FM12 Big Euro Nation: Small Club to Big Club Challenge

wardog · August 27, 2012

Thanks Marty78 to be honest I don't think our challenge will last we aren't scoring enough goals, which is frustrating because I have strikers capable of scoring in the SPL, I think my pre-season and signing loads of non-Brits disrupted the team. already looking at next season. Our wage budget is very low compared to the first division sides though so thats pleasing, although still a few I'm considering offloading. In honesty I think being semi-pro is being a huge hindrance for us now, some of the young lads aren't developing anymore and they have more potential to give I think.

rlipscombe · August 27, 2012

SV Waldhof Mannheim – German Bundesliga – Season 2027/28

Season Review

League Finish: 1^st Graph Club Overview Club Information

The League

After last seasons romp to the Bundesliga title this season was a lot closer. I rotated the team a lot more this season to try to help keep the players fresher for our assault on all fronts which meant that we weren’t as consistent. As a result we drew a number of games we should have won which meant that we struggled to break clear of Leverkusen and Schalke. Long term njuries to key players such as De Jong, Everton and Dmitri Delcroix also had an effect on our league form. In the end though we did enough to claim our 5^th consecutive league title with a game to spare. A hard fought title, and a bit of a scrappy one but one I am proud of due to the number of times our younger players featured. An encouraging league triumph.

German Super Cup

Our German Super Cup opponents were Borussia Dortmund. Dortmund lined up with former Mannheimers Okello and de Graaff in their team. It was a close fought match but we ended up losing 1-0, the goalscorer being, of course, Theo de Graaff on his debut after his £11 million transfer.

German Cup

The first round of the German cup saw us drawn away at Koblenz, who we duly despatched 5-0. Next up was Bundesliga rivals Stuttgart. A narrow 2-1 win after extra time saw us through to the 3^rd round and a home tie against Nurnberg. Our squad players thrashed them 6-2 to draw Borussia Monchengladbach in the quarters. 2-0 away from home was a win that saw us through to play Hamburg away. A one-sided semi final saw us win 2-0 and we were back into the German cup final where we would face Koln. Despite them being a bit of a bogey team we controlled the match and retained our German Cup winning 2-0.

Champions League

The draw for this seasons group stages of the Champions League saw us drawn against Manchester United, Shakhtar and APOEL Nicosia. The main things to note were a defeat at Old Trafford which we overturned at the Carl Benz Stadion and an 11-0 (eleven) win at home to APOEL Nicosia. It was a game I had thought about putting the reserves in but I decided to test the first team and they didn’t let me down.

As group runners up we were to face a group winner and we couldn’t have hoped for a tougher draw facing Barcelona. We went to the Nou Camp first and we quickly raced into a 2-0 half time lead. However in the space of 4 minutes Barca were level and that was the way it finished. Going into the return leg at home I wasn’t overly confident but in one of the best performances I have seen by my team we won 3-1 to go through 5-3 on aggregate.

Our opponents in the Quarter Finals were our group rivals Manchester United. We avenged defeat at Old trafford winning a tight game 3-2. Back at home we battled hard and managed a 1-1 draw, progressing to the Semi finals 4-3. Facing us in the semi-finals were Madrid’s second club Atletico. A 1-0 win at the Vicente Calderon was repeated at home and we had done it – the Champions League final awaited.

SVW Mannheim travelled to Wembley for their first CL final to face Chelsea. On paper I thought it was a closely matched game but Chelsea were considered the favourites. The first half saw Mannheim take the lead through an own goal but Chelsea were back on level terms just before half time. The second half was a tense as we tried to score the all important goal but Chelsea held firm to keep the score 1-1 after 90 minutes. Extra time went the same way and no further goals meant the dreaded penalties. This is how they went….

Toma for Mannheim… GOAL - 1-0 Mannheim

Larsen for Chelsea… GOAL - 1-1

Diaz for Mannheim… GOAL - 2-1 Mannheim

Nahum for Chelsea… MISSED! - 2-1 Mannheim

D Delcroix for Mannheim… GOAL - 3-1 Mannheim

Smith for Chelsea… GOAL - 3-2 Mannheim

Adam for Mannheim… GOAL - 4-2 Mannheim

Taylor for Chelsea… MISSED!!! - 4-2 Mannheim WIN!!!!!!

We had done it!!! Champions of Europe for the first time… I have to admit at this point to doing a little jig in the lounge just after Chelsea missed the fourth penalty… on the balance of play we deserved to win but it was still an amazing feeling as 90,000 saw Mannheim lift the Champions League trophy…

The Players

Time to take a look at those players who lead the club to a domestic double and also our debut Champions League title:

Transfers

Squad 1 Squad 2

Goalkeepers

1. Alexey Nemchinov - the young Russian has been with the club for a couple of seasons but had mainly spent time away from the club. This season though he was given some game time and did pretty well when called upon. A potential future star.

13. Marin Milicic - the Croatian goakleeper got a few games and did ok.

30. Kostadin Dimitrov - Kostadin was the subject of a lot of interest in the summer and I nearly sold him in my attempts to sign a top keeper. I decided to keep him in the end and my loyalty was rewarded as Dimitrov was one of the stars of our team.

Full Backs

14. Migen Toma - Migen had competition for his spot for the first time this season and was rotated with Albrecht over the course of the season. In the CL final my heart said he should play and he performed well, scoring the first penalty in the shootout.

2. Roland Albrecht - Roland was a big summer signing as I looked to add a top quality rival for Toma. Roland had a great season and is heir apparent to Toma.

36. Ninoslav Petrov - The young Serb got a few run outs and did ok.

3. Fernando - Fernando was another big summer signing and he repaid his fee with a great season. We finally have real strength in depth in the full back areas.

31. Slobodan Dasovic - Slobodan found himself edged out of the team by Fernando but still got a lot of game and did well. Still in my plans.

Centre Backs

5. Thorbjorn Angeltveit - Mainly a squad player this season, the Norweigan may leave this summer.

6. Everton - Suffered with injuries but was immense as ever when he played. A great player.

15. Maximiliano Aimar - a solid season from Aimar who rotated like our other defenders.

35. Aidar Solosin - Aidar regained his place as 1^st choice partner to Everton and was key in our treble triumph.

26. Jose Domingo Ballesteros - The young Spaniard was given a number of first team appearances and did well whenever he played. A promising player if he is given the opportunities to develop.

Midfielders

4. Fusca - the Brazilian central midfielder had a decent first season but I was hoping for a little more considering his fee.

8. Roland de Jong - Roland suffered a serious injury this season and so missed a large chunk of the season. Returned at the end of the season to help us to our treble.

12. Holm Adam - Another to suffer with injuries, he did well nonetheless when he played. A great little player.

17. Andres Diaz - Andres had a great season and managed 22 assists in all competitions – fantastic.

18. Simon Vennemann - Simon didn’t feature too much this season and is becoming unsettled. Future in a little doubt.

22. Philipp Hamberger - Had a good season but suffered a serious injury towards the end of the season and missed our CL triumph.

24. Mario Teunis - Mario had a good season and figured heavily in the first team.

27. Angel Martinez - the young spaniard was gven some game time and did well when called upon.

28. Constant Delcroix - Constant had another good season and just edged Hamberger to be best winger. Was unhappy early in the season after I turned down his ridiculous wage demands but we made an agreement towards the end of the season.

34. Jonas Gloor - The young Swiss midfielder featured little and will leave the club this summer.

44. Joaquim Armengol - The young Spaniard had performed pretty well when he played and is a good youngster.

58. Jose Francisco Calderon - A young Ecuadorian who has been with the club for a few seasons. Did well in the couple of run-outs he got.

61. Mikica Djokovic - Mikica was slightly overshadowed by Diaz but had a great season when he played and is neck and neck with Diaz for the RM role.

Strikers

7. Emiliano Rolon - Another season where Rolon was a support striker and did ok when he played. A player I like but I might have to let him leave this summer.

9. Dimitri Delcroix - Suffered with a few injuries this season and was in and out of the side. Struggled in the league but did well in the cups.

10. Recep Saygin - The German international had a solid first season with the club and scored 15 goals in all competitions. Good first season.

11. Busao - Had a great season and was a key figure in our treble triumph.

19. Ricardo Freitas - Ricardo dried up a little this season in terms of goals but was a solid performer.

29. Petr Ptacek - Petr got a few run outs in their German Cup and did ok. Likely to leave this summer.

Finances

A good profit made this season helped in no small part by our CL triumph. The finances are looking really healthy now.

The Future

So mission has been accomplished with the Champions League title coming to Mannheim for the first time. We also retained our German Cup and also added a 5^th consecutive Bundesliga title.

So where do we go from here? Well first off will be into our new 45,000 SVW Mannheim stadium which will open in 12 months time. The increased capacity will be great as we sell out every week and the increased income will help to pay for the ground, which is largely financed by sponsorship deals. I can’t wait to get into the ground and look forward to the atmosphere under the roof on European nights.

My motivation is also to win a 6^th title, the European Super Cup and then the Club World Cup in December. A second Champions League title would also be nice!! Onwards we march!

CHALLENGE COMPLETE

wardog · August 27, 2012

Congrats Rlipscombe struggling to load images but certain thats an issue with my google chrome at the moment. Enjoy taking that trophy home.

Troy Damage · August 27, 2012

Overall

League (Past Positions) - We won our first eight games and never looked back, hitting the top after four games we lead the whole way. I expected promotion in our third season and hoped we could achieve it in this style, I was glad we did not disappoint.

Cup - We beat our first Bundesliga team in the second round against Furth, and the high prize money on offer in the DFB Pokal made that win a real bonus, overall we took home about 700k, and thats not to mention the money we took from a sell out against Dortmund in the third round.

Transfers - We managed to keep a relatively settled squad compared to recent years, whilst improving the squad, reducing the wage budget, and bringing in a massive 1.2m in fees. Its safe to say I'm delighted with our transfer activity this year.

Finances - The cup run and player sales, along with high profile friendlies mean that our bank balance makes for pleasant reading.

Squad - A better and more balanced squad than we have had in recent years, that lack of options up top was a concern at the beggining of the season, but we were lucky with injuries and I didn't ever feel the need to bring an extra man in.

The Title Winning XI - Thought I would profile each of my first choice players for this season since they brought home the title (you may notice a distinct lack of natives)

Formation

GK: Michal Jaros - The young Czech was brought in last January to replace the excellent Antolovic who left for Wolfsburg. He was shaky last season but came on leaps and bounds this year and was a thorughly reliable prescence between the sticks. A real bonus is his decidedly modest wage packet of £130 a week, although he has, rather reasonably been making nosies about an improved contract of late.

RB: David Machacek - Another young czech on low wages, was brought in at the start of the season as cover at right back, but became first choice when we got an excellent offer of 250K for David Salak. He did a very solid job.

LB: Joao Cancelo - The 20 year old Portugese full back had a strong year in his second full season at the club, and he has plenty of potential still to expand into, could our left back for many years to come.

CB: Rune Anderson - We've had several fruitful shopping trips to Denmark, Andersen perhaps the most succesful of our Scandinavian imports, had a good second season, also one with potential to improve.

CB: Robert Guldager - The second of our all Danish centre back partnership, Guldager is similar in ability and apparent potential to his fellow countryman, it will be interesting to see who progresses the most in the coming years (my money is on Andersen).

DM: Gokay Ferhatoglu - I earmakred the Turk as a potential future star last year, and whilst he had a solid year anchoring the midfield frustratingly his development stalled somewhat. I do like this guy though and he will be given more time in the team in which to grow.

CM: Antonio Jedvaj - His signing came out of my decision to sign a croatian scout more for his country knowledge than his abilities as a scout, it paid off as he was my signing of the summer. Jedvaj gave our midfield the balance between attack and defence which it had been lacking for the last two years. Another good player on a insanely low wage, he chipped in with a decent eight goals.

CM: Rui Cardoso - The Creative energy in the middle of the park, he drives forward scoring and creating goals, overall he got eight and made thirteen, improving on his first year at the club last season.

RW: Fransisco Costa - Another from Portugal, he was signed in January as the right wing was the only position letting us down in the first half of the season, he did OK coming in, but he looks a real player to me and I expect more in his first full season at the club.

LW: Vaclav Dvorak - In his third season at the club he continued his year on year improvement and is now a fully fledged star at this level, now 21 he was a key force behind our title winning campaign. His stats speak for themselves, not only did he get 17 assists but he also found the back of the net 20 times making him the leagues third top scorer, not bad from the wing.

