Petite Wages, Massif Profits

[turnip]

Anyway, onto the matter at hand.

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Season 14: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

I took over with the club sitting in doodoo land, near the bottom of the league without having had a European campaign of any sort, and already dumped out of the cup. The facilities are as good as you'd expect; the financial situation less so. There're some good players at the club, and a few talented youngsters in the U-18s, but the main squad itself is horribly imbalanced, with only 2 DCs I'd have felt happy fielding while at Burton and at least 3 apparently 'first-team' AMRs. Fairly typical AI manager incompetence, admittedly, but without much by way of money there's limited scope to refresh the squad this season.

Key players

  

Mielcarz is our best DC by some margin, if only because he can actually mark players. Even if he doesn't end up having quite as much potential as my coaches think, he should still be a very good player.

Pekar is probably my favourite of the MCs here when I joined. No obvious gaps in his game apart from his being-blown-over-by-a-desk-fan physique and, again, still looks like he has a lot of development. Very keen to hang onto him.

  

Owczarek is probably not as good as he thinks he is (he already wants a move to a bigger club), but he almost certainly will be a top player in time. A very handy option to have on the left.

Cyfert is our Shadow Striker for now - his Finishing and Composure need to go up a bit before he'll do more than cover up top. But again, I like him - Vision is the lowest of the attributes I'd want to be higher and he's got good speed, which is good in basically every tactic I've got to work in FM21. 

November - February

We had a run of bad luck with injuries, starting basically the moment I walked through the door. I wanted to have a few games to assess my Best XI before the January February transfer window, but that didn't happen. Oh well, I ended up trialling a fair few South American youngsters whose contracts were expiring before the scouting really started at the end of December. We're now up to 7th in the league - 8 points behind 4th and the last spot for Europe. That should be doable; Lechia and Legia both seem to have pretty good squads, but KGHM Zaglebie and Piask seem a rung below them on the ladder, so we could even get 3rd with a bit of luck.

Transfers

The winter window is always a bit of a tricky one to judge. Most of the time, you don't really want to do much. Unless, that is, your team sucks and is so lopsided Evil Superman is giving you an appraising look. 

  

Not entirely dissimilar players, and Bunturi is probably the better player overall, but Vera is the one with the first-team spot for now - his 15 Tackling making him a better pick for our DLP-D role. That said, I expect Bunturi to take over at some point - his personality, Mental attributes and PPMs are better. Vera did apparently play 60 league games for Atletico National in 2041, though, which takes some doing.

  

Rodriguez is the only player we've spent money on - £7,250 - after we'd agreed a pre-contract and then brought the signing forward. I'd earmarked him as our new DR, but he can fill in very handily at DC if we need it. Meanwhile, Oscar is a cheapo punt for a bit of emergency cover at centre-back. I want more speed and more Composure, but he's someone we can throw into a hole in a pinch and if his PA is what my coaches think, he should turn into someone very useful.

 

[turnip]

It's squeaky bum time at the top of the league:

We have the tougher end to the season, with matches against Piast (H) and Legia (A).

KGHM Zaglebie also have to play Legia, so I imagine Pogon will be the happier of all of us, given they're paying 2 dumpster fire teams.

[turnip]

Well

Well well

Well well well.

Bugger me sideways.

Pogon had a truly epic bed-******** experience, while KGHM got a great result against Legia and then couldn't force the issue against Widzew, even once the home team went down to 10 men with 25 minutes left.

Full wrap-up to come.

[turnip]

Season 14: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

A very good end to the season. With only a couple of games to go, I looked at the rules for league sorting, saw the "Results between teams" thing at the top and wailed silently to myself. In the end it didn't matter, as Pogon found a way to not just fall at the last hurdle, but somehow drag the hurdle under themselves and roll arse-first into a water hazard. We're only in the Euro Conference, but that's better than nothing, and should make us a marginally more attractive team to sign for in the summer than if we were just plodding through the league.

In terms of the squad, it's mostly a question of trying to cull the players on high wages and keep the talented youngsters. With a decent tailwind, I reckon I can raise £7m in sales, and try to reinvest most of that in signings. I am going to revert to my Dinamo strategy of finding good young players on Amateur contracts and trying to bring them in to sell on. I also plan to have the scouts out searching for cheap players because we do need to be able to turn players around for profits if we can. 

Youth Intake

Looks good. M Kucharski has potential to be a good player, but also has 1 Determination, which is a red flag if ever there was one. Rymaniak does look like he could become a decent striker, but isn't good enough at any of his Physical attributes to be a convincing Target Man option for me. Elsewhere, there are some players of possible talent, but we'll have to see. 

[turnip]

Season 15: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

Transfers

We didn't raise as much money as I'd thought we would. Mostly, to be fair, because our players aren't very good. We flogged 3 second-string wasters for modest fees - mostly to be rid of their wage demands - and then did some fierce negotiation with Lyon before selling our first-choice GK for £1.5m + 25% of next fee; roughly his market value. 

Still, when you've got a database as big as the one I'm working with, having a transfer budget is a help rather than a necessity. We only spent money on two players - £250k in total - but still managed to make the squad stronger overall. Not everyone we signed was on an Amateur contract, but there's talent to be had and I MUST HAVE IT.

  

Sami is our new first-choice DL, fresh from Monaco's second team, he offers a good amount at both ends of the pitch.

Signing Lazarov meant we could sell our first-choice GK without losing much quality. He could do with developing some of his weaker attributes, but I'm happy with where he is for now.

   

Jose was a pre-contract signing who we paid £210k to bring forward the signing of. McAngry can do a solid job at DC or a solid job at DR, fuelled by nothing less than burning rage at the world around him.

Alvarez was a bit of a punt, suggested by my scouts not much before deadline day. Two-footed and can play on either wing - where we do have a slight lack of quality - he was out of contract and his agent suggested £40k would be enough to get him. It was. 

The Best of the Amateurs

"Amateurs", I hear you scoff (you all sound like Jacob Rees-Mogg in my head). "Pray tell, what is the value in signing amateurs to do the job of a professional?" Well, Jacob-Rees Mogg is an idiot, so I'll tell you:

  

Christoffer Kjerstad was on an Amateur contract.

Jens Bo Lohse was on an Amateur contract. 

  

Michael Pfeiffer was on an Amateur contract.

Alexey Trofimov was on an Amateur contract (although his club actually released him before we signed him. Still, my point stands).

Competitions

It's going well so far. I sent the second string team to play in Europe, which led to some rather nervy moments. But we qualified for the group, which is what the board wanted, and a couple of million doesn't hurt at this point. We're in a group with Valerenga, Djurgardens and Trepca '89, so I think we're in with a decent chance of finishing second and getting splattered by whatever Italian team drops out of the Euro Cup. 

In the league, we're also making good progress. KGHM Zaglebie are top, with 7 wins from 7 in no small part due to them making full use of Fiorentina loanees. We've got good strength and depth, though. The board want top 3, I want nothing less than to win the league and hit the Champions League next season. 

Finally

Of the two 5* players thrown up by last season's Youth Intake, one is doing more to impress than the other:

Waldemar will get his debut before Christmas if he keeps this up. 

[turnip]

Season 16: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

September - December

So far, so good. The European campaign is going as predicted - we finished second in our group on goal difference - although we're facing a Spanish team in the next round, not Italian as I had anticipated. 

In the league, we're top by 3 points from Wisla, who are 10 points ahead of Pogon. We're scoring a decent number of goals, and the goals are spread around, which is usually a sign that we should be able to keep things going. We don't (yet) have many transfers arranged for February, but we've still got capacity in the wage budget to bring more amateurs in, which is always good.

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by turnip

[turnip]

Season 16: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

Transfer Window

We did raise some money this time around. Our experienced ST moved back to England for £1.1m, the two experienced (and well-paid) Polish MCs moved to China and France for around £2.5m combined. Then Porto came in for Mielcarz (the good DC) and his £4.2m MRFC made me bargain a little lower than I wanted, although I reckon £3m + 50% of next transfer is decent if he develops well while he's there. Finally, on deadline day, Bayern and Porto both came hunting for Owczarek - I bargained harder this time, but the board did eventually accept £12.5m (half in clauses) + 40% of profit on next transfer. He had 10 goals in 17 games, so it wasn't a deal I wanted to accept, but the money was decent. We also flogged a few crapsters for small sums. 

Ins

  

Caicedo was an end-of-contract pickup from Liga de Quito. Not great right now (physicals are a bit low), but should have scope to improve, and if we make a couple of million off him I'll be happy.

