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End-of-Season Review As we've seen before, we increased the revenue we can affect a lot. Ruster barely played but he sold many shirts. The main guys, who made this possible. Our Supporter Profile Comparing this with last year: lower % of hardcore and core fans; higher % of fair weather and casuals; higher influence of supporters on the board; increase of 6,5k in social media; increase of 379 season ticket holders. Career Stats Season Year Club League Position Cup Stage PPG Win % GF GA 01 2022/2023 Sertanense PT4 1st TdP First Round 2,27 69% 70 32 02 2023/2024 Sertanense PT3 3rd TdP Sixth Round 1,56 44% 33 26 Season Year Club Most Goals Most Assists Most POM Highest AvR 01 2022/2023 Sertanense Karamoko – 31 Quaresma – 9 Karamoko – 8 Kisley – 7,42 02 2023/2024 Sertanense Karamoko – 23 P Mendes – 10 Karamoko – 5 L Madeira – 7,26 Season Year Club Income Expenditure Profit Avg Attendance 01 2022/2023 Sertanense 1 353 447,00 € 1 411 118,00 € -57 671,00 € 662 02 2023/2024 Sertanense 1 485 040,00 € 1 942 059,00 € -457 019,00 € 1 266 The League's Signing of the Season He totally deserved it, what a great season he had! The Overachievers! All-Time Most Played The guys who have participated in most matches with me: Name Position Apps Goals Seasons Daniel Júnior GK 44 0 22-24 Alexandre Lavrador RB 44 0 22-24 Luís Ferreira CB 56 4 22-24 Deyvison CB 39 4 22-24 Rúben Moura LB 39 0 22-24 Pedro Mendes CM 59 5 22-24 Miccoli CM 45 4 22-24 Luís Madeira CM 32 4 23-24 Kisley RW 40 14 22-24 Denilson LW 52 8 22-24 Mohamed Karamoko ST 62 54 22-24 New Stadium Just after we finished the construction work in our stadium, the president wants to build another one… Senior Affiliate Just before the season ended, I asked the president to search for a senior affiliate so we can get some players on loan. I don’t want it as a long-term solution, but since we got promoted 2 years in a row, we need all the help we can get. And if that help comes in the form of players and money, I’m happy. President said yes. Soon we should have some news. A few days go by and Sporting is the only option. I don’t mind. 61K annual fee, it’s not much but helps. There don’t seem to be many players interested in joining us, but it might change in the end of the transfer window.

Planning the Next Season Even moving up one tier, I don’t plan on any revolution. Need: 1 backup/starter CM, 1 backup ST, 1 starter RW, 1 starter CB Might drop Mendes and get someone to play as a starter either on the DM role or in the middle. Luís Madeira was great as CM, but I’ve also been training him to play as DM so he adds some depth. The first target will be Idrissa Dioh. His contract is ending, he had 3 assists in 16 games on the second tier and according to my scouts he doesn’t seem to be too demanding on wages. Karamoko was our only choice this season, Cabral was here on loan and could’ve filled the spot if needed, but he was on loan and he might not be here next season. I want to develop Cassamá, but might get another player if the right option is there. Looking around, I found Jefferson Kibe. He hasn’t been scouted yet, so I don’t have all the information, but he ends his contract this season and he scored 5 in 8 on the tier below us and he played a bit in the first tier. He’s a completely different type of player than Karamoko, but some diversity will certainly do us well. Cabral is leaving, Kisley as well; Ruster will play on the right, Gomes can also play there, but I don’t think they have the quality necessary to be starters. I had my eyes on Alan Francisco who was on trial with us in January but unfortunately, he already retired. I searched through our scout reports and could only find João Magalhães. He’s on loan from Paços de Ferreira (tier-1) to a tier-4 team. No goals, no assists,… Not much to be excited about. I’ll keep looking. Deyvison will retire, and Bastian isn’t good enough to be a starter. Bennay isn’t yet ready to be part of the team, but he will train with the first team. There are not many interesting targets but we found Simão Júnior, playing for Oriental Dragon (on loan from Trofense); and João Ricciulli from Vitória Guimarães B. Both are right-footed and I wanted a left-footed player or else I’ll have 4 right-footed CB on the squad. But right now, more important than footedness is quality. I noticed at the last minute that Ricciulli is out with a broken foot – 5 to 8 months, so he’s out. Simão Júnior is not that good, but I’ll try to bring him to replace Dénis Martins. Improve: 1 starter LB, starter LW?, starter GK? I was a bit disappointed with Daniel Andrade; Rúben Moura helps on attack but he isn’t good enough on defense; Novais did well but I don’t think he can sustain his performances on a higher level. Denilson did well, but from the 3 upfront he is the one I doubt the most about stepping up and Gomes is not good enough to take over the spot. In goal, both Daniel Júnior and Daniel Azevedo are good, but not great. We’ll see if someone interesting becomes available. Staff Review I won’t change anyone with a contract, but I want to check on the expiring ones: Frederico Rodrigues, Assistant Manager, 36, Continental A Licence His preferred formation is the same as mine but with a totally different style. His training attributes are not great. His personality is balanced which doesn’t say much. I had a look around the league to check on other assistant managers and they are not very different from him. I think I’ll let him go. I’ll try and find someone better, if not, pretty sure I’ll find a similar one with a tactical style closer to mine. Ricardo Antunes, HOYD, 36, Continental A Licence He has the same tactical style I have, the same formation and despite the attributes not being great, he’s been doing a good job. Players coming to the U19 squad have decent quality. I’ll ask the DOF to offer him a new contract. Rui Susana, Head Physio, 27, Continental B Licence We are 6th best in the physio department in the league (both North and South, so out of 20 teams). He’s fairly professional, I’ll offer him a 1-year contract and compare our situation with the rest of the league. After offering 1 year, he asked for 10 times his actual wage, so I’ll find a new head physio. End-of-Season Player Stats and New Statistics So, I've been working on my statistics and decided to go for something new: From now on, I'll use: DA - Defensive Actions - Sum of Tackles, Interceptions and Blocks OA - Offensive Actions - Sum of Shots on Target, Open-Play Key Passes (OP-KP) and Dribbles D+A - Sum of Defensive and Offensive Actions Poss +/- - Difference between Possession Won and Possession Lost ATT - Only available in league comparison - Average of: Shots on Target / Max Shots on Target ; OP-KP / Max OP-KP ; Dribbles / Max Dribbles DEF - Same as ATT, for DA Gls/ShOT - Goals per Shot on Target Ast/OP-KP - Assists per Open-Play Key Passes KP/Psc - Key Passes per Passes Completed ProgP/PsC - Progressive Passes per Passes Completed Prog+KP % - Sum of Progressive Passes and Key-Passes per Passes Completed PossW/DA - Possession Won per Defensive Action Fls/Tck - Fouls per Tackle (note: Offsides count as fouls, so I've subtracted that value) Fls/PW - Fouls per Possession Won Held - P+T - Difference between Saves Held and the sum of Saves Parried and Saves Tipped per 90 (Exclusive for GK) Then we have the statistics for every player in my team, sorted by position and minutes played. Name DA OA D+O Poss +/- Held – P+T Daniel Azevedo 0,44 0,06 0,50 3,22 0,25 Daniel Júnior 0,38 0,00 0,38 4,32 0,15 Name DA OA D+O Poss +/- G+A /90 Gls-npxg /90 OPKP/PsC SPKP/PsC ProgP/PsC Prog%+KP% PossW/DA Fls/Tck Fls/PW Alexandre Lavrador 6,62 1,72 8,34 4,20 0,06 0,00 2% 0% 16% 18% 2,42 0,72 0,09 Tiago Melo 7,35 2,97 10,32 6,50 0,28 0,14 3% 2% 13% 18% 2,23 0,53 0,09 Filipe Pereira 8,32 1,54 9,86 1,93 0,00 0,00 2% 0% 13% 15% 1,65 0,64 0,10 Name DA OA D+O Poss +/- G+A /90 Gls-npxg /90 OPKP/PsC SPKP/PsC ProgP/PsC Prog%+KP% PossW/DA Fls/Tck Fls/PW Daniel Andrade 6,64 2,95 9,59 3,29 0,06 -0,01 3% 1% 11% 15% 2,22 0,46 0,07 Rúben Moura 6,53 4,14 10,67 -4,02 0,22 0,00 6% 1% 11% 17% 1,77 0,95 0,18 Daniel Novais 6,51 2,89 9,40 2,00 0,25 -0,01 3% 0% 15% 18% 2,23 0,32 0,05 Name DA OA D+O Poss +/- G+A /90 Gls-npxg /90 OPKP/PsC SPKP/PsC ProgP/PsC Prog%+KP% PossW/DA Fls/Tck Fls/PW Luís Ferreira 4,55 0,46 5,01 15,00 0,11 -0,01 0% 0% 6% 6% 4,92 0,80 0,04 Bastian 4,51 1,66 6,17 0,47 0,46 0,15 1% 0% 12% 13% 5,81 1,08 0,05 Deyvison 3,26 1,01 4,27 5,09 0,31 0,23 0% 0% 7% 7% 5,71 1,22 0,06 Dénis Martins 3,51 0,25 3,76 8,28 0,00 -0,06 0% 0% 6% 6% 4,43 0,50 0,03 Name DA OA D+O Poss +/- G+A /90 Gls-npxg /90 OPKP/PsC SPKP/PsC ProgP/PsC Prog%+KP% PossW/DA Fls/Tck Fls/PW Luís Madeira 4,79 3,46 8,25 -2,29 0,40 -0,03 3% 0% 11% 15% 1,95 0,18 0,05 João Castro 3,95 3,47 7,42 -3,21 0,22 0,06 4% 1% 12% 16% 2,15 0,15 0,03 Pedro Mendes 3,25 2,58 5,83 -6,18 0,58 0,06 2% 5% 13% 20% 2,11 0,36 0,09 Miccoli 4,65 3,95 8,60 -5,15 0,60 0,03 4% 3% 11% 18% 1,89 0,27 0,07 Mário Borges 3,56 1,18 4,74 -2,37 0,17 0,00 2% 0% 10% 12% 2,14 0,33 0,11 David Santos 4,13 2,22 6,35 -3,82 0,32 -0,07 2% 0% 14% 16% 1,54 0,14 0,05 Name DA OA D+O Poss +/- G+A /90 Gls-npxg /90 OPKP/PsC SPKP/PsC ProgP/PsC Prog%+KP% PossW/DA Fls/Tck Fls/PW Gonçalo Cabral 5,10 6,25 11,35 -6,39 0,73 0,04 8% 0% 10% 18% 1,64 0,34 0,12 Kisley 3,59 4,53 8,12 -7,34 0,00 -0,13 5% 0% 10% 16% 2,09 0,64 0,19 Name DA OA D+O Poss +/- G+A /90 Gls-npxg /90 OPKP/PsC SPKP/PsC ProgP/PsC Prog%+KP% PossW/DA Fls/Tck Fls/PW Denilson 4,71 4,42 9,13 -5,45 0,50 -0,02 7% 0% 9% 16% 1,50 0,39 0,15 Ruster 3,99 4,57 8,56 -6,42 0,29 -0,32 4% 0% 9% 13% 1,63 0,36 0,12 Gonçalo Gomes 2,36 3,44 5,80 -7,06 0,72 0,03 4% 0% 12% 17% 2,53 2,19 0,33 Name DA OA D+O Poss +/- G+A /90 Gls-npxg /90 OPKP/PsC SPKP/PsC ProgP/PsC Prog%+KP% PossW/DA Fls/Tck Fls/PW Mohamed Karamoko 2,20 4,48 6,68 -4,99 0,94 0,12 9% 0% 5% 13% 1,84 1,50 0,35 Herculano Cassamá 2,40 4,22 6,62 -3,31 0,60 -0,06 8% 0% 1% 9% 2,26 1,67 0,28

