DomD Posted December 27, 2023 Author Share Posted December 27, 2023 A few more bits from the last season. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted December 27, 2023 Author Share Posted December 27, 2023 Polonia Warszawa Season 4 - 2026/27 - Preview With a title win come higher expectations. A top half finish should be no problem, as long as I can get the squad rotation between the domestic league and continental competition right. Board Expectations: PKO BP Ekstraklasa: Top-half finish Puchar Polski: Reach 2nd Round UEFA Champions League: Reach 2nd Qualifying Round The media expect us to finish 7th in the league with the bookies giving us 100-1 odds for the title (11th place). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted December 28, 2023 Author Share Posted December 28, 2023 (edited) Polonia Warszawa Season 4 - 2026/27 - July It has been a rather rough start to the season. We played well in the Supercup Final, then I rotated the squad for the game against ŁKS Łódź, we dominated, but couldn't put the ball in the net. In the away game against Levski and against Legia we were rather poor. In both we were losing 0-2, then pulled one back late, only to let them score in extra time. The home match against Levski was off to a bad start when they scored in the 6th minute. We did manage to finally score in the 76th and 81st and it seemed like we might even send it to extra time, only let in another goal 83rd. We need much improvement in August. At least we drop down to the Europa League qualifiers for another chance at continental football. This time against Cypriot side Apollon Limassol. Two seasons ago Legia knocked them out quite easily in Conference League qualifying. Hopefully we can do the same. Edited December 30, 2023 by DomD Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted December 30, 2023 Author Share Posted December 30, 2023 (edited) Polonia Warszawa Season 4 - 2026/27 - August It was a very busy month, but we managed to stay undefeated, qualified for the Europa League Phase, and moved up the Ekstraklasa table. After a good result against Limassol in the first leg I thought we were going to blow it. We dominated the game (xG was 3.42 - 0.43), but they scored from two screamer well outside the box. Thankfully the results really picked up after that and we end the month on a high. Raków have no European football this season and it shows. That is who we are facing next. Not sure why Legia are struggling so badly. The biggest issues that I've had to contend with is squad registration. Can't find any good Polish players to sign and I have only a couple that are trained at the club that are on the fringes of the first team squad. Then the players that I have been signing get upset when I couldn't get them all in the Europa League registration for the qualifying games. The latest to be upset with me is a left-back that I'm trying to sign that I asked to make his decision quicker so that I could register him for the EL. Now he doesn't like the way I treated him! Qualifying for the Europa League proper has made our finances look really well. We're going to be facing a few teams that are well above us in terms of reputation and resources. Hopefully the scores don't get embarrassing. Miedź, really? Maybe he thinks that he's more likely to get first team football there. Edited December 30, 2023 by DomD 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted December 30, 2023 Author Share Posted December 30, 2023 Because our stadium is just under the 8000 capacity limit for Europa League (league phase), our home games are being played in the National stadium. Even with over 11,000 it looked quite empty. Hopefully when we host Villarreal we'll get a good crowd. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted December 30, 2023 Author Share Posted December 30, 2023 (edited) Polonia Warszawa Season 4 - 2026/27 - Summer Transfers For players leaving the club, the biggest news was Saudi club Al-Wehda triggering the release clause for Alvis Jaunzems. I didn't mind letting him go since he was rarely better than average for us. The others were all players that would have struggled to make it into the team, so I decided to cash in. At first I thought I would try to minimize the business I did and give more chances to the young prospects that I brought in last season. But early season results made me think that we did need some re-enforcement. I was also playing around with changing my tactic from 4-2-4 to 4-2-3-1. This led me to bringing in a couple players to play in the AM(C) position, but I wasn't satisfied with the results. Thankfully those guys are able to play in other positions. Sebastiano Esposito is our big money signing (in terms of salary), hopefully he lives up to his promise because so far he hasn't been very impressive. Danilo Veiga has been brought in to replace Jaunzems and so far has been the most impressive of our signings. Edited December 30, 2023 by DomD 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted December 31, 2023 Author Share Posted December 31, 2023 Have to post this before I finish the month. An absolutely unbelievable result for us! We took the game to OGC Nice, who are currently sitting in 3rd place in Ligue 1. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, our lads all had amazing performances against players who are all paid vast sums more than we could ever afford. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SixPointer Posted December 31, 2023 Share Posted December 31, 2023 3 hours ago, DomD said: Have to post this before I finish the month. An absolutely unbelievable result for us! We took the game to OGC Nice, who are currently sitting in 3rd place in Ligue 1. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, our lads all had amazing performances against players who are all paid vast sums more than we could ever afford. Polish powerhouse now Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted January 5 Author Share Posted January 5 On 31/12/2023 at 01:25, SixPointer said: Polish powerhouse now Thanks, we're getting there. The team will truly be a powerhouse when we can combine dominance in Poland with good results in Europe. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted January 5 Author Share Posted January 5 Polonia Warszawa Season 4 - 2026/27 - September Raków are having an amazing season in the league (no European football for them), and they proved too much for us too. It seems like they will run away with the title and it will be a fight to finish 2nd. Our Europa League results have been amazing so far. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rikulec Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 2 hours ago, DomD said: Raków are having an amazing season in the league (no European football for them), and they proved too much for us too. It seems like they will run away with the title and it will be a fight to finish 2nd. Our Europa League results have been amazing so far. Run away with the league? In Poland? Nah, they're going to have a crisis and go on a winless streak sooner or later. Just be patient. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SixPointer Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 3 hours ago, Rikulec said: Run away with the league? In Poland? Nah, they're going to have a crisis and go on a winless streak sooner or later. Just be patient. I love the polish league. I wish I had stayed with my Ruch Chorzow a few editions ago when they were down at the very bottom. I see now they have bounced back. I feel there is always so many clubs with great potential 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rikulec Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 12 minutes ago, SixPointer said: I love the polish league. I wish I had stayed with my Ruch Chorzow a few editions ago when they were down at the very bottom. I see now they have bounced back. I feel there is always so many clubs with great potential On the contrary, I think our football is ****, we have no identity at all and it's virtually impossible to build anything sensible in the long run. Our only hope right now is the new wave of young coaches and managers who are slowly taking over. Some of them have good ideas and fresh views, which could hopefully turn things around at some point. I think we need a big success story and a role model for other teams to follow purely in terms of tactical approach and understanding the game. Raków had some potential to be the club to do that, but they're just too negative in how they play and they got found out in Europe this season. But okay, let's not hijack @DomD's thread with my complaining! 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 @Rikulec no worries! Always great to get some perspective on what is going on in real life in Polish football. I only get to see things from afar (by looking at results and watching the occasional highlights). 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 Polonia Warszawa Season 4 - 2026/27 - October This must go down as a truly excellent month, even though the last two games were much closer than I would have liked. Especially against Piast, where we were very lucky to win. But even if we had lost that, the result against Villarreal was absolutely amazing! We must be quite close to qualifying to the next stage in this weird new format. In the Ekstraklasa Raków finally lost a game, but it was one in which they had 3 players sent-off. As you can see from the table, their defensive solidity is what is key to their success this season. Only 5 goals against in 13 games! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted January 13 Author Share Posted January 13 This is interesting, the day before we are to face Dunajska Streda in the Europa League, their manager is hired by Legia. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted January 14 Author Share Posted January 14 Polonia Warszawa Season 4 - 2026/27 - November November was busy, even with a long international break in the middle. Results were great and we have secured a play-off spot in the Europa League. Decided to ask for another training facilities upgrade and the board approved it with out blinking an eye. That European football money is quite nice. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SixPointer Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 In red hot form, but looks like Częstochowa are up for the fight! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rikulec Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 Amazing results in Europe! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted May 4 Author Share Posted May 4 I took a bit of an extended break from FM, but now I'm back and continuing this save. I'll post a full update of the current season soon, but here is a teaser. Somehow we made it to the Europa League final. Not only that, but it happens to be hosted at the stadium where we've had to play our home games! 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted May 8 Author Share Posted May 8 Polonia Warszawa Season 4 - 2026/27 - Review Truly a season to remember. Three trophies, including becoming the first Polish team to ever win an European trophy after an amazing win in the Europa League. In the Ekstraklasa Raków couldn't keep up their early season winning run while we went on our own 23 unbeaten run in the league. This meant that we won the league with 4 games to spare, which allowed us to rotate the squad for EL games. We had some absolutely amazing results in the Europa League. As expected it was very close against Rangers and I was happy to have reached the QF. But I was also sure that would be the end of the road. But the lads put in the performances of their lives for some great wins against Valencia and Aston Villa. Reaching the final was beyond our wildest dreams. I thought, no way we're beating Newcastle too. They scored first and I was sure we were going to get hammered. But we got back into and they just fell apart in the second half. Europa League Champions! We actually ended Newcastle's 29 game unbeaten run in the competition. In the end we scored 52 goals in the competition for the record. Still a long way to go to the top teams. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted May 8 Author Share Posted May 8 A few more things from our EL winning run. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted May 8 Author Share Posted May 8 This shot Poland up the Coefficient table and if I'm reading it correctly should move Poland up to 10th and give us 2 CL spots next season. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted May 8 Author Share Posted May 8 I had totally missed that Lech Poznan had their own great European run, and they won the Europa Conference League. I guess it wasn't just us pulling up the coefficient. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted May 8 Author Share Posted May 8 The Europa League win has given us a nice financial windfall. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rikulec Posted May 11 Share Posted May 11 Two Polish teams winning European trophies? Absolute madness. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoguPL Posted May 11 Share Posted May 11 Good to see you back at it ! Congrats on the Europa League ! and yeah Lech (being Lech) winning Conference League the same season is crazy. It will be really hard to do achieve this type of thing again I think. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomD Posted Monday at 01:48 Author Share Posted Monday at 01:48 On 11/05/2024 at 14:27, Rikulec said: Two Polish teams winning European trophies? Absolute madness. On 11/05/2024 at 16:37, RoguPL said: Good to see you back at it ! Congrats on the Europa League ! and yeah Lech (being Lech) winning Conference League the same season is crazy. It will be really hard to do achieve this type of thing again I think. Thanks guys. Yes, it is total madness! Poland was actually 2nd in the coefficient rankings for the season, which gave us an extra team qualifying for Europe this season! But even though we have 5 teams qualify for Europe, Legia were so poor that they missed out (by a point ). And Śląsk Wrocław were relegated! Just a crazy season overall. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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