FC: Kamil Bilinski - The club captain had his best season yet, he netted 33 times overall, 29 times in the league. He missed out on the golden boot again, coming second for the second year running, but as consolation he has reestablished himself in the national set up making the last three Poland squads, no mean feat from the German third tier, he is yet to reiceve his second cap mind you. He is on course to become the clubs first legend with 84 goals in 109 appearences for the club, needless to say we wouldn't have got to where we are without his goals over the last three seasons.

Next Year - Would not have wanted to spend more than three years at this level so pleased to be up, and pleased by the manner in which we achieved it. I'm also very pleased with the state of the playing squad and finances given the pretty dire state they were both in when I took over three years ago. The second division looks a much more formidable league, but given that I am happy with the squad and we have money in the bank, I have tentively set myself the target of tackling it in the same timeframe of three years. Roll on next season.

Troy Damage · August 27, 2012

Well done on the completition rlipscombe, looks a thorughly decent team you've bulit there, tough champs league draw as well, you deserved the shoot out after knocking out Barca, United, and Athletico who always seem to become a real top side on my saves.

wardog · August 27, 2012

Clyde end of season 2015/16 Report

Results

Decided to start with results this time. I'm not going to go to much into this but overall I'm pleased. I think we need some adjustments during the summer in certain positions but other than that I'm happy with things.

The league

In honesty I really don't believe we deserved 3rd in the division this year, I feel that it flatters us. We had by far the best defence in the league which I think gave us our flattering league position. However with Matthew Paterson's league set up, Robbie Lagoudakis' poor performing and Christie Elliott struggling when brought in means we didn't convert enough chances. I'll be addressing this as soon as possible.

First Team

The first team is strong but there will be changes during the summer. Some players will be very hard to keep ahold of, others are just deadwood, and we need a new strike-force.

Key Players

Dean Fritzgerald

In his third year at the club, Dean has impressed me lots. I'm amazed his average rating is below 7 in honesty, I felt he was our best player this season, without equal. Dean has continued to improve in training, and has applied himself in training learning several new moves, and has never moaned about being asked to do extra training. The ex-West ham player has been deserving of this place in the key players roll for 2 years now, and this season he left me no choice. He was our 2nd top scorer, and created a couple too. Since learning the trait "goes forward whenever possible" he's often over-lapping the strikers, giving opposition defences something to think about and allowing an extra passing option for people. I'm just hoping we can keep him.

Patrick McNally

Patrick didn't crop up with as many goals this season, just the 1. However his defensive work has been fantastic. He was rewarded with his first Northern Ireland call up, although didn't get his cap. McNally has became integral to this squad although I am considering letting him go during the summer.

Ross Dickman

Ross has been great at right back this year, we've had to bring in two replacements in case of injury but because of no injury and him playing so well, and being very fit they've both moaned, one left the other will be leaving in the summer. Shame for them, but Dickman has been a rock for the club, and deserves another year, will take a very large offer for me to consider selling him.

Transfers

Most of the incomming lads have been through agent offers, due to my forgetful memory I forgot to get screenshots. I appoligise for that. All came in on trial before being signed. Olah inparticular has been a highlight. Loncar came in just intime for the last 2 games of the season and looked impressive. Savvar came after the season finnished. The Cypriot striker seems to offer lots of what we'll need, he's capped at full international level 4 times but the impressive stat comes in his Under-21's. 6 goals in 6 under-21s games for his country. On the outs, Dougie Imrie was getting to old and wasn't going to get into the first team over Loncar next season. Made it easy for me. Callum Gallagher was our 4th or 5th choice striker last season, and given by our goals from strikers ratio he had no chance of getting a game if we improve on that department next season. As a result I never even considered re-newing his contract.

Youth Intakes

A disappointing batch this year, not a single contract offer between the lot of them, the less said on these lads the better.

Finances

Another strong financial year for us. Our wage expenditure has almost doubled, however we're still the 8th lowest in the first division. With the intent of selling players this should reduce.

Club Info

Never know what to say on this screen. I suspect Matthew Paterson won't be the captain next season, even if he does remain at the club.

The Manager

Profile

History

Just signed a new contract which will see Campbell remain at Clyde till 2019, and another over-achieving season from the Bully Wee.

Sorry for weird error with screenshots, not sure what caused that.

Troy Damage · August 27, 2012

Not too far off a third promotion in five seasons, a top record wardog, you're really making great progress. Like the look of Fitzgerald and Dickman in paticular, very solid players, I'm sure you'll be an SPL team before long

Lenzar · August 27, 2012

wardog - Another season to consolidate your team may be a good thing - the step between the SPL and SFL1 is much bigger than those you've already climbed.

Good luck!

PRDH · August 27, 2012

Great job rlips. Congratulations on completion. I'm not sure I could have coped with the shootout!

wardog · August 27, 2012

wardog - Another season to consolidate your team may be a good thing - the step between the SPL and SFL1 is much bigger than those you've already climbed.
Good luck!

Thanks Troy Damage and Lenzar. I agree with your logic here Lenzar, although going by this transfer window it looks like it may be a third season in the first division. We're definatley strong enough to stay up but sold some decent players and been unable to find suitable replacements, where are those pesty agent offers when you need them. I'kk update properly during my pre season review, likely in around an hour.

wardog · August 28, 2012

Clyde Pre-Season Review

I'm going to start of this one with news on parent clubs. I now longer felt any benefit from Aberdeen. Other than a friendly that got in the way of my pre-season plans there was nothing. They never loaned and never paid a fee. As a result I cancelled the link, the board however responded and the first I knew of a new link, was when Dunfermline announced it. The Pars are going to pay us for the right so I'm not going to complain about this.

I think that takes us nicely onto the summer signings and sales. The out-goings I'll start with since there's alot. Most of the lads going to lower league clubs where simple decisions. The released lads are youth players who it was clear wasn't going to make it. The 3 boys out on loan are third choice keeper Robert Muir whose gone to SPL Livingstone with a promise of first team football. I wasn't expecting that when I offered him out on loan, however SPL football for my third choice and very young keeper will do him the world of good. 4th choice keeper is a product of Clyde's youth system and Liam Seeley has been showing potential I was delighted to see him being offered first team football and Stenhousemuir. Andras Varga was well down the pecking order for the first team in midfield but I see alot of potential in him, so again the lure of first team football will benefit the Hungarian under-21 international. The big notable loanee is Matthew Paterson to SPL St. Johnstone. I was looking to sell Matthew for alot of reasons, I no longer felt he was good enough and his wages where way to high for someone not playing. St. Johnstone offered £10k upfront and £70k to make it pernament for a year, and they would pay 100% of wages. We are now paying some of that due to his blooming highest earner clause though. He was only valued at £80k when i accepted that and I was looking for around £30-£50k to sell him. His value has since increased. I hope he does well as the step up in level could allow him to return to our first team.

Christie Elliot was our third choice striker and banning on the door for first team last season, however with last seasons strikers performances I felt I wasn't going to renew his contract and he had a year left, I decided to sell now and try get some cash. St Johnstone gave us a fee I felt was ok. Brinkhurst was second choice right back last season to our fan favourite Ross Dickman and wanted to leave. Amazed I managed to get £10k for him to be honest. Matejka is the stand out sale there. We where in negotiations for a while but eventually I felt I had to accept. Alan was first choice last season anyways and Matejka didn't seem to push him to hard when I brought him in.

With the loans of my 2 young keepers and Matejka back off home, we had no backup keepers, so i signed Danny Rogers. Not the worlds greatest keeper but he was the best available. Denny Johnstone comes in as third choice striker but looks pretty handy and will get some first team football. Blair and Birmingham also come in as handy strikers and will offer good back up. Calderwood is a very young defender who looks extremely high potential. He came in on a youth contract but I've already moved him to a pro contract and will be looking to loan him out.

I can confirm I haven't finished in the market yet but I will only be signing the correct players. I missed out on one major target. Last seasons Division one top scorer with 1/3rd of Livi's goals was available on a free transfer and I lost a war with SPL St Johnstone for him. Slightly disappointed with that but I think our strike force is now looking stronger.

That leaves our squad looking as so. I'm very happy with this squad and we've trimmed our wage budget, mostly by getting Matthew off the books for a season. Fitzgerald has been made captain in the meantime over Alan Martin. Alan does deserve it but just the sheer ability and dedication of Dean made me put it in his hands.

The books are looking pretty handy after the 1 season free transfer then club record sale of Matejka. That with season ticket sales being boosted means that we're showing a good bank balance.

However I did change things in the backroom staff once again. I now believe other than one person this should be settled now. I will be looking to get a better defensive coach within the coming years and eventually better fitness coaches. However for the first division this set up is strong. I will probably bring in more scouts though. Mark Chisholm arrives as my new assistant manager. I also asked the board for more coaches allowance. They agreed and Steve McGarry arrives as our shooting coach and Tom Courts as our Ball Control coach. I will also be looking to eventually get a contracted physio but for now Joffrey is doing a good job.

On the terms of pre-season I didn't get all the friendlies i'd have liked, but i feel this is much better than last seasons. It went down well, and the cup games followed well. Hamilton didn't even turn up for our challenge cup game, or thats how we made it look. Olah just made their defence look stupid several times. I rested loads of players for the Queens Park game which was probably the wrong decision, but we got the win all the same. Full of hope for the league. It looks tougher than last season, but I think we have a stronger all round side than last season. Still want to bring a couple of more players, but no 100% decisions have been made yet.

marty78 · August 28, 2012

rlipscombe - Congratulations on completion and on a fantastic treble. A nice new stadium being built and a very healthy bank balance as well. Defending the Champions League is always tough but the World Club Championship and the European Super Cup are normally not too hard and add some silverware to the trophy cabinet.

Troy Damage- Congratulations on the league title, very convincing and shows promise for consolidating, at least, next year.

Wardog- Good season, with some added fire power that league looks there for the taking. Teams generally seem to have scored very few goals throughout your division and I am sure you will score a lot more next year.

DodgeeD · August 28, 2012

Fantastic stuff rlipscombe :thup: Did it in style with the league and cup as well.

Congrats on promotion Troy Damage. 3 years to go up is a respectable target.

Good season there wardog - hopefully you can push for first next season.

My new season in Turkey is underway but I fear it may be a transitional one. Kaan Uygun has left after PSG activated his 20öillion pound realease clause. I also lost my star midfielder Dragut, who was after a move and whinging a bit too much, and central defender Domini, who was unhappy at not getting a new contract (he was asking for stupid money that would have severely damaged the clubs finances). On the plus side, I've got some new faces in most of whom are Turkish as well meaning I doN't have to juggle or rotate so much this year to stay within the matchday foreigner limits.

marty78 · August 28, 2012

2020/2021 SEASON UPDATE

LIGA BBVA

Fixtures 1 | Fixtures 2

After two successive top four finishes I was hopeful of repeating that but struggled to keep up with top teams for much of the season. One thing that hurt the season was, not long after the January transfer window opened, we went into a transfer embargo due to takeover talks. Enough of the excuses though as we were not good enough to claim a top four finish although we did only finish behind Real Madrid based on the results between the teams. Our ffifth place finish means we have failed to qualify for the Champions League next season.

My only objective for next year is to finish top four and qulaify for the Champions League again.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

We had a tough group with Man Utd, PSG and Anderlecht but we managed to win four games to finish second in the group. In the knock out rounds we faced Chelsea first and beat them 2-1 away in the second leg to win 3-2 on aggregate despite being second best throughout both legs, we were very fortunate to find ourselves up against Arsenal in the quarter final. We managed to win 3-1 at the Emirates to put ourselves in pole position for a semi-final place before winning 3-2 in the second leg and 6-3 on aggregate.

The semi-final pitted us against Manchester City who were clear favourites. A 2-1 win at home gave me some hope of a place in the final although Man City were still favourites to go through. The second saw us dominated for large spells as Man City attacked time and again but somehow we managed to keep the score to 2-1 and take the tie to extra time. Man City really came at us again in extra time and this time finally punished us with two goals, making it 4-1 on the night and 5-3 on aggregate and to be fair they deserved it and are a much better side.

SPANISH CUP

We had won this competition for the last two seasons and once again it was our best chance of silverware. After beating Barcelona in the quarter final I fancied us to go on and win it again and a semi-final victory against Almeria set up a final with Athletico Madrid. Another disappointing performance saw us lose the final 3-2 to make it a season full of near misses.

TRANSFERS

Konstantin Dubina - Bargain buy has done well in spells but only arrived in January.

Edgardo Barros Schelotto- Young attacking midfielder has made a decent start and I hope he can become a good player.

