[FM13] Second Star to the Right...

[deltablue]

CL August 2064 Update

Constantine will be happy that we comfortably beat Red Star in both legs, winning 5-1 on aggregate. As I also expected, our winning Europa League run saw us move up from the 3rd group of seeds to the 2nd. Our luck with draws seem to have turned and that seems to have continued...

Sevilla are actually the holders, though while they're obviously a very good team they're not as scary as a few others would be. This was born out by when we played them the day after the draw (which technically makes it yet another team we're facing again) in the European Super Cup (a match-up I was looking forward to as giving us more of a chance that I'd overwise expect we'd have) where despite it being our 5th match of the season after just 12 days we only narrowly lost 2-1 in extra time after having a potential normal time winner disallowed in a very tight and finely balanced game. We could easily have been the ones to edge it ourselves. That makes them a tough opponent but also a team I have more confidence about competing with than some of the alternatives, holders or not.

Feyenoord are a great example of a familiar opponent as the 3rd time we've drawn them in around a year. We didn't do too well against them in the Europa League group stage but had very much gotten our act together when we faced them later in the quarter-finals (beating them in both legs) and I expect us to be able to deal with them again. Anji are doubly welcome both as a new team (though having just bought a goalkeeper from them they still feel a little familiar) and a team that don't play in red and white! I have nothing against those colours but it's felt like a while since we last drew a European opponent who didn't play in them as their main colours (as a mostly white kit, Lyon were a borderline case) so I could use a more variety. Since last the start of last season our run of opponents has been... Arsenal-Cardiff (when they were in red)-Spartak Moscow-Feyenoord-Granada (2 years after facing them at the same stage)-Red Star-Feyenoord-Lyon-Arsenal-Sevilla with Sevilla and Feyenoord again coming up.

I definitely think we should qualify, and with a slight improvement over our European Super Cup showing we might even be able to challenge Sevilla for top spot. In the league we got off to a great start with an easy win over Koln (who qualified for Europe last season), with Stuttgart (5th and 4th in the last 2 seasons) away being another interesting test of how well we can keep it up against the 'best of the rest' teams that might otherwise be potental banana skins. Hamburg only drew both their first 2 games (and have Bayern next) so while a similar stuttering start last year didn't stop them from beating us to 2nd anyway, if we can more easily take advantage of it with more consistent and decisive form then it might be another matter this time. We can't judge much from one league game (the European Super Cup getting in the way of what would have been our second before the international break) but of we carry on how we've started, we should be set for a very good season indeed.

[deltablue]

21 minutes ago, Constantine said:

Absolutely. Yes, please.

I was just updating as you posted You'll be glad to know it was 3-1 in Belgrade, and we were able to relax to a 2-0 win back home

[Constantine]

2 hours ago, deltablue said:

I was just updating as you posted You'll be glad to know it was 3-1 in Belgrade, and we were able to relax to a 2-0 win back home

[deltablue]

Sep 2064

It been a fantastic start to the season, with only Sevilla causing any problems. I mentioned before how we only narrowly lost in the European Super Cup against them in extra time, and we opened up our Champions League group stage campaign being thrown in the deep end with a trip to Spain. Even a draw would be a very positive result but for a while we looked like we'd sneak a very lucky 1-0 win. While it was a little disappointing to concede a later equaliser, I had to admit that even a 1-1 draw flattered us a little. Plus getting an away draw against your toughest group opponents (let alone the holders) is always promising. I expect we can at least challenge them for top spot.

In the league we're a match short because of the ESC but that hasn't stopped us from becoming early front runners. Hamburg drew their first 2 league games before beating Bayern. Bayern also fell to a surprise defeat at Augsburg before our last match against Dusseldorf, meaning that we already have a 3 point lead over them (and 4 over Hamburg) despite the game in hand potentially making a far bigger difference at this early stage. However we'll soon face much tougher tests, especially given our poor head to head performances against both teams last year. October sees us going to Bayern, as well as Gladbach (not an easy match in itself) as the first match of the month. November provides the trip to Hamburg as well as the away derby. Quite a few points will be dropped no doubt but having also gone to Stuttgart at least we'll already have pretty much all of our toughest games over with and if we're still at least very close to the top afterwards that wouldn't be a bad position to be in.

That Stuttgart trip unfortunately saw an injury to Mbah, probably our most reliable goalscorer. He'll probably be out until the winter break, or at least just before. That's the biggest injury blow we've suffered for quite a while but we seem to be managing without him so far. Barbaev already shone in his place when he was injured a few times when we won the title, and that was his first season of senior football, he's a lot more established and seasoned now. We also have quite a few young forwards competing to take their chance as the next in line. With or without the veteran Nigerian (who might find his place under threat if he struggles to reclaim his place or at least get back to form), this looks like it might be the season where this team starts to come of age.

[deltablue]

CL Winners List

FM time has been thin on the ground which makes it a potentially useful time to cover something (and try putting two images together in Paint 3D for the first time!). As a save goes on, the balance of power shifts, however even with dynamic league reputation that doesn't seem to extend to European champions from lots of different countries. I don't expect regular finals between Swedish and Slovakian teams or anything like that (though when the feature was announced I remember a lot of complaints that it would too easily mix the leagues up in an unrealistic way) but while there have been some strong teams from other leagues (like Dinamo Zagreb and CSKA Sofia) that I've encountered, that hasn't only gotten them so far. I had wondered if teams like Olympiakos or Dynamo Kiev might feature, but we haven't even had any Dutch or Portuguese teams.

Instead as always the change seems to come from teams in the top leagues but outside the established giants, and it's having Sevilla as holders (and St Etienne before that having been group stage opponents) that's made me think about how it's a pattern to be pointed out. There's no shorage of example in the list, expecially as Sevilla had also won just a few years before (and St Etienne having made the final). Hamburg are there having clearly been on Bayern's level for a while (unfortunately), Gladbach as well even going back to when I was in Turkey and facing them in Europe for the first time. They won the only time during a 5 year run when I didn't make the final with Milan, and still remained strong when I arrived in Germany though they seem to have dropped off a little since then. Newcastle I was also familiar with, along with Granada and Betis as signs that the balance of power shifted in Spain a while ago. Stuttgart and Cesena (who actually had a higher wage bill than my Milan team, second only to Juventus) also feature as finalists. Special mention has to go to Arsenal's early dominance, if only because David Moyes was in charge!

Dinamo did once make the semi-finals, as well as one other quarter-final appearance (I know because my Milan team knocked them out), but I had expected to see the latter a bit more often. In recent years they've only ever been a group stage team at best, so not quite what I was hoping to see. Even at the semi-final stage a couple of appearances by PSV remains the only other by a team outside the Big 5 leagues to feature, not even the likes of Porto. Even in the Ipswich career (which was under half the length of this one so far), Zenit made the semi-finals at least once (again I know because we beat them) but no sign of them here.

