mpm2342

Two more league games and two more victories. I rested a number of players for the Glacis match and it almost cost us as the game was closer than it should have been and closer than the stat line. The Mons Calpe game is more in line with what the starters can do.

UEFA Europa Conference League - Game 3 Third game is against VFB Stuttgart from the Bundesliga in Germany. Germany is 4th in the European nation club rankings and VFB Stuttgart is ranked 137th in the club rankings. Thought for sure their club ranking would be higher than that, but I see this the first time in a while for them to play in the European cup. The fans and experts seem to think we don't have a shot in this game. Going to switch to tactic 2 which is the same base as the very attacking tactic, but more conservative - hopefully to keep it close. I am pleased with the result, but from the stats, especially XG, we could have won that game Lots of yellow cards will cause us problems I'm sure.,,, Yep, Parker, Roman, Galliano and Rumbo will miss the next match against Bate. That's 3 of our FBs... grrr

Back in the Gibraltar league, the Lions dominated Man 62 with a few backups in the lineup for playing time and to rest the starts for the cup. A key game against our primary rival for the league prompted the best lineup to start and they did a fantastic job. Very good game all around.

UEFA Europa Conference League - Game 2 Second game is against AA Gent from the Jupiler Pro League in Belgium. Belgium is 9th in the European nation club rankings and AA Gent is ranked 49th in the club rankings. The fans and experts seem to think we don't have a shot in this game, though it is above 10% AA Gent was just too much for this team. Happy to not get blown out too badly

UEFA Europa Conference League - Game 1 First game is against Zeleznicar from the Serbian First League. Serbia is 14th in the European nation club rankings and Zelenicar is ranked 315 in the club rankings. The fans and experts seem to think we have a shot in this game The fans and experts were correct as we got a nice victory and to top if off, received £428K for the win. We are building a very nice bankroll this season with the current balance at £3M

The board agreed to add a performance analyst, an additional physio and an additional coach. These will all be helpful to develop players and keep them healthy. First game of the season was a massacre. The score was inflated over the XG, but there were some sweet goals in this one. Jay Key scoring top corner from long range was my favourite. We had a number of players on international duty and, as always when this happens, I check out the national team for FA. There were 4 of them who agreed to trials and one of them, Ethan Britto signed with us on a non-contract as a fringe player. He will be our best LFB so will get some quality play time and gives me flexibility to use Galliano in other spots. The injury bug hit us - Robba (GK) is out for 6-7 weeks, glad I have Alonso to step in. Negrette is out for 2-4 weeks and we have very good depth wingers, so that will be fine. Second game and another positive result for us Third game of the season saw us get defeated in a game we should have won. To make it worse, Yome was injured for 4-5 months. Starting to test the depth at winger.

We signed 3 more players before the transfer deadline, 2 depth players and one future star (I hope) Marcos is 17 and has great Pace, Acceleration, first touch and passing - perfect for the DLP or AM roles. The assistant report says he is close to full potential, but I have to (want to) believe that his physicals and other attributes can still be improved. Bosio is homegrown and a backup for the BWM role. He won't see the field unless Cottrell gets hurt. Hankins is insurance at the GK position in case one of the two main dudes gets really annoyed at me for not meeting their playing time expectations. One of the benefits to the cup games is I have enough game statistics to look at player performance an adjust starters if needed GK This is pretty close with the edge to Alonso for the save %. Will try to balance both of them but the fact that Robba is homegrown gives flexibility for other lineup spots so they will likely trade off until one of them gets mad, then I will try to loan Alonso out. CD Shmelev and Thompson are the starters, but Edwards is making a case for playing time. Will likely have a rotation here to keep them fresh FB Galliano starts at LFB and Roman is playing and training to be the RFB - is already competent in the position. Rumbo just always plays well and is a leader on the team, so will be a regular sub and will get some playing time to give the 18 yr old some rest BWM / DLP Cottrell and Parker have player pretty much all the games. Parker is awesome. Cottrell, not so much. The BWM role in the tactic did not produced good ratings last season either, so I might need to re-think that role.. will try it on support instead of defend for a bit and see what happens. AM Key has been the starter, but has the poorest metrics. He is homegrown and the other two are not, so this position will likely rotate with the GK position to keep the 5 homegrown in the lineup. Going to rotate Barber and Hurford and see how they perform as well. Hurford is the backup ST, so don't want to make him full time AM. Winger Negrette and McClafferty are the starters. McClafferty has been great, but Negrette has been out performed by Yome. That will earn some starts for Yome and I will keep an eye on it to see if the trend continues. ST Kawe is the starter and doing just fine. Hurford got 2 goals in his one start, so not afraid to use him as required either. The stats as a striker likely made his AM stats look better than they otherwise would. The position / role calculations has changed quite a bit from the end of last season: There are reasonable homegrown options at every position except for ST and one of the CD. That will give us lots of lineup flexibility and hopefully resilience to injury as well. The board agreed to turn professional at the beginning of next season! Let the good times role and lets get the training facilities and coaching better to take advantage of it.

