[FM20] - Disappointment and defeat and good times in the Ukraine.

[DaneBramage]

Set-Up: Top 4 leagues of Ukraine, with the top 2 leagues of the surrounding nations (Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania).

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1992

The Ukrainian Higher League was formed in 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The inaugural season was won by Tavriya Simferopol, after they won Group A and then defeated Group B winners Dynamo Kyiv in the championship play-off. 

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Tavriya Simferopol - 1992 to 2019

The following season Tavriya fell well down the table, finishing 10th. They spent the next 20 years in the Ukrainian top tier, finishing everywhere between 5th and 14th in this time. They did taste more success in 2010 when they won the Ukrainian Cup.

Unfortunately, Simferopol is pretty precariously located on the Crimean peninsula. When this area was annexed by Russia in 2014, the club was dissolved and Tavriya were expelled from the Higher League.

In 2016 Tavriya Simferopol reformed as an amateur club, relocating to a safer base in Kherson Oblast, just north of the Dnieper River. In 2017/18 they turned professional and were accepted into the Second League (the third tier) and finished 4th that season, then 7th in 2018/19.

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Ukrainian Higher League - 1992 to 2008

For the 1992/93 season onwards the Ukrainian Higher League scrapped the two group and championship play-off set-up, instead going for the traditional league system. This seemed to suit Dynamo Kyiv, as they won the next nine years in a row.

This run of dominance was broken by Shakhtar Donetsk in 2001/02, and they went on to win four of three more titles in the next six years. The other three, of course, were picked up by Dynamo Kyiv.

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Ukrainian Premier League - 2008 to 2019

The top tier was re-branded in 2008, but this made no difference to who was winning the competition. Dynamo won the 2008/09 season, Shakhtar won the next five, Dynamo won the next two, then Shakhtar bounced back to win the last three.

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Ukrainian Cup - 2008 to 2019

A very similar story to the league. Chornomorets Odesa won in 1992 and 1994, Vorskla Poltava won in 2009, and Tavriya Simferopol won in 2010, but other than that, every year this has been won by either Shakhtar Donetsk (13 times) or Dynamo Kyiv (11 times).

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Ukrainian Champions - Hall of Fame

Edited December 5, 2020 by DaneBramage

[DaneBramage]

Starting with the recommended badges and experience for this level (national C license and semi-pro footballer).

There's a lot of work to be done here. We start with just nine senior players (and a large under 21 squad) , and no staff. So the first step will have to be hiring some staff so I can delegate out the things I don't want to.

No idea if this is much cash for this level or not, but the bill is £1.9k per week, so looks like it will be used up pretty quickly. Even more so when the additional staff are taken into account.

The club's vision matches this, with the main points signalling a sensible financial approach. Expectations aren't particularly high for this season.

Top two get promoted, third place goes into a play-off. Five subs can be used each game, but only one foreign player is allowed in the squad. We have one Belgian and one Spanish under 21, but everyone else is Ukrainian.

As expected facilities are at the lower end of the scale.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

July + August 2019

Friendlies, who cares. That being said, it's never a good look to lose to your own youth side. I was flying blind at this point though with no staff, so it's not the end of the world.

Before the season started we managed to steal an assistant manager (JPA 14, JPP 14) and a coach from DUFS for a combined £9k so that should help with picking a team going forward. 

We started the season a bit slowly, going three games without a win and only scoring once, but only one of these matches was a loss so it wasn't too bad, we were still getting points on the table. A good win in the cup kicked in a bit of form, and we went on to pick up a couple of wins. In the next round of the cup we played a team from the First League, so we did well to take them to penalties. We got absolutely smashed by Alliance in a game that was nowhere near as bad as it looked, the stats were a lot more even, but we recovered from it to end the month with a win.

Makarchenko is top scorer so far with four goals, but he really should have hit the net more often. He's had 48 efforts on goal, definitely needs to work on his finishing.

The heavy defeat against Alliance leaves us with a negative goal difference, but we've started okay, sitting just under the play-off spot. The top two are unbeaten at the moment and definitely look like they could run away with it.

Three-quarters of our money is already gone, I think the job adverts took a large chunk of this but it had to be done. 