Fabra was another end-of-contract, this time from América de Cali. Scouts liked him, coaches like him a little less, but he's a fairly cheap option at AMC or ST.

  

Pérez was our actual replacement for our experienced ST. Solid all-round attributes, can also play AMR and has a decent personality. He cost £250k, but I'm happy with that for what he should bring. 

Babic was a cheap pick-up from Hajduk. Still has to develop a bit more, but can do a job if we need him to. Coaches and scouts like him, he's on cheap wages and has the sort of PPM I want in an Inside Forward. 

  

We brought a few more Amateurs into the club, Soma probably the best of them. Not great defensively, but good enough and should kick on now he can train full time (scouts think he has 4.5* PA).

With Owczarek leaving, Tomczyk gets promoted to the first team to take his spot. He's already pretty good and should get a lot better. I doubt he'll be with us for long!

[turnip]

Season 16: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

February - May

We did what we needed to do in the league. Other teams did start offering some fairly significant resistance - of the 10-players-behind-the-ball variety - but we largely held firm. Having reached the First Knockout Round of the Europa Consolation Prize tournament, we were drawn against Alaves and I just threw the tie - no point compromising league form by trying to contest a cup I couldn't give less of a **** about. We went out in the Quarter-Finals of the cup to Wisla Krakow and - again - i didn't care enough to send a decent team. We managed to stay clear of Wisla in second place. The 2-0 win over them on matchday 32 sealed the title for us.

The game against Warta Poznan on the final day of the season was emblematic of one of the major issues I have with FM21 - our opponents gave away 39 fouls in the game, but the only yellow card they picked up was when they conceded the penalty that won the game for us. The referee got a 6.8 rating. 

Summary

Our Slovenian MC won the league Player of the Season award - 10 goals and 14 assists make a convincing case, imo. Our backup ST got most goals for us this season, with 16 in 22(4) appearances. One of our Amateur Danish pickups nabbed 9 from 9(13)  while our French DL got 7 assists. The Slovenian also led the team with 3.94 Key Passes/90 mins. 

We did struggle a bit at times as teams dropped deep - as usual, there's a threshold we need to hit where the quality of players at our disposal means we can basically brute-force our way through, and we're not there yet. 

We need an upgrade at GK - our Bulgarian arrival did well, but had pretty much zero development. We could do with a DC who is decent in the air and also quick - we're still far too vulnerable to counter-attacks - and a good DR. We've got decent depth at MC and ST, but really need someone with quality at AMR. Tomczyk is a good option at AML, but he's still young and having someone who Tomczyk can deputise for at times would be ideal. 

Youth Intake

A weird intake. No-one very exciting came through, but the lowest rating we had for any player was 1.5+1*. Traore initially looks like trash, but Góral is pretty handy. Generally, the better players had **** Determination and the weaker players had pretty good Determination. I signed all but 3 players (mostly the most poorly-rated players with poor Determination).

Góral looks decent. We're working on his Strength and if we can get that/Jumping Reach up by a few points, I think he'll have a genuine chance of featuring in league XIs. He'll never be great, but he looks like a long-term option at DC in the league.

Edited June 19, 2021 by turnip

[turnip]

Season 17: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

I 'lost' a season somewhere, but I just counted, and this should be Season 17. I blame the fact that I often write these updates drunk.

Transfers & Start of Season shenanigans

Amateur Hour

Just the one Amateur signing who'll get first-team football this season. I know I over-egg the value of signing Amateurs, but the players we get generally need a season or so of full-time training to be ready. Lacerda, on the other hand, is already a bit of a monster. Even if he doesn't improve much from here, he's good enough to terrify most defenses in the Polish leagues.

Players with a bank account

  

Two young strikers. Blakemore came from Man City, where he'd barely got a look in. We're paying him quite a lot and he has a fairly low MFRC, but if he gets a few goals for us it should be worth it.

Joof, on the other hand, comes from Kalmar FF to give us the kind of tactical flexibility that only a mobile skyscraper can bring to proceedings. The fact he's allegedly good with his feet is just gravy.

  

I wanted another good GK, and Flores was being released by Atleti. We got him on trial (as well as a Chinese GK from Real Madrid) and he seemed a good option. He's started the season well, too. 

Chaito looks like he could be a good player if he develops well. At the moment, he's a handy DL who'll be in our 2nd XI and probably do a solid job. He cost us £1.7m. The DL I actually want is at Nacional in Uruguay and is ****ing awesome, but I think we'll have to wait until next summer to sign him. 

  

Ido was signed to be our quick DC for when we think teams are going to try to counter us. He's not as strong defensively as I wanted, but we're still working on the scouting network and he was the best we could find on relatively short notice.

Prettykovski had been on the radar for a while and when I realised we didn't have a solid AMC backup, bringing him in on a free seemed a no-brainer. Technically, there's some improvement to be made, but he's good enough for now.

Results

Another good start to the season. The loss in the Super Cup was annoying, but a short pre-season and it being sandwiched by more important games meant the crap team we put out was unavoidable. The opening day league game against Wisla was a fair-ish result. Their start to the season was far worse then ours - they got dumpstered out of Europe in their first tie.

Our Champions League qualification was a bit of a rollercoaster.

Drawn against Vardar? 

Drawn against Red Star? 

Drawn against Astana? 

Drawn against FC Kobenhavn? 

Thankfully, other than a tense first leg against Red Star, it all went smoothly enough; our 1st XI showing why they deserved the responsibility of making sure we got that sweet £13m for qualifying for the Groups. 

In the league, we've done well with some strong performances. That said, the 1-0 against Bruk-Bet Termalica was utterly execrable: their 4-2-3-1DM more or less impenetrable save for a Sebastian Alvarez free kick (one of only 3 shots we had in the game (they had 4 total)).

Our reward for qualifying for the CL groups was the usual dickslap:

We used the money to persuade the board to give us 2 new Scouts and to improve the Youth Training facilities.

The 2nd XI will try not to get humiliated in Europe while our 1st XI focus on making sure we go back-to-back in the league.

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Youth Update

Waldemar Rymaniak is threatening to be a seriously good player. Here he is now, with the progress from when he was generated - 18 months ago!. 

My coaches still think he's 2* CA, 5* PA. I need to start thinking about his individual training plan. He was working on Strength, but I swapped that to Quickness. Given that physical attributes are given such a high weighting, I'm probably going to swap to something like Passing to try to get that up while there's still plenty of PA going spare. If Passing can get up to 12 or so before he turns 19, I'll then switch back to something physical (or maybe go for Penalties). He doesn't turn 17 until December, so there's still loads of time for him to crank those numbers up even further. 

[turnip]

Season 17: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

September - December

We've been good in the league - not quite rolling over the opposition, but grinding out the wins when we're not playing well. We're a decent chunk clear of Lechia and Legia, who are level on points with each other, and in turn a decent chunk clear of 4th. 

In Europe, our second string team has probably done slightly better than I'd expected. The win against Dortmund was unexpected, but about as deserved as all of the other results were. 

In the Cup, we're playing a rubbish team in the next round - the board expect us to reach the final, but I won't care if we don't.

Youth Intake Preview

So... defenders, strikers and a goalkeeper, then? I can work with that.

We're also in the process of upgrading the Youth Facilities to whatever is above 'Great' while our Youth Recruitment and Junior Coaching are now both max'd out. We don't have enough money yet that I think we need to improve Training (we're at Great there, too), but I also don't think we need to yet. 

[turnip]

Coaches: whatever you're doing in training - for the love of god, please stop doing it

[deltablue]

I see what you mean about Rymaniak looking good already.

[turnip]

Winter Transfer Window

We fended off some troublesome bids from Chinese clubs for Tomas Pekar of around £12m, and although the board accepted a bid of around £9m from another Chinese club for our Mexican DC Herrera, he decided to stay with us.

We've got a bunch more crapsters leaving at the end of the season, including some of our last-remaining high-paid-but-not-very-good players, so I thought it was time to bring some more young players in.

Spoiler

It's always time to bring more young players in

  

Gerrit will probably end up costing us £1m, but my scout was seriously excited about him. We're not short on options at AML, but he looks like he could be pretty damn good in a couple of seasons. If I remember to give him game time.

Fikret was actually an end-of-contract from the summer who turned 18 in the meantime. A lot of development is needed, but can probably plug a gap at the moment, if needed. 