The board approved (with some discussion) improving training facilities, youth recruiting and junior coaching. Big step to start getting better. Just put in a request to turn professional. The extra training will make a difference for sure, will ask to add more coaches and keep asking for upgrades every time it becomes available. Next up is the Pepe Reyes Cup where we faced off against Europa FC and came out victorious after a hard fought battle including extra time. A late goal by Kawe sealed the game for us. Not the most prestigious competition as of yet, slotting in between some Irish cups. Hopefully as the league gets better, the ranking of the cup will get better which will give a boost to the teams. Next up is the regular season.

Next up is one of the best named football clubs out there .... Knattspyrnufelagid Vikingur. Say that 3 times fast Vikingur R play in the Icelandic Premier Division. Iceland is ranked 43rd in the European Nation Club rankings and Vikingur R is ranked 391. We should have a chance to play some close ones with them First leg at Laugardalvollur Stadium, Love the name so much, just had to check it out. The stadium and location was fantastic and the game was pretty good too We came out with a 3-2 away victory. Fairly even game overall puts us in a good position for leg 2 at home. Second leg at home and, Vikingur R made the comeback, winning2-0 and knocking us out of the Europa League. It was a good run from the team. We received another £85K and an additional £171K for being in the Europa league. With a positive balance of £334,793 time to go ask the board for upgrades. Whoa!!! Wait just a minute! Here I was happy to get into positive financial territory and then got this email: Say WHAT? Time to get some upgrades done and time to ask to turn professional. And to top it all off, this email came in too: Can you believe it? I have a personal assistant named James Borge! Definitely moving up in the world All kidding aside, I thought the European adventure was over, but no, 6 more games await with some potential victories could means some more £ on the horizon as well. Oh Happy Days!!!!!

UEFA Europa League, Champions Path Third Qualifying Round 1st leg at home produced a draw. We had the edge in XG and possession, but not enough to feel bad about the score. No real notable performances and a distinct lack of cards, so happy about the discipline. Leg two away from home produces a win when we didn't play the best. It is nice to pull one out when behind on a number of the match metrics. Kawe got injured in the last match, but Hurford stepped in and did great with both goals. Very happy with the team. Another £85K and on to the next round.

Next up is KuPS in the UEFA Europa League, Champions Path Third Qualifying Round KuPS play in the Finnish Premier League. Finland is ranked 33rd in the European Nation Club Rankings and KuPS is ranked 197. Lower ranking than Astana, but still pretty strong. Looking at the other Gibraltar clubs, Europa FC was knocked out in the second round of the Europa League and Magpies were out in the first round. Signed a couple of players as well: Aaron Alonso is a very good, young SK. I am probably going to loan him out for the regular season and play Robba and have him as the starter next season Frankie Edwards will be the primary backup at CD and a solid starter if one of the first two goes down with an injury. Going to be tricky balancing the playing time commitments, but it's a short season, so it's doable Also signed some players for the U23 team, but not going to show them as they are unlikely to make the main squad. If any of them progress well, I will post them at the end of the season.