Edited September 14, 2020 by DaneBramage

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

September 2019

Not a high scoring month, with goals being sparse at both ends of the pitch. We lost to two of the teams above, and drew once and won two against teams below. League leaders Hirnyk Kryvyy Rih battered us, we were luck to escape with just the one goal conceded.

Seven points from five matches isn't a bad tally though, as long as we keep this up we shouldn't be in any sort of danger come the end of the season.

We've dropped a spot but we're still in the chase for the play-off spot. HKR look unbeatable at the top, while the reserve sides are struggling at the bottom.

Our cash is all gone. I have no idea where any money will come from, we're only getting 200-300 fans into a 1,500 seater stadium. Our chairman hired a scout (JPA 5, JPP 4) so this adds even more to the wage bill. The scout has lined up a bunch of trials, most of whom would improve our starting eleven, but we have no way of affording a deal to keep them.

[DaneBramage]

Side note: In screenshots the team is being called Tavria-Simferopol. I've been referring to them as Tavriya Simferopol. This is because this is what Wikipedia calls them, so I'm assuming it's correct.

Either way, I've had to edit two posts so far to correct spellings of this, so I just wish I'd gone for a team with an easier name now.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

October 2019

A horrendous start to the month saw us take 40 shots over two games without finding the net. Luckily we then took on Nikopol who were on a woeful run of form themselves and we managed to gain a win. The Alliance game was pretty much a write-off, we rotated the whole team, but they did surprisingly well as Makarchenko found his scoring boots.

The points from the Nikopol win were enough to stop us slipping down the table, though with over half the season gone it looks like all we have to aim for is midtable mediocrity.

Ouch. I'm waiting for the winter registration window to come along so I can sign a couple of defenders, but that's just going to make this even worse. It has to be done though, there is a real lack of quality in defence so I desperately need additions. The eight defenders currently in the senior squad have a combined total of 3.5 CA stars (plus 4.5 silver stars).

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

November 2019

An unbeaten month, albeit one with just two games. Avangard-2 are the whipping boys of the league so we should be beating them. Energiya are just below us in the league but went into this on a run of four losses, so we could have hoped for better then needing an injury time equaliser.

The two goalscorers now have 14 goals between them, double the rest of the squad put together.

Still hanging on to fifth place, with a considerable distance forming to the teams above us. This won't change for a long time now, the winter break lasts until mid-March.

The chairman decided to bring in a sports scientist on £160 a week which didn't help matters. I don't know what a sports scientist does, let alone why we needed one. If he's going to make decisions like this I won't feel so bad about making additions to the squad myself.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

Winter break 2019/20

The youth preview doesn't seem to offer too much hope, but promising defenders are much needed so that's hopefully a good sign.

We've now got a senior affiliate from the First Division. They have great youth facilities so fingers crossed they'll send us someone useful, although they didn't in this window.

The chairman added sports scientists for the under 19s and under 21s, plus a head physio. I suppose this should help with the fitness for our squad, but he must think we're made of money. In fairness, he did then invest a big chunk of cash into the club to get rid of the negative balance that had built up.

Despite this, we were restricted to offering players a maximum of £100 a week. I brought in a centre-back and a right-back, plus another right-back on loan. My current right-back is being difficult about a new contract but really isn't good enough to be getting one, so I'll be able to freeze him out now.

Friendlies were just to build fitness ahead of the restart, but winning the last couple to get some momentum going in is good.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

March + April 2020

Not sure they'll think this was such a good idea when they see how the next few matches turn out. The chairman must have been on a signing spree though, as he also added an under 21s manager and an under 19s manager shortly after. So at least there will be replacements ready when it all goes wrong...

Labelled as a golden generation, but I think we all know how little that means when the standard of football is so low. Both Polischuks turned up with the first name Vasyl, so the midfielder had to be renamed for my sanity. Nice to have a couple of Scandinavians coming through.

The return from the winter break didn't go smoothly as we picked up three consecutive losses. HKR are already promoted as champions so we can't be too upset about that, and Pharma are ahead of us too, but losing at home to VPK-Agro was poor. A team meeting helped with morale and inspired a mini improvement. the win over Krystal being the pick of the bunch, but losing to Nikopol really jeopardises our chances of holding on to fifth place.