Amateur Hour

 

 

I'm very pleased to have found these guys. Kluivert, in particular, seems like he could be brilliant in a few years. Cunha scored on his debut - getting us a deserved winner in the 85th minute having played the full game. (Since I usually Instant Result, I tend to put my young players in the starting line-up and let the AssMan take them off at half-time, so I was surprised but very happy he stayed on and won it for us).

 

Youth Intake

I don't want to get used to this, because this is great. As before, the better players tend to have the worse Determination, which is why I'm signing everyone except Wolsztynski.

As for Frąckowiak, if his PA holds, he could be Lewandowski-levels of good

He needs some mentoring, a bit of time in the gym and a couple of years pulverising defences in the U-18s, but we could honestly stick him in the first team now and he'd play well. 

[turnip]

Season 17: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

We were pretty much a steamroller for the second half of the season. Not very pretty, not very exciting and not exactly cheap, but about as inevitable as death. It's no real surprise that our only midweek fixtures this side of Christmas gave us a 2-1-1 record, compared to the 11-2-0 record for weekend games; our first team is very strong, and our second team isn't. In fairness, the lack of midweek games meant quite a few of them weren't match fit either, which doesn't help. 

I think we wrapped up the title with the win over Lechia, but it could also have been the win over Gornik. I wasn't really paying attention. I did notice that Katowice were our opponents on the final day, and that they are pretty bad, so I decided to give Frackowiak his debut. Some debut it was, too! He missed a penalty in the 2nd minute (a very good save), but scored his second penalty just before half-time and even got an Assist before I subbed him after ~65 minutes or so. 

Elsewhere, Blakemore top-scored for us with 24 goals, while Lacerda scored 17 coming off the other wing. Perez (14), Tomczyk (13), Pekar (10) and our backup ST (10) round out our main scorers, while Pekar (16) and Tomczyk (12) led the way with Assists. 

I am happy with the First XI, but I suspect there'll be some movement. Janiak seems the most likely to leave, but Bessak (DL) will also move unless I give him a new contract; I like him, but a new deal might be a bit rich for me. Herrera is also a strong candidate to leave, but he seems to like it at the club so I guess it's in my hands. 

I'm doing a lot of scouting at the moment, trying to work out how best to improve the squad. I still think next season will be too soon to take the Champions League seriously, but if we can improve the Second XI to the point where they can finish 3rd in the group, that would be very nice indeed; the First XI should be strong enough to get us to the Group Stage.

[turnip]

Yeah, it's only a friendly to build fitness ahead of our first Champions League match, but do you suppose triallist David Iovine was trying to make a point with his 6 goals?

[turnip]

Season 18: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

 

Transfers

We sold Marcin Janiak to Rennes for something like £8.5m - I'm not sure we'll ever see much of the 30% Profit of Next Sale clause, but the up front was good. We flogged our Bulgarian GK back home for £2m and got rid of Caicedo (Ecuadorian DC) for £2.5m. Bayern came in with a low-ball offer for Perez and, recognising that there was no way he was going to be happy with me refusing them, I accepted what will probably end up being £1.5m + 50% ONS. Let's hope there's some value added. 

  

Sheta comes in to strengthen the First XI, on a free from Chelsea. He'll never be great, but he should be plenty good enough for us. 

Bozic was our new First XI DL, coming in for £3.5m from Red Star. I'm not sure he's a huge upgrade on Bessar (who we farmed out on loan), but I wanted someone with a better aerial game, as GKs hoofing it out wide is apparently a thing we have to deal with.

  

Marzec is our new 'we need a young Polish player in the team' player. My scouts and coaches think he's got lots of improvement, which: fingers crossed, I guess, 'cos he kinda sucks right now.

Marcen was probably a bad signing. I wanted another DC and we paid too much (£3m) for this guy. He's not bad, don't get me wrong, and should improve a bit, but I knew more or less straight away that I should have walked away.

  

Diego Rey was brought in to be the new Cesar Perez, but should be better in time. Two-footed and with a nifty skill set already, I'm hoping he gets enough game time to really kick off some improvements. He only cost us £14k, mind you, so no loss if he doesn't.

And then we have Danilo Canobbio. The player I should have signed instead of Marcen, and then signed anyway. We could have had him for free at Christmas, but he wanted to wait before signing a pre-contract to see what sort of offers he'd get, and then a bunch of high-profile clubs came out of the woodwork to admire him and I caved. Nacional bargained hard - he'll likely cost us around £4m - but I think it's worth it, because he could end up being incredible. No MFRC either, which is lovely.

  

When I saw Adgei Baía, I asked myself whether I really needed to sign another AML, but of course I did. Another kid who could become a fantastic player. 

Amateur Hour

Sprangers asked for quite a bit in wages for someone who wasn't earning enough to get a bus ticket before now, but I love the Pace, I love the Teamwork and I love the Decisions. 

 

The loss in the Super Cup and the loss to Piast were both annoying (although both deserved).

We made hard work of the games against Linfield and Maribor, but we did enough to squeeze through the ties against FC København and Malmö. Our reward is the usual £13m and - again - a big ol' dickslap.

I wasn't planning on sending my First XI to the Group Stage games, and this just reinforces what a waste of time that would be.

[turnip]

Season 18: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

The league is going well. We're top by 8 points from Legia, although it hasn't been completely smooth sailing (the draw against Cracovia was true hair-pulling, shrieking-for-your-country material). 

Europe is also doing Europe-y things. Finishing on 6 points, we actually were in with a chance of finishing 2nd in the group, but Zebventus beat ManUre on the final day. The Away Goal we scored in Monaco ended up being important, as we finished equal on points with them, but pipped them to 3rd place on Away Goals.

Sweet.

Shakhtar await in the Europa League Knockouts. 

 

We finished our latest upgrade to the Youth Facilities. I got a big red WARNING in the summer when we failed the club ambition to have the best Youth Setup in the country (I think technically, Legia had us beat there), despite pushing for upgrades regularly, so hopefully this will help with that. I also just persuaded the board to spend £3.6m on upgrading Training another notch, which is nice. I might also ask for more Scouts, because why not. 

[turnip]

It's funny, I was just sat here looking longingly at the top-rated guy on my shortlist, thinking "Can I really justify signing another Goalkeeper, when Flores is playing well and I've got a decent backup?" and then this happens:

I don't usually like it when the Chairman steps in, but I'd almost certainly have accepted £5m if they'd made it non-negotiable.

Bye, Fernando Flores!

[turnip]

Season 18: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

Winter Transfer Updates

In addition to the big sale of Flores to América, we sold our second team DL to Bayern for £3m(£5m) + 50% ONF, and a backup MC to Dortmund for £2.5m(£3.5m) + 30% ONF.

We also had a rash of bids for minor youth players. Most I batted away, but some I accepted if only to make the bids stop. Reader: the bids did not stop.

  

First up, Daza is the replacement for Flores I might well have signed in any event. His tactical game could use some work, but he's already fantastic and will only get (my scouts and coaches think) a lot, lot better. He cost us £2.1m, which is a snip, really.

Meza is the replacement for the guy sold to Bayern. I gave him a higher squad status than I'd planned to, mostly because a couple of other clubs were sniffing around. An end of contract signing we brought forward for £91k.

  

The Bolivian duo. Mamani was the first-arranged signing, with Mesa being flagged up by my scouts a few days later. Both were pretty cheap, and both should bring plenty to the team in time. Both look like they can bring a fair amount to the team, even if we're not really short of options in midfield at the moment. 

[turnip]

Season 18: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

End of season summary:

Form held out pretty well. No alarms and no surprises (for us at least) in the league, and we actually won the cup for a change. Which was nice. 

In Europe, we deserved to beat Shakhtar but had more than a little luck against Getafe. At some point, however, you need more than luck, a lesson Sevilla were keen to point out to my Second XI. 

The Europe run did us a favour, really, by making sure our Second XI continued to get game time. Most of them are continuing to improve and even if for most of them their future lies away from Poznan, it's still nice to let them develop so we can sell them for fat stacks (that's what the kids say, right?).

The final league table probably flatters us. We didn't play a lot of scintillating football - I reckon we're still a couple of seasons away from being able to mostly brute-force our way past teams - and against particularly stubborn teams, we sometimes had to resort to whacking Joof and Rymaniak up front and playing Stokeball. Which is fine - that's why I signed Joof in the first place - but feels somewhat at odds to the goal at the moment. Also, Joof is weirdly terrible in the air for someone who has to notify air traffic control when he goes for a walk; you'd think 18 Jumping Reach, 17 Heading would make him an aerial powerhouse, but he really isn't. He did score both goals in our 2-0 win over Arka, but those were the only 2 headers he won all game despite his centre-back opposition being shorter and worse at jumping. 

