ghostwriter Posted February 2, 2014 Author Share Posted February 2, 2014 La Liga – January 2029 Thankfully we did not stay on 0 points for very long as we put our bad start behind us with 3 straight easy wins. Then we visited Puertollano and Sascha Müller destroyed them in the 1st half, and then Calvo followed suit in the 2nd as we thrashed them. Following from last year’s hat-trick stats, those 3 goals by Müller hat-trick was the 1st one in the league for 8 years and the 1st one by an ST in the league since 2017, it is also the 3rd hat-trick in a year following 7 years with none. Next up we beat Granada in an entertaining game to move to 4th. We had a slightly weakened team out against Murcia mainly because we had 4 first-teamers injured, and that resulted in them coming back from 2-0 down to grab a draw. Obviously their 2 ex-Santa Eulalia STs scored the goals . We were then dire at Espanyol before another home draw was followed by a defeat at Betis. Down to 7th. We did then pick up 4 points from the next 2 games, however we were then beyond bad at home to a Celta side that lost 6-0 in the Nou Camp a week later. We then started a good run of form, 6 games unbeaten including a great draw in the Nou Camp and a thrashing of Levante. We were now clear in 5th, 6 points clear of 6th. The 6th game was very frustrating as it was against Sevilla who were in 4th and they had one on-target shot all match and that was a stunning last minute 25-yard freekick. Our final game in January was a trip to the Bernabeu where they tore us apart in the 1st half. So we are currently in 5th, not too far ahead of 6th and 6 points from the CL spots. That is not too bad, in any case much better than last year. Given the Copa del Rey events (see below), we are pretty much already in Europe so although I would like to finish as high as possible, our principal aim for the rest of the season has to be that 4th spot. Not too sure whether it will be possible though... As you can see Athletic are in danger of being relegated for the 1st time ever, us getting their 2 best STs recently has not helped. Copa del Rey The fact this has its own section this year means something! We started off with the triple-promotion-winning Albacete where a solid home win meant we could slightly relax in the return leg. Next up was Getafe where we got a credible away draw before they visited us for the 2nd leg. For the 1st 81 minutes we were going thru on away goals, then we scored and were going thru on aggregate, then they got a 92nd minute equaliser to send it to extra time. Thankfully 2 extra-time goals took us thru. In the quarter-finals we got Espanyol and in the 1st leg we were simply unstoppable, 4-0 at their place and I could rest pretty much the whole team for the 2nd leg giving debuts to a few of the youths. And then it was the semis and Valencia. And when they went 2-0 up 19 minutes into the home leg, I had no hope. We got one back before h/t but still entered the last 20 minutes behind. Then we were awesome, 3 goals giving us a 4-2 lead to take to the Mestalla. They scored, Calvo equalised, they scored, Calvo equalised. And with that we are thru to our 1st ever Cup final! And as we are playing Barcelona, we are pretty much guaranteed Europa League football as well. January Transfer Window Until the final day, the only activity was 3 youngsters going out on loan, this included my young Danish DR who went back to Murcia for a few months. Then on the final day I did bring in a player as Gerrit Janssen joined for £14m from AZ. A very good young Dutch international MC, he will probably rotate a bit this season and then we will see. His arrival does mean a couple of my other midfielders might be out in the Summer. My DoF was obsessed about bringing in another ST and DC and made several £30m+ bids for players but which I turned down as I certainly need neither type of player until at least the Summer. Notes Puertollano vs. Celta was an utterly ridiculous match, one good point for us was our 19yo ST who is on loan at the latter scoring 2 goals Speaking of Celta, Valencia, and in particular their stupendously good ST, did nasty things to them. Razhdev started his season quite well... And speaking of Valencia, they lost to the 3 consecutively promoted Albacete who are doing OK so far Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted February 5, 2014 Author Share Posted February 5, 2014 Copa del Rey Final - 2030 I think our 1st cup final deserves a post of its own. We got here by beating 4 other La Liga sides, the only one we would have been expected to lose to would have been Valencia in the semis but we were fantastic. Barcelona had it a bit easier as they faced 2 lower league clubs. They are 2nd in the league and clearly much better than us but we did win in the Nou Camp last year and got a draw there this time around. Lineups I rested a load of players in our last match in preparation which worked well except for the fact that our best attacking player, Gligic, promptly caught a cold on the Monday and misses out. The versatile Tarfaïa moves up to AMC which means both of the £14m signings, Masic and Janssen, are able to play at MC. My best DR has been out for weeks but Rodríguez is a good player, albeit leaving in the Summer. Lots of players who played a few Cup matches this season miss out as I want to play my 1st choice lineup; the only Cup regular that does play is Carcelén at GK. One issue we have is not one of my 3 main STs has scored a goal in the last 9 matches. Barcelona do have a few injuries and thankfully they are also resting a couple of players but still have players like Vandinho (has already broken La Liga assist record this season), Ramón José Xiqués (more or less Spain’s number 1 GK and who they bought in January for £19.25m to finally replace ter Stegen) and Roberto Pontones. 1st half 3 mins – Janssen blasted wide from edge of area 5 mins – Zurro straight at GK, should have done better 15 mins – best DC picks up a knock, I keep him on for the moment 18 mins – optimistic Calvo shot from edge of area, GK no problem 30 mins – Janssen, one of the £14m MCs goes off injured, on comes veteran Topçu in his 11th season at the club but only making his 13th appearance of the season 31 mins – 1st yellow card of the match – Tarfaïa 42 mins – they get their 1st shot away, easy Carcelén save Half-time – so far, so good, neither team has created a clear-cut chance, we could have done without the injuries though although I decide to keep our best DC on for a bit longer as he is so far the best player on the pitch. I tell the team to keep going. 2nd half 51 mins – Topçu shoots wide from edge of area 54 mins – they hit the bar from shot after a corner was not cleared 62 mins – Topçu shoots over from distance 69 mins – Zurro forces the best save so far with a header from a freekick 72 mins – my DL is knackered so comes off to be replaced by one of my Greeks, a player I was hoping to avoid playing, he moves to DR and Rodríguez moves across to DL 74 mins – Calvo forces a solid save from Xiqués 75 mins – Rodríguez picks up our 2nd yellow card 78 mins – now Topçu picks up a knock as well, with only 1 sub left I decide to keep him on for the moment 83 mins – Tarfaïa hits the side-netting from a narrow angle 89 mins – Zurro had a great chance to win it but shot straight at the keeper 90 mins – extra time So far, it has to be said that it has been a dire match, we have had the best chances and forced a couple of good saves whilst Carcelén has had hardly anything to do. One big issue is that we have 2 players with knocks, 7 with <73% fitness and only 1 sub left to make. I have to leave them all on for the moment as I don’t want to risk someone coming off and us playing with 10 men. Extra time, 1st half 93 mins – Zurro picks up a yellow card 97 mins – Tamamis (the Greek I did not want to play) loses possession near the touchline, they cross and Vandinho slides in to score (0-1) Not really deserved but against Barcelona you need to take your chances, at half-time I go more attacking and replace our most knackered player (Zurro) by Müller Extra time, 2nd half 116 mins – Rodríguez, my DL, comes off injured so we play the last 4 minutes with 10 men 120 mins – full time The stats are actually pretty equal although I would say that we had the best chances. The 2 best players on the pitch were our 2 DCs followed by Masic our DLP. Hopefully we can make a few more finals in the future. Back to attempting to attain 4th place. The results of this match don’t help as everyone is knackered and 3 of the players are now out for at least 2 weeks, thankfully none of the injuries were too serious. The lineup for our next La Liga match in 3 days time is going to be a very much changed one. At least with Barcelona already confirmed for the CL next season, it means that we are also confirmed for the Europa League. Although being in 5th, we’d have probably qualified anyway. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltablue Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Tough luck in the final. Definitely looking better than last year's disappointment. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted February 15, 2014 Author Share Posted February 15, 2014 thanks, yes, it was disappointing but until I saw their teamsheet I did not think I had much chance. It is definitely a better season, and it needed to be after 8 years in the top flight! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted February 15, 2014 Author Share Posted February 15, 2014 La Liga – 2029/2030 Gerrit Janssen made his debut in the first match of February at home to Zaragoza. And...got a straight red after 30 mins for a stray elbow . By this time a defensive error had already put us 1 behind. A penalty in the 2nd half condemned us to a pretty dire defeat. It took a ridiculous 91st minute Gligic fluke to beat Getafe before Puertollano visited. And for the 1st half we weren’t great. Then early doors 2nd half Gligic put us ahead. And then Zurro took over, a 4 minute hat-trick was followed by a late goal to break the Santa Eulalia record for goals in a game. Our strikers like Puertollano; that is 9 goals they have scored against them this season. Zurro promptly scored 2 more in the next match before a Gligic double took us past Alcocórn. We lost at Murcia dropping us to 6th. A dullathon against Espanyol was followed by a horrific performance at home to Betis and an average one at Valencia. 4 games, 0 goals and 1 point and now 7th place. Janssen’s 1st goal for us brought a great win at Atlético before we were again horrific at home to Sociedad. We were now 6th but 8 points behind 4th with 6 games to go. Albacete were easily dispatched before we rested most of the team at Celta for the Cup Final. We got a good win there. A good win at Athletic meant that with 3 games to go we were clear in 5th but 6 points behind Sevilla in 4th. We both won our next matches so they were now out of reach on head-to-head. And we were 8 ahead of 6th so we had literally nothing to play for in our last 2 matches. However, the 1st of those was at home to Barcelona so I at least put out a full-strength side. And oh dear. Oh dear. We weren’t at the races at all and got an absolute thrashing. That meant that pride made me put out a full-strength side for the last match of the season as well. And again we were pretty dire, losing at Levante. As I mentioned, we finished in 5th place and that is where we deserve to be. I am pretty happy with that although some better home results and we could have been threatening 4th place and CL football. The main difference this season was that our defence sorted itself out, 8 less conceded and we actually have a proper (and very good) DR now which helps considerably. Up front we scored a couple less but spread them around nicely, 4 players hit double figures for the season. Arriving in the Summer we have precisely no-one. The DRL we signed last year is off back to Portugal after a season of backup duty. At the moment I don’t really intend to buy anyone, I am aiming to sell at least 4 backup players who hardly played and replace them with the very promising 19-20yos we have. Apart from that, unless a player I can’t turn down is available or I get a ridiculous offer for one of my players, I can’t see much happening. Final Squad – still not very Spanish Summary Finances – not very good at all, losing money hand over fist month on month, hopefully the chairman will chuck in some more money otherwise we might be obliged to flog some players I don’t want to Transfers – Masic and Cancian were valuable 1st team members as was Janssen when he arrived, Rodríguez and Saraniti were good rotation players, the rest were very promising youngsters Here are some of the better players: Best GK – Frank Nørgaard – good season, best one so far and but for the Barca game he would have been averaging over 7, a few more clean-sheets would not have gone amiss, no matter how many we scored we nearly always conceded at least 1 goal, now Denmark’s first choice where he will stay for a very long time, and he will remain 1st choice here as well although I am starting to realise that he is not going to the superstar I once thought he would be, he will probably end up being a very good La Liga keeper but not a world beater Best Fullback – Sergio Cancian – a fantastic signing, he is the DR I have been waiting for since Matola’s departure and he was ridiculously cheap as well, bombs up and down the touchline, loads of assists and great defensively, a massive improvement over what I had to put up with over the previous 18 months, it was worth waiting for the right player rather than splurging the money on a panic buy, now I just need to sort out DL as Riveros is certainly not showing £14.5m ability Best Central Defender – Bruno Ban – fantastic yet again, better than last year, stunning at the back, a few goals and again the La Liga team of the year and our Player of the Year for the 3rd straight year, he really is one of the best DCs in the division and there is no money in the world that could prise him from me 2nd Best Central Defender – Erik Jansen – really good, a solid improvement over his 1st season here and a great partner for Ban, his improved play is definitely one of the reasons we conceded fewer goals, just hit 30 so should have a couple of years left at the top level, he might play a little less this year because of Europe and also because there is a 20yo wonderkid in waiting who I want to give some first-team minutes to Best Defensive Midfielder – Mohamed Benali – a bit disappointing really, as the previous year he was for the 1st half of the season he was solid but very unspectacular but unlike last year he remained at the same level for the rest of the season, he suddenly became a bit injury prone as well, he is by far our best DMC and certainly one of the best in the division so he will continue to play a lot Best Central Midfielder – Tomislav Masic – he cost £14m but that will turn out to be an absolute bargain, a great 1st season and I am looking forward to what he can do now that he is settled, already one of the best DLPs in the division and he is still improving, in a couple of years he will probably be one of the best in the world Best Attacking Midfielder – Kosta Gligic – another great season with a lot more goals than he usually gets and no injuries, however given his ability I think he is capable of a lot more, will be looking for some improved performances and some more assists, he shall remain 1st choice and probably a long time but there is a 19yo wonderkid lurking in the background so he needs to be a little careful Best Striker – Eneko Calvo – 3rd season here and a new low in goals, however he has become the assist king instead, in the top 10 of the division, remarkably injury free as well, just 2 weeks out in his 3 years here, he is about to hit 34 so I expect this will be his last season, probably both as 1st choice and at the club but let’s see how he does, he will play a lot in any case especially with the Europa League Most Prolific Striker – Sascha Müller – finally after 4.5 seasons here where his maximum seasonal goal output was 5 he shone, this was pretty much the 1st time he had been 1st choice in 3 years and he profited from it, on paper he is a brilliant player, on the field he has eventually showed it, he did go missing more frequently than I would have liked but when he was on form he was brilliant, he will again be 1st choice this year although he will probably rotate a bit more with Zurro, after this season let’s see as there are 2 wonderkids waiting in the wings for some 1st team action Youth Candidates – and again, pretty much the square root of f*ck all, Marcos Albertí is the pick but he is not great Notes Our U19s won their league for the 1st time I was 2nd in the Manager of the Year award The Santa Eulalia Old Boys Club (Murcia) continued their great run with our 2 ex-strikers, they managed 6th and Europa League football this time, with Fabio Roberto and Mrmic scoring 34 between them this time, that is now 67 the last 2 years, which is more than all of our STs have scored over the same period After looking doomed at Christmas, Athletic dragged themselves out of the mire and avoided their 1st ever relegation, Albacete however did not but they played well and in no way embarrassed themselves which is not bad considering that 3 years ago they were in the Tercera Division Again Madrid had no issues with retaining the title Coming up we have Ponferradina, Las Palmas and Oviedo We have 9 players at the World Cup – MOR, DEN, FRA, 2*GRE, 2*NED, SRB, CHI Last Season’s Aims Secure European Football – DOUBLE SUCCESS – both via the league and via the cup Sort Out The Home Record – CERTAINLY NOT – exactly the same record as last year including some more highly embarrassing defeats and this time only the 13th best record in the division Finish The Season Better – DIFFICULT TO SAY – we did finish with 2 defeats but we had a good run before that, the reason we did not get CL football was because of a bad run even before that The Coming Season’s Aims Secure Champions League Football - after 2*5th places we need to move to the next level, plus our finances need it as well Sort Out The Home Record – 29 points from 19 games is not good, we got 3 more away from home, it needs sorting out Integrate Some Youth – we have 4 wonderkids and a good 3 or 4 who will be in a couple of years, a couple will probably go out on loan but given our money issues I would like a few of them to play a bit next season 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th 25/26 – La Liga – 13th 26/27 – La Liga – 10th(Copa del Rey quarter finals) 27/28 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League) 28/29 – La Liga – 9th(Europa League semi finals, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 29/30 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League, Copa del Rey finalists) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Puertollano (13th) – (A5-1, H5-1) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Madrid (1st) – (H0-1, A1-3) Best 11 Overall Best 11 – Silvani in 4 more new arrivals... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 2025 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 328 15 56 - 17 7.31 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 2025 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 267 15 31 - 19 7.33 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 2027 206 2 19 - 4 7.05 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 2026 159 5 3 - 17 7.47 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Fábio Roberto BRA/ESP AM RL / ST 2022 2028 143 43 20 - 5 7.04 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Hazem Abdel Gawad BEL/EGY D C 2022 2029 138 7 1 - 8 7.25 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Bruno Ban FRA/CRO D C 2026 132 12 2 - 27 7.62 Pape Diallo FRA/SEN M / AM C 2023 2027 132 16 21 - 6 7.25 Sascha Müller CHI/GER AM C / ST 2025 132 33 11 - 5 7.02 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Omar Silvani ARG/SPA D / DM / M C 2025 130 5 2 - 25 7.70 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Mohamed Benali BEL/MOR DM / M C 2025 127 1 5 - 1 7.05 Emile Dumont BEL DM / M C 2026 120 1 7 - 6 7.25 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Kosta Gligic SRB M / AM C 2026 116 28 25 - 10 7.33 Frank Nørgaard DEN GK 2023 106 - - 109 0 6.94 Eneko Calvo ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2027 104 31 24 - 5 7.16 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted February 18, 2014 Author Share Posted February 18, 2014 La Liga – Summer 2029 As last Summer, the first thing that happened was the chairman realising that without chucking in loads of money we were going to continue losing loads of money so he chucked in more money. This will probably continue until we get CL football. And, then nothing happened. The only signings were 5 teenagers. And the only departures were players I wanted to leave with a load of youngsters out on loan as well. I had a list of 4 backups to sell and I sold 3 of those and then the other backup DC as well, over £11m coming in and all were sold for more than I bought them for. I tried to get rid of the 4th player but failed but he will do as a backup this season. Transfers – a lot of profit The Incomers So, here are the youngsters: Carlos Klinger, Lars Lange, Matia Airoldi, Eduardo Grimaldi, Riccardo Noè – [copy paste from last year]all young, all relatively cheap (£725k-£1.2m), all with loads of potential, all in the U19s for a while and maybe the odd 1st team bench in an injury crisis, if my shiny new youth academy does not want to produce good youngsters then I shall steal them from elsewhere, out of those I would say that Klinger who is fantastic for a 15yo and Grimaldi who looks like a potential beast of a target man have the best chance of progressing To The Faithful Departed Only 1 of the 4 players who left had ever been a 1st team regular: Omar Silvani (career) – I was a bit hesitant to sell him given how well he played last season as a backup but the coaches don’t rate him plus I was always going to play the 20yo wonderkid DC as 1st choice backup DC this season so he would have hardly got any games at all, he was one of our 1st big signings and one of the most important, 3 seasons as a magnificent 1st choice and then 2 seasons as a solid backup, he was fantastic for us and I am happy he is no longer in Spain, I wish him well. The purchasing no-one tactic might be a bit risky but no-one who left was a regular and the players who are “replacing” them are nearly all wonderkids who could be something very special indeed and they need 1st team football. Plus it means that there is no integrating new players into a new country or anything, all the kids have been here at least 3 years already. We may have 3 genuine world-class players in Ban, Masic and Gligic and a good 7 or 8 U20s who may very well be in a few years but this obviously isn’t yet good enough to challenge for the title. Hopefully we can finally reach the heralded CL. And we have got off to a good start as well. Whilst a goalless draw at home to Atlético is not great, a 1-0 away win at Valencia (our 1st ever) is fantastic. The only downside is that Gligic, our best attacking player injured his hamstring and is out for 3 months. Not good although it does give the 19yo wonderkid AMC a chance to shine. Notes Benjamin Vincent the aforementioned wonderkid DC was the best player at the European U21 Championships The bookmakers seem rather taken with Murcia. Yes, they finished 6th and did the double over us last season but to be half our odds seems a bit exaggerated. Plus they are playing in Europe for the 1st time ever which is bound to have an impact Speaking of Murcia, remember Fábio Roberto? Signed in our first La Liga Summer, 6 seasons of not scoring enough goals and moving to Murcia. Well, now after 2 good seasons for Murica he is quite unbelievably a Spanish International! An impressive feat although it says more about Spanish STs than anything else, not only was a nearly 34yo infrequently scoring Calvo called up for the World Cup but Zurro, who was not really first choice last season, is getting called up now as well. They are severely lacking on the goalscoring front And speaking of Murcia again, they neither sold nor bought any of my ex-players this Summer so there remains 5 of them although only the 2 STs are 1st team regulars Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted March 10, 2014 Author Share Posted March 10, 2014 La Liga – January 2031 Our 1st match in September ended up with the usual thrashing of Puertollano; 4-0 this time making it 14-2 over our last 3 matches with them. Our defence was dire against Celta but thankfully our forwards were on fire so we got a 5-3 victory. Then we visited newly promoted Ponferradina. And dearie me. We took an early lead, they equalised, they went down to 10 men after 60 minutes so we went to full-out attack mode and bombarded their goal for a half hour until...they scored in injury time with a goal from an ex-player of ours . We weren’t great at home to Oviedo either as it took 2 late goals from subs to give us a win. We don’t really like playing Alcocórn and their sensational if elderly ST and this was proved when he got 2 goals to give them a win at our place. Our 1st (mildly) embarrassing home defeat of the season. A very good goalless draw at the Nou Camp was followed by a win against early front-runners Betis and unfortunately a broken leg for our 1st choice DMC. We weren’t actually too bad at the Bernebeu but a couple of early goals did for us. 2 home wins were then interspersed with the usual dire performance that occurs when we play all our ex-players at Murcia. A draw and then we hit a great run as we won 4 in a row scoring 15 goals in the process. That took us into 2031 and a visit to Sevilla where we got a great 0-0 draw, it could / should have been better though as we missed a 1st half penalty. We were insanely good in Bilbao before we closed out January with a crazy match at Puertollano where we needed a red card and 2 late goals to snatch a draw. So we enter February sat nicely in 4th spot, albeit only 1 point ahead of Betis who started the season on fire and were top for a couple of weeks before fading. We are doing well at both ends of the pitch for the 1st time ever, scoring like crazy and not conceding too much. Müller has been scoring goals for fun, Calvo may be 34 but he has been so good he has got a new contract and Lecomte the 19yo has covered Gligic brilliantly at AMC whilst the back 4 have been great. Our objective has to be to keep hold of this 4th spot and CL football. Copa del Rey We started off with a supposedly easy tie with D2 Elche and when we won 2-1 at their place I had no worried about getting thru. However they came and got 2 early goals at our place and panic set in, especially when we only got one back. Even after extra-time. Penalties it was. And a fraught shoot-out it turned out to be, we missed, they missed, they missed, we missed the chance to win and then we both could not stop scoring. It took until the 9th penalty for them to miss and so we scraped thru :o. Another D2 club in Gimnastic waited for us in the next round and again we made things very difficult, losing the away match 1-0 before a Müller double was enough to scrape thru again. And as if to punish us for our poor performances we got Madrid in the q-fs. However, here we played very well, albeit not well enough as a 1-1 at home was followed by a 0-0 away put us out on away goals. Europa League We got a pretty good draw in Dortmund, Wisla Krakow and Dinamo Zagreb. And we strolled thru with no issues whatsoever with our only dropped points and goal conceded being in Dortmund where should have won. Next up we have Gent and if we get thru it will be followed by either Guimarães or a rematch with Dortmund. January Transfer Window It was scheduled to be quiet and it was until Deadline Day. On New Year’s Day, Brett Conrad joined when his LA Galaxy contract ran out. He could be something very special and not only does a combination of him and Thygesen mean DR is hopefully sorted for the next 10 years, he can play at DL as well. Theoretically I did not need him this season and I was very tempted to chuck him off to our Ukrainian feeder club but decided against it. And I am grateful I did as on Deadline Day Valencia offered £17.5m for Cancian our 1st choice DR. This happened to be his minimum release clause, a minimum release clause I had no idea about. To be fair, even if I had known I would not have done anything about it as I would never have thought someone would offer that. He obviously accepted so off he went. He was our 1st choice DR but I got 10 times what I paid for him 18 months ago and I do have 2 wonderkid DRs who would be needing 1st team football sometime soon. However, they are both only 19 and this is probably a bit early for them but let’s see how it goes. This also means much more football for Conrad then I was anticipating. I also had a bit more success with Emile Dumont, who I had failed to flog in the Summer, as he went off to Holland on an expensive loan with hopefully them buying him at the end of it. To The Faithful Departed Sergio Cancian (stats) – came in on the cheap 18 months ago and proved himself to be the best fullback we had since the glory days of Matola, was fantastic last season and just as good so far this time, would have liked to have kept him for much longer but I suspect if the 2 19yos had developed as I wish then he would have been sold at some moment (and probably for less than I got for him now), now I had better hope that at least one of kids develops as I wish as they will have at least the rest of this season and next to impress me Notes Both Madrid’s and Barcelona’s 1st matches in the Copa del Rey did not go well. Both Madrid’s and Barcelona’s 2nd matches went much better In other Copa del Rey news, Atlético did this to Valencia!! In International news, Iñigo Gomez, the backup AMC we sold to Arsenal 18 months ago for silly money picked up his 1st Spanish cap In more International news, Adin Dzeko, who we signed over 2 years ago and has so far spent most of his time in the U19s picked up his 1st Bosnian caps at the age of 18 and promptly scored 2 goals Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted March 13, 2014 Author Share Posted March 13, 2014 Europa League – 2030-2031 In the 1st knockout round we had Gent and the 1st leg was at their place and when we found ourselves a goal down just before h-t I was a bit concerned. Thankfully my 2 STs got a goal each to take a lead back to the island. Where we were stunning. A half-hour Calvo hat-trick was followed by 2 2nd half goals as we obliterated them. Next up were Guimarães who surprisingly beat Dortmund. A Zurro double in Portugal put us firmly in control whilst 2 early goals at home made sure. The draw for the quarters and semis was relatively kind to us as we avoided 3 of the big teams left in Roma, Liverpool and Tottenham. We did get Porto in the quarter-finals, who beat us in the semis 2 years back. However, if we got past them, the semi looked very winnable as we either face Lille who we did well against in the group stages 2 years back or our friends from Murcia who do cause us problems but who we should beat over 2 legs. A piece of dodgy defending gave us a valuable away in Portugal and a 1st half Zurro goal gave a bit of a cushion at home. However, they got a quick 2nd half goal and then never stopped attacking. They had 19 shots, we had 4. Thankfully, none of theirs went in. And next up it would be Murcia, home of 5 of our ex-players. And one of them did us a huge favour. We were 2-0 up in the home leg when they got a penalty with 5 minutes to go. Mrmic (4 years here) missed and we then went up the other end and got a 3rd goal. I thought we were in sufficient control of the tie to rest a few players for the 2nd leg. When they got an early goal I was a bit concerned but I knew that all we needed was 1 away goal to qualify and we got it on the hour mark. They did score a winner to condemn us to our 1st Europa League defeat of the season but it did not matter as we are in the Europa League Final! We shall be playing Roma there who were very impressive in knocking out Liverpool in the semis with a 4-1 home win in the 2nd leg. I am quite happy with this as *on paper* Liverpool are a better side. However, apart from maybe Porto we have never played a side as good as Roma are... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted March 14, 2014 Author Share Posted March 14, 2014 Europa League Final – 2030-2031 Lisbon, Portugal... How we got here is detailed in the post above. Roma had a slightly more difficult route with Olympiakos, PSV, Galatasaray and Liverpool in their way. Lineups With our next league game in 4 days time and not really any injuries, we are pretty much full-strength. However, Gligic is not fully fit so misses out on his 2nd cup final in a year, he is on the bench with Lecomte in at AMC. And again Carcélen is in goal as he has been for every Cup match this season. Roma have a very old squad. Only 3 of their 11 are under the age of 30 and one of those is 29. Their best players are their GK, David Saleiro and the forwards Edwin Balladares and Grigor Kharitonov, the latter who looks particularly brilliant. 1st half 8 mins – Roma get the 1st yellow card 23 mins – Müller goes on a great run but shoots straight at the GK 33 mins – a Conrad cross causes their GK some issues and he has to tip over the bar 41 mins – Janssen forces a sprawling save Half time - And that was it. Not a great half of football but one we edged on chances created. That said, none of the chances were exactly good ones. 2nd half 46 mins – Roma have their 1st meaningful shot at goal, it goes narrowly wide 80 mins – Janssen slides the ball thru to Müller who flicks it to Calvo who is unmarked and buries it in the back of the net. 1-0! 90 mins – FINAL WHISTLE! (that was seriously all that happened during the 2nd half!) First of all, apart from the Segunda 2B over a decade ago that is our 1st trophy, woohoo! Secondly, what a horrifically bad match. We certainly dominated and and scored from pretty much the only clearcut chance that either side had. We impressively restricted them to 2 off-target shots all match which might be the best we have ever done. They were disappointing but their DC still managed to pick up the MoM award. Apart from Masic at DLP, none of our players actually got good ratings which is strange. Our supporters are very happy with the win, our board think that it is nothing special and are expecting greater success soon. