rodesire Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 March 2020 It's youth intake time in Gibraltar and our youth investment is starting to pay off. It was not labelled a golden generation but I still thing we got a few potential gems on our hands this year. Cristopher looks fairly average technically and his 3-4* ceiling suggests he may not improve too much. Boiling has special reflexes and a decent distribution of other main skills, so hopefully he can grow a tad more. But the one I am most excited about is Dennis. He's already almost a first team material and if I can fix his determination, he could really become a big player for this team. On the pitch the results have improved as we won all 5 matches including a couple in the Rock Cup to advance to semis there. Suddenly, College Europa has dropped a couple gears as we have overtaken them in the league table. I am not sure how that happened but I will try and keep us there if I can. The other nice surprise is meeting a second division squad in the Cup semifinal, we're pretty much booked for the finals then. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodesire Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 April 2020 We had a moderately hard set of fixtures and yet we remained perfect for second consecutive month. Most importantly we advanced to the Rock Cup final and beat College Europa in our final head-to-head. This means we're still in second and with a chance to win the Cup after last year's disappointing finale against Red Imps. They have already secured the league title midway through the month whilst we managed to guarantee a European place and a massive payout no matter what happens there! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodesire Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 May 2020 The Cup final was a bit more difficult than first anticipated. We went 2-0 up, so I subbed on my youngsters. Then, almost straight away my older players started making mistakes that allowed Olimpique to come back and take it to extra time. Both teams had chances but we went further to penalties still. Boiling was the star there, saving two penalties and making sure the Rock Cup is ours. In the league, we safely finished the season in second as College Europa challenge never really materialised. That's a Europa League spot for us and more that I could have possibly dreamt of at the start of the season. All in all, a lovely season, I couldn't be more proud of the boys. We got a couple guys in the team of the season, the media loved our performance and it was really a fluke that I didn't get the manager of the season with Johny having nawt opposition anyway. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodesire Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 Around Europe 2020 More of the same in Wakes with TNS winning their tenth consecutive title. Their advantage is starting to dwindle a little bit, so we may see a title challenge in a couple years time, I hope. Normality is restored in Poland as Legia pulls away from the pack in the final weeks to recapture the title. FC Hollywood pull off their great escape and grab the title having been 8 points behind by winter break. Can they do it again or will Neverkusen and BvB mount a better challenge? Hertha seems to be gathering pace, it'll be interesting to see if they become a force in the league any time soon. Juve strikes back with vengeance this year. Noone else was within a shout of winning it this year, hopefully it is not a start of another snooze-fest. In France PSg break a 100 point barrier, so no changes there. Monaco were close but faded in the final weeks. No other side is even close to them. The emo One is dominating in Premier League yet again. Arsenal fall out of big6 and Newcastle finishes in fifth. It'll be exciting to see how they do in Europa League next season. Heartbreak for Valencia as they finish second having lead the table for 30 rounds this season. Atleti make sure Barcelona doesn't finish in top3 for the first time in like ever. The Thursday Cup was finally won by Arsenal as Feyernoord, Galatasaray and Sporting were other semi-finalists there. A more sensible result in the Champions League as Real Madrid broke Atletico hearts yet again with two late goals from Asensio. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodesire Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 Summer 2020 It's time for the Pan-European Euro 2020. Hosted by a record 13 nations it resulted in a bunch of unexpected outcomes with Scotland and Georgia qualifying for the knockout stages and Norway making to the semifinals. As usual England won it all at Wembley against the Netherlands. Closer to home, there was intense speculation over the seat at Barcelona. Their last season was rather awful, so a few managers threw their names into conversation, including Johny. Not only did he not get fired, but Barca actually considered him before booting him out like they should. After last year's heroics we are still the third least reputable team in the league. Despite that, my left back wants me to get through a round in Europa League and do exceptionally well in both league and Rock Cup. I really really wish I could fire him. No players entertained the idea of coming over to us, so I had to raid second division again and I got a couple of backups in case my first and second choices go down. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodesire Posted October 23, 2018 Author Share Posted October 23, 2018 Pre-season 2020/1 This is the first year we qualified for Europe and it had all kinds of narratives. It was kinda good in that our performance across two legs was decent against a 3* rep opponent with real players. It was really good considering we raised 20k from tickets and merch and another 190k in Europa League loser fees. It was, however, the end for our right winger Karl Sene. He suffered a horrific injury and promptly retired only a couple months later. On a slightly happier note, the media think we have a chance to make waves as they gave us shorter odds in the league and every single player award in Gibraltar. We also had our first national team call-up in Andrew Hernandez who has been a standout in our midfield. He's on a non-contract, so I will be praying no-one steals him before we turn professional one day. Last but not least, the friendlies went really well this year. We won every single won without conceding many goals at all. I am very very pleased with this outcome. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodesire Posted October 24, 2018 Author Share Posted October 24, 2018 October 2020 We started the season with a Super Cup against Red Imps. Just like in a Cup final they were more clinical with us scoring a goal late in each half. Just like last time, it was 2-3 to them. I did find some solace in intensity of our attacks though. With some gelling this team could become a force before too late. That was confirmed as we opened the league season with 5 wins a in row. We defeated both top teams in College Europa and Red Imps. Feeling pretty good about this season already. The feel-good factor was further compounded when I realised College Europa had defeated Red Imps too. And then Red Imps dropped points again and are now 8 points behind us after 5 game weeks. College Europa is not faring much better. Their super-star loanee got injured in his second match for 4 months having scored 5 goals in first 120 minutes in Gibraltar. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodesire Posted October 26, 2018 Author Share Posted October 26, 2018 December 2020 It's the end of the year, so let's have a look at the Belarus top league that just finished. More exciting things happening there. Dinamo Minsk win their second in two years but Dinamo Brest gave them a really good run. The latter seem to have slowly built up over the years and become a challenger. Meanwhile, BATE is still in fourth and surely will sack their manager after another underwhelming year. Back in Gibraltar, a few things happened off the pitch. I had released my top goalscorer in second division since he was moaning about game time. He instantly retired and got a job at the second division Boca Juniors. His skills are not amazing but he's got room to grow and hopefully we can have a couple battles down the years. Our chairman has changed his happiness at the club level from maximum to one below. Still not looking for a sale but not exactly unmovable object anymore. Myself, I just try to win and boy, we are on a roll. Looks like dynamics have kicked in and we can't stop winning. A typical match is us scoring early, our opponents get demotivated and then we finish them off at some point. Surely this won't last much longer but I will take all the points I can get. The league table is a bit shocking, we're 10 clear of Red Imps who finally are getting some wins together. College Europa is struggling quite hard without their lead striker and to make matters worse he got reinjured in training, 3 more months out. Also note, the promoted side sitting happily in fourth. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodesire Posted October 27, 2018 Author Share Posted October 27, 2018 February 2021 It is becoming a bit of a new year's tradition that the board offers me a new contract. Nothing too outrageous, 18-month deal with no promises from their side. Still, better than leaving after 3 seasons or getting the sack. The good news didn't stop there as Red Imps once again fell at the first hurdle in the Rock Cup opening it up to anyone to win. Transfer-wise not much happened this winter, we released a couple guys who were moaning about their minutes and brought in 3 reserves to tutor kids and provide third line backup in case of a horrible injury crisis. Competitively, we are still unbeaten domestically, though we did draw a couple of games. It seems like everyone is becoming a lot more defensive against us, just looking to park the bus and grind a nil-nil. We still got an eleven point lead over Red Imps, so we'll definitely be going to Europe and maybe even win the title. The dynamics are starting to drop a little bit, so I expect a mini-slump soonish. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodesire Posted October 27, 2018 Author Share Posted October 27, 2018 I have to admit I am not feeling this save very much at the moment, so I will just quickly go through the remainder of the season. We won the league, lost in the semi final of the Cup on penalties and turned professional. There wasn't a bit gap in the end, just 7 points but it was enough to send us through to the Champions League. I will probably restart this without the player attribute hiding since together with weird rep thing, it made Gibraltar game a bit unpleasant. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodesire Posted October 27, 2018 Author Share Posted October 27, 2018 Let's do this again. Journeyman. Tick. Accept first job offer after three years at a job. Tick. Start in a crappy country. Tick. Jaunius is still an awful manager. However, Gibraltar adventure means he has at least some coaching badges now. I am starting in March 2018. Belarus lower league and a Welsh Premier league clubs approached me and after a brief interview, the latter offered me a contract. 3 months. 3 matches to prove my worth. Can I get it done? The club has a fair amount of silverware but then you realise they've been around for 70 years, so they should really do better than that. The staff are really quite poor and finances are uninspiring. I am not sure how we can afford to pay all these average players any wages if I am to be honest. I might let everyone run their contracts down and resign a decent bunch for next season if I am still around. In the league we seem to be top of the lower half, we can't go higher and if we win next match we won't finish lower than 7th. I am not sure how European Play-off works and if we are invited. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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