the semi-finals of the EURO Cup by AC Milan), I purposefully stopped playing my best players in the WPL, to save their strength for Europe. Ever since that time, although we've gotten better at stuffing goals into the net, we aren't measurably better at keeping them out. Since the Championship of the WPL is ours on an almost pro forma basis, I don't think these numbers tell us anything except that we have become the dominant force of the WPL.

B) Europe

In our European results, there has clearly been an improvement over the years. As you can see from the spreadsheet in my last post, we've gone in the last 10 years from occasional appearance in the UCL group stage to almost certain group appearances, resulting as often as not in participation in the UCL knockouts. It's a measure of our increased ability that the 2027-28 teams failure to make it to Spring European footie was a serious aberration, unexpected completely.

We've now made appearances at the quarter-final, semi-final and final stage of the EURO Cup. Ten years ago, we couldn't even make it out of a EURO Cup group. Clearly, our quality is on a par with the top second-tier teams of Europe (say about 6th - 8th in the Premier League).

Notice, too, that the rest of the WPL is improving relative to Europe. In the first nine years of my tenure at Prestatyn, only one team had managed to win a European matchup: Carmarthen over an Azerbaijani team. In 2019-20, Neath went on a relative tear, taking down an Albanian and a Byelorussian team. In the last ten years, at least one of the three EURO Cup participants usually manages a winning result (they are 12 out of 30 in doing so). This is despite the fact that they are now entered at higher levels than in the first ten years (one each in the second, third and fourth qualifying rounds). And in the last year, Llanelli finally broke the duck and made it to group play, the first non-Prestatyn WPL team to do so. Nor, I'm pleased to report, were they totally out of their league, managing a drawn game against Inter Milan and a win over FK Austria of Vienna. Notice also that the teams in the EURO Cup now are lower in the WPL standings, since the second placed WPL team now becomes warm-up fodder for the UCL Best-placed teams. Prestatyn isn't the only team in the WPL making a move!

Players:

Ten years ago, I felt it necessary to do a statistical analysis of the characteristics of my players to determine if they were qualitatively better than they had been at the start of my tenure. I'm not going to bother with that this time. Jamie Kirton is obviously better than Adam Crawford, Lucas Weatherby is clearly better than Kevin Irvine, and Ryszard Burda is decidedly better than Cornelius Payne. Statistical analysis would be a waste of time.

Another way to tell how much better my players are currently is to look at where they go when they leave me. Ten years ago, they left me for League Two teams. When Matty Long left, it was quite the coup that he went to a Championship side (Cardiff). Now, my players are as likely to go to Premier League teams as anywhere. Further, they often are scooped up by foreign teams, indicating they now have a high visibility abroad, and a good reputation. Compared to the start of my tenure...well, there is no comparison. I rarely ever managed a transfer the first few years to anything other than lower tier Welsh teams on frees.

Under the Hood:

Of course, the only real way to tell if progress is being made is to look “under the hood” and see what exactly has happened to the club's reputation. To do that requires peeking with FMRTE. I still dislike doing this, and refuse to do it regarding players and the like. But I can do it for the team and check where we, and the League are 20 years on.

I'm going to spoiler the results, so anyone who doesn't want to see can simply refuse to look.

Reputation of Prestatyn Town FC in June, 2010: 1250

Reputation of WPL in June, 2010: 35

Reputation of Prestatyn Town FC in June, 2020: 2155

Reputation of WPL in June, 2020: 60

Reputation of Prestatyn Town FC in June, 2030: 6043 (!)

Reputation of WPL in June, 2030: 130

Benchmark Club: Middlesbrough (7th EPL): 7427

Benchmark League: EPL: 185

Conclusion

By result and by player quality, we have to conclude that there is a definite improvement in the quality of the club. Our relative ability compared to the rest of the WPL clubs has so substantially improved that we will soon be able to complete a season in the WPL without even drawing a single game, let alone losing one. Europe's results are more unclear, but we can put that down mostly to two factors: the limited data points and the fact that most of the games are played against teams from non-playable leagues.

This quote turned out to be prophetic, though the breakthrough "Perfect Season" didn't happen for 7 years. And the limited data points of Europe have given way to a much fuller picture, showing that we can seriously compete in Europe for silverware, though we are certainly not yet favored to win any such competition.

Meanwhile, our club reputation has soared, to the point we are not far behind mid-table EPL teams. The WPL reputation is quite healthy now, too, as reflected by our 3-star reputation.

I have a feeling that the breakthrough in Europe will come certainly within the next ten years, possibly the next five. A lot will depend on what happens when I lose Kirton and have to break up my current squad of talented youngsters. Hopefully, as I progress to "greatness" with the club, I'll get my long-deserved chance with Wales. Bringing Wales to the top will be a much, much harder slog.

Cymru fo am byth!

[Vizrahen]

Great career with obvious increases in the team and league. Only thing not rising as fast as the rest is your attendance figures. Luckily you have little competition in the league, so you are almost always guaranteed euro moneys, but hopefully you can start getting respectable attendance in the near future.

[Ceirdiff]

I hope that you won't give up on Prestatyn once you win the Champions League. I wanna see the WPL with 5 star reputation, heh.

[Raware]

As usual, a fantastic, in depth, well written retrospective ! Amazing to think how far you've taken Welsh football in 20 years .

[DSYoungEsq]

Prestatyn Town FC: Youth Player Project – 20 Years of Youth

Actually, 19 years, but who's counting?.

My tracking has changed slightly. I still label anyone who at their intake has an Ass. Man. rating of 1.5 stars or higher. Highest rated player is Y##, where ## is the number of the year in the project. Any other tagged players are Y##a, Y##b, etc. In the last ten years, there have been no Y##c players. Where the tracking has changed is that I'm no longer going back in later years and adding players to the tracking who reach 1 star after intake. In the past, these were labeled Y##a x or Y##b xx, the number of 'x's dependent upon how many years after intake they got identified and tagged. I've reviewed my past intakes and their progress with me and note that 11 such players would have been tagged in the last ten years. One example is Huw Evans, who would have been tagged Huw Evans Y17a x.

Thus, Martin Morris Y1 was the top of the first intake. Greg Vaughan Y12a is the second best player of the 12th intake. The last 'x' player on the list is Ben Jones 7a xx. There were no players tagged in either year 6 or year 16.