 

Also worth noting is Legia finishing in 5th. They sat in 2nd for most of the season, but their form fell off a cliff after Christmas. They can't blame a good run in Europe, either, since none of the other Polish teams did anything of note. We're pushing that coefficient solo for now, it seems. 

 

In other news, there seems to be a takeover in progress

Hard to get excited about £4.7m when there's £33m in the bank. Our current Chairman has been pretty sensible about the bids he's gone over my head to accept, so as long as we don't end up with something worse there, and can keep incrementally improving the facilities, I'll be happy with whatever happens.

 

Players

Some very pleasing performances all-round this season. Thomas Pekar again led the line in terms of Average Rating, although his goals scored (14) looks less impressive if you take away the 10 penalties he converted. He did get 17 assists, though. Bozic, our first-team DL also had a very solid season; I was concerned through most of the autumn that he was close to his PA, but he started making some tidy attribute improvements in the spring. We may end up selling him, though; he has a £5m MFRC and we're signing a new Polish DL to correct a bad decision I made in February; and try as I might, I can't think of a way to use 3 DLs in 2 XIs. 

Lacerda had another very good season on the left, but added 'getting injured' to his game, picking up 9 separate injuries across the campaign. None serious (he says, eyeballing the Sports Hernia on the list), but jeez, dude. 

Sheta was the best of our new DCs, both by Average Rating and Tackle Completion Ratio (89%), but Canobbio did well, too, in his 23(10) appearances. 

Bunturi had another solid season, just sort of plonked in midfield. He's making noises about wanting to join a bigger club, but he got a new contract and I want him to stay and become a Team Leader so his Perfectionist personality rubs off on a few others. Joao Costa got the nod for DLP in the Second XI and did well for an 18-year old, but it feels like a waste of his talent. Mamani just seems like a much better fit as our AMC and averaged 6.3 Key Passes/90 in his few appearances. 

The goals were spread around again. Blakemore and Pekar got 14 each, Tomczyk and Maciejewski bagged 13, and Cyfert and Rymaniak each scored 10. Rymaniak was the standout, in that he only made 14(5) appearance.

We actually had to fend off some interest for Rymaniak - Bayern and Dortmund both came sniffing around a couple of times, but my Asking Price of £120m seemed to give them the appropriate hint. I need to renew his contract and I'm really hoping he doesn't insist on a MFRC - I've got an option for 3 more years on his £300p/w deal, so we can hold him hostage a while longer if I have to. Frackowiak got a little bit more game time, but he's still only just turned 17, so I'm easing him in. 

 

My hope is that whatever happens with the takeover, happens soon. I don't want to go into the transfer window still under embargo - I've only got 1 player incoming, for goodness sake!

[turnip]

 

Part of me feels like pointing out that £925k is a lot less than the £4.7m that had initially been suggested.

However, Bernardo Herrera is a very good player I had always assumed I couldn't afford to sign, and Ian Seger is... well... probably donkeyshit, to be fair, but donkeyshit with resell value at least. As long as I get to keep my transfer budget of £21m, I can live with this. Magdic has scrapped the 'be the best for youth' aspiration, which makes me think it might be a little tricky to massage upgrades from him, but we'll see how that goes, I guess.

[turnip]

Season 19: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

The takeover went through a few days into July. I was getting nervous, but we didn't lose any serious time to it, so that's good.

We had a bit of a clearout of players. Maximiliano Rodriguez left to go back to Nacional and got capped by Uruguay two days after getting his Polish nationality. Props to the Uruguay manager for getting in quickly there, I guess. Kjerstad moved back to Denmark - he was good for us, but barely developed at all and sometimes you've got to let the numbers speak for themselves. Rijeka used their option to sign Bessak for £1.7m after his loan with them ended. We had a few teams hunting for our DCs and I basically shepherded them towards Marcen, who moved to Rennes for £3.5m (£4m). Prytykovskyi got shipped back to Ukraine for £2.5m, Porto paid £2.5m for Jose Herrera and Bayern paid us ~£3m for Meeuwsen. 

Liverpool made a series of 'spot the difference' bids for Bozic on 31st August, but we'd re-upped his contract in the summer, which increased his MFRC to £6.5m. And between him having re-signed recently and Liverpool not meeting his MFRC, he was happy for me to bat away the 5 bids they made in quick succession. 

 

As noted above, our new chairman splurged on two new players. 

  

Bernardo Herrera is, as discussed, a pretty good player. I'm not sure he's worth either the transfer fee or the wage, but there you go. We're playing him at AMR at the moment (which he can play) because I'm feeling a bit defiant about the Chairman signing him. He'll get some game time in the middle, too. 

Elsewhere, Bob Ian Seger is better than I'd thought, although I don't like the Tackling in someone who's on a Cover duty (because it's untrainable). He's already made 3-4 mistakes when attempting headers, plus a couple while marking, so let's hope he can restrict those to games I don't care about, or are already winning comfortably.

  

Zanini probably isn't good enough to really deserve the Wonderkid description, but he's a solid DC. He played 22 games for Verona in Serie B last season, so they bargained hard. We'll probably pay something like £5.5m in total for him, but assuming we can get his Pace/Acceleration up a couple of points each, it should be money well spent. 

Frasca was a cheap punt on someone in Serie D. He cost £125k from Pro Sestro and although neither my coaches nor my scouts were impressed, I think there's a fair amount to work with.  

  

Prefacio has been on my radar for a while, but with there being reasons to believe that Łukasz Marzec is an emperor with a limited wardrobe, I thought it was time to bring him in. £6.5m, with no MFRC, and I'm a happy manager.

Frydrych was actually our first signing of the summer, arranged at the end of February. With Bozic renewing his contract (and Marzec looking like a bit of a lost cause), we're re-training Frydrych to DR, where he should do just fine.

 

Results

Our best July-August yet.

I'm not sure why the Super Cup Final was pushed to a week later than usual, but we won it comfortably enough. In the league, we've alternated between professional wins over stubborn opponents and "huff and puff, then blow the fackin' doors off" wins. Meanwhile, in the Champions League qualifiers, we could have hit double-figures in each of our first 4 matches before more circumspect performances against Breidablik* and Valerenga saw us into the Group Stages.

We've been performing well as a team. Sheta, Tomczyk, Pekar, Lacerda and Maciejewski are all rating above 7.5 so far this season. But that's nothing compared to Carlos Mamani, who has 4 goals and 10 assists from his 9(1) appearances, at 8.23. 

The Champions League draw has been made, and although we got the usual "Lech handed tough group" new message, I don't hate what we've been given.

Sevilla will be tough, sure, but although Ajax always have a good team, I reckon there are points to be had there, and Energy Drink FC Austrian Franchise are never an impossible opposition. I think second is a possibility, and I'm prepared to send the first team into Europe to explore said possibility. 

 

* - not sure why my computer's Character Map doesn't have a normal sized version of "Modifer Letter Small Eth" but it doesn't, so just assume I put one there.

[turnip]

Season 19: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

September - October

We've continued our excellent start to the season, and the decision to play the First XI in Europe is paying off. The wins we've had have been hard-fought, but just about deserved, and enough that - as you'll see - we've already qualified for the Knockouts (we need a point from our last 2 games to ensure we finish top).

In the league, we had some chunky scorelines in September which have evolved into pummel-them-but-need-a-late-winner games. I'm not concerned. We're slightly out of sync with the Cup, for some reason, and played Gornik a day before most teams played their Second Round ties. I'd have been annoyed about 2 games in 3 days if I didn't have separate XIs for just such a reason.

As you can see, we're already building up a nice lead over everyone else in the league. 

There are a bunch of contracts expiring at the end of the season, and November will be spent working out who I want to keep, and who we can let go. I'm having to be aggressive with contract renewals since we have a few key players with MFRCs - as long as we can afford to renew Bozic again in January (I've already renewed Daza's), it should be fine. 

Player of the Update

Mamani was ridiculous in August/September, piling on Assists and Goals like someone given the free run of the bar at a wedding. If he's been less impressive in October, we can extend the metaphor to him having a hangover, or simply a regression to the mean (depending on your preference). 

[turnip]

Season 19: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

November - February

Results have remained excellent, with just a couple of exceptions. The draw against Pogon was fair enough - an okay Second XI performance when we had 2-3 players unavailable. The loss against Liverpool was probably a little harsh on balance, but the late Away goal gives us something to play with when we play them in a week - we're seriously good on our day, so I'm gonna go for it and see where that takes us.