We're still hanging on to fifth spot but Nikopol's cracking form since the break has seen them storm up behind us, and they'll likely go ahead with their game in hand. The teams at the top have run away with it, and at the bottom Avangard-2 don't seem to be putting up much resistance against relegation.

No idea what's happened here. There's a £75k Other item in expenditure, but I don't know what it refers to.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

May 2020

Alliance are already promoted, but losing to already relegated Avangard-2 had me pretty riled. Luckily we bounced back to end the season strong.

We had dropped to seventh in the table, but Nikopol's collapse coupled with VPK-Agro bottling it on the final day saw us jump both of them to grab a good fifth place finish.

The £3.87k prize money for coming fifth didn't have much impact.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

2019/20 Review

What's considered a good average rating in this version of the game? I've only just moved on from FM07, where anything under 7.0 annoys me. So to have literally everyone under this level seems concerning. 

This was my tactic for the final two games of the season. I'm not much of a tactics guy so if there's anything glaringly obviously wrong with this, please let me know. I can use all the help I can get.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

History & Stats

[DaneBramage]

Ukraine

2019/20 Competition Winners

       

Shakhtar were dominant en route to a league and cup double.

I don't think I've mentioned yet what my aim is with this save. Obviously I'd love to overtake both Dynamo and Shakhtar and go top of this table, but I don't think that's really very likely. So I'd like to win at least a league title and a couple of cups, to solidify Tavriya's place as best of the rest.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

Summer 2020

Soon after the season wrapped up the board pumped in some more cash, just about pushing up the bank balance to a positive figure.

  

They then announced the new scouting budget, with an interesting note about where we can search for players.

We formed a reserve team for the backup and youth players to get more game time. IT quickly became apparent that this was a bad idea. It absolutely tanked the finances, as apparently they needed a new stadium built. Plus the chairman has brought in even more staff, I think there are more staff for this team than the senior team now,

  

A number of players left when their deals expired. Gurin had started last season as our first choice keeper, but at the age of 38 I phased him out ahead of his retirement. I wanted to keep both Masalov  (9 assists, FPOTY) and Klochko (6 goals) as both had been important players, but Masalov was wanted by a Premier League club and Klochko had his wages tripled.

  

We managed to bring in six players and are still looking for couple more. We've signed two left-wingers, a centre-back, a midfielder, and a striker, as well as bringing right-back Ilnytskyi in again for a second season. We still need a left-back.

Expectations remain pretty modest, and the board are pretty happy ahead of the new season.

    

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

July + August 2020

I realised quite late that the assistant manager hadn't arranged any friendlies, so I had to set up a bunch last minute.

We took a hammering from our senior affiliate, but otherwise did okay.

One more player brought in, a loanee left-back

Well, at least July was good. A couple of wins and 15 year old centre-back (20a) Turskyi won the man of the match award against Krystal.

We went on an unbeaten run of seven matches, but when five of them are draws that doesn't help too much. A complete inability to score goals was a major problem, and the run turned into nine without a win. In that time there were six occasions when we didn't score, for the last game of the month I changed formation to two up top to try and get anything useful from them. Makarchenko grabbed a brace, but our defence had their worst display so far instead.

.

We're not that far off the midtable pace, but the attack needs to get their act together if we hope to rise up the table. The league has expanded by one team, meaning we have an additional three games this year, perhaps explaining why August was quite so crammed.

Let's hope the board invests more cash again soon.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

September 2020

Tried a team meeting to improve morale and performances. Managed to upset them all further because my striker (over 13 hours without a goal) thinks they're playing well. Idiot. Why was the fine players option removed from the game?

They're not even trying to win. Pathetic. Admittedly four of those games were against the top three, but not getting anything for Chorno-2 is just not good enough.

At the moment we're just lucky there are other teams equally as terrible as us.

Wonder what I'll be fired for - poor performances, losing the dressing room, or the financial situation?

[mattyjames_]

I mean, you're setting up one heck of a redemption arc here though...

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

October 2020

We won a game! It was against the managerless bottom of the table side with an injury-time penalty after they'd missed one of their own, but I'll take it. We then won a second game, also against a team below us. The Vovchansk game saw a heavily rotated side gain an unexpected point. The strongest team then came back in and promptly resumed their losing habit. 

