[FM23] "Searching for my Rizla" – The White Star, Wisla Krakow

[g1nh0]

Season 2 (Wisla Krakow) - Cup Progress

Brilliant Wild makes Lazio pay the penalty

Wisla Krakow 1 - Lazio 1 (agg) - Wisla win on penalties 7-6

After being 1-0 down after the first leg, a solid defensive performance to keep Immobile quiet with a bit of brilliance from Wild in the 76^th minute saw us tie the game 1-1 on the night with the game eventually going into penalties. Looking at the game statistics we certainly couldn’t be told of being undeserved of a bit of luck. This was a performance to be proud of making up for our timid first leg tie.

Each side took 6 perfect penalties, but the critical miss came from Lazio after a super save from Bieganski saw us defy the odds and book a spot in the Conference League final.

The other tie saw Fiorentina beat Freiburg. We’ve beaten Fiorentina twice already – and so having this psychological edge over them gives me optimism ahead of our big cup final date, that we can do it again....

FA Cup Final – Wisla Krakow 4 – Olympia Elblag 1

A week after our Conference League leg 2 semi was a chance to retain the Polish FA Cup. Somehow we’ve come up against non-league side Elblag. In a game I fully expected to win, we just had to be careful of any complacency and indiscipline.

And well, it wasn’t an exciting final. We scored 3 goals in the first 9 minutes which already put the tie to bed, adding a 4^th in minute 34 to give us a 4-0 HT Lead.

To their credit, they kept the score from becoming more embarrassing and they grabbed a consolation goal late on. But otherwise it was a game we controlled from start to finish with the FA trophy successfully retained.

Final League Table

With all of the cup games I was rotating are squad a lot more in the later games. We weren’t able to break the record for most points in the league that stands at 88, but the way I’ve set us up I was expecting to draw a number of games.

But we’ve kept ourselves difficult to beat which has been proved in the performance in cups this year and suffered just the one league defeat.

So with the league season now out of the way, all that is left to play is our Conference Final vs Fiorentina – I’m hoping it will not be third time lucky for them, with a chance for us to complete a historic treble.

[g1nh0]

Season 2 (Wisla Krakow) – UCL / End of Season 2

Late Goal gives Wisla Historic Conference League Success

Wisla Krakow 1 - 0 Fiorentina / Conference League Final

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the Conference League tune with the sides taking their place on the field. (Better than the CL music for me!). The final was held at the Ernst-Happel Stadion in Austria with just under 48,500 attending.

Gokhan Gul had been a missing figure for us for the past 6 weeks and he’s our starting DM. Although not fit to start, he would still have a part to play especially as DM stand in Fazlagic wasn’t in the best physical condition for this game too. This made me a bit nervous, as we really need to be competitive in midfield to stand a chance of coming through this game.

Struggling to Create

Fiorentina started the brighter looking the more threatening team early on. But I think we then found our stride a bit and looked more solid the closer things got to half-time which was all square 0-0.

Then mid-way through the second half, a lapse of concentration by us saw Simeone have a clear one on one with our keeper with plenty of time to pick his spot, and perhaps too much time… he completely scuffed his shot that went straight into our keeper’s hands. It was a moment I thought our dreams were about to go, but we were still in there.

We were still struggling to really create anything with our two wide players and Fernandez up top performing poorly. I felt if we were going to win this game, it would need to be through having players making an impact from the bench. Fortunately I did have decent depth for our flank players, and I was hopeful they had the ability to make something happen.

Impact off the Bench

All 5 subs were eventually used by the 81^st minute, with 3 being made in minute 81. This gave us that much needed energy for the last 10-15 minutes of the game. Now playing with a little more intent and threat, we were able to win a free kick on the left hand-side – which proved to be the difference maker.

A ball to the far post from substitute Duda was nodded across the goal by Uryga for another one of our subs Hugi to divert the ball passed the Fiorentina keeper and we had broken the deadlock in the 88^th minute.

Immediately I was then looking to play-out time, and we kept our heads extremely well holding on the last few minutes comfortably to take home this game and bring to the city of Krakow the Uefa Conference League Trophy.

The Winning Goal from substitute Hugi

Squad Performance

So a magnificent year where apart from the Super Cup game vs Rakow, we scooped up everything we could have.

The transfer windows both in the Summer and January proved to be good ones, giving us the adequate depth to compete for everything.

Mbi at CB proved to be a very good signing and was our second best rated player. Fernandez again up top was for a second season running the key player for grabbing the goals – albeit at times he was inconsistent in some games this year. Fazlagic was also very important in the centre of the park, later utilised at DM to deputise for Gul who missed a lot of the games at the 

I feel that with the age of some of our players, I need to start looking at a quality striker and IWR at high priority. Copado who I have brought in permanently from Bayern although able to play up front, just isn’t clinical enough and he appears more suited to play as an IFL.

I guess these, in addition to another CB are probably the three key areas for recruitment in the Summer.

[Hanys]

Okay, how is this even possible  amazing run, spectacular results 

[g1nh0]

13 hours ago, Hanys said:

Okay, how is this even possible  amazing run, spectacular results 

I think I was quite lucky that when I joined this club, quite a lot of the foundations were already in place first season. Had 4 very good kids that needed a year of regular football to develop which they got, a CB with real leadership qualities and a goalscorer. Added to that in the second year Fazlagic came back on loan elsewhere who was considered our star player in the heart of midfield. So we then had a fantastic spine, and I just needed to add a little depth in the x2 windows this year so I had competition for all places on the pitch. 