The members of the project are:

Y1  Martin Morris         GK     [url=http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/1864/martinmorrisy1initattri.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/291/martinmorrisy1profileat.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/3329/martinmorrisy1historyca.png]History[/url]
  Y1a   Stuart Edwards   ML/C   [url=http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/1201/stuartedwardsy1ainitatt.png]Then[/url]   Ret
  Y1b   Anthony Davies   ML     [url=http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/668/anthonydaviesy1binitatt.png]Then[/url]   Ret
  Y1dx  Daniel Pritchard DC     [url=http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/4074/danielpritchardy1dxinit.png]Then[/url]   Ret
  Y1ex  Michael Holloway ML     [url=http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/1725/michaelhollowayy1exinit.png]Then[/url]   Ret
Y2  Aaron Evans           DM/MC  [url=http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/6383/aaronevansy2initattribu.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/1328/aaronevansy2profileattr.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/708/aaronevansy2historycare.png]History[/url]
  Y2ax  Tom Thomas       ST     [url=http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/4524/tomthomasy2axinitattrib.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/41/tomthomasy2axprofileatt.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/5443/tomthomasy2axhistorycar.png]History[/url]
  Y2bx  Rhys Morgan      DC     [url=http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4374/rhysmorgany2bxinitattri.png]Then[/url]   Ret
  Y2cxx Paul Higgins     DL     [url=http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/2619/paulhigginsy2cxxinitatt.png]Then[/url]   Ret
Y3  Ian Roberts           DC     [url=http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/8374/ianrobertsy3initattribu.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/3742/ianrobertsy3profileattr.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/5814/ianrobertsy3historycare.png]History[/url]
  Y3a   Stuart Hillier   ST     [url=http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/4117/stuarthilliery3ainitatt.png]Then[/url]   Ret
Y4  John Hunter           ST     [url=http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/627/johnhuntery4initattribu.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img807.imageshack.us/img807/4017/johnhuntery4profileattr.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/3867/johnhuntery4historycare.png]History[/url]
  Y4a   Thomas Walsh     DC     [url=http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/1243/thomaswalshy4ainitattri.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/3797/thomaswalshy4aprofileat.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/4225/thomaswalshy4ahistoryca.png]History[/url]
Y5  Joe Morris            AMC    [url=http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/839/joemorrisy5initattribut.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5125/joemorrisy5profileattri.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/499/joemorrisy5historycaree.png]History[/url]
  Y5a   Huw Evans        MC     [url=http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/4100/huwevansy5ainitattribut.png]Then[/url]   Ret
  Y5b   Kyle Allen       AMC    [url=http://img602.imageshack.us/img602/4783/kylealleny5binitattribu.png]Then[/url]   Ret
Y6  N/A
  Y6ax  Ian Evans        MC     [url=http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/6000/ianevansy6axinitattribu.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/7250/ianevansy6axprofileattr.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/4074/ianevansy6axhistorycare.png]History[/url]
  Y6bx  Anthony James    GK     [url=http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/7953/anthonyjamesy6bxinitatt.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8751/anthonyjamesy6bxprofile.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/6927/anthonyjamesy6bxhistory.png]History[/url]
Y7  Phil Morris           ST     [url=http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/1770/philmorrisy7initattribu.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/5782/philmorrisy7profileattr.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/6545/philmorrisy7historycare.png]History[/url]
  Y7axx Ben Jones        ST     [url=http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/4493/benjonesy7axxinitattrib.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/3483/benjonesy7axxprofileatt.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/239/benjonesy7axxhistorycar.png]History[/url]
Y8  Darren Andrews        DM/MC  [url=http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/7423/darrenandrewsy8initattr.png]Then[/url]   Ret
Y9  Nathan Passmore       GK     [url=http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/7186/nathanpassmorey9initatt.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/593/nathanpassmorey9profile.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/4706/nathanpassmorey9history.png]History[/url]
  Y9a   Scott Evans      AMC    [url=http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/9825/scottevansy9ainitattrib.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/7439/scottevansy9aprofileatt.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/3715/scottevansy9ahistorycar.png]History[/url]
Y10  Iwan Nash            MR/C   [url=http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/1715/iwannashy10initattribut.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/3899/iwannashy10profileattri.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/6387/iwannashy10historycaree.png]History[/url]
  Y10a  Matthew Davey    ST     [url=http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/9531/matthewdaveyy10ainitatt.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/7334/matthewdaveyy10aprofile.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/4695/matthewdaveyy10ahistory.png]History[/url]
Y11  Graham Watkins       DC     [url=http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7733/grahamwatkinsy11initatt.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/2544/grahamwatkinsy11profile.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/8331/grahamwatkinsy11history.png]History[/url]
  Y11a  Viorel Doros     DR     [url=http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/9660/vioreldorosy11ainitattr.png]Then[/url]   Ret
Y12  Phillip Roberts      ST     [url=http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/1438/philliprobertsy12initat.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/7608/philliprobertsy12profil.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/5241/philliprobertsy12histor.png]History[/url]
  Y12a  Greg Vaughan     M/AMR  [url=http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/1102/gregvaughany12ainitattr.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/157/gregvaughany12aprofilea.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img814.imageshack.us/img814/9807/gregvaughany12ahistoryc.png]History[/url]
Y13  Antony Morgan        AM/MC  [url=http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/7264/antonymorgany13initattr.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/4599/antonymorgany13profilea.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/9020/antonymorgany13historyc.png]History[/url]
  Y13a  Richard Pike     ST     [url=http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/2017/richardpikey13ainitattr.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/9877/richardpikey13aprofilea.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/9575/richardpikey13ahistoryc.png]History[/url]
  Y13b  Gareth Jones     DLC/ML [url=http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/9600/garethjonesy13binitattr.png]Then[/url]   Ret
Y14  Simon Jones          ML     [url=http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/337/simonjonesy14initattrib.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/9853/simonjonesy14profileatt.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/5816/simonjonesy14historycar.png]History[/url]
Y15  Martin Prosser       DM/MC  [url=http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/6360/martinprossery15initatt.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/7900/martinprossery15profile.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7151/martinprossery15history.png]History[/url]
Y17  Gareth Collins       M/AMRC [url=http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/925/garethcollinsy17initatt.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/3326/garethcollinsy17profile.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/1893/garethcollinsy17history.png]History[/url]
Y18  Mal Davies           DM/MC  [url=http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/9841/maldaviesy18initattribu.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/7912/maldaviesy18profileattr.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/727/maldaviesy18historycare.png]History[/url]
  Y18a  Mark Jones       ST     [url=http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/3070/markjonesy18ainitattrib.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/2717/markjonesy18aprofileatt.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/2193/markjonesy18ahistorycar.png]History[/url]
Y19  Marc Wilkins     DM/WBR/MCR [url=http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/7758/marcwilkinsy19initattri.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/1487/marcwilkinsy19profileat.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/508/marcwilkinsy19historyca.png]History[/url]
  Y19a  Ryan Griffiths   MC     [url=http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/4981/ryangriffithsy19ainitat.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/7640/ryangriffithsy19aprofil.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/6769/ryangriffithsy19ahistor.png]History[/url]
  Y19b  Nicky Edwards    ST     [url=http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/7685/nickyedwardsy19binitatt.png]Then[/url]   [url=http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/5081/nickyedwardsy19bprofile.png]Now[/url]   [url=http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/3650/nickyedwardsy19bhistory.png]History[/url]

As I did last time, I'm going to look to see if the youth intake players show a trend upwards in ability/capability when recruited. We've had a steady improvement of our youth facilities over the last ten years; they are now rated "good", but our recruitment remains at the "basic" level and I have not been able to request an improvement in that aspect.