Massively disappointing. Even the two sides below us have scored more. Energiya are so bad that we shouldn't be in danger of relegation, but I'd be very surprised if we moved up the table at all. It's a case of hoping Myk-2 don't suddenly improve.

  

Not enough to make any kind of difference. In fact, this has actually got drastically worse. There was a big spike in Other costs, over £108k this month. No idea why, but it wiped out the investment and then some.

[DaneBramage]

42 minutes ago, mattyjames_ said:

I mean, you're setting up one heck of a redemption arc here though...

It would be one hell of a job to rescue this season. Don't hold your breath on that. Think I need to scour the tactics forum to try and work out how they actually function in this game. 

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

November 2020

After a bit of digging around in the tactics forum I had a crack at a new formation, and on its first outing it seemed fairly successful (18 shots to 1, 65% possession). We only got the one goal, but it was the only one of a game that we completely dominated, so that's a start. Perhaps it was just coincidence though, as Nikopol were on a bad run of their own and sacked their manager immediately after. We lost heavily next time out, and the questions from the media seemed to suggest they think I could be next.

Midtable is looking a long way off, and Myko-2 are catching up. This winter break has come at a good time.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

Winter break 2020/21

Not much of note here, but maybe I'll be surprised.

Four more loan players brought in to try and improve things.

A couple more investments from the board, but it's a drop in the ocean really.

  

Lots of friendlies, and results did improve as they went on.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

March + April 2021

Difficult to see any of this lot making a significant impact on the first team. One Macedonian amongst all the Ukrainians.

After losing the Metalurg ZP match I was summoned to a meeting with the board after the recent poor form. I claimed a difficult run of games to buy a little more time. We were the better side in the next two matches, but failed to get a result from either of them.

Held a team meeting to try and improve morale or motivate the players, and this function's definitely broken. You pick an option and the players react as if something else entirely was said. It's nonsensical.

Luckily our next two games were against the other two crap teams. We picked up our usual win over Energiya, and also beat Myko-2, though after beaten down to ten men most of the game we needed an injury-time winner to do so.

An important couple of wins keeps up above Myko-2. The teams above use are all on bad runs, the question is whether we can take advantage of that or not.

Another big spike in expenditure this month, second year in a row this happened at the same time as the youth intake, so I wonder if it's linked. At least the board injected more cash to half the deficit.

  

[DaneBramage]

Double post.

Edited September 19, 2020 by DaneBramage

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

May 2021

We picked up a good win against Pharma, and really should have beaten Nikopol too. We lead for so long against ten men, but gave up a late equaliser. Makarchenko and Zhukov put everyone else to shame.

A poor finish to a really poor season. Nowhere near the midtable placing we should have managed. Six goals and eight points worse off than last year, despite playing three more games. At the bottom Energiya get a reprieve, MFK Mykolaiv are being relegated into this division so Myko-2 have to drop out to make room for them.

More cash injected, finances still in a bad state.

  

Understandably the board aren't happy.

But they've given me a new contract anyway.

Edited September 19, 2020 by DaneBramage

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

2020/21 Review

Makarchenko was second in the player of the season awards last time, but with last year's winner gone and lower standards this time, he's jumped up to top spot.

Makarchenko is top scorer for a second year in a row, but with three goals fewer. He also bags the highest average rating (0.20 lower than last year's winner). Creativity was severely lacking, as Zaporoshchenko and Slusar combined didn't meet the total of last year's winner.

.

Some pretty horrific reading here. So many players who had significant playing time, yet failed to make a strong contribution. (20a) Turskyi had a decent first season.

Chebotarev, Zaporoshchenko, Mynaylenko, and Kushla are all new entrants into the overall best eleven.

Edited September 19, 2020 by DaneBramage

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

History & Stats

[DaneBramage]

Ukraine

2020/21 Competition Winners

  

Another double for Shakhtar Donetsk, but it was closer than last year.

Shakhtar are now just one league title below Dynamo Kyiv in the all-time rankings.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

Summer 2021

More cash put into the club. A couple more like this and we might get back in the black.

A bunch of players left at the end of their contracts. I would have kept Slyusar but he wasn't essential by any means.

Scraping around for freebies and loans. We also extended the loans of Dobryankski and Tanchyk for another year

Scored a bunch of goals in friendlies, though they dried up when we started facing tougher opposition.