Around the World England – Arsenal won, then Liverpool, Man City, Tottenham, Chelsea and Man Utd qualify for UCL and they were respectively 2nd to 6th in the league. Forest, Boro and QPR were relegated. Spain – Barcelona won the league. Real Madrid, Atlético and Villarreal are in the UCL. Granada, Almeria and Tenerife were relegated. Italy – Napoli are the champions. Roma, Inter, Juventus and Milan qualify for UCL. Cagliari, Salernitana and Brescia are relegated. Germany – Guess who? Bayern are the winners in front of Leverkusen, Leipzig and Stuttgart. Dortmund finished 8th. Nürnberg and Schalke will play in the second tier. France – Again, no surprise: PSG are champions. Monaco, Rennes and Marseille are also in the UCL. Caen, Toulouse and Ajaccio are relegated. Netherlands – Yes, it’s Ajax. Feyenoord and AZ follow them. NAC, Sparta and Excelsior go down. Portugal – Porto are the champions by one point. Benfica is the only other club in the UCL, Braga was 3rd, Sporting was 4th. Marítimo, Vilafranquense and Nacional are relegated. Both teams from Madeira will leave the first tier. European Competitions – Chelsea beat PSG on penalties to take home the major trophy; Leipzig beat Tottenham 3-0 in extra-time to seal the EL win; Aston Villa win the UECL by beating Trabzonspor 2-1. Transfers In Overview I decided to take a look at my signings and check how much they have played. Beginning with the summer signings: Name Best Pos Club TI Mins Bastian D (C) Sertanense S 58% Daniel Andrade D (L) Sertanense S 52% Luís Madeira M (C) Sertanense S 91% João Castro AM (C) Sertanense S 81% Gonçalo Cabral AM (R) Sertanense S 66% Ruster AM (L) Sertanense S 31% Bastian eventually won his place, but I don’t trust him 100%; Andrade is another doubt but he was the main LB; Madeira and Castro were key part of the team, Cabral as well; Ruster was a bit of a disappointment, but I still believe he can be a good addition to our squad. 3 total success, 3 doubts. Regarding the winter signings: Name Best Pos Club TI Mins Daniel Azevedo GK Sertanense W 40% Tiago Melo AM (R) Sertanense W 33% Filipe Pereira D (R) Sertanense W 16% Dénis Martins D (C) Sertanense W 24% Mário Borges DM Sertanense W 18% David Santos AM (L) Sertanense W 10% Gonçalo Gomes AM (L) Sertanense W 17% Daniel Azevedo won his place in goal; Tiago Melo was a great signing and I’m sure he’ll be our number one wing-back next year; Filipe Pereira is a decent backup; Dénis was brought in as a backup and did well for his status; Mário and David were loans to provide some depth and I’m happy with how they played; Gonçalo Gomes returned to our club and I believe I’ll need him more next season. All were successful About promoted youngsters, only Cassamá played. He had 10% of total minutes which isn’t much but I’m happy with that. Name Best Pos Club TI Mins Herculano Cassamá AM (R) Sertanense Y 10% Finances Balance is terrible, but I want to find the reasons why. So let’s check our income and expenditure Top 5 Income this season TV and Gate revenues had a big increase (around 760k) from last season. Top 5 Income last season We made 960k last season through grants and investments that didn’t happen this year. Top 5 Expenditure this season Wages take up most of the increase: 1100k (non-football costs are wages paid to non-football staff). Top 5 Expenditure last season Last season we paid for the construction work on our ground which took quite a big chunk of money. In summary, wages went up across all the club and they should go up once again in tier-2; we didn't have any investments nor access to grants; both total a differential of 2M (-1,1M -960k); we got some help from TV and gates which reduced the deficit (-2M+760k = -1,24M); we didn't have any construction work which further alleviated the difference (-1,24M+850k = -400k). These 4 topics explain our balance. Where can we get more revenue? TV and gates alone can do it? Selling is barely an option as my most valuable player (Luís Ferreira) has a transfer value of 55-110k. Can we cut anywhere? Staff and players' wages are definitely not an option as we are moving up on the ladder. Let's see what the future brings, but I'll have to be careful with the budget. Club Vision Meeting I don’t understand. After all I’ve done, I wasn’t expecting this. The President wants us to play possession football and high-tempo pressing. Neither have we got here by playing possession nor by pressing high. I tried two times to remove this from the vision, but the President is adamant. I’ll accept, only because they are favored and preferred and not required, otherwise, I would be out the door.

Playoff Stage – Semi-Final – Länk (H) We have Cabral back, and since he enjoys big matches, he’ll be a starter. He’s not fully fit, so I’ll have to sub him off in the second half, but I’m comfortable with that. Tactically, only adjustment I made was asking the defensive line to drop more because they have a very fast striker in Edmilson. He’s their main threat with 20 goals, second best has 4. Most of their assists come from the left wing with Bruno Silva accumulating 7 over the season. Won’t change anything at the start, but I’ll be on the lookout and might have to ask Tiago Melo to play a more defensive role (WB-D or FB-S). The first half went really well, we got 2 goals, one from Karamoko and the other by Cabral (who proved to be a good decision starting him). They had a big chance as expected from a long ball to Edmilson. I’ll ask both my wingers to hold the ball, expecting them to gain us more possession away from our goal and dropped the mentality to cautious for the start of the second half. As soon as the second half started they had another chance with a ball behind our defensive line so I dropped to a low block. In the 62nd minute they subbed Edmilson off, so I moved back to a low block and Balanced mentality. Eventually, we scored the third through Denilson. 3-0 game is over. We’ll have to be more aware of those runs behind on the away match. Maybe Dênis or Bastian will have a cover duty. Individually, Tiago Melo had 4 tackles on 100% completion, 3 of them being key, 4 interceptions and 2 dribbles; Pedro Mendes had 5 key passes, 1 chance and 1 assist; Cabral had 2 key passes, 3 dribbles, 1 shot on target and 1 goal in 66 minutes; Denilson had 2 key passes, 1 chance, 1 assists and 1 goal. It’s a good cushion for the second match. Youth Squad In the meantime, something (should say someone) has been catching my attention. Although against opposition of questionable quality, Pratas has been performing really well. At first, I didn’t rate him much but might give him a chance. He’s 15 still, so he has a lot of time to improve. Helping him out has been Eduino with some assists Playoff Stage – Semi-Final – Länk (A) Bastian collected his 5th yellow in the last game so he is out. Ferreira might recover, but he’s still a doubt. If he can’t play the options are: Deyvison or Daniel Andrade as CB and Novais who is also unfit at LB. Come matchday and my physio reports Ferreira can play but shouldn’t play more than 45 minutes and Cabral shouldn’t play more than 75. I’ll take the risk with both. They score from a corner, then Mendes hits a long range shot and leaves the field with an injury. On came Miccoli. First half ends 1-1. The aggregate is 4-1 and we are looking comfortable. Beginning of the second half and Andrade feels some pain and asks to come out… I didn’t call Deyvison to the bench because Andrade was the backup CB. Now Moura comes in for him and soon I’ll have to sub off Ferreira. Probably Novais as he’s 180cm, has a header success ratio of 75% and he’s third most on defensive actions by a full back (first is Melo but I need him on the right, then is Pereira who’s injured). Now I only have 1 stoppage left to make substitutions. Near the 70th-minute mark I make my last 3 substitutions: Novais for Ferreira; Borges for Madeira (and drop him to DM); and Gonçalo Gomes for Gonçalo Cabral. The clock keeps ticking and nothing important happens. It’s clear to see they have given up. The match ends, we are the winners! Third place is ours. On the overall ladder of the Portuguese football we are 39th! (18+18+3) The champions are also decided with Varzim beating Mafra 3-1. Now we are off to play Oliveirense to decide who plays in Tier 2 or 3 in just 3 days! And second leg is only 4 days after. Playoff Stage – Final – Oliveirense (A) A quick check on them: Fábio Pereira is their coach since 2021, he prefers a tiki-taka style in a 4-2-3-1 DM Wide formation. Although, their possession was the lowest across all teams in their league with just 44% and a passing completion of 78% (on the detailed team stats screen). Focusing on the last 3 matches, they have 65+ possession in every game. Something seems odd here. Only one AvR over 7 which is their RW, Rui Batalha. The second-highest average rating is Serginho who won’t be able to play as he’s injured. Their left-back also has a long term injury and their starting striker is out between 2 and 9 days, so he might play both games or none. The player with the most goals is Michel, CAM, with 8 and the most assists is Mike, RB, with 5. On the negative side, Ricardo Ribeiro, GK, seems to be the weak point. He isn’t holding the shots, he’s parrying and tipping way more. Name Position Svh Svp Svt Av Rat H-(P+T)/90 Ricardo Ribeiro GK 43,00 79,00 25,00 6,50 -1,68 On our side, Bastian is back from suspension; both injuries from last game were minor and players will be ready; David Santos is on loan from Oliveirense so he can’t play; and Ruster will most likely be available to play. Somehow all my youth players can’t play this game. We’ll have a light training schedule so we can have everybody ready for both games. On the day of the match, while I was preparing the final touches, I noticed the predicted formation for them has changed. They have moved from the 4-2-3-1 to a 4-4-2, the manager’s second preferred formation. I’m going with this: Luís Ferreira is available for 60 minutes according to my physio and Denilson is a bit tired. I switched Gomes for Denilson just before the game started. We started well, and scored the first goal of the game in the 15th minute. Madeira played a through ball, Karamoko shot and their GK had a blunder. Then they reacted and eventually scored in the 30th minute. Just after they scored, Tiago Melo scored a Direct Free Kick. And before halftime, we scored the 3rd. Nice combination on the right wing between Cabral and Melo, Melo puts the ball in the box, Gomes shoots and the ball deflects on Karamoko. There were 2 minutes of injury time and everybody was waiting to for the referee to signal the end of the first half when Abbas Ibrahim, their CM, fouled Cabral and was sent off with the second yellow. 3-1 and a man up, we have to take this! They moved to a 4-3-2, so I ask my wing-backs to be more attacking and I ask the team to play wider. Nothing happens until the 60th minute. I decide to make some changes: Moura for Andrade, Denilson for Gomes, Miccoli for Castro. On the 83rd minute we get a penalty, Karamoko misses but on the run of play we manage to score though Cabral. Just 3 minutes after, Moura crosses and Cabral headers in, another time where their GK should have done better and it’s 5-1! 0,17 xG/Shot on 18 shots is quite good. We were brilliant. Individually: Karamoko had a 10 rating – 5 key passes, 3 chances, 5 shots on target, 2 goals (although one was just a deflection) and 1 assist (although from a missed penalty); and Cabral with 2 goals, 1 key pass, 1 chance, 2 dribbles, 2 shots on target and on the defensive side 7 completed pressures! Playoff Stage – Final – Oliveirense (H) It’s difficult to lose this one, but we must remember they are a tier above us, so we must be careful. I’ll go with the same team, just with one correction: I’ll ask the GK to distribute to the DM-zone. I didn’t on the first game as I was afraid they were switching to a 4-2-3-1. The first half was balanced and ended 1-1. Bastian scored with a header following a free kick by Tiago Melo who is proving to be a weapon on set-pieces. It’s easy to tell their morale is destroyed. We are calm and composed. The second half had no story, we had 1 goal disallowed after a combination between Kisley and Karamoko, but not much else. I wanted to give some minutes to Kisley one last time, this will be his last game for us and he served us very well last season. We are promoted! Two promotions in a row!