I subjected the additional 9 top of class players to the same statistical review I did on the original 8 last time. Specifically, I determined their median Physical Attribute score, their median Mental Attribute score, and their median Technical Skills Attribute score (counting GK Attributes as the same as outfield players technical skills). Here are the results, along with the three-year moving averages for each:

[u]Player[/u]   [u]Phys[/u]   [u]MA  [/u]   [u]Ment[/u]   [u]MA  [/u]   [u]Tech[/u]   [u]MA  [/u] 
Y1        9.0           6.5           7.0
Y2        9.0           7.5           6.5
Y3        8.0   8.7     6.0   6.7     2.5   5.3
Y4       10.0   9.0     7.5   7.0     5.0   4.7
Y5        8.5   8.8     7.5   7.0     7.0   4.8
Y7        8.5   9.0     7.5   7.5     3.0   5.0
Y8        9.0   8.7     7.5   7.5     7.0   5.7
Y9        5.5   7.7     5.5   6.8     7.5   5.8
Y10      10.0   8.2     8.0   7.0     5.5   6.7
Y11       8.5   8.0     7.0   6.8     3.0   5.3
Y12      11.5  10.0     5.5   6.8     3.0   3.8
Y13       8.5   9.5     9.5   7.3     7.5   4.5
Y14       7.5   9.2     5.0   6.7     4.0   4.8
Y15      10.0   8.7     8.5   7.7     7.0   6.2
Y17      10.0   9.2    10.0   7.8     7.0   6.0
Y18       9.5   9.8     7.0   8.5     7.0   7.0
Y19       8.5   9.3     9.5   8.8    11.5   8.5

For most of the decade, the numbers showed no significant difference from the first decade. Note especially that the Mental Attributes appear to hang right around a median value of 7.0 through the 14th intake. Nor is there any consistent improvement in technical skills in that time frame: Graham Watkins Y11 and Phillip Roberts Y12 come to me with very little acquired skills. Not that this matters, as you will note that Phil Morris Y7, arguably the best Academy product ever (recipient of several awards for the WPL and for Wales in general) started with very low numbers in this area. Finally, the Physical Attribute numbers are all over the place (Nathan Passmore Y9 - GK could barely walk and chew gum at the same time!). It appears that for much of the first 15-16 years, no real change occurs in our intakes.

That has changed. Starting with Martin Prosser Y15, a notable trend towards better top-of-the-class recruits exists. Mental abilities are significantly improved, moving well away from the prior 7.0 anchor. Technical skills appear to be improved, too, even if we discount the substantial jump from Marc Wilkins' abilities. Even physical abilities seem to be improved, at least to the extent that there is less deviation downward from the average. I can report that the trend continued with the Y20 player. Of course, this improvement in the top recruits has not meant that ALL recruits have similar increases; indeed, we've had another class with no outstanding or notable candidate (2026 - Y16). But it should be noted that, of the eleven players not tagged initially who have been identified as qualifying for the old 'x' tag, only one is not currently playing professional football. Excluding Viorel Doros - Y11a, who was tagged solely for his novelty in being from Romania, that means of 27 players meriting tags, only 2 are no longer playing. That's a significant increase in percentage from the first decade's players (6 out of 23).

Another confirmation of the increased quality of intake players comes from the story of Mal Davies Y18. Mal came to us in the 2028 class, and as is usual of the top recruit, spent his year in the Reserves, rather than the Youth, so that he could ride the pine on Saturday's in the WPL for us, satisfying our U-19 requirements. He appeared in 13 League games for the First Team that year, plus 5 cup games. He wasn't outstanding, but he held his own (avg. rtg. 6.82). I signed him to a professional contract and waited to see what would happen.

Leeds and Leicester are what happened. Both Championship clubs came knocking with offers for him. This represented the first time a youth player of mine, while still a youth, was being requested by Championship clubs. I went ahead and accepted the offers, and he took Leeds up on theirs. They promptly loaned him out to League Two side Boston Utd., but I have no doubt that they expect him to contribute in the future to their side. (As an aside, I actually had Tottenham take my Y20 from me when I didn't offer him a professional contract, which netted me $1.1 MILLION in compensation!) Clearly, my top recruits are much better quality now, than when I started at Prestatyn.

It occurred to me during the decade that I also made a mistake in my last review of this issue. While the initial ability of the players might not have improved, it is entirely possible that the potential ability of the recruits was getting better. It would be hard to confirm this. Although one might measure their statistics after, say, seven years in football to see how they compare, the fact that these players are not staying substantial periods of time with Prestatyn Town FC means that any attempt at comparison would be almost useless. It would be difficult to compensate for the different levels of training and experience the players would be getting with their subsequent squads. However, I will note that a review of the skill profiles for my former top recruits seems to show that the ones from the period of Y7 - Y12 became better than the ones from Y1 - Y6 did. Phil Morris Y7 forced me to think about this, since his incoming technical attributes were marginal at best, and he's been the Welsh Footballer of the Year on two occasions, and only stopped getting the award when Jamie Kirton chose Wales over England and became eligible to win it instead. So it's entirely likely that, even before the Y15 class, our recruits were coming in with more potential than they had at the beginning.

(Parenthetically, I'll note that I could always check this by using FMRTE, but I refuse to go under the hood and look at players. That's a temptation one doesn't need to scratch the itch of in a game like this!)

Amazingly, even including the original decade's recruits, most are still participating in Welsh Football. Of the 28 listed players, only 12 are out of football entirely. Ten are still playing for WPL teams. One is with the Championship, and five (Y17-19b) are still with Prestatyn Town FC. Other than Phil Morris Y7, the others have had some limited success.

At some point, I'm going to shift to a model where the top recruit for the club is kept on and plays in the WPL games. Since I can win the WPL with second-string teams, there's no danger in doing so, and it will give the recruits a chance to develop to a much higher level than they can by going to other WPL, or even League Two or One teams. Of course, if Championship and Premiership teams keep coming calling, I probably won't hesitate to turn the sale of my recruits into a cottage industry.

[Ceirdiff]

Again, very interesting writeup. I always love the feature of youth (on the iPod version I would play a solely u19 team, oft u17) and my Prestatyn squad (whilst underperforming) is very young, mostly in early 20s.

Good luck and kutgw!

[JackJCFC]

Very interesting read! Are any of you youth players making the national side?