The Europa League is a similar story, though you at least have Porto, CSKA Moscow (early on) and Benfica getting a win each, with Celtic as runners-up. The 'smaller teams from big leagues' list (almost all just runners up) is a little more interesting, including Southend (yes, really!), Cordoba, Nottingham Forest (who were an early riser to becoming an established Premier Division team), Rennais, and multiple wins by Frankfurt who are not even a Bundesliga club any more at the moment. Oh and some no-name German team playing in blue somehow managed to win last year

 

[deltablue]

Oct 2064

After our brilliant start to the season we started to splutter a little bit. It started well enough against Anji in the champions league with 4 goals from Luciano Roger. His second goal of the match happened to be his 100th for the club in just over 3 years. With our busy schedule that amounts to a massive 161 matches but that's still an excellent return, especially as he usually plays in the support role so isn't expected to bang in the goals on a consistent basis (his best runs have come when Mbah is injured and he gets the poacher role, like now). That's also allowed him to rack up 45 assists during that time, so he's not far off a goal or an assist each match. Not bad going.

Gladbach away was the first match I was worried about, and so it proved. They've sort of been fallen giants recently but we had a severe off day that made it easy for them to tear us apart. That even included the first off-day for Kasic in a long time which at least allowed me to blood the new Russian keeper in the win against Hoffenheim, though only for that one match so far as he looked too nervous and the stakes are just too high right now.  That was followed by a near-disaster at home to Feyenoord, which should have been comfortable but we ended up having to rescue a point from being 2-0 then 3-1 down. There was definitely a trend emerging of being too soft at the back, especially when it comes to conceding first and creating more pressure.

The Feyenoord mess was followed by the dreaded trip to Bayern. I knew we needed to improve our head to head results but that was more about winning regularly at home, not getting much away. Having been easily beaten before (even last season) I was still happy when a Barbaev equaliser looked like we could get a draw, before a disappointing late defeat. That was still a much better game than we had given them in the past though. It still wasn't too bad as winning our game in hand against Nurnburg meant we were still level and with the potential advantage of the home game remaining. Even with Feyenoord that was the only negative result all season that was unexpected and the only failure to win at home in all competitions.

[deltablue]

Dec 2064

With a few things out of the way, it's time to get the Schalke train rolling again, and we're certainly rolling. The away derby was the next big test, a match we don't usually do well in. We drew but we didn't have to wait long before the tide turned in our favour again, as both Hamburg and Bayern started dropping quite a few points each. Hamburg became closest to our otherwise unstoppable tail but having gone ahead and then 2-1 behind when we played them, a draw was a good result from our perspective. Unfortunately we finally stumbled again in the last league game before the break, a typical shock 1-0 defeat where you go behind then spend the rest of the match throwing a lot at the opposing goal with no luck. However that still left us ahead of Hamburg (just) and 4 ahead of Bayern, who hadn't had the best month or so. Turns out they are mortal after all.

This puts us in a great position. It may still be tight at the top but as I mentioned in a previous update, we were getting our toughest games out of the way already. In fact we've already gone to the rest of the top 6. I knew that if we survived the inevitable bunch of dropped points from those matches and were still roughly level at the top, that would be a good situation, and to think that we were a shock defeat away from being in an even stronger position, especially being at home against all the stronger teams (not just out close rivals) from this point. Despite winning the title a few years ago I knew it would be frustrating trying to do it again for a few years and establishing ourselves at the top, however we clearly look better this time as we benefit from a more settled side and the younger stars having some experience under their belts. This could be the season we show we mean business now.

In Europe, we bounced back from defeat against Feyenoord to win the return, along with Anji beating Sevilla. That put us top of a 3-way race to qualify ahead of facing Sevilla at home, a win (combined with results going our way again, this time Anji losing to Feyenoord) already securing top spot as well as qualification, which was a given after beating the Spanish side. I still didn't really field much of a weakened side in the last game at Anji (though we had nothing to play for), though did give a chance to a few fringe youngsters who otherwise would be too risky to use much with the stakes being to high. That included their former keeper we signed in the summer. It was still a little disappointing to go behind but I was glad to get a draw at least. Interestingly enough a draw in the other match meant that Anji would have pipped Sevilla to the second qualification spot if they had kept their lead against us, knocking out the holders. So did winning the group give us a more managable draw?...

Not really, though it probably could have been worse than Marseille. They're one of those 'good but beatable teams' with a few stop quality players but without that strength in depth, though they're hardly bad. It's not easy to rate our chances but on balance I feel we have an edge.

[deltablue]

Mar 2065

As you can see, it's been fantastic since the winter break (which makes it even more annoying that we lost to Kaiserlautern of all teams just before!). In fact it got off to a good start even before we played a match as Bayern dropped points. In truth that was no longer something so important, as it just extended the gap to 6 points and even dropped them out of the top 3. I doubt it'll be much of a blow but they weren't the team to worry about. That would be Hamburg, which made it annoying that when the two teams played in the 3rd match of the year, Hamburg got winner at the end of stoppage time. Even a Bayern win would have put our rivals 6 and 4 points behind respectively, and I'd have taken that over a greater gap to Bayern and Hamburg still being right on our tail. It's really like Man City and Liverpool.

That makes it a heck fo a race to the title between two teams strong enough that each little stumble give the other an advantage. We thought we'd be first after the draw in Bremen but they drew as well the following day (as did Bayern, not that it mattered so much). We even had to survive an injury to Luciano Roger after Koln, with Mbah being at the AFCON (havign finally recovered from his own injury that ruled him out for the entire autumn) with so much depth and potental that was still untested. Thankfully Mallet made his mark to jump to the head of the line for the future.  Dusseldorf was also a disappointing draw and allowed Hamburg to go ahead but thankfully not for long. The pressure was still on when we faced Bayern but we recovered from poor defensive mistake to come back and get the sort of home win I knew we needed to start grabbing on a regular basis over our rivals if we were to stand any chance.

The final league match of the month saw Hamburg drop points again whilw we survived a potential banana skin against Leverkusen, extending the lead to 3 points. In a title race of fine margins, that sounds like a lot, and it also eases the pressure off a little when we play them at home. Even a draw would be more acceptable if it meant keeping them at least this far behind us, and a win would five us a commanding lead. As I predicted, having the tough away games in the first half of the season (meaning the rest of the top 6 going into the winter break) and still having our nose in front is helping minimise the points dropped during the run-in as we can go into these home games with more confidence, as shown by our utter hammering of Dortmund in the cup.

I really want to do it this season in particular, for a number of reasons. It would mean more than the first win as it would mean that we've potentially arrived as a top team, it would also be a shame to be able to be so strong in the league and still miss out. Plus the pressure would be off a little. At the moment I feel the need to get a title to prove we've established ourselves (unlike the first win which was a clear overachievement), and with the margins so tight that means not taking the risk of giving much playing time to squad players (especially younger players) like I'd otherwise do. Once we managed that I'll feel more able to let a few players go to open up more opportunities, as it would feel like mission accomplished in the short term and I wouldn't be so desperate to win again for a season or two.

In the Champions League, we made much easier work of the Marseille tie than I expected. Snatching an away win helped us on our way and while the home tie wa actually very tight for a while, we eventually broke them to win 3-0, and 5-1 on aggregate. Our opponents were interesting...