Thanks, @_Ben_! It means a lot! I just needed a bit more money to get more(/better) coaches. In the meantime, I believe these 15/16-year-olds will have the quality to be starters when they are 17/18. Cassamá is quite near already, for instance. Will also have to focus a bit on getting experienced players with great personalities to mentor all the youngsters. I'll also explore a bit the statistics when this season ends.

Development (from the beginning of last season until 22/04/2024) I wanted to check some things about development: if my older players (27+) are regressing, how are my 20-26 years old developing and what’s happening with the youth players (under 19). Name Best Pos Development 22/04/2024 Daniel Júnior GK Det, Cnt +1; other improv Daniel Azevedo GK No change since 01/2024 Alexandre Lavrador D (R) Otb +1 Filipe Pereira D (R) No change since 01/2024 Tiago Melo AM (R) No change since 01/2024 Daniel Novais M (L) Dec +1. Other improv Daniel Andrade D (L) Det +1 Rúben Moura M (L) Det +1 Deyvison D (L) Major Drop PHYS Dénis Martins D (C) No change since 01/2024 Bastian D (C) No change since 07/2023 Luís Ferreira D (C) Det, Wor +2; Mar, Dec +1 Name Best Pos Development 22/04/2024 João Castro AM (C) Ant, Det, Vis, Acc, Sta, Str +1 Luís Madeira M (C) Ant, Cnt +1; Det -1 Pedro Mendes M (C) No changes. Starting to drop Miccoli M (C) No changes Mário Borges DM No change since 01/2024 David Santos AM (L) No change since 01/2024 Gonçalo Gomes AM (L) No change since 01/2024 Kisley AM (R) Major Drop PHYS Denilson AM (L) Cmp +1, Tck -1 Ruster AM (L) No change since 07/2023 Mohamed Karamoko ST (C) Fin, Tec, Dec +1; Cmp +2; Tck -1 Gonçalo Cabral AM (R) Cro, Fir, Cmp, Cnt, Otb +1. Other improv On the first subject: Deyvison and Kisley are clearly regressing, Pedro Mendes also shows signs of being on a descending phase. I’m a bit afraid that if he stops playing as much as he is, the drop will be clearer. The second part is doing well for our standard. Castro, Ferreira, Cabral and Karamoko are impressing, Madeira is doing well. Minutes on the pitch are clearly a factor. Name Best Pos Development 22/04/2024 Isidro Correia D (L) Acc, Bal, Jmp +1 Ricardo Dias AM (R) Sta +2; Ant, Cmp, Dec +1 Vitor Carm Mendes AM (R) Jmp, Sta +2; Bra, Dec, Vis, Acc, Bal, Str +1 Herculano Cassamá AM (R) Ant, Cmp, Dec, Otb, Bal +2; Cro, Fla, Pos, Vis, Agi, Sta +1 Hélder Barros AM (R) Jmp +1 Luís Rascão AM (R) Agi, Jmp, Sta +1 Regarding the last group, Mendes and Cassamá are training with the first team and are available to play for the youth. It seems to be the best way to develop youngsters (at least at this level). I’ll move Rascão (Season 01, RW/ST), Benay (S02, CB/RB), Culubali (S02, ST), Dias (S01, CM/RW) and Lima (S02, GK) to the first team. Eduino, Chembezi and Pratas are still 15 so I’ll keep them on the youth squad. Might change them next season. Going through the attributes developed: Name Best Pos Development 22/04/2024 Cro Fin Fir Mar Tec Ant Bra Cmp Cnt Dec Det Fla OtB Pos Vis Wor Acc Agi Bal Jum Sta Str Senior Squad 1 1 1 1 1 2 0 4 3 3 6 0 2 0 1 2 1 0 0 0 1 1 Mentoring groups are having an impact on the players' determination. Praise/criticism of the training performances has also had an impact on the work rate. Overall, the mentals are developing very well, but I wanted to see more change on the technical front. Will tweak the training a bit in the next season to see if there are more changes. Name Best Pos Development 22/04/2024 Cro Fin Fir Mar Tec Ant Bra Cmp Cnt Dec Det Fla OtB Pos Vis Wor Acc Agi Bal Jum Sta Str Youth Squad +1Yr 1 0 0 0 0 3 1 3 0 4 0 1 2 1 2 0 2 2 4 5 6 1 Clearly, they are still developing physically and the mentals are also improving nicely. Promotion Stage – Match 04 vs Varzim (H) The bad news just before the match: Luís Ferreira our defensive backbone has an hernia and will miss 5-7 weeks so his season is over. The tactic will be similar to the first round one. Cabral was the RW. Quite an active first-half. Had to make some changes: João Castro was moved to CAM do better defend their CDM and I’ve asked Denilson to man mark their CWB. Karamoko had a great chance following a pass by Madeira. We also managed to draw 3 yellows from them: Joãozinho, RW, following a tackle on Denilson; Ramalho, CDM, to stop a counter from Karamoko; and Tiago Cerveira, LB, to stop a counter from Cabral. So our forwards are making life tough for them and this might open a few doors on the second half. Right at the start of the second half they score from very long range. In the 60th minute, Cabral left the field with an injury and I decided to go back to our usual formation and tactical instructions. I also switched some players. Low determination or low morale got subbed off and in came Miccoli (MEZ for Castro), Pedro Mendes (CM for Borges), Moura (WB-A for Andrade), Ruster (IF-A for Cabral) and Santos (IW-S for Denilson). We managed to turn the game around, first through a great team-play, then a long ball from our GK behind their defence. Both scored by Karamoko. Then Bastian took a FK in our area and played the ball into the opponents’ feet and they easily scored… Frustrating… 2-2. The game ended shortly after. Paulo Moreira scored both their goals, his only 2 this season. His contract ends soon and he has good attributes, I’ll look into him. We were great in the second half, we should have won. I’m increasingly frustrated with Bastian’s lack of skills on the ball, and without Luís Ferreira, I’ll have to play both him and Dénis who hasn’t been particularly impressive. In the other game, Leiria lost once again. Disastrous promotion stage for them. We play them next, and we hope to put another “nail in their coffin”. Another piece of bad news: Cabral will be out for 3-4 weeks so another season ended. Karamoko wins Player of the Month As the title says. Very proud of him. Another job offer This time it’s from Leixões. They are 11th on the tier above us but I’m not accepting the interview. Although I respect them very much and all their history, data tells me their finances are “insecure”. Hope this doesn’t close any doors in the future, but I don’t want that kind of trouble. Promotion Stage – Match 05 vs Leiria (H) Same tactic from the first round. But I have Luís Ferreira and Cabral unavailable. Dénis and Ruster will take their places. Cassamá will have a place on the bench. They have no injuries, but they have nothing to fight for. Are they fielding their first team or giving less used players a chance? Let’s wait and see. Once again, the media finds us favorites for the match. To add to this, we are 3 goals shy of breaking the goals record for this tier. The game starts and they have their first eleven on the pitch. We have absolutely dominated: 16 shots, 4 chances, 2 goals. They only had 2 shots and accumulated a total of 0,11 xG. You know we don’t like boring. We only do entertainment, right? So… As usual, no clean sheet and lots of goals. We have beaten the record for goals scored by two and still have 1 match to go. Varzim won their game 3-2 which means 2 things: they are first and we are second. We are through to the play-off. Promotion Stage – Match 06 vs Felgueiras (A) No way I’m risking my starters, except where I have no choice — only have 2 CB ready: Deyvison can’t play the whole match, but I plan on giving him some minutes late in the game. On the other group there are 3 teams with 9 points, so nobody will have the chance to rest some players. I won’t go into the same detail as in the other games, but I have to praise two performances: Miccoli had 5 key passes and 2 dribbles; and Cassamá had 3 key passes, 2 chances and 3 dribbles. Bad news: Filipe Pereira, our backup CB is injured for 6-7 weeks. Guess who decided to show up? Leiria beat Varzim 4-1! Promotion Stage – Final Standings Mafra and Varzim are promoted but they will still play each other to decide the league champion. We will play Länk on 2 legs to decide who plays the final against the third from last from the tier above us. We have beaten Länk already in the cup in a match we dominated. Let’s try to do it again. First leg is played home. Regarding the promoted teams, fully deserved by Varzim. Although they were 3rd in their league stage, they were totally dominant in the promotion stage. Coincidence or not, Mafra were also 3rd in our stage, but they were never brilliant nor in the league or promotion stage. It was mostly Rúben Araújo who carried them.