[DSYoungEsq]

Excuse my ignorance if I've failed to notice, but D Young in midfield...that isn't your son is it?

As usual, a fantastic, in depth, well written retrospective ! Amazing to think how far you've taken Welsh football in 20 years .

Thanks! As to Dean Young, he was not my son so far as I know... English, as I recall.

[DSYoungEsq]

Again, very interesting writeup. I always love the feature of youth (on the iPod version I would play a solely u19 team, oft u17) and my Prestatyn squad (whilst underperforming) is very young, mostly in early 20s.

Good luck and kutgw!

Thanks, Ceirdiff! I seem to perpetually enjoy the mission of raising the youngsters up right.

Very interesting read! Are any of you youth players making the national side?

Jack, the only two who routinely show up in the national side are Phil Morris Y7 and Graham Watkins Y11. My youth are often involved in the U-19 and U-21 sides, but rarely manage to make it higher. I predict that Mal Davies Y18 will show up in the national side eventually, and possibly Gareth Collins Y17 as well.

[DSYoungEsq]

Great career with obvious increases in the team and league. Only thing not rising as fast as the rest is your attendance figures. Luckily you have little competition in the league, so you are almost always guaranteed euro moneys, but hopefully you can start getting respectable attendance in the near future.

I think the one aspect of the dynamic league reputation that they haven't got quite right yet is attendance. I can understand their feeling that attendance for a tiny team from Prestatyn wouldn't easily rival teams like Liverpool, but surely a team that was consistently in Europe would begin attracting larger crowds, even for the relatively humdrum affair of playing TNS in the WPL.

[JackJCFC]

Thats quite interesting as i assume you have the best youth system in Wales, if the players aren't coming from you then what team are they coming from? Besides the one or 2 that pop up in the premier league.

[Dan BHTFC]

I've found on my long tern Neath save (I'm in year 2041/42) that even though my youth system is the best I still have at most 2 decent youth teamers in the space of around 3-4 years

[DSYoungEsq]

Year Three: What can they do? - 2030/1 Initial Report

The 2030/1 Season Squad.

The "reserves." Michal Bortnik continues to hang on, barely.

Youth Intake. Not bad, but not as good as last season.

The third year of the three-year experiment begins. We will see what my group of youngsters can manage this season. They will be challenged, because they're going to get a shake-up mid-season.

Jamie Kirton has carried this team far in the five-and-a-half seasons he's been here. He's been such a scoring threat that he's almost unstoppable, except at the highest level. But his contract runs out at the end of this season, and his wage demands are much higher than my board will allow me to pay. I could try to keep him, but if I do, and pay him what he's entitled, I'll end up having to significantly increase pay to other players who will otherwise get quite jealous. And I'm not yet to the point where I can afford to pay outlandish ($50K+/wk) sums in salary. So Jamie is destined to depart this year. My goal is to sell him just AFTER the window closes on Sept. 1, which might cost me some transfer fee value, but which will mean I'll have him through the end up the UCL group games.

The need to replace Kirton with a body in the lineup has gotten me started thinking about other departures in the not too distant future, and what to do about them. Darren Burton, for example, undoubtedly will have to be sold at the start of next season, for much the same reason. That means I need a 'keeper who can eventually replace him. Didier Habimana is also likely leaving in another year, so that means I've got some holes to fill up top. Lucas Weatherby leaves on Jul. 1, and Sam Johnson probably will leave at that time, too, so I need some help in the middle of the park. Jiri Vachal is targeted by so many teams I can't count them, so it would behoove me to find someone equally bi-footed and train them up to be his replacement as the S2. Other examples exist.

Thus, there are likely to be some additions to the squad this season. I've already made two:

Carlos - GK:

I snatched this kid away from Villareal for $800K, which is a lot for a 'keeper. But while he may never obtain the lofty heights of Darren Burton, he's not going to be much worse, the scouts say. He'll be a much more adequate replacement than Lindqvist, who I will ship off to the first club who submits a decent offer.

Ross Robinson - DL:

On loan from Chelsea. I hope to eventually negotiate a transfer for him. I think he can take the Jiri Vachal spot. If not, he at least can be made to be a replacement DR as well as starting DL, which makes him versatile.

This year's recruitment class was decent, if not superb like last season:

Paul Jenkins Y20 - ST:

Sadly, the best of the bunch is a striker, the one position I'm almost certainly not going to assign to an average (for PTFC) at best player. Still, I might be able to raise him up into a decent person to sell.

Matthew Griffiths Y20a = M/AM © / M/AM ®:

Versatile. If he manages to up his value from 1.5 stars to 3 stars (a tall ask), I might be tempted to keep him, along with Marc Wilkins, to play in WPL games as needed.

We've got a good squad, as last season demonstrated. I think that we can still do well, even after we lose Kirton, because our back line should be better, allowing fewer goals. I am eager to see what Enrico Donnarumma manages to do once he gets to take the main striker slot after Kirton leaves. In the meantime, I'll keep a lookout for some decent replacement players, so that, when the experiment is done, I can shuffle the rest of them off to Buffalo, or wherever they want, for lots of cold, hard cash.

Manager Overview. Note that it still shows employment as Sweden's manager, though that position I resign when the World Cup is over.

Finances.

Boardroom overview.

[DSYoungEsq]

Thats quite interesting as i assume you have the best youth system in Wales, if the players aren't coming from you then what team are they coming from? Besides the one or 2 that pop up in the premier league.

Almost the entirety of the team, other than Kirton, Morris Y7 and Watkins Y11 are grey players.

[Dan BHTFC]

WPL Ranking 2042

As you can see it's a good level now in the Welsh Premier, it's tough to push on even though there are now 2 teams in the Champions League Qualifyers and 3 teams in Europa Cup Qualifyers

[Nobby_McDonald]

More numbers up there than Rachel Riley is used to.

[DSYoungEsq]

Torn Up and Tossed Out the Window – Europe Group report - 2030/1

Prestatyn Town match results, all competitions.

Transfers this season to date.

Well, the three-year plan is totally torn up and tossed to the wind. I've completed wholesale changes to the team. Several of our stars are out the window, and I'm not so certain that I've got the proper quality in replacement, yet. But I do know this: I've maximized my monetary position from selling them off!

Sadly, I can't show much of this too you easily, because I managed to totally forget to create a save of the game at the point of the draw for the UCL knockout rounds (done in mid-December). I've crafted what I could from the save I made at the end of the season. For the rest, you'll just have to bear with me.

Europe:

European games through group stage.

We weren't presented with too much trouble qualifying for the group stage of the UCL this season. FC Flora of Tallinn, in Estonia, were demonstrably out of their league. The 11-0 aggregate score was actually flattering to them. SK Slovan Bratislava of Slovakia weren't any better off, really. We brushed them aside easily. The hat trick from Donnarumma in the second game was especially gratifying, because contrary to my plan, Jamie Kirton's sale was completed before the end of the window, and he had left us at that point!