Transfers

The OUTs first.

GZ R&F came in for Marzec and their interest coincided with my coaches telling me that the pile of potential he was sitting on wasn't actually there, sorry boss. We negotiated up a bit and bid him good riddance.

Bunturi was a deal I didn't really want to make, but he wanted to leave and his development had stalled a bit. A very solid, very reliable player, but I figure it's decent money for the type of player it isn't hard to replace.

Bogdan Bozic was another deal I didn't want to make, but one I knew I'd have to agree to eventually. His MFRC of £6.5m didn't give me much bargaining room, so when Porto agreed on £4.2m + 50% ONS, I gladly accepted. He's already in their first team and worth £17m, so this deal should be worth another £10-15m for us at least in the future. 

We also sold a bunch of random chaff for small sums. 

The INs next.

  

Navarro is a direct replacement for Marzec - not as strong going forward, but actually competent in defence. Everyone seems to agree there's lots of potential, so he could turn into someone very tasty.

Nielsen is a very solid player to bring in for Bunturi, A bit expensive, but looks to be a solid, dependable player to run the midfield for us. 

  

Hamsik comes in as a cheapo option up front who could maybe develop into someone exciting. He got an assist on his debut against Slask (3 hours after joining us). 

Degollado was actually an Amateur Hour signing from the summer window who I forgot to add to that update. He wanted a lot in wages, and we've struggled to give him game time (because my AssMan doesn't rate him), but I reckon he could turn into someone pretty handy if we can sort out his playing time. 

The other 'big' signing to show up on the list is Morawski, yet another ML who we've loaned back to Wisla until the end of the season because we don't exactly need another ML. (Or another DC, which is why I've arranged 2 signings for the summer). 

[turnip]

Season 19: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

Youth Intake

The whole 'good PA but **** Determination' gimmick is still holding, although thankfully it doesn't apply to the standout from the intake. 

Of the ones who aren't highly recommended, Walukiewicz seems as if he could be decent, although his Physical skills will never be great. Meanwhile, Czop and Muradyan could be good in time, but I'm not expecting much.

Mrozek is the poster boy from the intake, and with good reason. He's a fairly long way from getting game time at the moment, but that's at least 50% because we've got enough depth at AML to hide Andre the Giant and his weekly beer supply. He'll probably be more of a Striker than a winger in time, but he should be good either way.

[turnip]

Season 19: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

March - May

We had a decent go at Liverpool, but despite shading the match, they got the goals that ensured they won the tie. 

In the league, somnambulism was the order of the day (night?). The loss against Lechia was annoying, but only a little so. We didn't really deserve to win the final-day game against Wisla, but they hadn't really deserved to take the Cup Final to extra-time, so there you go. 

Imagine a bit more blue on the Player Stats section, given Morawski is one of our players out on loan. Piast annoy me with their psychopathic approach to tackling - they caused us injuries each time we played them, and the yellow cards they pick up aren't much of a consolation. 

None of the teams who made Europe last season made any sort of impression apart from us. The nation coefficient isn't going up very quickly, but we're making progress with the club coefficient: we were ranked 60th this season, but that should go up to around 27 for next season. Next season should be the last for a while where we join the Qualifiers at the First Round. 

Daza was a more-or-less constant for us in goal - he's so much better than our backup and our best youngster, that the backup (a 37-year old Syrian) made no appearances and our youngster only played 3 games.

Seger had a bit of a moan about not getting 'Star Player' playing time and while I didn't sign him, it would have been stupid to **** him off for no reason. He had no injuries and only missed one game through suspension. And generally played very well, although I'll sell him if I get a good offer. 

I mentioned in a previous update how good Mamani was and although his average rating did drop to something mere mortals can comprehend, his overall performance for the season was phenomenal. He mostly played as our Shadow Striker, but even got a few games as Inside Forward without losing his form. 

Nice also to see 3 of our players getting to 20 goals for the season, particularly when all 3 are Polish. Rymaniak stepped up to his role leading the line for our First XI, even if his attribute development has slowed significantly. I'd wanted to give Frackowiak a decent run in the team, but he had a miserable run of injuries that set his development back quite a bit (he dropped to 9 Pace at one point) so we could only give him sporadic appearances in the back-half of the season. 

 

Thoughts for next season

We will probably sell 3 of our DCs, as long as the bids we get are right. Seger, Canobbio and Sheta would be my picks (Zanini looks to have the best Potential of them all), probably Mesa as well. I want to move Blakemore on if I can - he has a year left on his contract and I don't want to give him a new one. Cyfert is unhappy because he also wants a new contract, but he's now rated 2.5 stars and I can't justify that for someone who's moderately good when Mamani could take his spot. I wouldn't be surprised if we have bids for Daza - he really is very good and his MFRC of £12m would be genuinely good value. 

More broadly, I'm adding quite a few leagues back into the game, for two reasons. Partly to give a bit more life to the transfer market, and partly because player numbers in the inactive leagues seem to be plummeting. Germany, for example, had around 40 newgens generated this season. That's far too low, considering how many players should be in the game. Also, the imbalance is hurting African clubs - clubs in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal (etc) have basically no players because they're all coming through European academies. I'm hoping that if those European academies start churning out enough newgens to compensate for them being in an active league, that might result in African clubs having a few more players on their books. 

[turnip]

Season 20: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

Transfers Out:

We let a raft of players leave at the end of their contracts. The only notable one was Alagie 'lampost' Joof, who really should have been better than he ever was for us. A few more players also left for moderate/small fees - again, no-one I'd be likely to remember the name of.

Phil Blakemore left for £3m, joining West Brom for what was his MFRC, along with Tomas Pekar who they paid around £6m for. Our backup DL (Meza) left for his MFRC of £4.9m to join Watford, and returning to London along with him was Amarildo Sheta, for whom the Hornets paid us what will probably end up being around £3m. The only other major sale was Valentin Degollado, who joined Koln for £2m or so. 

Transfers In:

  

Chojnacki joined on a Free from Valencia. No-one seems to think he's all that good, but I'll sacrifice some Heading for the Marking, Tackling, Determination, Jumping Reach and Pace that he's rocking. He's out on loan to Elche for the season, anyway.

Cisse came much more highly recommended, but I'd say is the weaker of the two for now. He'll get probably 20 appearances for us this season, which will hopefully be enough to kick a spurt of development off.

  

Oosting joined for ~£1.2m from Feyenoord. He's good enough to get a bunch of appearances for us this season, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what he's like in a couple of seasons. 

The increased reputation of the club means we can now more easily sign Argentinians. Del Favero is our new Box-to-Box for Europe: solid all-round, but with scope to improve a fair bit more. We paid River Plate £6m, but I think it's a good deal.

  

Morawski was the player signed in February who joined us in the summer. We spent £3.4m to get him from Wisla, who in turn had signed him from Cesena on a free transfer.

Franceschini was our second Argie pickup of the window, costing us £5m to get from Racing Club. I normally want more Pace, but his technicals are good enough I don't care. 

  

Garido was a deadline day signing just for a bit more depth in central midfield. We've got a bunch of Polish kids who could play the odd game, but no-one as a backup I could trust with a run of games. Now we do.

Moravec is the replacement for Meza, costing £1.8m from Slovan Bratislava. He got 10 bookings in 16 league matches for them last season, so hopefully he'll tone that down a bit with us. 

 

Results

I despise the Super Cup. I guess our opponents are always in the same position as us, but I hate playing a competitive match when we've been back in training for like a week. Our players are always so broken before/during/after the match.

Anyway, as usual we had a good start to the season. Champions League qualifying went well, although none of our 1-0 wins really show by how much we were the better team in those games. We're in a group with Man United, Dortmund and Sparta Prague, so I'm aiming for 2nd, but as long as we can finish at least 3rd I'll be happy. 

In the league, we've had some tough games already, but the strength of the squad is becoming clear. 

Annoyingly, Chico Lacerda broke his ankle in the second leg against Saburtalo. He'd started the season really well, which is a shame. 

[turnip]

Season 20: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

September - October

If there was a game I was expecting to lose in these two months, it was the one at Old Trafford. We played okay, but they're a very good team.

In the league, we've been doing well. The 1-0 against Podbeskidzie was tear-my-hair-out stuff until one of our on-loan Wingers scored a 96th minute winner and other than that it's been pretty plain sailing. For the second year in a row, we've been drawn against top-flight teams in the first and second rounds of the cup - I'm trying to give our home-grown youngsters some more game time, so that's an opportunity that hasn't presented itself there. 