Ezequiel Molina - Right sided attacking midfielder was a rather cheap signing and has done very well.

Emilio Vivaldo- I bought two defenders because they cover the whole back four, this guy is a right back usually and a centre back when needed.

Filip Zeman - Plays centre back and cover left back also.

Denis Suarez - Quick attacking midfielder has done very well. I bought him over other players because he helps with my home-grown numbers for the Champions League.

Daniele Guidi - Had to add a midfielder with just a week before the deadline and he was the best I could find and afford. Solid squad player and worth the outlay.

SQUAD

Key players:

Silvio Musetti - Still my best performer although has had some dips this year which have coincided with poor form of the team.

Antonio Oliveira - Our best defender and is great in the air. Defensively we were not at our best this year but this guy is the best of the bunch.

Mao -Some dips in form this year from the centre back.

Berry Stam - Recovered from a nasty injury to play a part in the second half of the season.

Cesar - Although he often plays out wide he hasn't done enough in terms of goals or assists this year for me.

UNDER 19'S

This years youth intake has produced a decent player in Diego. Looks terrific at 16 and by far the best I have had through. He was only one I offered a youth contract to though.

FINANCES

We are doing very well financially but our failure to qualify for next years Champions League is a disappointment. As mentioned already we were the subject of takeover talks this season and on more than one occasion. A local businessman has taken over but there was no investment. We are going to be upgrading both youth and training facilities and we have increase junior coaching and youth network. A stadium expansion is also under way but I hope we get to the stage in can't be expanded anymore so we can build a new one. FACILITIES.

Dr Poods · August 28, 2012

DR POODS - USL DUNKERQUE SEASON REPORT 2017-18

End of Season Report

4TH FRENCH LIGUE 1 - 2018/19

Club Legend

THE SQUAD

The Squad(1)

The Squad(2)

Reliance on a few players is still a worry at Dunkerque, but overall the players performed well. The usual suspects were the key performers, but Kim Won-Jae struggled this year (37 league apps, 6.88 rating) and has forced me to bring in a stronger backup who may end up taking Kim's spot. Apart from this Branislav Kotara came into the squad late to play LW and was good giving us a threat on the left that we have never really had. Rodriguez, Vladyka and Kurtovic were the standouts and credit must go to Marko Huber and Gabrielle Ivani who were good in patches. However, a problem has presented itself where Matthieu Flamini is now on 18.5k per week and is not likely to play much (if at all). The coaches believe he is in decline and I have to find a way to move him on if I am going to improve the squad further.

THE RESULTS

League Position Graph

The results were pretty good, but some key losses really hurt us down the stretch. This meant that we ended in a similar position to where we had been in 2016/17 in 4th. As you can see from the graph, we were ultra consistent and ended the season (again) following the big boys in PSG, OM and OL. Sadly, I was given a miniscule transfer budget again which makes it imperative the younger players continue to improve. To help this, the youth and training facilities are being improved and I have brought in some better coaches as well.

THE TRANSFERS

The Transfers

Not much to say about the transfers. We were mainly concerned with squad depth and to that end we brought in some younger players who will be expected to contribute in season 2019/20.

THE DR POODS' PLAYER AWARDS

Vladyka

Moved to the Right Wing in our new formation, he responded by being named Player of the Year by the Dunkerque fans. Thoroughly deserved, he was fantastic in that spot and with a season to acclimatise, he should be even better in the coming season.

Rocco

Oh god it is becoming so difficult not to make various comments about eating lightning and s**tting thunder, but if anyone is aptly named in FM it is this man. I admit I have a real soft spot for hard nosed defensive midfielders who understand their limitations, but to be honest I am probably understating his value to the team. An excellent player and one of the first named players on the teamsheet every week.

Rodriguez

A star. A bonafide star. The free transfer from Real Madrid now has 55 goals from 90 appearances at Dunkerque and long may it continue.

Kurtovic

Man City, Tottenham, Athletico Madrid. All have shown interest in Kurtovic, and putting his value to 30.5 million has not deterred them from sniffing around.

'Nuff said.

THE DUNKERQUE TEAM AWARDS

Vladyka - Fan's Player of the Year

Best XI - 2018/19

Overall Best XI

THE FINANCES

The Finances - 2,289,104

League Prize Money

Attendance Records

The only thing of note here, is that we have finished 4th, 6th and 4th in the last three years and we still average LESS than 10,000 per week in attendance figures. With the wage budget going up consistently this could become a problem.

Let us hope we can do some damage in Europe in the coming season which will give us a bit more wiggle room in the transfer department. I believe we can do well in all competitions and we maintain our aim of incremental improvement.

kingjericho · August 28, 2012

Ac. Viseu - season 2013/14

League Table - Transfers - Finances

This season was a huge disappointment. I was hoping we could improve and win the league; insted, we played worse and ended up as under-achievers. I honestly don't know what went wrong. The squad is good, the tactics were the same and the players that came in were good. Now we have to focus on the next season, which will be the final test to my ability to get this team promoted.

The finances didn't held up too good and a €70k injection was necessary to keep the club stable.

Goals for next season: promotion!

Secondary goals: improve the finances, create a stable group of players.

DodgeeD · August 28, 2012

marty78 - a very good season. Bad luck to play all 4 English sides in the Champions League though with Man City finally taking you down. Diego looks a decent prospect but (for my way of playing at least) he needs to work on his crossing I think.

Dr Pood - like what you're doing on a limited budget. I guess you need more money or the yougnsters to come through to break the big three. Improved facilities and better coaches is probably the route I would have taken as well :thup:

kingjericho - a mild case of second season syndrome? I tried with a Portuguese side on FM10 and suffered a similar set back in my second season before going up the following year. I'm sure you can do it!

rlipscombe · August 28, 2012

Wardog - cheers mate. I would be delighted to have taken 3^rd if I was you!

Tryo Damage - yeah my squad has taken a bit of developing but they’re all pretty much at their peak now. I did think my chance was gone when we drew Barcelona. Congrats on your promotion too. Good luck next season.

PRDH - the shootout was tough to take!! Always waiting for one of my boys to miss but they didn’t…

Marty78 - cheers mate. Without spoiling things too much we have claimed the European Super Cup… J tough luck falling to 5^th.

DodgeeD - thanks mate. I couldn’t have asked for a better season to be honest, apart from a smoother ride in the league I guess?? Being picky now…

Dr Poods - congrats on 4^th place – a great result. Consistently finishing in the top 6, I think you might break the top 3 next season.

Kingjericho - tough luck mate but hopefully a little step back pushes you forward.

wardog · August 29, 2012

Thanks Rlipscombe I was delighted with third, only reason I was disappointed was because we where leading the table with a few games to go if i remember correctly. Although we didn't deserve the promotion.

Clyde mid-season update

The League

The performance of the team this season has been fantastic. We've finally added some goals to the team and kept our defensive record. Although I think i need to speak to the Killie manager about goalscoring. We just won a massive game against Raith although I'll discuss that in the results section. We still need to patch some things up but on the whole if we can maintain our performance through till May we are going to challenge properly, although I haven't told the board that. Once again I stuck with my loyalty to minimum expectations.

Results

Our away form hasn't been great in honesty, but at home other than one black mark against at the time a rampant Morton we've been brilliant. The Raith game on hogmany (scottish for old years night) I feel was very important. If we lost we where in 2nd place a point behind, if we won we would be 5 points in front. A 2-0 lead with 10 minutes to go we conceded a silly goal from an even sillier corner. That made a sweat and with 6 minutes of injury time due to stoppages in injury time made the sweat even worse. However we held on. The 3-3 home draw v killie was a very entertaining game and a typical game of 1 ups man ship between one of their strikers and Savva. In the end their striker got a hat-trick in the 89th minute after and own goal put us infront on the 88th minute. A draw seemed fair, although similar situation in the 2-1 defeat at rugby park. We equalised on the 82nd minute with a fantastic play, straight from the kick off they scored. Rather annoying but we have to accept it. The challenge cup semi defeat to Berwick was disappointing, expessially considering their 2 divisions below us. However I take full responsibility for this. Lots of under 21's friendlies where on that day, and not realising we had a fixture I didn't withdraw any lads, the result was this squad selection between the call ups and injuries, we had 1 youth defender and Samuel Watson had to play center back, and only 4 subs. I won't be making that mistake again any time soon. The league cup seen us play SPL Dundee United away, we have a decent record v SPL clubs in this competition but 3 first half injuries meant the greater fitness levels of United took its toll on us.

Finances

Our books are once again showing good profit. This is despite the wage bill slowly rising, although I'm looking to trim that down a little. Strangely however despite doubling last season and another 20% increase this season, we still have by far the lowest wage bill in the league. We haven't had any new sponsors for a while, and with the contracts not expiring for at least another 18 months I don't think we can afford to go above £300k per year. Not without promotion anyways. As a result I will be looking to lower this part of the expenditure slightly during January, and have already started on that.

Transfers

All the youth promotions other than keeper Liam Seeley have now been released. I'm disappointed we haven't yet been able to produce anyone of any sort of standard but the facilities do need upgrading, I'm not holding my breathe for this years batch. Lamont, Watson and Adam Hunter where sold with sell on clauses. Lamont and Watson's contracts where up in 6 months anyways and I wasn't going to renew, the benefit of a sell on clause could allow us to get some money we had no hope of getting. Incomming we have Paul Mex. He's probably the stand out, the England under 19's international came through the Man City youth team and did manage 3 games for the first team before being let go. We where happy to oblige with a contract offer. Hes probably good enough to challenge Olah and Loncar for first team but since he can play both ML and MR i like to have him on the bench. Nicki Ballie Wind is a Danish center back whos got bags of ability and according to my staff and scouts even more potential. Hes still young too. Unfortunetly his ability isn't in areas i'd assossiate with a defender. He managed some games but he was often caught in the wrong areas costing us goals. I've put him on a specialist training schedule to boost his defensive stats. If that doesn't work i'll need to re-train him as a midfielder or try get a decent sell on fee. Craig Reid was mentioned to me by one of my coaches in a backroom staff meeting, the American scottish keeper played SPL football with St. Johnstone last season and will be a worthy challenger to Alan Martin. Lambert was a striker and we signed him on a 2 year deal. The reason I signed him was because Savva got injured, as did Denny Johnstone. Leaving us short of goalscorers. I rush looked for a striker and he was available and my scout had just been in France to find him. We made a quick scoop and during the injury recovery times he done a decent job. Jody Jones, English left back was recommended by one of my scouts and was a good player in a position I felt we where weak in.

Squad

I feel the team is strong in depth now, if anything too strong and I will be looking to get some young lads loaned out, and others sold. Still not decided who's going and who's staying but I'll probably decide before I go back on. I have a decent idea although higher earners not playing will probably be sold lower than I'd normally accept.

Troy Damage · August 29, 2012

Overall

League: - Progress/History - It ended up being a spectacularly good season. I didn't see promotion coming at any stage to be honest, we were third as the league went into its winter break, but several teams were underperforming and I expected us to fall back a little and finish mid table which I would have been pretty happy with. However we were excellent in the second half of the year, losing only once; in late February. Nevertheless even with 4 games to go, lying in second I didn't fancy us, we hosted 3rd place 1860 Munchen needing a draw to stay second, we conceded early but dominated the game coming from behind to win 3-1. 1860 Munchen really threw promotion away, comparing our finish to theirs is incredible, we, brilliantly won all of our final seven games, whilst they managed two points from them final six games. The result was that our promotion looks a lot more comfertable than it was.

Cup: Two shoot outs, one win, one loss, pretty unspectacular.

Transfers (2): We made 2.3m net profit in the market and improved the squad at the same time, we spent fees on players for the first time in about 3 years to great effect making some cracking signings, more on that in a minute.

Finances: We accumulated about 11m by the end of the season, no mean feet for such a small club, largely it was thanks to working on miniscule budget for this level, but the board have just spent about 6.5m on 5,000 new seats in the stadium which should take our capacity to 15,000. An astute move in the long term as we should have no shortage of demand for tickets in the Bundesliga, but it does mean I'm likely to have a more modest budget for next season, which is a worry as far as staying up next season goes as this squad seems likely to get found out in the top league as many of them are really only strong third tier players.

The Squad : A squad focused on youth and low wage demands, we have a few players cut out for the Bundesliga, but for the most part I don't believe the squad to be anywhere near strong enough looking ahead to next season, the defence in paticular needs bolstering.