EUFA Champions League Champions Path Second Qualifying Round The first leg is complete. There must have been a party or something that the Lion's squad was eager to get to as the parade of men sent to the dressing room was astounding. I have not seen a game with this much "colour" before. 8 Yellows and 3 Red cards.... 3 Red cards, wow! Down 3-0 heading into their stadium, so things are not looking good to advance further. Second leg in the books and the end of the Champions path for the Lions. Astana as just too good, but very happy for the team to make it to round 2 and collect some prize money. £85K for each round for a total of £170K. That almost gets us to a positive balance overall.

Wow, Great season! How satisfying that must be. Very much enjoying the story and your recaps.... The live stream of the finals had me on the edge of my seat just waiting for Arsenal to come flying back - and they didn't... so cool!

July has been good to us. I went to my expiring contracts shortlist to see how many of the young Spanish players became free agents. There were quite few, so I offered trials to all of them and they accepted!!! Getting the reputation bump, playing in the Europe competitions and them being free agents made the difference. As I waited for their attributes to reveal, a number of them understandably got bids from other clubs, however we did manage to sign one player from that group and one Gibraltar depth player: Samu will be our new FB on the right side after training. Got a couple of other bids out for even better ones and if they sign, will send Samu out on loan. I love his speed and acceleration which is perfect for the high tempo tactic. Mikey Yome is a solid backup across the front 4 positions. Consistent player, cheap, agreed to fringe player and provides extra insurance against injuries. Onto the Cup matches. The first game against Alashkert was VERY surprising. I was hoping we could hang with them, but we really put a beating on them. Kawe was amazing, Parker is living up to the Captain role and just no words... didn't think this would happen. Game two back at home with a 7 goal lead was hoping the momentum would continue with a victory and it did. Much closer game on the scoreboard and the match stats. Parker and Kawe scored again and played well. The attacking group on this team are going to be a force this season. The EUFA Champions League Champions Path Second Qualifying Round has us drawn against Astana. Astana play in the top Kazakhstan league and are a much bigger club. Kazakhstan is ranked 29th in the European Club rankings and Astana is ranked 125th. This is going to be a challenge.

The EUFA Champions League Champions Path First Qualifying Round has us drawn against Alashkert. Alashkert play in the Armenian top league and have a 2 star reputation. Armenia is 35th in the European nation club ranking and Alashkert is ranked 253 in the Europe club rankings, so on paper they should be better than us, but not by a huge margin. Will report back after the first leg on how the game went and any additional transfer and staff moves. Setting up the training schedule to get the players in match shape and hopefully happy

Fast forward to June 30th when players and coaches contracts expire and we can really start setting the squad for the new season. Gibraltar dropped 2 spots in the Club rank, but still have the 3 spots in European competitions... hopefully this season the teams can win a game or two. The Lion's reputation went up a bit which should help with signing players and the Lions made their appearance on the European club rankings. We got a healthy transfer budget of 70K which I reallocated to scouting and payroll keeping just enough in case I need to give signing bonuses or such. No need to pay transfer fees for players yet. Over the month of June we added 5 players to plug some holes from a variety of sources. Spencer Barber came to us by looking through the Gibraltar league for expiring contracts and saw that he was a non-contract, so offered a trial. The trail was accepted and he turned out to be a very good AM and an OK winger and DLP. He will be a very useful backup with potential to start as an AM. Max Cottrell was found looking at expiring contracts and offering trials. Glacis agreed for him to come on trial and he turns out to be a very good BWM and solid backup at CD. He will likely start at BWM if I can't find an upgrade. He is consistent and loves big matches which is a strong positive. Jack Thompson came to us through an Intermediary. They were looking to sell him, no way I was paying transfer fees, so I checked if they would loan him and they would ... for FREE!! Jack is our second best CD and our best Right defender. So he will start, just a question of where. Corey Hurford was a top FA target for us last off season, but he wanted way too much to sign, so I watched him go to Lincoln. Sure enough, Lincoln put him up for loan this season. Lesson here - If you can't sing someone, keep tabs on them because they will often quickly come available on loan. Most of the time, they still cost too much, but sometimes, it works. In this case. I am paying £20 p/w playing fee and £0 non-playing fee. Hurford will be a backup Striker (had him potentially as the starter until the 4th player on the list came along), the backup winger and 3rd on the AM depth chart, so a very useful player. The most exciting siging for us is Kawe. I got an inbox item saying the Lions were pursuing Kawe and I was "WHO? Never heard of him" just one of those random rumour emails. So I checked him out and the only stats I could see were Pace 12-15, Finishing 12-15 and Dribbling 12-15. That got me very interested. He was on £160 p/w and I figured it would be questionable if he would accept a transfer and he would probably want a lot more than that, so I checked the loan option and BRA was willing to loan him out for FREE !!! Backflips and an offer quickly ensued. The offer for real and the backflips just in my head so I didn't hurt myself. After that, it was wait with bated breath as Kawe announce he no longer wanted to leave BRA, so I thought for sure he would reject the loan, but no, he came. And look at this guy! He is a prototype AF which is what I play in the tactic with a rating of 57.7 which slots him very nicely near the top 5 average for the league. Very excited to see what he can do. On the staffing front, the board agreed to add another coach and we let Chozas Hermoso go as he was not good enough .