Tactically for the most part I had things okay, solid formation with different approaches for the harder Euro games we were far inferior in losing to only Spurs and Lazio which I guess was expected in tight affairs. That's one of the positive aspects to FM23 I think, being able to use different tactical approaches successfully rather than an exploit game plug n play tactic in previous years, although I dislike the fact you're probably now forced to play a certain brand of football relative to the skill of your players to do well. (Usually I like to play high possession football, but with the ME this year I'm finding I can only play this well with superior players in the top tiers).

And I guess I didn't screw up the team talks which usually I do lol - along with having that bit of luck you need at times, which we had both vs Spurs, Lazio, and in the UECL final.

**

S2 Wisla Krakow - Statistics

Here are a few additional statistics of our season here, showing the final xG table, our attendances, salary to spend, and offensive / defensive efficiency. Financially at the end of May, our bank balance is also now in a very healthy state with over 17 mil GBP in the bank, so I'm hoping we'll have a nice budget available to make a few improvements for next season. Our Euro successes and domestic cup success has really helped.

Overall we had a very good balance going forward and defensively, and are already having the second highest average attendances in the top tier. 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by g1nh0

[g1nh0]

Season 3 – 24/25 (Wisla Krakow)

Looking forward to my third season with Wisla in Poland. We were given 15mil GBP in transfers to invest this Summer which I was pleased about.

I also felt it was worth trying to upgrade both our existing training and youth facilities. The board weren’t keen on either, although I was able to persuade them to improve the training facilities. However they stood firm on the youth side, with a response that indicated they were more inclined to invest in players for immediate success rather than for the future.

I also had job approaches from Freiburg and Salernitana. I’m not tempted to move at all yet, although if I can do well in the Champs League with Wisla, then I will in the future be open to moving to another league.

However I don’t intend to pro-actively look for jobs, so only if a club approaches me directly is when I will consider moving during this save.

Squad

I think we had a decent window, but I felt despite the successes of last year I did need to invest in a few areas to try and continue to push the club forwards.

Although Fernandez has been a great striker for us, he’s now hit 30 and there were a couple of targets that I felt could do a good job replacing him. Tresoldi a young 19 year old Italian great potential, and a home grown Polish striker in Bialek out of contract. I ended up bringing them both in and selling Fernandez on whilst I could get something for him. His contract was also due to expire this Summer.

We also needed to improve the problematic IWR spot. I had a preferable target, but as with other areas, I wasn’t able to get my first choice players in so I had to settle for a 24 year old Romanian who has been capped once by his country in Isfan. He doesn't really excel at anything though, so it's a bit of a gamble - I hope he performs. There were no other options unfortunately that would have led to any potential improvement in this area.

I also spent money on Johnson with Jamaican caps to his name to bring a bit more quality to our central backline. I can’t fault the two Poles who performed heroically last year, but I’m hoping a partnership can be made between him and Mbi that will prove to be a solid one.

Otherwise we brought in depth in the defence midfield and goalkeeper positions. I wished I could have brought in my main targets, but with a lot of competition for them this will have to do and I hope we can maintain the standards we set ourselves last year.

My largest concern is our current Polish keeper Bieganski has no intentions of staying at the club. His ambitions are too great it seems for us and he is unhappy, so I expect he'll be lost on a free by the end of the year.

Finances

Initially having just over 15mil GBP in the transfer kitty, this has now been reduced to a little over 12.5ml whilst being on top of our wage budget since our dealings have been completed.

Our projection however continues to dwindle, so it's again important to try and put in a good performance in Europe with the prize money earnt keeping the club running in a good financial state.

Expectations

Both the bookies and media predict us to finish 4^th this year. I can only expect us to try and valiantly retain our league title.

With the investments made this Summer I think we’ve freshened up the squad enough to motivate everyone at the club to try and win the league again.

In Europe, I can’t expect us to make the ECL group stages quite yet, but I hope we can give a good account of ourselves. I would like us to try and make the Europa knockouts if we end up falling into this competition which is likely.

Other Notes

Wisla Krakow 3 - 0 Olympia Elblag / Polish Super Cup

We have now played our Pre Season Super Cup final against the FA Cup finalists Olympia Elblag.

We comfortably again took them to the sword winning 3-0 with them not registering a shot on target. It was nice Bialek scored from the spot on his debut for the club.

It was also a cup I was taking seriously as it was the only one left remaining to win in Poland. So now this has been ticked off my list, the aim of taking Wisla far into the Champions League remains my remaining goal.

I do expect this will take a while though due to the problems in finalizing contracts to players who have preferences to play for other clubs in more competitive leagues.

[TCH]

Apologies for the thread bump!

Having recently started a save with Wisla Krakow, this thread intrigued me! I have spent the last half an hour or so reading through your Polish adventure and you’ve done a fantastic job (both in game and in painting the picture for us readers!)

I am interested in having a look at your formation/tactic, should you care to share? Having took the similar approach to you regarding transfers in seasons 1 and 2, I did not manage to bulldoze my way to the Ekstraklasa like you did and I am interested to know how you achieved this tactically. 

Whilst you haven’t updated for a couple of weeks, I hope you’re still enjoying the save and have had CL success.