The First XI (Tactics):

GK: Michal Jaros - Had some worries about the youngster, but stuck with him and he was relatively reliable, not sure I'll be able to stick with him again this summer, a new goalkeeper is high on the summer shopping list, unless I get a good offer for him though Jaros will be retained as no.2 though.

RB: Patrick Wisniewski - Was brought in on a free as we desperately needed a right back after taking the money on Machacek, 500k to be exact, I took this despite not having a replacement lined up because Machacek was more a centre back than a right back, and I felt we need someone who could get forward better. The Austrian Wisniewski was decent this season, but is not great by any stretch, we will look to sign an upgrade.

LB: Stepan Hlousek - Had a heavy heart selling previous seasons left back Cancelo, but it was essentially a no brainer as Hlousek is a stronger player and on lower wages. He had been without a club for a whole year when I brought him in and I'd had my eye on him for about six months. He had a very strong season, reliable defensively and composed on the ball.

CB: Robert Guldager - The Danish Under 21 international had a solid season, and could possibly do a job for us next season, probably not as first choice though, at worst I expect we will make a strong profit on him.

CB: Igor Bjelica - Brought in on a free in January after Andersen left for 675k, and after a shaky start looked solid, has great potential.

DM: Robert Simic - The Croat cost 200k, whilst I'm not wholly convinced by him I am confident that it will not turn out to be a bad move, we'd easily make profit on him if we sold this summer.

CM: Marko Kljajic - The Croatian teenager is the clubs record signing, we paid a substantial 400k for him in the summer on account of his excellent potential. He was underwhelming before the winter break but superb after it, playing a key role in our promotion in forming a formidable midfield partnership with Yekini (with Kljajic at 5'5' and Yekini at 6'4' they make an amusing partnership as well given the way that the graphics massively overestimate the size difference)

CM: Stanley Yekini - On gaining promotion last season we were allowed to bring in six extra scouts and scout the whole of Europe, consequently, in lull of concentration and effort I took the dubious decision to send one of our new scouts to the footballing hotspot, and more importantly top country aphabetically; Albainia. It paid off big time, we uncovered Yekini, his release fee of 375k was promptly met, and as easy as that we signed potentially one of the best players in the division in a bargain buy. The Nigerian international started slowly, and quickly became unsettled, struggling to adapt to life in Germany. It took two months of leave for him to settle, but our patience with him was rewarded as he was magnificent after the winter break, he barely put a foot wrong, I've no doubt that had he stayed unsettled we would not have been promoted. Equally had I bothered to have the seemingly logical thought 'obviously don't send your scout to Albainia', we probably wouldn't have gone up either.

RW: Lysandros Zokos - I had high hopes for Zokos, but like Yekini he quickly became unsettled, however, unlike Yekini two months of leave did not solve the problem. He spent all of the season transfer listed by request, and had a few good games, but he was generally unimpressive. The day after we were promoted he decided he could cope with life in Germany after all, and asked to stay. He is talented no doubt, but perhaps someone we could do without, especially as I expect we will be on the end of some big defeats next season and maintaining team spirit will be crucial.

LW: Vaclav Dvorak - The only player other than Bilinski who has been at the club for all of my four season here, the 22 year old from the Czech Republic got his first senior international cap this season. One of only a few players in the squad who I believe will be comfertable at Bundesliga level next season. We may have struggled to hang on to him if we hadn't won promotion, he was making noises about moving on at the start of the season, I convinced him to stay by promising him the club would progress, to my suprise we did. Had another fine season, scoring 12, creating 11, this also proved to be the first season he has had in which he managed to stay injury free.

FC: Kamil Bilinski - The club captain and icon dispelled any fears that he wouldn't be able to cut it at this higher level, he scored 24 leagues goals on the way to winning the golden boot. He remains in the Poland set up, but also remains stuck on one cap. He has one year left on his contract but will probably get a new one and have a role to play in the Bundesliga squad, although I will look to finally bring in another striker. Bilinski has over 100 league goals for the club now, and is fast becoming one of my all time favourite players, I'm hoping that he becomes Trier's first club legend and when we inevitably build our own stadium (currently renting) it will be named after him, I reckon the Bilinski Arena has a nice ring to it.

Next Season - The only possible negative this year is that we may have gone up too soon, if we stay up next season I'll be most satisfied.

rlipscombe · August 29, 2012

Troy - good luck in the Bundesliga next season. as you say the only aim is to stay up - i hope you manage it.

aldojags · August 29, 2012

well done rlipscombe, I would have been a nervous wreck!

Best of luck troy, well done on promotion. Hopefully it won't be too soon as you say. Good to see Bilinkski keeping up scoring at higher level

aldojags · August 29, 2012

Season Review 2030/31

Ligue 1 | 1st | Table | Fixtures 1 & 2

Champions Trophy | Won | Fixtures

Coupe de la Ligue | Won | Fixtures

French Cup | Quarters | Fixtures

Champions League | Quarters | Fixtures

Another solid season domestically, but couldn't beat Man City in Quarter final of CL. Same old same old.

Squad

Only highlighting first choice to save time.

GK: Sidy Sidibe - young keeper promoted to first choice and did well. Oddly won POTY from fans, which is a bit strange but well done nonetheless. Think he'll be a top keeper.

RB: Angel San Martin - good season from the Spanish International.

CB: Bart van der Weg - been with us for years, always a threat at corners.

CB: Damian Linka - good player.

LB: Wycliff Jockey - great season, but I'm in process of selling him. He's a good player but Man United have randomly offerred £27m, which considering I have a decent back up, I'm happy to sell and reinvest the cash.

CM: Ali Jelassi - been with me for about 11 years, fantastic player.

CM: Pituca - club legend, but I'm going to sell. On a huge wage, he's deteriorated physically, and I've been offerred £9m. Been a wonderful player for us, but that's a lot of cash for a 33yr old, and I've got a few really cracking CM's coming through so I'm sorted. Good luck Pituca, thank you for all the genius you have delivered over the years.

AMR: Viera - good season from the young Brazilian.

AML: Daniel Michel - injured a bit but still an important player.

ST: Ilan Roger - the local hero was wanting away for a new challenge, but I talked him down and got him to sign a new 5 yr deal, which given he's our best striker and still a good age I was delighted with.

ST: Stojan Neskovic - plays as a poacher with Roger. Also handy down the right.

Club Info

Finances - going well and about to get a whole lot better with a few bumper sales.

Facilities - moving into new stadium in a matter of days. Looking forward to seeing what it looks like!

Past Seasons
Season     Division        Pos    French Cup      League Cup         Europe        Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7705369&viewfull=1#post7705369"]2012/13[/url]     National      4th      8th round        N/A                            Survived Relegation
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7713320&viewfull=1#post7713320"]2013/14[/url]     National      8th      7th round        N/A                            N/A
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7722456&viewfull=1#post7722456"]2014/15[/url]     National      1st      8th round        N/A                            Champions
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7734045&viewfull=1#post7734045"]2015/16[/url]     Ligue 2       6th      7th round        2nd round                      Consolidated
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7741822&viewfull=1#post7741822"]2016/17[/url]     Ligue 2       2nd      11th round       4th round                      Promotion
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7757976&viewfull=1#post7757976"]2017/18[/url]     Ligue 1       10th     Runners Up       4th round                      Survived
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7778883&viewfull=1#post7778883"]2018/19[/url]     Ligue 1       6th      11th Round       2nd round                      Consolidated    
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7795399&viewfull=1#post7795399"]2019/20[/url]     Ligue 1       3rd      11th Round       3rd Round                      Qualified for Champ League            
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7831196&viewfull=1#post7831196"]2020/21[/url]     Ligue 1       3rd      11th Round       4th Round         EL QF        Qualified for Champ League                        
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7848172&viewfull=1#post7848172"]2021/22[/url]     Ligue 1       4th      11th Round       Semi's       CL Group Stages   Qualified for Europa League
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7869045&viewfull=1#post7869045"]2022/23[/url]     Ligue 1       1st      11th Round       Semi's       EL 2nd KO Round   Champions
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7880932&viewfull=1#post7880932"]2023/24[/url]     Ligue 1       1st       9th Round       Quarters     CL Group Stages   Champions 
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7917651&viewfull=1#post7917651"]2024/25[/url]     Ligue 1       1st       9th Round       Quarters     CL Group Stage, & EL Semi's     
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7942158&viewfull=1#post7942158"]2025/26[/url]     Ligue 1       1st       Quarters        Winners      CL QF             Domestic Double
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7956034&viewfull=1#post7956034"]2026/27[/url]     Ligue 1       1st       10th Round      Quarters     1st KO Round
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=7973808&viewfull=1#post7973808"]2027/28[/url]     Ligue 1       1st       10th Round      4th Round    Quarters
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=8003757&viewfull=1#post8003757"]2028/29[/url]     Ligue 1       1st       Winners         Winners      Runners-Up        Domestic Treble & CL Runners-up
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=8033287&viewfull=1#post8033287"]2029/30[/url]     Ligue 1       1st       Quarters        4th Round    1st KO Round
[url="http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279094-FM12-Big-Euro-Nation-Small-Club-to-Big-Club-Challenge?p=8054425&viewfull=1#post8054425"]2030/31[/url]     Ligue 1       1st       Quarters        Winners       Quarters

Season     Ligue 1         French Cup        Coupe de la Ligue                Champions Lg             Europa           World Cup/Euros         
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2011/12    PSG             PSG                      OM                         Barcelona               Roma            Euros-Germany
2012/13    Lyon            Toulouse                 Lyon                       Inter                   Liverpool
2013/14    Lyon            PSG                      Toulouse                   Barcelona               Porto            WC-Argentina
2014/15    Lyon            Toulouse                 Lyon                       Man Utd                 Stuttgart
2015/16    PSG             Lorient                  Lyon                       Juventus                Man United       Euros-Germany
2016/17    PSG             Sochaux                  PSG                        Benfica                 Arsenal
2017/18    OM              Lorient                  OM                         PSG                     Arsenal          WC- Belgium
2018/19    OM              OM                       RC Lens                    Man Utd                 Barcelona
2019/20    PSG             St Ettiene               Sedan                      Valencia                Hamburg         Euros-Belgium
2020/21    PSG             Valenciennes             OM                         PSG                     Benfica
2021/22    OM              Lyon                     Lyon                       Arsenal                 Fiorentina       WC-England
2022/23    Viry-Chatillon  Lyon                     OM		               Barcelona	       Leverkusen
2023/24    Viry-Chatillon  FC Rouen                 OM                         Barcelona               Rubin Kazan       Euros - Spain
2024/25    Viry-Chatillon  Bordeux                  FC Rouen                   Real Madrid             Sporting Lisbon
2025/26    Viry-Chatillon  OM                       Viry-Chatillon             Barcelona               Man United        WC - England
2026/27    Viry-Chatillon  OM                       RC Lens                    Man City                Zenit
2027/28    Viry-Chatillon  Sochaux                  PSG                        Barcelona               Juventus         Euros - Italy
2028/29    Viry-Chatillon  Viry-Chatillon           Viry-Chatillon             Real Madrid             Hamburg
2029/30    Viry-Chatillon  OM                       St-Ettiene                 Atletico Madrid         Valencia         WC - Holland
2030/31    Viry-Chatillon  OM                       Viry-Chatillon             Man City                Arsenal

wardog · August 30, 2012

Wardog - Clyde - Season 2016/17 review

The League

I wasn't sure of this young side was ready for a proper challenge yet, but they proved me wrong. In honesty we needed to go full-time again so promotion was the quick way for that. We managed to get this wrapped up with 3 or 4 games to go, despite stumbling Raith and Killie stumbled bigger than us. After that I let lots of the fringe players have a game so that Goal difference was weakened by that, although we still have the best in the league. We scored far more than last season aswell so we clearly fixed that issue although Killie make our goal record look pretty pittyful.

Results

The games after January disappoint me. Killie at home and Raith away where the 2 important ones though and we picked up 4 points from those. We did manage to just about get there on merit but Killie and Raith also had a bad back 5 months. The last 3 games seen lots of the lads not getting many games given a chance to prove themselves. Some managed that others didn't, those that didn't impress will probably be sold in the summer.

The Club

The Squad

The fringe of this squad will be trimmed and re-build in the summer pending on offers for my highly sought after first team. Keeping ahold of a 5-8 player core would be massive for our SPL survival chances. Although I'm not sure that will be possible.

Finances

Finances have taken a dive although thats due to my recent success. SPL rules meant we require under-soil heating. This cost £2mil. As a result that's put us into the red. I'm hoping the board respond by putting this into loan form.

