How Far to Asgaard? (Take 2)

[bjoggi33]

Unlucky with the ULC but congrats on the Champions Cup!

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks bjoggi33,

It really stung to lose and expecially to a last minute penalty, but I'm glad they responded magnificently against KR.

We're seriously wasteful in front of goal. The conversion rate for goals\shots on target\shots taken is pretty pathetic. In a good game where we score 3 or 4 goals, we have about 9 shots on target from 20. When we win by one goal, we have 2 or 3 shots on target from 20.

[deltablue]

Great ICC win.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks Deltablue,

The way the players responded was fantastic, unfortunately they only seem to click like that once every 5 or 6 games. I might have too much competition for their spots I dunno, but they should be a lot better than that.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2017 halfway mark

HK 1-0 Keflavik: First league game in our new stadium and 8291 people come to see what it was all about. Along with being the first ever goal scorer in the new HK Stadium, John Aleksic scored the first league goal in the ground as well to open the season with a win.

Stjarnan 1-1 HK: Pretty pathetic performance. Taking the lead in the 7th minute through Waris I was expecting a goal scoring blitz. It didn’t happen Stjarnan equalised in the 72nd minute and that’s the way the game finished. The players got the hairdryer treatment for that.

HK 2-0 Fylkir: Back on home turf and I was worried about this game. Last season we lost both games to Fylkir on the back of 1-1 draws. History was not to repeat though as a Brase from Frenchman Tison secured the result we were after.

Fram 0-3 HK: Brace to Aleksic and one to Ryan saw off Fram in a spiteful encounter that saw our opposition receive 6 yellow cards.

Haukar 1-4 HK: another feisty encounter that saw a total of 10 yellow cards handed out, 5 a piece, and 5 goals. New German striker, Joachim Oswald scored on debut after 14 minutes, a haukar own goal saw our lead doubled and Tison added a third just before the break. Haukar pulled one back in the 72nd minute before Randrup returned the three goal advantage 6 minutes later.

Huginn 1-2 HK Icelandic Cup: Lower division side Huginn entertained us for this third round Icelandic cup fixture and really but a scare through us. Despite having a man sent off in the first minute they opened the scoring 5 minutes later. Tison legeled the game up for us just before half time but it was an 83rd minute strike from Captain Couragous, Hafsteinn Briem to finally get a positive result. In no uncertain terms I told them they were lucky to get the result and they needed to lift their game.

HK 4-0 Selfoss: The message from the last game still hadn’t quite sunk in yet and at half time we were still struggling to get the break. With nine shots on goal and not one troubling the keeper I really let my strikers know how I felt. It was still ten minutes after the break before they finally put one in the back of the net through a header from New Saudi Striker\Left Winger Ibrahim Al-Subaie. New Greek Defender Xanthopoulos doubled the lead in the 70th minute. Aleksic and Oswald rounded out the scoring in the final fifteen minutes to finally put this game to bed.

Grindavik 0-3 HK: Continuing where we left off against Selfoss, we slammed home another three goals. Stadler opened the scoring at the 37-minute mark before Al-Subaie doubled the lead with a 44th minute penalty. The second half was relatively quiet until Al-Sabaie popped up again in the 88th minute to claim his second of the game.

KR 1-0 HK: Utter shambles. KR exacted revenge for the 4-0 Champions Cup thrashing when league top scorer Kjartan Finnbogasson carved open my defence to add to his already impressive tally. Before this game I hadn’t been kept scoreless in my previous Thirty Eight Premier division games. Needless to say the hair drier came out again.

Fylkir 1-2 HK Icelandic cup 4th round: Goals to Oswald and Aleksic saw us hold a 2-goal lead until late into the match when Fylkir scored with the last kick of the game. A much more even game and probably a fair result.

HK 1-1 IA: Back to our usual wasteful ways. 58% possession, 16 shots on goal, 3 on target. Went down after 9 Minutes due to a defensive mix up leaving Young German keeper Fritz Markle stranded on debut. Oswald levelled things up just shy of the half-hour mark but that’s all she wrote. Even IA going a man down with 20 minutes still to play couldn’t help our chances.