Promotion Stage – Match 01 vs União de Leiria (A) We are going with this tactic for the first match and the respective opposition instructions. Their usually starting left-back, Kaká, is injured and will not recover. João Barros will play. The biggest difference is aerial ability whereas João is way better. The rest of the team is fit to play. We are also without Novais who would be our starting left-back. Daniel Almeida will play as seen on the tactics screen. Somehow for the media, we are slight favorites: Maybe feeling positive and confident over the media prediction, we were the better team in the first half and it finished 1-0. Goal by Madeira, assist by Cabral following a cross from Denilson. My concern is once again Bastian’s pass completion. He ended the first 45 minutes with just 48% of passes completed. Karamoko hasn’t been too active on the game: only 1 shot and it wasn’t on target, 9 aerial duels and only won 1. On the other side, Tiago Melo is having a very nice game: 1 key pass, 1 chance, 2 dribbles. Also, my wingers have 8 key passes and 4 chances created between them. The game was uninteresting for a few minutes, we eventually scored a second goal by Karamoko but it was disallowed for offside. Then at the 70th minute, due to injuries, they decided to change formation and move to a 4-3-3 DM Wide. I had already subbed off Pedro Mendes for Borges. So I moved to a 3-man midfield in line. Castro as MEZ-S, Borges as BWM-S, Madeiras as DLP-S. Also asked the team to play out of defence and wider in a bid to make the opposition have to chase us through the whole field. My GK will also distribute to the center-backs. Nothing important happened afterward except for a decent chance for Cabral to shoot wide and we won our first game. Madeira was name POM for the goal and his pass completion, but Cabral ended the game with 6 key passes, 3 chances created, 2 crosses completed, 7 headers won, 2 dribbles, 1 assist. In the other game, Varzim won the away game. We play them next. Promotion Stage – Match 02 vs Varzim (A) Second away match. The statistics from their last match show a lot of possession and 132 final third passes (we had 94 against Leiria). Although the top 4 in completed passes are their back four, they still managed to make a lot of final third passes, so they are keeping possession very high. That will give me space to explore. It hasn’t been our style, but opting for a more direct approach might be wise. My tactic will be: And the respective opposition instructions: First half was quite interesting. They had 72% possession, but we were tied on chances (1 HC each) and we beat them on shots, shots on target and xG. Both of us have 3 defenders on yellows. This might turn out to be very important. In their case it’s both CB and right FB; in my team is both FB and RCB. They also have a yellow on their MCR. I’ve already asked my team to stay on feet and be very careful with the tackling. We are playing according to plan, let’s go into the second half. Maybe it was the instruction to stay on their feet, but at the beginning of the second half, they got past our players very easily and scored twice on the 50th and 53rd minutes. I changed some players but we never created much. Neither did they, it should be said. They didn’t even get any more shots. We beat them in shots and xG, but we never did anything that could take us to victory. I’ll have to study this game to see where we can do better in the second round. Mostly thinking about playing either Denis or Deyvison and leaving Bastian out as Karamoko battled for 27 headers, almost all of them from Bastian’s punts. In the other game, Felgueiras beat Leiria 1-0. Promotion Stage – Match 03 vs Felgueiras (H) This will be our first home game after the expansion and our return to Sertã. Their goal against Leiria came from a corner and the goal against Varzim was following a counter-attack. Their top scorers are Baba, striker and sometimes left-winger, with 7 goals and Landinho, central-midfielder, also with 7 goals. The third top scorer has 2 goals. On the assists side, they have Ofosu, who doesn’t play very often but still got to 4 assists (approximately 0,54 assists / 90 minutes). They only have 1 player with an average rating above 7 which is Landinho. Seems like keeping him out of the game will shut them. Coincidently he’s in doubt for the game with an injury. We go with our usual tactic with a 3-man line midfield. Landinho is playing but as DM. Quite a start to the match with 5 goals in 17 minutes. Fortunately, 4 of them were ours. More shots, shots on target, xG, chances… Along with 66% possession shows we are in control. Karamoko has been the star of the show with 3 goals and 1 assist. We started the second half with a goal from Karamoko and pretty much the game ended there. Great way to return to our stadium! Varzim beat Leiria 2-0. Promotion Stage – Update At the end of the first round of games, here are the standings: Leiria has been disappointing, but Varzim has been dominant. We still have chances, but they are slim with Varzim in such a form. The next game is against Varzim (H), then Leiria (H), then Felgueiras (A). Second place leads to a final where we face the 2nd placed team in the other group. If we get there and win that game we play the playoff against the third from last from the second tier.