Man City haven't really featured much on our radar, even at other clubs, in contrast to Chelsea, Tottenham and more recently Arsenal. They won plenty of titles early on but their win last season (and they're top again, though in a 3-way tie!) was only their 4th in 30 or so years. They don't have that many 2nd and 3rd place finishes during that time either, with Newcastle and Tottenham dominating clearly for a while. Maybe they're back now, and they're certainly not short on very good players that could make it a tricky one. The first leg is actually at the end of March but it felt neater to split it here. As odd as it may sounds, I'm not caring about the competition too much at the moment. Of certainly I hope to challenge for it in future but the bar to win the league is so high that it remains my serious focus for now.

[deltablue]

May 2065

Now that was frustrating beyond belief, especially as we had been top pretty much constantly since early October! I was feeling confident going into this final run with a 3-point lead over Hamburg. Despite that being cut to 1 after a draw against Dortmund where we should easily have gotten a winner at some point, they lost while we beat Stuttgarter Kickers, extending it back to 4 ahead of our home game against them, and with just 4 matches after that. I must admit I felt positive that we'd go on to do it at that point. However just before we played, the Belgian legend (yes he's just 21 but I'm still calling him that, having managed 200 career appearances already including over 150 for the club) Michiels got injured for 4 weeks.

His understudy Mantom had been developing well and had shown himself to be a solid and reliable backup with a decent amount of game-time under his belt already but he was still 19 and nowhere near Michiel's level either on paper or performance-wise and maybe that helps explain why we limped to what was our first defeat in all competitions since December and only the 5th of the season. It was very much the wrong match to lose though, followed by another to help see us out of the CL in the semi-finals to Barcelona, meaning we fell to them both times we reached the knockouts so far. Maybe the long season (we ended up playing 55 matches) didn't help us waver a little near the end, as well as the fact that Michiels wasn't our only big injury at the time.

We were still on top but only narrowly and I knew that even with a comfortable run-in we couldn't afford any slip-ups. The first two matches went mostly smoothly, but we lost Luciano Roger for the rest of the season against Hannover. With the stakes so high I understandably got very nervous when we went behind at Augsburg (the obvious potential banana skin left), and while we soon equalised, we failed to get the winner. It was far from the first time we had been in this situation, but it was one time too many as it turned out. We quickly set about doing what we needed to do against Kaiserslautern on the last day, meaning I could keep checking the table, and while Hamburg were being held for a while, I knew it was over after a couple of quick second-half goals.

After missing out on the league by a point and losing in the CL semi-finals (which could still be considered an excellent run, that meant we can probably aim to win it in future), we at least won the cup to give us something to show for an excellent season on all three fronts. We were lucky with our opponents, facing Second Division leaders Frankfurt in the semi-final, then surprise finalists Karlsruhe (who ended up going up through the playoff). An early corner headed in by Farley gave us a led we were unlikely to lose, and we could comfortably gotten a few more afterwards. In the end Barbaev capped off a very good season for him with a second goal that made the victory look a little more respectable. It felt a lot like a consolation prize (especially as it seemed like a mostly foregone conclusion given our opponents) but a welcome one.

It's tough to miss out on the title after such a strong season, though at least having clearly trailed Bayern and Hamburg for a couple of years, we were comfortably ahead of Bayern (though I doubt they'll be so generous next time) and was just one failure to get a winner too many away from holding off an impressively strong Hamburg team. Whoever came out on top between us would have been consistently strong enough all season to have deserved it. As I mentioned before, a CL semi-final (in what was just our second season in the competition proper) was still good going as well, though hopefully we'll make it 3rd time lucky against Barcelona next time. The clock is still ticking on some of our key players though so we'll have to see how well we can do without them in the longer-run. We don't lack potential (my squads rarely do) and more players are increasingly proving themselves as at least being reliable regulars but reaching that level of performance is another matter entirely.

Star Player: Yet against Roger delivered magnificently, and hopefully will for another year or two. If he hadn't gotten injured he probably would have hit 40 goals in all competitions, 25 in the league, and helped give us a winner against Augsburg which would see us champions.

Squad Stats

[rodesire]

That's quite unlucky given your dominance this year..  But congrats on the cup!

[deltablue]

1 hour ago, rodesire said:

That's quite unlucky given your dominance this year..  But congrats on the cup!

Oh very much so, in fact I took a look at our league positions throughout the season and thankfully still had an autosave file from that season (having otherwise moved on to the next pre-season) to screenshot and show...

If anything I'm sure we were top even on a few occasions where it shows us as second, maybe a flaw of using matches played with games scheduled at different times. For example while we did dip briefly in February, I'm sure that was just for one round not three. We were also definitely top from then until the Augsburg draw with 2 games to go so I don't know where that slightly drop a couple of rounds before was coming from, maybe from Hamburg playing before us and winning?.

The same applies to 'Round 17' as that was just before the winter break and while we lost that one (Hamburg then Barcelona being our only defeats in any competition after that), you can see from the December update screenshot that we were still top at that point. It should really have been unbroken (with the exception of one week) from when we reached the top until 2 games left. Playing in the European Super Cup also meant we were a match behind for a while from week 2 which damages our early positions, we actually won our first 5 matches and 6 of our first 7.

In some ways it's good that it's such a challenge to win the league, with both Bayern (usually, not so much that season) and Hamburg setting the bar so high each year that you really can't afford to lose the key matches, or to drop too many points against the rest. It will feel like a proper achievement to win the title again (and probably each time after that if we continue to do so) and to know that at the least we still face a proper title race each time. I'm sure we can do it eventually though, we've become too good now not to.

Maybe the cup didn't mean as much as it could have, partly due to missing out on the league but also because against Second Division opponents (as our other cup final win was) we were such overwhelming favourites that there wasn't much of a sense of achievement in winning, and while a shock could have happened it was hard not going into it thinking not whether we'd win or not but how much we'd win by. However it's nice to see our efforts over the course of the season rewarded with a trophy in the end, and it makes me a club icon I think.

[deltablue]

Summer 2065

Did you guys hear the one about the Serbian, the Dane and the Turk? Well you've about to.

Like last season, we had a meagre transfer budget of about 11M or so, however this time we felt more able to use it. I had actually made two pre-preseason signings already. The first was the latest candidate to give us a top quality right-back for the future, following on the footsteps of another Brazilian who I made a deal for last year, is yet to arrive and is set to be an example of these signings becoming obsolete by the time they move. At least we don't have to pay too much for them at a time, and the good thing with young players is that you can usually make a decent profit on them even if they don't work out. The second was a young defender from Denmark. It wasn't too high a priority but no one had yet made the second centre-back starting spot their own yet (Maya being clearly our strongest) and since he would cost nothing, it was a case of 'why not?'

One difference between this year and last was that I decided to sell a little. Even given how oversaturated we were all over the place it wasn't easy to let any of the younger players go while they still had a chance of succeeding, however slim the chances of regular playing time, while I was also reluctant to get rid of the reliable veterans. The Moroccan defender Benali was the first to go (or should have been but another bid delayed his move), no longer performing well enough to be safe and in light not just of the impending arrival of Petersen, but a Serbian defender cheap enough that I could feel like making a move for straight away. There's still a lot to be decided as to the eventual pecking order but at the age of 30, he wasn't going to be the answer, though he was still good otherwise.