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted March 15, 2014 Author Share Posted March 15, 2014 La Liga – 2029/2030 Our 1st game after the closure of the transfer window was obviously against Valencia and Cancian who had left us 2 days previously. A very dull 0-0 ensued. A thrashing of Ponferradina set us off on a good run of 4 straight wins took us to within 2 points of 3rd. However, we were in the midst of an injury crisis with 6 players 20 and under in that match and next up was Barcelona. And an injury in the 1st minute meant that 3 of our back 4 were under 20. And we played quite well but 2 early goals killed us. The injury crisis plus a Europa League match 2 days beforehand meant that our team was even less 1st choice in the next match. Unfortunately this match involved a visit from Madrid. We were particularly badly hit in defence as I had to play our 4th and 5th choice DCs; total age: 38, total number of La Liga starts: 2. Yikes. However, we played very well and we should have come away with a win instead of a 2-2 draw. And the 2 DCs were our best players. Next up was a visit to Betis where our GK put on a show. Unfortunately the wrong type of show as he made 2 dreadful errors which directly contributed to a 3-3 draw and got one of the lowest ratings that any GK has ever had for us. A Müller hat-trick destroyed Levante before 2 more wins took us 5 points clear of 5th and 6 behind 3rd. Then we visited a surprisingly good Las Palmas side and were dreadful. We were 2 up early doors at Granada but we needed a 93rd minute winner from Masic as our defence took a holiday in the 2nd half. We managed to hit the woodwork 5 (FIVE) times at home to Athletic but never found a way past them. This kept us 4th but Sevilla were on fire and now only 1 point behind. A home match with Zaragoza was chaos: 0-2 after 14 mins, 4-2 after 33 mins. We won 5-3. So did Sevilla. We went to a bad Espanyol side 4 days after the Europa League final and evidently our minds were elsewhere as we barely escaped with a draw. And Sevilla won. So that made the table look like this with just the one match to go. And our opponents in this final match were of course Sevilla. Which made it winner takes all. Masic took this to mean last man standing as after 20 minutes he elbowed one of their players and promptly got a straight red. Great. And even greater when they took the lead straight after. Out of nowhere we equalised just before the break and hung on without too many difficulties in the 2nd half. And then, 89th minute, goal mouth scramble, Janssen, 2-1!! And straight from the kickoff, goal mouth scramble at the other end, 2-2! AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHH!!! We were in the CL for precisely 50 seconds. So 5th place again it is and this time it is not entirely where we deserve to be. Well that was frustrating. Given that we were 10 points clear of Sevilla at the end of January and drew 3 of our last 4 matches you could say that we chucked it away but that would not be entirely true. Yes, if we had beaten Espanyol or Athletic we would be in the CL but seriously look at Sevilla’s run since the end of January: P17 W13 D4 L0 F33 A5 . Yes, they dropped EIGHT points and conceded FIVE goals in their final 17 games (and 2 of those points and goals were in that last match). Not much you can do about that. Overall that was a much better season, especially in the attacking sense. We scored over 20 more goals than we ever have before in La Liga and the goals conceded stayed at the same level as well. We lost on 1 game by more than 1 goal and thrashed several opponents. The main difference was that we finally found some form at home. Arriving in the Summer we have 1 brilliant teenage Italian on a free. And that is it. I can’t really see any experienced players arriving unless someone unexpectedly leaves. Our youth is too good for that to be needed and they should be even better next year. Our 1st 11 is very good but there are a couple of holes: DR – our current ability here is not the best but as each of the 1st team players is around 20, a wonderkid and has 4.5 star potential I certainly won’t be looking for replacements DL – Riveros is getting old, Saraniti will probably not ever be a 100% convincing 1st choice plus we have no youth who play naturally here of any ability coming thru DMC – this depends on if Benali can recapture some of the ability he lost after his broken leg, if not then I may cash in, there is a load of brilliant youth in the U19s so I probably would not buy anyone Final Squad – a few old, a lot young, not much in-between Summary Finances – a bit better mainly because of the Europa League run, the fact we hardly spent any money and sold Cancian for so much Transfers – little to note, Conrad played a lot more than I thought he would and did quite well, the only others to appear in the 1st team were Grimaldi who made a couple of sub appearances and Airoldi who started a couple of matches and looks really good Here are some of the better players: Best GK – Frank Nørgaard – another good season albeit one that contained the worst performance by a GK in many a year, but for the Betis match he would have been averaging around 7.1, also we conceded too many goals at the tail end of the season, apart from that he was fantastic, a lot of clean sheets and he saved us on many an occasion, Carcelén is actually still the better GK on paper but I shall continue the rotation between league and cups, one thing so far is that he has never had an injury so surely at one stage soon he will get one Best Fullback – Oscar Riveros – Cancian would probably have been mentioned here but he left in January so Riveros comes in, he deserves to as he had by far his best season here and has started to look like a £14.5m player, he is nearly 32 but shows no sign of slowing down so he should have a couple of seasons left in him Best Central Defender – Bruno Ban – and fantastic yet again, just as good as last year, stunning at the back, a few goals although he got very few MoM awards and did miss 2 months, our Player of the Year for the 4th straight year, he really is one of the best DCs in the division and there is no money in the world that could prise him from me 2nd Best Central Defender – Erik Jansen – really good again, just as great as the previous season and he continues to be a great partner for Ban, he played in nearly every league game and helped bring along the kids who had to come in to cover Ban, one of these kids is Vincent (see below) who is magnificent and is probably his replacement at some stage, he is hitting 31 so I reckon he has 1 more season as 1st choice before Vincent comes in but there might be a bit more rotation this season though Best Defensive Midfielder – Thodoris Georgakopoulos – joined as a 16yo and for the last 3 years he has been a solid DMC backup, until this season when Benali broke his leg and pretty much missed the whole of the season (he played so little he does not even appear on the final squad screenshot), took his chance well and played pretty well, if Benali is back at his best with a pre-season under his belt he will go back to being a backup but let’s see how it goes Best Central Midfielder – Tomislav Masic – my God he is good, £14m really was a bargain, much better than his 1st season despite the odd injury, controlled most games, a few goals, a few assists and general brilliant play, must be one of the best DLPs in the world, he is an absolute star, along with Ban pretty much the 1st name on the teamsheet and long may he stay there, could just do with improving his disciplinary record a bit, 10 yellows and a red in 25 appearances is not great Best Central Midfielder – Gerrit Janssen – the other £14m MC and not really far behind his midfield partner, plays as a box-to-box midfielder and goes his job very well, a lot of goals and assists, a slightly lower average rating as his general play is of a slightly lower standard than Masic’s, they make a great partnership Best Attacking Midfielders – Elie Lecomte and Kosta Gligic – Gligic is clearly our best AMC on paper and when he played, he played well, however 5 injuries including one of 3 months meant he never got into a rhythm and missed a lot of games, enter Lecomte who was simply stunning, even more so when you realise he turned 20 the day before our last league match, goals and assists (3rd in division and joint best ever for the club), he was unplayable at times, he was named the Young Player of the Year (note Vincent in 2nd) and was 3rd in the Player of the Year award and was our only representative in the Team of the Year, he is going to be a superstar and has even made me wonder about cashing in on Gligic, both will be here next season so I will have to do some expert rotation Best Striker – Sascha Müller – a new high, he was brilliant, it may have taken him a long time to (re-)become 1st choice but he definitely seized the moment, most goals scored in the league since Chori in our Segunda promotion season and joint most ever in all competitions, he was unstoppable sometimes and he was fairly consistent as well, he did not go thru long periods of no goals, about to hit 30 and probably close to his peak, looking forward to what he can do this year 2nd Best Striker – Eneko Calvo – 4th season here and he might be close to 35 but it was his best, most goals, highest rating and a good number of assists, he earned himself a new contract with the possibility of an automatic extension which given that he will be close to 1st choice next season as well will probably be activated, as long as he keeps on performing as well as this he will continue to play often no matter how old he is Best of the Future – Benjamin Vincent and Adin Dzeko – these 2 along with Lecomte (see above), Sako and the 2 DRs (Thygesen and Conrad) are all going to be brilliant players, Vincent played a lot this season as Ban got quite a lengthy injured and he was sensational, he would have played a bit more but for his own 2 month injury which followed, he will probably play a similar amount next season as I try to edge him into the team, Dzeko became 4th choice ST after Christmas and played quite a bit, although a bit inconsistent, when he was good he was brilliant, I will send him out on loan next season for regular 1st team football and when he is back he will hopefully be even better and more ready for our 1st team Youth Candidates – finally we might have a star, unfortunately Toni plays in a position (DR) where we already have 2 wonderkids but he has a bit of versatility and I will always favour a home-grown product. In any case, he will be in the U19s for a while with a few games here and there. He has already made a couple of sub appearances and did start the 2nd leg of the Europa League semi-final. Sesma also has the potential to be quite useful in the future Notes Our U19s finished 2nd in their league but won the Cup for the 1st time The Santa Eulalia Old Boys Club (Murcia) hardly played like 5th favourites but as their first foray into Europe was pretty successful, it is understandable that their squad was not entirely up to it. Fábio Roberto was again brilliant, Mrmic was no longer 1st choice whilst they still have 5 of our ex-players Barca won their 1st title for 4 years and completed the double All 3 promoted clubs survived and both Getafe and Espanyol are going down for the 1st time in this save Coming up we have Albacete (that is now Tercera->Segunda B->Segunda->La Liga->Segunda->La Liga in consecutive seasons, good club to be a supporter of), Malaga and Rayo Last Season’s Aims Secure Champions League Football - FAILURE – I’d like to say it was sort of a success but, well, we might have been close but we did not qualify... Sort Out The Home Record – SUCCESS – 2 defeats, 41 points, massive improvement Integrate Some Youth – SUCCESS – see above, Lecomte is a God, Vincent was brilliant, Thygesen and Conrad are our DRs for hopefully a long time, even Sako who is not up to their level in potential was very good, and there are a load more in the U19s waiting for their chance. The future is bright. The Coming Season’s Aims Challenge For The Top 3 – possibly pushing it a bit as we have yet to actually qualify for the CL but we only finished 9 points behind 2nd and I think sticking a bit closer to them next season might be doable Retain The Europa League – well, if we have to play in it again, we might as well try to win it again Beat Madrid – they are the only team we have never beaten, we have just the 5 draws against them in 22 matches and 3 of those draws were last season 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th 25/26 – La Liga – 13th 26/27 – La Liga – 10th(Copa del Rey quarter finals) 27/28 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League) 28/29 – La Liga – 9th(Europa League semi finals, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 29/30 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League, Copa del Rey finalists) 30/31 – La Liga – 5th(Europa League winners, Copa del Rey quarter finals) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Zaragoza (13th) – (A5-0, H5-3) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Atlético Madrid (2nd) – (H0-0, A1-3) – the only team to beat us by more than 1 goal Best 11 Overall Best 11 - Ban in 2 more new arrivals right at the bottom... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 2025 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 334 15 56 - 17 7.29 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 271 15 31 - 19 7.33 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 2025 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 2027 206 2 19 - 4 7.05 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Sascha Müller CHI/GER AM C / ST 2025 162 50 15 - 3 7.08 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 2026 159 5 3 - 17 7.47 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Bruno Ban FRA/CRO D C 2026 157 17 5 - 28 7.62 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Fábio Roberto BRA/ESP AM RL / ST 2022 2028 143 43 20 - 5 7.04 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Frank Nørgaard DEN GK 2023 139 - - 147 0 6.95 Hazem Abdel Gawad BEL/EGY D C 2022 2029 138 7 1 - 8 7.25 Mohamed Benali BEL/MOR DM / M C 2025 136 2 7 - 2 7.07 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Eneko Calvo ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2027 134 44 35 - 7 7.18 Pape Diallo FRA/SEN M / AM C 2023 2027 132 16 21 - 6 7.25 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Omar Silvani ARG/SPA D / DM / M C 2025 2030 130 5 2 - 25 7.70 Kosta Gligic SRB M / AM C 2026 130 29 29 - 10 7.31 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Emile Dumont BEL DM / M C 2026 122 1 7 - 6 7.25 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Oscar Riveros PAR/POR D / WB L 2028 102 0 8 - 1 7.08 Erik Jansen NED D C 2028 101 0 0 - 8 7.46 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted April 6, 2014 Author Share Posted April 6, 2014 La Liga – Summer 2031 As like seemingly every Summer, the first thing that happened was the chairman realising that without chucking in loads of money we were going to continue losing loads of money so he chucked in more money. This will probably continue until we get CL football. On the incoming front, not a huge amount happened. The teenage Italian arrived from Juventus on a free whilst I bought 2 promising youngsters. Then halfway thru August, Barcelona listed one of their Spanish midfielders for a very reasonable price so I dived in. I did not necessarily need another one but he is experienced, Spanish, a very good player and worth a lot more than we paid for him. And that was it. Much more activity of the way out though. First up, Feyenoord made an offer for Dumont who was on loan with them. It was a bit less than what I was asking for but I wanted to get rid so I accepted. Then 2 stalwarts of club in Topçu and Saidi left at the end of their contracts: 23 years combined here and our 1st choice midfield for the 1st 5-6 years of La Liga but a lack of recent playing time meant they would be better off elsewhere. The I then made a sale I was not expecting to do. Georgakopoulos the Greek DMC, had been 1st choice last season but only because of Benali’s broken leg. This piqued the interest of Sevilla who offered £8m for him. I decided to ask for £11m but they turned it down. There were several other clubs interested so I offered him out for the same amount and offers came flying in from everywhere. The one he eventually accepted was from...Sevilla. The only other significant exit was Anton Monte, our Dutch international ST, who had never been 1st choice in his 3 years ago and never really recovered from the injury he had when he joined. Back to Holland he went. Transfers – a lot of profit The Incomers Ruggero Parente, Giannis Koutsaftis, Danni Larsen – [sort of copy paste from last year]all young, all relatively cheap (free-£875k), all with loads of potential, my youth academy actually produced 2 potentially great players last year but that won’t stop me from getting some others from elsewhere, Parente is actually too old for U19s so will be a backup this year, he looks like he could be brilliant and maybe our future DMC, the other 2 will be in the U19s for a while and maybe the odd 1st team bench in an injury crisis, not sure why Atlético sold Koutsaftis, let alone so cheaply, as he could be really good, while Larsen is very raw but has only just turned 15 and was even cheaper Francisco – not entirely needed but he is a very good Spanish International who did not cost silly money and given Gligic’s continual injury issues he will undoubtedly be needed, Barcelona bought him for £15m from Valencia 2 years back but he only played 7 league games for them and only cost us £9.75m, will rotate as backup with Lecomte, doubt he will ever be first choice but whenever the time comes to sell I should make a profit To The Faithful Departed Some club heroes left this year: Emile Dumont (career) – this was not one of them, despite 4 good seasons here part of me kind of wishes that I had never bought him, he arrived when Hoxha left on his minimum release clause, my DoF did everything and I had a good long think about it before confirming the deal, he did play well but cost too much and it did prevent a couple of youngsters from getting more game-time, plus I was never going to recoup the money Ayhan Topçu (career) – 12 mainly magnificent seasons here after joining on a free transfer, and the main reason I signed him in the 1st place was because he wanted so little wages, all the other players signed at the same time left after a couple of seasons, not this guy who became an integral part of our team for a long time, 1st choice for 8 years, backup for 2 and then the odd appearance for the final 2, we would not be where we are but for him, he eventually signed for Alcocórn Brahim Saidi (career) – pretty much the same as Topçu except he arrived a year later, for 7 years they had a magnificent MC partnership, one which served us very well, players arrived but could never overtake them, eventually they did and he became a backup but for the 1st 5 years of La Liga he was one of the best DLPs in the division, we would also not be where we are but for him, he went back to France to Toulouse Thodoris Georgakopoulos (career) – a bit like Gomez from a couple of years back insomuch that he was a perennial backup who got his chance thru injury and played pretty well and then attracted the attention of several clubs, one of which offered silly amounts of money for him, especially silly money as he was undoubtedly going back to being a reserve this coming season, very happy with the income and although he did play well I doubt he will be missed that much especially as I can now blood some more youngsters in that position, would rather he had left Spain though Again we did not really purchase any 1st team players, just Francisco and some youngsters. Hopefully having such a settled team will do us some good. We were so close to the CL last season so that has to be our aim this year and with all the youngsters one year older and one year better I hope it will be the case. We started off with a good home win over Bilbao with Francisco (in because of obvious Gligic injury) scoring after 4 minutes. However we should not really be drawing at Ponferradina and nor at home to Alcorcón where it took 2 late goals to even get that draw. Hopefully those dropped points aren’t critical at the end of the season. European Super Cup As we won the Europa League last season we had this extra match and we had the pleasure of facing PSG. Who are rather good. They have Nadir Matola, our ex-DR and probably one of the best fullbacks in the world and one I really really wish was still at the club. Damn minimum release clauses! They also have a 17yo GK who has become the youngest French International in history. And some great STs as well. They really are good. And they totally outplayed us in the 1st half, 2 goals giving them a half-time lead. We were much better in the 2nd half but could only get one back. So it ended 2-1. Notes Murcia are down to owning only 3 of my ex-players as the Russian ST left and they surprisingly released Mrmic at the end of the transfer window after 4 great years. However they did add one of our players for season as Dzeko joined on loan I doubt you remember Moussa Diakhaté (I hardly do) but he joined for £1.1m from Norway 4 years ago as a backup MC and that is what he was for a year before I sold him to Austria for a small profit. One year later he was off to Dynamo Kiev for nearly £3m. 2 years later and Inter have just bought him for £15.25m! Maybe I should have kept him... Brett Conrad and the USA won the Gold Cup with 6 wins out of 6, 22 goals scored and just the one conceded Both of our Italian fullbacks who were here at the start of last season have got called up by Italy, only Cancian made his debut. Lecomte has also got called up by France a couple of times but no appearances as yet Barcelona have started the season quite well – 6-0 and 6-1 in the 1st 2 games Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted April 14, 2014 Author Share Posted April 14, 2014 La Liga – January 2032 Our 1st match in September brought us our 3rd disappointing draw in a row as we failed to overcome Rayo at their place. And when we followed an easy home win with being thrashed by Atlético, I was a bit concerned. And even more concerned when 2 easy wins was followed by an embarrassment at home to Granada. Admittedly this is a Granada side that had won their 1st 6 games of the season but still. Then we visited the Nou Camp. And oh dear. We were pummelled, 0-3 at h/t, 1-5 at f/t. I had thought it was our worst defeat for a long time but I forgot we lost 4-0 to the same team in May last year. And 4-0 to them 2 years before that. We were in deepest mid-table. Thankfully we then sorted ourselves out. Celta visited and Ban managed a 14 minute hat-trick. Yes, Ban is our DC and all came from corners taken by Gligic. Pretty sure that is unique. We were magnificent at Malaga before a Zurro hat-trick destroyed Puertollano. We made it 4 in a row against Oviedo before we visited Valencia. And oh dear again. They had 12 shots on target, we had 0, they won 3-0. We visited Sevilla and they scored after 23 seconds. We then equalised and Georgakopoulos, their summer signing from us, got a red card. But despite battering their goal for the rest of the game, it remained level and their GK got the MoM award. We started 2034 with a visit from a rather good Murcia side so a solid home win over them was a good result. A draw at Zaragoza was less good before we suddenly cut loose. 7 goals got us 2 wins before the final game of January was a visit to Alcorcón. It was 1-1 at h/t. It was 6-1 at f/t! We absolutely ran wild in the 2nd half with one of our backup STs getting our 3rd hat-trick of the season. So despite our earlier travails we find ourselves nicely in 5th place with games in hand on the teams above us. This is despite us not really finding top form yet this season, we have been very erratic as can be seen from the Barcelona and Valencia performances but when we win we normally win pretty convincingly. Apart from the usual brilliant of our DCs, the main reason we are doing well is Ekaitz Zurro, our Basque ST. He is in his 3rd season here and he has been absolutely on fire, just one goal behind the top scorer in the division at the moment. Gligic has returned to form but most of our other midfielders have been a bit disappointing. We need that top 4 place. As mentioned above, Murcia are doing quite well this season, in the CL spots but you would expect them to decline a bit over the 2nd half of the season. Meanwhile Athletic are again in danger of their 1st ever relegation. Copa del Rey We had a nice easy draw against Cádiz and strolled thru with no issues. We then got Murcia who, as you have seen, are quite good. They did not show that in the 1st half as 3 goals in 15 minutes pretty much put us thru and let me rest lots of players for the 2nd leg. Atlético were next up and when we lost the 1st leg 2-0 I was not hopeful but we mounted a brilliant comeback in the 2nd leg and got thru via an 89th minute goal to make it 3-2 on aggregate. And in the semis we faced Barcelona. Great. However, we played quite well in the 1st leg and took the lead but they got a vital away goal to equalise. They took an early 2-0 lead in the 2nd leg and although we got one goal back we could never get another one which would have taken us thru Europa League We got a pretty easy looking draw in Guimarães (who beat twice last year), Panathanaikos and Slask. An easy win over the latter was followed by us chucking away a 2-0 lead in Greece. We then thrashed the Portuguese twice which actually put us thru with 2 games to go. I rested a few players we got 2 more draws. So we qualified 1st again. We will face Lille before either Lyon or Fenerbahce. January Transfer Window A 17yo German GK, Andreas Möller arrived and then promptly left on loan. And nothing else. He is touted as being the next ter Steigen so he might turn out to be quite good. He was cheap in any case. Notes Bruno Ban, our magnificent DC, managed a Santa Eulalia first and was part of the World Team of the Year, albeit only on the bench. You'll notice our ex-player, Adama Cissé, in there Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted May 3, 2014 Author Share Posted May 3, 2014 La Liga – 2031/2032 We were lucky against Rayo and draws against both Albacete (not a good side) and Atlético (we dominated) meant that February started off quite disappointingly. A great GK performance meant we struggled against Betis before some dodgy defending gifted us a late winner. One win later and it was our 1st matchup against Madrid. And we should have won. We were even the betting favourites. However a late piece of dodgy defending gave them an equaliser. We were now 4th on goal difference. We weren’t great against Granada but fantastic against Celta which took us clear into 4th. Next up were Barcelona who had to play 15yo grey player in goal as their 1st choice was injured and they have no backups. It made no difference as he played OK. It took a very very late equaliser from us to scrape a draw. This made it 15 matches unbeaten and we stayed in 4th. Murcia were still being ridiculously good and were 6 points ahead of us in 3rd. Malaga’s visit to the island was an utter shambles – we led, they led, we led and then we conspired to concede 2 late goals to lose 4-3. Thankfully Sevilla also lost. Next up was a visit to Oviedo where everything went wrong. First of all both our 1st choice STs picked up injuries and came off within 30 minutes. Obviously this was one of the rare occasions where I only had one ST on the bench! Then Nørgaard gifted them a late winner. That and the Malaga performance were enough to get him dropped for the 1st time. The big news was that Murcia were not only still 3rd but after winning their 9th game(!!) in a row they were now only 2 points behind the big two who were joint leaders with 5 games left. My God! Valencia were next to visit and we put on a professional performance to win 2-1. Meanwhile Murcia won no.10 in a row and were up to 2nd! They couldn’t could they...And their next match was at home to Barca... But they lost so the dream was pretty much over. Meanwhile we visited the Bernebeu. And again performed well against Madrid. We took the lead, they equalised. We were 1 point ahead of Sevilla in 4th. And Sevilla were our next opponents. However, unlike last season, we were magnificent against them and were 3 up within a half hour. We needed just 2 points to guarantee CL football. And we did not even need that as Sevilla drew their next match before we played ours, so CL football was ours. That next match was at Murcia who were a bit demotivated so got a good win before closing out the season by thrashing Zaragoza via Zurro’s 2nd hat-trick of the season. So finally 4th place is ours! And we certainly deserved it. Despite the improved position we were only 1 point better off than last season and scored 2 less and conceded 1 more so we can’t really call it that much of a success. Some players definitely underperformed compared to last season. However, Gligic was back to his best and ohmygod Zurro was magnificent. His hat-trick in the last match meant he was the 2nd top scorer in La Liga and broke all seasonal Santa Eulalia goal-scoring records. He was stunning and we have not had an ST like him for a long while. Europa League We strolled past Lille without any issues, 1-0 away was followed by thrashing them at home, next up was Lyon and when we went in at h/t of the home leg 2-0 up all seemed fine. They then scored 3 goals in 8 minutes to totally shock us. We got a goal in the 1st minute in France but no matter how we tried we could not get a 2nd one so we disappointingly lost on away goals We only have teenagers currently arriving in the Summer, 2 Brazilians, 2 Spanish and a Frenchman. Big clubs are sniffing around a couple of players but I have got them to sign new contracts so hopefully that sniffing will stop. I can’t see any experienced players coming in but you never know. Nor can I see any leaving but again, you never know. Final Squad – similar to last year, as you can see Calvo declined significantly and he is now retiring in the Summer Summary Finances – not great as we are now in debt but I expect that the chairman will chuck in yet more money plus the CL money will do wonders next season Transfers – as expected Francisco was not really needed but he did well when he did play and was a regular off the bench, Parente was not needed for the 1st few months and when he was needed he promptly picked up a serious injury which has seriously affected his potential, not great, the others are youths Here are some of the better players: Best GKs – Frank Nørgaard and Walter Carcélen – hmm, Nørgaard was considerably less impressive this season, far too many dodgy performances and when 2 of those occurred in 2 straight games he got dropped and Carcélen came in to finish the season, he was as per usual our Cup GK and given that he has always performed well, I reckon he will have a fair few more games next season, in any case, there will definitely be more rotation Best Fullback – Oscar Riveros – much better, every season here he has been improving, his rating was helped this season by taking corners, but even so he was much better defensively as well and scored his 1st goals for the club, finally showing why we paid so much for him, he may be about to hit 33 but he is not declining and will be 1st choice next season as well, and if he plays just as well he might stay for a while longer Best Central Defender – Bruno Ban – [pretty much copy paste from last year]and fantastic yet again, just as good as last year, stunning at the back, a few goals and this time several MOM awards, no injuries either, our Player of the Year for the 5th straight year, he really is one of the best DCs in the division, maybe even Europe and there is no money in the world that could prise him from me, quite possibly our best ever signing 2nd Best Central Defenders – Erik Jansen and Benjamin Vincent – the former was brilliant again, he was supposed to play a bit less to phase in the latter but he played too well for that to happen, in fact it was his best season here and he finally scored his 1st goals for us as well, he is one of our best ever free signings and although he is about to hit 32 if he continues like this he will be here for a while longer, meanwhile Vincent is getting better and will be a great partner for Ban whenever Jansen declines, at the moment he is a backup who with CL football will be playing quite a bit next season, he also won the Young Player of the Year award (Santa Eulalia clean sweep! ) Best Defensive Midfielder – Mohamed Benali – recovered from his broken leg nicely and was again 1st choice and played quite well, however the broken leg did really affect his ability and as I have a load of very good promising DMCs scattered across the squad, U19s and on loan I think I want to give them a chance soon, very possible that next season is his last here. Best Central Midfielder – Tomislav Masic – not quite as good as last season but still very good indeed, again a bit injury prone but when he was fit he was pretty damn good, could do with maybe scoring a few more goals but really I am not going to complain, one positive is that he considerably improved his disciplinary record, will again be one of the 1st names on the teamsheet Best Attacking Midfielder – Kosta Gligic – much better, possibly because he hardly got injured, was stunning in a lot of matches, best average rating in his 6th season here and equal most assists, I still can’t believe that he only cost £4.2m, surely one of the best bargains we have ever got, something similar and a similar number of injuries next season would be nice Best Striker – Ekaitz Zurro – wow, wow, utterly brilliant, 1st season as 1st choice and he never stopped scoring, goals all over the place, beat all our seasonal goalscoring records, 2nd top scorer in La Liga and 3rd in the European Golden Shoe, he was simply unstoppable, not much more to say than that, anything remotely similar to that next year and I will be happy 2nd Best Strikers – Sascha Müller and José Ignacio Meseguer – Muller was good but not as prolific as his previous season which was fine as we had Zurro, he created a lot more goals this season, he is now 30 but he is continuing to improve, Meseguer came back from 2 loan seasons and 31 goals with Celta to become our 4th (and then 3rd when Calvo declined) choice ST and he played a lot of games and scored a lot of goals, he will go back to being 4th choice next season with Dzeko’s return from loan and then I will try to get as much money as I can for him next summer Youth Candidates – nothing compared to last year’s possible 2 star players, and the best of this year, Gonzalo Martínez, plays in exactly the same role as last year’s 5-star product (and 2 wonderkids) so it is unlikely he has much of a future here Notes Our U19s finished 2nd in their league again 3 of our players were in the La Liga Team of the Year, also there is Cancian our old DR that Valencia minimum-release claused last January 9 of my players are off to the European Championships, 2*DEN, 3*FR (inc. the uncapped Lecomte), 2*NL, 1*ESP (Zurro), 1*SER (Masic is injured). Benali would also have gone but he tore his calf muscle in a friendly and is out for all the Summer and probably the start of next season As previously mentioned, Murcia were unbelievably good this year, they may have lost their last 3 of their last 4 games but they still finished 3rd, and a very deserved 3rd as well, I feel slightly responsible for this as if I had never sold them Fábio Roberto (and Mrmic) they would never be in this position. He was again immense and is now one of the Spain’s 1st choice STs. Having had over 10 of my other ex-players there over the years helped. 