The group draw for the UCL was kind. While Barcelona could be counted on to be a very tough opponent to beat, I knew we had the quality to handle both Rangers and Dnipro. This meant that Spring UCL football was likely, assuming we didn't trip up.

Trip up we did not. After dismissing a spirited Rangers side from Bastion Gardens with a win, we traveled to L'Éstadi Camp Nou and withstood a barrage of efforts from the Catalunians. Our narrow 5-1-2-1-1 handled almost everything, but their star striker finally tallied in the 82nd minute. We left the Iberian Peninsula bowed, but not broken.

We took our frustrations out on the poor Ukrainian side from Dnipropetrovsk. After a comfortable 3-0 win at home, we went on the road and produced perhaps our finest display of attacking footie ever, trouncing the Metalworkers 9-0, with both strikers recording hat-tricks. Each of them proceeded to tally a goal in the away effort at Ibrox, to see us through to another comfortable win.

This left us within striking distance of Barça, who had not dropped any points. The final engagement was at Bastion Gardens. I wasn't too expectant of a win; I knew that they would be barraging us again with their quality efforts. But I hoped to play a slightly more aggressive role at home. And play more aggressively they did, managing nine shots, a much better result than the tame solo effort accomplished in Spain. Amazingly, in the 36th min., Didier Habimana managed to shake off his shadow, and rolled around with the ball into the box, then lifted a sublime effort over the onrushing 'keeper. We then hung on grimly, and eventually put the game out of reach, beating the offside trap in the 80th minute. Thus, we not only managed our most famous win ever, we went top of the group!

Sadly, they don't reward you for top of the group. The upcoming knockout round won't be easy, with AC Milan slotted against us. But, as I've noted before, the knockout rounds of the UCL are never easy; bad teams don't get this far in this competition. Well, we do, but we're alone in doing so, usually.

Sadly also, there were no EURO Cup surprises for Welsh teams this season. All were knocked out pretty much according to expectations.

Home Front:

WPL Matches to date

Domestically, we've done fine, with only one loss and one draw to complain of. We're still scoring at a decent rate, thanks to Donnarumma and Habimana. The defense remains fairly stingy, too.

As noted at the start of this post, we've undergone some considerable changes. In the process of moving Jamie Kirton on, I started getting offers for other members of the team, offers I decided I wanted to take. Radomir Krstic has been making life miserable for me with repeated requests for upgraded contracts every time some big club comes snooping for him, so with Ross Robinson already on board for two seasons on loan, I shipped Krstic off to Birmingham for just under $1M. After Michal Bortnik left at the end of his contract along with Sam Johnson, and Lucas Weatherby headed off to greener pastures in the Midlands, I started working to solidify the middle of the pitch. Then I started trying to get a fair price for Jamie Kirton.

When I was done dickering, Kirton was sold to Sunderland for $6.5M, easily our largest transfer sale fee. But in the process, I managed to get decent offers for both Héctor González Soriano and Ivan Simunac. So out the door they went, as well. And although the transfer window closed before the deal did, I was able to unload Luca Costantini as well.

Replacing this group of players are a group of players I'm not so certain are who I really want. Several better prospects refused to come here for reasonable salaries, or ended up being courted by other teams and going there instead. Still, we did accomplish some gains:

Scott Fisher - ST/AMR:

On loan also from Chelsea. I doubt I'll be able to afford this guy, but he would be a very good catch. I'm going to run him on the right wing instead of Simunac, and use him to tutor Palle Eriksen in that role. He can also cover up front if need be.

Ulrik Nielsen - AMC/ST:

Obtained after a trial spell with us to replace the outgoing Sam Johnson. I hope he'll be an upgrade from that worthy, who simply wanted more money than he was worth.

Razak Akonnor - ST:

Back-up striker, intended for the WPL. Has some good potential, so maybe he can eventually take over the Habimana spot when that worthy exits next season.

Liam Flynn - MC:

Lucas Weatherby's replacement. I expect he'll see more use than Weatherby, because I intend to start using the 4-0-2-2-2 set-up again, meaning I need two good midfielders like Flynn.

Gabriele Grieco - M/AMR / MC / ST:

Couldn't resist picking this guy up, since he's on a youth contract and was free. He's got a lot of versatility, so he might become a natural S4 for me (all around attacking midfielder).

Aitor - M/AML:

Intended to replace Orlando Bianchini, who hasn't kept up with Morgan Raimondo. Sometimes, it's nice to have speed on the left wing.

Ilie Luca - DC/WBR/DR:

Will replace Luca Costantini on the right, but has the ability to come to the center if needed. Joins on Jan. 1, when Costantini leaves.

Mohammed Buzenthal - DC:

Intended to replace González Soriano.

So now the challenge is to integrate these new players into the squad by the time Spring footie arrives. We'll see what we can manage. Not sure what I am thinking!

[ooc note: I think what actually happened is that this was done while I was on vacation in California, and the Board was down, and I simply got mixed up as to whether or not I'd finished the "three-year plan". But I don't recall my motivation at the time...]

[DSYoungEsq]

More numbers up there than Rachel Riley is used to.

Oh, sure, make me go look up something interesting while you disparage the situation!

[JackJCFC]

Wow thats pretty amazing to top the group! Just a sign of the progress you are making, you'll have the champions league in no time!!

[DSYoungEsq]

So close, so close and yet ... - The 2030-31 End of Season Report

The Welsh Cup (last four rounds)

The League Cup

The Squad.

The Squad's stats (combined).

The Reserves.

The Youth Rated.

The Youth Team Stats

Transfers This Season.

Part one of the challenge came within reach, and yet, we were well and truly unable to grasp it. Given the way the squad was reformed on the fly this season, I'm quite proud of the lads, if a bit astounded!

Europe

As you will recall at the last update, we were scheduled for a February pairing with AC Milan in the UCL knockout phase. It was not a matchup I relished, for the Milanese have beaten us before, and Italian teams are never pushovers. Still, we went into the San Siro full of determination to make a mark. Our goal was to score an away goal, limit them to as few as possible, then run home and try to blank them in Bastion Gardens while levelling the aggregate. And that's exactly what we accomplished. Didier Habimana gave us the away goal after only 5 min. gone, and although we shipped 2 to the home side, we knew we could get the job done. When we got to our own cozy confines, I pumped our guys up, and told them they could win the game. 90 min. later, in possession of a 1-0 scoreline, we were through to the quarterfinals.