End of Season Analysis - Part 2 Player progression, statistical performance and position review/needs: As a semi-pro team with horrible facilities, I am not expecting much, if any progression until we can turn professional. We have some older players who I expect to decline. The end of season squad looks like: We had big rating drops from: Note the comments about on ratings, the time horizon is short, so only the bigger moves will be talked about. Age related drops Ezequiel -3 Ruiz - 3.9 Rumbo - 2 Not sure drops: Shmelev - 2.3 Galliano - 3.8 Injury? The rest were pretty stable with slight increases for McClafferty, Peacock. Key showed strong growth in attributes and his rating increased by 2.8, Happy about that. Time to dig into the final statistics and metrics for the season and look at positional needs. GK Potential Upgrade Neither keeper played great, Hernandez having the edge on XG prevented and Robba having the edge on save %. Robba's rating is in line with the Gibraltar league. He is 32 now and can be a good backup if I can find a better started. Will look for a starter with ratings in the 53 - 55 range (VNL to L2) CD Strong Need - 1 Starter We are good with one CD position - Shmelev. He had decent stats and match rating. He is also just below the range of ratings for the leagues we are chasing. Hasting is a good backup, but declining. Bossano-Anes has potential and a 43 rating. He actually improved ever so slightly last season without much playing time, but is unlikely to ever be more than a solid backup at his peak. Vera will be gone. We need another starter. FB High need for RFB Galliano and Rumbo performed well with strong match ratings and strong statistics (I updated the FB metrics to reflect the combo D, support and attack role). Galliano is the starter at LB. He has a 5 star potential, but declined last season. I will assume that is because of learning a new position and getting injured, but definitely something to keep an eye on this season. Rumbo was steady and consistent for us, unfortunately is getting older and best used as a backup. Need to find a starter in the 50 rating range. Breakspear and Olmos are backups at best. BWM Urgent need The two old guys who can't move are not getting the job done. Not happy with anything about the BWM role this past season. Both will be gone, so need a starter and a backup. DLP We are good Parker starts, plays great and is the team captain, say no more. We have additional backup options in Key and Cintas, so not need to do anything unless something falls in our lap. RW,LW,AM Starters great, need backup Set at starters with Negrette, Key and McClafferty. Cintas is a decent backup at AM. We do need backups though ST Urgent Need Cabrera is old and declining and Peacock is leaving off his loan. Wasn't happy with Peacock (or Cabrera) anyways. Starting from nothing here, so need a starter and a backup Next up is to start looking for trial players from: The national teams when they start playing shortly 18 and under players in the lower Spanish division with expiring contracts (didn't work first time, will try again) Scouts GM suggestions