I'm lucky I don't have a particularly demanding board. Expectations are low again, and their confidence in me seems to have improved over the break. We don't appear to be entered in the cup this year though.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

July + August 2021

He was upset because a promise to send him on loan had never been fulfilled. I didn't have that conversation with him and there's no record of it in his history, so I've no idea where the promise came from.

Brought back another of last year's loanees to provide some cover. My best centre-back was injured just before the season started so had to bring in another defender too. And another midfielder to replace Ovchynnikov.

Not terrible, but there's still plenty of room for improvement. Only getting two points from July was disappointing, we led in all three game but got dragged back each time. The start of August saw two good wins, before a rotated team got spanked by Balkany. We should have won both of the Borysfen and Hirnyk matches, on both occasions we had loads of shots and they had none on target, but we couldn't make the breakthrough. Burkovs'kyi scored three penalties in this time, but missed what would have been the game winning spotkick against Borysfen. We need to get a win sharpish to prevent last season's downward spiral starting up again.

Firmly midtable at the moment. Too early to make any real judgement on this, could go either way.

Not too far off now! Keep it up Mr. Chairman.

  

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

September 2021

Yes, this is what I want to see. An excellent month with three enjoyable wins. Khlopkov was the hero of the week with the winning goal in consecutive matches.

We've jumped up one place and have created a decent distance over the relegation spot. If we can keep this form up a top-half finish is potentially on the cards.

With no investment this month the negative balance has grown a bit larger.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

October 2021

A few results to bring ups back down to earth, but the performances weren't that bad. The Victoria game was very even, but they had the better finishing and our keeper Chebotarev made a howler to give away the third goal. We lost to Real Pharma with the very last kick of the game, not a good look against the team at the foot of the table.

I rotated all of the outfield players against Balkany, not expecting anything from the match and keeping the first team fresh for the next game. The second string stepped up nicely to pick up an unexpected win over the team top of the table. Chances were few and far between against Borysfen, but we managed to earn a point.

We've fallen a couple of places but I don't feel too disheartened by this. We're still strongly in the midtable mix. There are three games left before we stop for winter, against MFK (2nd), Hirnyk (8th), and Yarud (10th). I'd hope to beat the latter two teams, try and get into the top half before the break.

Approaching six figures into the red again.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

November 2021

A rotated team was put out against MFK to leave the first team fresh for Hirnyk, and that worked out nicely as we picked up an away win against the team just below us in the league. Novikov scored the only goal but then had to go off injured with a pulled hamstring. As our top scorer (6 goals in 18 appearances) that is a bit of a blow, but with the break coming up he should miss just the one game. That game was the Yarud match, I was disappointed to only get a point from this but it could have been worse, after Sharabura got sent off for two bookings we had to play for an hour with ten men.

A solid month helps us move up two places. The top two are running away from everyone else, the bottom three seem to be cut adrift, we're hopefully on track for a good upper-midtable finish.

The board are happy with the improvements since last year too.

And more cash has been invested, but we still have a negative balance.

We've had our first international call-up, for a couple of European Championship under-21 qualifiers with North Macedonia. (21m) Milosevski hasn't yet played a first-team game for me, but he played in both these games, though with three right-backs in the squad (out of five non-greys) he was used out of position both times. In the first match he was on the right wing, in the second he started in central defence before going off injured early on.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

Winter Break 2021/22

The preview for the next youth intake is in. Potentially a couple of good midfielders coming along, but as a whole it sounds underwhelming.

With how well the season is going I was given a new contract earlier than I have been in previous years.

Another investment, still a negative balance. 

  

Plenty of wins and plenty of goals as we regained fitness and sharpness ahead of the season re-starting.

Edited September 22, 2020 by DaneBramage

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

March + April 2022

The latest batch of kids have shown up. Signed them all to see if anyone has what it takes, though disappointed with no foreign lads turning up this year, instead we have an all Ukrainian group.

The good news it that we've become a team that is difficult to beat. Just the one loss in our last ten league games, and that was to one of the top two.

The bad news is that we've become a team that has real difficulties scoring goals, which is a big problem when you want to win games. Just the five goals in eight matches, and four blanks in this time. The Dnipro-1 match was a bitter pill to swallow, with 21 shots we should have smashed them; instead they stole a point with a last-gasp equaliser.