Information

I believe SPL rules require us to go pro, although no sign of that yet. With the dip in finances club value halfed. Although it had improved lots before this.

Key Players

Chrysovalantis Savva

I'll never be able to pronounce his first name Savva has been one of our stand out players this year. Brought in to score goals and bar a few games after a 7 week injury he's done that. 14 league goals probably doesn't seem that impressive, but the Cyprus international is still young and can only improve on this.

Miroslav Olah

The midfielder has always played on the right side of midfield for us and this season was no exception. He cropped up with a number of assists and even the odd goal. Just his presence on the pitch seems to benefit those around him.

Ross Dickman

The ever dependable and extremely consistent right back once again makes it to the key players list. He was a major talking point for Clyde, and proven by the fact the club feel he's not replaceable. He took an injury towards the end of the season, and despite returning with 3 games to go Campbell gave him those off.

Jody Jones

Jones was a late arrival to the Clyde team this year but the ex-Liverpool left back has added to the already impressive Clyde back 4. The weakest area of the team in the opinion of many was the left back role and Jody has came in and made it his, and with these kind of performances he probably isn't giving it up any time soon.

Transfers and youth intake

Transfer History

Robbie McIntyre was sold just after the last update, the former Clyde left back became first choice after the impressive Jones arrived. Clyde once again let him go on a sell on clause. Mario Loncar the fans where disappointed to see him go. Campbell however had no say in the matter. The club signed him with a £190k release clause and Mario refused to go into contract talks. Hibs offered more than that strangely and even if Campbell wanted to decline the board accepted stating they felt it was too good to refuse. However its another club record sale and in a short period of time between signing on a free and being sold. Markus Paul and Darren O'Malley where both brought in as direct replacements. Alexander Rabben was a rush right back signing after Dickman's injury. Although the club had a back up right back Campbell feared he wasn't ready.

Youth Intake

A slightly better batch this year compared to last, I think it speaks for itself when I'm signing 1 star intakes. Most will probably be released within the next 12 months.

Brian Easton

Brian is a decent player, won't comment too much on him

Neil Fisher

Neil isn't very exciting either but thought I'd give him a chance.

Shaun Struthers

Shaun is the most promising player to come through our ranks, and I still don't have high hopes. Although I had snapped him onto a part-time contract to give him the best chance.

Tom Hutchison

Again not very exciting but given a chance

The Manager

Profile

Irn-Bru Scottish Division One Manager of the season this year, Campbell has signed a one year extension on his contract but did request that this one was full time. Other than that we don't see much change in his approach.

History

Campbell is now finnishing off his 5th year in management and at Clyde. Hes signed 93 people and the only fee so far was £8k to Annan for a goalkeeping coach. 3 promotions during his 5 years see the club go from the bottom of Scottish football to the SPL.

wardog · August 30, 2012

Clyde Pre-Season update

A pretty poor pre-season although given the price of under soil-heating most of it was money based. However there's positives in there for sure. Last couple of seasons we have been conseading alot at corners, I looked at my tactics and have spent ages trying to correct this. I was also in the market for new and cheap players. Also with the club now being professional I have snapped most of our players and staff onto full time contracts. All bar one who arrived literally the day before that change was made, and he won't negotiate. The others I didn't speak to have all been sold.

We have been busy in the transfer window, although due to the increase in wages and not a huge increase in wage budget we had to trim the squad. I'll start with the sales, and loans. Graeme Ferguson's contract was not renewed. He showed no progress and gave no fight towards the first team last season. Patrick McNally was a good consistent player for us, but ability wise I felt he wouldn't cut it in the SPL as a result when Dunfermline came knocking I upped the price they responded with the offer we wanted and I snapped them off. Matthew Paterson's release was a hard one. His Highest earner clause kicked in on a promotion pay-rise of another player, this meant he had a wage of £900 on part-time contract. Even i knew that trying to talk him down and going full time would be impossible. He wasn't going to be first team, and before offering any more contracts we released him for double the price we could have just 24 hours earlier. Birmingham and Romanov to Livi. Neither where going to be first team players, Greg did put on a good show when given a chance in the last few games last season, but I just don't think he's SPL material. Romanov does have potential but he wasn't showing it. £100k seemed fair, my share of this had been added to our wage budget to help with full time contracts. de Bruine also went to Livi, again not close enough ability. Soley wasn't ever going to get first team football at Clyde we wish him well. The 2 released lads, Varga and Adelina, we'll they just seemed to be getting worse rather than better. No one wanted them, so the releasing was the best option. Eamon Blair we where trying to sell, but clubs wanted to loan to buy, we accepted this. He can't play against us anyways. Marckus Paul was going to lose his first team place this year, but he's got good potential so loaning him out was for the best. Paul Mex has been loaned out also for first team experiance. I was considering keeping Paul for the bench but I felt he was either going to play or go on loan. He wasn't going to play so the loan was the option.

Onto the incomming. With scouts now travelling over Europe its allowing us a bigger catchment and we want to take advantage. Although Resit (signing one, typing that last name out will be a nightmare) was through an agent offer, he came in on trial and looked better than both our left mids. Sending fellow country man Marckus Paul out on loan. Fitim Morina can play in both the central and right side of midfield. After speaking to all my coaches and the scout reports prior, I'm sure he's going to be first team but I'm not sure which position. Looking more likley for the right hand side at the moment, The reason for that being Sergio Kiria will probably come in through the center as a much more defensive minded midfielder. This was delayed for ages due to work permit issues although it was accepted first time. Rangers requested 2 work permits on the same day as us and both theirs where done before us. Lukac will come in as a direct replacement for McNally, and McGeouch arrives as back up of a midfield positions. We also managed to keep ahold of Danish defender Wind, who despite us accepting a £500k offer from Hibs, turned down the move.

This leaves our squad and finances looking as so. As you can see the squad is looking much smaller. However I think we still offer enough cover unless we get hit by a large injury crisis. The Finances are already heading in the right direction, although that's probably mostly down to big pre-season friendlies and season ticket sales, added with the £100k sale of Romanov.

We also had to change some staff, partly down to some of the old ones refusing to go full-time, because they'd retired from professional football (despite only being 35 and 37 respectively), others where just not good enough. Jim Lauchlan comes in as the new defensive coach, Gary Stewart as the new ball control coach and Stevie Hammell is actually a fitness coach but wouldn't accept the title. Hinchcliffe was signed for £30k from Partik Thistle. The 2 scouts on part-time contracts will leave Clyde at the end of their contracts.

Just to finish off we have the The Clydesdale Bank SPL, surely this league was crying out for Clyde to be in it. On the whole it looks just like the one you start the game with, just with Clyde and Killie swapped around.

rlipscombe · August 30, 2012

Aldojags - I am not afraid to admit I was!! The second half and extra time In particular I don’t think I took my eyes off the screen! As for you, I am sure you’ll get that CL title soon. You have a good squad, I particularly like San Martin and Linka in defence and keeping Roger is a big thing I think in terms of your future chances. I don’t blame you at all for selling Jockey and Pituca either – both great deals.

Wardog - well done on promotion and good luck in the SPL

aldojags · August 30, 2012

Just moved into my brand new 31,000 seater stadium, thought I'd pick a glamour friendly to mark the opening, not a bad 1st result! This is why the CL failure every year gets to me, I regularly hammer big clubs pre-season, but competitively it just doesn't happen for me.

wardog · August 30, 2012

Just moved into my brand new 31,000 seater stadium, thought I'd pick a glamour friendly to mark the opening, not a bad 1st result! This is why the CL failure every year gets to me, I regularly hammer big clubs pre-season, but competitively it just doesn't happen for me.

Was that v a weakened Real team. Big clubs often leave big names out during friendlies

Troy Damage · August 30, 2012

Overall

League:

It was immediately clear that we were not cut out for the top flight, we lost our first five games and things didn't get much better thereafter, we had 13 points after 17 games heading into the winter break. Somewhat amazingly that left us only third bottom with Hoffenheim and Hertha finding the going even tougher than we were, still I would have taken 16th easily at half way as I felt they were both underachieving whereas we simply lacked the quality. We had almost nothing to spend in the window, so the transfer market offered us little hope, I was pessimistic heading into February.

Some wonderful home form kept us in it, and with six to play it was two from five to go down. Despite losing away to both HSV and Furth we did enough to end the season in 16th, and we headed into a relegation playoff.

Final Table - Graph - Results 1 - Results 2

Incredibly we managed only three points on the road, without winning a game, it was this that really cost us. Nevertheless I was relatively confident that we could do the damage at home in the first leg of the relegation playoff against Augsburg as in the second half of the season we were remarkably good at home. And so it proved as we ran out 3-0 winners. Our terrible away form continued in the second leg as we went down 1-0, but we were never in danger of surrendering our first leg lead, and by the end I was throughly relieved to still be in the division after a torrid season.

Cup: The cup offered some light relief from the league form as we put together our best run yet, inevitably we went out at the first sniff of a tough away game, we did however manage our only win on the road all season, making hard work of (very) lowly Aschaffenburg.

Transfers: We recorded a net spend for the first time during my tenure, but we hardly splashed the cash, thanks to the board investing most of our money in the stadium (by the way we struggled to fill any of the new 5,000 seats for the most part), we spent 4.9m bringing in 3.2m. Frankly we scarcely brought in anyone who paticularly excited me. The Squad boasted no Bundesliga experience, or any other top leaugue experience for that matter (until March), our best players remained Yekini and Dvorak from last season.

Finances: We may have endured a horrible season, but financially it was worth it, we picked up 11m just from league prizemoney. This should mean decent investment in the squad for next season.

The First XI

GK: Conor Morgan - Jaros was sold as a 1m bid was too much to resist for a player who would have been acceptable at best at this level. Free signing Morgan is also acceptable at best at this level, the fact that he has four USA caps at such a young age tells you that they have gone seriously backwards in the goalkeeper stakes.

RB: Gustavo - The loanee from Cruzeiro is a fine player who had to be brought in as we couldn't find a decent right back in the market. He had a reasonable year, its a shame Cruzeiro want upwards of 6m for him as it means he probably won't be in a Trier shirt again any time soon.

LB: Stepan Hlousek - One of the few survivors from last year, the Czech Under 21 international showed that he is a reliable player at the top level.

CB: Ragab Tawfik - The Egyptian was brought in for 500k as we missed out on other defensive targets. He played the majority of games and was generally a liabilty.

CB: Edmond Sokoli - The young Albainian cap was not intially signed as first choice, but we had real defensive problems and he was given an opportuntiy which he promptly took. He had an impressive year in a very porous defence.

DM: Jean-Pierre Renard - The French youngster was brought in on a free to compete with Simic to anchor the midfield, it was a competition he won easily by being fairly solid, we need a stronger player in this position looking ahead.

MC: Kevin-Prince Boateng - The ex Milan player was snapped up on a free in March to give our team some much needed experience, the signing was instrumental in keeping us up as he instantly became one of our best players.

MC: Stanley Yekini - The Nigerian international signed at the start of last season remains our best player, unfortunately he missed about three months with a broken foot. He still managed 22 apps though and generally looked at home at this level unlike the rest of the team.

RW: Lefteris Giovanopoulos - The only man we managed to get in during the Januray window is a top player and was a bargain at 375K, he recently picked up his first international cap and is one of only a few players in the squad who I can say definetly has a future at the club past the summer.

LW: Vaclav Dvorak - In his fifth season at the club and still going strong he remains one of our top performers. He proved my former scouts right in showing that he indeed did have the potential to be a Budesliga player, he did not look out of place at all at the top level. He has continued to agitate for a move however and Bayern are now sniffing around so his days at the club could be numbered, paticularly as he only has two years on his contract.

FC: Vedran Milina - At 1.3m the Croat is our new record signing, he is a good player, one of the best we have for sure, its just a shame he didn't show it.

Special Mention: Kamil Bilinski - He kept the captaincy but couldn't keep his place in the team, he still managed 14 starts but his return of only 5 goals demonstrates that his lack of pace really holds him back in the Bundesliga. It pains me to say it but he is no use at this level and we may have to look at letting him go, the man who I pondered over splashing 20k on five years ago has had a huge impact in the last five years whatever happens, he has scored 109 league goals in 168 appearences at three different levels for the club.