The draw was kind. Sevilla are a good team, but they aren't the best, and I had confidence we could take them down, though it would not have surprised me if our lack of cohesion cost us. Never in doubt the result was, though I admit the 94th min. tack-on goal from Liam Flynn at home helped our morale considerably. I should also note that we went into the Sevilla games using our normal wide diamond, rather than packing the back; I wanted to have some offense as well as defense.

The choice of opponents for the semi-finals was somewhat Hobson's choice. The three possible opponents were all top English teams. As it was, the pairing with Arsenal was the most interesting, given the fact they had sent us home last season in the EURO Cup final 0-3. This time, we made no secret of our objective, with the wide version of the 5-1-3-1 in use. Darren Burton managed a Man of the Match performance between the sticks, and we snuck a goal in during the second half to give us the advantage headed to the Emirates. According to the pundits, we stunk the place up. However, just after the Gunners had managed to grab the lead they needed to put us down, we caught them still celebrating. Habimana managed a fierce blast, their 'keeper could only block it, and it went right to Donnarumma, who blasted it into the left corner of the net. Donnarumma had just been substituted in, and inside of two minutes, had put us in the driver's seat. We spent 15 minutes defending bravely and, when the whistle blew, were through to the Final.

As was the case last year, though, that was one hurdle too many. Darren Burton won Man of the Match honors for his efforts to stave off the waves of sky blue shirts. But we never posed the other end of the field much threat, and an early score for the Citizens held up at the end. Still, we exited the stadium with our heads held fairly high, and I was proud of the lads for having achieved so much, even if we were so far away from the goal.

Wales

Domestically, we were far more average, losing three this season. Mostly that was due to my efforts to play younger members of the squad, saving our first team for the efforts in Europe. But I sense we've lost any zest for the WPL. It's pretty much pro forma that we win each year. Indeed, this season, with one of the lower points totals we've had in a while, we still were ahead by 19 at the end, winning the whole thing with four or five games to go. In the future, I'll simply use the WPL as a training league, almost a Reserve league, really.

The cups were no trouble at all, either. We stormed through the Welsh Cup, destroying all in our path. The League Cup was equally easy. In that respect, we demonstrated that, however much the other Welsh teams have improved, they don't hold a candle to the men from Prestatyn. Note the very healthy payoff for winning the Welsh Cup!!

So in the end, the results are about as good as one could want. Had we taken down the Sky Blues, we'd have accomplished the first part of the challenge I've laid down to Prestatyn Town FC, back when I arrived. As it is, we'll have to wait at least another season, and probably more, for there are additional departures to come this next year.

Interestingly, I managed to sell one additional player before the January window closed. Jose Antonio García Fernández was the subject of interest from none other than Arsenal. I pushed the price up and up, and amazingly enough, got as much for him as I had gotten for Kirton. Maybe Arsenal are right about him, but I'm going to bet on Donnarumma and Akonnor for the forseeable future.

Next year, I'm not certain what will happen. I know Burton will be going (he's already turned down reasonable offers to stay), and possibly Burda will want to go, too. Habimana probably will go as well; his salary is already in the high end of what I'm willing to pay. We shall have to see what replacements can be found.

The WPL Player Statistics. Notice the lack of dominance in a lot of categories. Unusual for us.

Manager Overview.

Finances.

Boardroom Overview. Notice that we're upgrading facilities, again.

One final note: even after the last season, which was in many ways our best ever, I'm still not in the complete confidence of the Board, mostly because winning the WPL, the Welsh Cup, and the League Cup are viewed with indifference. It's a cruel, cruel world.

[Raware]

Wow...what a season! So close! You've probably claimed more trophies than me now!

[JackJCFC]

What an amazing season! To lose only 1-0 in the final to Man City is still a great achievment and who knows what you'll achieve next year. The signs are looking good

[DSYoungEsq]

The Years of Youth Part II: The Year End Summary - 2030/31

Results:

WPL: 1st 19 pts. ahead of Afan Lido (P32 W26 D3 L3 F88 A12 GD+76 Pts81)

WC: Won 4-0 v. Llanelli

LC: Won 4-0 v. TNS

Europe: Won 1st tie v. Flora Tallinn (EST) 11-0 3rd Qualifying Round UCL (Champions)

Won 2nd tie v. Slovan Bratislava (SVK) 8-0 Playoff UCL (Champions)

Finished 1st UCL Group D W5 D0 L1 Pts 15

2-0-0 v Rangers (SCO) 2-1 H, 2-1 A

1-0-1 v Barcelona (SPA) 0-1 A, 2-0 H

2-0-0 v Dnipro (UKR) 3-0 H, 9-0 A

Won UCL 1st Knockout Round v. AC Milan (ITA) 1-2 A, a1-0 H

Won UCL Quarterfinal v. Sevilla FC (SPA) 2-0 H, 1-0 A

Won UCL Semifinal v. Arsenal (ENG) 1-0 H, a1-2 A

Lost UCL Final v. Manchester City FC (ENG) 0-1

Prestatyn Town FC Honors

WPL Player of the Year:

Enrico Donnarumma. Award was truly up for grabs this season.

WPL Young Player of the Year:

Enrico Donnarumma VERY unusual for the same person to win both.

WPL Team of the Season: Only eight of eleven: – Darren Burton, Jiri Vachal, Ross Robinson, Ryszard Burda, Oliver Platt, Scott Fisher, Aitor, Didier Habimana. Notice the absurdity that the WPL Player of the Year isn't on the Team of the Year!

Fan's Player of the Year: Didier Habimana.

WPL Manager of the Year:

Robbie Savage. He and I seem to trade this off each year.

Records by PTFC and/or its Players:

From now on, attendance records won't be acknowledged unless they are significant. We take it as a given that I'll set ever increasingly higher averages for the WPL, Welsh Cup, LLC and PTFC.

There were no non-attendance records set.

News for Prestatyn Town FC:

Prestatyn rose to 13th! Our second straight excellent year results in a leap up the rankings. Amazing place for us to be!

The Wales Season Summary.

We had a profit of $16M on turnover of $54M! Those are staggering numbers.

Oliver Platt and Darren Burton join the PTFC All-time Best 11. Darren Burton I agree with; he's our best ever 'keeper. Oliver Platt, however, is a travesty. He's simply not that good, period.

News about Wales and the World:

The Welsh ranking slowly continues to climb, up now to 54th. It's quite hard to see, frankly, how they are that high, given their results last year and this year to date. They are dead last in the Euro '32 qualifying group, which with Latvia, Montenegro and Poland joining Turkey should have given them at least a good shot at 2nd place.

The WPL European reputation ranking drops back to 19th, the third straight year of yo-yo results. It's likely to stay in this range for a while.

Wales finally get their guaranteed UCL Group spot! We did it with room to spareclimbing to 12th over the Belgians. The EURO Cup spots stay the same, but Prestatyn will no longer have to go through any qualifiers to make a UCL group. Of course, that doesn't start until the '32-'33 season.