Benali's sale sort of broke one of my main mottos, that if a big club is after one of your players, you should keep them. The same applied to the other major departure, that of Mbah, to Bayern of all teams. However I doubt he's at any risk of being the Nigerian Tinajero. He had started last season in typically excellent goalscoring style before a long injury (far from the first time, though he wasn't often out for long). In his absence Roger proved to be just as effective in that role while Barbaev had a strong season beside him. There were also all the other young forwards needing an opportunity and having been satisfied that we didn't need him any more, his departure would help bump everyone else up the pecking order and closer to some action. I doubt he's going to be a regular at Bayern and at the age of 31 (and his poacher's pace starting to go), he'll only be of limited use to them. I would have rejected that offer but I was worried he'd just reject Corinthians (the other option) altogether.

Along with the two sales, I got rid of that young South African (who can hopefully show what he can do in Serbia), and our 3rd choice Austrian keeper a year after being displaced as backup (and future No.1) by Popovitch. That gave us 35m to play with even having already signed that Serbian defender mentioned earlier, and there was no doubt who I'd use it on. Last year I nearly used what budget I had on a young Turkish full-back, but his age (and the wait for him to arrive) helped make that a clearly unwise idea, so I waited and ticked the 'long term goalkeeper' off my list instead. However there is still that right-back issue and he already looked too good to ignore, certainly too good to let anyone else have. That's partly the reasoning for signing a lot of potential young stars 'just in case', along with having alternative options depending on how players develop. I knew I'd have to pay a lot for him but £16.5M wasn't as much as I feared it would be, especially given he'd be harder to get in future, maybe even slip out of our grasp entirely if we waited too long.

Maybe there was a bit too much eagerness to try and spend the rest of the money. A couple of French midfielders popped up at the same time, and the younger also proved to be the cheaper, despite the fact that all summer long I've been able to remove '% of profit' clauses from all my deals and still get the fees I was aiming to negotiate around to. As it happened that was pretty much the only position (outfield anyway) where we didn't have more players than we needed, and one advantage of the 'have to be at least 17 to play' rule in Germany is that I can wait a couple of years and see how things develop before even starting to decide who is more likely to play (as Michiels often needs to either be rested or subbed off), as high as Mantom's stock is right now. He got his first cap for England in February despite being young and not player regularly and was the subject of a couple of big bids this summer. I also very nearly signed an 18yr old Slovak forward for £10.5M from Lille but there was no point, there was just no room in a squad already over-bloated with young players and we had arguably better forwards of the same age already and he'd only ever have been a good squad player at best. It just wasn't worth it and he would just have been a signing for signing's sake.

The Super Cup (a comfortable win over a surprisingly poor Hamburg) was a promising sign of things to come, not just because of the result but due to how some young players took their opportunities, encouraging me to still give them more even with a title to desperately chase. Popovitch replaced Kasic in goal (a planned move to try and blood him properly after a year's wait, though a risky one), Maya getting an untimely bout of food poisoning opened the door for the new defender Dejanovic to play and prove himself already. Martinez was away at the Gold Cup and Nene got an early knock so Thomas (whose potential was never in doubt but was otherwise stuck as a 3rd choice winger without much chance to move up the pecking order) got to come on, as did the German-Albanian homegrown forward/winger Hoxha for his debut in place of an underperforming Barbaev. Hopefully that means more of these fringe youngsters than expected can establish themselves and make it after all.

Signings

Future Signings

 

[Pablo Sanchez]

Crazy this is still going

[deltablue]

On 01/11/2019 at 10:18, Pablo Sanchez said:

Crazy this is still going

Well for the best part of a year it wasn't, but I'm back into it now.

[deltablue]

Aug 2065

I wouldn't usually post such an early update, but there's still enough of note already. As mentioned in the pre-season update, we played Hamburg in the Super Cup and despite feeling like blooding a few young players, we came out surprisingly comfortably on top (given what happened the last time we played to cost us the title). The cup first round against Emden was an unimpressive result but that mattered less than the strong team performance and who shone. Michiels scored a very rare goal from even further out then he usually tries and fails, set up by Hoxha. The latter then opened his account set up by Thomas, one of the other young players given an opportunity to start the season. It contrasted with how some other teams hammered their opponents but that was more to do with how well they were otherwise able to resist than how well we did.

The fixture list threw up the interesting prospect of Bayern away at first. I didn't expect too much but we were able to grab a 1-0 win (with Thomas as the only player to fail to rise to the occasion), our first win at Bayern for 12 years and ending a 10-match losing streak in all competitions away to them. As a certain youtuber would say, it's as rare as rocking horse ****. Bayern had bounced back last season to comfortably get the 3rd CL place but it was what I thought would be a relative blip. However they actually got knocked out against Dresden in the cup, and only just made it past Rangers in the Champions League qualifiers. It's too too early to tell this year but it's still not what I'm used to seeing. Hamburg also lost their first game (though admittedly Gladbach away is also one of the toughest games which we lost outselves last season) then only drew at home to Werder Bremen. I'm so used to watching our gap to both teams that it's interesting that we seem to be getting such an early upper hand over both.

I haven't felt the need to bring in a few players who would otherwise be established first team stars. Andre, Maya and Martinez are our best full-back, central defender and winger respectively and they haven't played a single minute yet. Admittedly Andre has only just recovered from a broken leg that has ruled him out of most of the calendar year while the other two were unable to play against Hamburg for different reasons and I feel able to go back what would otherwise be my policy of once you're in the team as long as you earn it with, Thomas making way for Nene from early on in the Bayern match being the only switch I've had to make so far. That includes Popovitch in goal, benefiting from a year's wait. He had played a couple of times last season but looked nervous and also needed time away after struggling to settle. However so far this year he's very much matched the high bar set by Kasic. Having played a 3rd league match, the 20 year old Russian hasn't conceded a league goal yet and is already looking like the strong long term No.1 I bought him to be.

So to our CL draw, managing to go straight in the group stage this time...

As expected we're still 2nd seeds at the moment, and that's reflected in the group. Betis won the competition back-to-back 5 and 6 years ago respectively, (as well as having a quite a few domestic titles in recent years) and despite only being 4th in the league least year are still the top-quality team I suspected they'd be. Lille aren't too bad but at the same time not strong enough to be a team I feel too worried about facing, while Burgas would do well to really get anything from this group. It will be tough to beat Betis to top spot in the group (though we managed it against Sevilla last year with them having been the holders) but I think we should qualify.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Sounds good mate

[deltablue]

Sep 2065

It's been a few weeks since I last played but at least that's down to being an exceptionally long gap these days. I could almost have pushed further to make this an October update as well, having gone up to playing the match after the international break. However the story would have been the same... a 100% record in all competitions! We didn't even concede a goal in our first 5 matches while winning all of them (and only conceded a penalty in the 6th against Osnabruck), while Bayern and Hamburg only won two of theirs each. Ordinarily even the best start in the world wouldn't give us much of an advantage but as our two formerly near-invincible rivals stumble we're really leaving them in the dust, especially having beaten them both already. As good as the league table above looks, the 'at the time of writing' situation is even better, with the 100% record still intact after 9 league games played, being a full 10 points ahead of Hamburg in 2nd, and Bayern being 16 points adrift!