Next Season

We won't be able to finish on 31 points and remain in the division two years in a row, we were very fortunate to stay up with such a sub-standard squad. It is going to be a very busy summer as I try to build a genuine Budesliga squad, what we can achieve next season very much depends on how succesful I am.

wardog · August 30, 2012

Clyde - SPL Mid-season update

SPL Table

Well I wasn't sure what to expect from this. Budgeting for points against previous seasons relegation didn't answer much, I estimate around 35 points will do it, which means we only need 13 more points. Less might be enough. Pushing for the top 6 will be a much larger step although I rekon we've dropped some points when they where on offer. Those would still probably only see us to 7th though. I know I'm only trying to stay up but so close to 7th and dependant on the Scottish cup that might get us a Europa league spot. Maybe that's just too ambitious.

Results

Lots of games to talk about here, I'll start on opening day, Hearts at home. This game we dropped a point, hearts had 0 shots on target. A mistake from keeper Craig Reid resulted in an o.g. Aberdeen away I'm not decided how to feel about this, 72 minutes on the clock we where 2-0 ahead. 93 mins on the clock we where 3-2 down. A point well earned. Rangers at home was disappointing we where 2-0 down at half time recovered to 2-2 and conceded a soft goal. The Dunfermline league cup game was frustrating. We had 9 shots on target to their 3 and dominated from start to finish, guess that doesn't matter if every shot they take goes in. Dundee United away, i was furious after this game. 93rd minute we're 1-0 up and have been for a while. Gabor, picks up the ball dribbled through the United team got tackled and stood up field moaning about it. The last kick of the ball was United's goal. Gabor then had the cheek in our private chat to tell me he thought he played well. His mistake cost us two points. Next up is the 6-0 away to Dunfermline. This score doesn't reflect how it was. 2-0 at half time and straight after half time we got a penalty and it was a professional foul, from there Dunfermline had no chance and we played brilliant. A deserved win but it cost the Pars boss his job, and although we deserved the win I think 6-0 was a little harsh. Motherwell 3-3 game was epic to watch. 2-0 down at half time recover to 3-2 in front and in reverse to the Aberdeen game we conceded in the 93rd minute to lose the points. Disappointing to draw but based on the first half we where lucky to get that.

Club Info

Season tickets doubled this year, although our average attendance is much higher. Savva has became a fan favourite, but even more from me, he's fallen in love with Clyde, if he can develop as he's showing he can, he could become one of our stars. Although looking at this properly, come the day we get a new stadium, I'd love for it to be called the Harry Haddock Stadium.

Transfers

Starting with the outs, Danny Rogers we're looking to sell, but i felt loaning first might be beneficial. Wind has been attracting alot of interest, and with our wage budget spiralling out of control I decided to give him some time away. Hearts wanted to loan to buy so i requested an up front fee. This would help with the depts the clubs promotion has caused and would reduce the wage bill. Money made from that I've pumped into the wage structure. Jamie Calderwood required first team experience so a loan would hopefully do that. Dylan and Alan where moaning from a lack of opportunities as a result I let them both go on loan. Alan is only for a month though.

Incomming we have 3 young talented lads, Gregersen, Ulrich and Hubbard all fit into this category. Although their wages are higher than i'd like. Herrera comes in as a 19 year old who had 50 caps for Panama. He originally came in on trail and Mark Chisholm couldn't praise him highly enough. He's came straight into the first team and played extremely well.

This leaves our squad and finances as shown.

PRDH · August 31, 2012

Right, you'll all be thrilled to hear (probably not) that I'm back in the Azores properly. Season has started. Two games in. The usual faces are at it again.

wardog · August 31, 2012

Clyde - Season 2017/18 report

The League

SPL Table

A decent first season for us in the SPL, although mathematically possible I don't think we could have been relegated before the league even split. Yes 12th could catch us, but 12th and 11th together couldn't. We played some good football and in honesty the summer is going to bring some tough decisions as I'm not sure where we can improve with our budget. Although our average age is just 20.

Results

Results do look pretty strong. We also made the semi's of the Scottish cup, on merit i felt too, and Motherwell was never an easy semi, although probably the easier of the two ties. Little disappointed against St. Mirren as I feel we have a stronger side but they beat us in all bar one of the Head to head games which meant they got 7th and we got 8th. £120k punishment for not being able to control Craig Makial-Smith.

The Club

Squad

A pretty strong and very young squad. Keeping ahold of some of these lads will be key during the summer. If the club invests in training facilities soon a group of these lads could still be with us when we win the league. Otherwise I fear I may have to sell on some star players.

Key Players

Kenni Bengtsson

The young Danish striker was in formidable form. Scoring 23 league goals, and only came third in the SPL behind both Celtic strikers. Although still very young so hasn't even reached his goal scoring potential yet. Hes smashed all of Matthew Paterson's season based records and if the fans ever needed justification for releasing Matthew then Kenni has answered it. He originally signed till 2022 for £800p/w however that involved a release clause that meant he could leave to a non-Scottish club for half a million. No one expected him to be this good. The club gave him a pay rise to increase that to £5m. Although if we get relegated he can go for nothing.

Juraj Lukac

If the fans had any worries about selling McNally, Lukac has made him a distant memory. The defender works hard in training but also puts in some fantastic performances on the pitch. Despite only being 20 years old, Juraj is making himself a very good name within the Scottish game.

Fitim Morina

The Greek is probably one of the more experienced members of the Clyde squad. However Fitim has fit in well and with 12 assists this season and popping up with a few goals.

Transfers

Clyde have been quiet since our last update on this subject. Just a few loans outgoing. A few of the loanee's did trigger an agreed fee at the end of the season, however all of them turned down a move away from Broadwood.

Youth Intakes

A pretty decent batch this year, 3 have been promoted and one even got a first team game against Celtic away, although that was helped by injuries.

Gary Elliot

The central defender is the brightest talent to come through in my time and has already made a first team experience and signed a full time contact.

Darren McBain

Average looking striker

Connor Coutts

Average looking midfielder

Finances

Finances are improving thanks to the SPL. The league finish money really helped us and hopefully we can get a new decent value sponsor too.

Club Info

Well same as normal, although the clubs sale value rose again and Bengtsson added to fans favourites.

The Manager

Profile

Spent alot of time in media conferences this year although I doupt i'll do that again.

History

Please ignore the £16k fee as you can see i took the screenshot for the Transfers a couple of day earlier I'll deal with that player in the next window.

I think during the summer I will be looking to offload alot of deadwood. Some players just don't cut it and those will be going. One has a very good value aswell so might have some money to spend.

marty78 · September 1, 2012

Dr Poods- Well done on fourth place. When I was in France they gained a fourth Champions League spot making it slightly easier to qualify. Once you do the money makes a massive difference.

King Jericho- Better luck next year. Your league was very tight though with just ten points separating the top six.

Troy Damage- Congratulations on promotion. Good luck in the Bundesliga. EDIT: Well done on avoiding relegation. A bit nervy maybe but job done.

Aldojags- Fair play keeping hold of Roger, you should try to keep him until he retires. Good luck for next seasons Champions League, hopefully the new stadium can become a fortress for you.

Wardog- Well done on winning the First Division and good luck in the SPL. I am sure you will have enough to stay up. Edit- Good first season and can push into thee top six next year.

wardog · September 2, 2012

Clyde Mid-season 2018/19 review

I decided not to do my usual pre-season update due to being away yesterday so that I could just get on with playing, but still wanted to do a mid-season review so here it is

Transfers

Going to start with transfers here. And I'm going to start with trying to discuss most transfers, in order of date. So firstly incoming for my first ever fee signing by court is Gerard Dean. The Northern Irish international comes from third division Stenhousemuir, and paying for a player 3 divisions below me was never my plan. However my scouts highly recommended him and me and Partick Thistle had a small bidding war last season, we where actually lucky to get him due to me not being willing to spend more than £24k on him Partick went up to £130k and he signed but no payment was made so it got cancelled. His contract was going up and court said I'd have to pay £16k (£8k less than my bid a few months earlier, so I took him. Slightly regretting this now but he's offering great backup.

Robbie Lagoudkis goes on loan to Dundee, he wasn't going to get first team football this season and I wanted him to keep improving so he went to Dundee on loan. Johnstone wasn't good enough so got released. Benediktsson is loaned to Hamilton. I actually feel sorry for him because of that knee injury he had on our first division promotion season, he's never going to be first team and he was more than good enough. Eamon Blair sold as he wasn't good enough, however Paul Mex is once again loaned to get first team experience. Willie Burns is a very young striker who actually signed on a youth contract although since moved him to a full time one. Robert Muir I was trying to sell but a loan with a fee and future selling fee proved to be the only worthy offer. Skogsrud has been released after being deemed unworthy. Lambert is a loan to buy again we where trying to sell. Infact this is the case with all loans bar Hubbard and Mex who are out to get first team football. I'll just address that now to save time and space. Last out then is Olah who i felt wasn't good enough and on too high wages.

Kamil Provaknik comes in as a right back, I picked out 3 areas that could be improved on and Ross Dickman despite being superb for Clyde unfortunetly fit the bill of players that could be improved. Kamil is still young and the ability seems a little betting. He was one of 4 right backs to be brought in on trial and he impressed the most. Darren Ramsey was brought in on cover as was Stuart Urquhart. Both players I've been looking at for a couple of years and both where avalible. Urquhart was actually a key player for me on a Rangers save so slightly got my eye blinded by that, but his career on this seems to have been tough and hasn't developed as well as he did on my Rangers save, although has some solid defensive attributes, actually speaking Positioning and tackling only he's my best defender, so will still offer decent backup. Craig Forsyth came to my attention last season and came in on a trial after a scout recommended him. He can play all the way down the left so was originally signed as back up, but has since broke into the first team over Jody Jones. Kokosa comes in as a goalkeeper to challenge Craig Reid for the number 1 jersey. Although he done ok in a couple of games he had one horror show game which i'll address later which means he probably won't play unless of injury again. Literally he's the only player I've ever fined for a poor performance. James O'Neill was at Hearts last season and a scout picked up on him not having a contract. I was about to offer a trial when I properly read the report. He comes in as first team striker and gives us the second most prolific strike force in terms of goals from last season's SPL. Only Celtic's beat us and well they where 1 and 2 in the goalscoring charts last season so not easy to beat.

Squad

As you can see we have a small squad now, however there's a couple of lads in the under 19's side who have came in for injuries.

League Table

Our league standing is pretty strong and I fully believe we're there on merit.

Results

I went for a longer pre-season than normal although managed to avoid fixture congestion. The league obviously has gone we for us just a few black marks. Celtic are miles better than anyone and Rangers slightly better than the rest of the league although us and Hibs are closing that gap. The major stand out result is the 8-0 defeat to Celtic away. That score-line does not show the true game. It was actually pretty even, we had an injury to Lucak and our right back got injured early in the game so we gave them 8 shots all on target all went in because Kokosa simply couldn't save anything. He got fined and dropped. The rest of the team actually played ok creating some chances.

Finances

Finances are once again looking strong after last seasons finish in the SPL. My transfer budget was re-set on this actual game day due to my expectations. Although again I kept that at avoid relegation. Still would like higher sponsor income. Although money is due to go out but hasn't yet as I finally managed to get the board to build a youth academy. The date on that has been delayed I believe so not sure when to expect that as the date there is different to the boardroom. However their still refusing to give me training facilities. Hoping that a good league finish this season will sort that out.

Staff

Couple of changes to staff. Hinchcliffe arrives from Partick Thistle as a goalkeeping coach and Sarah Boyd comes in as a full time physio. Ewan Cargill comes in as a scout and Longwell i thought was coming in as a scout. He'll be released at the end of the season as he has terrible coaching attributes. I was recommended him as a scout in a backroom meeting and offered him a contract but thought it would automatically be on "scout".

Lenzar · September 2, 2012

Annan Adventure In Scotland - Season 4 - 2015/16

League (2nd)

The league table totally flatters us. At times we were very poor, including runs of several games without a win. But, Hearts beating Rangers on match day 38 has brought the Champions League to Annan!

Europa League (Group Stage)

After two ties that were much closer than the scorelines told, we got through to the group stage. There, we beat Sturm Graz both home and away to secure 3rd in the group.

Winners: Dynamo Kiev

League Cup (3rd Round)

This should not have been a loss. I was touchline banned for this one after criticising a referee - and another poor decision (this time the FA didn't respond due to a dubious replay) cost us.

Winners: Motherwell

Scottish Cup (Winners)

When we only beat SFL3 side Clyde (who without wardog are struggling ) 3-0, I worried we'd not do well in the cup. But eventually I was proven wrong, though again the final was much closer than it appears.

Player Analysis

Goalkeepers:

1. Loris Karius

Loris again played well all year, and is now officially our most 'capped' player in history with 131 starts. Incidentally, his first MoM award of the season was his first since we were in SFL3! Sadly for Loris, I believe he may be second choice next year, as I signed a regen towards the end of the season who appears better. Only time will tell...