I managed to persuade the board - finally - to improve our Training Facilities. They're already 'Excellent', but every little helps, right? They're also the only thing left that we can improve; everything else is max'd out. 

Player of the Update

Jaime Daza is our best keeper by so much that I haven't really given our backup any game time. He was great when we signed him, and he's just kept on developing. The only downside is his £12m MFRC - I can offer a new contract, but he's insisting on a MFRC of at most £12.75m. Not happy with his agent about that, I must say, but the only thing I can fault Daza himself for is his stupid goatee.

[turnip]

Season 20: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

November - December

The loss to KGHM was a pretty dire game of football that we were the better team in, but such is life football. For the game against Dortmund we needed at least a point to ensure we went through to the knockouts (we started the last round of games a point ahead of them and two ahead of ManUre); we switched tactics to something more counter-attacking, grabbed an early goal from Rymaniak and clung on for a draw to finish top of the group, meaning we face the eminently-beatable Basel next.

I haven't been able to persuade the board to increase the number of Scouts or Coaches we can have (not for a while, anyway), which is frustrating. But the Training Facilities upgrade should be finished in the first week of January, so that'll be nice.

Player of the Update

Lisandro has been performing well in the 18 months since we signed him. He looked like a bargain when we paid £6.5m for him, and he looks every inch that bargain still. Arsenal, ManUre, Monaco and Hertha are interested, but without a MFRC, I'm looking at a fee of at least £20m before I'll be willing to let him go. Preferably more like £30m. He's got 10 assists in his 18(6) appearances so far this season, and that's the sort of quality that's hard to replace.

 

[edit]

Well, that didn't take long. Arsenal really didn't want to pay the £20m+ upfront, but the 'after league appearances' and 50% ONS are juicy.

Spoiler

As I often do, I checked his PA once he moved and he's another YIKES.

 

Edited July 17, 2021 by turnip

[turnip]

Season 20: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

February + Transfer window

February was okay. We're - as usual - just waiting for the teams below us to drop enough points that we've mathematically won the league. It's a fair way off;  Lechia have been playing pretty well this season.

I'm including the January friendlies mostly because Basel offered us a friendly the day before the Champions League First Knockout Round draw. Someone's got some inside information...

 

Transfers Out

Prefacio was the big one. ManUre came in with a fairly crap bid for him which I rejected and he got all huffy. They didn't come back for him, but we had 5 rounds of negotiation with Arsenal and eventually agreed on the deal shown above. The only other significant deal was us selling Second XI striker Maciejewski to Antwerp for around £3.2m - my coaches started indicating that he was running out of development, I stopped playing him, he got unhappy and it was bye bye Maciejewski pie. 

Transfers In

  

Edgar is the replacement for Prefacio (kind of, Frydrych will move to the right, and Edgar will replace him). He's a bit of a downgrade and likely won't have the same potential, but is already a very good player, which is why Nacional were able to scalp us for his £9.25m MFRC.

Karol was another who cost his MFRC - this time £3.2m from KGHM Zaglebie. A player who looks like he's got pretty good potential and is certainly good enough to do a job for us in the league. I doubt he'll ever be amazing, but should be a useful squad player. 

  

Marko comes in to provide some pace up front. He went from Bayern's B-Team to Dortmund's B-Team, then was signed in the summer by Leverkusen and given 1 game. Again, he'll never be amazing, but he's more than good enough for Poland.

And Polidori rounds out the major signings. With half an eye on Daza and his insistence on having a MFRC on any contract he discusses, I thought I'd bring someone in who could also be a brilliant keeper. He still needs plenty of development, but that's a good base to work from as far as I'm concerned.

We fleshed out the major signings with a raft of minor ones. We spent sub-£1m sums on a pair of young Spanish players who look promising, and signed on a free a bunch of Amateurs and an out-of-contract Brazilian ST.

Our Youth Intake preview is uninspiring, but I'm hopeful there's a player or two of some promise in there.

Edited July 19, 2021 by turnip

[turnip]

Youth Intake

Pretty much what was trailed by my staff. The players I'm not signing are the ones with low Determination. I try to have a high Determination squad, if for no other reason than that it's a really easy way to drag new players (youth, or new signings) up.

There are two players of particular note: Wozniak and Lipecki

  

I really like a centre-back who comes with 16 Tackling, let alone one who comes with decent Passing. Mental attributes aren't too bad either. So I think Wozniak could be very good in time. 

Lipecki is going to have holes in his game, but he looks like he could be a decent player for the Ekstraklasa once he's developed. 

 

Our HOYD is pretty good for the amount we're paying him, but I'd like to replace him. The problem is that everyone better than him is asking for triple the maximum we can offer, at least. 

[turnip]

Champions League First Knockout Round:

No alarms and no surprises from our tie with Basel. A comfortable 1:2 win in Switzerland was followed by an equally comfortable 2:0 back in Poznan. Rymaniak bagged 3 goals and Tomczyk grabbed the other. 

[turnip]

Champions League Quarter-Final:

A first-leg win set up by a 4th minute own goal, a Rymaniak header from a corner and a pair of back-post headers from Tomczyk, saw us set up for the counter-attack in the second leg, fail miserably at that and go 2-0 down, and then score 2 late goals to rub salt into the wounds.

Porto actually have quite a few of my former players. They've got 4 on the books who are ex-Lech players, but they also have Bjorgvinn Agnarsson who is from my Dinamo days and who is looking just magisterial these days

[turnip]

Champions League Semi-Final First Leg:

A solid defensive effort has us halfway there. Our goal came from Rymaniak picking it up 25 yards from goal, moving out to the left and crossing for Franceschini who nipped in front of his full-back to nod in.

[turnip]

And we're off to Italy!

Two very poor goals for us to concede early on - both seemed to go straight through Daza - made it clear our tactic wasn't working, so we switched to our familiar 4-2-3-1 and got right back into the game.

Our goal was great - a clearance taken down by Rymaniak, who ran forward and passed to Tomczyk who got to the edge of the area and hit an absolute piledriver into the top corner. They had a few late shots and we ended up with that monstrosity of a formation you can see, but we clung on and even had a goal disallowed in injury time.

 

We're going to be playing Spurs, who beat Barcelona 1:1 over the two legs. Spurs have Brayam Escobedo up top, who was the reason my Dinamo side won their second Champions League. 

[turnip]

 

(I think this has already been encoded for HD, but apologies if not)

[turnip]

Season 20: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

The league was - as it has been for a few seasons now - a foregone conclusion. I think it was the 4-0 over Stal Mielec that won us the title, but eh, whatever. The cup, too, was a bit of a snooze, with us facing second-tier opposition in the 3rd Round, Quarter Final and Semi Final before facing a very average Jagiellonia team in the final. Still, you can only beat the teams you face. 

Not our best season in terms of points, but our best in terms of goals - we scored 97 and conceded 11. Props to Jaime Daza for that, although he is massively too good for the league. We did manage to give our young Italian GK a couple of games and he kept two clean sheets, which was nice. Congrats, I guess, to LKS Lodz who stayed up on Goals Scored after their matches against Stal Mielec finished 0-3 add 5-2. 

My usual page of impenetrable stats. Big Paolo Maldini vibes from Alessandro Zanini and Ian Sega and their sub-1.0 tackles per game. Franceschini's Assists are boosted by him being our corner taker. The goals are mostly fair game, though. Kluivert's numbers are definitely helped by my decision to play him at AMC for most of the season - I think he got a couple of hattricks in the league. Up top, we got another bag of goals from Tomczyk, Rymaniak, Morawski and van Beek. I'm broadly happy with the depth we've got across the squad, but as you can see, there are lots of players we could lose for next season. That said, we've got ~£100m in the bank, so I'm not expecting the board to start accepting bids over my head. 

Players I Will Try To Be Rid Of

Moravec (DL) - played well, but hasn't really developed. I've got other options on the Shortlist who look better long-term prospects. There's not a lot of interest, but we can probably sell him for £2m or so.

Tomczyk (AML) - great performances at times, but has barely improved at all in the last 2 years and we've got Adgei Baia out on loan who is easily twice the player. Should be able to get £4m for him.

Nielsen (MC) - stolid. Performances are bang in line with what I'd expect from him, but not necessarily what I'd want from a playmaker. If we can get £4m I'll be happy.