The Champions League also got off to a great start. A win in Lille was a great away win to kick things off, followed by beating Betis, our main rival in the group. With the two matches against Chernomorets coming up (while Betis and Lille face each other), we look set to give ourselves one foot in the next round and maybe even be clear front runners to top the group as well. Our semi-final run last season was good, but like in the league we still seem to have stepped up a gear and I like to think we can go all the way, either this season or soon.

Our team this season seems to be a near-perfect blend. We have the established (and still young for the most part) stars like Michiels, Andre, Vilson and Luciano Roger, the new blood of Hoxha, Dejanovic (until gifting the Osnabruck penalty ended his run as the surprise package of the season) and Popovitch as the new No 1, and finally the reliable regular squad options like Mantom, Nene, Calvet and Bosch. Luciano Roger (and to a lesser extent Erlon Joe) at the age of 32 is the main star we'll have to go without soon, but this certainly isn't the season he's slowing down with the goals. The switch in goal to from Kasic to Popovitch has gone far better than I expected so that's something I doubt we need to worry about at least.  

[SRL88]

That FM13 screen brings back memories 

I'll have to make time to read my way through this. Looks like plenty of catching up.

[deltablue]

On 27/11/2019 at 19:34, SRL88 said:

That FM13 screen brings back memories 

I'll have to make time to read my way through this. Looks like plenty of catching up.

Cheers. Trust me, it could be worse. My FM playing has been patchy for a while, and there were even a dry spell lasting months until this summer. I could be years ahead otherwise. However I'm sort of back into it and while it's nothing like the same pace you remember, I don't like to leave it too long in any one go.

[deltablue]

November 2065

The Schalke train keeps rolling. I certainly didn't expect to reach the end of November with our 100% record still intact, though the past month has been a close call. Only the first and last matches of November didn't look lor a while as if our run would end, yet here we were on a record streak of 24 wins in a row and counting. October arguably had the tougher matches, with Hamburg at the start and later on going to high flying Leverkusen and Frankfurt (though the latter was a cup match). I thought we'd drop points for sure. Dortmund have often been a pain but being at home at least meant we were able to cruise past them this time. Thankfully one or two goals seems to be enough most of the time, thanks to a strong defence with Popovitch racking up 13 clean sheets in 22 matches in his first season as No.1.

Having gotten 22 goals in 16 matches (17 in 10 in the league) up to the end of October, Luciano Roger really dropped off in November, which may have been while our matches were more touch and go for the most part. It's understandable that he wouldn't be able to keep it up, especially at the age of 32, but it really was as if the aliens from Space Jam has used their 'talent draining' machine on him. Hoxha was injured at the start of this spell but it was a relief to have him back to cover, as well as having Luciano Roger find his scoring shoes again against Werder Bremen. We'll have to see if that's a return to form or whether he's starting to really drop off a cliff.

Hamburg and Bayern started to get back to consistent winning ways (yes, I had anticipated an October update before being able to finish November) but it's not been doing them so much good, Yet even now I'm aware that you can't win the title in autumn, only lose it. Having gotten used to our rivals relentless consistency in the past it wouldn't take that much of a wobble to start being under a bit of pressure. However I can't exactly complain about a 13 point lead (with a game in hand)! In Europe beating Chernomorets twice secured qualification from the group. Betis dropped points against Lille in the second of their encounters which meant that beating the French side also secured top spot with a match left to play. As that match is away to Betis (and if ourwinning run survives that match I'll be amazed) that's just as well.

[Lenzar]

Still going as FM13 becomes more and more obsolete.

How do you find FM20?

[rodesire]

Blooming frightening form at the moment. Good to see someone use players after their 26th birthday 😅😅

[deltablue]

1 hour ago, rodesire said:

Blooming frightening form at the moment. Good to see someone use players after their 26th birthday 😅😅

Not many I loaded up the game to get a squad screenshot, ranked by age in descending order but also so you can see who has actually played regularly...

So that's just 5 players over 23 who have actually played. The top 2 (including the former first-choice keeper from when I arrived until the start of this season) will be moved on at the end of the season, with Luciano Roger (his incredible goalscoring record aside) probably having one more year. I felt I needed to keep the older players for a while (especially as they were and in some ways still are the standout performers) to keep us going while the younger players continued to develop and gain experience but I think we're reaching a point where we can afford to go without them and free up their spaces in a very competitive squad. In fact I already let a former star forward go (and he was still banging them in) at the age of 31 after last season and that move has worked out really well.

[deltablue]

Dec 2065

Well it looks like I needn't have worried about Luciano Roger. He followed up his return-to-form brace at the end of last month with two more goals in each of our three domestic games this month. He really isn't someone who does things by halves, as demonstrated by the fact that he marked his debut for the club by coming on as a sub and scoring 5 goals in just over 20 minutes (even given it was a non-league team in the cup). His second goal against Augsburg actually took him to 30 for the season! Other forwards aim for 30-goal seasons, he gets a 30-goal half season.

23 of those have come in the league, more than double anyone else. There are quite a few people behind him on 11, which from 16/17 matches is still a good return in and of itself. He also tops the average rating charts as we claim 3 of the top 4 places. Hoxha and Farley are the others. I was surprised to see that the odd one out was an defender who plays for Karlsruhe (and yes he has played every match, starting all but one, rather than just making a couple of high-rated performances). Strange.

The trouble with winning constantly is that a defeat or even a draw can seem like a much worse blow than it otherwise would be, unless there was something important riding on it like a title race. As I expected Betis was where our run ended (though not domestically) in a match that thankfully didn't matter as top spot was already. We're never short of chances but this time the defence was poor and one goal wasn't enough this time.

OK that's back to drawing the short straw, though there were a couple of other tough alternative opponents. St Etienne actually won a few years ago (having been in our group) off the back of 5 French titles in a row. They look just as strong now, though are struggling in 6th in the league despite being reigning champions again.

[deltablue]

Jan 2066

For once I managed to catch this thread while still on the first page, though just You might spot something of a pattern in our results, especially as after beating Bayern (yay!) we played three relegation strugglers away from home and came back to win after going behind early. Ordinarily they would have been frustrating matches to drop points in but had it happened at this point it probably wouldn't have been too much of a concern, and in fact would kind of be a relief as something that proves I'm not cheating. If anything I'm almost annoyed we just edged the Hoffenheim game as we didn't deserve it that much. Usually  when we fail to win we have plenty of chances throughout but it's just one of those days we're not quite sharp enough. While we got into our grove later on, we were genuinely weak for a lot of the match, and when they were 1-0 up we had to rely on Popovitch saving a penalty (maybe his first for the club?) to keep us in it. I'd say it was our worst performance of the season.

There was one other bit of news. There was a Brazilian full-back I signed a couple of years ago as part of my quest to hunt for potential top quality players in those positions (a rare beast indeed!), a 500k deal from Bahia. The January transfer window was when the move came through, and while these sorts of 'advance' signings can be rather hit and miss, it looks like he's one who will really work out. He's already looked good enough in the couple of early appearances I've given him, with the Turkish chap arriving in the summer on the left. Suddenly it looks like we're sorted in that area after all.

[Pablo Sanchez]

loe this. do u gave a trophy cabinet summary anyway?

[deltablue]

35 minutes ago, Pablo Sanchez said:

loe this. do u gave a trophy cabinet summary anyway?