(Apps: 38, Conc: 55, Clean Sheets: 10, Avr: 6.94)

Defenders:

24. Darren Cole

Darren was signed a couple of games into the campaign as I felt my existing right back was a little below the required level. Whilst at times mistakes were made, the right side of the field was generally safe whenever Cole played.

(Apps: 36, Gls: 0, Avr: 7.01)

14. Marc Schulitz

The similarity to my own name put aside, Marc acted as backup to both full backs, usually appearing towards the latter stage of matches when they got tired. He did this job quite well, though he has begun to ask for more first team action.

(Apps: 21, Gls: 0, Avr: 6.65)

22. Bernd Meier

Another German regen, Bernd is one of about four centre backs who jockeyed for the two starting positions all season. He is perhaps favourite for a starting position next year due to his end of year performances.

(Apps: 17, Gls: 1, Avr: 6.80)

28. Ross Perry

A late signing as I felt my existing defenders were a little poor, Ross proved himself to be deserving of my plans for the next year in his few games so far.

(Apps: 5, Gls: 0, Avr: 6.90)

23. Marenglen Asllani

One of my most highly recommended youth signings, Marenglen, if I'm honest, was a little disappointing given his rating. He did not start well, with a red card in an early league match, but did at times show glimpses of his top drawer potential. I'll be lucky to keep him.

(Apps: 25, Gls: 2, Avr: 6.98)

5. Lloyd Bowler

Lloyd was again perhaps our best defender, his aerial ability helping both to save goals at one end, whilst tucking several away at the other end.

(Apps: 27, Gls: 7, Avr: 7.19)

6. Sébastian Gillet

Despite being the default starting CB at the start of the season (as you can tell from his squad number), Sébastian was probably my most disappointing centre back. I am seriously considering moving him on as I have enough others.

(Apps: 12, Gls: 1, Avr: 6.82)

3. Chris Fortescue

Chris was simply brilliant on the left side. Many a time would the full back surge forwards, often overlapping with the left winger, and provide a brilliant cross, as one can see from his 12 assists.

(Apps: 32, Gls: 0, Avr: 7.12)

Midfielders:

26. Juanma Ortiz

Juanma is expensive in terms of wages, but he was easily one of my best players. With him on the right, I found that the number of chances created were much higher. He probably has one more year left in him..

(Apps: 30, Gls: 8, Avr: 7.03)

8. Giedrius Tomkevicius

Signed in the pre-season, Giedrius was one of those players who was simply there. He never did much special, but didn't make any big mistakes either. Probably going to be a sub next year.

(Apps: 25, Gls: 2, Avr: 7.03)

4. Ian Black

Ian was simply a very solid performer, though he did score an absolute screamer in one league match.

(Apps: 36, Gls: 2, Avr: 6.93)

19. Ricky Wellard

Ricky was signed to provide a little bit of squad depth, and played fairly well when he was needed.

(Apps: 7, Gls: 1, Avr: 7.03)

15. Lucas Trecarichi

At times, I wished I was able to play two left wingers, as Lucas, who is the second choice, frequently played just as well as the first choice. As it stands, I do not feel worried about this side of the pitch.

(Apps: 14, Gls: 2, Avr: 6.84)

18. Ben Blackwell

Ben is another one of my stars for the future. He has easily performed well enough to force me to demote Tomkevicius to the bench for good, but I'm quite concerned that an EPL team will make an approach.

(Apps: 15, Gls: 1, Avr: 7.17)

7. Max Noble

Despite being my second choice right winger, Max is going to Euro 2016 with Wales. As for his performances for me, I am a little disappointed, but his chances were limited thanks to Ortiz.

(Apps: 15, Gls: 1, Avr: 6.92)

16. Thomas Bendiksen

Thomas was easily the weakest of the regular MCs, and will find himself transfer listed as soon as I can get a decent youngster in to maintain squad depth.

(Apps: 8, Gls: 0, Avr: 6.63)

11. Gyliano van Velzen

Gyliano was simply brilliant. He provided cross after brilliant cross for my attackers, whilst often cutting inside himself and hammering it home.

(Apps: 34, Gls: 11, Avr: 7.28)

Strikers:

17. Christian James

The only mystery about Christian is why Arsenal chose to release him. The SPL was easily within his reach, though he was only second in the golden boot listings. Without him, though, we certainly would have come MUCH lower in the table.

(Apps: 38, Gls: 25, Avr: 7.33)

20. Mark Watson

Mark moaned about first team chances, and then, when given a chance, showed why he is a sub at best.

(Apps: 8, Gls: 1, Avr: 6.68)

9. Ninos Gouriye

Given the number nine due to his name more than anything, Ninos played many games despite my belief he was not up to SPL football. Generally, he did fairly well, but certainly not to the level I'll require to complete the challenge.

(Apps: 24, Gls: 6, Avr: 6.99)

27. Kristaps Blanks

A later and expensive signing, Kristaps is one of twins. His brother, who turns up instead occasionally, is called Firing...

(Apps: 18, Gls: 9, Avr: 7.16)

Other stuff

Transfers

I have noticed that I will be getting a new stadium at the end of the 17-18 season. It will be a 16k capacity stadium, called 'Annan Stadium'.

I also used some of my SPL prize money to finally upgrade the youth facilities, though I suspect that it will be scrapped later on. Hopefully, though, we'll get some decent players out of it.

Progress

| Year   | Division | Position | Achievements                     |
| 2012-13|   SFL3   |     1st  | Promoted as champions            |
| 2013-14|   SFL2   |     1st  | Promoted as champions            |
| 2014-15|   SFL1   |     1st  | Promoted, Scottish Cup Winners |
| 2015-16|   SPL     |    2nd  | Scottish Cup Winners, into CL |


100 club
| Player        | Nat | Pos | Apps | Gls/Conc | Status
| Loris Karius  |GER | GK |  131 |    119       | At club

wardog · September 2, 2012

Lenzar congrats on your Champions League your progressing far quicker than me with a smaller stadium. Best of luck. How is your keeper only worth £95k. Seriously under-rated. Looks better than both my keepers and worth alot less than both. This regen must be pretty good. Any signs of your stadium upgrade/new stadium yet. I'm selling out 6x your last quoted amount and doing worse lol.

Lenzar · September 3, 2012

wardog - I only get 1200 at home matches because of the all-seater rules - thank god I asked for a stadium upgrade when still in the SFL as playing in front of 0 fans would have been rather bad. I too don't understand why Karius is so low valued - he could probably even function for a lower level EPL team now. The ironic thing is I released him from City in my save managing there, and he could only get a contract with a German regional team in that game!

marty78 · September 3, 2012

Lenzar- Well done taking Annan into the Champions League, I have never played with a Scottish side in the CL but it must be incredibly tough, you will do very, very well to qualify from the group or even finish third and get into the Euro Cup. The money will be massive for you though.

Lenzar · September 3, 2012

marty78 - I won't be in the group stage - we've drawn Benfica (why are they called SLB in game?) in the Best Placed Third Round.

Hopefully the money from the one round I am in will cover part of the stadium loan.

wardog · September 3, 2012

Brutal draw with SLB Lenzar I have experience thanks to my Rangers save although that's 2 seasons behind my Clyde save best I've done on FM12 is the Knockouts. Its probably all about the youth production in Scotland unfortunately as unless both old firm are doing well the league just seems to die and co-efficient go down followed by reputation.

Curious question how much better developed are Celtic on your game? On mine their just miles ahead of anyone.

Troy Damage · September 3, 2012

Transfers - 2

I begin with our transfer activity because after last seasons demonstration of just how weak our squad was I made wholesale changes in an attempt to build a squad capable of being much more competitive in our second season in the Bundesliga. The fact that we managed to raise 26.5m on selling players who were almost all brought in on frees at various points is a testament to the business we did in the lower leagues, and it allowed me to revamp the squad. A couple of the outs I was sad to see go, club icon Bilinski had been a huge player for the club but was simply not cut out for top tier football, our other club icon Dvorak was cut out for it but once Bayern came in for him it was simply a matter of securing the right price, 8.5m was a fair deal for both clubs, the 5m we got for last years club record 1.3m signing Milina who was a huge disapointment was also good business.

The 29.5m we spent massively improved the squad, Rune Andersen's return to the club after an 18 month absence was a suprise, we failed to secure other defensive targets and Andersen has clearly come on great deal during his time in Denmark becoming a full international, the deal represented great value for the club as we activated a release clause which was lower than the fee we recieved when selling him. Hugo Salva looks to be a top player, he was the clubs record signing for just under four months, before we bought the talented youngster Ademi in from Bayern at 5.5m, the deal for Ademi was agreed in early December and he broke his leg playing for Bayern II in late December, meaning he spent his first four months of his Trier career on the treatment table, he will be like a new signing for next season though.

Overall

Table - Graph - Results 1 - Results 2 - Cup

Our transfer activity generally had the desired affect as we never looked in danger of relegation, 14th was the lowest we dropped all season, we enjoyed a happily medicore league campaign. The real highlight for us was a fantastic cup run that took us to the final. We were unlucky to lose the final and miss out on Europe next season as a result, but we were perhaps lucky to be there in the first place. We didn't meet a fellow Bundesliga club until the semis, once needing extra time, and once a shoot-out to beat lower league opposition. The 4-0 win over Dortmund isn't nearly as good as it looks either, as for some reason they elected to play a complete reserve team, so essentially the only proper Bundesliga team we played was in the final - and we lost.

Manager History

Finances - Hefty Bundesliga prizemoney and our cup run were very kind to our bank balance, we continue to invest in the stadium, and traning and youth facilities having now sunk nearly 20m into them since promotion, I may well get my first decent transfer budget this summer, although the chairman does seem very tight (have recently found out its 5.95m, my biggest ever by some margin but still underwhelming given the state of the finances).

The First XI

GK: Conor Morgan - To my suprise the American remains first choice, I wasn't exactly enamoured with him when we signed him for lack of better options and I have toyed with looking for an upgrade in every transfer window since. But it has never worked out and Morgan has gone from strength to strength, he has never really let the team down, I couldn't ask much more of him.

RB: Gianni Zakuani - We were desperate for a right back as the season began, I had struggled to secure key targets. Whilst I wouldn't exactly call Zakuani a panic buy I wasn't totally happy with the signing. I tend to only sign player who I think will have a higher resale value eventually, and after splashing 2.5m on Zakuani I'm not convinced we could even get that back for him, he is playing at full potential and not exactly brilliant. We signed him from NAC Breda who spent south of 100k on him only a year ago, certainly not the best bit of business I'll ever do, but it was preferable to playing someone else out of position all season.

LB: Denis Mijailovic - We failed to locate any decent left backs in the transfer market so mijailovic who was earmarked as back up needed to step up, the youngster did a decent job and still has potential to grow into.

CB: Rune Andersen - The Danish international was sold for 675k when we were still a second tier side, he returned to us a much improved player, and for a cheaper fee, he returned to the side seemlessly as if he had never been away and has now played over 100 time for the club.

CB: Jacob Petersen - The Dane was brought in durng the January window as we were light at centre back, he is an good player with excellent potential. He formed a decent partnership with his countryman Andersen, and despite for me being the stronger of the two is yet to play for Denmark whilst Andersen has established himself as first choice .

DM: Edouard Lavigne - If I had gone with my scouts I never would have signed Lavigne as they idenitfied higher rated players as we searched for a player to anchor the midfield, but I liked the look of the Frenchman, who at 25 had spent far too long rotting in Lyon's reserves. At a price of 2.5m I was very pleased with this signing, he had a decent year and I'm confident he will improve as he is getting the only real first team football of his career and has a very professional attitude, I hope he will be in our midfield for years to come.

CM: Kevin-Prince Boateng - The exprienced Ghanain was made captain after the sale of Bilinski, he added valued experience to the side and had a fairly strong season. His signing on a free last March is looking like an increasingly astute bit of business. His contract expires at the end of next season and after reviving his fading career here his wages demands seem to have tripled so I doubt he will stay on past then.

CM: Stanley Yekini - The Nigerian has recently become a club favourite in his third year at the club, unfortunately for the fans its looking increasingly like he will go the way of other club favourites Bilinski and Dvorak as he continues to agitate for a move, I am now resigned to looking for the best deal to move him on, hoping for a fee of around 10m which would seriously boost my transfer kitty.

RW: Lefteris Giovanopoulos - It will certianly cost you a few bob to have this guy on the back of your replica shirt, one of the few survivors of the summer revamp, the Greek international had a good year scoring 10 from the wing, I am very optimistic about his future at the club.