End of Regular Season Stats I usually compare my team to percentile 80, but I feel this is too ambitious for our level, so this time I’ll compare to league average. I’ve filtered players in the league with 4+ starting appearances. Name Best Pos Club Apps Mins Gls Gls/90 ShT/90 NP-xG/90 Conv % Shot % Ast Asts/90 xA/90 Ps C/90 Pas % Pr passes/90 Poss Won/90 Drb/90 Av Rat DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Daniel Júnior GK Sertanense 13 (1) 1185 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 24,68 90,00 0,91 7,97 0,00 6,77 0,38 0,00 0,38 4,32 0,00 dif 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 -0,08 -0,01 0,00 11,75 36,00 -0,76 -0,28 0,00 -0,02 -0,12 -0,01 -0,14 8,66 -0,01 Daniel Azevedo GK Sertanense 6 525 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 20,23 91,00 0,86 6,51 0,00 6,72 0,17 0,00 0,17 3,94 0,00 dif 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 -0,08 -0,01 0,00 7,30 37,00 -0,81 -1,74 0,00 -0,07 -0,33 -0,01 -0,35 8,28 -0,01 Average GK League 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,08 0,01 0,00 12,93 54,00 1,67 8,25 0,00 6,79 0,50 0,01 0,52 -4,34 0,01 GK: It shows clearly our intention to play short from the GK in comparison to the rest of the league. The average rating for both is not far off the average, but it’s below. I believe Daniel Azevedo will have a higher average when he plays more matches. Name Best Pos Club Apps Mins Gls Gls/90 ShT/90 NP-xG/90 Conv % Shot % Ast Asts/90 xA/90 Ps C/90 Pas % Pr passes/90 Poss Won/90 Drb/90 Av Rat DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Alexandre Lavrador D (R) Sertanense 15 (1) 1324 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 1,00 0,07 0,08 37,93 84,00 6,05 16,25 1,09 6,65 6,66 1,77 8,43 4,35 0,07 dif -0,38 -0,02 -0,13 -0,02 -4,57 -26,00 -0,52 -0,03 -0,02 -10,65 -3,10 1,60 2,67 -0,31 -0,13 0,42 -0,59 -0,16 2,44 -0,05 Daniel Andrade D (L) Sertanense 9 (7) 870 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,01 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,20 48,00 85,00 5,48 15,31 1,34 6,73 6,62 2,68 9,30 2,48 0,00 dif -0,38 -0,02 -0,13 -0,01 -4,57 -26,00 -1,52 -0,10 0,10 -0,58 -2,10 1,03 1,73 -0,06 -0,05 0,38 0,32 0,71 0,57 -0,12 Rúben Moura M (L) Sertanense 8 (1) 636 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 1,00 0,14 0,28 38,07 82,00 4,25 11,60 1,98 6,82 6,65 4,24 10,89 -3,68 0,14 dif -0,38 -0,02 -0,13 -0,02 -4,57 -26,00 -0,52 0,04 0,18 -10,51 -5,10 -0,20 -1,98 0,58 0,04 0,41 1,88 2,30 -5,59 0,02 Daniel Novais M (L) Sertanense 6 (5) 665 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,01 0,00 0,00 2,00 0,27 0,24 48,05 87,00 7,17 14,35 1,08 7,03 7,04 2,70 9,74 2,03 0,27 dif -0,38 -0,02 -0,13 -0,01 -4,57 -26,00 0,48 0,17 0,14 -0,53 -0,10 2,72 0,77 -0,32 0,25 0,80 0,34 1,15 0,12 0,15 Filipe Pereira D (R) Sertanense 5 419 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,09 36,52 85,00 5,16 13,32 0,64 6,58 7,73 1,28 9,01 1,94 0,00 dif -0,38 -0,02 -0,13 -0,02 -4,57 -26,00 -1,52 -0,10 -0,01 -12,06 -2,10 0,71 -0,26 -0,76 -0,20 1,49 -1,08 0,42 0,03 -0,12 Average FB League 0,38 0,02 0,13 0,02 4,57 26,00 1,52 0,10 0,10 48,58 87,10 4,45 13,58 1,40 6,78 6,24 2,36 8,59 1,91 0,12 FB: I’ve been changing my right-backs and our latest signing still hasn’t made 4 starting appearances so he isn’t included on this. However, I like the high number in progressive passes and possession won. They could probably increase a bit on the dribbling front. Name Best Pos Club Apps Mins Gls Gls/90 ShT/90 NP-xG/90 Conv % Shot % Ast Asts/90 xA/90 Ps C/90 Pas % Pr passes/90 Poss Won/90 Drb/90 Av Rat DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Deyvison D (L) Sertanense 10 (1) 864 3,00 0,31 0,73 0,08 27,27 64,00 0,00 0,00 0,03 58,65 82,00 3,96 18,23 0,10 6,82 3,24 1,04 4,28 4,79 0,31 dif 2,19 0,26 0,55 0,04 21,42 38,00 -0,23 -0,02 0,00 -1,02 0,58 -0,62 -1,64 0,03 -0,01 -1,20 0,53 -0,66 -1,29 0,24 Bastian D (C) Sertanense 10 (8) 1003 5,00 0,45 0,90 0,26 20,00 40,00 1,00 0,09 0,10 51,06 68,00 6,64 29,25 0,00 7,10 4,85 1,62 6,47 3,41 0,54 dif 4,19 0,40 0,72 0,22 14,15 14,00 0,77 0,08 0,07 -8,61 -13,42 2,06 9,38 -0,07 0,27 0,41 1,11 1,53 -2,67 0,47 Luís Ferreira D (C) Sertanense 21 (1) 1895 3,00 0,14 0,43 0,12 11,54 35,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 67,92 91,00 4,37 23,60 0,05 6,94 4,46 0,48 4,94 15,86 0,14 dif 2,19 0,09 0,25 0,08 5,69 9,00 -0,23 -0,02 -0,03 8,25 9,58 -0,21 3,73 -0,02 0,11 0,02 -0,03 0,00 9,78 0,07 Average CB League 0,81 0,05 0,18 0,04 5,85 26,00 0,23 0,02 0,03 59,67 81,42 4,58 19,87 0,07 6,83 4,44 0,51 4,94 6,08 0,07 CB: They are making the most out of the set-pieces and it shows on the shooting category. Glad with the high numbers on possession won. I just wanted Bastian to have a decent passing completion. Name Best Pos Club Apps Mins Gls Gls/90 ShT/90 NP-xG/90 Conv % Shot % Ast Asts/90 xA/90 Ps C/90 Pas % Pr passes/90 Poss Won/90 Drb/90 Av Rat DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Pedro Mendes M (C) Sertanense 19 (1) 1400 1,00 0,06 0,58 0,05 5,26 47,00 8,00 0,51 0,29 61,78 85,00 8,81 7,07 0,96 7,00 3,22 2,57 5,79 -7,01 0,57 dif -0,18 -0,02 0,24 -0,03 -1,90 18,04 6,13 0,38 0,16 3,34 -1,69 3,33 -2,40 -0,14 0,07 -0,94 -0,01 -0,95 -4,59 0,36 Luís Madeira M (C) Sertanense 22 1951 2,00 0,09 0,74 0,14 5,56 44,00 6,00 0,28 0,23 54,76 86,00 7,15 9,46 1,01 7,24 4,42 3,60 8,02 -3,00 0,37 dif 0,82 0,01 0,40 0,06 -1,60 15,04 4,13 0,15 0,10 -3,68 -0,69 1,67 -0,01 -0,09 0,31 0,26 1,02 1,28 -0,58 0,16 Miccoli M (C) Sertanense 4 (10) 598 2,00 0,30 0,75 0,18 16,67 42,00 3,00 0,45 0,40 46,20 81,00 5,87 7,83 0,60 6,94 4,82 3,46 8,28 -5,26 0,75 dif 0,82 0,22 0,41 0,10 9,51 13,04 1,13 0,32 0,27 -12,24 -5,69 0,39 -1,64 -0,50 0,01 0,66 0,88 1,54 -2,84 0,54 João Castro AM (C) Sertanense 19 (3) 1735 3,00 0,16 0,67 0,10 9,38 41,00 1,00 0,05 0,21 51,10 85,00 6,69 8,09 0,83 7,05 4,46 3,21 7,67 -4,26 0,21 dif 1,82 0,08 0,33 0,02 2,22 12,04 -0,87 -0,08 0,08 -7,34 -1,69 1,21 -1,38 -0,27 0,12 0,30 0,63 0,93 -1,84 0,00 Average CM League 1,18 0,08 0,34 0,08 7,16 28,96 1,87 0,13 0,13 58,44 86,69 5,48 9,47 1,10 6,93 4,16 2,58 6,74 -2,42 0,21 CM: They are pretty decent on the scoring front and even on the assists, a bit low on involvement (passes completed), and could probably increase the possession won and dribbles. Name Best Pos Club Apps Mins Gls Gls/90 ShT/90 NP-xG/90 Conv % Shot % Ast Asts/90 xA/90 Ps C/90 Pas % Pr passes/90 Poss Won/90 Drb/90 Av Rat DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Ruster AM (L) Sertanense 6 (12) 673 0,00 0,00 0,40 0,28 0,00 17,00 1,00 0,13 0,07 33,43 81,00 2,27 7,36 2,41 6,61 4,01 4,28 8,29 -6,28 0,13 dif -1,74 -0,12 -0,08 0,15 -7,88 -16,94 -1,66 -0,06 -0,07 -3,85 -3,80 -0,60 -0,22 -0,32 -0,24 -0,32 -0,03 -0,35 -0,54 -0,18 Denilson AM (L) Sertanense 19 (3) 1572 3,00 0,17 0,52 0,20 8,33 25,00 5,00 0,29 0,25 30,92 80,00 3,21 7,73 1,89 6,87 5,15 4,64 9,79 -4,81 0,46 dif 1,26 0,05 0,04 0,07 0,45 -8,94 2,34 0,10 0,11 -6,36 -4,80 0,34 0,15 -0,84 0,02 0,82 0,33 1,15 0,93 0,15 Kisley AM (R) Sertanense 5 (8) 533 0,00 0,00 0,51 0,14 0,00 27,00 0,00 0,00 0,17 33,43 80,00 3,38 6,75 2,03 6,62 3,38 4,23 7,61 -7,27 0,00 dif -1,74 -0,12 0,03 0,01 -7,88 -6,94 -2,66 -0,19 0,03 -3,85 -4,80 0,51 -0,83 -0,70 -0,23 -0,95 -0,08 -1,03 -1,53 -0,31 Gonçalo Cabral AM (R) Sertanense 17 (4) 1375 6,00 0,39 1,57 0,46 9,23 37,00 4,00 0,26 0,25 29,78 77,00 3,34 7,85 2,49 7,09 4,52 6,22 10,74 -6,62 0,65 dif 4,26 0,27 1,09 0,33 1,35 3,06 1,34 0,07 0,11 -7,50 -7,80 0,47 0,27 -0,24 0,24 0,19 1,91 2,10 -0,88 0,34 Average WF League 1,74 0,12 0,48 0,13 7,88 33,94 2,66 0,19 0,14 37,28 84,80 2,87 7,58 2,73 6,85 4,33 4,31 8,64 -5,74 0,31 WF: My starters Denilson and Cabral are doing quite well, but both subs are not using their minutes to show they deserve more. Name Best Pos Club Apps Mins Gls Gls/90 ShT/90 NP-xG/90 Conv % Shot % Ast Asts/90 xA/90 Ps C/90 Pas % Pr passes/90 Poss Won/90 Drb/90 Av Rat DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Gonçalo Cabral AM (R) Sertanense 17 (4) 1375 6,00 0,39 1,57 0,46 9,23 37,00 4,00 0,26 0,25 29,78 77,00 3,34 7,85 2,49 7,09 4,52 6,22 10,74 -6,62 0,65 dif -1,21 -0,10 0,41 0,06 -10,00 -8,53 2,68 0,18 0,16 0,85 -8,84 2,28 3,54 0,90 0,20 2,03 2,66 4,69 -1,25 0,09 Mohamed Karamoko ST (C) Sertanense 21 (1) 1760 13,00 0,66 1,43 0,69 16,88 36,00 1,00 0,05 0,17 18,31 82,00 0,61 4,35 1,23 6,97 2,41 4,25 6,66 -4,91 0,71 dif 5,79 0,17 0,27 0,29 -2,35 -9,53 -0,32 -0,03 0,08 -10,62 -3,84 -0,45 0,04 -0,36 0,08 -0,08 0,69 0,61 0,46 0,15 Average ST League 7,21 0,49 1,16 0,40 19,23 45,53 1,32 0,08 0,09 28,93 85,84 1,06 4,31 1,59 6,89 2,49 3,56 6,05 -5,37 0,56 ST: I added Cabral to the list, but it’s only Karamoko I want to look at. He has been in fact my only choice and I can’t be unhappy with him but… Is conversion rate is 16,88% and shot % is 36%. Every striker with 10+ goals has at least a conversion rate of 24% and shot % of 46%. Name Best Pos Club Apps Mins Gls Gls/90 ShT/90 NP-xG/90 Conv % Shot % Diogo Ribeiro ST (C) Académica Coimbra 16 (1) 1328 14,00 0,95 1,83 0,38 31,82 61,00 Pedro Soares ST (C) Amora 20 1765 12,00 0,61 1,17 0,36 24,00 46,00 Rúben Araújo ST (C) Mafra 17 1429 16,00 1,01 1,76 0,65 34,04 60,00 Mohamed Karamoko ST (C) Sertanense 21 (1) 1760 13,00 0,66 1,43 0,69 16,88 36,00 Gonçalo Gregório ST (C) União de Leiria 22 1984 22,00 1,00 1,95 0,60 25,00 49,00 Diogo Ribeiro scored 1 penalty, Pedro Soares scored 3, Rúben Araújo scored 2, Gonçalo Gregório scored 6 (!) and Karamoko scored none. It helps. Looking at their attributes and comparing where they all are 10+ with my forward options we have: Name Best Pos Fin Fir Ant Bra Cmp Dec Det OTB Tea Wor Acc Bal Jum Nat Pac Sta Total Diogo Ribeiro ST (C) 13 10 14 14 13 10 16 13 12 14 10 12 13 14 11 10 199 Ruben Araujo ST (C) 14 12 13 10 12 11 13 13 12 12 12 11 11 13 12 11 192 Pedro Soares ST (C) 13 11 13 13 11 11 13 12 12 13 12 15 12 14 12 13 200 Gonçalo Gregório ST (C) 13 13 11 10 13 12 12 14 11 13 12 10 12 13 12 12 193 Name Best Pos Fin Fir Ant Bra Cmp Dec Det OTB Tea Wor Acc Bal Jum Nat Pac Sta Total Mohamed Karamoko ST (C) 9 11 12 9 12 8 10 12 10 9 14 12 9 13 14 11 175 Gonçalo Cabral AM (R) 10 11 8 11 11 10 16 13 7 12 13 13 13 14 13 10 185 Gonçalo Gomes AM (L) 13 10 11 7 11 10 7 13 12 10 11 10 10 11 10 11 167 Ruster AM (L) 10 11 10 14 9 10 13 11 9 13 13 10 4 12 12 12 173 Could Gonçalo Cabral do better as ST? Can/should we get a better striker than Karamoko? Was so clearly a bad option to spend time retraining Gomes to ST? Asked my staff who we knew that could fit this and brought in Pedro Lucas on trial. He was at Mafra last season. Scored 6 goals from 12 starts and 18 sub appearances on a tier above us. Name Best Pos Fin Fir Ant Bra Cmp Dec Det OTB Tea Wor Acc Bal Jum Nat Pac Sta Total Pedro Lucas ST (C) 11 10 12 12 11 10 13 11 12 11 11 11 13 11 10 11 180 Youth Intake My elite talents: Hugo Lima is fairly determined and inconsistent. Lukas Benay is unambitious and fairly inconsistent. Domingos Culubali is sporting and is also portuguese. Anthony Pratas is balanced and is fairly insconsistent. And the top talents: And here’s the summary for the average attributes: Name Best Pos Personality Technical Mental Physical Total Hugo Lima GK Fairly Determined 7 7 6 20 Lukas Benay D (C) Unambitious 5 8 9 22 Domingos Culubali ST (C) Sporting 7 8 8 23 Anthony Pratas ST (C) Balanced 4 7 9 20 Pedro Flor D (R) Resilient 6 9 6 21 Jorge Pedro D (R) Balanced 6 9 6 21 Eduino Gomes AM (L) Mercenary 5 6 9 20 Innocent Chembezi M (R) Unambitious 6 6 9 21 Gabriel Rosado D (L) Unambitious 6 8 8 22 João Lopes ST (C) Low Self Belief 5 8 6 19 Carlos Flor AM (R) Sporting 5 6 7 18 Bernardo Mendonça D (R) Unambitious 5 7 8 20 André Ribeiro M (L) Balanced 5 7 8 20 Joaquim Branco M (C) Unambitious 6 7 8 21 João Martelo M (R) Fairly Determined 5 8 8 21 Adewale Godswill M (L) Unambitious 5 7 6 18 Domingos Culubali seems to be the biggest prospect. Decent personality, decent attributes, big potential. First training session and we already have 2 players failing the training standards. They are on the red list already.