HK 1-0 Valur: Another dominate performance were we only scraped home. Xanthopoulos scored his second in as many games to give us the win in the 82nd minute but we really should be wrapping these up much earlier.

Þór 1-1 HK: If I was annoyed before, I was absolutely Livid after this performance. Niko Kekki put us a goal up just before the half and I told them to push further. Al-Subaie missed a penalty in the 78th minute only to have Þór take the ball back down field and score on the counter. No way we should be drawing against the bottom placed side.

HK 3-1 Haukar Icelandic Cup QF: Same story different day. Only two players had shots on target. Al-Subaie who scored a brace, one from the spot and another from the corner of the six yard box and Defender Ian Ryan who kept peppering the goal with headers. For the longest time I thought this game was going to head to extra time until Ryan broke the deadlock. Al-Subaie’s goal in the 90th minute finally put the result beyond doubt.

Skenderbeu (Alb) 0-1 HK Champions League 2nd round Qualifer: Still we huffed and puffed but could not blow their house down. We got lucky here as they had two goals rubbed off for being off side. Quick French Midfielder, Goncalves, should be given a speeding ticket for finishing the match in only 38 minutes before limping off injured.

Must tell my strikers about the poor strikers in Africa who would love to have the goal scoring oppotunities they have.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2017

Keflavik 0-2 HK: Nil all for the longest time until Iain Ryan broke the deadlock at the 70-minute mark with a nice header. Ryan was denied a brace by a Keflavik Midfielder who got the final touch before the ball crossed the goal line.

HK 2-0 Skenderbeu (Alb) Champions League 2nd round Qualifer 2nd leg: 10,414 people turned up to break the crowd record for the 5th? Time this year. Stadler scored early meaning the Albanians had to score twice now to take the game. Al-Subaie closed up the match after a wonderful through ball from Hafner.

HK 5-0 Stjarnan: A first half demolition job with a particularly good effort from Al-Subaie who scored a hat trick and set up a fourth goal. Fre∂riksson scored one and Waris finished off the scoring in the first half and that’s all she wrote. A dull and wasteful second half that might as well not have been played as all it did was result in injuries for Stjarnan.

Mogren (Mte) 1-2 HK Champions League 3rd round Qualifer: Mogren scored on the half hour mark to take the lead and put us on the back foot before Al-Subaie chipped in just before half time. With the game heading to a draw Hafner scored his first continental goal in the 82nd minute to give us a victory, but more importantly, 2 away goals.

HK 3-1 Mogren (Mte) Champions League 3rd round Qualifer 2nd Leg: Back on home turf a more convincing performance handed us a more comfortable win. Goals from Fre∂riksson and Aleksic putting us ahead 4-1 on aggregate before Mogren got on the scoresheet with a 70th minute strike. Proser then put the tie beyond all doubt five minutes later with a well-taken header. Al-Subaie also missed a penalty in the 50th minute that could have put the result to bed even earlier.

HK 3-1 Fram: Another convincing first half performance put us 3-0 up inside 35 minutes thanks to Ryan, Randrup and Olafsson. Another Jekyll and Hyde performance saw us add no more goals in the second half, while Fram Pegged one back.

HK 2-0 Grindavik Icelandic Cup Semi Final: Xanthapoulos and Oswald put us two goals up by half time. Grindavik had nothing in response and so we slid through easily into the Final. Only blemish was Waris suffering a minor injury that would see him miss the final.

HK 1-2 Keflavik Icelandic Cup Final: How did we lose this. It was ours for the taking before snatching Defeat from the jaws of victory. Bobby Prosser put us ahead early and that’s the way it stayed until the 90th +1 minute. Keflavik scored with the final kick of regular time taking us to extra time. Bought on some subs to replace some tired legs only for BorgÞórsson to pick up his second yellow card in three minutes and get sent off. Olafsson followed him for an early shower to minutes later with a stupid two footed tackle. The comedy of errors was finally bought to a close when Prosser and Joronen had complete brain explosions and managed to put the ball into the back of our own net to gift Keflavik the cup.

