noikeee Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 9 hours ago, ManUtd1 said: That extra CL spot is huge. Nice! We really need to get at least 2nd place now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 Yay! A team from San Marino! We're finally turning into the reverse side of the coin of @Jupjamie's threads. After going through we're probably meeting Gorica, one of Slovenia's top teams. It can go either way, but we've beaten far stronger sides so I think we have the responsibility to go past both these earlier rounds. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 Novigrad - 2019/2020 - Golden signing Our 4th golden signing is a bit of a gamble. For a massive 850K€ from Levski, with a further 40K€ to be paid after he plays 50 matches for the club: Priorities here were goalkeeper, left-winger or right-back, the thing with right-back is none of ours are any good at the moment but we do have a massive prospect in Marko Jurjevic 19A that I want to develop. However, after thoroughly researching the market, I couldn't find anyone good enough to be a proper upgrade at GK or AML whereas this Bulgarian kid was, so he should slot in directly as starting right-back, Jurjevic 19A should become first backup (once he learns the position - he's a WBR now), whilst I will find a way to re-assign the other 2 players that were playing here: starter Marin Grujevic, left-footed, will probably become just a backup DL, whilst Marko Jozanovic is just not good enough. The thing with this Bulgarian kid is that, whilst he is great, he comes attached to a lot of caveats. Massive transfer fee, nothing like anything we'd paid before. Massive wage - I'm paying him 9.5K€/month, the next highest paid player is Marin Pilj at 6.5K€/month. And I was forced to give him a release clause of 2.5M€ to foreign clubs, otherwise he wouldn't sign. And he's mildly inconsistent. But he is a huge upgrade at DR, is very young, has a fabulous personality, and might have some potential. All things considered I think he was clearly the best available option. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 Well, this went pretty much as you would expect. Sorry to all the San Marino fans here: The greatest moment from this match was this absolutely precious owngoal: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
zethani Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 Really good career so far, winning the title in the second season was impressing. Best owngoal ever. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltablue Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 Showing good European potential already Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rikulec Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 What a goal. I immediately thought of this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
oriole01 Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 3 hours ago, Rikulec said: What a goal. I immediately thought of this. Even better! That was a great finish, @noikeee! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 Winning by just 1 goal in San Marino feels like a pretty poor result to me. The problem seemed to be our finishing, as we had 6 clear cut chances and 7 half-chances (!). We will now play Gorica as expected. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 Ugh, we dominated the match, but failed to create major chances, and Gorica in the very little they did, somehow got a goal. We're now in danger of having our European adventure this season cut very short. By the way, player of the match Dejan Polic, now playing for Gorica in neighbouring Slovenia, is our former player, having spent the first season with us on loan from Istra 1961. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 Woof! It's an epic late turnaround in the 2nd half! I had to delve deep into tactical tweaks to make this go our way, but it was the influence of Kepcija 17D who made the difference, by winning the penalty kick and then scoring the decisive 92nd minute goal. We get to play Israel's Hapoel Be'er-Sheva next. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 A big win that puts us in a great position going to Israel, but we were 4-0 up so I'm a little annoyed to have conceded 2 away goals from corners in the last half hour. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 Wow, just dodged a bullet. Board accepted a 1.7M€ bid for Marin Pilj. I protested and then they decided to drop it. The vultures are starting to circle over my players tho... I also had an offer from Shakhtar for Ben Moore 17A which I obviously rejected, and now he's annoyed... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 This tie was dead and buried by minute 10, but thanks to Marko Cosic's early red card which further opened up the match, it turned out quite a show for the Israeli supporters. As for the next round, , it was nice being here and playing the Europa, see you all next year. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 We were winning in the San Siro!! Twice!! At the end it's a shame we just about let Milan score the winner in the 90th, but to be fair we'd been massively lucky as Milan missed a penalty and had 8 clear cut chances plus 6 half-chances (!!!) It's still right about within the realms of possibility to turn it around in Croatia, but we'd need to be even luckier. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 The inevitable conclusion. After conceding on minute 6, our hopes of turning the tie around with a single goal were over, but I'm very happy with the creditable performance of my players - you could barely see that Milan were the superior side here. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted October 1, 2017 Author Share Posted October 1, 2017 We got a good ref! Need better penalty takers though! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