European qualification was quite straightforward this season. We go to the UCL 3rd Qualifying Round (Champions), and Afan Lido go to the same round in the Best Placed half of that competition. Because we won the Cup, the top EURO Cup spot (4th Qual Rd.) goes to 3rd-place Llanelli, followed by Playoff winners TNS in the next spot (3rd Qual Rd.). Welsh Cup runners-up were Llanelli, so the 3rd EURO Cup spot goes to Playoff finalists Haverfordwest.

However, in a real boost for Wales this season, Wales have won an extra EURO Cup spot for Fair Play. That goes to Neath, the 6th-place team, which will get to play in the 1st Qualifying Round of the EURO Cup.

[JackJCFC]

Nice to see Oliver Platt doing well in your team . He's just broken into the first team on my save, he must be a faceinthegame player.

Progress for the league is looking good too. Hopefully it won't be long until other Welsh teams are getting somewhere in europe.

[Deisler26]

Wow! Congrats with the Champions League final appearance! Hopefully next year, you'll go all the way!

[DSYoungEsq]

? - 2031/32 Initial Report

The 2031/2 Season Squad.

The "reserves."

Youth Intake. Total strikeout.

I've titled this year with a simple question mark, because as I see it, that's where we are. I'm making so many wholesale changes to the team, it's almost scary. If it weren't for the rock-steady presence of Burda, Platt and Milovanovic in the back, goodness knows what we'd do out there. I'm not sure if it's progress or simply change for the sake of change.

I've got some people who are going to be sold this year. Darren Burton is on his way out, as is Didier Habimana, both because they don't really want to stay, or won't stay for a reasonable wage. I'm fairly hopeful that Platt will re-sign; not sure if I want to re-sign Vachal or not. People keep wanting to toss large sums of money at me for him, and I don't rate him that highly, except for his versatility.

One thing I won't do is cry over spilled milk. Liam Flynn came to us last year for $1.9M; he turned into a pretty solid bust, so he's out the door for a measly $80K to Llanelli. I won't miss him; probably, the world being what it is, he'll end up going great guns for them and beating us in a game or two in the process. Also leaving was youth product Paul Jenkins Y20, who took Tottenham's offer of a pro contract while I dithered about offering him one. I won't cry; he's a striker and I don't really need a marginal 3-star striker, and I loved the $1.2M that they had to pay me right away, with more possible if he does well for them.

I have picked up three players:

Edgar Simmonet - MC:

Only 16 years old, and purchased from Nice for $4.5M. I've decided to start using that large transfer kitty that's just been sitting there to really upgrade the club. He's rated at 4-stars potential by my Ass. Man., and even higher by one or two of the other coaches, not to mention the scouts who saw him. We'll hope he turns into the real deal.

Michael Schofield - MC:

Hopefully better than Flynn was. We'll soon see, as I'm playing some 4-0-2-2-2 this year, and he'll be a large part of that effort.

Giorgos Kotsiopoulos - ML:

Comes very highly rated by the scouts. Another player I've spent money to get, $2.1M in his case. I've never been sold on Raimondo as a permanent ML, since he's slow as molasses in January. Kotsiopoulos will hopefully be able to take the position over within a year or so.

This year's recruitment class was a bomb, with not one single worthwhile recruit. An aberration.

So we're going to see what we can manage to put together. I'm expecting to spend some more money after I get Habimana and Burton sold, preferably for about $10M total. We'll see, since 'keepers are notoriously under-valued. But I've got Carlos in place ready to go, and anticipate I can find another back-up soon enough. Meanwhile, what I will really need is a good, solid striker. If I don't develop one out of my current squad, I may have have to go hunting...

Manager Overview.

Finances. Notice the delicious uptick to the graph...

Boardroom overview. New facilities are being built.

[DSYoungEsq]

Wow! Congrats with the Champions League final appearance! Hopefully next year, you'll go all the way!

Thanks, but I rather doubt it, since I'm making wholesale changes.

Nice to see Oliver Platt doing well in your team . He's just broken into the first team on my save, he must be a faceinthegame player.

Progress for the league is looking good too. Hopefully it won't be long until other Welsh teams are getting somewhere in europe.

He was doing well. He's about to head out the door...

Wow...what a season! So close! You've probably claimed more trophies than me now!

Didn't know it was a race. Care to compare?? :evil grin:

What an amazing season! To lose only 1-0 in the final to Man City is still a great achievment and who knows what you'll achieve next year. The signs are looking good

Thanks! But see above when it comes to this season. We'll know soon enough; I've got Manchester United in the UCL group with me...

Wow thats pretty amazing to top the group! Just a sign of the progress you are making, you'll have the champions league in no time!!

Well, not quite NO time. That would be helpful, however!

[AK22]

Five Welsh teams in Europe next season! The farmyard animals of Lithuania and Azerbaijan will not know what's hit them

Very well done on the Champions League performance. I'm sure you were disappointed to lose the final, but it's a huge achievement just to get there. Will be interesting to see how the imminent changes will effect the team going forward.

[JackJCFC]

Five Welsh teams in Europe next season! .

I think it might even be six! Half the teams in the league

[Nordan]

WPL Ranking 2042

As you can see it's a good level now in the Welsh Premier, it's tough to push on even though there are now 2 teams in the Champions League Qualifyers and 3 teams in Europa Cup Qualifyers

Absolutely brilliant career!!

Something is broken in your game I think:

Either Wales should not have 2 CL-spots,or you should be entered straight into the group stage(from the 1st time there were 2 spots).

My best guess is the game gave you a direct spot but forgot to take away a spot from one of the other nations with direct spots.

Hope that makes sense.

[DSYoungEsq]

Crash and burn – Europe Group report - 2031/2

UCL Group E Table:

Prestatyn UCL match results:

.

Transfers this season to date.

Oh, well. The best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley.

Europe:

We went into this season hoping that it would be our last-ever year with qualifying matches for UCL group play. Not that it matters much, since it's been a while since we failed to make the UCL or EURO Cup groups, but a less-crowded fixture list would be nice. Still, this season we were required to dance the qualifying dance, and dance it we did.

Our first opponents were CSKA Sofia. This was our first time meeting with the former Bulgarian Army Club. The visit to Sofia went reasonably well, though the inability to slam the door shut in the second half was a bit worrisome. Fortunately, we had no lapses upon our return to Bastion Gardens, and the Army men were seen off to try again next season (they have yet to make Group play in Europe since I took over at Bastion Gardens).