2 of them and Roberto plus our wonderkid loanee ST were there this year Athletic Bilbao’s 100+ year stay in La Liga is over as they are down. I again feel slightly responsible for this as I got both Calvo and Zurro from them and they would definitely have survived with them there Barca won their 2nd straight title, completed the double and won the CL Las Palmas clearly could not cope with European football as they went down with barely a whimper Albacete will be staying in the same division for the 1st time in 6 years Coming up we have Sociedad, Espanyol and Levante Last Season’s Aims Challenge For The Top 3 – KIND OF FAILURE – we did get quite close on a couple of occasions but never got there, plus when Murcia are in the top 3 (with my ex-players) it does make me look quite bad! Retain The Europa League – FAILURE – nowhere near, we should have thrashed Lyon but that 15 minute spell killed us Beat Madrid – NOT REALLY NO – for the 1st time we did not lose to them and we had the lead in both matches but we failed to hang on so they are still only team we have never beaten The Coming Season’s Aims Challenge For The Top 3 – we did not get it last season but in theory it should be easier next season with the continued development of the youngsters plus Murcia having European football, although we weren’t far behind the big 2 I don’t think we are good enough to challenge them yet Play In Europe After Christmas – I’d prefer it to be the CL but finishing 3rd in our CL group and going into the Europa League would not be the end of the world, however 1st of all we actually have to qualify for the CL groups, we should be seeded but let’s see Concede Less Than A Goal A Game – the least we have conceded in a season so far is 39, we won’t be challenging for titles unless we improve that record a bit 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th 25/26 – La Liga – 13th 26/27 – La Liga – 10th(Copa del Rey quarter finals) 27/28 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League) 28/29 – La Liga – 9th(Europa League semi finals, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 29/30 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League, Copa del Rey finalists) 30/31 – La Liga – 5th(Europa League winners, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 31/32 – La Liga – 4th(qualified for Champions League, Copa del Rey semi finals) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Celta (11th) – (H4-1, A3-0) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Barcelona (1st) – (A1-5, H2-2) – along with Granada(!), the only team we only got 1 point from Best 11 Overall Best 11 Just Tarfaïa in this time... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 2025 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 2031 334 15 56 - 17 7.29 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 2031 271 15 31 - 19 7.33 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 2025 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 2027 206 2 19 - 4 7.05 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Bruno Ban FRA/CRO D C 2026 188 23 6 - 33 7.63 Sascha Müller CHI/GER AM C / ST 2025 185 59 22 - 11 7.10 Mohamed Benali BEL/MOR DM / M C 2025 167 3 9 - 2 7.08 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Frank Nørgaard DEN GK 2023 167 - - 181 0 6.91 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 2026 159 5 3 - 17 7.47 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Kosta Gligic SRB M / AM C 2026 157 34 40 - 13 7.35 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Eneko Calvo ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2027 147 47 38 - 7 7.17 Fábio Roberto BRA/ESP AM RL / ST 2022 2028 143 43 20 - 5 7.04 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Hazem Abdel Gawad BEL/EGY D C 2022 2029 138 7 1 - 8 7.25 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Erik Jansen NED D C 2028 132 3 0 - 11 7.50 Pape Diallo FRA/SEN M / AM C 2023 2027 132 16 21 - 6 7.25 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Omar Silvani ARG/SPA D / DM / M C 2025 2030 130 5 2 - 25 7.70 Oscar Riveros PAR/POR D / WB L 2028 129 2 14 - 2 7.13 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Emile Dumont BEL DM / M C 2026 2031 122 1 7 - 6 7.25 Arnaud Tarfaïa FRA DM / M / AM RC 2028 119 5 10 - 4 7.18 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted May 6, 2014 Author Share Posted May 6, 2014 La Liga – Summer 2032 [copy paste from last year]As like seemingly every Summer, the first thing that happened was the chairman realising that without chucking in loads of money we were going to continue losing loads of money so he chucked in more money. This has continued even with CL football. Really not much to note here. The 5 youngsters I had previously signed arrived on July 1st along with a ridiculously talented 17yo Italian GK. Then a 16yo Portuguese defender and a 15yo Italian D/DM/M C arrived for a bit of money. And the final signing and final teenager was an American DM / M C who strangely got waived from his club despite having loads of potential. And 9 teenagers was it. On the way out was hardly anyone either. Calvo retired whilst I somehow sold an average 21yo ST for £3.5m, one cheap youth and a load of loanees and that was it. I did however have to turn a ridiculous amount of money for Zurro. It was quite dull. Transfers – our feeder clubs came in handy this Summer The Incomers Hamid Afkir, Javier, Jonathan – the 3 Europeans signed up during the season, Afkir was free from PSG whilst both Spaniards came from Madrid each for less than £1m, it would be nice if either Afkir or Javier were to develop into fantastic DLs as it is a position we are a bit lacking in youths for, Jonathan could be anything given that he is not even 16 yet, I doubt any will play this year but if any did it would be Afkir, the others will have 3 U19 seasons before we can re-evaluate Bariri, Mosquito – the 2 new teenage Brazilians, Bariri was signed 2 years back the moment my scout found him, hardly cost anything and looks like he could be pretty special, Mosquito was found my scouts earlier this season but I was not intending on signing him straightaway until Barcelona bid for him, that seemed like a good enough reason for me to also make an offer, an offer he accepted, he cost quite a lot and with Masic here as the DLP I doubt he would ever be 1st choice but he looks like he could be a very useful squad player, both are in the U19s this season and probably a loan spell next season Salvatore Tozzi – pretty expensive for a 17yo GK but what a 17yo GK he is, for one of the 1st times ever that every single scout was in agreement about him having 5-star potential, he is touted as the next Buffon and I am impatient to see him develop, he will be in the U19s but I have every intention of giving him a few 1st team games from time to time, he should be our no.1 sooner rather than later Vitor Franco – also quite expensive and also quite raw but he is another with fantastic potential, his versatility is also a great bonus, might get the odd game here and there but 2 seasons in the U19s followed by a loan spell seems the most likely route Matteo Franchetto – and another relatively expensive teenager, only 15 but he is a pretty damn good one and he should be a stunning player in a few years, I am mildly concerned about his natural fitness and total lack of influence but hopefully they don’t affect him too much Joel Noyes – when my scouts found him I thought I have to wait until his contract ran out at the end of 2034 before attempting to sign him, however NY bizarrely waived him so in I dived, just turned 19 and is another DMC who is going to be fantastic in a couple of years, the only player I signed who can’t play for the U19s, I thought it best he stayed here at least this season to settle in, he will probably play the odd game here and there To The Faithful Departed Eneko Calvo (career) – he wasn’t really worth the £22m we paid for him and his price tag did mean that he played more than his ability indicated but I’m glad I bought him. We needed a better ST and he was the one I chose, he may have been 31 when he joined but he kept his ability for 4 great seasons and only last season did he decline significantly and he wisely chose to retire, he was never the most prolific with us but he assisted a load of goals and generally performed very well, he had quite a career overall although he did not actually win much, unfortunately he is a pretty bad coach so won’t be coming back here Gonzalo Royo (career) – 1 brief cup substitute appearance does not merit inclusion here but his price tag does, I have no idea how we managed to get £3.5m for him, I have 18yos better than him, his loan spells weren’t that great either, it is a total mystery and he definitely isn’t La Liga standard, I am curious to see how he does Not one single 1st team player came in but then again, excluding Calvo none really left either. In fact there are only 3 changes to the squad as Noyes and 2 players who were out on loan come in for 2 players who are now out on loan and the retired Calvo. Hopefully this lack of change does the squad some good and that the youngsters continue to improve. Within 7 minutes of the start of the season, we were behind to Albacete via a dodgy backpass, we did equalise and get the winner but it was not convincing at all. And neither was a 1-0 defeat at Granada. Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come... Champions League We got drawn against Fenerbahçe which is where the God that is Topçu now plays. The home leg was edgy and it took a late goal to win it for us. Topçu did us an early favour in the 2nd leg by giving away a penalty which Müller converted. He then got 2 2nd half goals to make things easy for us. We were 3rd seeds for the group stage and the draw was not too bad. In fact, there are several reunions of sort, we met Panathanaikos in last year’s Europa League group stage, beat Roma in the 2031 Europa League final and although we have never met Chelsea they do own the most talented player who will ever have played for us in Adama Cissé. I think we have a good chance to qualify. Notes Erm, Murcia are 2nd favourites for the title! WTF! We are joint 4th favourites which is reasonable And Murcia got rid of 2/3 of our ex-players so they are down to only Fábio Roberto who is also the best of them Spain failed to even qualify from the European Championship group stages. France got to the semis but comically lost to Germany 2-0 on penalties. They missed all 4 of their spot kicks! Jurgen Klopp retired and left Barcelona after 18 years. Montella took over. We have 7 of ex-players as backroom staff now. Our new assistant is Marko Lukic who was here in our Segunda 2B days, whilst we also have Flávio Rocha (U19s manager) and 2 coaches, 2 U19 coaches and a scout Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCowboy Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 Are all of your players Re-gens now? I was offered this job in my save but i didn't take it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted May 19, 2014 Author Share Posted May 19, 2014 Yes, Chori was the last "real" player and he left several years ago. Think ter Steigen at Barca was the last original player in the game and he retired 3 or 4 years back. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted May 19, 2014 Author Share Posted May 19, 2014 La Liga – January 2033 After our slightly dodgy start we quickly sorted ourselves out and won 6 on the trot. All were against teams we should be beating but these are not normally matches that we win. The only issue that the last of those matches involved 3 players being taken off injured for the first time ever, thankfully none of the injuries were for more than a week. We had our 1st dodgy result for a while as Espanyol ground out a goal-less draw at our place before we went to Madrid where a late Lecomte goal brought us our 1st ever victory over them. Finally. It also took us into 2nd and one point behind them. And that was our 10 game of the season and we had only conceded 3 goals so far. One more win was followed by another dodgy home goal-less draw, this time to Murcia. One win later and we were even dodgier at home as relegation-threatened Oviedo came to our place and got thoroughly deserved 1-0 win. We then somehow followed that by thrashing Valencia. This result set us on another great run with 4 straight wins, which given that 3 of them were Sevilla and Atletico away and then Barcelona at home was very impressive. That took us into 2033 and the return match against Atletico where they scored with a total fluke and we equalised but could never break thru. And then it was time for another decidedly dodgy performance as we visited a not-very-good Albacete side and could never break them down and when we pushed for a winner they broke away and got the winner. This all leaves us in 2nd place, 3 points behind Madrid who have a game in hand. I certainly can’t be disappointed with that as we seemed to have found ourselves in a title challenge although Madrid are refusing to drop points so it might not go anywhere. The one annoying thing so far is who we have dropped points against, discounting Granada who are doing surprisingly well this season and Murcia, the other 4 games where we have not won have been against teams in the bottom half. We have beaten all the other teams around us without any problems. We are pretty good at grinding out results which is good as we have not exactly been very prolific in front of goal. None of our STs have been scoring much and it is looking like Zurro’s last season was a bit of a fluke. We have, however, been magnificent in defence, 21 games, 11 clean sheets and 10 games where we conceded 1 goal, utterly brilliant. Jansen has been beyond good, he was averaging over 8 until a few weeks ago. I can only hope that we continue to play as well and to see if we can challenge Madrid or at the very least hold onto a top 3 position. Copa del Rey We started off with a match against Adelante Osasuna and a 4-0 away win meant I could play a load of teenagers in the 2nd leg, where Meseguer scored our quickest ever goal. Next up was Adelante Getafe and it was a similar story, 5-0 away and the kids in the 2nd leg. We then got the best draw possible as we faced relegation threaten Zaragoza and if we beat them we would face one of the 2 Adelante clubs remaining in the semi. That was the plan anyway. Unfortunately it all went a bit wrong. We took the lead at their place but they scored 2 in the 2nd half. We then went 2 up at home before they got one back, we scored a 3rd but with their 2nd shot on target they got their 2nd away goal and promptly went thru. Hmm... Champions League Panathanaikos got an early goal at our place but we were never in danger as we got 3 quickly to see them off. We were utterly brilliant in Rome, thrashing them 4-1 with Muller scoring a ridiculous 40 yarder. And then it was off to Stamford Bridge. Where, err, this happened!! WTF! We beat them in the home leg as well albeit much less convincingly. 4 games in and we had already qualified as group winners! This meant I could play the reserves and kids in the other 2 matches and rest players for La Liga. Not that it made much difference as we reeled off 2 more wins. So, 6 out of 6, and 20 goals scored and the only team in the whole competition not to drop a point. Can’t say I am disappointed with that. Next up we have Inter... January Transfer Window Not one soul came in, however there was a relatively significant departure. Benjamin Vincent is a brilliant young DC who was scheduled to take over from Jansen when he starts to decline. Which given that he is better than he has ever been this season might not be that soon. Tottenham offered £18m for him. I had a good think and realised that that was a lot of money for a backup, albeit one who could potentially be world class, also I have one wonderkid DC in the squad and another out on loan. I decided to see if I could get a little bit more which they then offered. So off he went to England. Hopefully we can do OK this season until the 2nd wonderkid comes back from loan, it is now he or the one here who will be Jansen’s heir apparent. To The Faithful Departed Benjamin Vincent (stats) – even at 22 he is already brilliant and he was supposed to be 1st choice sooner rather than later but it really was too much money to turn down for someone who is essentially an underused backup at the moment, he will be a stunning player and should do well in England, I hope this was not a mistake and that he does not turn out to be better than the 2 wonderkids I have who will now be fighting for Jansen’s place, in any case a £20m profit on a player who played less than 40 league games for us is not to be complained about. Notes As I mentioned Jansen has been unstoppable this season, not only was he in the World Team of the Year, (Ban on the bench) but him and Janssen, one of our MCs, were nominated for Ballon d’Or, a first for us. Before he left, Benjamin Vincent was called up by France to make it 4 of our players in their squad. He has yet to win a cap though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted May 21, 2014 Author Share Posted May 21, 2014 Champions League – 2032-2033 We had Inter in the 1st knockout round and when we got 2 early goals in Milan I was feeling very comfortable. However, a horrific backpass and then an equaliser brought us back to earth. Thankfully 1 minute later Muller got what turned out to be the winner. This put us in charge for the home leg although I knew one goal from them and we would be in danger. That goal never came and we scored a 93rd minute winner from a penalty. We got a good draw as we would face Porto in the semis followed by either Arsenal or Milan in the semis, thus avoiding the biggest clubs left. We lost to Porto in the semis of the Europa League in 2029 and beat them in the quarters 2 years later. The 1st leg was at home and we were magnificent, romping to an easy 3-0 victory. That meant I could rest a couple of players for the away leg where an early Francisco goal gave us the win. A win which meant that we had won our 1st ever 12 matches in the CL, those 12 straight wins being an all-time CL record! Arsenal beat Milan so we got them in the semis. In the home leg we were totally dominant but found their GK in form. They got a precious away goal on the hour mark but thankfully our Bosnian wonderkid got a late equaliser. The away leg was kind of the opposite, they totally dominated but our GK was on form, however they did actually score, again on the hour mark. This woke us up and we won a penalty in the 77th minute which Muller converted. We were heading to extra time until in the 91st minute, Lecomte found Muller who slammed home the winner... Err, we are in the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL!! Which is ridiculous considering that we are in our 1st ever season in the competition. We also have the obscene record of P14 W13 D1 L0 F35 A10. The other semis was a Classico and Barcelona won 3-2 on aggregate. We shall face off in the Stade de France in a few weeks...One week after playing them at the Nou Camp in what could be a title decider. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted May 24, 2014 Author Share Posted May 24, 2014 Champions League Final – 2032-2033 Paris, France... How we got there is outlined above. Barcelona had much more of a struggle. In the 1st knockout round they lost 4-1 at Chelsea (where we won 5-1!) and needed a 3-0 home win to go thru on away goals. They lost at Old Trafford but whipped Man U at home. They then had some trouble getting past Real in the semis. Lineups We are relatively full strength. Our best AMC misses his 3rd straight cup final thru injury but he has been out already 6 weeks so we are ready and Lecomte comes in. There was a big blow last week at the Nou Camp though as our best DC, Bruno Ban, broke his arm and misses out. Our 20yo German wonderkid comes in. Also Benali had a horrific match 2 games ago and has really bad morale so Tarfaia replaces him. Barcelona have a couple of injuries but nobody too significant. 2 out of the 3 players I highlighted for the Copa del Rey final 3 years back play again, namely Xiqués and Pontones. Other players of note are: Kristiyan Galabov – a brilliant DC, they bought him from Panathanaikos 5 years back. I had had my eye on him for a long time but thought the £26m they paid for him was bit much so never bid Paiva – another DC that could be playing for us, I could easily have signed him on a free from Brazil 4 years ago but his lack of height and jumping put me off, he went to Turkey and then Barca for £18m 2 years back, if you ignore his jumping he is unbelievably good, unfortunately he can’t jump Gelu Florea – and another player I could have bought, 3 years back when he left Romania for Arsenal for not a huge amount of money, however neither me nor my scouts thought he would be good enough for us, safe to see we were all proved wrong, he is absolutely stunning Juan Pedro – and here is a player who could never have played for us, a youth product who is quite simply brilliant, I am just a bit surprised that he has not had more success for Spain 1st half 2 mins – Juan Pedro has a goal correctly disallowed for offside 11 mins – Carcélen makes a sold early save from Silvestri (ML) 16 mins – we get a freekick near the centre circle, Muller floats it into the box where Lecomte beats the non-jumping Paiva and heads it in. 1-0! 33 mins – Juan Pedro crosses, Florea heads it home. 1-1 37 mins – Xiqués makes a great save from Zurro 39 mins – Zurro picks up the ball on the left touchline near the halfway lines, takes it to the edge of the area, lays it off to Muller who glides it home. 2-1! Half-time – a great half of football for the crowd. And a great half of football for us, the stats are pretty even but we have taken our chances 2nd half 51 mins – Paiva is injured and goes off 62 mins – Lange (the German wonderkid) clears off of the line 71 mins – Casas (DC) heads just wide from a corner 85 mins – the magnificent Masic comes off knackered, Francisco on at AMC, Lecomte goes to MC 85 mins – solid Carcélen save from Florea 86 mins – good Carcélen save from Florea 87 mins – from the subsequent corner, Florea heads home. 2-2 93 mins – Florea has a goal correctly disallowed for a foul on Carcélen Full-time – damn, we were really close, but I can’t really say that they (and especially Florea) did not deserve it. We have a pretty knackered team, especially both our fullbacks, I’ll wait a little bit before subs in case of injuries Extra-time 99 mins – Lange clears off of the line again 102 mins – Muller’s freekick grazes the bar 105 mins – Lange forces a good save from a header Half-time – I decide to remove the older fullback (Riveros) as I think he will tire quicker, Saraniti comes on, Lange is also knackered so Todorovic enters the fray 111 mins – Janssen shoots, easy save for Xiqués 123 mins – Muller picks up a knock but I have no subs plus he is one of our best penalty takers so I would keep him on in any case 124 mins – full-time So, penalties it is... B1 – Florea scores, Carcélen dives wrong way. 0-1 SE1 – the injured Muller takes an awful penalty straight down the middle, easy Xiqués save. 0-1 B2 – Perez (ST) scores, identical penalty to Florea. 0-2 SE2 – Tarfaia scores, good penalty. 1-2 B3 – Galabov scores, another unstoppable penalty. 1-3 SE3 – Conrad hits the post. 1-3 B4 – Juan Pedro scores. Barca win. 1-4 DAMN! Yeah, so we should probably have bought Florea when we had the opportunity! As you can see, the stats are pretty equal but they evidently have better penalty takers, although without his injury, Muller might have scored the 1st penalty and it all would have been different. I can’t fault the players for effort and we did well to hold them. Plus, technically we are still unbeaten in the CL! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 1, 2014 Author Share Posted June 1, 2014 La Liga – 2032/2033 February started off with a good win over Granada before we needed a late equaliser at Malaga. Next Alcorcón and Puertollano were dismissed, the former result taking us top. We were average at Sociedad but Madrid was totally collapsing and 4th defeat in 5th took us 4 points clear! Muller scored a great freekick against Levante but they got a late equaliser via an even better goal. However Madrid got a very bad draw so we stayed clear although Barcelona were now closing the gap. Both Betis and Espanyol took the lead against us but we got 2 victories from them. Betis was a bit cagey but we absolutely demolished the latter with Dzeko getting a 2nd half hat-trick. And with Madrid drawing again we were now 6 clear of them and Barcelona! However our run in was really hard and this started with a visit from the freefalling Madrid, it took a Dzeko equaliser for us to get a point. We then got a very disappointing draw at Zaragoza and were shocking at home to Celta. We could not break them down and when we sent the kitchen sink forward they promptly scored a winner. And that Barcelona one point top. Madrid would also have overtaken us, however Valencia did this to them! We strolled past Oviedo whilst, unfortunately for us, Barcelona won El Classico. Madrid were now out of the equation but Barcelona were top. Another win for each of us later and we hit the last 3 games and my word, they were difficult. First up was Valencia away and 2 mistakes from Benali gifted them a win and meant that we conceded 2 goals in a league game for this 1st time all season! Barcelona were now 4 clear and we had the Nou Camp next. And we lost, so they won the title. Our last match was against Sevilla and with neither of us having anything to play for I played a load of players who might be leaving in the Summer. We ground out a 1-0 win. So 2nd it is and as you can see we were in the top 2 for nearly all season. Just a pity we could not close it out. That said, the main issue was dropping points to teams in the lower half of the table. The other main issue was, bizarrely, scoring goals. We scored 21 more goals last season and none of our STs really performed, especially Zurro who went from 26 goals to 9. However, defensively we were immense; we conceded the least number of goals that any La Liga team has done for 10 years. Our best players were the 2 DCs and 2 MCs It is the usual situation: If you had given me runners-up in La Liga and the Champions League I’d have been over the moon but to finish the season W3-D3-L3 and then be 3 minutes away in the final, it is a little bit frustrating. One teenager is the sole arrival in the Summer at the moment. However, there may be a few on the way out. As I mentioned I played some players in the last match who could be leaving, in fact there were a good 7-8 of them who played. There are 3-4 that I will be actively trying to sell whilst I will see for the others. Not entirely sure if any replacements will come in or whether I will rely on some of the hugely promising youth I have. Final Squad – pretty identical to last year, think Noyes and Lange are the only arrivals Summary Finances – CL football helped but the only reason we are in profit is because of the Vincent sale which is not that promising Transfers – only Noyes was in the 1st team squad and he made 20 solid appearances over all competitions, amongst the U19s Afkir was the only one to appear in the league when we had a DL crisis, nearly all the others made cup appearances, Franchetto beating the record for our youngest ever player Here are some of the better players: Best GKs – Walter Carcélen – he comes back as 1st choice and we concede our least ever number of goals, I think it is not entirely a coincidence although Norgaard was also much better this year when he played, some great performances, saved us several times, he will be staying first choice for a while, probably until Tozzi is ready for our first team Best Fullbacks – Brett Conrad and Oscar Riveros – the young and the old, Conrad is really really promising and could possibly reach Matola levels of brilliance in a couple of years, one fear is that he has a £17.75m release clause that he is not currently budging on, hopefully no-one will notice it, meanwhile Riveros continues to shine as he hits the mid-30s and although he was not great in the La Liga he really shone in Europe, I would suspect that as he is about to turn 34 next season is his last here Best Central Defender – Bruno Ban – [pretty much copy paste from last year]and fantastic yet again, just as good as last year, stunning at the back, the odd goal and several MOM awards, no injuries either, our Player of the Year for the 6th straight year, he really is one of the best DCs in the division, maybe even Europe and there is no money in the world that could prise him from me, quite possibly our best ever signing 2nd Best Central Defender – Erik Jansen – he was somehow even better this season despite his age, until about Christmas he was averaging over 8, ridiculous number of MOM awards, several ridiculous performances and this brilliance convinced me to cash in on Vincent, about to turn 33 so you might think that next season would be his last, let’s see, there are 2 wonderkids waiting in the wings but neither have played much 1st team football here, similar performances would be great and would convince me to give him a new contract Best Defensive Midfielder – n/a – Benali mainly played here but he was not exactly fantastic this season and his horrific performance against Valencia dropped his average below 7 and that is not good enough for an appearance here, he is one of the players I am very tempted to cash in on in the Summer as unless he improves I can’t see him playing loads next season and I have a lot of kids needing 1st team football Best Utility Player – Arnaud Tarfaïa – 5th season he and about time his performences were noted again, his 1st season here was spent at MC (DLP), ever since then he has played in any of the 4 midfield positions (DMC, MC (DLP or BBM), AMC), basically if any of the 1st choice are out he comes in and invariably plays well, a great player to have in the squad and one I hope to keep for a while longer Best Central Midfielder – Gerrit Janssen – quite brilliant this season, better than Masic as well, he plays in the BBM role and does it very well, lots of goals, lots of assists, lots of MOM awards and a great average rating, he really is a great player and much better than the 3-star rating my coaches give him, already nearly 50 caps for the Netherlands and he is not yet 25, I can see him continuing in this role here for a long while 2nd Best Central Midfielder - Tomislav Masic – a little bit disappointing and actually his worst season here, that said he was still pretty good, however someone of his ability should really be playing a bit better, like he did the previous couple of years, a few more assists and goals would not go amiss either, he is still theoretically one of the best DLPs in Europe so I am hoping he shows this next season, whatever happens he will be here for a long long time Best Attacking Midfielder – Kosta Gligic – still ridiculously injury prone but another good season of performances on the pitch, lots of assists, not quite as good as the year before but perfectly acceptable, but my god the injuries, in his 7 years here he has had 28(!) injuries, most of them pretty minor and only one of any length (3 months) but it really disrupts his rhythm and he has missed all 3 of our cup finals, it also means we always need to have at least 2 or 3 other AMCs around to cover him, however his ability means I can more or less accept this Best Striker – Sascha Müller – top scorer again, although looking in more detail he was not actually particularly good in La Liga, however in the CL he was magnificent and pretty much unstoppable, despite being 31 he is getting better and better and he should have at least a couple of seasons left here, I would like a few more goals though 2nd Best Striker – Adin Dzeko – 2nd top scorer and although he was not always that impressive, in a couple of years he is going to be a superstar, 5* star potential ever since his arrival 5 years ago and he is now probably one of the best 21yo STs in the world, some of the goals he scores have been fantastic, he will continue to rotate with Muller and Zurro and once the former starts to decline he will play more, looking forward to seeing what he is capable of in the next couple of years, he was also the Young Player of the Year Youth Candidates – nothing too great, Sebastiá Roig is the best but I can’t see him ever playing for the 1st team Notes Our U19s were unstoppable, breaking the all-time scoring record and Bariri the individual one Only Janssen in the La Liga Team of the Year this time, our ex-DR Cancian is there again, turns out that Valencia got a bargain, he is 1st choice for Italy now as well I was the Manager of the Year Barcelona won not only La Liga and the Champions League but also both Super Cups and the World Club Cup. Quite a good season then... So the Copa del Rey. Zaragoza who beat us then got beat in the semis by struggling Adelante side Rayo. Rayo then played Madrid in the final, and won on penalties! WTF! Oh, they became more than struggling, they actually got relegated. So that will be a D2B side in the Europa League next season Granada were the surprise top 4 team this season, they did threaten a bit last year but collapsed, this time they held it together. Meanwhile Murcia had a good solid season Bilbao’s exile from the top flight last one season as they came up thru the playoffs, joining them are Getafe and, for the 1st time ever, Mirandés Alcorcón and La Liga say goodbye to the magnificent Vanderley. He was there 17 years, got Spanish caps and scored over 300 goals for them. Last Season’s Aims Challenge For The Top 3 – OVERWHELMING SUCCESS – I did not think a title challenge was on the cards, it definitely was and maybe we should have won the whole thing Play In Europe After Christmas – OVERWHELMING SUCCESS – I think reaching the CL Final counts as doing quite well Concede Less Than A Goal A Game – OVERWHELMING SUCCESS – 21 goals conceded in 38 games and the best defensive record in the whole division, yep, happy with that The Coming Season’s Aims Title Challenge – can only aim for what we achieved last season, Barcelona are really good so not sure whether we can beat them but let’s see Champions League Semi-Finals – not too sure what to aim for here, the final was so unexpected that I don’t know if we can really repeat that Score More – an unexpected downside of conceding no goals was that we hardly scored any, less than 1.5 per game, I’d like a few more and for Zurro to refind his mojo 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th 25/26 – La Liga – 13th 26/27 – La Liga – 10th(Copa del Rey quarter finals) 27/28 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League) 28/29 – La Liga – 9th(Europa League semi finals, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 29/30 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League, Copa del Rey finalists) 30/31 – La Liga – 5th(Europa League winners, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 31/32 – La Liga – 4th(qualified for Champions League, Copa del Rey semi finals) 32/33 – La Liga – 2nd(Champions League finalists, Copa del Rey quarter finals) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Ponferradina (16th) – (A4-0, H2-0) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Murcia (6th) – (H0-0, A0-0) – only team we did not beat, only team we did not score against Best 11 Overall Best 11 – 3 in at the bottom... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 2025 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 2031 334 15 56 - 17 7.29 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 2031 271 15 31 - 19 7.33 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 2025 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Bruno Ban FRA/CRO D C 2026 217 25 7 - 37 7.63 Sascha Müller CHI/GER AM C / ST 2025 212 70 24 - 13 7.09 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 2027 206 2 19 - 4 7.05 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Mohamed Benali BEL/MOR DM / M C 2025 196 3 11 - 2 7.06 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Kosta Gligic SRB M / AM C 2026 185 37 49 - 15 7.35 Frank Nørgaard DEN GK 2023 180 - - 188 0 6.92 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Erik Jansen NED D C 2028 164 5 1 - 18 7.53 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 2026 159 5 3 - 17 7.47 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Oscar Riveros PAR/POR D / WB L 2028 157 2 16 - 2 7.12 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Eneko Calvo ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2027 2032 147 47 38 - 7 7.17 Fábio Roberto BRA/ESP AM RL / ST 2022 2028 143 43 20 - 5 7.04 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Arnaud Tarfaïa FRA DM / M / AM RC 2028 142 6 14 - 5 7.17 Hazem Abdel Gawad BEL/EGY D C 2022 2029 138 7 1 - 8 7.25 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Pape Diallo FRA/SEN M / AM C 2023 2027 132 16 21 - 6 7.25 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Omar Silvani ARG/SPA D / DM / M C 2025 2030 130 5 2 - 25 7.70 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Emile Dumont BEL DM / M C 2026 2031 122 1 7 - 6 7.25 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Ekaitz Zurro ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2029 117 52 21 - 8 7.30 Tomislav Masic CRO M C 2029 113 5 14 - 8 7.34 Javi Luque ESP D RC 2022 2026 106 3 9 - 4 7.03 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 Elie Lecomte FRA/POR M / AM LC 2027 103 19 22 - 4 7.22 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 6, 2014 Author Share Posted June 6, 2014 La Liga – Summer 2033 On the way in was pretty much no-one, just the youth I signed during the Spring and then my Director of Football decided to sign a 16yo, my scouts said he had potential and he was cheap so in he came. On the way out, however, there was loads of action. And not all of it was good. And the bad started things off as Madrid offered £17.75m for Brett Conrad, our 1st choice DR, £17.75m of course being his minimum release clause. And as he was not budging on it, off he went. He said it was because “the cosmopolitan lifestyle is more in keeping with his image”. I also suspect that the £155k per week they are paying him might have helped make his mind up . I am starting to get a bit annoyed with this position, that is now the 3rd potentially world class DR that has left on a minimum release clause. Yes, we have got nearly £60m for them but of the players who left, Matola is probably the best DR in the world, Cancian is the best DR in Spain and Conrad is probably going to be damn close to Matola’s ability. I searched hard and eventually managed to find 2 positives: 1) I have one less non-EU player for the next 7.5 years it would have taken him to get a Spanish passport which is helpful given the number of South American teenagers I have arriving in the next few years 2) I can play the potentially brilliant 19yo youth product this season instead of loaning him out. Anyway, that was the only unwanted departure. Next out were our 4th choice DC and ST, I had been planning on selling both this Summer already 2 years ago. Then I got a below-par offer for Elie Lecomte, our potentially great AMC. He had been pretty average the last 2 years since his one ridiculous season so I was slightly open to him leaving. I negotiated, no offer came. Then another offer came, I negotiated for more, no offer. And again. Finally I offered him out for £25m and Juventus came in. And off he went. Not bad considering the 1st offer was for less than £10m! Next out was Sako one of our backup midfielders for £6m. That meant that the 3 French players (Vincent, Lecomte, Sako) I signed 6 years ago for a little over £3m have left for more than £50m. Finally a backup ST went back to Italy after failing to impress during 2 loan spells. Transfers – big profit The Incomers Nicolás Niero, Santiago Rincón – the usual cheap youth with potential, U19s for a while and probably a loan spell or 2 and then we can see, Nieto looks mighty promising, Rincón let’s see To The Faithful Departed Brett Conrad (career) – the one player I did not want to see leave, arrived from LA 2.5 years ago and because of Cancian’s departure he was chucked straight into the squad, where he did quite well, he has been getting better and better and still had a long way to go to reach his potential, like Matola I had visions of him staying a long time here but alas it was not to be, the fact he is non-EU makes his departure very slightly easier to take as it frees up a spot but still I would much rather he had stayed Zivorad Todorovic (career) – the perennial 4th choice DC, arrived 7 years ago for peanuts and after the usual 1 season on loan, he spent the last 3 years in the squad as a backup, he was basically taking the 4th choice DC role whilst the better youngsters went out on loan for 1st team experience, now they are all back we don’t need him any more so off he goes, when he did play he was really good, no other player with 15+ appearances has a better average rating for us but in reality he was not really good enough for what we needed, he should do well in Greece and I can safely say that it was the best £170k we ever spent José Ignacio Meseguer (career) – the perennial 4th choice ST, signed for very little, and after 2 loan spells away, he came into the squad as a reserve, played quite a bit 2 years back as Calvo declined but much less last year, with 3 potentially great U19s coming up to the 1st team this Summer, I had no more need for him, has gone back to the club where he spent the 2 seasons on loan scoring 30 goals, he could end up being pretty good Elie Lecomte (career) – the one possible surprise departure, 2 years ago he was the best youngster in Spain and one the best players full stop, and despite being born in Portugal he is now a pretty regular French international, however the last 2 seasons he did not really shine at all and disappointed me quite a lot, especially last season where he did not contribute much at all apart from scoring in the CL final, it is very possible that the great season came about because he played regularly and although Gligic is eternally injured most of his injuries are only for a few weeks so he would not get the chance to regularly play, he might get that at Juventus, I am very happy to get so much money for him and I am slightly doubtful that he is going to be worth it Bamody Sako (career) – the 3rd of the 2027 French guys and probably the one with the least ability, after his season on loan he was a solid backup for DMC / MC and rarely played badly, however he was not going to get much better and I had younger players with more potential who I wanted to play so I actively tried to sell him, £6m might prove to be a bargain for Marseille as he should be pretty good for them Eduardo Grimaldi (career) – made a few appearances whilst still in the U19s and I thought he might have a future here but 2 seasons at Sociedad did not really convince me that he was up to this standard, 3 La Liga goals last season as 1st choice for them being the prime example, he is not a bad player at all and he should really shine in Serie B at the club whose academy he came thru before Juventus stole him, he should have a good career and it is very possible that I sold him for less than I should have done A bit more squad cleansing there. No-one came in whilst a load left who will be replaced by youngsters were either out on loan on in the U19s last year. The only significant departures were Conrad and Lecomte and the 1st I had no say in at all... After 2 solid 2-0 wins to start the season with (Zurro scoring 3 of them) we visited Albacete where we were pretty dire, a horrific attempt at the offside trap and our defence deciding not to tackle anyone contributed to a 2-1 defeat and we have conceded more than 1 goal in a La Liga game 33 games earlier than last season. Champions League We are now 2nd seeds but for the 2nd straight year we got Chelsea and Cissé. Other teams are Marseille (with Sako) and Legia. If we don’t mess up things in France we should be OK. Notes Iran beat USA to win the Confederations Cup! Our potentially great youth product DR, Toni, was in the Euro U19 Team of the Tournament Murcia are 2nd favourites for the title again, we’re 4th favourites again We are 12-1 for the CL which is maybe a bit long especially as we have beaten 4 of the teams above us and drew with the favourites in the final last season Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 7, 2014 Author Share Posted June 7, 2014 La Liga – January 2034 After beating Malaga, Granada came to visit and after Carcelén saved a penalty we got a couple of goals to register a good win. However, it came at a cost as 2 players were carried off and 2 more picked up knocks. All 4 were 1st teamers and all 4 would miss a few weeks. A visit to Getafe brought a goal for them in 90 seconds, an equaliser after 5, a 1-1 draw and another injury, this time to Zurro. It was a bit of a mess of a team that visited Murcia but we held on until Fábio Roberto got a late goal. We then missed a penalty and picked up another injury. Now 6 players out. Our luck changed a bit with the visit to Valencia as we somehow came away with a very impressive 2-0 win. An early Dzeko goal gave us a great win over Barcelona who dropped their 1st points of the season. And next up was a visit from Madrid and we got another great win via a trademark Muller freekick and a late goal. They promptly sacked their manager. The only reason we got a goal-less draw at Sevilla was our defence who were unstoppable. We were uninspired in Alcocórn and got the 0 points we deserved. We beat Oviedo before our strikeforce was dire against Athletic but this still lifted us to 2nd. We weren’t convincing against Ponferradina either and had to come from 2 goals behind to draw with Celta and drop to 3rd. We did beat Espanyol but then hit a very bad patch of form, 2 points from Levante(a), Betis(h) and Atletico(h) is really not good, especially it took a missed penalty to get a draw with Betis and as we were 2-0 and cruising in the latter. We closed out January by thrashing Mirandés and then beat Albacete. So as of the closing of the transfer window we are 3rd, 7 points behind Madrid and Barcelona, the latter having 3 games in hand because of World Club Cup duty. Safe to say that the title is probably out of reach! That is OK but not really as good as I hoped. Our main issues are the same as last year, not scoring enough goals and playing badly against the lesser teams, we can beat Barcelona and Madrid at home but not Athletic and Betis. Also our away record has suddenly become mightily dodgy. Maybe if Madrid slip up we could get 2nd but I cannot really see how with their 3 games in hand Barcelona can be caught. Given how close 4th and 5th are to us, we need to be careful there as well. Copa del Rey We got recently relegated in Puertollano in the 1st round so I rested a few players. That backfired as they promptly got a 1-0 win at their place. That meant I had to play a lot of 1st team regulars in the return leg, which I did not really want to do. They did the job and we got recently promoted Athletic in the next round. A 4-0 home win thanks to a Dzeko hat-trick put us in control, so much so that I played the kids in the away leg. When they converted a penalty that got our DL sent off to make it 3-0 with 15 minutes left, I regretted this decision. However, we held on and our reward was a quarter-final against Madrid. We were great in the 1st leg and took a 3-1 lead to the Bernabeu where we ground out a 1-1 draw to qualify for the semis. Our friends from Murcia awaited us. The 1st leg was a tight 0-0 and they did threaten in the home leg but we got 2 2nd half goals to qualify for our 2nd final. Where for the 2nd time (and 3rd final) we will face Barcelona. Champions League Legia were easily dismissed before we got a solid win in Marseille. Then Chelsea visited and although we did win 2-1 it was not entirely convincing as they hit the post twice, missed a penalty and had Cissé sent off. The away match was a highly entertaining affair – 15 seconds in Dzeko scored, a minute later they equalised and by the 13th minute it was 2-2. They unfortunately scored 2 2nd half goals to condemn us to our 1st ever CL defeat, in our 20th match in the competition. We squeezed past Legia in Poland to qualify despite playing over half the game with 10 men while we closed out the group with an easy win over Marseille. That meant we qualified as 1st again. The reward for this is a match against Juventus and our 1st reunion with Elie Lecomte. Noteworthy is this match between Arsenal and Milan. January Transfer Window One player did come in and it was a curious case. 2 years back my scouts pointed out a ridiculously good 16yo Chinese DC who had come thru Madrid’s youth system. Possibly the best 16yo DC I had ever seen. Clearly no interest to sell nor come here so he stayed on my shortlist for a year and then disappeared. Then a couple of months ago my scouts recommended him again and said I could buy him for £150k! I doubled checked and yes, £150k so I snapped him up. No idea why but Qiu Ming is now a Santa Eulalia player and I am very happy about it. He is going to be ridiculously good in a few years time, he has 18 months in the U19s and then I guess a loan spell or 2 to follow. The only issue is he won’t get a European passport for about 4.5 years which may cause a couple of issues given the number of South American teenagers arriving in the next couple of years. 2 of these South American teenagers are arriving in the Summer when they turn 18, a potentially stunning Argentinian ST and a Brazilian D / DM / MC. No-one else at the moment. Notes After a few sub appearances by our players, Bruno Ban becomes the 1st player to make the 1st team of the World Team of the Year Madrid might be 7 points clear of us but they started the season really badly and it took them 6 matches to get their 1st win, they did however do this to Barcelona in El Classico Athletic might be struggling but they did manage to do humiliate a pretty good Celta team Our ex-player Adama Cissé won the Ballon d’Or and World Player of the Year award. He has turned out to be just as good as I thought he would Our ex-player and current coach Zeynel Çavusoglu is no longer our coach; he is now the new manager of Betis. I was tempted to ask him to stay as he is a very good coach indeed but I thought he deserved an opportunity to manage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 8, 2014 Author Share Posted June 8, 2014 Champions League - 2033-2034 First up we had a visit to Turin to face Juventus and our ex-player Elie Lecomte. They took an early lead but we stormed back with a Gligic screamer and a Zurro double to put ourselves firmly in control. It was written that Lecomte would do something and he did, scoring a goal in the 2nd minute of injury time to make me feel a little less comfortable for the return leg. And when Juve went 2-0 up after 20 minutes, I was very right to be be uncomfortable. Thankfully these were pretty much the only chances they had. We tried and tried to score and eventually in the 73rd minute we got one back. And then 10 minutes later the equaliser to scrape thru. We got drawn with Man U in the quarters and then the winners of El Classico in the semis. Not that ideal. We took a 1st half lead at Old Trafford but another late goal, this time a 93rd minute equaliser from their Argentinian superstar ST, pegged us back. And so to the home leg. Where very little happened, neither team threaten and it remained goal-less as we scraped thru again, this time on away goals. In the quarter-final relevant to us, Madrid won the 1st leg and then this happened . Yikes... And on top of that we had 7 players out thru injury or suspension. You can imagine that I was not that confident about winning this tie! The 1st leg went quite well with Muller giving us a lead on the hour mark. However they got an equaliser 15 minutes later and held on. Hence we needed an away goal in Nou Camp. That did not happen. In fact, I don't really want to talk about this match much. They scored after 44 seconds. And another after 35 minutes. And then 2 more in the 2nd half. 0-4, 1-5 on aggregate. Oh dear . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wegason Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Disappointing result but still, a Champions League semi-final is a great achievement for your club and further Champions League football next year is surely the aim as you'll benefit from the run in the seedings and may be in pot one? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 Thanks. It was disappointing but as you will see below we got sweet revenge pretty quickly . Yes, I can confirm that we are top seeds next season which should help considerably. We are pretty good in Europe with 2 finals (1 won) and 2 semis in our 5 European adventures so far. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 9, 2014 Author Share Posted June 9, 2014 Copa del Rey Final – 2033-2034 Barcelona again... How we got there is outlined above. Barcelona did not have many issues, Racing, Girona (both D2) were easily dismissed before Celta and Valencia did not put up much of a struggle. Lineups We are a bit more full strength than I was expecting albeit some players are a bit tired. Masic has been out for a while but apart from him it is pretty much 1st choice. At the 4th attempt Gligic finally get the chance to play in a final for us. Tarfaia plays at DLP as he has done so since Masic’s injury and Keita who is edging towards being 1st choice in any case replaces Jansen who is one of the exhausted ones. Barcelona’s only injury worry is thankfully their best player as Juan Pedro is not fit enough to start after injury. Apart from that they appear relatively first choice. As this is the 3rd final against them I have already highlighted 7 of their players previously, 4 of which play with Vandinho no longer at the club and Galabov and Juan Pedro not in the 11. So the 3 players I will mention this time are Sheng Lei who somehow only cost them £3.1m 4 years back from PSG and who is a stunning winger, Neil Allison who arrived last Summer from Man City on the other wing and Nelson Zea who I could (and maybe should) have bought when they did 5 years ago, especially as he cost less than £6m. 1st half 7 mins – very good double Carcéln save from Florea 10 mins – another good Carcélen save, this one from Zea 15 mins – and another one, just as good and from Allison 17 mins – goalmouth scramble following a corner, ball breaks to Muller who slams it home. 1-0! 19 mins – Gligic freekick near the corner flag, ball reaches Keita so brilliantly half-volleys it home. 2-0!! 25 mins – horrible backpass, Muller reaches it first, takes it past the keeper and scores. 3-0!!! 28 mins – good Xiqués save from Janssen Half-time – err, what?! I don’t quite know what happened there, apart from Carcélen being brilliant and us taking the few chances that we had 2nd half 55 mins – our corner is cleared, ball reaches Gligic who crosses it, Zurro heads home. My Word! 4-0!!!! 65 mins – Muller is knackered, Dzeko comes on 68 mins – Gligic picks up an inevitable knock, Airoldi comes on, Tarfaia goes to AMC 75 mins – Tarfaia is now knackered, Koutsaftis comes on, now Zurro goes to AMC 90 mins – the Copa is ours! Wow, we were awesome, despite the stats being in their favour, that was mainly from before we scored the first goal. Carcélen had his greatest ever game for us and the best game a GK has had for a long while. And we took all our chances. That more than makes up for the 4-0 in CL semi-finals . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidBeckham Posted June 10, 2014 Share Posted June 10, 2014 Great Copa win against Barca! Congrats Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 12, 2014 Author Share Posted June 12, 2014 Thanks. It was very unexpected. They are by far the best team in Spain (and pretty much Europe) and although winning was not out of the question, I was certainly never expecting that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 12, 2014 Author Share Posted June 12, 2014 La Liga – 2033/2034 February got off to a good start with 2 easy wins before Murcia visited and we were utterly brilliant, a total thrashing. Next up was a visit to a good Granada side but we were 2-0 up and cruising after 20 minutes. However, they got one back and then Carcélen made a fantastic save from a last minute penalty to preserve the victory. The bad news was that our star MC Masic broke his foot and would miss the rest of the season. We were still 3rd and now only 4 points behind Barcelona but who still had their 3 games in hand. And guess where we visited next. In the meantime they won 2 of their games in hand to stretch their lead to 10. Which was easily stretched to 13 (with a game in hand) and they were pretty much unstoppable against us, we did hang on until half-time but it made no difference as 2 early 2nd-hald goals gave them a victory which could easily have been 6-0. Any unlikely title dreams that we had were clearly well and truly over now. Or so we thought... We were solid when Valencia visited and got a 1-0 win but did lose our back-up AMC for the rest of the season. We struggled against Sevilla and it took an 89th minute Muller winner for the 3 points. Meanwhile Barcelona had hit a dodgy spell and had only picked up 1 point from their 3 games since thrashing us and were now only 8 ahead. Which was reduced to 5 as we were magnificent in the Bernebeu and they somehow lost at home to a poor Espanyol side. Oviedo were destroyed to make it 4 wins in a row. Because of injuries, suspensions and knackered players it was a mess of a side that faced Alcocórn but we got a win whilst Barcelona drew. We easily beat Ponferradina and then Athletic whilst Barcelona inexplicably lost at home to a dire Mirandés side. Hay Liga! We may have been level but they have the head to head record there were only 4 games left. And for the next 3 Wednesdays we would face them in the CL semis and then the Copa del Rey final (see above). Obviously now we were in with a chance, we decided to chuck it away , a 1st minute goal at home to Celta was cancelled out in the 2nd half and we could find a way past them. Barca won. We both won our next 2 so with one game to go the table looked like this. They had Murcia who, thankfully, had a Europa League to play for and maybe they owe us a favour given the number of players they have bought from us over the year. We had Atletico who had nothing to play for. Unfortunately Barcelona were 2-0 up within 20 minutes, but Murcia got those goals back by half-time. Meanwhile nothing was happening in our match. Finally in the 73rd minute we took the lead and now just needed Murcia to score. Until Atletico equalised. We did get a late late winner but Murcia never got a 3rd goal. So, we finished 2nd on head to head record. Which is where we were for the last third of the season. We in no way deserved to win the title this season, last year maybe but this season Barcelona were ridiculously good. I have no idea how they lost to some of the teams they did but they very nearly let us back in. We did score a few more and let in a couple more but the main issues from last year remained to a certain extent. At least we won something this year which is good. On the way in at the moment I have the 2 South American teenagers plus I hope to have resolved the DL issue with a Brazilian international arriving from Real, despite them only signing him in January. Another strange piece of transfer business by them. Don’t think anyone else will be arriving but let’s see. Might be a couple of squad players leaving if I can get the right price. Final Squad – a few out and some ex-loanees in Summary Finances – getting better and better Transfers – none of them made even a single appearance, all for the future Here are some of the better players: Best GKs – Walter Carcélen – really good, still getting better despite being the wrong side of 30, a few more goals conceded but in general he performed just as well, I do wonder what might have happened if I had not stuck with Norgaard for so long, 5 seasons where Carcélen could have been no.1 as it has turned out that he is much better than the Dane will ever be, in any case he will be no.1 for at least this season and probably one more after that until Tozzi gets good enough Best Fullbacks – Jonathan Saraniti and Toni – the former has been here 5 years and has pretty much never been 1st choice and that was the case this year, at least until Riveros started to feel his age, he played very solidly, however he will be back to backup next year with the Brazilian’s arrival but his ability to cover DR as well means he is pretty much guaranteed to be at least on the bench if fit, meanwhile Toni is our 1st ever youth product to feature on this list, he played a lot at DR because of the Conrad’s departure and various injuries and did really well and was runner-up in the Young Player of the Year, he is strangely not even our most promising DR youth product, the guy who came thru a year later as a 3* prospect is now actually a better player than Toni and a wonderkid, which was very unexpected, there will be the same rotation next season I imagine Best Central Defender – Bruno Ban – [pretty much copy paste from last year]and fantastic yet again, just as good as last year, stunning at the back, the odd goal and several MOM awards, no injuries either, our Player of the Year for the 7th straight year, he really is one of the best DCs in the division, maybe even Europe and there is no money in the world that could prise him from me, quite possibly our best ever signing, only slight issue is that he is now hitting 30 so he can’t have too many years left, thankfully if there is one position where we are stacked with youngsters it is DC 2nd Best Central Defenders – Erik Jansen and Ousmane Keita – the old and the new, Jansen despite about to hit 34 is still a really good player, he did play less this year because of injury and next year will surely be his last here, both Keita and Lange are better than him now so he will probably play a lot less next year, meanwhile Keita was magnificent in his 1st year here as a regular squad member, he even signed off the season by picking up his 1st French cap, next year he will be our definite 1st choice as partner to Ban Best Defensive Midfielder – Mohamed Benali – ok again and perfectly acceptable and his position as an Anchor Man does not really do creativity but still I think I would like a bit more, I very nearly sold him last Summer and I am tempted to try again this Summer, however I don’t really have a replacement lined up, he might just survive here for one more year and then be sold as once he hits 30 his value will probably go down Best Utility Player – Arnaud Tarfaïa – his best season here in goals and his 2nd best rating, this was mainly because he played a lot due to Masic’s injury and he played a lot at DLP which is one of his favoured positions, he may be another guy over 30 but his versatility and continued good play mean he will be here for quite a while yet, in fact I can see him seeing out his career here even if for the last couple of years it is just as a bench player Best Central Midfielder – Tomislav Masic – despite only playing half the season because of injury and not scoring any goals, he was pretty close to his best, his general control of midfield and our attacking play impressed, that said I would like a few more goals and some more assists would not go amiss either, in any case he is an integral part of our team, I am just hoping that the 4 month injury has not affected him too badly, as you can see he has lost a lot of ability because of it and I hope it comes back 2nd Best Central Midfielder - Gerrit Janssen – brilliant again, goals, assists and great play, still don’t understand why our coaches don’t rate him that highly as he is much better than that, more of the same please, after 4.5 years of a Masic-Janssen MC partnership I can see it continuing for just as much time again Best Attacking Midfielder – Kosta Gligic – still too many injuries but again some great performances on the pitch, lots of assists and goals and thankfully all the injuries he faced this season were for days rather than weeks or months but still there were too many of them, another issue is that he, like Ban, is hitting 30 and a probably decline in the next couple of years and unlike DC I don’t really have anyone coming thru to play this position Best Striker – Ekaitz Zurro – much better, although he did not score half as many goals as his breakout season, his overall performances were very good, many more assists and his partnership with Dzeko is blossoming, he is one of the best Spanish STs around so he should be slightly more prolific, was 3rd in the Player of the Year, more of the same with a few more goals please 2nd Best Strikers – Sascha Müller and Adin Dzeko – despite getting on a bit Muller is still a classy player, goals all over the place, more magnificent freekicks and generally playing very well, he is soon to be 33 and although he did show the 1st signs of decline physically this Spring I can see him here for probably 2 more years, meanwhile Dzeko is well on the way to being a superstar, he really is very very good, and he is nowhere near his full potential, he is improving every week, scoring brilliant goals, in a couple of years he will be unstoppable, he will probably play a bit more next year as I phase out Muller, one thing that is pretty sure is that he will break all Bosnian appearance and goalscoring records Youth Candidates – getting much better, 2 to note this year, not entirely sure how a Welshman from Cwmbran ended up in our youth system (well, Swansea are a feeder club...) but I am very glad that Rhys Jenkins did as he is a very promising player. GK is probably one of the positions where we least need someone but he has a long while to go before he reaches anything near his peak so there is always hope he could end up playing for us, that probably depends on whether Tozzi reaches his peak. He will also be our 3rd GK whilst in the U19s thus freeing up one space in the 1st team squad. Gabriel Pérez is less promising and does play in a position that we don’t use but if I can convert him to AMC he could be of some use Notes Our U19s were slightly less unstoppable this season but they did finish runners-up in the U19 league and, in their first ever appearance in the competition, they reached the NextGen final. Plus one of my youth products did this in a match. Ban is inevitably in the Team of the Year Barca beat Arsenal in the CL Final with a 91st minute winner. So that means that again, the Copa del Rey was the only competition that Barcelona did not win, all of La Liga, the Champions League (3 times in a row), both Super Cups and the World Club Cup went to the Nou Camp, they are quite good... Albacete are the surprise team this year, finishing 5th, however given the performance of some other surprise Europa League qualifying teams in the past, I can see them struggling next year Both Murcia and Granada are continuing to excel, although that was not enough for the former who promptly sacked their manager José Ignacio Meseguer who we sold to Celta last Summer was named the Signing of the Season As you can see, Bilbao’s return to La Liga, unfortunately, did not last long Coming up are Las Palmas, Cadiz and Sociedad 8 players are going to the World Cup – 2*FRA (Ban, Tarfaia), 2*NED, ESP, BEL, USA, CHI plus a teenage Mexican who is arriving in January when he turns 18 With Keita getting his 1st cap and Sako getting called up for the World Cup preliminary squad, we now have 7 players or ex-players in the French squad – Ban, Tarfaia, Keita, Cissé, Lecomte, Vincent (has a few caps now), Sako (no caps yet). 