Love the visuals about the squad rotation. 9 and then 10 games in a month is a disaster for fitness, but you handled it excellently. Great results!

Job Offer Got a job offer just before the game against Amora. B-Sad is currently 16th in 18 teams on the second tier. This place will lead to relegation play-off against a Liga 3 team. Last season they finished 15th. Their finances are “Okay” and they are 12th on salary. I’m not too impressed, but let’s see if they make an offer. Later, they sent notice that my interview was unsuccessful and they decided to hire Vasco Seabra who hasn’t managed since 2022, but he has a Continental Pro Licence and has a contract of 15,5 k / month until 2025 (just one more season). It didn't get through, but it's nice knowing I'm being noticed. Matchday 17 (A) vs Amora Amora plays a 4-4-2. Both starting wingers, both strikers and most attacking midfielder have average rating over 7. Strikers are Pedro Soares (12 G + 1 A) and Nhaga (6 G + 5 A); Wingers are Zé Manuel (4 G + 3 A) and Joca (5 G + 2 A). Afonso Caetano, the midfielder, is the set-piece taker. I usually make the teams in 4-4-2 play inside, but their forwards are not very good in the air and my centre-backs are, so I’ll let them cross; show their midfielders, wingers and wing-backs the outside foot; try to be closer to the 2 midfielders because we have numbers there. Just the day before, Sporting B and Oliveira do Hospital faced each other and they draw the game. They were 5th and 6th so Mafra is now into the playoffs and there’s only one spot left. If we win, we guarantee that last spot. To start the game, Afonso and Nhaga didn’t play but they kept the 4-4-2. Afonso isn’t even on the bench as he as yet to make a full recovery of his injury. We were better on the first half, we kept their chances and shots on target to zero. We had 3 on target. On the second half, I changed some player roles: João Castro played as AP-S to see more of the ball, both wing-back were changed to CWB-S so they could roam more. I also gave the team instruction to dribble more (Run at defence). We scored on the 53rd minute. João Castro picked Karamoko, he dribbled the ball, got into some space and passed into Cabral to score. We kept controlling the game and player’s fitness wasn’t an issue so I let it roll until the 79th minute. I decided to make 3 substitutions: both wingers replaced by Gomes and Ruster and Pedro Mendes replaced by Borges to try and recover the ball more often. Also asked to play a bit wider and play for set-pieces, and also waste a bit of time. 1-0 is not the biggest of margins but I was confident as they were yet on the same number of shots as they were when the first half finished. Some minutes after I also asked the team to play out of defence so we could spend more time with the ball and finish the game off. Which, we did. 1-0 and we are in the promotion play-off! With this achievement, I have now completed my promise to Daniel Júnior to get us to the play-offs and also the same item on club vision, which was obtained 2 years in advance. Matchday 18 (H) vs Mafra I’m checking if a win in this game makes any difference, but I can’t find any information saying points from the regular season have an effect in the promotion stage, so it’s all decided, and I’ll rotate a bit. It wasn’t a phenomenal performance, but we were doing our job, 2-0 by the 86th minute and then we let them score 2 and draw… It happened by the time I had changed GK and particularly in the second goal, Daniel Júnior was badly beaten. A good GK makes such a difference. Daniel Azevedo will certainly be the number one and Daniel Júnior just lost his chance to get a new contract. On a really positive note: first official goal for Cassamá; and we kept their superstar, the striker Rúben Araújo, very quiet and down to a 5,9 rating. Promotion Stage We will play the promotion stage on a group with União de Leiria from our regular stage group and Felgueiras and Varzim from the North Division. Sertã – Leiria: Around 100 km Sertã – Felgueiras: Around 240 km Sertã – Póvoa de Varzim: Around 230 km We will get to know the country. There’s a void of 2 weeks from the end of the regular stage until the promotion stage. We’ll play 2 friendlies to work on match sharpness. Quick report on the opposition: Leiria: 442, Control Possession, 33 – 23 (Goals For, Goals Against), 36 Points Felgueiras: 433 DM Wide, Wing Play, 20-17, 31 Points Varzim: 433 DM Wide, Control Possession, 25-18, 29 Points. Varzim is “evens” right now and 1st on media prediction on the league, Felgueiras is 2 places behind me in 9th. Taking into account that only 1 team gets automatic promotion, I don’t think we’ll be able to get there. Leiria is clearly better than us and Varzim also seem to be on a higher level. It’s a short competition and any goal will make a difference, so I’ll keep some faith.

I believe it has to do with promoted/relegated teams. I'm promoted and went to "Liga 3", all the other teams were neither promoted nor relegated so they were kept in "Portuguese Third Division - North/South"

Contracts Once the transfer window is closed, I’m looking into my team's contracts. Expiring in 2024 we have: Name Best Pos Age Mins Ability Wage Alexandre Lavrador D (R) 25 1324 2 825,00 € Deyvison D (L) 35 789 2 800,00 € Daniel Andrade D (L) 24 808 2,5 1 200,00 € Mário Borges DM 23 89 2 0,00 € Gonçalo Cabral AM (R) 24 1205 3 0,00 € Kisley AM (R) 33 500 1,5 1 000,00 € Herculano Cassamá AM (R) 16 94 2 275,00 € Vitor Carmona Mendes AM (R) 16 0 2 275,00 € David Santos AM (L) 19 45 3,5 0,00 € Deyvison will retire, and Kisley probably will too. Lavrador I don’t want to offer the renewal. Mário Borges, Cabral and David Santos are all on loan and will leave at the end of the season. Cassamá and Mendes are youth players who already have signed the new contract that will takeover the existing one. I’m happy there are no big loose ends to solve here. Still on part-time and not expiring, we have: Name Best Pos Age Mins Ability Wage Daniel Júnior GK 25 1170 2,5 525,00 € Bastian D (C) 27 823 3 825,00 € Luís Madeira M (C) 21 1771 3,5 350,00 € Rúben Moura M (L) 23 546 2,5 425,00 € I’ve asked all of them except Rúben Moura what they are expecting on the new contract. Rúben will probably leave in the next transfer window. Bastian and Madeira will have new contracts right away. Daniel Júnior wants to be considered a first-choice and right now I’m not prepared to promise him that. I’ll let some time pass, compare both GK performances and then make a decision. Here we can clearly see both Madeira and Bastian are on the “wrong” side of the graph. I don't agree with my assistant manager's evaluation of Pedro Mendes, but I have to keep an eye on him, Daniel Andrade and Dénis Martins. Matchday 16 (H) vs Sporting B I’m happy with the performance: 27 shots, 3,58 xG, 4 clear-cut chances and 3 half chances. We were way better, but Sporting scored their chances and we didn’t. It was another great game by Cabral with 5 key passes, 3 chances, 3 dribbles and 1 goal. At the post-game press conference, there was a lot of talk about the referee's work. Sincerely, I don’t want to excuse anything with the referees. The season so far – Part 4 The expectation was to beat both Torreense and Sporting, draw against Oliveira do Hospital and a loss against Leiria. We couldn’t beat Sporting, although we deserved to beat them; but we have beaten Oliveira do Hospital. Minus 1 point against the expectation isn’t that bad. We maintained our spot in the top-4. Académica has also clinched a spot on the promotion play-off. Only 2 games missing until the end of this stage: Amora (A) and Mafra (H). Amora is 8th but only has 6 fewer points than us. We have drawn our first game. I expect a win this time. Mafra is above us by one place, with a 4-point difference. We have also drawn 2-2 in the first game. At least a draw, but since we are playing at home I really want to end this stage with a win.