MFK and Balkany have the top two spots sewn up, it just depends which way round they finish to decide who goes up automatically, and who goes into the play-offs.

At the other end of the table Energiya are as good as down.

We could do with getting back on the winning track sooner rather than later to secure a top-half finish.

Another investment from the board, but as happens this time every year, the £75k other deduction for the youth intake wipes out this additional cash immediately. At this point I don't know if we'll ever end with up a positive balance. The club is a money loser, the board is having to constantly put in more just to cover this.

Edited September 24, 2020 by DaneBramage

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

May 2022

Like I said last month, we're difficult to beat. But there was a bit of an improvement in front of goal, we didn't shoot any blanks and we picked up a good win at Mariupol. Can't argue with a draw against the league winners MFK, and the draw on the last day of the season was also an important one to stop Chorno-2 jumping ahead of us.

I'd have snapped your hand off for this at the start of the season. Very happy with a 4th place finish, a massive improvement over last year. We never hit the run of bad form that we did in previous years so we were able to keep racking up points consistently.

There is a big shortfall in goals scored when you look at our total compared to the sides above us, so that's where we hit a wall and what prevented us from climbing any higher. 16 draws out of 33 games is a ridiculous number, a few more goals turning a few of those draws into wins and we could have been putting a bit of pressure on the teams at the top. Something to aim for next year.

The board are also happy with this top-half finish, and that at no point during the season did we look like we were in any trouble.

No investment this month so our negative balance continued to grow. The £4.1k prize money made a minimal impact.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

2021/22 Review

Last year's winner Makarchenko has dropped to third after a disappointing year in front of goal. He's been replaced at the top by this year's top scorer Novikov. In second place is Tanchyk, probably our best centre-back, and we've already agreed a deal to make his loan spell permanent.

Our top scorer didn't get into double figures, but it was still an improvement on last year's amount. Khlopkov has achieved the highest average rating of the save so far. 

Chebotarev was an ever-present in goal, not missing a second of football. Elsewhere there was plenty of rotation, though lots of players racked up a lot of substitute appearances, as in this league you can make up to five changes each game.

(20a) Turskyi and (21a) Kosovan both got gametime, though with the IR's love for a half-time substitution it didn't ever tend to be for more than 45 minutes per match.

Tanchyk, Dobryanski, and Palamar are new additions to the all-time best eleven, while Shvets and Novikov join the bench.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

History & Stats

[DaneBramage]

Ukraine

2021/22 Competition Winners

  

Dynamo Kyiv managed to break up Shakhtar Donetsk's run of doubles by beating them to the league title, but Shakhtar didn't go empty handed, winning the Ukrainian Cup again.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

Summer 2022

Same old story. More cash invested, still a negative balance. I'm desperate for the balance to go positive so I can start requesting improvements to the youth set-up, but it's just not happening. I've been regularly asking for a senior affiliate with financial benefits and eventually the board agreed to look for someone, but then couldn't find a suitable option.

  

A bunch of players left at the end of their contracts. Pokachaylo had played a fair amount but there were definitely better alternatives out there, so he was let go to free up space and wages. The other five all made the occasional appearance in the rotated team, but were never going to be good enough to become regulars. Ridruejo is Spanish, and you're only allowed to name one foreign player in a matchday squad. Not that we have many foreigners, but the other youngsters have more potential than him.

Tanchyk was our best defender while here on loan last season so it was good to make the deal permanent. Otherwise we have a load more new loanees, made up of a goalkeeper, two left-backs, and a striker. I'm still looking for another central midfielder, and also a winger for each side.

(21m) Milosevski continued his international career with two more under-21 caps. He wasn't bad, but North Macedonia were convincingly beaten in both games.

Friendlies, who cares. Let's just hope the goalscoring form continues once the season starts.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

July + August 2022

We managed to bring in three more players. Senyk is a familiar face on the right wing, he was on loan here last year too. Pshenyannk will provide a rotation option in midfield. Gavrylychev will be competing for the attacking midfield spot, we needed another player here as Burdovs'kyi suffered a broken leg in pre-season, putting him out of action for a long time.