2nd post of the thread as always (under a spoiler tag).

[Pablo Sanchez]

Very nice thanks

[deltablue]

May 2066

I'm finally finished with my studies for the year (my final big assignment deadlines for the term were on Sunday, believe it or not) so it was time to really push through the rest of the season. Our continuous winning league win finally ended in with the most obvious match, at Hamburg. Yet again we managed to be really poor, as we had been losing on the Champions League in midweek, and when we lost again in the away derby. In the past we had simply been 'unlucky' when we dropped points, however this time we seem to have traded consistency for some proper off-days. After Dortmund our form was more mixed, not that it mattered. We were 20 points clear of Hamburg when we lost to them, and despite dropping a lot more later on, the gap only narrowed by 2 more points at the end. It's not surprising that we couldn't keep it up forever, especially with a long season taking its toll (and injuries), and we had bigger fish to fry anyway.

It's the Champions League that provided more excitement. We weren't great starting off against St. Etienne, though could still have snatched a draw and I felt confident we could turn it around at home, which we did thanks to a hat-trick by Martinez. We were in deeper trouble with a rematch against Betis, especially as their first goal came as I was waiting to take off a couple of under-performing defenders, which happens often enough I even predicted it would happen this time. A 3-0 defeat meant we had a mountain to climb, but it was easier than expected. 2 early goals at home meant we didn't have to be so attacking for long ( which was good since an away goal conceded would have pretty much knocked us out), and we soon leveled the tie. It took longer to take the lead but since we were still at risk of a single away goal, it was a relief to seal it with a 5-0 win on the night.

The Tottenham semi-final occured when we were worst hit by injuries. It wasn't terrible but it did deprive us of a few regulars and at least weakened the midfield and on the wing. However we survived a 0-0 draw away from home first and a Hoxha goal was enough at home. That lead us to the second of 2 cup finals against Hamburg of all teams! We had beaten them earlier in the cup final on penalties, though were lucky to survive that long. We were more positive here but faced two controversal penalties (especially the one that was scored). Popovitch is already building reputation for being a decent penalty saver and stopped the first but I knew it would be too much to expect a repeat. We managed to equalise late on and perhaps looked more likely to get a winner but it was down to penalties again. There were some contrasts to the cup, like how their missed second penalty made the difference while it was our turn to miss No. 2 this time. Also Jefferson Severino had scored the winning penalty the week before but missed the first 'sudden death' penalty which ended up costing us.

Last season's title race already set up a big rivalry with Hamburg, as well as being the only team to beat us domestically for 15 months up until Dortmund. This season we faced them 5 times, starting off by hammering in the Super cup (where we'll face them again at the start of next season as well), and ending with the 2 cup finals with penalties deciding both, one win a-piece. For all we left them in the dust in the league, they're still our equal head-to-head. In fact I didn't want to face them in the Champions League as a potentially tougher challenge than a team of equivalent strength from another country. However having won the domestic double I must admit that there was a feeling of letting them have this one when we were 1-0 down, Champions League final or not. We should have plenty more chances in future on the strength of this season (and being semi-finalists last year). 

Star Player: Even if Luciano Roger's consistency hadn't started to waver, I'd have wanted to go for someone else for a change, and Hoxha was the clear choice as the breakout star of the season. He hadn't even played before this season. He still has a way to go but he's made quite the impact already. That includes not just his goal tally (being mainly in the support role) and assist tally but how he's popped up with a bunch of important goals, including the Champions League knockout stages. 

Squad Stats

[deltablue]

Summer 2066

This summer I took a bit of a gamble, though it was one I had planned to take. Since I started properly building my current squad I've tended to run 'heavy' with more players than could possibly be given a proper opportunity, even in the long term. That means that something I've often had to do is to move more established players on to open the door to the younger potential stars (though a few still have to be cut loose if I decide it's just not going to happen for them). It's not always been easy to do that, especially if it means letting go reliable performers and squad players but it's worked out very well so far. Having won that vital second title that now establishes ourselves at the top (along with our European exploits) the pressure is now off a little as I feel we haven't got so much to prove, I can just keep building and blooding new players.

There were always going to be a few outgoings. A few players were unhappy at not having had their opportunity and I couldn't do anything to stop them leaving on a free, hoping it won't come back to haunt us later against either domestic or European rivals. As good as he had been up until this point, Erlon Joe was also leaving at the age of 34 to allow Corona and Berthelot to step up (something the Mexican had been particularly vocal about being denied so far), though he seems to be proving he has one good year left in him at Barcelona. I was in the mood to raise quite a bit of money to invest, with the sales of Calvet and Nene being particular gambles, along with Reuter. That raised a record £89M and with a bit of budget adjustment meant I had £115M to play with!

The first signing was actually a previous example of 'unhappy player leaves on a free' in the form of former youth team forward Kaunda, who went of to PSV last year. I had hoped to get him back but it proved quicker and easier than expected, as now he has more of an opportunity to fill what will soon be an empty space left by the declining Luciano Roger. He was soon followed by the arrival of a young English keeper only meant to be second choice in the long term, as the stars I could potentially sign (and was willing to if need be) didn't really emerge. Bulut's signing had been arranged ages ago so that didn't really count as someone spotted and a deal made this year. It didn't help that I was able to pick up a high standard of young player with those I already had being of similar enough quality even to established players to set the bar high to spend a lot of money on anyone, no matter how good they were.

I did at least set a new club (and career) record by just £500k on a young (but still well developed) defender from Bilbao, but otherwise they were a similar sort of signing to before. I was very much dining at the top table of young stars and took advantage of it (helped by the fact that they weren't too expensive as individual signings) to help give me more tough decisions to make in future as well as ensuring we had the very best for the long-term and give us that extra squad depth insulation. These included yet another forward (and another English player, otherwise very rare for me when abroad) and another couple of French players, as along with Brazilians (and sometimes Argentines and Germans, but not always) that seems to be the nationality I sign a lot of when it comes to young players in top leagues.

It was a busy summer, as the time felt right to make the changes I did. I like the idea of having a very versatile squad in that I can happily throw in the younger players and already feel like we can be just as good. Thankfully being able to get in that high standard helps me feel like I can potentially do that (and be able to cover that don't quite make it) and we can be even better in a few year's time. It helps that many of them make very promising starts and having a usually easy German cup match to start gives me the opportunity to give them an early run if they earn it. I don't expect to win the title every time (as long as we do so often enough, and are close the rest of the time) but I hope European glory is within reach eventually.

Signings

 

 

[deltablue]

CL Draw 2066

There isn't too much to say here. We were now top seeds and got a pretty easy group, though Juventus do stand out as a far trickier opponent than the other two. However I still don't think they're as good as we are (and only narrowly avoided finishing bottom of the group last time we drew them) so I'm definitely aiming to top the group.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Love seeing these champions league groups in the future 

[deltablue]

On 28/12/2019 at 08:07, Pablo Sanchez said:

Love seeing these champions league groups in the future 

Yep, and even the winners as smaller (or at least middling top division clubs) in various countries have come to the fore.