FC Basel, however, came very close to putting us face down in the mud and muck. Our trip to St. Jakob-Park was a nervy affair, with our 1st minute strike by Didier Habimana quickly countered by a brace of Swiss goals just a minute apart. It wasn't until the dying moments of the first half that we managed to equalize. We hung grimly on until the end and went home with the draw and the vital two away goals in our pockets. And vital they were, too, when Basel managed to hang a 1-1 draw on us at home, and only our second away goal sent us through. At that, it took an 88th minute header from Jiri Vachal to send us through, staring an early exit from the UCL in the face.

Three of the four games identified a worrying issue: lack of solid defense. Despite the fact that the least changed aspect of the team was its back line, it was the back line that was slipping up. Partly, I could put that down to the fact that our new 'keeper, Carlos, was less commanding than Darren Burton had been. But whatever the reason, I realized that our progress through the UCL group stage depended upon solidifying that back end.

The draw did us no favors. Manchester United, of course, are beyond us, really. But the inclusion of the Dutch and French teams makes the group harder than it might be. Indeed, only Group*D appears to have an equally tough set of teams. I wonder how poor Juventus feel in Group C: not only are they in Pot 2, but Chelsea are their Pot 3 team!.

Looking at the draw, it appeared to me that, in order to repeat a run at the UCL title match, we'd have to take down both the French and the Dutch teams at home, and draw the away fixtures. That would give us 8 points and force one of the other two teams to take full points off of United once to surpass us. In my mind, it was unclear which of the two teams was going to be the weaker, Rennais or Twente. As it turned out, the Tukkers were the better team, but not by much.

After a mauling at home by United, we went away to Enschede full of bravado, if not full of confidence. A quick goal from Palle Eriksen added to our hopefulness. But Twente hit back firmly, with three strikes before the interval. Although we worked hard to even things out the second half, the even nature of the the game made coming from two back more than we could achieve. Despite winning the second half, we went home losers 4-3, which immediately put chances of qualifying for the knockouts of the UCL in serious doubt.

Three weeks later, I knew we would be lucky to progress to the knockouts of the EURO Cup. Stade Rennais F. C. came into Bastion Gardens and, after gaining an early goal, held us off successfully. With half the group done, we were four points behind both our rivals (United perfect, of course). To progress at all would mean taking out both teams: the Bretons at home and the Tukkers in our house on the last match day. Even then, if one of the two managed to take down the Mancunians, and other results broke right, we could still end up going home without any Spring games to play.

As it turned out, we knew our fate just two weeks later, when we could only counter a first-half injury time strike by Rennais with a last-minute penalty, to leave us out of the running officially (barring some miracle in Old Trafford). Although we battled tremendously well at the Theater of Dreams, we were eventually sent packing without any points. The final day match against the men from Enschede was irrelevant to all issues in the group, and our victory rang quite hollow. Thus, for the first time in ten years, we were out of Europe before the holidays, and would spend our Spring focused on the domestic titles only.

Amazingly enough, the capitulation in Group E was not something that could be laid entirely at the feet of the defenders. Although, as will be seen, I have new defensive blood lined up, they won't arrive until January. Still, we held the Ligue 1 team to a total of 2 goals, and held the Dutch to a clean sheet in the last game. However, we just aren't as “jelled” as we were last season, and it shows at crucial moments.

Home Front:

At this point, I'm not going to go into detail on the domestic situation. Suffice it to say that, unless you hear from me otherwise, we are sitting at the top of the WPL standings, and are winning, most, if not all our games. In addition, we are on our way to winning both the Welsh Cup and the League Cup at this point, unless I say otherwise.

I've been a VERY busy boy on the transfer market. Two of my Italians were shipped out in July. Enrico Donnarumma, who was never going to make it into the top two was sent to West Ham, and Morgan Raimundo, an average ML was sent off to Kayserispor. In addition, just before the last of the group games, I sold off Jiri Vachal to FC Metz, for the not inconsiderable sum of $2.5M. I intend to let Aitor and Didier Habimana go, as well, and possibly others.

In return, I've beefed up the squad considerably:

Barry Fitzgerald - ST:

This one, I hope, is going to be a real steal at $3.7M. He did wonderfully well last season on loan to Championship side Burnley, but he can't break into the Everton squad. At 24, he's older than I usually like to pick up, and I don't like having to splash so much cash for him, but I've got plenty to splash, and if not him, then who? He'll have big shoes to fill, taking over for Habimana, and, essentially, Jamie Kirton.

Mondher Azaïez - DM/MC:

Eventually, we will have to find someone to fill the big shoes of Bojan Milovanovic. I'm quite hopeful this young man can accomplish that. He never really managed to excel at PSG, but I think he can be brought along to do well for us.

Martin Mortensen - DR:

Believe it or not, at 16 this kid is being thrown straight into the role of right back for our team domestically. Jiri Vachal played the position in Europe, but that ends in January. Next year, it will be Mortensen who will be our European games right back.

Renaldo Cremers - ST:

Speedy, I envision him as being used in games where we want to run past people at the back. Undervalued in my opinion by Ajax.

Giovanni Gallo - ST:

Not really intended for anything other than depth at the position, and the possibility of getting some cash for him down the road (he was a free transfer).

Over the rest of the year, and during the summer, the goal will be to build up a new group of young, energetic players to support Fitzgerald and Cremers up top. If it can be done, then we might finally break through with a major trophy.

Wales

Part of this challenge is to someday become manager of the Welsh National Team, and guide them to success at the World Cup. Sadly, to this point, I've failed to attract the attention of the Welsh FA as a manager even for their junior sides! That's despite the fact I'm easily the most successful manager Wales has ever seen, both in terms of my overall haul and in terms of my winning percentage. I must presume the lack of major trophies, combined with my “Sunday League” status as a player, have kept me out of the slot.

So I was quite energized when Wales failed to qualify for the 2032 European Championship Finals, finishing bottom of their group. Sure enough, manager Gary Speed was fired, and I threw my hat into the ring for the job. And, almost as predictably, the FA chose my evil nemesis, Robbie Savage, as the new Welsh National Team manager. Never mind the fact that Savage's tenure at Llanelli has not produced any vital successes against my squad. Apparently, he's more likely to do something with Wales than I am, in their minds.

I do not wish him the best of luck. I frankly hold out hope that he'll fail to qualify for the '34 WC, and then I may finally get my chance.

[DSYoungEsq]

Yes, this blog is back. I've had too much on my mind, and my plate, since the end of July to deal with it. Between coaching a tennis team, teaching my math classes (including pre-calculus at the honors level for the first time) and dealing with the impending, then actual death of my father, it simply wasn't possible to do justice to the blog. However, I want to get what I can finished by the end of the year, so here we go!

I've actually played three seasons since July; I'll write them up as the blogs would have gone had I been blogging them all along. This first posting was actually half-done back in July.

Hope y'all enjoy!

[CoachFlu]

Good to see an old classic back. Sorry to hear about your father.

I'll help you hope that Robbie Savage will utterly fail at his new job.