5 are in the final World Cup squad, just Keita and Sako missing out Last Season’s Aims Title Challenge – KIND OF – given how far behind Barca we were, it was very unexpected and we never really did challenge them but finishing equal on points does kind of count Champions League Semi-Finals – YES – that is where we ended up, although I would have preferred a slightly better showing Score More – SORT OF – 7 more is 7 more but still not really enough The Coming Season’s Aims Title Challenge – let’s see if we can make it more of a challenge than last time Champions League Semi-Finals – and if we do get there, I’d rather we did not lose 5-1 on aggregate Retain The Copa del Rey – unless we get bad draw or play really badly we should reach the semis most seasons, but after finally winning it I would like to continue doing so 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th 25/26 – La Liga – 13th 26/27 – La Liga – 10th(Copa del Rey quarter finals) 27/28 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League) 28/29 – La Liga – 9th(Europa League semi finals, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 29/30 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League, Copa del Rey finalists) 30/31 – La Liga – 5th(Europa League winners, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 31/32 – La Liga – 4th(qualified for Champions League, Copa del Rey semi finals) 32/33 – La Liga – 2nd(Champions League finalists, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 33/34 – La Liga – 2nd(Champions League semi-finalists, Copa del Rey winners) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Mirandés (18th and down) – (H2-0, A4-0) or even Madrid(!) (3rd) – (Liga – (H2-0, A3-2), Copa – (H3-1, A1-1)) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Celta (8th) – (A2-2, H1-1) – only team we did not beat Best 11 Overall Best 11 Carcélen and Janssen in... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 2025 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 2031 334 15 56 - 17 7.29 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 2031 271 15 31 - 19 7.33 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 2025 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Bruno Ban FRA/CRO D C 2026 244 28 7 - 44 7.64 Sascha Müller CHI/GER AM C / ST 2025 243 82 27 - 16 7.10 Mohamed Benali BEL/MOR DM / M C 2025 216 3 12 - 2 7.07 Kosta Gligic SRB M / AM C 2026 212 43 57 - 15 7.34 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 2027 206 2 19 - 4 7.05 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Frank Nørgaard DEN GK 2023 193 - - 195 0 6.92 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Erik Jansen NED D C 2028 181 5 1 - 21 7.56 Oscar Riveros PAR/POR D / WB L 2028 178 2 19 - 2 7.12 Arnaud Tarfaïa FRA DM / M / AM RC 2028 173 11 18 - 5 7.20 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 2026 159 5 3 - 17 7.47 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Eneko Calvo ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2027 2032 147 47 38 - 7 7.17 Fábio Roberto BRA/ESP AM RL / ST 2022 2028 143 43 20 - 5 7.04 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Hazem Abdel Gawad BEL/EGY D C 2022 2029 138 7 1 - 8 7.25 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Pape Diallo FRA/SEN M / AM C 2023 2027 132 16 21 - 6 7.25 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Omar Silvani ARG/SPA D / DM / M C 2025 2030 130 5 2 - 25 7.70 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Emile Dumont BEL DM / M C 2026 2031 122 1 7 - 6 7.25 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Ekaitz Zurro ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2029 147 65 29 - 12 7.33 Tomislav Masic CRO M C 2029 130 5 16 - 9 7.36 Javi Luque ESP D RC 2022 2026 106 3 9 - 4 7.03 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 Elie Lecomte FRA/POR M / AM LC 2027 2034 103 19 22 - 4 7.22 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Gerrit Janssen NED M C 2030 115 20 19 - 9 7.42 Walter Carcélen ECU/ESP GK 2026 110 - - 95 0 6.97 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 14, 2014 Author Share Posted June 14, 2014 La Liga – Summer 2034 Instead of pouring money into the club like he has done in recent years, our chairmen decided to remove some this time It was all quiet on the incoming front as only the pre-arranged transfers of the 2 18yo South Americans and the Brazilian DL occurred. On the way out was more action, and this time it was all desired. First out was one of my midfielders who had been on loan and then had 1 season with the first team to see if he was good enough. He wasn’t but £5m was a good price. There followed a Serbian GK who had had 3 seasons out on loan but was never going to make an appearance for us, another good price for him. Then there was the big sale of the Summer. My Danish GK Frank Nørgaard had been here since he was 16yo 11 years ago. He was first choice here for 5 of those years but lost his place 2 years back and with Carcelén’s form and some youngsters coming thru he was never going to get it back. Plus he had been making hints about first team football and new challenges so it seemed like a good occasion to cash in. So I did. For £10m he went to Roma. And finally was another MC who had had the 1 season in the 1st team and was not going to be good enough. Transfers – more profit The Incomers Dimba – my scout found him earlier this year and I thought a £1.8m release clause was worth breaking, now he has arrived he looks like even better prospect than he did 6 months ago, in fact he looks like he could turn out to be a superstar, he is best at DC where I don’t really need anyone and I would rather he played at DMC but given his potential I am sure I will find a space for him, it won’t be this season as he will be in the U19s because of the non-EU quota, then a season on loan, hopefully in Spain so he can get the EU-passport Favio Chamorro – this guy, however, was signed nearly 3 years back when he was still 15, I was planning on waiting a bit to see how he turned out but then Real jumped in so I felt obliged to match their offer, thankfully he chose us, he has developed quite nicely and looks like a 1st team player in the making, again ST is not exactly a position where I am deeply lacking but maybe after 1 year in the U19s and one year on loan (again hopefully in Spain), there will be a space available for him Jorge Luis – don’t quite understand why Madrid bought him and then 6 months later sold him to us but I am glad they did, I was planning on buying him this Summer in any case so was not amused when Madrid bid for him in January as I had no squad space for him but at least he is here now, a little bit more money and a little bit more wages probably but he looks worth it, just broke into the Brazil squad, he looks like a great fullback and hopefully he resolves the neverending issue we have had with this position To The Faithful Departed Oscar Riveros (career) – he cost quite a bit of money and did not start too promisingly but he gradually improved and soon became a key member of the squad, he was here for 6.5 seasons and had his best performances only 2 years back, he was a little bit sidelined this season but he still performed well on a regular basis, however he was soon to hit 35 so this was always going to be his last season, he decided it would be his last season as well, he has had a good career Armand Fofana (career) – he arrived at the same time as Keita but I never felt he had the same potential, he had 2 loan spells away and when he came back here he hardly played so there seemed little point in keeping him even if he is a perfectly good enough player for the division, should have a good career ahead of him Slavko Djurdjevic (career) – signed 5 years back but only ever made one cup appearance, once he turned 19 he went out on loan to our feeder club and then again and then to Greece as no-one wanted to buy him, it was evident that he was never going to play for us so I was just trying to get as much money as I could for him, thankfully he impressed enough on loan at Panathanaikos for them to buy him, he is already a Serbian international and he should do well in Greece Frank Nørgaard (career) – given how young he was when he arrived he almost felt like a youth product, he had a couple of loans spells away, then a season of backup before he became a regular at 20, possibly a bit too young but he was one of the best 20yo GKs in the world, he did play well but he never really developed into the world class GK I thought he would and after a couple too many errors he was dropped 5 years later and never really regained his spot, £10m seems like a good price for him especially considering what I paid for him and I wish him well in Italy Matia Airoldi (career) – another one-and-done MC, the usual year in the U19s followed by the usual 2 years out on loan and then a 1 year test in the 1st team squad, he did actually do quite well last year but he was never really going to be good enough for us and with only 1 year left on his contract and him wanting to more than double his wages it seemed sensible to cash in, and I did as I got a very good price for him The usual selling of people who had been on loan and proved to be not good enough with some other loanees coming back to try to prove to be good enough. That said, a former 1st choice GK leaving and 1st choice DL coming in is a bit of a change. The squad is the same mix of youngsters and the over-30s with not much in between, hopefully the youngsters are all getting better and the elderly are keeping their ability. Barcelona are ridiculously good (despite us finishing even with them last season) and they have bought some more great players so I am not too confident about a title challenge but let’s see... Because of the Supercopa (see below) we only had 1 La Liga game before the end of August. We went 2-0 up within 12 minutes but they soon got back even. They had a man sent off but it took an 84th minute deflected free-kick for us to win it. Supercopa de España A 2 legged-affair and our first matchups with Barcelona for the season. The home leg was a back-and-forth affair which ended 2-2 but Muller missed a penalty to give us a win. They got 2 early goals in the 2nd leg but we could only get one back so they win it. First of probably many trophies this season going their way. Champions League The last 2 CL campaigns have catapulted us to 1st seeds. We did not get a bad draw; we have never played Milan but have beaten Anderlecht in 3 friendlies over the years with worse sides than we have now and beat Sparta Prague in one this Summer. That said, they were only friendlies. Notes Gerrit Janssen had a good World Cup as he found himself on the bench for the tournament’s Dream Team Murcia are 2nd favourites for the title again, however this time we are equal with them We are now 11-1 for the CL Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 15, 2014 Author Share Posted June 15, 2014 La Liga – January 2035 We got 2 easy wins to make it 3 out of 3 before Granada visited. And there followed something which happens too often: we can’t break them down, then we got all-out attack and they get the winning. To make things worse this time they played with 10 men from the 19th minute onwards! And when Sevilla visited things weren’t much better. We were 2-1 up with 10 minutes to go when we conceded a 2nd penalty and then they scored the winner in the 91st minute. We were much better at Celta before we scored a total of 8 against Murcia and Oviedo. A draw at Levante is not great but it took us to 5th. Then Barcelona visited. And oh dear . 0-3 it ended and it could have been worse. We were now 9 points behind them but still in 5th. Next up was a visit to the Bernebeu, yikes. However, we played well and escaped with a goal-less draw. We thrashed Betis with 3 of our back 4 scoring goals before we fell apart again at Malaga who were in the relegation zone. But again we bounced back, closing out 2034 with 3 wins, 9 goals and only 1 conceded although we lost Gligic again for a couple of months. And then January happened. First up we visited Valencia and a couple of defensive errors gave them the win. We were mightily unconvincing at home to Espanyol before chucking away a lead at Sevilla. That was our 19th game of the season and we had now conceded the same number of goals as we had done in the whole season 2 years back. And things were going to get worse. An average Albacete side visited and were 2-0 up within 12 minutes. And 4-0 up after 37 minutes. WTF . They had 12 shots, 10 on target, during the 1st half, we had 1 off target shot. That was probably the worst half of football we have ever played. We did get 2 goals back in the 2nd half but with that defeat we were approaching crisis level. We managed to keep a clean sheet at home to Atletico but equally we failed to score. Despite all that we are still in 5th place and only 6 points behind the CL spots. Safe to say that is not entirely going according to plan. We might be scoring a few more goals but we are also conceding twice as many as before. Not sure how this has happened as we have, on paper, a better defence than last year. Maybe it is because Jansen who has been Ban’s partner for the last 6 years has been fully replaced by Keita and there is a bedding-in period. In any case, our objectives have gone from title to CL qualification. No matter what our form is and what happened last year, Barcelona are far out of reach. They are insanely good this year, their performances against Getafe and Levante are proof of that. Copa del Rey We got recently relegated in Mirandés in the 1st round so I rested a couple of players and we got an OK 1-1 draw at their place. We blew them away in the 2nd leg to give a last 16 matchup with Albacete. Both legs finished goal-less so extra time it was. And it was a crazy extra-time as 5 goals were scored. Thankfully 4 of those were for us. Next up was Valencia. We scored a 1st half goal at their place but they got 2 2nd half goals but still that was not a bad result. What was a bad result was losing 1-0 at home and so our attempt at retaining the trophy ends in the quarter-finals. Champions League We started off with a visit to Milan where we were not too great. They took the lead 3 times, we only equalised twice. When Anderlecht took the lead on the island, I was a bit concerned and when we only managed to equalise before h-t I was still concerned. Thankfully we were magnificent in the 2nd half and scored 4. We then thrashed Sparta Prague at home to put ourselves in a good position. A position we did not really take advantage of as we only drew in the Czech Republic. And when we lost at home to Milan, suddenly even qualifying was put into question. Milan were thru and so we were we if we avoided defeat in Brussels. Ban gave away a first half penalty but thankfully there were only 3 minutes of panic before Zurro equalised and after that they did not threaten much. However we never scored a 2nd goal so there was concern until the final whistle. So, we qualify in a totally unconvincing fashion in 2nd place and face Arsenal in the next round. January Transfer Window Just the one player in and what a player he may turn out to be. Mexico have suddenly started producing some amazing teenagers and we have 3 of them coming in, in this January and the next 2. The first to arrive is probably the best of them. Ricardo Rico has just turned 18 (obviously) and he has played already 80+ games for Cruz Azul, he is Mexico’s youngest ever international, he is a regular for them and has already appeared in the World Cup and was a wonderkid at the age of 17. Safe to say he could be pretty special. In the Summer I have a mildly unnecessary young Italian ST coming in on a free. Not entirely sure I need him but he is very good and very free so I am sure I will fit him in somewhere Notes Bruno Ban makes a 2nd straight appearance in the 1st team of the World Team of the Year The Madrid derby did not go well for Real Our ex-player Adama Cissé won a 2nd straight Ballon d’Or and World Player of the Year award. Ban, Janssen and slightly surprisingly Tarfaia were also nominated One of our ex-players (Sako) who got called up to France last year obviously gave up waiting to win a cap as he is now Malian and went to African Nations Cup Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 La Liga – 2034/2035 Thankfully February was much more enjoyable than January was. We started off by easily beating Cadiz and then Sociedad (my 1000th match in charge) before a draw at our CL qualification rivals Granada. A win would have been nice but a draw is OK. We then scored 9 against Celta and Murcia (Zurro equalling his own club record with 4 goals in the latter) before visiting bottom club Oviedo. We easily went 2-0 up and looked in charge. By the end of the match they had not only equalised with their only 2 shots on target but we had 2 players carried off. Not great. It took until the last 15 minutes to score at home against an average Levante team before Madrid visited... And oh my God it was an utter disaster . 15 minutes in and one of my first choice MC hobbles off to miss the rest of the season, 20 minutes in and Francisco gets a straight red. We somehow hang on until half time but they score straight after the break. Then my other first choice MC gets a 2nd yellow and then my DR goes off injured. 9 men against Madrid for 35 minutes is not fun but thankfully they only scored 2 more. 3 days later we visited the Nou Camp and we had tired players and all the injuries and suspensions on top of that. They wiped the floor with us. We had 3 shots, they had 15 on target and scored 4. A nightmare but despite that we were only 2 points behind 4th. Thankfully that was as bad as it got. We played well against Betis and when we beat Las Palmas we were still 5th but equal on points with both 3rd and 4th. We were fortunate to beat Malaga but as both Granada and Valencia failed to win we hit 3rd. We scored within 35 seconds against Alcorcón and it was easy. However we visited Getafe, were awful and dropped back to 5th. 3 games left and the most important was first up, 3rd placed Valencia were visiting. We were great, one goal in each half giving us a vital win and moving us back to 3rd. We beat Albacete in the penultimate match which pretty much guaranteed us 4th unless Valencia overturned a big goal difference. We easily beat Espanyol in the final match so it did not matter. So, we finished 3rd. Looking at this, 5th would probably have been more justified. 11 points less and 15 more conceded is not really progress. I hope it was just because of the new defensive players and that next season they will be more used to each other. Up front we scored a few more and with Dzeko getting better and better we can hopefully score more in the future. In any case, Barcelona were unstoppable, gaining 15 more points than last season, scoring the most goals since 2012 and only conceding 15 in 38 games. No matter what form we were in, there is no way we could have got close to them. Champions League The fact this is not in a separate post is not a good sign! We started well against Arsenal with a solid 2-0 home win before managing to only lose 1-0 at their place to put us thru. The bad news started with the draw; we got Madrid in the q-fs and if we passed them then it was highly probable that we would face Barcelona in the semis again. Yikes. We played well in the home leg as a stunning Gligic freekick gave us a 1-0 win. The 2nd leg went less well, they got a goal in 1st half injury time and then 2 more in the 2nd half as we crashed out. So far arriving in the Summer we have the Italian ST I signed up in January on a Bosman and another cast-off from Madrid, this time a fantastic young Argentine MC, only issue is that we will have too many non-EU players so I will need to be creative. Can’t see any 1st teamers arriving unless I find a stunning DMC somewhere so it might just any youth that my scouts come across. Final Squad – the usual ex-loanees (and new DL) in and a few squad members out Summary Finances – went downhill a bit this year Transfers – Jorge Luis was fantastic, the other 3 are going to be fantastic Here are some of the better players: Best GKs – Walter Carcelén – not quite as good as last year, conceded a few more and there was the odd game where he could not make a save but given how badly we played in general in these games I will excuse him, he played a lot more games this season with the departure of Nørgaard and only a young German as backup, he will probably play a lot less next season as the 20yo Italian wonderkid is back from 2 seasons out on loan and looking brilliant, he will get a lot of games before probably becoming 1st choice the season after Best Fullback – Jorge Luis – just what I was looking for, was brilliant at DL, scored several, assisted a few and was solid defensively and was the best DL in La Liga, still not sure why Madrid got rid of him so quickly, more of the same and I shall be very happy, meanwhile DR was just a rolling injury list, I can’t recall many occasions where at least one of the 3 players was not injured, hopefully that will change next season Best Central Defender – Bruno Ban – again very good, however it was his least brilliant season since his 1st one here, it did not stop him winning our Player of the Year for the 8th straight year, he is the wrong side of 30 so I hope this lower rating was not a result of decline, it does not show in his attributes but I can see them decreasing a bit in the next 18-24 months, he will continue to be 1st choice until I see any decline on the pitch 2nd Best Central Defenders – Ousmane Keita and Lars Lange – both brilliant and on average rating Lange was the best player at the club, Keita was more the 1st choice to partner Ban and is just about the better player so will continue in that role this season, Lange was fantastic when called upon and will continue to rotate when needed, he has also picked up his 1st German caps, however given the number of brilliant young DCs coming thru he will probably be the one that will get sold at some stage in the future, in any case I would have already sold him if Vincent had not left 2.5 years ago, that would have been a mistake though as I think Lange is a little bit better Best Defensive Midfielder – Mohamed Benali – another solid but unspectacular season albeit one of his better ones, as I say every year I would like a bit more, however this time it does not matter as I have decided that I am going to sell him this Summer, he is about to hit 30 where he might start to decline so I want to get as much as money for him as I can and give someone else an opportunity to play at DMC, he has had a great 10 years here Best Utility Player – Arnaud Tarfaïa – again really good, equal best number of goals and assists for his spell here, he played all over the place this season, covering all 4 of the positions he can play at and playing well in all of them, already 32 but his versatility means that he will be here for a while longer whilst his continued good play means he will be playing quite a bit as well Best Central Midfielder – Tomislav Masic – came back from his injury really well and coming back to his previous level of brilliance, another great season at DLP, some fantastic performances, as per usual a few more goals would not go amiss but if he continues to play like this I certainly won’t complain, still only 28 so he has a few seasons left in him 2nd Best Central Midfielder - Gerrit Janssen – and this guy is still only 26, again really good although he missed the last couple of months thru injury, a few goals a few assists and general all-round good MC play, more of the same please Best Attacking Midfielders – Kosta Gligic and Francisco – Gligic was really good again but again he only played half the season as he missed 4 months thru injury, it really is getting ridiculous, plus he is soon 31 so there will is always the danger of a bit of physical decline and given his injury record it might be quicker than for other players, all this gave Francisco a chance to shine, 4 years here as a backup and this was his best season by far, several goals, loads of assists and no injuries, he will never be 1st choice and as he is older than Gligic I am not too sure how long he will be here but he is a great player to have around Best Striker – Ekaitz Zurro – brilliant again, very similar to last season’s performance insomuch as he was not that prolific but his all-round play was magnificent, plays really well with Dzeko and Muller as well, similar performances with a few more goals and I shall be very happy indeed 2nd Best Strikers – Sascha Müller and Adin Dzeko – Muller is nearly 34 but it does not show on the pitch, he played a bit less than the last few years because of Dzeko’s emergence but when he did play he was very good, still scoring goals and being an important member of the team, given his age I suspect that next season will be his last here, Dzeko is still getting better and is actually nowhere near his full potential which is downright scary, he really is going to be one of the best STs in the world if he fulfils it, he played more, he scored more, he assisted more, however he did chuck in the odd dire performance, if he can remove those I will be very happy as I will be if his partnership with Zurro continues apace Youth Candidates – and another fantastic prospect with a slightly unlikely background. After a Welsh GK we now get a Spanish DC called Grant. Grant Sharrock to be exact. Born in Penrith, he has evidently being on the island a long time given that he has Spanish nationality. He looks like he could be a fantastic DC in a few years time Notes Our U19s were back to being unstoppable this season probably because of the 2 South Americans I got last Summer. For some reason we weren’t in the NextGen Series Our stadium is finally being expanded, I asked for it in February and they proposed adding a few more seats, then out of nowhere at the end of the season they expanded their ideas and now over 10,000 are going to be added and we have to go to Barcelona for our home matches for a year. Hmm, not ideal No Ban in the Team of the Year this time, just our new DL, Jorge Luis, plus Conrad our ex-DR We got a clean sweep on the Young Player of the Year Award, although only 1 of them was actually playing for us this season. Sesma is actually a youth product from the same year as Toni who has turned out to be pretty good, unfortunately he won’t ever be good enough for us. Bariri however certainly will be and will be with the 1st team squad next season Madrid stunning beat Barca 3-0 at the Bernebeu to beat them in the semis and then beat Bayern in the final. So only the 4 trophies for Barcelona this year as they lost the World Club Cup final on penalties Coming up are Mirandés, Zaragoza and Villarreal. However, look at the table on the final day, so much at stake for so many teams... Rhys Jenkins, my youth product GK from last year is now a Welsh international at the age of 16 Last Season’s Aims Title Challenge – FAILURE – we were never anywhere near but given how good Barcelona were, we would never have had any chance Champions League Semi-Finals – FAILURE – Madrid in the quarters was not a great draw so no too much disgrace Retain The Copa del Rey – FAILURE – Valencia in the quarters was not great but a team that we should be beating The Coming Season’s Aims Title Challenge – surely we can’t be as bad and Barcelona can’t be as good Champions League Semi-Finals – let’s see if we can get back on course Do Better Against Big Sides – we still don’t have a great record against them and this season was even worse than normal 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th 25/26 – La Liga – 13th 26/27 – La Liga – 10th(Copa del Rey quarter finals) 27/28 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League) 28/29 – La Liga – 9th(Europa League semi finals, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 29/30 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League, Copa del Rey finalists) 30/31 – La Liga – 5th(Europa League winners, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 31/32 – La Liga – 4th(qualified for Champions League, Copa del Rey semi finals) 32/33 – La Liga – 2nd(Champions League runners-up, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 33/34 – La Liga – 2nd(Champions League semi-finals, Copa del Rey winners) 34/35 – La Liga – 3rd(Champions League quarter-finals, Copa del Rey quarter-finals) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Murcia (11th) – (A4-1, H5-1) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Barcelona (1st) – (La Liga - H0-3, A0-4) + (Supercopa – H2-2 A1-2) Best 11 Overall Best 11 Saraniti and Dzeko in... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 2025 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 2031 334 15 56 - 17 7.29 Bruno Ban FRA/CRO D C 2026 272 31 7 - 45 7.62 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 2031 271 15 31 - 19 7.33 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 2025 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Sascha Müller CHI/GER AM C / ST 2025 262 90 30 - 17 7.11 Mohamed Benali BEL/MOR DM / M C 2025 242 5 17 - 2 7.08 Kosta Gligic SRB M / AM C 2026 231 49 62 - 16 7.33 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 2027 206 2 19 - 4 7.05 Arnaud Tarfaïa FRA DM / M / AM RC 2028 205 16 24 - 6 7.21 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Frank Nørgaard DEN GK 2023 2034 193 - - 195 0 6.92 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Erik Jansen NED D C 2028 185 5 1 - 21 7.55 Oscar Riveros PAR/POR D / WB L 2028 2034 178 2 19 - 2 7.12 Ekaitz Zurro ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2029 172 77 33 - 14 7.34 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 2026 159 5 3 - 17 7.47 Tomislav Masic CRO M C 2029 159 6 21 - 12 7.36 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Eneko Calvo ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2027 2032 147 47 38 - 7 7.17 Fábio Roberto BRA/ESP AM RL / ST 2022 2028 143 43 20 - 5 7.04 Walter Carcélen ECU/ESP GK 2026 142 - - 129 0 6.96 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Hazem Abdel Gawad BEL/EGY D C 2022 2029 138 7 1 - 8 7.25 Gerrit Janssen NED M C 2030 135 22 22 - 9 7.40 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Pape Diallo FRA/SEN M / AM C 2023 2027 132 16 21 - 6 7.25 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Omar Silvani ARG/SPA D / DM / M C 2025 2030 130 5 2 - 25 7.70 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Emile Dumont BEL DM / M C 2026 2031 122 1 7 - 6 7.25 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Jonathan Saraniti ITA D RL / WB L 2029 113 3 11 - 5 7.16 Adin Dzeko BOS ST 2028 106 38 26 - 6 7.17 Javi Luque ESP D RC 2022 2026 106 3 9 - 4 7.03 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 Elie Lecomte FRA/POR M / AM LC 2027 2034 103 19 22 - 4 7.22 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 26, 2014 Author Share Posted June 26, 2014 La Liga – Summer 2035 Quite an eventful Summer this year. First up, the board evidently regretted taking dividends last Summer as they reverted to type and gave us more money. Also, we are evidently big on the other side of the pond as we got invited to the States for a tour. On the transfer front, not only did the 2 previously confirmed signings (Italian ST, Argentine MC) arrive on 1st July but also 2 youths that I signed after the end of the season. After 1 month of a lot of people leaving but none arriving, I made my big Summer signing in August as an English M/AMC arrived for nearly £14m from Chelsea. The final arrivals before the window closed were 2 teenage Costa Ricans. As you do... Loads left. First up, an Italian MC went to Valencia for £7.5m before 2 players who never played a game for us left for a total of nearly £8m. A few players I want to sell but couldn’t went out on loan along with several that I don’t want to sell but need experience and then a back-up GK left for a bit of money. I got £5m for a DR who had not really fulfilled his potential. I then made the 2 big sales of the Summer. First our young Greek ST went to Betis for probably a bit less than he is worth before I finally decided to flog Benali our 1st choice DMC. A lot of very big European clubs wanted him for the £12.75m I asked for and he finally decided to go to Marseille. Transfers – more profit The Incomers Burim Gjondeda – a free Italian (with Albanian parentage) ST from Inter, I don’t really need him although Muller is getting on a bit and this will be his last season here, however he is a wonderkid, has a lot of potential and above all was free, I was certainly not going to turn down all that, he will probably vie with Muller for the 4th ST spot and will play quite a bit this season given the number of games we will have, he could turn out to be pretty good Francisco Antunez – another mysterious purchase from Madrid, he was already on my shortlist when they bought him last Summer and as with Jorge Luis last Summer, 6 months later he was on the transfer list, I did not want him to join in January so I waited until the window closed before signing him up so he could arrive in the Summer, he is already an Argentinean International and looks like he could be a very special player, one issue is that he is our 4th non-EU player so he can’t play in La Liga yet, Jorge Luis is eligible for a Spanish passport during the Winter transfer window and hopefully the paperwork will be quick enough for him to get it before the end of January, if not then he will be limited to matches in the Cup and Europe this season, hopefully there will be enough of them to keep him satisfied Carlos Ortiz, Felipe Fonseca – 2 youngsters, Ortiz was cheap and could be anything, he has 3 seasons in the U19s and then we can evaluate, given past experiences even if he is not good enough I should be able to make a profit on him, meanwhile Fonseca was very expensive for a teenager, he is only 14 and although obviously very raw, he looks to have a lot of potential and I am hoping that 5 years in our youth team will help extract that, I am looking forward to seeing how he turns out Tommy Gray – a slightly unexpected purchase but both me and my scouts loved him and they were insistent that he could be got for a relatively low amount and it turns out they were right, he looks a great player and is nowhere near his potential, he did not actually play much for Chelsea which hopefully means that some more regular football will make him even better, he will start as a backup to Gligic and Masic and given the former's injury problems he will undoubtedly play quite a lot and as Gligic is now 31 he is pencilled in as his long-term replacement as well Keylor Leiva, Mauricio Cruz – yep, 2 Costa Ricans(!), my scouts liked Leiva, he was free so I signed him up, and my coaches love him, he could turn out to be pretty good and I reckon he might have a chance at being in the 1st team squad in 2/3 years time, for the moment he is in the U19s, Cruz has a British passport which helped me make up my mind, my scouts quite liked him and with Carcelén approaching the end of his career I do need backup GKs, and I suspect backup GK is what he will turn out to be, and like other youths I should be able to make a profit on him if need be To The Faithful Departed Erik Jansen (career) (screenshot from last Summer as he retired earlier than I thought he would!) – an absolute star, pretty much the best free transfer we ever made, an imperious DC who formed a magnificent partnership with Ban for over 5 seasons and only gave up his spot in the last year or so as age caught up with him, really not much more to say than that, a true Santa Eulalia legend and a player who has had a great career, it is just unfortunate that he is not that great a coach as I would have liked him to have stayed on Riccardo Noè (career) – another of the usual one-and-done MCs, 2 loan spells, one season as backup and a hefty profit made, he was a wonderkid at one moment and looked like he could become a pretty good player but he never really played enough football here to show it, maybe at Valencia he will have the chance to do so Mosquito (career), Carlos Klinger (career) – neither made an appearance for us but got us a bit of money from being sold, that said I definitely lost money on Mosquito if we include his wages, he arrived as a great prospect who might be a good backup to Masic, however his loan spell at Espanyol did him more harm than good and he came back with a lot less potential than when he went, his spell in the Ukraine at our feeder club did not change anything so I got rid, he might do OK if he is playing regularly, I don’t know how I got so much money for Klinger as the 3 loan spells he had were far from impressive, he did OK in the U19s with us but with the forwards that we have he had no chance of getting anywhere near the squad so I cashed in Andreas Möller (career) – a pretty good young GK who did play a few games last season when Carcelén picked up a month long injury, he did OK but with Tozzi the wonderkid coming back from loan and 2 players in the U19s there was no need for him to stay, he will probably end up being a career backup unless he drops down to the Adelante René Thygesen (career) – one of the bigger bargains we have ever got, he arrived for £350k as a 15yo with a lot of potential, he leaves 8 years later as a regular Danish international (and their youngest in history) for 15 times that amount, he was also our youngest ever player at the time, he had a couple of loan spells and then moved between backup and first choice during his 5 seasons in the squad depending on whether we had just sold another fantastic DR or not, he always performed well but I decided to cash in this Summer to give our 2 youth products (one who is a wonderkid) a chance to see what they can do, he has gone off to join his international team-mate Nørgaard at Roma Giannis Koutsaftis (career) – a good ST with a lot of potential, however with Gjondeda’s arrival there was no chance at all of him getting 1st team football so he had to go, he had 2 brilliant seasons in the U19s after being sold to us for a strangely low amount by Atletico, I wanted to send him out on loan twice but there were no takers so he stayed here as a backup which clearly blunted his progress, with some regular football it is highly possible that Betis have got themselves an absolute bargain Mohamed Benali (career) – a true great for the club, 10 seasons here after arriving on a free from Genk, 8 as more or less 1st choice DMC, he never really shone but he was very consistent and had very few poor games, he even survived breaking his leg and missing pretty much an entire season before coming back just as good as before, I very nearly sold him 2 years back but at the last minute I kept him, however this time I decided that it was time for a change at DMC and as he was about to hit 30 I wanted to cash in, I got a pretty good amount for him and I reckon Marseille are happy with his purchase so I think the move works out well for everyone A bit more activity than usual with 1 first-teamer out and 2 very solid squad members coming in. I reckon the squad is probably a bit stronger but there are still issues at DR unless one of the youth products step up and possibly at DMC as I (deliberately) did not replace Benali. Not sure about a title challenge at Barcelona are still ridiculously good and have somehow improved their team. Let’s see. The fixture list was far from kind to us as we had visits from both Barcelona and Madrid in the 1st 3 games. Barcelona took the lead within 3 minutes whilst Masic stroked home a penalty just before h/t to get us a draw. We got another draw at Betis but this one was slightly less impressive as we missed a penalty, plus Barcelona visited them the week after and beat them 5-1, not a good sign. And next up was Madrid’s visit to the island. They took a lead before h/t, my new Italian ST got the equaliser just after and we then dominated but could not find a goal. So 3 matches, 3 draws which is not ideal but they weren’t the easiest fixtures. That said, we need to beat Barcelona and Madrid at home if we are looking to the title. Champions League Despite out QF exit last year we are still 1st seeds. Unfortunately PSG are somehow 2nd seeds so we get a reunion with Nadir Matola, the one player I dearly wish was still at the club. We also got drawn with Rubin who we beat during our 1st ever Europa League campaign and Rosenborg for our 1st ever visit to Scandinavia. Notes Joel Noyes’ USA beat Ricardo Rico’s Mexico in the Gold Cup final on penalties after a 0-0 draw. The former got sent off, the latter was the MoM Zivorad Todorovic, our ex-Swiss DC is now playing Juventus after a move from Panathanaikos which is a bit of a surprise The bookies don’t like Murcia as much as they previously did but we are 3rd favourites for the title which seems fair enough Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted June 29, 2014 Author Share Posted June 29, 2014 La Liga – January 2036 After the 3 draws to open the season we finally got our 1st win at Levante. And what a win it was, a Dzeko hat-trick helping us to a 5-0 win. Unfortunately we did lose Zurro for 3 months. That did not matter as his replacement, the Brazilian who had been out on loan the last 2 seasons, promptly scored 4 as we got another 5-0 win. 3 more wins later and we were flying. Then newly promoted Mirandés visited and it took a 91st minute winner for us to get the 3 points. And our wonderkid youth product DR broke his leg. And 2 more wins later and it was 8 wins in a row without a goal conceded. These 8 games were also the 1st 8 games that our wonderkid Italian GK, who had come in for Carcelén, had ever played for us, surely a record of some sort. A 93rd minute equaliser for Atletico at home stopped that record and also cost us 2 valuable points at home to a team we should be beating. We got a good home win against Valencia before we visited Las Palmas. We took at an early lead and looked in control. Then their on-loan Italian ST missed a penalty and then scored 2 goals to condemn us to our first defeat of the season. We thrashed Malaga and Granada before having some issues with our visit to Getafe. It took a 91st minute Muller winner to get us the 3 points. That was nothing compared to our Sociedad visit; they equalised twice before we got the win via a 95th minute comedy own goal! 2 more wins later including another Dzeko hat-trick we visited Barcelona for our last match of January 2036. And it was quite dull actually, a simple 0-0. So that leaves us in 2nd place. And yet having lost only 13 points all season we are 4 points behind Barcelona who have a game in hand. They are obscenely good, 4 of their 6 points dropped to date have been against us. It would not surprise me if they went the whole season unbeaten. But overall we have been fantastic, we are scoring relatively freely with Dzeko and Bariri (the 21yo Brazilian I signed 3 years ago) scoring loads in the absence of the injured Zurro. Meanwhile at the back we have been imperious and this is even without having a proper DR. The youth product I wanted to play broke a leg, his intended youth product backup has been picking up niggles all the time so Keita, one of our best DCs has been filling in. And filling in very well indeed. Unless Barcelona start to fall to pieces then we have no hope. And it is not as if Madrid are far behind either. Copa del Rey We got recently relegated Oviedo for our 1st match and it took a 95th minute header from Rico to get us a valuable away win. That meant I was not obliged to send out a 100% full strength side in the home leg but when they made it 1-1 I was a little worried as I more goal would put them thru. Thankfully we got a late winner. Next up was Levante and a 2-0 home win put us in charge. Them scoring on the brink of half time in the return leg did not, however we hung on. Our friends from Murcia awaited us in the quarter finals. And we destroyed them at their place, 3-0 up within 19 minutes! We got a 4th in the 2nd half and I felt a 4-0 away win justified resting a few players for the home leg. They did win that match which was not great but it mattered little. We had Valencia in the semis and 2 late goals at the Mestalla put us in control and we controlled the home leg as well. So, Copa Final no.3 awaits. The other semi was, inevitably, another Classico face-off. When Barcelona won their home leg 3-1 it seemed they would qualify but just like in last year’s Champions League semi-final Madrid bounced back and thrashed them at the Bernebeu, 3-0 this time. Hence, after 3 finals against Barcelona, we finally get one against Madrid... Champions League When Rubin scored within 120 seconds of our 1st match I was a bit concerned but a great Francisco hat-trick took us to a solid win. He then repeated the trick in Norway to become our 1st ever player to score 2 straight hat-tricks. We opened the scoring in Paris but they equalised although a draw is still a good result. They opened the scoring at our place but we got 2 goals to look as if we were gaining a great win. However, they got a 92nd minute equaliser. We were still topping the table but not as comfortably as I would have liked. And when we could only draw in Russia, it meant that we were still not qualified. Thankfully our last game was at home to Rosenborg, one of the worst teams in the group stages, so I was not yet panicking. And I did not need to as we strolled to a 4-0 win. That meant we just topped the group and remained unbeaten. Next up we face Inter who we beat on our way to the final 3 years ago. January Transfer Window Possibly the biggest January we have ever had. The first 2 arrivals were 2 teenagers signed up in the past who arrived when they turned 18. Éder Jair Velasco is the 2nd of the 3 Mexicans we have lined up. He is a great prospect at DC and already a Mexican international but is nothing compared to Rico who was already our 2nd best DC before turning 19! He will not be playing any 1st team football for a while yet, U19s this season and then probably a couple of loan spells before we see how he is doing. The main issue he has is that on top of the 4 great DCs in the 1st team squad, we also have 3 (ex-)wonderkids out on loan and last year’s star youth product who is coming on nicely. Hence it is a slightly loaded position! Meanwhile Blas Somoza also has a lot of potential and is in the same position, U19s, loan spells and then we will see. DMC will be a much easier position to break into. We then went a bit crazy and spent over £50m on 2 players! First up is Lukasz Skowron, a brilliant Polish MC who goes straight into the Masic backup role with him being lined up as his replacement in a couple of years. The annoying thing with him is that I could have bought him for £2m 3.5 years back when he played in Poland and my scout first found him. I decided that he was not going to be good enough. I was wrong and now had to pay £19.75m to get him here from Panathanaikos. Following that, we absolutely destroyed our transfer record. On a DMC! My Director of Football had tried to sign Matthew Abbott for nearly £40m at the beginning of the month but I deemed that too much. When he came back on transfer deadline with an accepted offer of just over £30m, I had a think about it and decided that he was worth signing up as the position has been mighty hard to fill over the years and he looks brilliant. He is undoubtedly not worth the money especially as he was not even a 1st team regular for Chelsea but he goes straight into the first team where I hope he stays for many years to come. Some regular football here does give him a lot of room for improvement and it has so far worked for our Summer signing Tommy Gray who has improved a lot. So there you go, nearly £55m spent in one month! Chelsea must be delighted as we have spent nearly £45m this season on 2 of their peripheral squad members. Well, we have the money so might as well spend it. I had to make one sale as Abbott’s arrival took us over the 25 squad limit and all the current DMCs at the club were complaining. I told them all I would sell one and eventually decided on the Turkish one. He left for £8.5m to Betis. The one bit of bad news is the Jorge Luis’s Spanish passport did not come thru by the end of January so that means that Summer signing Antunez still can’t get into the La Liga squad due to too many non-EU players so he is stuck playing the Copa del Rey final and Champions League games To The Faithful Departed Hakan Payasli (career) – not a bad player at all who turned into a sort of one-and-a-half-and-done player, albeit he had 3 loan spells away as I could not fit him into the squad at that time, eventually he came in at the beginning of last season and did quite well and actually ended up being our best DMC, unfortunately he was also the most sellable of them so off he went, even if I had sold one of the others I would probably have still sold him in the Summer, we have made a massive profit on him but it may turn out that Betis have a little bit of a bargain Nobody lined up for the Summer and quite frankly after that spending spree I don’t think I want to sign anyone in the Summer either except maybe sorting out the DR issue. Notes Bruno Ban makes a 3rd straight appearance in the 1st team of the World Team of the Year Villarreal may be the worst team to play in the La Liga since we came up what with it taking them 20 games to pick up their first win of the season, however that 1st win was somehow a 2-0 breeze past Madrid! God knows what happened there, they had picked up just 4 draws in their previous 19 games Our ex-player Adama Cissé won a 3rd straight Ballon d’Or and World Player of the Year award. Ban was also nominated Adin Dzeko, our stupendously good ST did something crazy for Bosnia, he scored a hat-trick in 3 successive internationals which is surely some kind of record. Given the 4 he scored in his previous 3 games that makes 13 in 6! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted July 14, 2014 Author Share Posted July 14, 2014 Champions League - 2035-2036 First up we visited Lisbon to face Benfica and we got a great result. 10 minutes in and we were 2-0 up via some comedy goalkeeping and a Ban header. We did not do a huge amount until the final 5 minutes where we got 2 more. That meant we could rest loads of players for the 2nd leg. We still won that 3-1 to essentially rout them over the 2 legs. We got a pretty good draw as avoided most of the big clubs were in the other half of the draw where there was yet another Classico and an all-London Chelsea-Arsenal lineup. Instead we got Inter who we have already beaten and then either Porto or Man U both of whom we have already beaten as well. We were really not great at home to Inter as they went 2-0 up within a half hour and it took us until the final 5 minutes to get one back. Despite that, I was not really worried as we had comprehensively beaten them in Milan the last time and I felt we had a better team. I was right as 2 goals before half-time and 1 soon after gave us a comfortable victory although one of our MCs scything down one of their players to pick up a red card and 3 match ban was not ideal. Man U strolled past Porto so were next up. They came to the island (well Barcelona, given the building works going on at our place) and after 35 seconds Ban had given away a penalty which they scored. We got out own penalty a half hour later. 2 goals after half-time gave us a good advantage but unfortunately they got one back in the last 5 minutes to leave it evenly balanced. The other news from this match was a Saraniti red card, his 2nd yellow was for diving , whilst we also picked up 3 injuries, the worst being Ban who tore a calf muscle and misses the rest of the season . Unfortunately we simply did not turn up in the 2nd leg. This was certainly clearly shown in the first half where we had the majestic total of precisely 0 shots on goal. They had 12, of which 10 were on target. Thanks to our GK somehow only 1 ended up in the back of the net. We were a little better after the interval and did have a goal ruled out for a dodgy offside. That said, they also missed a penalty and we in no way deserved to qualify. So, out in the semi-finals it was... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted July 15, 2014 Author Share Posted July 15, 2014 Copa del Rey Final – 2035-2036 Madrid for the first time... How we got there is outlined above. Before beating Barcelona in the semis Madrid had faced Palencia, Celta and Sevilla Lineups We are not entirely at full strength but not too far away from it. Ban is injured (see CL update above) along with Carcélen (might have played), Gray and Skowron (at least one would have played) whilst Lange is suspended (would definitely have played due to Ban’s injury). Gligic is tired but has to play because of injuries whilst my DL Jorge Luis is not 100% recovered from injury so is on the bench. Thankfully we had a relatively easy match beforehand so were able to rest a few players for this encounter. Madrid are at pretty much full strength. That means that our ex-DR Brett Conrad (rapidly on his way to becoming one of the best DRs in the world) plays. Notable players are César Baena, a youth product who is quite simply the best DC in the world, Hernán Caputo, a very experienced and very good left winger, and Jia Zhiguo, an insanely good youth product ST who is China's best ever player by a country mile. 1st half 4 mins – Zurro forces a good save 22 mins – yellow card for Saraniti 27 mins – a 2nd yellow card for Saraniti, FFS, for diving , FFS, the 2nd time in 2 weeks he has got a 2nd yellow card for diving , FFS, Antunez off, an unfit Jorge Luis on and Gligic moves to MC 44 mins – Gligic gets carried off (he would miss the rest of the season, inevitably), Tarfaïa on 47 mins – easy save for Tozzi Half-time – not very exciting, Madrid have done nothing but then neither have we, however we are down to 10 men and have already made 2 substitutions 2nd half 47 mins – a trademark Dzeko run ends in a good save 48 mins – Dzeko has a goal ruled out for a very close offside 57 mins – no-one tackles their AMC who stroll into the box and after a goalmouth scramble Zhiguo fires home 0-1! 67 mins – we move to a more attacking formation as Bariri (an ST) comes on for Masic (an MC), we move to 4-2-1-2 as Abbot goes to MC and Zurro back to AMC 70 mins – easy save for Tozzi Hmm, that was not a very good match. It was quite even and we did not play like we had 10 men so I would have liked to see how we could have played with 11. So that is only 1 Copa final out of 3 won... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted July 29, 2014 Author Share Posted July 29, 2014 La Liga – 2035/2036 February started with a trip to the Bernebeu. They took an early lead and it stayed like that until 15 minutes to go when we equalised. We were looking at a respectable draw until a fine bit of route one gave Dzeko a chance to claim a glorious win. And Dzeko does not miss many chances. Levante were very stubborn when they visited us and it took 2 late Tommy Gray goals to give us a win. Meanwhile Barcelona lost at Atletico so the gap was 4 (they had won their game in hand). We strolled past Zaragoza before exceptionally unconvincing at home to Albacete. The news from this match was that Barcelona drew so were now only 2 points ahead of us. We were brilliant against Celta. Before our home match against Murcia, Barcelona drew which gave us a great chance to draw level with them. Unfortunately it was time to put in a mightily unconvincing performance to draw 0-0. We destroyed Mirandés via Gligic’s 1st hat-trick for the club before a disaster of a home match with Espanyol where we missed a penalty, got a red card and only managed a 1-1 draw. Back to 4 behind. We were insanely good in Sevilla before being OK in beating Atletico. And then craziness happened in Valencia. We conceded a scrappy goal and as the clock hit 90 minutes we were still losing 1-0. Then Dzeko went on a 60 yard run where the opposition forgot to tackle and scored a fantastic equaliser. And then in the 4th minute of injury time, Gligic scored a magical 25 yard freekick!! We were nervy against Las Palmas but got the win before a very disappointing draw at Malaga. And just to make things worse, Barcelona drew an easy match so another chance to close the gap lost. And only 4 games to go. We both won our next 2 matches before they thrashed Mirandés for their 6th title in a row. We also won so this meant that our last match against Villarreal was totally unimportant; they were bottom, we were 2nd, all we had to do was avoid giving them their 2nd win(!!) of the season. I rested few players and gave club legend, Sascha Muller a final appearance (he is leaving after over 11 years here). We got an early goal before with 15 minutes to go it happened. We got a freekick 25 yards out and Muller stepped up and brilliantly curled it into the corner for a trademark goal. The best freekick taker we have ever had and what a stunning way to go out . So, we finished 2nd which is exactly where we should have finished. Well, that was much better, 21 more points and 25 less conceded is pretty damn good. We got a points total that would have won the league in all but 4 of the last 15 seasons and no team has lost as few matches as us and Barcelona did this season. On the other side, losing only one game and not winning the league is disappointing to say the least. And to only lose 6 matches all season, of which 2 were 2nd legs of cup matches already won in the 1st leg, and not win a single trophy is not great either. Unfortunately Barcelona are monstrous at the moment and unless we start beating them we don’t have much chance as they don’t drop that many points elsewhere. My hope that the blip the previous season with regards to conceding too many goals was because of the new players proved to be correct. We were magnificent at the back with all the DCs and in particular the unbelievably great Tozzi in goal, still only 21, being fantastic. Up front we scored a fair few but I am still looking for Dzeko to have the ridiculous season that his ability hints at or for Zurro to prove that the 26 goals season 4 years back was not a fluke (I am nigh on certain that it was just a fluke!). So far arriving in the Summer we have a 17yo Greek GK. And that is it. After the excess of January I can’t really see any 1st teamers coming in, maybe just a few teenagers Final Squad – quite a few changes Summary Finances – relatively even, we earned a lot which we then spent in January Transfers – success, Gjondeda was a very useful 4th ST, Antunez would have been more useful if he could have played in La Liga but he was an asset in Europe, Gray and Skowron were great and will be great players for years to come while Abbott is already the best DMC we have ever had (as he should be given his price!), the rest were in U19s showing relative levels of promise Here are some of the better players: Best GK – Salvatore Tozzi – wow, what a player, the intention was to rotate him and Carcélen as it was his 1st season here after 2 years out on loan in Serie A, after not conceding a goal in his 1st 7 La Liga games that idea disappeared and he was 1st choice for the rest of the season, he was simply magnificent, saves everywhere, a ridiculous number of clean sheets, voted best GK in the division, team of the year, CL team of the year, already playing for Italy, everything, and he is only 21(!), what a player, my scouts 4 years ago were so correct in predicting his brilliance, hopefully that is GK sorted for at least the next 10 years Best Fullback – Jorge Luis – pretty much the same as last year, which is just great, he did score a few less but he continued getting assists and was solid defensively and was one of the best DLs in La Liga, it does appear that the DL issue we have kind of had since Perrin (although Riveros was often brilliant) has been solved, I can only ask for more of the same Best Central Defender – Bruno Ban – and again very good, back to the same rating as 2 years ago and his 2nd best ever, but despite all that he did not make it 9 Player of the Year awards in a row, the big issue is the torn calf muscle he suffered in the CL semis which puts him out until the end of pre-season, he is already 32 but I sincerely hope that this does not affect his ability too much, he will start as 1st choice if he is fit and he should have a few seasons left in him and I hope that they are spent here 2nd Best Central Defenders – Ricardo Rico and Lars Lange – wow, Rico is good, he is still a teenager and is already pushing Ban to be the best DC at the club, he must be the best teenage defender in the world, maybe even the best teenager full stop, he is simply stunning, he rotated a bit to begin with but after a couple of months he was Ban’s 1st choice partner and he stayed there, and will probably stay there for a very long time, he even slightly surprisingly won the Player of the Year award, the 1st of many, meanwhile Lange was again on average rating the best player at the club, he was fantastic when called upon especially towards the end of the season when Ban was injured and Keita was deployed elsewhere, he is still the DC most likely to be sold at some moment but it won’t be this Summer Best Utility Defender – Ousmane Keita – he is much better than that description, he is our 3rd best DC for starters but given the DR issues we had this season (injuries and youth not really pushing on) he mainly played there and was brilliant, so brilliant that he was in the La Liga Team of the Year above our fantastic ex-DRs like Cancian and Conrad, he also filled in at DL on occasions and of course he started the year at DC, he is not a natural DR but he plays so well there and I have such a surplus of DCs that I am very tempted to permanently move him across there until I find a really good DR to join Best Defensive Midfielder – Matthew Abbott – only arrived in January and he cost a small fortune but until now he has definitely lived up to his billing, he has been magnificent and definitely the best DMC we have so far had, great performances and even a couple of assists for good measure, looking forward to see what he does once he is more settled and has a pre-season in him Best Central Midfielder – Tomislav Masic – and brilliant again, in fact it was his best season here with regards to goals, assists and average rating, I still think he is capable of more goals and assists but if he continues to perform like this then that will definitely do, hitting 30 in a couple of months but he should be first choice for a few more seasons yet 2nd Best Central Midfielder - Gerrit Janssen – another season of great BBM performances, plenty of goals, great rating and a great partnership with Masic, my coaches still don’t rate him and with both Antunez and the expensive Skowron in the mix it is not 100% sure that he will play as much next season Best Attacking Midfielder – Kosta Gligic – brilliant and a bit less injury prone than usual on top of that, he still obviously missed nearly 2 months of football but compared to previous seasons that is a great improvement, on the pitch he contributed to 20 goals which is his best so far, he is 32 in the Summer but no signs of decline yet despite all his injuries so he will remain 1st choice for a while, or at least until the next significant injury, 10 magnificent seasons here and he only cost £4.2m, wow Best Striker – Adin Dzeko – good lord he is a good player, he is still getting better and better and he still has a little way to go, scored more goals this season but that was mainly because of Europe, would love him to have a great season in La Liga but I am still waiting for him to break thru the 15-16 goal barrier, loads of assists make up a bit for that, meanwhile he scored 20 goals in 12 appearances for Bosnia, wow 2nd Best Strikers – Ekaitz Zurro and Bariri – missing 3 months really affected Zurro as he posted his lowest ever goal tally here but equally he only played half the league games, despite that his overall performances were great, hopefully he gets back to being a bit more prolific this coming season, his injury gave Bariri a good chance to shine in his 1st season here after 2 great loan spells, and he did well with a good number of goals, although a third did come in 1 game, not sure he will ever become a 1st team regular but he is still young so let’s see as he has lots of improvement in him Youth Candidates – nothing much to shout about. My Head of Youth Development says that Miquel Angel is the best. I am not sure if he is and even if he is I sincerely doubt he will play a 1st team game for us Notes Our U19s were runners-up in their league this season Ban only made the Team of the Year bench this time along with Gligic, an out-of-best-position Keita and Tozzi made it into the 1st 11 We got 2nd and 3rd in the Young Player of the Year Award, as our Rico claimed 2nd and our new young Italian ST got 3rd. The winner cost Valencia €27.5m as a 20yo, won the European Golden Boy and then promptly missed the 2nd half of the season due to a torn calf muscle. He is a stunning player. Barcelona absolutely destroyed Man U 4-0 in the CL final to make it 3 wins out of the 4 competitions that they entered this season, it might have been 5 out of 6 if they had won last season’s CL, it might be 5 or 6 out of 6 next season. They scare me . La Liga is now the top ranked European league overtaking the Premier League Villarreal were historically bad, the 2nd worst La Liga campaign ever, just one point ahead of Puertollano in the year we got promoted from the Adelante. They only won the one game and that was somehow against Madrid!! Coming up are Oviedo, Alcocórn and Rayo I sold Hakan Payasli to Betis in January because of Abbott’s purchase, he was so bad for them that he was voted the worst signing for the whole season 8 of our players are off to the European Championships – 2*ITA, FRA (Ban injured), BOS, GER, NED, POL, ESP Last Season’s Aims Title Challenge – KIND OF – we never actually made it to the top position but we kept close to Barcelona all season and only because they are insanely good did we not win it Champions League Semi-Finals – SUCCESS - and if we had turned up in the 2nd leg we could have made the final Do Better Against Big Sides – SUCCESS – no defeats although if we had turned the 2 draws against Barcelona into wins we would have won the title The Coming Season’s Aims Win The Title – it will be our 15th season in La Liga and it must surely be time, we have been runners-up 3 times and only lost 1 game last season, surely Barcelona can’t be as good again (please, please) Win A Trophy – if it is not the title, then I would like the CL or even the Copa del Rey, we have lost 5 of the 7 finals we have been in (counting Supercups) so I would like this to change Trim The Squad – by squad I mean everyone who is under contract here even if they are not in the 1st team squad, we had 17 players out on loan last season, I would say that a maximum of 5 or 6 of those have a chance of making the 1st team squad one day whilst the majority aren’t in any way good enough 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th 25/26 – La Liga – 13th 26/27 – La Liga – 10th(Copa del Rey quarter finals) 27/28 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League) 28/29 – La Liga – 9th(Europa League semi finals, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 29/30 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League, Copa del Rey finalists) 30/31 – La Liga – 5th(Europa League winners, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 31/32 – La Liga – 4th(qualified for Champions League, Copa del Rey semi finals) 32/33 – La Liga – 2nd(Champions League runners-up, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 33/34 – La Liga – 2nd(Champions League semi-finals, Copa del Rey winners) 34/35 – La Liga – 3rd(Champions League quarter-finals, Copa del Rey quarter-finals) 35/36 – La Liga – 2nd(Champions League semi-finals, Copa del Rey runners-up) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Murcia (11th) – (A4-1, H5-1) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Barcelona (1st) – (H1-1, A0-0) – only team we did not beat – or Las Palmas (5th) – (A1-2 H2-0) – only team we lost to Best 11 – despite winning the Player of the Year award, Rico is not here! Overall Best 11 Francisco and Keita in... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 2025 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 2031 334 15 56 - 17 7.29 Bruno Ban FRA/CRO D C 2026 299 32 8 - 48 7.63 Sascha Müller CHI/GER AM C / ST 2025 274 94 34 - 17 7.11 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 2031 271 15 31 - 19 7.33 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 2025 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Kosta Gligic SRB M / AM C 2026 258 58 73 - 18 7.34 Mohamed Benali BEL/MOR DM / M C 2025 2035 242 5 17 - 2 7.08 Arnaud Tarfaïa FRA DM / M / AM RC 2028 227 16 29 - 6 7.20 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 2027 206 2 19 - 4 7.05 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Frank Nørgaard DEN GK 2023 2034 193 - - 195 0 6.92 Ekaitz Zurro ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2029 191 85 36 - 15 7.35 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Erik Jansen NED D C 2028 185 5 1 - 21 7.55 Tomislav Masic CRO M C 2029 182 9 26 - 14 7.40 Oscar Riveros PAR/POR D / WB L 2028 2034 178 2 19 - 2 7.12 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 2026 159 5 3 - 17 7.47 Gerrit Janssen NED M C 2030 162 29 24 - 12 7.40 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Eneko Calvo ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2027 2032 147 47 38 - 7 7.17 Fábio Roberto BRA/ESP AM RL / ST 2022 2028 143 43 20 - 5 7.04 Walter Carcélen ECU/ESP GK 2026 148 - - 131 0 6.96 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Adin Dzeko BOS ST 2028 139 54 35 - 11 7.19 Hazem Abdel Gawad BEL/EGY D C 2022 2029 138 7 1 - 8 7.25 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Jonathan Saraniti ITA D RL / WB L 2029 134 4 13 - 6 7.18 Pape Diallo FRA/SEN M / AM C 2023 2027 132 16 21 - 6 7.25 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Omar Silvani ARG/ESP D / DM / M C 2025 2030 130 5 2 - 25 7.70 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Emile Dumont BEL DM / M C 2026 2031 122 1 7 - 6 7.25 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Javi Luque ESP D RC 2022 2026 106 3 9 - 4 7.03 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 Ousmane Keita FRA/SEN D RLC 2029 103 5 2 - 10 7.47 Elie Lecomte FRA/POR M / AM LC 2027 2034 103 19 22 - 4 7.22 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Francisco ESP M / AM C 2031 102 19 18 - 4 7.18 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted August 1, 2014 Author Share Posted August 1, 2014 La Liga – Summer 2036 Another eventful Summer and not all of it was good. It started off with the worst news. The media started it by linking our stunning GK, Tozzi, to Man City for £18m. I checked and he had a minimum release clause of £28m so I was not unduly worried. In any case, I offered him a new contract because, even without the clause, he deserved it. However, whilst I was waiting for him to accept it, Man City inevitably jumped in with a £27m offer . Which, as it was double the wages I offered him, he accepted. That is the most depressed I have been about a sale since Matola’s departure all the way back in 2029. That meant I needed a new GK, although if I did not find good one I could always stick with the experienced and reliable Carcélen for a little while. Thankfully, I managed to find a good one as a Turkish guy came in from Galatasaray for exactly 25% of what Tozzi left for. There were 2 other players who left on minimum release clauses this Summer, although thankfully neither of them was too disastrous. First up Valencia offered £13.5m for Gjondeda, who only arrived last Summer and was our 4th choice ST last season. I knew of his clause and could probably have renegotiated his contract but I was happy enough to let him leave for that price. Not a bad return for one year’s work. Next up Chelsea started sniffing around Joel Noyes, our American backup DMC. He had a clause of £22m but was only willing to renegotiate to £26m and he wanted £30k more per week for that. No thanks. Finally Chelsea did offer the requisite amount so off he went. We gave Chelsea £45m for 2 of their squad members last season so it is nice of them to start to repay the favour. All the other sales were encouraged by me and were all either backup squad members or players who had been out on loan for ages. Noteworthy were Parente and Escrivá who were signed up as youngsters several years ago but never quite broke thru and Toni, our star youth product from 5 years ago who had not entirely turned out as I hoped. Apart from the GK, the only arrivals until deadline day were 5 teenagers. Then on deadline day, I decided to take some action. I had squad space and I was not very happy at entering the season with a very unspectacular youth product as a 4th choice ST nor did I think playing a versatile DC at DR was acceptable for a theoretical title contender. So in came one French ST and one Dutch DR who had both been on my shortlist for years and years. £28.5m they cost. Transfers – £40m profit The Incomers Sotiris Oikonomidis, Iván Portillo, Eduardo Checa – all young, all cheap, especially the Greek, Portillo definitely looks like the most promising, whilst with Carcélen getting on a bit we definitely need some backup GK competition so maybe the Greek has a chance, with Checa it is impossible to say Roberto Barretta, Steffen Klemm – my scouts found Barretta whilst my DoF signed up Klemm, safe to say the former is more promising, in fact Barretta could be a potential superstar, he is only 15 and if he develops as should then who knows, he needs to improve his mental stats a bit though, I doubt Klemm will ever play for the 1st team but we can judge again after 1 U19 season and a couple of loan spells Abdullah Öztürk – the new GK, he is clearly nowhere near as good as Tozzi, he will clearly never be as good as Tozzi will become but he is not bad at all, in fact my coaches like him more than my scouts did, as he only speaks Turkish and we have no other Turkish speakers in the squad I would like him to settle in a bit before playing too regularly, he will rotate with Carcélen this season before becoming definitive 1st choice the next season Gérald Rey – looks like a great prospect even if he hardly played for Lille, he had 3 very prolific loan spells in Ligue 2 and the Belgian top flight, obviously those leagues are a bit below La Liga but my scouts feel that he will be good enough and have continually done ever since they first found him 3 years ago, I agree with them, he will be battling with Bariri for the backup ST role Maarten Willems – another who has been on my radar for a long while, but this guy has turned out better than their initial reports from 3-4 years ago, and when I was looking thru my shortlist for DRs this Summer I was shocked at how great he had turned out, it took a bit of negotiation to get him but he should be worth it, he looks like a fantastic DR and on top of that he looks like a great DC as well, at over 6 foot he should be losing many headers which my fullbacks normally do, he goes straight into the 1st team and I am looking forward to seeing what he can do To The Faithful Departed Sascha Müller (career) – a brilliant player and a great servant to the club, our 1st ever big signing costing £8.5m 11.5 years ago and although it took him a while to shine he certainly did in the end, he was more or less a 1st choice for a couple of years but did not do too well so became a backup for a couple of years whilst Cissé was here and then after his departure finally he showed his class scoring 30 goals in 2 seasons, he then continued being very solid until age caught up a bit, he scored a lot of different types of goals but he was stunning freekick taker, I did not count but he must have scored something approaching 30 whilst here, I thought at 34 and hardly playing last year that he might retire but he signed a 6 month contract with his original Chilean club and promptly scored a hat-trick on his debut, I hope he continues in that vein for the final part of his career Salvatore Tozzi (career) – he only played 1 season here but what a season it was, clean sheets in over 70% of his games, he was the main reason we conceded so few, he was the best GK in Spain and the CL, my scouts were universal in telling me that he was going to be a superstar when they found him at 17 and they were right, he is well on his way to becoming the best GK in the world, and I am pretty distressed that he won’t be doing that here, he really is a once in a generation player and I would have done anything to keep him but he was never going to turn Man City down Burim Gjondeda (career) – not much to say here, arrived on a free, had 1 year as a good 4th choice ST, playing mainly in Europe and the Copa del Rey and doing pretty well, I was perfectly happy to keep him but his release clause got activated, even without it I would have negotiated the offer at the very least, he could turn out to be a stunning player but with Zurro and Dzeko here he was never going to get a chance to be 1st choice so it is probably a move that suits everyone Edith Escrivá (career) – came in as a 16yo 7 years ago, incredibly the same time as Keita, Zurro and Masic(!), he has developed fantastically over time but I never really had enough confidence in him, after finishing in the U19s he did a 2 year tour of our feeder clubs before being a solid backup for one year, however I then decided to get rid last Summer, I failed in that mission but did get over £1m for a loan spell, I succeeded in selling him this time, he should do well at Las Palmas who have a pretty good side at the moment Joel Noyes (career) – came in from New York when they bizarrely released him 4 years ago, he was never anything but a backup but part of me wishes I had given him a chance as he had (and still has) a lot of potential, with the arrival of Abbott he was never going to get a chance so I was not too dismayed when Chelsea offered his release clause, plus it frees up a non-EU spot for the next 6 years it would have taken him to get an EU-passport, I wish him well in England Ruggero Parente (career) – an odd career here, his 1st season was ruined by injury so I sent him on loan the next year, then he was a backup, then he was back out on loan and then he was a rarely used backup last season, in amongst all that he bizarrely picked up an Italian cap, if he had stayed fit the 1st year who knows what would have happened, as it was he did not really progress so I am happy to get the money I did for him, he might do well in Italy Toni (career) – our 1st ever great youth product but one who ultimately did not really fulfil his potential, I had visions of him being our DR for 10 years, as it was he was a perennial backup who did perform really well one season, well enough to be 3rd in the Young Player of the Year award, he never disappointed but his attributes did not really progress much over time and an unheralded youth product from the next year actually overtook him, hence it was time to cash in, I am very happy with the money I got for him A bit more activity than usual with 6 squad members leaving and they being replaced with 3 signings, 2 ex-loanees and Antunez who could not be registered last season. Although I am not 100% sure that the squad is actually stronger than it was before the Summer that is mainly because of Tozzi’s departure. Apart from that I am very happy with it, especially as I have finally found another brilliant DR who, after the minimum release clause departures of Matola, Cancian and Conrad, hopefully sticks around for a while. Whether this is a strong enough squad to challenge Barcelona (who spent nearly £40m on an uncapped Dutch ST this Summer!) remains to be seen. The highlight of pre-season was that, following USA! USA!! USA!!! last Summer, we headed off to China this time for some friendlies, all of which we won. The La Liga season started with a nice visit from freshly promoted Oviedo where Gligic stroked home a fine first half hat-trick. We could have done without our Polish MC getting 2 yellows and conceding a late goal but I was not too bothered. We followed that up by going 2-0 up within 15 minutes at Sevilla. We again conceded a 2nd half goal but held on for a great win. Next up was a visit from Madrid. Dzeko scored, they equalised, Dzeko scored was the 1st half. We were holding on nicely and then with 15 minutes to go Dzeko completed his hat-trick (our 2nd in 3 games!) and Gray completed the rout. Wow. That leaves us as the only club with a 100% record (Barcelona lost at home to Murcia in their 1st match) whilst Madrid are bottom. Admittedly they have only played 2 games because of the Supercopa but they did lose each leg of the contest 4-1 to Barcelona. 3 4-1 defeats in a row is not really Madrid form. It is very funny though. Champions League 1st seeds again and we got a respectable draw although Milan who are 2nd seeds did the double over us 2 years back in the group stage. We did the double over 3rd seeds Marseille 3 years ago whilst we have never faced Standard Liege before. One anomaly is that we have still never played a German side. Notes Before his sale, Gjondeda was in the UEFA U21 Championships Best 11, along with 2 players we sold last Summer: Noè and Klinger The bookies like Murcia again for some reason, they are joint 2nd favourites with us for La Liga I sold Armand Fofana to Betis 2 years ago for £5m, he moved this Summer to Bayern for £18.75m, hmm. Luis Enrique left his role as the Spain boss and I was the favourite. They offered it to me but I turned it down. Thiago got it instead Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted August 4, 2014 Author Share Posted August 4, 2014 La Liga – January 2036 We made it 4 wins in a row with a stunning performance at Valencia as our 3 attackers got a goal each. We weren’t great at home to Murcia but got the win and followed that by destroying Getafe at their place. We were pretty ropey at home to Granada and away at Celta but Dzeko kept on banging in the goals so we got 2 more wins. Our 9th straight win was an absolute massacre at home to Alcorcón as Dzeko got a hat-trick to continue his ridiculous streak. We scored another 5 at Espanyol for no.10 as Dzeko scored his 14th and 15th goals of the season. We needed a very late winner at home to Betis to continue the streak. That made it 15 La Liga wins in a row which is one behind the all-time record. To equal the record we needed to win at Rayo but it was about time that things went a bit wrong. We conceded a comedy own goal after 5 minutes to go behind for the 1st time all season. It took until the 86th minute for Dzeko to equalise so we kept the unbeaten record at least. We weren’t too great at Las Palmas either but escaped with another draw. And we certainly weren’t convincing when Levante visited either but scraped a win although we lost Zurro for over 4 months with a broken foot. Oh, and Barcelona won 7-1 at 3rd placed Zaragoza! That was our 38th La Liga match without defeat which equalled the La Liga record, dating from 1980. And a struggle past Albacete got us the record. Next up was one of the big matches of the season as we visited the Nou Camp. We played pretty well and a 2nd half Gligic goal got us a deserved draw. With surprising ease we thrashed Zaragoza before we visited Atletico... And ohmygod, what an absolute disaster. They destroyed us. I have no idea how but it was goal-less at half time, they had numerous chances and missed a penalty. But they soon made up for it in the 2nd half by scoring 4! Oh dear . That is our worst defeat against any side apart from Barca for 13 years and after 18 games we have now equalled the number of goals we conceded all last season. And it was the end of our 41 match unbeaten run in La Liga and our 1st defeat in any competition for 29 games. Thankfully our next match was at home to bottom club Mirandés and a 5-1 win was a great way to bounce back. And Barcelona lost as well. And when they drew their next match and we were 3-0 up at half time at Oviedo all was fine with the world. They then got 1 back, then 2, then equalised in the last 10 minutes. But no worries, we got a penalty. Which Gligic missed! *expletive* Our last match of January was at the Bernebeu. Madrid are pretty (and amusingly) bad this season. They took the lead, had a man sent off and then scored a 2nd half own goal. A draw is more or less acceptable. So we find ourselves still in 1st place. Barcelona do have a game in hand and are scoring over 3 goals at game and not conceding many either but we have the points. Although we are top, we have not really played very well the last couple of months, only 4 wins in our last 10 matches. Plus we have the exact same record that we had at this stage last season and our defensive record is not great. I should not complain too loudly though, we are top! And the main reason for that is Adin Dzeko. He has finally broken free and gone crazy. He scored 15 in our 1st 10 games, which is doubly impressive given that he did not score in our 1st 2 matches. He has slowed down a bit recently but is still averaging a goal a game. The 2nd reason is Gligic who is averaging over a goal or assist per game and is having his best ever season here. We can only try to drop a few points as possible and hope that Barcelona slip up from time to time. In all honesty I am not that confident, they really have an insanely good side. Oh, and lets all laugh at Madrid! No idea why they have not sacked their manager yet. Copa del Rey We got a mid-table Segunda B club which was an ideal start to the competition. 2 teams of varying experience easily strolled past them. I thought Zaragoza would be a more difficult task but a 4-1 home victory, with new signing Rey getting a hat-trick, made things easy for the 2nd leg. Granada were next up and we destroyed them 4-0 at home to again set up an easy 2nd leg, albeit one we did actually lose this time. In the semis we got drawn with Madrid which, given how bad they have been this season, would be a bit easier than normal. The 1st leg was in the Bernebeu and they took an early lead, we equalised and they got a winner. Not 100% ideal but we got an away goal at least. On the island, we got an early goal thru Gligic who then scored a penalty just before half-time to send us thru to our 4th final and 2nd straight. And this time there is no Barcelona. Atletico knocked them out in the quarter-finals and then breezed past Murcia in the semis. It should be easier but then again we saw what they did to us earlier this season... Champions League We started off with a trip to the San Siro and came away a draw. Marseille were easily beaten before we were not exactly convincing in Belgium. We were certainly convincing when Standard came to our place, 7-0 being our all-time record victory. We then beat Milan to qualify and top the group. We easily beat Marseille to finish miles clear in 1st. We have Juventus in the next round. We beat them 3 years back at the same stage of the competition. January Transfer Window Much quieter January this year. Just the one arrival and that was of the 3rd of the Mexican teenagers. Gerardo Josimar Herrera arrives from Monterry for a much smaller amount than I remember signing him for! He is also very promising, already a Mexican international and plays in a position where we will need players once Gligic retires. As I have space and one non-EU spot free he is in the squad so he might actually play a game or 2 this season. Otherwise it will be 6 months in the U19s and then probably a loan spell. There was one sale as well and it was pretty significant. Lars Lange had been the 3rd / 4th choice DC for a couple of years and playing very well but his lack of versatility meant that he was already going to be the DC sold once all my wonderkids starting performing out on loan. Plus he was wanting a new contract with a massive wage increase. Hence I was going to put some feelers out this Summer. However, he requested a transfer due to the lack of a new contract and Arsenal jumped in and offered his minimum release clause. I could probably have got a little bit more for him if I could have negotiated but it is a reasonable price. I would have rather kept him until the Summer as that leaves us with only 3 1st team DCs. However our 18yo youth product DC is coming along very nicely and some 1st team football would do him wonders, plus both DRs can also play at DC so I should be OK. To The Faithful Departed Lars Lange (career) – signed without any fanfare at all 6.5 years ago and even after a season in the U19s and one on loan in the Bundesliga I had no high hopes for him, just the usual one season in the squad and being sold, however Vincent got sold instead so suddenly he became a valuable member of the squad, he was never 1st choice but he was a great backup who for the last 2 seasons actually had the highest rating of any player, he also became a German international, however I have hoards of promising DCs out on loan who I want to play and we need to keep selling the odd player here and there to keep our finances in order, Keita’s versatility was always going to mean that it was Lange who would be leaving at some stage, we got a good price albeit his minimum release clause, I wish him well in London Notes Bruno Ban is on the bench of the World Team of the Year Both he and Zurro were nominated for the Ballon d’Or Filipe Fonseca, my young AMC who signed 18 months ago became our youngest ever goalscorer in one of the Copa 2nd legs My GK, Carcelén, bizarrely requested a transfer as apparently we have not improved our standing in the game. No idea but it did not affect him too much and he removed himself from the list a couple of months later There was an even more bizarre transfer request as Tarfaia, all of 33 years old and over 8 years in Ibiza, suddenly became homesick and wanted a move, he went back to France for a month and is now leaving on a free at the end of the season We are expanding our stadium again, it will now fill a third of the whole of Ibiza Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted August 6, 2014 Author Share Posted August 6, 2014 Champions League 2036-2037 First up we had Juventus and a trip to Turin. And we were great. Early on in the 2nd half, Keita headed in from a corner. They got a penalty with 5 minutes to go but Grimaldi (our ex-player) missed it, then we went up the other end and Sesma (5th choice ST and youth product) slotted home. With a 2 away goals, I did not feel in too much danger for the home leg. I did not need as we played out the dullest goal-less draw for many a time. We did not get a good draw at all as first up we had Madrid in the quarter-finals and then, assuming they beat Arsenal, we would have the pleasure of facing Barcelona in the semis. Great. We were great at the Bernebeu as an early Gligic goal gave us a fantastic away win. Meanwhile Barcelona beat Arsenal 5-0, hmm. The 2nd leg was a crazy match. A fantastic Masic free-kick and a Gray tap-in gave us a seemingly insurmountable 3-0 lead on aggregate after only 8 minutes. However, Madrid thought otherwise as they equalised before half-time and then took the lead just after. We were still leading on away goals but were panicking a bit. Thankfully an own-goal with 20 minutes to go calmed things down a bit and we went thru. Barcelona visited the island for the 1st leg which was a very nervy affair. We had most of the chances but could never break thru and so it ended goal-less. Safe to say that I was not very confident heading to the Nou Camp without a lead, the only thing going for us was that they did not have any away goal. Again it was a nervy match. The first half was goal-less. And then just after half-time, a Gray shot bounced down off the crossbar, hitting their GK on the way into the net for a lucky own goal. They now needed 2, they did not even get one. CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL NUMBER 2 HERE WE COME . We play Man U in Rome the week after the Copa del Rey final. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted August 7, 2014 Author Share Posted August 7, 2014 Copa del Rey Final – 2036-2037 Atlético Madrid this time... How we got there is outlined above. Before beating Barcelona and then Murcia in the quarters and semis they had faced Rayo and Celta. Lineups We are not that far away from full strength. Both Dzeko and Gligic are still recovering from injury so Rey and Gray come in. It was a toss up between Bariri and Zurro for the other ST position but the latter has just come back from 4 months out so I went with the former Madrid seem to be close to full strength but thankfully their best ST is suspended. Their better players are Gioacchino Dragone (a very good DMC), Mirko Di Constanza (a great young winger on loan from Roma) and Emilio Aurelio (a solid Argentine ST who spent years at Real Madrid as a youngster but never played but who has finally shown some form). We are favourites and are on paper a much better team but that did not stop them beating us 4-0 earlier on this season. 1st half 22 mins – Di Constanza receives a pass in our half, strolls thru a non-existant defence and slides the ball home for a far too easy goal, 0-1 28 mins – Ban brings down their ST in the box, Milenkovic (DC) makes no mistake, 0-2 33 mins – easy save for Ozturk 34 mins – Bariri heads against the bar 44 mins – Masic injured, Skowron on Half-time – well, that was one of the worst halves of football that we have played this season, coincidently 2 of the other ones were also against Atlético 2nd half 51 mins – following some comedy defending, Gray beautifully curls one in from the edge of the box, 1-2 54 mins – Gray shoots just wide following a great 50 yard run 70 mins – Zurro comes on for Bariri 84 mins – now Skowron is injured, Franchetto comes on at DMC, Abbott moves to MC 90 mins – another cup defeat We were pretty dire, the worst we have played in our 4 Copa finals and definitely deserved to lose. So that is 3 out of 4 finals lost . Oh, and Masic and Skowron each broke a foot and both miss the next 4 months which means they won’t even be fit for the start of next season. FFS. Let’s see if we can do better in the Champions League final next weekend... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted August 10, 2014 Author Share Posted August 10, 2014 Champions League Final – 2032-2033 Rome, Italy... How we got there is outlined above. Man U got thru a group containing Leverkusen, Rosenberg and Shakhtar with 5 wins, 1 defeat and 2 goals conceded (0-2 in Leverkusen). In the knockout stages they had serious problems away from home. 0-2 in Valencia was followed by 3-0 in Manchester. A 5-2 win at home to Inter was followed by 2-3 in Milan (and they were 3-0 down with 20 minutes to go!). In the semis they lost 3-0 to Chelsea and then somehow won 4-0 in Manchester Lineups We are relatively full strength again. The 2 MC injuries from last week mean that Antunez moves to DLP and Janssen comes in as a BBM. Gray is suspended so a not-100% fit Gligic comes in. Upfront Zurro and Dzeko come in. Man U are fully fit and have a scary team and squad. On paper they look better than us. However, we are actually favourites. That said, we have a 1-2-1 record against them and although they knocked out of the CL semis last year, we beat them at the same stage 4 years ago. 4 of their best players are: Mohammed Ouattara – Man U have 2 Ivorian DCs (one is at DL in this match), both of whom have been on my shortlist in the past, I followed this guy’s career from Norway to Switzerland and Turkey before he signed for Man U on a free 4 years ago, I already had some great DCs so felt I did not need him, not entirely sure that was a wise decision Jé – a brilliant MC, I really wanted to try to buy him 3 years back when he left PSV but I had no EU spaces in my squad so could not bid for him when Man U did, whether he would have joined us is another matter, he is great player and he only cost them £12.5m, a total bargain Stamatis Mavromatis – a fantastic winger who Arsenal paid Spartak Moscow £40.5m(!!) for in January 2025, he certainly played nowhere near good enough to justify that amount and in 2031 Man U bought him for £28.5m, he has played much better for them Christian Jorge – one of the best STs in world football and he has been for the last 8-9 years, he moved to Man U 6 years ago from Boca where I had tried for ages to buy him, unfortunately he had 0 interest in joining us 1st half 20 mins – Jorge Luis gives away a penalty, Cheek (DMC) converts, 0-1 42 mins – Janssen is injured so Franchetto comes on at DMC and Abbott moves to MC Half-time – what a horrible half of football, we are not too bad at the back but our AMC and 2 STs have been awful so far 2nd half 52 mins – easy Ozturk save from a freekick 53 mins – good Ozturk save from a shot from their DL 68 mins – a knackered Gligic who is not playing well at all is off, Rey comes on and Zurro moves to AMC 72 mins – their GK makes a fantastic save from a Dzeko shot 81 mins – Zurro passes to Rey who creates space in the box and fires home, great goal, 1-1 83 mins – easy Ozturk save from a header, lucky as the player was totally unmarked 84 mins – from the subsequent corner, Ozturk makes a fantastic save from a header 87 mins – Dzeko has a great chance but a good save from their GK 89 mins – ball breaks free to Jé in the box who slams the ball home, F*CK , 1-2 Full-time – and another Cup final defeat , 4 out of 6 now, 6 out of 8 if you count Supercups. Although the stats are quite even, we did not play very well at all and we were pretty lucky to equalise in the first place. That said, conceding another decisive goal in the last 5 minutes of a CL final is a bitter pill to swallow. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted August 11, 2014 Author Share Posted August 11, 2014 La Liga – 2036/2037 February started with a magnificent 4-0 win over Sevilla, with Dzeko netting his 3rd hat-trick of the season. They were in 3rd and actually not too far away from us so it really was a great win. Next up we were solid against Valencia. Meanwhile Barcelona had won their game in hand, which was an El Classico, so were 1 point clear. A visit to Murcia was not too happy as they opened the scoring with a ridiculous 40 yard freekick and then, after we got a quickfire double, they equalised with a penalty which was stupidly given away. 3 points behind. A visit to Granada was not much more fun either. We got the same 2-2 draw but had to come from 2-0 behind and equalised with a goal in the 94th minute. At least Barcelona drew comically with a horrible Alcocórn side so it felt like 2 points gained. Sort of. We were lucky against Getafe as they went 2-1 up with a penalty early in the 2nd half but we got 3 goals in the last 15 minutes for the win. 6 goals conceded in 3 matches... We finally started to play well as we got 3 straight wins scoring 8 and conceding none. Unfortunately Barcelona also won their 3 games. And then boom, it went wrong. Betis equalised with a 2nd half penalty, we lost our 100% home record as it took a late goal to equalise a(NOTHER) penalty to relegation-threatened Rayo and then Las Palmas visit and escape with a draw by coming from 2-0 down equalising with a(NOTHER F**KING) penalty. 