[deltablue]

Nov 2066

It's a big update both because I've spend time away from the forums and I had some major FM time at the start of the week. Domestically we've been almost perfect, including another satisfying Super Cup win over Hamburg. The German cup also provided an opportunity for newer players to shine and continue to do so, especially Kaunda and Townsend up front, helped by Luciano Roger's decline (and he's hardly featured at all) and Hoxha starting the season with a short-term injury. That also applies to Hudson and Bulit in the full-back positions. The difference to last season aside from having dropped points) is that Hamburg remain on our tails, so even being as good as we were last year probably won't be enough to be under serious threat.

Things haven't gone as well in Europe. We beat Sint-Truidense easily enough at the start, though it was a little frustrating not getting the home win over Juventus. That was followed by surprisingly losing to Olympiakos not just once but twice! Even beating the Belgians again meant that we still had a hurdle to jump to qualify, meaning we needed to beat Juventus away, and we have Sint-Truidense beating them during one of our Olympiakos defeats to thank for the fact that we could still do it at all.

[deltablue]

CL Dec 2066 Update

We managed to pull off the win over Juventus, making it the second time we've been in a group with them and they've been 3rd. I had thought this would be a straightforward group for us both but it ended up being surprisingly competitive. Sint-Truidense beating Olympiakos helped make it seem close through it didn't make a difference to either team, and the head-to-head results meant the Greeks would always top the group.

I knew scraping second in the group meant we'd likely face a tough time in the last 16, though we might have gotten lucky with Red Star. Otherwise it could have been worse than Arsenal at least.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Nice to see some clubs like that doing well making the knockout stages

[deltablue]

On 09/01/2020 at 11:26, Pablo Sanchez said:

Nice to see some clubs like that doing well making the knockout stages

That's what I've always liked about playing far enough into the future.

[deltablue]

Jan 2067

This season's title race seemed to be a case of which team was held to a draw the fewest times, though a mixture of the European Super Cup and CWC meant that Hamburg were behind on matches played. They really didn't do very well on the world stage, losing to Guangzhou then New York, both on penalties but that gave me a feeling of how frustrating it would be to lose out to them with that record. Given the way we were both going in the league, having been held to a second draw of the season (to their 3) against Munich 1860 I still treated it as a theoretical 2-point lead. Going behind early on against Saarbrucken added to the pressure even though we went on to win, but while Hamburg won as well, they suddenly starter to falter in a big way win 3 draws followed by a first defeat of the season. That makes things look much more comfortable, especially as we haven't played them yet (the home match was one of those moved because of the CWC) and we finish the season with the away match, so I'd want it wrapped up before then!

This is definitely up there with one of my best teams, as a well-oiled machine that works just as well whoever is playing. Luciano Roger hasn't played at all this season (despite his incredible record) with Barbaev, Hoxha, Kaunda (currently out for a few months) and Townsend making a very effective quartet of forward options, with the first three being from the youth team. Jefferson Severino has also been mostly sidelined as our newer full-back options are already proving themselves, along with the Mexican Salinas (currently occupying the right-back position), finally getting his chance after a few years and hopefully in time for him to still come good. I've managed to enjoy a pretty seamless transition with replacing players over the past few years. We just need some European glory to cap it off, though I'm not sure it'll be this year.

 

[rodesire]

Juve playing in a Chiellini Park?!

In front of 107+ thousand people?! Utter madness

[Raware]

Looking good for the title at this rate @deltablue  I can't believe this save is still going!! 

[FM_Prospect]

This is a Monster save!  

How do you resist playing the newer versions of the game? and keep motivation for this save all these year on?

I'll have to try and read this over a few days haha!

Welldone!

 

[deltablue]

On 17/01/2020 at 13:27, rodesire said:

Juve playing in a Chiellini Park?!

In front of 107+ thousand people?! Utter madness

It's like how Chelsea usually get the 'Lampard arena' before long going back many versions

On 17/01/2020 at 17:50, Raware said:

Looking good for the title at this rate @deltablue  I can't believe this save is still going!! 

Thank you. I was worried whether I'd really be able to break Bayern and Hamburg given the level they both seemed to be at but we seem to have left them both trailing far behind for now at least. I'm not sure how much longer it will last as aside from actually having a few comments, I feel like I've long been flogging a dead horse. I definitely want a Champions League with this team first though.

20 hours ago, FM_Prospect said:

This is a Monster save!  

How do you resist playing the newer versions of the game? and keep motivation for this save all these year on?

I'll have to try and read this over a few days haha!

Welldone!

 

I'd set aside a month or two if I were you My main playing days are long behind me but I want to avoid leaving it for too long at a time. I guess with newer versions I don't think I'd get anywhere near as much done as I'd want to in the space of a year so I might as well stick to one thing for the long-term.

[deltablue]

Apr 2067

Having been laid low by being ill for a while (among other things), it was great to be able to properly get back to the game again for the first time in over a month. Oddly enough having resumed from the Bochum game, the players seemed rather rusty as well. We were still completely dominating games but that was a given for a few years now. Instead the problem was our ability to score, often taking two or more tries to get the job done. All of our forwards (those who were fit) stumbled from one match to another up until the end of March. However we were still able to rack up the wins, and beat Bayern and Gladbach to reach the cup final. With Karlsruhe as our opponents, we could be on for a 3rd cup win in a row, and what would be a 2nd clean sweep of the domestic trophies in a row.

The Champions League was also where the interest remained this season, and it was a good thing we had previously gotten a big win over Arsenal in the first leg of out last 16 tie. In April we suddenly managed to brush off the cobwebs in the goalscoring department, especially from Townsend whose previous goal against Stuttgarter Kickers had ended a bit of a drought (and was in fact his first competitive goal of the year), and had struggled even more than the others. We got another English tie in the quarter-finals against Newcastle, Premier League leaders (and on the verge of clinching the title). We managed a surprisingly big away win in the first leg, and while they scared us by taking the league twice in Germany, we re-established the 3-goal margin both times. That took us to a 3rd straight semi-final.

The semi-finals saw us face get another English team, in Manchester United. In preparation, we lost out unbeaten record in the league at home to Osnabruck in all matches (with Olympiakos being the only team to beat us this year). We were trying to rest ahead of the first leg (since that meant more than any 'invincibles' title) and that backfired. We got on the front foot after conceding and almost immediately equalised but couldn't repeat the trick. Ah well. It didn't seem to give us an edge against Manchester United either, as we ended up facing a tough and hard-fought game, failing to take the opportunity to lead the tie. However a 0-0 result means it's still very much in the balance. The winner will face either A.C. Milan or Sevilla in the final, most likely the Italians who won their first leg 3-0 at home.

[deltablue]

May 2067

With a tough CL trip coming up, a tricky league match at Leverkusen was the last thing we needed, and having been invincible beforehand, we made it 2 league defeats in a row as our results looked like the were hitting a blip. They fully deserved their win despite the equaliser. A home game against Munich 1860 seemed like a welcome return to our dominating ways before facing Hamburg at the end of the season, followed by a couple of cup finals. As it is we managed to beat Hamburg away despite going behind, finishing up with a 16-point winning margin that seemed very unlikely when they were on our tail half-way through the season. Our superiority showed by the fact that we scored 20 more league goals than anyone else, and conceded fewer than half of anyone else other than Hamburg. The cup final was tougher than expected (not helped by Corona and Martinez leaving for the Gold Cup) but we still clinched a 3rd win in a row, which also means that we've won 7 domestic trophies in a row (counting the Super Cup) since we narrowly lost the title to Hamburg a couple of seasons ago.