End of Season Analysis - Part 1 A number of things to be looked at relating to the team, progression, stats, need etc. but before I did that, I wondered to myself "self, just how good is this team and how do I measure that". So, off I went down that fun distraction for the last day The obvious way to tell is by the record, but that's not good enough. What i wanted to know is how does the team/players stack up against the league and other leagues around the world just looking at their attributes. I loaded up a new database without attribute masking and put the Gibraltar League and all standard English leagues through my rating system. I then took the average of the top ratings for each role. I used half the number of teams as the benchmark for top, so for the Premier league it is the average of the top 12 ratings and for the Gibraltar league it is the average of the top 5. I built the table selecting the roles for my tactic to use as a reference. The analysis does not take into account position competency, so doesn't perfectly represent the leagues, but it is close enough for this purpose. A couple of things to note. The Gibraltar league is above the Valdarama National League in rating, out of line with the position in the world league ranking. That make sense if you consider that the top 5 ratings are most likely to have come from the top 2 professional teams (Lincoln, Europa FC). Those teams have dominated the league for a while so are much better than the league as a whole, which shows up in the rating The Lions were horrible to start and got better, but not very close to the Gibraltar league. That really demonstrates how strong the effect of Cohesion, Happiness, tactical familiarity and tactics is on the match engine. There is no way the Lions should have won the league based on the attributes of the players on the team The rating system is subject to the maxim - Don't confuse accuracy with precision. This is because the attribute values we have to work with are 1 to 20, while in the game it is 1 to 100. This means a rating of 48 to 52 will display as 10. When looking at short time horizons, this can cause unexpected swings in ratings if a number of the player's attribute values are right at the border - one point moves can show misleading small improvements or declines in ratings because they cause the number we see to change. I use my rating system as a guideline to do further digging, not a rule. Once I have a player for a couple of seasons, the trend of the ratings is long enough to overcome the short term variability. I won't show the chart going forward, but I will show the following graph at the end of each season to track the progress.

Financial/Board results from Season 1 We were projected to finish with a £230K deficit and we are at (£186K) with the month of June still to go. Probably finish right at (£200K) The board has me on track for the objective to work within payroll budget even though I ran over a bit for most of the season, Might be because the new budget for next season is higher than the spend? The board denied every request for improvements because of the financial situation and did not agree to a course for me until we made the Championship round. I kept asking, but it was a waste of time. Thoughts from the first season The squad was primarily built from GM recommendations and scouting recommendations... getting a decent GM made a difference in the recommendations. Got a loan (Peacock) from watching the social feed and seeing another team interested. Picked up one important player from the Gibraltar National team (McClafferty) Keep asking the GM at regular intervals to see if new players pop up Be PATIENT !! I could have had an even better squad, but put money out to players too early. They were still very good and served purposes, but better options came up later that I was not able to capitalize on Offer trials to everyone - you find some good ones when you least expect it. Don't have too many on trial during the season or you will mess up your team ccohesion Keep checking - Shmelev would not even talk to me for the entire season until we made the Championship Round and then he agreed to a contract extension for next season... and at a reasonable price too Use the start ratings as a guide, but have a mechanism to rate the players. I swear by my spreadsheet derivative of theFFM's spreadsheet... make sure the players you sign fit your style of play, so don't just blindly follow the numbers. Load the view, print, copy, paste and you have all the players rated... it is easy - I ended up rating 110 players through the season. When your reputation is lower, some very good players will come on trial, but will either want way too much to sign, or won't talk to you. Keep an eye on them as often a bigger team will sign them and then put them on Loan. I made a mistake on one of the loan signings which didn't end up hurting us, but realistically I didn't need to do it - I should have been patient and waited to see the attributes and spreadsheet rating I tried a few other things to get players that didn't work at all, or only had limited success At the beginning of the season, I offered trials to all the 18yr olds and under with expiring contracts in Spain. Got a very small number to come on trial and none of them would talk to me I went through the Gibraltar national teams looking for free agents and did get a few trials and signed McClafferty), but my reputation wasn't high enough to get too much from it ... very good strategy as the reputation improves, can go after better countries I did find loan potential within the league from the Gibraltar squad listings, but didn't sign anyone Team cohesion is very important. Having enough players to keep everyone fresh and rotate is important Side benefit to all the trials is that it brings those players to the attention of the rest of the league and the other teams sign some of them which makes those teams, and therefore the league stronger. The club never got sold despite the rumour mill

The end of season awards showcased the Lion's team Recognition for Shmelev and more recognition for Parker Awesome! The final squad looked like this (love to see all the green connections) with only 3 players from the beginning - Parker, Shmelev and Hastings.