We don't often beat Victoria, so it was good to start the season with a cup victory over them. That bought us a second round encounter with Premier League side Chornomorets. I anticipated a whooping, but we contained them well and were unlucky to lose on penalties.

The league games began with a truly pathetic set of bottle jobs. One loss and four draws in the opening five fixtures, and in three of those draws we conceded injury-time equalisers. We've already pissed away six important points.

At the sixth time of asking we finally recorded our first league win, and it was nice to do so over Metalurg, a side who had beaten us every previous time we've played them. Against Vovchansk we should have done better, not finding the net once from 14 attempts. But a rotated side then picked up a victory over Kramatorsk, leaving the first eleven fresh to beat Victoria (though even in that we conceded a 95th minute goal).

Gavrylychev is looking like a decent signing, with three goals in his first three games before picking up an ankle injury that would put him out of action for a couple of months. And Makarchenko finally ended an 18 game goal drought (although most of those were sub appearances).

An encouraging start to the campaign, but a frustrating one too. If you take away the injury-time goals we've conceded we'd be flying high in second place. Even so, we're on a decent run of form and hold a good position. It's all very close in the midpack at the moment so hopefully we can start to pull away from them and put some pressure on the teams above us.

No investment this month, so the shortfall has again fallen into six figures.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

September 2022

Results were mixed in September but not a disaster by any means. A couple of late goals earnt us four points from the opening two fixtures, but the next game against VPK-Agro was disappointing. 

We then hosted top of table Hirnyk and held them to a goalless draw. Last month we had a lot of problems with conceding injury-time goals, this time we benefited from one of our own against Mariupol. 

We ended the month with a big win, two players picking up braces. The goals are currently being spread around the team and the midfielders are definitely outshining the strikers, as at the top of the charts are Khlopkov, Gavrylychev, and Zhukov with four each.

We've moved up a place but we're still drawing too many games. This has allowed the top two teams to build themselves a nice gap already. If challenging them looks unlikely at this point then we've got to be competing to be best of the rest.

(21m) Milosevski picked up two more under 21 caps. He'll definitely have enjoyed the first game more than the second.

Another investment, but still a six figure negative balance.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

October + November 2022

I forgot to rotate the team for the Nikopol match so the first choice team had to play a second game within five days. I'm not taking any blame for the result though, it wasn't a loss due to tiredness, it was a loss due to an absolutely cowardly pathetic gutless performance.

I held a team meeting and told the lads to keep their heads up, and they responded well with a win over Real Pharma. But when we took on Metalurg we saw (20a) Turskyi get sent off in the 7th minute, and we got hammered. We needed a response to this, and when we were one down against Vovchansk at half-time it didn't look good, but a much improved second half saw us clinch the win.

I made a slight adjustment to my tactic at the start of November to try and get more out of my strikers (changing the role from deep-lying forward to targetman), and that seemed to take effect as all three of them hit the net, including loanee Bey's first goal for the club, as we signed off for the year with a couple of home wins.

We've dropped a place since September but we're still in the mix for third place.

The table seems to have divided into four distinct groups. At the top Hirnyk and Victoria will be battling it out for the promotion and play-off spots. Then there's us, Mariupol, Nikopol, and Metalurg all aiming for third place. Chorno-2, VPK-Agro, and Borysfen will be making up the numbers from 7th-9th, while Vovchansk, Kramatorsk, and Real Pharma are all in danger of relegation.

As we enter the winter break the board are pleased with how things are going.

(21m) Milosevski picked up two more North Macedonia under 21 caps, but both came in heavy losses.

More investment, but no real change to the financial situation.

Edited September 28, 2020 by DaneBramage

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

Winter Break 2022/23

Well I won't be getting my hopes up for any world-beaters coming through then. Just the one goalkeeper to look forward to.

A bunch of friendlies to get fitness back before the restart, though it did backfire a little with a couple of injuries that will rule out my first choice goalkeeper and best midfielder for a few weeks.

No investments during the time off and the balance continues to drop. Over the winter there were a few rumours of a takeover being possible, but this was ruled out by the current owners. If that's what's needed to get some cash I'm all for it.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

March + April 2023

Before league football kicks off again I sign a contract extension for another year.

Yikes. I know the preview said not to expect much, but it's come through even worse than anticipated. The good goalkeeper they mentioned seems to be an exaggeration, and for a second year there is nobody from outside of the Ukraine.