LW: Hugo Salva - One of the best bits of business we did in the summer, and it almost didn't happen. I agreed a deal for him early on in the summer, but then decided it was too large a chunk of our transfer budget to spend on a position we had decent cover for. After Bayern came in for Dvorak at 8.5m we reserected the deal meeting his 4.9m release clause. As much as I liked Dvorak, I think Salva is the better player, he had a fine debut season.

FC: Anthony Lozano - The Honduras international became the clubs highest payed player of all time after signing for 3.9m off the back of a failed stint at Bayern, I pushed out the boat in terms of wages for Lozano as I looked to secure a genuine goalscorer. Lozano seemed to have the potential if not the proven track record, he had barely played in the last two years at Bayern and had a indifferent record of a goal roughly every 3.5 games in Mexico previous to that. Nevertheless I felt he could prove a shrewd bit of business at 3.9m, he looked sharp at times but will need to score quite a few more goals next season in order to justify his wages and my decision to sign him.

Next Season: There is promise in this young team and with a few additions we will look to finish in the top half next year. A slight concern regarding our European ambitions is that the german league is going backwards alarmingly quickly in terms of continental football, in the European coefficients Germany is now 7th behind the likes of Portugal, France, and Russia, meaning there are only two Champions League spots now on offer.

marty78 · September 3, 2012

2021/2022 SEASON UPDATE

LIGA BBVA

Fixture 1 | Fixtures 2

The disappointment of missing out on the top four last year meant I had to know choice but to make some changes to the playing staff. With the additions I made the depth to the squad looked much improved and performances were generally good throughout the season. A title challenge still looks some way off with Barcelona being a far superior side still, but I am very happy we finished third and qualify for the Champions League again. My minimum expectation is top four from now on but it may take four or five years to win a title.

SPANISH CUP- We have a really good record in this competition and I want to continue that because this competition brings the best chance of silverware. We got to the semi-final without much difficulty but after only managing a 1-0 win in the first leg despite dominating, we got somewhat battered in Valencia and lost 2-0 to go out 2-1 on aggregate.

EURO CUP

I can't get my fixture filter to show the Euro fixtures on their own so I will post each 2nd leg result.

Group stage: Group winners

1st knockout round: Yeclano vs Dortmund - A 2-1 win in Germany was followed by a confident second leg at home to run out 3-1 winners and 5-3 on aggregate.

2nd knockout round: Yeclano vs Liverpool - We were excellent in the first leg with an impressive 2-0 win but the away leg saw Liverpool dominate and were unfortunate to only win 1-0. We won 2-1 on aggregate to scrape through to the final eight.

Quarter final: Yeclano vs Ajax - We won both legs 4-1 and therefore win 8-2 on aggregate without really breaking a sweat.

Semi-final: Yeclano vs AZ Alkmaar - A 2-1 defeat in the away put us under a bit of pressure but we dominated the second leg start to finish with a 3-0 win to go through with an aggregate of 4-2.

Final: Yeclano vs Manchester City - After reaching our second final in this competition I thought we could win but I failed with my tactics and my decision to line up defensively proved a mistake as we conceded two first half goals and then failed to get a real foothold in the match. Final score 2-0 to Man City and a disappointing runners-up place for us.

SQUAD and TRANSFERS

The squad is looking solid but is not really capable of challenging for a La Liga title just yet. I do feel that we have enough potential ability to continue to qualify for the Champions League though. A * indicates a new signing.

Diego - The only player in the first team squad to come through the youth system. Have given him a few starts when I felt I could and he has also played a few games for the under 19's. He is only 17 and, according to my assistant, has the highest potential at the club with four and a half stars.

Silvio Musetti - What a great servant to the club this guy is. The most influential player throughout his time here.

Edgardo BarrosSchellotto - Youngster has recently recovered from a nasty injury. Still only a squad player but has age on his side.

Konstantin Dubina - Probably the better of the three strikers but that wasn't very hard. I need to work on my tactics to get more goals from my lone front man.

Denis Suarez- Attacking midfielder had another decent season. Scores more than some of my strikers as well.

*Elton - Right winger has also suffered with injury and taken a hit, frustrating as he didn't come cheap.

*Ilhami Peker - Very young with lots of potential and already an important player. I had to wait for him to turn 18 after agreeing a deal about 18 months earlier.

*Paul Pisano - I was desperate for a new keeper and hopefully this guy can answer all my problems for a good few years.

*Scott Sherwood - I picked him up on the cheap from Man City reserves.

*Gerald Raser - Young goalkeeper is clear second choice but may one day challenge for the number one spot.

*Mahmoud Bouzgarrou - I got h=this guy to provide some competition for Musetti on the left wing and he has done well.

*Gregory Santoni - Had to bring a striker in when Cesar was sold in January after he got upset I wouldn't give him a new contract, which he did not deserve. I turned to Santoni who struggled to really get going and I was very disappointed with his scoring record. The only good news is he has started the following season on fire.

*Miguel Francisco Torres - A back-up full back for both sides and has been solid when called upon. The fact he classes as home grown in nation means he was needed to keep our numbers correct for Europe.

*Craig Ellis- Free transfer and rated as high potential, mainly played for the under19's and will be looking to loan out next season.

UNDER 19'S

I was really pleased with this years youth intake with a couple of players rated as having potential for the first team. I am just going to give the best three from this years intake a quick mention:

Not playing in this years Champions League has seen a massive dip in earnings but we remain in a decent position despite large transfer spending. That spending was crucial to regaining our CL place, which we did, but impacts on available transfer funds for next season meaning very few summer arrivals this year. What little money we did have was mainly used up by the board increasing the stadium capacity and we were unable to improve our facilities which have been downgraded.

marty78 · September 3, 2012

Lenzar - Tough draw mate but you never know. Good luck

Troy Damage - A very good season, well done. I agree your chairman seems tight given your finances, lacks ambition maybe. Giavanopoulus looks terrific for his age.

Lenzar · September 3, 2012

That's with no less than three debutants and several players out injured or banned.

Silly factoid: Thanks to the date I have to assign squad numbers for the new season, my goalie wore 29 for this match, but will wear 13 for the return leg...

Troy Damage · September 3, 2012

Lenzar - Phenominal result, you must be a tactical genious with the progress you seem to be making, seriously well played mate very impressive, hope you follow it up in the second leg, from my experience playing with Aberdeen the toughest part about playing in Scotland is making the jump into the Champs league group stages, after that the money comes flowing in.

Marty78 - Thanks mate, yeah Giavanopoulus is a good player, strange thing is he is currently being kept out of the Greece squad by another young winger who plays for my reserves, I'm certianly seeing some odd international selections in my game. Anyway nice work on the top four finish, the Spanish league is really tough in my experience, although a strangely bad year for Real by the look of it, and bad luck in the Europa League, you had a great run, bodes well for the Champs League, good luck.

Lenzar · September 3, 2012

Well, the second leg was very interesting, to say the least. Asllani managed the feat of scoring at both ends of the field.

Three of the goals were very dubious in nature, resulting from a goal mouth scramble of some sort.

Oh? Did I not tell you the score? It was a 2-2 draw. We're in the Playoff, and will face Valencia.

Noticed that I don't get 'relegated' to the Europa League if I lose in this round. Dubious as to wether winning against SLB was the right thing to do money wise...

wardog · September 3, 2012

Clyde Season Review 2017/18

The SPL

We put in a good effort this season, and the last day of the season seen us at home to Rangers and Hibs at home to Hearts. If Hearts won and we Won by about 25-0 we would get champions league football. Wasn't ever likely to happen that though. Although the extra money for 3rd would have been nice. Just couldn't avoid the draw. I feel we where better than Rangers over the coarse of the season but much like the last season with St. Mirren we failed to beat them. Hibs we where much better than. Just their defensive record was too good for us.

Results

We bottled it towards the end of the season but the win over St. Johnstone got us European football wrapped up. The reasons for bottling I'll explain later. Looks of positives. Although I'm still angry at the performances in the Scottish cup v first division Cowdenbeath. We should have won both games in the first half but failed to put away our chances.

Transfers

Starting at January from my last update. Hubbard arrived back from loan but we sent him back out to continue his development. Record signing Gerard Dean wanted first team football, and Dunfermline originally offered a decent fee which we negotiated. While Dunfermline where busy withdrawing, St Johnstone came in with a better offer than the Pars first offer but worse than the negotiated offer, it was a fee I accepted and Gerard moved. Quick time profit on our record signing. Darren Ramsey was very unhappy a the club and was released by mutual consent. Ross Dickman was no longer in first team plans and was one of the higher earners at the club. We took the decision to sell him if we could get face value. Aberdeen where happy to do a deal with that. Gregorio again was unhappy and on high wages and not in the first team. We sold him with a 50% sell on clause . On that note two of our previous sell on clauses made us some money. Mario Loncar gets us £575K after moving from Hibs and Jan Matjka our ex keeper moved from Prague to Celtic, getting us £450K paid over 30months, although I haven't got a screenshot of that. Been good investment that for us, even though a large number of previous sell on clauses cost us money, but the ones that have got us money beat all our record sales.

Youth Intakes

I signed 3 players from this, Doyle, Smith and Gibson. I have screenshots but honestly their never going to be good enough and where the best of a bad batch so I'm not going to waste your time looking at them.

Key Players

Kenni Bengtsson

The striker finished joint second in this years SPL for goals scored. Although didn't have a great year in the cups, and squandered a few chances. The Dane has been an integral part of our squad and continues to improve. Keeping him through the summer will be very important for us.

James O'Neill

The Irish International came in to help with Bengtsson and improve our strike force. He popped up with a decent number of goals for us, giving us the 2nd most prolific strike-force in the SPL. He also allowed for a little more space for Kenni to have and should remain at the club throughout the summer. James will be an integral part of the club going forward.

Fitim Morina

I'm going to call the Greek Mr. Assist. Fitim popped up with 3 goals aswell as his 20 assists in the league this year. He's a massive asset to this club.

Juraj Lukac

Lukac was the reason for us bottling it. He wanted to move to a bigger club and i refused and we fell out, he won't even speak to me now. He did pick up his game after I offered him to clubs for £2.5mil and accepted 2 bids worth £1.6mil. Those bids from champions Celtic and Motherwell. Despite wanting to move to a bigger club he moved to Motherwell. However before i get all nasty to him, before all this went on, Juraj was integral for us, defensively a rock and managed to get 11 goals from set pieces.

Squad

The squad looks good although there's likely to be alot of changes throughout the summer. Lujac is definitely leaving for a club record sale of £1.6mil and the Czech keeper is also likely to leave. Replacements for both are coming in already on pre-contract deals, including a defender from Barcelona - well their B team. I want to keep our 3 main strikers of O'Neill, Bengtsson and Savva, and our midfield core, although that might be hard. Most of the changes are likely to be on the defensive side or because we've lost a better player further up. I will be again looking to offload the deadwood on daft wages, players such as Kiria is one we really want to sell.

Finances

The finances are getting healthier and I don't believe this amount includes the £1.6mil sale of Lukac. However we still haven't paid for the youth facilities and we now have training facilities building after me again annoying the board to build them. We sold out the stadium for the first time this year, although even if we break that 90% barrier in the new season we won't be able to expand as we don't own our current stadium. Would like to see a Harry Haddock Stadium built named after club legend Harry Haddock. Don't know why but I like this name.

Club Information

As you can see I'm now an icon of the club and a number of my players are fan favourites.

Manager

Profile

History

As a manager I didn't talk to the press much this year, not sure what the 3rd is in the team events. Our record sale is about to be smashed .

marty78 · September 3, 2012

Wardog - Good season, I'm sure you will push on into the Champions League spots next season. Good luck in the Europa Cup.

Lenzar - Good result against SLB, Valencia will be a big ask indeed. I am playing in Spain and they are second only to Barcelona in recent seasons having overtaken Real Madrid.

Troy Damage - I think sometimes National squads are picked on reputation more than ability, at least it seems that way.

wardog · September 3, 2012

Thanks Marty78, very much doupt ill be challenging next season, team has been weakened with some sales mostly of Lukac and struggling to find as good as or better replacements. Just lost a huge battle for a very good French defender dubbed the next Phillipe Mexes, kinda put too many eggs in that basket as missed out on my other targets. Still in June though so plenty of time.

Gundo · September 3, 2012

Well done on completing this rlipscombe. Followed your save and a few others in here since the start, the new stadium sounds pretty awesome too. :thup:

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