The Championship group got underway with a positive result for the team. Need another couple of wins now! Second match and same result. That is two shutouts in a row after putting Ezequiel back in the lineup. His ratings aren't great, but it sure feels like he is stabilizing the D. On a different note, the board finally agreed to send me on a coaching course. They shut it down every time I asked all season, so this is big news. The Rock Cup final did not go the way the team and supporters hoped as we lost 2-1. I did not start the best 11 as we have a league game in 3 days that is more important. Parker, Cabrera, McClafferty (Suspended) didn't start the game. Looks like we carried most of the play, but just couldn't finish. Striker upgrade definitely necessary for next season. Big match against Magpies for the top of the table. some trash talk from their manager pregame, so dished it back just for fun. Didn't matter as the game ended in a draw and looks like it deserves to be a draw. Two games to go and we have clinched a top 3 and some European competition games next season which should inject some cash into the club. Have a realistic shot at the title with games against the two big clubs to go. We have been pretty even with Lincoln and Europa FC all season, so fingers and toes crossed. Tie with Lincoln keeps us in the hunt. Game we should have won based on XG, but I will take the tie at this stage. One more match to go and a one point lead on Magpies. Last game against Europa FC who have had the better of us through the year and we WON to take home the championship. The team really stepped up and dominated the game on all fronts. Was not expecting this result this season. Lincoln beat the Magpies in their final game so we ended up 4 points clear Time to go celebrate !!!

Lost a game to Europa FC where Galliano was sent off in the first minute ... Karma. The lads did well with only 10 men, so not upset about the loss Next up was the Rock Cup Semi Final which was a wild game with goals back and forth and an ejection and two goals in extra time. The final 3 goals for us came from subs, so having a strong bench paid off. Final game of the regular season and a huge meltdown at the end of the game. Feels like we need help defensively, so I am going to put Ezequiel back in the starting lineup at BWM and see if that helps. We finished tied for top of the league and qualified for the Championship group where the top 6 teams play each other with points carrying over from the regular season. Our primary goal is to finish top 3 and we have a 5 point cushion to Lincoln with 5 games to go, so we definitely have a shot.

The youth intake email came through and there are a couple of players with potential. I have to be careful as we will not have much wage room, but I will offer contracts to Campbell (15 finishing) and Ruiz and let the rest go

Two matches in a row against Europa Point. First up a league match where the team did there job. Nice to see Shmelev using his size on corners - the set piece training is paying off. Second match was the Rock Cup Quarter finals. Sat Key to give him a rest and Peacock delivered as a substitute which is great to see. That could earn him some playing time. Nice victory over Mons Calpe. I think Cabrera heard me talk about giving Peacock a start and responded with a statement. Ruiz is playing well and scored on a lovely free kick from long range. Will see how he does in the role when we play one of the top teams. Heading into a 3 week stretch with no games, so filled it in with a couple of friendlies and a cup in the middle week on Sun/Mon to keep as many training days as possible. Asked the GM for some trial suggestions to provide enough players to rotate and will report if any of them are useful.

Bounced back nicely after the loss. Dominated the game and got an ok effort from Robba, the new GK. If the front 4 play like this, Cabrera has a starting slot for the remainder of the season. Closer match with Man 62, but still in control. Robba played a great game, so far so good for the new keeper. 3 goals in his first 2 games for Negrette, happy about that signing. Shows that patience is a good thing in this game. I did my usual and spent too much and limited my options for later, but still managed to get a few upgrades along the way. Trying hard to shed some of the extra salary, but nobody is interested in our cast offs. First round of the Rock Cup and squeaked out a victory in a game we dominated. The attackers are playing well, but not converting... Ok if we keep winning. Negrette scores again, that's 3 for 3. Another game and another goal for Negrette, he is making me one happy manager. Very dominate performance with great ratings for pretty much everyone. Looks like time to give Key a bit of a break. We are on top of the League table with 4 matches left in the regular season and have booked a spot in the playoffs.