zethani Posted October 2, 2017 Share Posted October 2, 2017 Really good run in Europe, and a good struggle versus AC Milan. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltablue Posted October 2, 2017 Share Posted October 2, 2017 Good effort at the San Siro. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cplpeters1900 Posted October 8, 2017 Share Posted October 8, 2017 Is this over? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbokav1971 Posted October 8, 2017 Share Posted October 8, 2017 On 01/10/2017 at 08:55, noikeee said: We got a good ref! Need better penalty takers though! Stop mucking about and give pens to Beblek! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted October 8, 2017 Author Share Posted October 8, 2017 On 02/10/2017 at 07:39, zethani said: Really good run in Europe, and a good struggle versus AC Milan. Cheers! On 02/10/2017 at 15:23, deltablue said: Good effort at the San Siro. Cheers! 5 hours ago, cplpeters1900 said: Is this over? Well I've been busy with other things lately, so I dunno. Also this 3rd season has been a bit of a surprise trainwreck to be honest. Haven't really felt like doing the midseason update cause I'm embarrassed. 3 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said: Stop mucking about and give pens to Beblek! Stop wanting me to concede goals on the counter into an empty net! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbokav1971 Posted October 8, 2017 Share Posted October 8, 2017 52 minutes ago, noikeee said: Stop wanting me to concede goals on the counter into an empty net! In all seriousness, it really doesn't happen too often. I mistakenly set my GK to take corners last season, (no, I'm not joking), and we obviously conceded a goal as a result, but to put it in perspective, we conceded in the 3rd game of the season and we conceded just once. If you can imagine quite how extreme it is to have a GK in the corner area and for us to concede just once in 3 games, (in games where we had a lot of attacking corners), it maybe puts into perspective the danger that you might be opening yourself up to. Anyway, penalties and completely different to free-kicks and corners and if I was playing FM for money then my GK would be taking penalties. Absolute no-brainer. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted October 15, 2017 Author Share Posted October 15, 2017 Novigrad - 2019/2020 - Mid-season report Transfers This year we got rid of goalkeeper Ivan Mandusic, veteran centre-back Diego Valenta, and midfielder Alen Askerov. I'm afraid this has NOT been one of our greatest years! With all the European games congesting the calendar, and opponents waking up to the fact we're a threat, our form has been extremely patchy at best. In the 1.HNL win-defeat-win-defeat was the pattern at the beginning, before a string of 4 matches without winning in September which made us tank to 8th place. We'd be there for a while. Things only really started improving clearly by November, which we managed to make it an undefeated month (although featuring a lot of draws), which made us momentarily climb to 6th. However, a home loss to Vinogradar, before a surprisingly decent home 0-0 draw with Dinamo who are on magnificent dominating form, put us back down to 7th. The good news is that 7th is actually not that far from the top steps as the league is unbelievably tight. In the cup, we've not been having good draws, having had to play the first two rounds away to 2 other 1.HNL sides, Vinogradar and current reigning champions Rijeka. Surprisingly, unlike in the league, we had no problem in these fixtures, dancing past both sides to beat them both. In the quarter final we met our feeder side Istra 1961 and smashed them 4-2 (although it took two late goals), and this means we've made it to the semi-finals for the first time! We don't know yet who are our semi-final opponents, but Dinamo have already been knocked out so we actually have a shot at winning this! Unfortunately this has been a bit of a step behind, as our surprise factor is now completely gone and due to the career restrictions on transfers we're not improving consistently enough. Still, the league is so unbelievably tight that even being down there in 7th, there's no reason we can't recover the 5 points we're lagging from Slaven Belupo and still make it to that enticing 2nd Champions League spot. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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