3 games,3 penalties conceded, 6 points lost, 3 Barcelona wins, 9 points behind, no chance of the title. And oh look, we conceded a penalty for the 4th game in a row at Levante. And with 5 minutes to go, it was still 0-1. And we somehow left with a 3-1 win. Not that it made any difference as Barcelona did this to Zaragoza to complete a 15-1 double over them. Equal parts WOW and YIKES! We thrashed Albacete before Barcelona visited for what was no longer the title decider everyone had assumed it would be. They scored, we equalised, they scored, we missed a penalty, they won La Liga. We won our last 3 games, the last one was only important as it was a chance to get prove that we could at least beat Atletico although winning could have let Madrid into the CL places. We won, Madrid also won but amusingly finished 5th. We finish 2nd again and it was a season of 2 halves as you can see. Hmm, although we were not as good as last season, 7 fewer points and 19 more goals conceded, I am not sure we had much chance to beat Barcelona, even with the 11 straight wins to start the season. They are just consistently too good. They broke the La Liga scoring record (Madrid 2011-12) and the only points they dropped in their last 20 games was that draw at Alcocórn and a defeat in the last match of the season when they did not care. And for the 2nd season in a row, we lost 6 games and failed to win anything . On the plus side, Dzeko was magnificent until Christmas. On the negative side, he did not score in the last 10 matches. Maybe I should have rested him a bit more. The problem with that was that Zurro was out for 4 months and neither Bariri or Rey ever started scoring that regularly. I am blaming the defensive record on the fact that the new GK needed time to settle, also the Lange sale in January did not help. Nobody arriving in the Summer but I can see a few squad members leaving, 2 of the older ones are leaving at the end of their contract whilst Janssen, Saraniti and 2 youth products could all be sold. None played a huge amount last season so to replace them I see some of the youth who have been out on loan for a season or 2 (or 3 in a couple of cases) being in the squad next year. Final Squad – a few changes Summary Finances – not bad, a big transfer profit helped Transfers – Willems was unbelievably good, Rey was solid, Herrera impressed in his few games and in the U19s whilst Ozturk is already a good GK and will be even better in a couple of years, none of the youths played a match Here are some of the better players: Best GKs – Abdullah Özturk – a good solid 1st season here, clearly he is not as good as Tozzi and that showed in the number of goals conceded, I am hoping that with a season of settling in, learning the language and generally becoming a better player will result in a better second season, with Carcelén getting really old he has no real competition so he has the chance to really stake his claim to be our keeper for a few more years yet, at least until Jenkins, our youth product, gets good (assuming he does) Best Fullback – Maarten Willems – wow, what a season, pretty much the best debut season any player has ever had for us, I was a bit concerned that I might have overpaid for him, I certainly did not, he was the best DR in the division, won our Player of the Year award and was generally our most consistent player, best of all considering our DR issues over the years, he has a monstrous release clause, finally I might have a fantastic DR who will stay here for a long time Best Central Defender – Bruno Ban – and again very good, that is probably the most repetitive sentence I have written so far, had another couple of injuries so missed a fair few games, despite having just turned 33 he has still maintained all of his ability, his physicals are just declining a bit, he will remain 1st choice for at least a little longer, I just have to make the right decision as to when to fade him out, he has 3 years left on his contract and unless he retires in the meantime he will at least stay until then 2nd Best Central Defender – Ricardo Rico – not quite as good as the season before but on paper he is now our best DC and still only 20 and has not yet reached his full potential, he really is an incredible player, he is also our vice-captain, the lower rating was essentially because we conceded more goals so hopefully if we can correct that (with his help of course) he will start to play a bit better, he should be our 1st choice DC for a ridiculous number of years to come Best Defensive Midfielder – Matthew Abbott – a very good first full season, gradually paying off all the money it took to get him here, no goals or spectacular performances but a few assists and a good rating, a plus is the total lack of injuries he has had since he joined, bit surprised that England has still not capped him, more of the same with maybe the odd goal would be nice Best Central Midfielder – Tomislav Masic – another great season, a couple of goals, a few assists and some great MC performances, he did have a few more injuries than I would have liked though, I am realising that he is never going to be prolific in front of goal and he does not get too many assists as his is normally the pass before the assist which never gets counted, soon to be 31 but if he continues like this he will be here a while longer 2nd Best Central Midfielders – Francisco Antunez and Lucasz Skowron – and is Masic ever falters, I have these 2 great players to jump right in, Antunez could not play in La Liga last season because of too many non-EUs but he certainly made up for it this time, after a slightly slow start he really started playing magnificently, goals, assists, everything, he is improving all of the time and in a couple of years will be absolutely magnificent, one small issue is his £28.5m release clause, he signed a new contract in January but would not budge on this, I guess another new contract will be offered soon, meanwhile Skowron was also great, a little bit injured blighted but when he did play he was stunning, showing that the money we paid for him was worth it, hopefully he will play more next season, MC is in good hands whenever Masic starts to decline Best Attacking Midfielder – Kosta Gligic – ohmygod, what a season, his 11th here and his best, pretty much a goal or assist a game, his best totals in both, he was unbelievably good, the best AMC in the division by far, I was certainly not expecting him to be this awesome, and on top of that he pretty much avoided injury all season as well, given his advancing age, I can’t expect the same again but he will definitely start 1st choice and we will go from there, like Ban he is under contract for another 3 years and if he does not retire beforehand he will be around at least until then 2nd Best Attacking Midfielder – Tommy Gray – 2nd season here and he was brilliant, it looks like he needed the usual one season to settle and then show us all why we bought him, he did get off to a slightly slow start but once we hit the new year he was unstoppable and pretty much the best player here, as Gligic is being even more awesome than usual I can’t guarantee him a 1st team spot just yet but I know I have the perfect replacement when Gligic does decline / retire Best Striker – Adin Dzeko – he finally showed us what we all thought he would one day be capable of, that said his 2nd half of the season was probably worse than his previous seasons, he got off to ridiculous 15 goals in 10 games start and continued in that vein until Christmas and then it sort of petered out a little bit, he was still scoring, just not as regularly as before, he did break both our overall scoring record and the La Liga one, both previously held by Zurro, I hope that the first half of his season in indicative of things to come 2nd Best Strikers – Ekaitz Zurro and Gérald Rey – Zurro unfortunately had another long term injury and missed half the season but just like the season before he played so well in the matches he was fit for that he deserves a mention, mainly because he assisted so many goals, however he is 30, seemingly injury prone and has a huge contract that is running out in 2 years time, hence it is entirely possible that I might try to sell him soon, probably next Summer, a shame as I want to keep him but I dread to think what wages he will want and I have some more fantastic youngsters lurking in the wings, one of which is Rey who had a great 1st season, a very slow start was followed by him getting his scoring boots on in the Cup and then transferring that form to La Liga, played a good number of games and scored a fair number of goals, not sure how regularly he will play next season but he is here for the long term, he was also voted La Liga’s 2nd best signing Youth Candidates – nothing much to shout about again. Francesco Gómez is the best but not only is he not exactly great, he also plays in a position we don’t use. Notes Our U19s won their league this season, for the 4th time Willems and Gligic made the Team of the Year Our Argentine ST, on loan at Las Palmas, won the Young Player of the Year Award, with Rico finishing in 3rd Speaking of Las Palmas, they won the Europa League this season, with our 2 loanee STs playing well As mentioned, Madrid were historically bad this year and sacked their manager in February, I actually got offered the role but obviously I turned it down, it went to the Bayern manager During the international week just after the end of the season, Ban won his 97th cap for France and, finally, scored his 1st ever goal for them Coming up are Malaga, Sociedad and Puertollano I was runner-up in the Manager of the Year Our youth product ST on loan at Zaragoza was the 3rd best Spanish scorer in La Liga this season. Despite that, he will be sold Aside from the 2 Santa Eulalia records that Dzeko broke he was also the 2nd top scorer in La Liga and also the 2nd best in Europe, yes that is our (easy to forget) ex-ST Grimaldi in 3rd place, the 100 goals he scored in 4 seasons is making my decision to sell him for £2.5m look a little foolish :o Despite the stadium expansion announced in January, the board announced another one in May, guess this over-rides the previous one Last Season’s Aims Win The Title – NO – for the 1st half of the season, we looked like that we would have a great chance of doing so but we faded away and Barcelona did not Win A Trophy – THE WORST KIND OF FAILURE – losing 2 finals just makes this worse, plus finishing runner-up in La Liga as well Trim The Squad – SORT OF – we actually had 19 players out on loan this season, however over half have some possibility of playing for us plus most of the others are youth products who I will always give a loan spell or 2 to until selling for profit, we did sell 7 players who were no longer wanted as well plus I can see a good 5 or 6 of the loanees being sold this Summer as well The Coming Season’s Aims Win The Title – if only we can play a bit better after the Christmas break Win A Trophy –if only we can win at least one final and improve our record of 2 wins in 8 finals Hold Onto More Leads – we drew 10 matches this season, we led in 6 of them and all were against distinctly inferior sides to ourselves, chucking away leads to Madrid and Barcelona is more acceptable than doing it to Rayo and Oviedo 13/14 – Segunda B3 – 7th 14/15 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 15/16 – Segunda B3 – 2nd (lost in Second Phase Playoff First Round) 16/17 – Segunda B3 – 8th 17/18 – Segunda B3 – 5th 18/19 – Segunda B3 – 1st (promoted, won First Phase Playoff Final) 19/20 – Adelante – 9th 20/21 – Adelante – 14th 21/22 – Adelante – 2nd (promoted) 22/23 – La Liga – 12th 23/24 – La Liga – 14th 24/25 – La Liga – 14th 25/26 – La Liga – 13th 26/27 – La Liga – 10th(Copa del Rey quarter finals) 27/28 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League) 28/29 – La Liga – 9th(Europa League semi finals, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 29/30 – La Liga – 5th(qualified for Europa League, Copa del Rey runners-up) 30/31 – La Liga – 5th(Europa League winners, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 31/32 – La Liga – 4th(qualified for Champions League, Copa del Rey semi finals) 32/33 – La Liga – 2nd(Champions League runners-up, Copa del Rey quarter finals) 33/34 – La Liga – 2nd(Champions League semi-finals, Copa del Rey winners) 34/35 – La Liga – 3rd(Champions League quarter-finals, Copa del Rey quarter-finals) 35/36 – La Liga – 2nd(Champions League semi-finals, Copa del Rey runners-up) 36/37 – La Liga – 2nd(Champions League runners-up, Copa del Rey runners-up) Team I Would Like To Play Every Week – Alcocórn (20th) – (H5-0, A3-0) Team I Would Like Not To Play Every Week – Rayo (18th :o) – (A1-1, A2-2) – one of only 2 teams we did not beat once in La Liga, Barca were the other but given our CL matches with them I can’t include them here, Atletico neither as we beat them in the season finale Best 11 Overall Best 11 – no changes No new arrivals... The 100 League Appearances Club NAME NAT POSITION JOINED LEFT APPS GLS ASTS CON MoM AvR Chori ESP M / AM C 2015 2025 356 108 74 - 30 7.29 Ayhan Topçu TUR/GER DM / M C 2019 2031 334 15 56 - 17 7.29 Bruno Ban FRA/CRO D C 2026 321 33 9 - 49 7.62 Kosta Gligic SRB M / AM C 2026 288 72 88 - 22 7.37 Sascha Müller CHI/GER AM C / ST 2025 2036 274 94 34 - 17 7.11 Brahim Saidi MOR/FRA M C 2020 2031 271 15 31 - 19 7.33 Moha MOR/ESP GK 2015 2025 270 - - 303 0 6.95 Mohamed Benali BEL/MOR DM / M C 2025 2035 242 5 17 - 2 7.08 Arnaud Tarfaïa FRA DM / M / AM RC 2028 234 16 29 - 6 7.19 Ekaitz Zurro ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2029 209 91 44 - 15 7.36 Bruno Perrin SUI D / WB L 2020 2027 206 2 19 - 4 7.05 Tomislav Masic CRO M C 2029 203 11 31 - 15 7.40 Luca Dos Santos FRA/WFI D C 2014 2019 201 23 6 - 40 7.58 Frank Nørgaard DEN GK 2023 2034 193 - - 195 0 6.92 Michaël Aubry FRA M C 2017 2023 190 11 33 - 9 7.28 Erik Jansen NED D C 2028 2035 185 5 1 - 21 7.55 Oscar Riveros PAR/POR D / WB L 2028 2034 178 2 19 - 2 7.12 Gerrit Janssen NED M C 2030 172 30 24 - 12 7.38 Adin Dzeko BOS ST 2028 172 81 45 - 19 7.26 Mario ESP DM / M C 2014 2019 167 12 20 - 3 7.03 Simão Martins POR/ESP ST 2013 2020 165 64 29 - 6 7.16 Tanausú Peraza ESP D C 2021 2026 159 5 3 - 17 7.47 Flavio Rocha POR DM / M C 2015 2022 159 8 24 - 4 7.18 Walter Carcélen ECU/ESP GK 2026 159 - - 140 0 6.97 Abdoul Karim Roger SUD/NED DM / M C 2015 2020 152 17 37 - 19 7.35 Marc Temme GER D RC 2016 2020 151 6 7 - 25 7.45 Jonathan Saraniti ITA D RL / WB L 2029 151 4 16 - 6 7.18 Eneko Calvo ESP/BAS AM C / ST 2027 2032 147 47 38 - 7 7.17 Fábio Roberto BRA/ESP AM RL / ST 2022 2028 143 43 20 - 5 7.04 Necati Zeybek TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2019 2023 142 13 7 - 7 7.29 Hazem Abdel Gawad BEL/EGY D C 2022 2029 138 7 1 - 8 7.25 Francesco Tedesco ITA D L 2015 2021 135 3 12 - 4 7.19 Pape Diallo FRA/SEN M / AM C 2023 2027 132 16 21 - 6 7.25 Milton Castro BOL/ESP D RC 2017 2023 131 5 10 - 5 7.07 Omar Silvani ARG/ESP D / DM / M C 2025 2030 130 5 2 - 25 7.70 Jaime Serrano ESP D / WB / M R 2013 2018 129 3 10 - 5 7.04 Ousmane Keita FRA/SEN D RLC 2029 128 5 3 - 12 7.41 Emile Dumont BEL DM / M C 2026 2031 122 1 7 - 6 7.25 Francesco Tarantino ITA ST / AM RL 2013 2017 118 53 35 - 10 7.25 Francisco ESP M / AM C 2031 110 20 18 - 4 7.16 Javi Luque ESP D RC 2022 2026 106 3 9 - 4 7.03 Zeynel Çavusoglu TUR/GER D / DM / M C 2017 2020 104 14 9 - 5 7.15 Elie Lecomte FRA/POR M / AM LC 2027 2034 103 19 22 - 4 7.22 David Garrido ESP D L 2013 2017 103 0 5 - 1 6.99 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted August 15, 2014 Author Share Posted August 15, 2014 La Liga – Summer 2037 A nice sedate Summer this time. Hardly anyone arrived and only those I wished to leave departed. On the incoming front, I bought 4 teenagers of which 2 are DCs, 1 a GK and one ST. In between all that, I bought another GK, not necessary but he was ridiculously cheap. That is now 7 that I own. First on the way out were Tarfaia and Francisco, both in their mid-30s and at the end of their contracts. I then started to disperse of some un-needed youth products: one went to Ireland, one to Austria, two to Oviedo and one to Puertollano. Lots of money came back in return. I had decided that it was time that Saraniti, one of our fullbacks, moved on. 8 years here and a permanent backup, time for someone younger to take his place. Inter paid £10m to take him off of my hands. I had the same feeling about Janssen, my Dutch MC; great performances on the field but never rated by coaches and I had some younger players to fill his role. I wanted to sell him in July but he was injured so I had to wait until the end of August to do so. I somehow convinced Leverkusen to pay £17m for him! I had tried all Summer to sell one of my youth products (he who was the 3rd top Spanish scorer last season) but there were no takers. Finally on deadline day Granada offered £3.5m for him so off he went. Transfers – large profit plus lots of youth products leaving, all of Folan, González, Sesma, Gárcia, Martínez and Banegas came up thru our youth system, over £12.5m coming in, makes it worth for me to even sign up the 2-star guys (only Mártinez had the potential to be a 1st-teamer when he came thru) The Incomers Berto Pérez, Yeser Keles, Miguel Iribar – all young, all pretty cheap, especially Keles, the 2 DCs look the most promising, especially Iribar, Pérez does not impress my coaches as much as he did my scouts, Keles has 2 seasons in the U19s, the other 2 have 3 seasons, so they all have a long time to improve and impress me before any concrete decisions on their future need to be made Adam Johnson, Wayne Jones – I did not need any more GKs but both were cheap and have promise, Johnson had been on my shortlist for a few years ever since coming thru the Stuttgart youth system(?!), they listed him this summer for a ridiculously low amount and I was never going to turn that down, doubt he will ever be 1st choice and he might just sit around for a couple of years before being sold for profit but he is worth having, meanwhile Jones becomes our 2nd teenage Welsh GK(!), Man U were willing to let him go pretty cheap so I jumped in, he is only 17 so could be anything but he has a lot of potential, the U19s followed by a loan spell and then we can see what the GK situation is at that stage To The Faithful Departed Arnaud Tarfaïa (career) – a mighty useful player he turned out to be, he came from France 9 years ago on a free and although he was only 1st choice in his 1st year here, his versatility meant that he often played more games than most of our 1st choice players, he was pretty much always our 1st backup MC and DMC and occasionally in injury crises he also played at AMC, and he always performed well and only in his last 2 seasons did he decline a bit and play a lot less, he was a great player to have around, he returned to France with Lens Francisco (career) – another useful player, never a star nor 1st choice for us but probably worth the £9.75m we paid for him, how much he played depended pretty much on how injured Gligic was, in his most injury prone 2 season period he played 2/3 of our matches, otherwise normally around half and mainly from the bench, he had one great season whilst the rest was fine, with Gray’s arrival he played a lot less over the last 2 seasons so it was time to go, he is now at Levante Iker Sesma (career) and Josep Maria Banegas (career) – both were 2-star potential STs when they came thru, both were overshadowed by other youngsters (respectively Toni – see last year’s sales and Martinez – see below) but you could say that both outperformed them, although neither hardly played for us (Banegas not even 1 minute), they both won awards and played brilliant out on loan in La Liga, unfortunately neither were ever going to turn out to be good enough for us so it was just time until we sold them, nearly £7m for them is good business, I wish them well and am curious to see how they do Jonathan Saraniti (career) – the perennial backup fullback, he was never really a 1st choice player he but his ability to play on both flanks meant he was often a regular, he was mainly behind Riveros and his most regular and best season was during Riveros’ last one when age caught up with him, with Jorge Luís’ arrival he was back to being backup, he was hitting 30 and in the last year of his contract so I thought it was a good idea to cash in and give a chance to a youngster or 2, I am very happy with the £10m I got for him Gonzalo Martínez (career) – came thru the year after Toni (see last year’s sales) and did not have as much potential, considering he played in the exact same position it was very surprising that he turned out to be the much better player on paper, he was even a wonderkid for a while and that made me think that he could be the future DR here but he did not really kick on so became a backup / rotation option, with Willems arrival and progress I thought it was time to let him flourish elsewhere, I am very happy with £4m Gerrit Janssen (career) – a great player for us, arrived for £14m 7 years back from Holland and straight away became a 1st choice partner for Masic, a partnership that lasted until the beginning of last season, was a bit injury prone but he performed great, my coaches never rated him but he continued playing well, with the arrivals of Skowron and Antunez he hardly played last season and even before, I had pretty much already decided to sell him this Summer, I can’t believe how much money I got from him Pretty much the same as last Summer except that I signed no 1st team players, everyone is in the U19s except Johnson who is in the squad. 6 squad players left and they were replaced by 5 who had been out on loan for 2/3 years. Not sure whether that makes the squad stronger or not but it definitely makes it younger and with more room for improvement as these players get better. Overall I am pretty happy with it, maybe another backup fullback and another MC would have been nice especially the latter as I have a 19yo Argentine who I would have preferred to have another loan spell somewhere. The obvious question is whether we are good enough to get past Barcelona. The obvious answer is no but let’s see whether they will be as strong this season. Probably yes... The La Liga season started with us having a massive injury crisis. We have 7 players out including 4 MCs including Masic and Skowron who are still out from the injuries they picked up in the Copa final last season. We manage to get together a respectable side but our bench is a mess, containing a DRLC, 2*D/DM/MCs and 3*STs! We start off with a visit of Celta who we thrash 4-0, the highlight being an insane 35 yard Gligic freekick. We then visit Murcia and oh dear, oh dear. They got a red card after 20 minutes, they then scored and then we could not hit a barn door from 5 yards. We had 17 shots at goal, 2 were on target! :o Wow. Losing at Murcia is not a horrific result, losing to any team that played 70 minutes with 10 men *is* a horrific result. Sociedad were next and they were unfortunate to face our wrath. 4-0 up at half-time, we scored 2 more in the 2nd half to gain our biggest ever La Liga victory. Bariri got 4 of the goal and hit the woodwork twice more. Champions League 1st seeds again and we got another respectable draw. We face our 1st ever German side as we get Leverkusen and a matchup with the recently departed Janssen. We also get Anderlecht who we always beat and Sporting Lisbon Notes Our Chilean ex-ST Sascha Muller is now playing in Paraguay, he had 6 months in his homeland he was a free agent for 6 months before Cerro Porteño signed him up for a year We now have a Worldwide Reputation! Felipe Fonseca became our youngest ever goalscorer when he struck in a cup tie last season, he has gone on loan to Granada where in his 1st match he promptly became their youngest ever goalscorer as well Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted August 18, 2014 Author Share Posted August 18, 2014 La Liga – January 2038 September started with us stealing a point at Granada when they missed a last minute penalty. We followed that with 3 straight 2-0 wins, the last one at home to Valencia being particularly impressive due to injuries our team was not exactly the stongest. We then went to Betis and weren’t very good succumbing to a 1-0 defeat. That left us 4th but only 1 point behind the leaders. It is so far a pretty close league this season. We then went a run of 7 straight victories. All matches we should be winning but normally in these circumstances we mess up somewhere along the way. The last 2 at Oviedo and Las Palmas were because of great 2nd halves as we were not good at all before the break. That kept us 1 behind the leaders, obviously Barcelona, but now miles ahead of the rest of the teams who were all beating each other. The only issue is that we had not exactly had a hard start to the season, no matches against Barca, Madrid or Sevilla, no away games to Valencia, Atletico etc. This was all about to change as the aforementioned Barcelona visited Ibiza. And easily beat us 2-1, the 1st 2 home goals we have conceded all season. Oh well, that was kind of inevitable. 4 points behind and if we can’t beat them at home, I see little hope of winning the title... Then Sevilla visited and we were solid in gaining a 3-1 win. Our ex-player Francisco, put Levante 1-0 up early on but we got 3 without reply. It was then time to visit the Bernebeu. Madrid have been just as bad this season as they were last year, which is always entertaining. Hence losing to them was not a particularly good result. That was still a good result compared to what happened when we went to Celta. An early goal and a penalty put them 2-0 up at h/t. We tried but failed to score, 4 times the woodwork was hit. And then in the last minute they got another penalty. 3-0. Now 10 points behind Barca. The last game of January was a visit from Murcia. And those 2 defeats had made us angry. We went 2-0 by half time and then 10 seconds into the 2nd half we got a 3rd. So we ended January isolated in 2nd place. 10 behind Barca, 8 ahead of Murcia. We have little hope of the title, and we have little fear of dropping to 3rd, it will take massive collapse from Barca or ourselves for that to happen. That is not fantastic but really, and I know I say this every year, Barca are fantastic, 9 points dropped in 22 games. Our main issue is our away form, and yet despite me not being happy with it, it is the 2nd best in the division. Defensively we are much better than last year and we are still scoring lots of goals. Copa del Rey We got recently relegated Mirandés and breezed past them easily. Next up were Betis. We went behind early doors at home before 2 2nd half goals gave us the win. I was not unduly worried. I should have been. They got an early goal, we equalised and then they got a 2nd just before h/t to equal things up. And then they got an unanswered 3rd and Gligic got his 1st ever red card after over 11 years here. Oh dear. That is our worst Copa performance for 10 years. Meanwhile Barcelona were doing this to Adelante side Ponferradina! Champions League We got off to a good start as we were 2-0 up in Leverkusen before the half hour mark. However, they then equalised before h/t and got a 2nd half winner. Not ideal. Battering Sporting helped. A struggle at home to Anderlecht was not fantastic but got us the 3 points. It was also a struggle in Brussels as we squeezed a 3-2 win in which they actually led for a while. That qualified us with 2 games to go. We just had the top spot to play for with Leverkusen. They visited and we destroyed them. We weren’t great in Portugal, just about holding on for a draw. Thankfully Anderlecht beat Leverkusen we finish in a slightly unconvincing 1st place. And our reward is a matchup with Twente, the worst team left and one whom we beat 4-0 in a friendly last Summer. January Transfer Window It was all about MC this January. The usual sequence occurred with Francisco Antunez and his minimum release clause: Barca show interest way below the clause, I renegotiate his contract, before he signs it Barca come in and offer his minimum release clause. Not ideal as he was becoming an important member of the squad but he had not played that much this season and that is a lot of money. He will become a stunning player though and I would have much preferred him not to have gone to Barcelona. That meant reinforcements were needed and in came Julio Giménez direct from Paraguay for a ridiculously low fee. He had been on my shortlist as a teenager but Libertad were never interested in selling and eventually I forgot about him. That was until his agent recently reminded me of his existence and pointed out a very nice £4.1m release clause which he evidently insisted on when he signed a new contract last Summer. He is young, already a stunning player and I can’t believe how cheap he was. He goes straight into the BBM rotation with Skowron. He will play a lot for us. That meant that I now had 4 non-EU players so Somoza (a young Argentine DM/M C who we signed 2 years ago) went out on loan to Las Palmas where he will hopefully play quite a lot and gain his Spanish passport. I also signed Ishak Bozkurt from Bayern for the future. He could be anything and has 18 months in the U19s. We have already signed up a promising Italian MC and quite possibly the world's best DMC, an Englishman from Man U, to arrive in the Summer. There is also an Argentine defender who joins mid-July when he turns 18 in a deal that we sorted out last year. To The Faithful Departed Francisco Antunez (career) – came from Madrid where they bizarrely dumped in their reserve side and listed him a few months after signing, and he suffered more or less the same fate during his 1st season here as I had too many non-EU players so he was stuck playing in the Cup and Europe, however last season he was in the squad and brilliant and improving every week, I was always a bit aware of his release clause but did not really expect anyone to actually pay it, I might have even accepted that amount without the clause, he did not play a huge amount so far this season but I could have seen him replacing Masic quite soon, he will be a stunning player, really would have preferred he left Spain Notes 10 days after turning 21, Rico won his 50th cap(!) for Mexico Darren Folan became our 3rd youth product to win international caps, he never played for us and was sold back to Ireland last Summer but he is now an international, he joins some Equatorial Guinea guy from our Adelante days and our Welsh GK, who is currently on loan at Aston Villa, none of the Spaniards have been anywhere near Rayo somehow reached their 2nd Copa final in 4 years, both times as an Adelante club, very impressive, even more so as they did it by winning in the Bernebeu, they face Barcelona Speaking of Madrid, they are comically bad again, and sacked their 2nd manager in 8 months in November Our young Chinese DC won the AFC Young Player of the Year award Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted August 19, 2014 Author Share Posted August 19, 2014 Champions League 2037-2038 We had Twente first up and I was hoping for a repeat of our 4-0 friendly win in Holland from last Summer. And when we took an early lead, I started to think that it may happen. Unfortunately they promptly got 2 second half goals to condemn us to a pretty embarrassing defeat. This made me mildly concerned for the home leg but I need not have been as a quick Abbott opener was followed by 3 2nd half goals as Twente did not threaten at all. The great news from this round was that Juventus knocked out Barcelona on away goals. Oh yes! Next up was Inter with either the aforementioned Juventus or Valencia waiting in the semis. We were magnificent in the home leg, totally dominating this them and winning 3-0. Only a disaster could deny us in the 2nd leg. An early Masic penalty put us in total control and the rest of the match just turned into entertainment for the crowd as we shared 6 goals. Juve won their q-f so next up... And we got off to an insane start and pretty much won the match before 6 minutes were up. 42 seconds in and Ban headed in a Gligic corner, 2m49s in and Ban headed in a Gligic corner, 6 minutes and Giménez got our 3rd. Never have we been 3-0 within 6 minutes (maybe never before in all my years of FM). They got one back before half-time which was not great but 2 late goals gave us an unbelievable 5-1 win! The 2nd leg was pretty much a formality, especially when Bariri put us 1-0 up. In the end we won the game 2-1. CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL NUMBER 3 HERE WE COME . Hopefully it will be 3rd time lucky. We face Man C at Old Trafford a week after the end of the season. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Heath Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 Fantastic career. I admire your patience and persistence. Good luck in the Champions League final, and hopefully a title win will follow soon. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted August 23, 2014 Author Share Posted August 23, 2014 thanks, yes, because of Barcelona's dominance I have had to be very patient! without them, we would have won a couple of La Ligas by now. the main issue is that when we have a fantastic season, they have an even better one. and when they have a slightly down season, so do we. CL final update coming... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghostwriter Posted August 23, 2014 Author Share Posted August 23, 2014 Champions League Final – 2037-2038 Manchester, England... (Old Trafford so City aren’t at home) How we got there is outlined above. Man C strolled thru a group containing CSKA Moscow, Vicktoria Plzen and Juventus with 4 wins and 2 draws. In the knockout stages a 1-0 in Milan was enough before they faced the rest of their league. They did the double of Man U before 2 draws against Chelsea got them thru on away goals. They are unbeaten this season in the competition. Lineups We have only 1 injury in the whole squad. Unfortunately it is a 1st choice player as our DL, Jorge Luis, is out so Franco comes in. The only other issue is who plays at MC. In the end Masic is not 100% fit so drops to the bench and Gray comes in. In the BBM role, new signing Giménez plays. Man U are nearly fully fit and have a good side, abeit not as good a one as I thought they did, they aren’t strong up front at all. They have 2 of our ex-players, the godlike Tozzi in goal and last Summer they signed Giannis Koutsaftis from Celta. He is not really good enough for them and he is not even playing in his favoured ST role but is at AML. We are the slight favourites. We have never played them before. 4 of their best players are: Roberto Carlos Navarro – a Sevilla youth product they signed for nearly £40m(!) 10 years ago, he has been good but not spectacular for them, he is getting a bit old (albeit younger than Ban) and is not that brilliant in the air Matthias Eckert – a brilliant MC, Austrian born but an Inter youth product, he was on my shortlist for years but with Masic I never really needed him and I was clearly not going to match Man C’s £31m offer for him 5 years ago Tim Andersson – the dangerman according to the press and my ex-players, I don’t totally see it, he was also on my shortlist over a decade ago but never looked into signing him, he cost them over £20m 8 years ago Eran Nachmani – Israeli international who moved from Israel to Lens 3 years ago on a free, then after one solid season, Man C paid £21m for him, a good player but I would have thought they could have got a better ST 1st half 21 mins – Nachmani heads just wide 25 mins – Giménez wins the ball by the halfway line, bursts down the wing, floats in a cross that Bariri beats the GK to, 1-0! Half-time – not a great match, only 2 chances, pretty even, 0-0 would be fairer 2nd half 49 mins – Gray chips the ball forward to Giménez on the edge of the box, instead of shooting he lays it off to Bariri who strokes it home, 2-0!! 51 mins – a floated freekick into the box finds Diaz (their DL) all alone 5 yards out but he heads it straight to Ozturk, a let off 61 mins – a defensive mixup and Dzeko is thru on goal, their DC makes a great tackle, the ball breaks to Gligic who forces a magnificent Tozzi save 72 mins – the fantastic Giménez has picked up a knock so on comes Dimba, Masic replaces Gray at the same timw 76 mins – a Gligic header is cleared off the line 79 mins – a knackered Willems comes off, Keita on 88 mins – easy Tozzi save from a Bariri header 90 mins – a brilliant Eckert freekick hits the bar 93 mins – WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS! Full-time – finally, it was a great performance, we never looked like losing, in fact it was a surprisingly easy, everyone played pretty well but Bariri and Giménez were the stars I am happy. The supporters are happy The board are happy The ex-players are happy Giménez want a new contract (err, no, you only joined in January) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dell19 Posted August 23, 2014 Share Posted August 23, 2014 Congrats on finally winning the Champions League. Have enjoyed following this as your team gradually gets closer and closer to a first title win. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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