January Transfer Window – Update and End Wasn’t expecting much from the last few days but 2 deals were available and I opted to advance with both, one in and one out. In comes a starting RB, Tiago Melo. He’s 27, so a bit older than what the club wants, but he’s way better than our options and he was released on the last day of the transfer market, so he was quite cheap. Out is Pedro Simões. He had been our second keeper, but with the arrival of Daniel Azevedo he had been relegated to third option and I let him go to Estrela da Amadora U23. I also thought of trying to sell Lavrador, but I’ll keep him until the end of this season. Here’s the final squad: And a quick look at transfers around the world: Comparing this season to the last one – Update The last time I wrote this part I only mentioned the backbone from last season. This time, I'll go over every position aside GK. The first line is the player who occupied the position last season; under is the player with the most minutes this season. Name DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Alexandre Lavrador 8,88 2,04 10,92 2,94 0,12 Alexandre Lavrador 6,66 1,77 8,43 4,35 0,07 RWB -2,22 -0,27 -2,49 1,41 -0,05 Lavrador is a bit way out of this league. Let's hope my new recruits can do better. Good thing about the possession +/- increasing from one season th the other. Name DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Luís Ferreira 6,15 0,54 6,69 21,83 0,08 Luís Ferreira 4,54 0,39 4,93 16,00 0,11 RCB -1,61 -0,15 -1,76 -5,83 0,03 Luís Ferreira is also suffering a bit from the jump. But he's still our best CB. On my first update, Luís Ferreira had: 4,31 / 0,30 / 4,61 / 21,87 / 0,15. So he's increased his defensive and offensive actions, decreased possession +/- and G+A. Name DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Deyvison 4,60 0,34 4,94 8,61 0,08 Deyvison 3,54 1,14 4,68 4,79 0,34 LCB -1,06 0,80 -0,26 -3,82 0,26 I thought about selecting Bastian for this comparison, but Deyvison has more minutes so it should be him. His possession +/- is clearly way off, especially when compared to Luís Ferreira. He's also near retirement and has given his spot to another player, so I'm not worried. Name DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Rúben Moura 6,98 6,88 13,86 -5,15 0,20 Daniel Andrade 6,34 2,45 8,79 2,00 0,00 LWB -0,64 -4,43 -5,07 7,15 -0,20 This has been a season where there's been no "owner" of the spot. Stats have also been affected by a change in role. LWB is now on support so it's not so attacking as it used to be. Nice to see the improvement in Possession +/-, but I need some assists from my LWB. Name DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Pedro Mendes 3,83 3,44 7,27 -7,89 0,27 Pedro Mendes 3,44 2,89 6,33 -7,03 0,63 DLP -0,39 -0,55 -0,94 0,86 0,36 Pedro Mendes is our set-piece taker and has benefited from our CB scoring more goals. On the first update, Pedro Mendes had: 2,78 / 3,37 / 6,15 / -9,54 / 0,20. Decreased offensive actions, increased everything else. Name DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Bernardo Fortunato 3,48 3,14 6,62 -5,94 0,52 Luís Madeira 4,43 3,43 7,86 -2,43 0,37 RCM 0,95 0,29 1,24 3,51 -0,15 Happy to see so many greens! Madeira has been a clear upgrade to the team. I enjoyed Fortunato, but Madeira has been a step above. Name DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Figueiredo 3,29 3,07 6,36 -5,93 0,46 João Castro 4,55 3,07 7,62 -4,24 0,24 LMEZ 1,26 0,00 1,26 1,69 -0,22 João Castro was another good signing. He creates a lot but is a bit shy on assists. Name DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Kisley 3,65 5,70 9,35 -6,39 1,07 Gonçalo Cabral 4,07 5,82 9,89 -7,34 0,48 RIF 0,42 0,12 0,54 -0,95 -0,59 Kisley has fallen out of the pecking order, but Cabral has done a nice job replacing him. Name DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Gonçalo Gomes 3,41 3,96 7,37 -6,55 0,82 Denilson 5,22 4,82 10,04 -4,29 0,53 LIW 1,81 0,86 2,67 2,26 -0,29 Denilson had a leap from last season's performances. He couldn't even be better than Gonçalo Gomes and now he has better stats even in a more difficult league. Name DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- G+A /90 Mohamed Karamoko 1,53 5,05 6,58 -4,79 1,35 Mohamed Karamoko 2,32 4,33 6,65 -5,22 0,77 AF 0,79 -0,72 0,07 -0,43 -0,58 Karamoko has had an inconsistent season but he has been getting better. On the first update, Karamoko had: 2,09 / 3,70 / 5,79 / -6,59 / 0,64. Just as I said before, he increased every stat and it shows he's getting better. Matchday 15 (A) vs Oliveira do Hospital Clearly, my team doesn’t want the monotony of clean sheets. We live in chaos. We created more chances than them and scored one more from a corner, Cabral was excellent with 2 goals, and Mendes played 8 key passes. Cabral is in excellent form, on the last 5 league matches he scored 3 and assisted 2. The best news about this game: we are now 4th and 5 points apart from the relegation play-off with 3 matches to go. The first team with a guaranteed spot in the promotion playoff is found: União de Leiria. The relegation playoff already has two teams: Caldas and Torreense.

Season Expectations Mr. Luís Silva, the boss-man, offered me the opportunity to change the expectations for this season. I’m intrigued with this subject. I was expecting something about the poor state of our finances and instead, I get to increase my budget. Since the most realistic expectation is a mid-table finish, I opted for that one, but I won’t use the budget. By the way, I had already adjusted my budget, transferring some value from the wage budget to the transfer budget and to the scouting budget. Matchday 13 (H) vs União de Leiria Started way too easily, we scored 2 goals on the first 20 minutes, and then we went home… Second straight game conceding 3 goals. Also very cheap goals. Don’t know why the team seems to lose so much focus after a great start. Mário Borges started as BWM in RCM position, João Castro was benched and Madeira played on the left. Pereira also started. Taça de Portugal – Sixth Round (A) vs Benfica What do you need after 2 games where you conceded 3 goals in each? Playing a top tier team, clearly… They did play substitutes/reserves, but they are miles better anyway. Bah had 3 assists and Henrique Araújo scored 3. But we scored first. We must be proud of that. Karamoko scored, 16-year-old Cassamá got some minutes. We received 9k as prize money but more importantly, we got a cut from the gate receipts. To put it into context: for the whole season until now we have 384k of income from gate receipts, and 335k from this month alone. We are not in the green, but it looks way better. Matchday 14 (H) vs Torreense The stats lie a bit. We were shooting but weren’t very dangerous. Then we got the penalty, and as it has been usual then we fell asleep and they scored, but fortunately, Bastian scored 2 goals after set-pieces and then Gonçalo (who came in as an ST) scored the final 4-1. They were never a real threat, but once again we had everything on our hands and made it difficult.

Around the World Portugal: Braga leads after being Champions the year before. Porto and Benfica are close, Sporting is 7th. Spain: Real Madrid and Barcelona are 1st and 2nd with only 1 point between them, Atlético Madrid follows them closely. France: PSG leads, Rennes are not far and have the leaders in goals, assists and average rating. Lyon are 12th. England: Liverpool, City and Arsenal are the top-3 with only 1 point separating each position. United are 7th. Germany: Bayern is 1st, Leverkusen, Stuttgart and Leipzig follow. Dortmund are 11th. Netherlands: Ajax is tied with Feyenoord although they are one game down. January Transfer Window Following the unsuccessful trials, I was determined to spend some time and trying to find some deals for both this season and possibly some players for the next season while they were on their last 6 months of contract. Targets were: Starting GK, Starting RB (although I want to see how Filipe Pereira does), Backup CB, Backup DM, Backup CM, Starting and Backup RW (Kisley is declining, Cabral is on loan), Backup ST. Mário Borges comes in as a backup DM. He’s on loan from a team on the tier below us on a free (not even paying wages). He’s not great, but he’s good enough for a backup and he’s a more aggressive option (something I used last season). Daniel Azevedo is our new starting GK. He had a good scouting report and we got him on trial. I let him play 2 friendlies were he never missed a pass. He’s quite taller than Daniel Júnior and his mental stats are better. Also, he returns to a club he has already played at. He was the starting GK in the 21/22 season, then moved to Belenenses and now returns. The third player in is David Santos. He’s also on loan. Quite versatile as he can play both CM and LW. My first attempt was to bring him on the end of his contract, but they had the option to extend it automatically and they did. We aren’t paying his wages, so it’s totally free. He’ll act mainly as cover for João Castro as a left-sided Mezzala. For the backup CB role, we got Dénis Martins. He’s right-footed and I would’ve preferred a left-footed CB, but at this time, I don’t have much of a choice, so he’ll do. I expect him to battle Bastian and Deyvison for the starting spot. Updating the registration gives me the information that we can only sign 2 players above 19-years old. From my list, we added already: Starting GK, Backup CB, Backup DM, Backup CM. And we’re still missing: Starting RB, Starting and Backup RW, Backup ST. I’ll leave the starting RB for next season and play this one out with Lavrador and Pereira. I don’t need both RW right now, which leaves me thinking about the ST. In the meanwhile, Gonçalo Gomes (who was with us on loan last year) terminated his contract with Estoril and was interested in joining us. He plays both wings, he is right-footed and decent in the air. I fancy he can also play ST. Together with this info, I have Ruster, Cabral and Kisley who can play ST. I’m going for him. On the way out: Miguel Silva had an offer and I let him go. Nicolatti also had an offer but this one was more difficult to accept. He’s a decent and cheap backup. He’s 188cm so he offers things Karamoko simply just can’t. But midway through the season he had 5 sub appearances and accumulated xG of 0,00… So yeah, he can go. The third one to have a bid accepted was Lucas Sousa, our third GK. Included a 10% profit from sale clause. I’m 99% sure this will lead to nothing, but it's there just in case it does. I wanted to loan out André Luiz since we got 2 new midfielders on the team. Between having him and having someone from the U19 there’s no big difference. This is the team I’m going with for the rest of the season:

Youth Intake Preview More wingers and strikers… yey! Don’t trust the 5 stars, but let’s wait and see. Taça de Portugal – Fifth Round (A) vs Länk We started on the wrong foot but managed to turn it around. It was nice to see the reaction. 7,5k in the bank and we are through. Only 8 teams left. And we draw… Benfica! Away. Matchday 12 (A) vs Académica de Coimbra We started the game playing very well and eventually scored through Karamoko, but then we lost all focus. Bad positioning by Lavrador and bad anticipation by Luís Ferreira and they scored; then Bastian takes an easy ball away from our GK and straight into their striker who only had to pass it into the open goal. On the upside, we had more shots, more xG, more chances and more key passes. The season so far – Part 3 We couldn’t pull the upset against Mafra, but we still managed to get 1 point. Then 2 wins and a loss which is better than what happened on the first round against the same teams and in line with my preview. Adding the two rounds of the Cup, we can be happy with this. We moved up one spot since the last update and weren’t it for the game against Académica, we would have gotten a way better Goal Difference. In points per game, we improved from 1,375 to 1,50. Next, we have 3 home games: União de Leiria, Torreense and Sporting B and an away game vs Oliveira do Hospital. In the first round we got 2 wins and 2 losses. This time, we must beat Torreense, Sporting, at least draw against Oliveira do Hospital and let’s see what happens against União de Leiria, but getting anything out of this match is a win. In the middle of these games, we have the tie against Benfica.

Trialists update Some context before I show you what happened with the trialists. My top-5 earners: 2,9k; 2,9k; 2,6k; 2,4k; 1,9k. Currently spending 30k/month, budget is 56k – so remaining is 26k. Although I have a lot still to spend on the budget, I don’t want to spend too much as finances are quite scary. Ygor Vinhas: 3,4k to 4,7k. Also wanted by Operário dos Açores. Won’t make a bid. He rejected Operário. João Queirós: 1,6k to 2,1k. Asked the DOF to talk to him. Länk, the team I’m playing against in the Cup, also bid for him (by the way, I messed up when talking about them after the draw – they are not on a tier below us, they are on the same tier, just different groups). He chose them. 3k/month, 2,5 years. Tiago Lopes: 1,6k. Managed to agree on a 1,4k contract for 2 years. Decisions and heading are the main concern but he’s better at everything compared to Rúben Moura and slightly better than Novais and Andrade. Paredes also bid for him. And he signed for them. 2,1k/month until the end of the season. João Lameira: 2k to 2,6k, wants to play as BWM on CM. The wage is a bit high as I wasn’t planning on playing him on the first team and I don’t use BWM on my tactic. So, right now I think I will pass on this one. Alan Francisco: Although I’m happy with him, I don’t really need another winger. Quite frustrating… Matchday 11 (H) vs Oriental Dragon We are playing much better. 10 shots on target out of 21, almost 3 xG, 4 clear-cut chances and 4 half-chances, 61% possession and 554 passes completed on 86%. I’m making little tweaks to the tactic: now both CM are MEZ-S, and Castro has “Take More Risks”. Sometimes I drop the DLP-S to DLP-D and gave Karamoko the instruction of dribbling more. He doesn’t need it that much (he also has the “Knock Ball Past Opponent” trait), but sometimes we recover the ball, get it to him and instead of taking on the last defender he waits for the rest of the team – this increases compactness, but he can make the difference on his own and I want him to try that. Wonderful performance from João Castro: 6 key passes, 4 clear-cut chances created, 11 progressive passes and 1 assist. New coaching qualification I’ve completed the studies for the Continental B Licence Looking at the attributes and comparing to when I first started taking the course: Attacking +2; Defending +2; Fitness +1; Tactical +2; Technical +1; Mental +2. Determination +1; Player Knowledge +1; Youngster Knowledge +2; Level of Discipline +4; People Management +2; Motivating +3. Reputation has also increased to 2,5 stars (Minimal).