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I swear it must be deliberate to be this bad this often in so many different ways. Conceded a 91st minute equaliser against Mariupol. Didn't manage a single shot on target against Nikopol. Had 16 shots against Real Pharma and only scored once. It's unacceptably bad and it doesn't seem like anything I do actually has any effect.

A really poor return to action has probably killed any chance we had of making the top three. And it would be difficult to say we deserve any better, there's just a complete inability to win games on a regular basis. If you can't even beat the side at the bottom of the table then you've definitely got problems.

Another investment but it's immediately wiped out by the £75k cost of the youth intake. And given how bad that was I'd rather have kept the cash.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

May 2023

The roll of the dice said we'd beat Metalurg, but then only manage a draw against Vovchansk despite having 20 shots, 10 of which were on target.

The final three games of the season saw rotation taking place to try and maximise getting as many points as possible. A narrow win was picked up over Kramatorsk, before we lost to Victoria. That is the game that was sacrificed with a weakened team selected, though we did make it harder on ourselves by missing a penalty. 

This plan just about worked out as we clinched a victory on the final day, albeit one that required a 91st minute winner.

So we manage to secure our best finish so far. Fourth place equals what we achieved last year, but with seven more points earned and 10 more goals scored it has to be considered a decent enough improvement. We were held back again by having so many draws, and a large amount of inconsistency. We only won two games in a row twice throughout the season, but on a better note, we never lost twice in a row.

The top two places were considerably out of reach this year, but if we can improve again maybe next year will see us giving them a bit of trouble.

The board are suitably pleased with this.

Just like last year we received a pretty inconsequential £4.1k for the league finish.

Edited October 1, 2020 by DaneBramage

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

Season Review 2022/23

Cant argue with this choice. Zhukov has played more games for the club than anyone else, is my first choice right winger, and chips in with both goals and assists. The right wing must be a strong position for us with Senyk taking second place.

Zhukov really has been on form, also taking the top scorer, top assists, and most MOTM award. For a second year in a row Novikov has topped the scoring charts, and has also become our first player to end a season with an average above 7.0.

Finally a bit of green in the average rating column! Balanced out by a bit of red as well, but nevermind. 

Shostka has joined the best XI after just the one season on loan. I think I've had a different starting left-back every season so far, so that explains that. Probably need to find myself a more long-term option there. Shvets has come into the team on the left-wing, though I've mainly been using him in central midfield. Khlopkov is new in the attacking midfield spot, knocking Burkovs'kyi to the bench. 

I would personally have Novikov and Makarchenko the other way round, Makarchenko does have more goals but Novikov has a better ratio.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

History + Stats

[DaneBramage]

Ukraine

2022/23 Competition Winners

  

In a repeat of last season Dynamo Kyiv took the league and Shakhtar Donetsk took the cup.

After four seasons they are still the only two clubs to add to their trophy cabinets. I'm still a long way from adding to the Tavriya total, but at least nobody else is getting involved and challenging for third place.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

Summer 2023

A large chunk of cash was injected over the summer, but the finances are still in a mess. I guess while the board continuing to keep putting money into the club this is sustainable, looks like it will take a promotion at the very least though for us to stand any chance of actually making money.

  

At various times all three of these players were fixtures in the first-team, but between age (Kushla), injury (Burkovs'kyi), and a complete loss of form (Makarchenko) they all lost their places and slipped out of contention.

Bey is back for a second year on loan as the rotation striker. Shostka was on loan last year but this has now been made permanent to fill the gap at left-back. Kudryk will be the back-up for this position.

Expectations are the same as last year. We've finished fourth twice in a row, so I'd like to make the top three, and hopefully challenge for the promotion or play-off positions.

A bunch of wins, goals, and clean sheets. Can't ask for much more from friendlies.

[DaneBramage]

Tavriya Simferopol

July + August 2023

Awful. Completely awful. We've just gone totally backwards and thrown away any improvements we've made over the last two years. There's no reason to just turn this rubbish overnight, we have a nearly identical squad to last year. But now we're on one of those runs where we can't buy a goal, let alone a win.

Talking about trying to push into the top three looks stupid now, looks more likely that we'll be in a relegation battle at this rate.