Mesa (MC) - plays well enough, I suppose, but another who hasn't really developed much. It's fairly easy to replace players like him, but I reckon there's £5m to be made from his sale

 

Player of the Update

Mentioned above, Adgei Baia was the AML we loaned out when we found ourselves over-stocked with talented young AMLs. He had a good season in Ligue 2 last season and has just had a stormer in the Bundesliga. He has a pretty low MFRC, so priority #1 has to be giving him a new contract and either raising that significantly or getting rid of it entirely. 

 

I do need to give Daza a new contract as well, though. His agent demanded one after the Champions League final, but held out for a £8.5m MFRC, so I just offered a wage I knew he wouldn't accept until he flounced away in a huff. I'm hoping when our reputation ticks over, he'll be more reasonable. 

[turnip]

Season 21: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

Important things out of the way nice and quickly - we re-signed both Baia and Daza to new contracts without those pesky MFRCs. Baia's on £15k p/w and Daza's on £17.5k. Very happy with both contracts - I think we can offer up to £150k p/w now, but I'm not doing that any time soon. The reputation boost we got from reaching the Champions League final was so small I didn't really notice it, so none of our players' values reflect what they should be worth. There's still plenty of work to be done to improve things.

Transfers Out

We made a lot of money from selling players. Mamani declared he wanted to join Milan, so off he went (+50% ONS), Zanini was happy when I was rejecting bids from top Italian, French and German teams but drew the line at Real Madrid, so off he went (+50% ONS), Kluivert was a late-window sale for more than I was expecting after spending most of August telling teams to duck cough but off he went anyway (+50% ONS), Mesa moved to the Blades (+50% ONS), Brian Head was a backup ST Antwerp and a few other clubs somehow decided was worth £5m (+50% ONS), Herrera was good but dispensable and decided he had a burning desire to move to Brugge, so off he went (+50% ONS), Navarro was our backup DR with delusions of competence that Leicester will soon be disabused of (+50% ONS) and Harabasz was an okay DC I'd farmed out on loan for a couple of seasons and maybe would have made half a dozen appearances for us, so I was thrilled to flog him to Verona (+50% ONS). 

Lacerda is the only one there who didn't get a +50% ONS clause attached, because I was just really keen to find him a club and haggling over someone who performed so consistently above his level just seemed unfair.

We had lots of interest in Ian Sega across the window, but only a couple of clubs got their bids into 8 digits and having sold Zanini I wasn't really in the mood for selling our other top centre-back. Del Favero probably would have left if Mamani, Kluivert and Herrera hadn't all gone - again, we got some bids of around £15m, but no dice. Franceschini was the other player we had some tempting bids for, but he's started this season so well - and shown so little interest in leaving - that it just seemed a no-brainer to keep him. We've got oodles of money, so what would be the point? 

I actually forgot, but we also sold Simon Moravec in June, to Southampton for £2.5m (+50% ONS).

Transfers In

  

Valenzuela is a ready replacement for Moravec, who just didn't really improve with us, and he's a good player to have. There's nothing exceptional there, just a very solid player with hopefully plenty of scope to develop further. 

I've started hoovering up talented Spanish youngsters and Rodriguez was the pick of the bunch from this window. Already good enough for the league (although he's in the U18s for now), and could develop into someone very good given time.

  

With the money from selling backup ST Brian Head, we signed Cuadrado who is so much better they may as well play different sports. One or two gaps in his Mentals, but otherwise a fantastic player who'll... be playing for our Second XI this season...

I wanted some more depth at centre-back and Provaznik was a proposed solution. I was about to say "I think we overpaid for him", but he's already making stonking progress just over a month into his time with us, so maybe we underpaid? Good lord.

  

Rodoniqi was a signing designed to both get us a bit more depth in midfield and to hopefully give us a bit more Home-Grown depth going forward. I reckon we got a pretty good deal for him because he's a useful player already and should get a lot better.

Topalovic was a deal I genuinely came close to agonizing over. It's a lot of money, but there aren't more than 2 young DRs in the database we could have signed who are better than him - one plays for PSG and would likely have cost us £40m; the other plays for Real Madrid and is transfer-listed for (I'm not kidding) £88m because they're having a massive tantrum over him wanting first-team football. 

Spoiler

I tried to get the Real Madrid guy on loan - they demanded his full wages, £5m per month and that I pay them £72m at the end of the season 

Topalovic is costing us quite a lot, but he's a very solid player and gives us time to find the next top prospect to sign for his position. 

Moreno is a backup MC option, Sulek will get game time at DC (he's probably worth a screenshot, but I can't be arsed) and Garcia is a prospect for a defensive-minded midfield option. 

Results

Love 2 start Champions League qualification less than 2 months after our last campaign finished. Eat ****, UEFA.

I felt a bit sorry for Molde. Astana are just crap, so our lacking-match-fitness team rolled over them, and AIK were obviously in the middle of their season, so we struggled to break them down, but by the time we got to Molde, we were in full terminator mode. 

In the league, we just got going. Injuries meant we couldn't put our actual-best XI on the pitch for Europe, but that only meant we had 1-2 very good players for league matches. And that's just unnecessary. We're already up 5 points and +14 GD on the team in second.

Our latest round of Training Facilities upgrades is about to complete and then I think we just have the one more upgrade to do before we're max'd out. 

The bank account is looking very healthy these days, at £137m, and we've got around £88m of that to spend on players. We're up to 16 coaches for the First Team, and 19 Scouts, but I've had to add another bunch of leagues in because I still feel the database isn't big enough (and it really should be).

Oh yeah, and Champions League might be harder this season:

    

[Hanys]

45 minutes ago, turnip said:

Results

Love 2 start Champions League qualification less than 2 months after our last campaign finished. Eat ****, UEFA.

I remember having the same problems at Odense, quite irritating. How are the national coefficients looking?

[turnip]

3 hours ago, Hanys said:

I remember having the same problems at Odense, quite irritating. How are the national coefficients looking?

Poland is 13th. The issue, as always, is that the other Polish clubs really aren't doing much to help. 

Lech is 19th on the 5-year co-efficient, which I'm happy with in general. We were 3rd seeds for the Group Stage this season, we just had pretty horrible 1st and 2nd seed draws.

[turnip]

Exciting Transfers News

One of my scouts came across this guy kid on his travels.

 Now, I love me a good full-back, but the way the game is at the moment (specifically, the attribute weighting), they're pretty hard to find because only the very talented ones are good defensively and offensively. And, as detailed in my last update, I'm really struggling to find good ones at the moment. So this guy kid immediately caught my eye. 

He's at Real Betis, though, who don't really need the money. Thus began what - if I was the AI manager - would have been a rage-inducing period of harrassment involving probably 15 incremental bids before they finally agreed to negotiate.

All sorted now. It's a lot of money, but we've got a lot of money, and if his potential isn't as good as my scout thinks it is, at least Betis will be out from under the shadow of bad transfer deals (rip Denilson). Still, I agree with my scout that this guy kid could be tremendous; at least once we get his Acceleration/Pace up a few points and the rest just naturally improves.

[turnip]

Season 21: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

September - October

The draws against Pogon and Man City were, I would say, equidistant from each other, but on opposing sides of the middle of the 'deserved' scale. We totally deserved to beat Juve, though. Shakhtar, too, but certainly not 7-1. 

We're giving up a bit more than we were, defensively, but I'm fairly sure that's because Ian Sega has missed quite a few games through injury and rotating through our 3 backup DC options - while good for their development - means we lack consistency at the back. I don't care that much; I'd rather we win 4-2 than 2-0. 

Player of the Update

When we sold Mamani in the summer, my initial thought was to play Kluivert at AMC. Then once we sold him, I stuck Oosting in as a stop-gap while I decided who would be the best long-term option. (Del Favero is probably the best on paper, but he gets to take more piledriving long shots from central midfield). And Oosting, who was the subject of a few bids in the summer from big teams, has played really well with 7 goals and 5 assists in his 13(1) appearances so far. 

[turnip]

Season 21: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

November - December

We were lucky to walk away from Czestochowa with a point, and lucky to get the 3 points against Man ******, but our other results were deserved, regardless of how much the Juventus manager whined about it (hey, our xG was at least 0.05 higher than theirs...).

We are continuing to score boatloads of goals. After 19 matches, our Goal Difference is +56.

 

Player of the Update

Apologies for the slapdash screenshot. But hopefully you can see just how bonkers Diego's season has been so far. It helps that he's on Corner duty, and takes our Penalties. Still, his performances have been wonderful and I've increased his asking price to £40m accordingly.