Had to check my team numbers to have a comparison and it's wonderful how some numbers are so similar despite our different philosophies: Team Poss Won Poss Lost Poss +/- Passes Final Third % Pass in Final Third Dribbles Chances Shots xG Shot xG Goals Goals-xG Sertanense 131 135 -4,7 461 55 12% 10,64 4,18 15,73 1,70 0,108 1,73 0,03

Something I've also noticed regarding this: I'm in the same league as União de Leiria (and same group in this case) and Länk (different group) and there's different abbreviations: PTD (Portuguese Third Division) and 3DS/N (Third Division South/North). I'm the only promoted team from this lot, but I noticed the same thing happens with Oriental Dragon who has also been promoted.

I just did. The name: Jacinto Leal - Sertanense.fm

I just did. The name: Jacinto Leal - Sertanense.fm

Half-Season Player Stats Comparison with the League I filtered the most used players in set of positions (GK/FB/CB/CM/WF/FW), found the percentile 80 (p80) for each position, then compared my players with the p80. Name Best Pos Av Rat Cln/90 Saves/90 Sv % Con/90 xGP/90 Svh Svp Svt Daniel Júnior GK 6,77 0,11 8,00 5,00 1,33 0,14 18,00 10,00 1,00 dif to p80 -0,09 -0,28 1,00 0,80 -0,14 -0,22 -6,20 -1,00 -4,00 Percentil 80 GK 6,86 0,39 7,00 4,20 1,47 0,36 24,20 11,00 5,00 Name Best Pos Av Rat DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- Alexandre Lavrador D (R) 6,61 6,63 1,93 8,56 3,68 dif to p80 -0,31 -0,25 -1,54 -1,62 -1,04 Daniel Andrade D (L) 6,60 6,76 2,49 9,25 0,18 dif to p80 -0,32 -0,12 -0,98 -0,93 -4,54 Rúben Moura M (L) 6,80 6,28 4,76 11,04 -6,71 dif to p80 -0,12 -0,60 1,29 0,86 -11,43 Percentil 80 FB 6,92 6,88 3,47 10,18 4,72 Name Best Pos Av Rat DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- Deyvison D (L) 6,76 3,56 1,07 4,63 4,39 dif to p80 -0,18 -1,13 0,40 -0,38 -7,26 Luís Ferreira D (C) 6,89 4,68 0,27 4,95 19,01 dif to p80 -0,05 -0,01 -0,40 -0,06 7,36 Percentil 80 CB 6,94 4,69 0,67 5,01 11,65 Name Best Pos Av Rat DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- Pedro Mendes M (C) 6,88 2,77 2,76 5,53 -7,13 dif to p80 -0,27 -2,30 -0,75 -2,34 -7,74 Luís Madeira M (C) 7,29 4,21 3,50 7,71 -3,32 dif to p80 0,14 -0,86 -0,01 -0,16 -3,93 Denilson AM (L) 6,95 5,60 5,06 10,66 -4,52 dif to p80 -0,20 0,53 1,55 2,79 -5,13 João Castro AM (C) 7,08 4,47 2,41 6,88 -4,19 dif to p80 -0,07 -0,60 -1,10 -0,99 -4,80 Percentil 80 CM 7,15 5,07 3,51 7,87 0,61 Name Best Pos Av Rat DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- Kisley AM (R) 6,58 2,67 4,10 6,77 -7,17 dif to p80 -0,51 -3,11 -1,48 -3,79 -4,43 Ruster AM (L) 6,60 3,31 3,89 7,20 -4,66 dif to p80 -0,49 -2,47 -1,69 -3,36 -1,92 Denilson AM (L) 6,95 5,60 5,06 10,66 -4,52 dif to p80 -0,14 -0,18 -0,52 0,10 -1,78 Gonçalo Cabral AM (R) 6,71 3,38 6,16 9,54 -9,69 dif to p80 -0,38 -2,40 0,58 -1,02 -6,95 Percentil 80 WF 7,09 5,78 5,58 10,56 -2,74 Name Best Pos Av Rat DEF ATT D+A Poss +/- Gonçalo Cabral AM (R) 6,71 3,38 6,16 9,54 -9,69 dif to p80 -0,52 0,13 1,42 2,36 -6,00 Mohamed Karamoko ST (C) 6,93 2,28 4,17 6,45 -5,69 dif to p80 -0,30 -0,97 -0,57 -0,73 -2,00 Percentil 80 ST 7,23 3,25 4,74 7,18 -3,69 Matchday 10 (A) vs Caldas This was the first game of the second round. Not a very difficult win, although there were times when we seemed to lose control of the match. I spoke before about setting a goal of 500 completed passes on 85% - we made 507 completed passes on 86%. I kept the chance of roles from the Vizela game, and I feel it doesn’t hurt. It even helps my LCB situation. Friendly vs Fafe One more game for the trialists. Ygor Vinhas (GK) : Once again he was more offensive than defensive. 94% pass completion (Daniel averages 89%). João Queirós (LCB) : 79% pass completion on 83 attempted passes; 73% header won ratio on 19 headers. Tiago Lopes (LB) : 93% pass completion, 1 key pass, 5 interceptions, 3 of 4 headers won. João Lameira (CDM) : 79% pass completion, 1 key pass, 3 interceptions Alan Francisco (RIF) : 80% pass completion, 1 key pass, 1 clear-cut chance created, 5 tackles (all won), 42% headers won, 1 dribble, 2 shots, 1 on target, 1 goal, 1 assist. He’s earning himself a spot. Too bad I don’t have much space for him… Herculano Cassamá was also on the scoresheet. He already had one assist on the first-team, now he also has one goal. Let’s hope it’s the first of many.

Sure. But eventually one leads to the other. The efficiency in football is quite tricky and I would say it's even trickier in FM.

I had noticed that on my team, and I was curious if you were having the same issue. I "reduced" the aggressiveness of the roles (two attacking roles became supporting). It worked on the 2 games I tried and feel my team is more balanced. I'm waiting on a few more matches to see the development. I should say my problem wasn't just team-wise, there was also a focus on a specific position I was dealing with: my LB was WB-A and LCM was a MEZ-S, so my LCB couldn't find anyone nearby and he just hoofed balls. I set a goal to reach 500 completed passes on 85%, which seems a bit low when compared to that top-4, but I'm on a third tier, so I don't think I have the quality (nor the need) to have that much possession.

Taça de Portugal – Fourth Round (A) vs Vizela On paper we had no chance, so what’s the point in changing the tactic to accommodate to them? In my opinion, we play the way we play. I only used the reports to keep track of the players who could deal with big matches (but it didn’t make a difference, since my most used team is also the most comfortable with big matches). And I switched LWB and RIF attacking roles to support. We ended the first half winning 1-0, with more shots, shots on target, xG, possession and pass completion %. Had me worried that both my RB and RCB had yellow cards. In the second half, they clearly tried to show why they are two tiers above us and they dominated us until they scored the equalizer. When they did, I felt like they relaxed once again and I decided to change both RB and RCB. In the 83rd minute, we got another goal through a corner. From then on we managed to keep them shut and WE ARE THROUGH! In the next round, we got Länk, which was one of the only two teams from a tier below us. By the way, we are the only remaining team from the third tier. Checking on my team The last write-up about planned transfers gave me an idea to summarize my team. Check the technical/mental/physical average of every player. Name Technical Mental Physical Total Pedro Simões 8 7 9 24 Daniel Júnior 10 8 9 27 Lucas Sousa 8 6 8 22 Alexandre Lavrador 8 9 9 26 Miguel Silva 6 7 9 22 Daniel Novais 8 8 10 26 Daniel Andrade 9 9 9 27 Rúben Moura 7 8 8 23 Deyvison 8 10 8 26 João Cesco 5 8 10 23 Bastian 8 10 12 30 Luís Ferreira 7 10 11 28 Name Technical Mental Physical Total João Castro 9 10 9 28 Luís Madeira 10 10 10 30 Pedro Mendes 10 10 9 29 Miccoli 8 11 10 29 André Luiz 6 8 7 21 Gonçalo Cabral 9 9 12 30 Kisley 8 9 9 26 Denilson 7 9 10 26 Ruster 8 10 10 28 Victor Nicolatti 7 9 10 26 Mohamed Karamoko 8 9 12 29 Shouldn't take too many conclusions over this as it is a very simplistic view, but it's easy to tell some players are far off and some areas need improvement (as previously observed: the GK and RB, also some doubts on LB). And the youngsters/loanees: Name Technical Mental Physical Total Isidro Correia 7 8 7 22 João Guerra 5 8 9 22 Edgar Moura 7 7 10 24 André Marques 6 7 8 21 Ricardo Dias 5 8 8 21 Vitor Carm Mendes 6 8 10 24 Herculano Cassamá 6 8 10 24 Hélder Barros 4 6 8 18 Luís Rascão 6 8 10 24 Friendly vs Abrantes e Benfica I used this friendly with mainly two purposes: 1. watch the trialists; 2. try some new roles and formations. On the first front, João Queirós had a really good game; so did João Lameira (4 key passes, 1 assist). Ygor Vinhas wasn’t tested as a GK, but he had a 95% pass completion ratio. I’m also interested in the RW, Alan Francisco: 3 key passes, 2 clear-cut chances, 1 assist, won his aerial duels, however, he didn’t make any dribble nor he had shots on target. On the second subject, I tried the IWB coupled with the WCB. The IWB is interesting as it allows for another body in midfield, but I’m still not sold on the WCB. Although, this might be an interesting approach to face 2-striker formations or CAM+ST formation: has numbers behind and doesn’t need the DM position which will push my team forward.