We also made it through to another CL final, though only just. I decided to try something different, changing out the winger (though Martinez still got to play up front) with another central midfielder, leaving us with the defensive duo of Michiels and Mantom (who otherwise rarely play together, it's either/or) flanking Berthelot with Corona suspended (as was Hoxha). It didn't seem to work very well and we went behind through sloppy defending. I returned to our usual system in the second half, and was delighted when a Farley header (one of a few he was getting, including the only goal in the cup final above) meant we squeaked through on away goals. That avenged both our Europa League final defeat early on in my Schalke reign, and the fact that our defeat in last year's final was at Old Trafford.

Star Player: I had always planned to do the CL final seperately, especially since I had intended to leave it until tomorrow. I hope it's not too odd to have a slightly incomplete end of season update. There were strong cases for a few other players in the end but Martinez looked like a star throughout. It's amazing to think that he nearly didn't get his chance when he first arrived before I agreed to give him some game time after the first few months on the sidelines and he hasn't looked back since.

Squad Stats

[deltablue]

CL Final 2067 AC Milan v Schalke, Olympico (Rome)

Earlier in the season, a pair of defeats to Olympiakos meant that mere qualification from the group seemed like a tough task, yet here we were. We weren't entirely at full strength due to our missing Mexicans, though that was balanced by Milan having a couple of Americans missing for the same reason. Otherwise we were pretty much at full-strength, with players like Barbaev and Thomas fit again after long injuries. Wed need the latter as while Berthelot could easily replace Corona, Thomas' opportunities were more limited (and therefore he was less proven) both because of Martinez being so good, and the broken leg the Frenchman had just recovered from (which was why the 17-yr old El Amrani played in the cup final).

As for the rest of the team, Popovich was obviously in goal. Hudson had already proven himself to keep what had already become a regular spot on the team, with the more established Andre on the other side. Farley was a guaranteed starter, while Aranburu has shaken off an uncertain start to cement the other central defensive spot for the time being, Maya being another clear pick in between them. Mantom had shone in midfield for a while but Michiels had reclaimed his position, alongside Berthelot who was at least a proven and capable understudy for Corona. Thomas was the only real choice on the wing (though a couple of forwards can also play there if needed), while there was no need to change Townsend and Hoxha up front, despite Kaunda staking a claim (with the fit-again Barbaev)

The match started in a very cagey way, with Townsend shooting wide in the 18^th minute being the first big chance. This was followed by a few attacks from each side until half-time, but I felt we had come closest. Unfortunately we were really missing Martinez (who with 17 goals and 18 assists had arguably stood out as the key player even in a team as good as this), as it wasn’t long before I felt I had to take off Thomas for Kaunda (who went up front with Hoxha slotting in on the left).

They started off a lot better in the second half, and managed to take the lead in the 51^st minute when their right-winger managed to get on the end of the cross and round Popovitch to slot home. They nearly got another a few minutes later but our Russian keeper managed to hold on to the header, as we remained on the back foot.

After 70 minutes we were finally able to fight back. Kaunda played the ball to Townsend, who couldn’t quite control it but Kaunda was able to get in to fire home himself for 1-1. The game quietened down after that, save from having to survive a late period of Milan pressure to get to extra-time. However I had to admit that they still looked like the better team.

Milan’s superiority continued early in extra-time, before the pendulum swung in our favour. We then managed to break the deadlock right after the break, as Townsend’s shot was parried by the Milan keeper, Kaunda got the loose ball and with the angle too tight for him, he placed the ball perfectly for Hoxha to score his 28^th goal of the season. 6 minutes or so later, Townsend crossed for Kaunda to fire home, pretty much sealing it. They scored a late free-kick and might have taken it to penalties right at the end but we had done enough.

[deltablue]

The End?

This is probably going to be it. It's become hard to properly play enough and maintain a career thread on a regular basis, especially one with so little interest. My main FM days are long behind me, which has probably been obvious for at least a couple of years now (as hard as I've been trying in recent months). I could continue (and I certainly will in terms of playing the game when I can) but I'm not sure if there's enough of a point in trying to keep a thread alive. Maybe I can try smaller projects at some point in the future though. I had decided a couple of months ago that I'd probably want to go out with another Champions League win, and here we are. At least it was a decent final. One of my regrets from my Milan successes earlier in the career was that none of our CL finals were particularly memorable, especially compared to some wins from much older careers that I still remember much better.

I haven't made a final decision yet now I've actually reached this point, but while I could continue I don't feel I have enough of a reason to if one reason or another will keep getting in the way for at least a few weeks at a time. Plus while I haven't tried anything internationally, or been able to do much outside of Europe (in any of my careers really), otherwise there really isn't much left to do anyway. Either way, things can never be the way they were in my FMCU peak, but it's been a wonderful 8+ years and I might still stick around to try and follow at least some careers. However while I can't exactly provide a BBC-style closing montage, the ending music still keeps playing in my head, in a way addressed to all the wonderful teams and players I've had over the years, including this one...

 

So long, farewell, but not goodbye
I know we'll meet again
'Cos I've seen in your eyes
The spark that lights the dreams of rocket men

And you still chase that light
That takes you to the place you'll always know
Takes you home

I don't know if I will make it
All I know is that the sun
Keeps on shining when you're gone
So I ride the wave that takes me
To that time when we were young
And you were always number one

They say it's too late to write your
Name in lights across the sky
That you've had your time
But you'd risk it all for one last chance to fly

Cause you still chase that light
That takes you to the place you'll always know
Takes you home

But I don't know if I will make it
All I know is that the sun
Keeps on shining when you're gone
So I ride the wave that takes me
To that time when we were young
And you were always number one

It's a brand new life
It's a glorious day
It's a golden sun
They'll write your name
In the fire & blood
When we're long gone

You will always be... number one.

See you around kids

[rodesire]

What an amazing journey this has been, delta. Hats off to you ✨✨

[deltablue]

On 25/02/2020 at 23:22, rodesire said:

What an amazing journey this has been, delta. Hats off to you ✨✨

Thank you very much. I had planned to go a lot longer into the distance, and I made my decision a couple of months ago when I was thinking a lot more about my future with the game and on the forums, but it makes sense to stop now. Actually the past week or so has been my most productive period of FM for a while (having already played the first matches of next season) and one that will probably continue next week which may make it odd to stop here on that basis but it's also nice to not to have to worry about keeping active with a thread no one is interested in anyway. 

I always prefer to end my careers on a high anyway, which is why I set a Champions League win as that point. It is especially appropriate that it was against Milan, as that was my most legendary team and this current Schalke team is developing into serious rival as my best. There are plenty of other clubs and countries to try my hand at as a new experience and challenge but I wouldn't feel like leaving for a while when I have such a good thing going here and I want to see how long this run can last. That means that there really isn't much more that would really be new and interesting to people, especially those who know my older careers. 

Gibbs rule 12 (or whichever number it is): When the job is done, walk away

[Pablo Sanchez]

This needs to come back