 

Miscellany

I saw this and found it interesting enough to screenshot. Dinamo Zagreb is the frickin' farm when it comes to player development, and while we've only been at Lech a short time, we're on our way there.

[turnip]

Season 21: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

Winter Transfer Window

We - for the first time ever - didn't sell any important players in January. Astonishing, I know, but I guess our reputation is high enough and our bank balance fat enough that there's no real pressure there.

That said, we had a series of bids for the usual suspects - Ian Sega, Canobbio, Cisse, Frydrych, Del Favero, Nielsen, Franceschini, Oosting, Morawski and Rymaniak. Of those, I only accepted a bid for Nielsen, but he turned them down. Frydrych, Morawski and Rymaniak got a bit upset when I rejected bids, but I gave them the "But you love it here" speech, which Frydrych and Rymaniak ate up. Morawski was still unhappy, but that only lasted a couple of weeks and now he has a new contract and is a happy lad. We had a few more bids for Frydrych and Rymaniak from DL Pro in February - up to £27m - but we don't need to sell, so we didn't.

Diego Franceschini's agent asked for a new contract, too, but Diego loves me and Diego loves Lech, so now Diego has a new agent. And his old agent hates me.

  

Cesar was an end of contract signing to give us a bit more depth at AMR, particularly with Franceschini attracting lots of attention. He's a bit 'wind up and let him go', but those players can be fun.

Torres is part of a concerted effort to bring in good players with excellent personalities. I hadn't actually finished scouting him when deadline day came around, but I could see his personality and enough about his attributes to make me confident he'll be a valuable member of the squad. I'm hoping to sell Nielsen in the summer, and Torres should be ready to slot in when that happens. 

  

Lakay is yet another promising DC signed for no particular reason. He's good, but only good enough for less important league games at the moment. Should have plenty of scope to develop, though.

Cristo is yet another Spanish prospect snapped up to see how good he could be. I'm undecided at the moment, but he's getting game time in the U18s, and we've now got fantastic training facilities, so he'll have time to impress.

 

Of the other transfers in, Statia, Conteh and Eisenga are Amateur signings who could be useful and Purcell is another Model Citizen who'll probably never be any good as a player, but every little helps, eh?

[turnip]

Season 21: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

February - May

The strength and depth we now have in the squad was pretty evident as we tumbleweeded our way to the end of the season. The 6-0 clobbering of LKS Lodz secured the title for us, while the Second XI romped to yet another cup final win, this time against Pogon. Our Goal Difference of +90 in the league (F:104; A:14) tells a story, y'know? We've just got a lot of very talented players. 

And once our inexorable march to an Invincible season in the league was complete, the only thing left was the small matter of a European cup final;

Spoiler

Cuadrado's first was a cracking volley from a Rymaniak through-ball, Ian Sega got his in a scramble from a corner. Cuadrado's second was a lovely chip from about 25 yards. 

 

We were fortunate this season to have two strikers in tremendous form. Cuadrado's 34 goals was bonkers on it's own - literally a goal every 90 minutes - but then Rymaniak got a goal every 83 minutes. Our European away games in the back half of the season saw us generally play with both of them up top and that's a lot of aerial threat. In midfield, Franceschini's 23 goals are helped by the 8 penalties he scored, but it's a good all-round effort anyway. Baia got a bunch of assists, but had a few injuries that kept him from playing as often as I'd have wanted. Oosting also hit double-figures for goals; a lot of his came from direct free kicks - his emergence as a first-team player this season has been very welcome. 

Youth Intake

It doesn't immediately look very promising, but my coaches think that Daza and Franceschini are both World Class (I more or less agree with them on Daza), so 4 stars could indicate a very useful player.

Pawlowski was my HOYD's top pick, potential-wise, but I probably prefer Gozdzik, who got 45 minutes (and a 6.3 rating) against Bruk-Bet Termalica.

I have fired my longstanding HOYD, though. The personalities we've been getting through have been **** and this year was no exception. I'm also putting more effort into picking the personality of new staff hires, now that we have the budget to be a little picky.

Player of the Update

Bit of a random one. Ramon - along with a couple of others - was a Spanish kid we picked up on a free transfer last summer. They all came in to very poor reception from my staff, but every time I checked in with them, they were making progress and the coaches' opinions were improving. He got 4 starts as the season wound down, scoring twice and getting two assists. Staff now rate him at 4 star potential, which is probably too high, but he's someone I'll be prioritising for a curated loan next season (and recalling if he doesn't get enough game time). 

 

For the first team, I'm probably going to sell Ian Sega, Kurt Nielsen, Tomas Tomczyk and Kamil Frackowiak (who is an ambulatory accident magnet the last couple of years). I'll probably spend a lot of the season fending off bids for players I want to keep, too. Daza has been offered a new contract - £80k p/w is reasonable for someone as good as he is - and there'll probably be 3-4 more who want new deals. Which we can afford, so I'm not going to be too picky. 

[turnip]

General Miscellany

Trying to write up the season update at 2am doesn't leave much leeway for random bits and pieces. 

Just beating my own records. Turns out when you START QUALIFYING IN ****ING JULY and play 19 games in a competition, you have a chance to score lots of goals. 

"so far this season" 

I'm partly including this for the hilarity of the dark blue font on a dark green label, and partly to compare with the next image. Note R. Francés in goal for the European Champions Cup Dream Team.

Now note who was the best Goalkeeper in the tournament 

Also: clean sweep of Defenders? Check. Two out of three for Midfield and Forward? Check. 

Club reputation was National at the start of the season, Continental by the time March rolled around and is now Worldwide. Should make it easier to keep our best players, at the very least, and make it easier to sell the chaff for decent money.

Oh, and I can now hire another 6 scouts, taking us up to 25!!

[turnip]

Season 22: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

Transfers:

Edgar Gonzalez was a sale I didn't really want to make, but knew I'd have to. We tried to negotiate, but he wanted to leave and Liverpool were pretty stingy. Ah well, it's profit. Topalovic was another I wanted to keep, but it was either him or Frydrych and Frydrych has more utility. Cissé was a good player, but not £10m good; Frank Morris and Leighton Fowler were free signings we managed to develop a bit and flip for a lot. Tomczyk had outlived his usefulness, while Costa, Rey and Franjic had all fallen down the pecking order. To the screenshot, you can also add Ian Sega who moved to Leicester for £22m and Kurt Nielsen who Crystal Palace bought for £10m.

Players In:

  

Jara is the reason I wasn't too unhappy at selling Topalovic. It's a big transfer fee for a player who'll be in our Second XI, but he looks like he's got plenty of room to develop. 

Jano had a good scout recommendation (I think it was about 80) and was reasonably cheap. We've loaned him back to Karvina for the season, so he can get regular game time.

  

Kormos was another who came highly recommended as a right-winger BUT we're going to try re-training him as a Complete Wing-Back because I really dislike the woeful state of full-backs in the game at the moment. Also, we really don't need yet another AMR.

Bebiano was one of 3 MCs we signed to try to ensure we've got some decent depth in quality in the centre of midfield. Joao Gomes is a bit better defensively, and Jung Dong-Ki has gone off on loan for the season, but Bebiano should be good enough to get a few games. 

We also signed a bunch of freebies for our U18s. Mostly Spanish, but a couple of Italians and one Dane in there, too. No-one looks amazing, but some look like they could be actual professionals in the future. 

Ah, the sweet smell of not having to play Champions League Qualifiers. In fairness, most seasons I haven't really cared, but this summer we had the European Championships, Copa America and then the Olympics. A few players were away for most of the summer, which might cause some tiredness issues down the line. But not yet. A comfortable start to the season. 

[turnip]

Season 22: Lech Poznan

PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa

The game against Cracovia was aneurysm-inducing stuff. We took a very early lead, they scored from countering two of our corners (one via a penalty); we surged back to take a 3-2 lead, only for them to grab an utterly undeserved late equaliser. 

Otherwise, it's all been fine. I've been giving Polidori more game time and he's still a long way off being top quality for the league; thus the goals conceded against Cracovia, Wisla and Podbeskidzie.

Players of the Update

  

Cuadrado has continued to make incremental improvements since we signed him. He's now legitimately disgusting as a striker. So far this season, he has 14 goals in 14 appearances, as well as 4 assists.

Pepe, meanwhile, is one of the freebie Spaniards we picked up in the summer. We sent him out on loan because he's too good to keep in the 2nd team and he has 8 goals and 3 assists in his 9 league games so far, at Pogon.