HK 2-0 FC København Champions League Playoff: A relatively even contest that saw us take our chances better than our Danish opponents. Fre∂riksson scored just before the end of the first half and Oswald added a second in the last ten minutes of the second half to give us confidence for reaching the group stage again.

HK 0-1 Grindavik: In eight previous encounters with Grindavik I hadn’t lost a single encounter, not even a draw. Not only had I not lost a game against Grindavik in those eight previous encounters, they had never scored a goal against me either! That all changed this game with a humiliating loss.

FC København 1-3 HK Champions League Playoff 2nd leg: Fired up from the humiliating loss in the league we set about qualifying for the Champions League group stage in quick manner with Tison scoring after 2 minutes. At the 20 minute mark Fre∂riksson doubled our lead giving us 2 away goals on top of the two home goals we’d already scored giving me confidence that we were through. I didn’t expect København to be able to score 5 goals to get the win they needed. Three minutes into the second half the Danes scored to make the tie 4-1 and they fought hard but we defended valiantly to keep them out again. On the 81st minute Fre∂riksson popped up to score his second and remove all doubt that we were through to the group stage again.

Selfoss 0-3 HK: Another half hour victory that saw us relax in the second half. Goals to Tison, Ryan and Fre∂riksson had the game sewn up after 27 minutes Selfoss had nothing to counter with and that’s the way the game stayed for the next hour.

HK 2-0 Haukar: Easy victory with goals from Oswald (8) and Waris (46) though our domination should have produced a bigger result. 65% possession, 85% pass completion rate compared to 62% 9 corners to 2.

Fylkir 0-3 HK: Another dominating victory that wasn’t really secured until the sending off of Fylkir defender, Garpur Hé∂insson. Ryan put us ahead in the 20th minute and that’s how it stayed until the sending off. Quick passing move down the right saw Olafsson get the ball and slot home from a tight angle to double the lead. Tison popped up 2 minutes from time to extend the lead to 3 and complete the victory.

IA 1-2 HK: An unusual victory here. It’s not often we go down so early in a domestic fixture. It’s even rarer that we recover to win. IA Striker, Gerrit Spaan, put the home side ahead after only 10 minutes and that’s the way the game stayed until the break. After a bit of a spray at my players during the break they came out firing, Tison scored four minutes into the second half to level things up before a thunderous shot from Goncalves, 25 yards out, gave us the lead with 20 minutes to play. Olafsson had a abit of a brain explosion in the final ten minutes getting himself send off for two bookable offences within three minutes to put a few nerves into the system but we finally got the result we were after.

AC Milan 4-0 HK Champions League Group Stage: I never expected a win at the San Siro but I hoped to put up a better fight than this. Up and coming Italian striker, Graziano Caria, scored a hat trick to put the game to bed in the first half as he showed my strikers what lethal finishing can do. 3-0 at the break and I really let my team have it, they were playing awful and needed to know it. A second half fight back really showed what we could do when we are prepared to play and we almost kept them scoreless until a last minute goal from former Athletic Bilbao midfielder Javi Martinez won Milan the second half as well.

HK 1-0 KR: Title on the line here, we win the league is ours, we lose as we have to wait another week. Disappointed with the crowd as only 7791 people turned up to see us lift the trophy thanks to a goal from Al-Subaie in the 18th minute. The League is now ours for a 4th consecutive season.

Valur 3-1 HK: This defeat consigned Valur to relegation. They put up a brave fight hitting back straight after we scored through Goncalves in the 35th minute. 1-1 at half time it wasn’t until just after the hour mark that Tison scored his 25th league goal for the club to hand us the lead. Al-Subaie added a third fifteen minutes later to hand us victory .

HK 1-0 Þór: 10,396 people turned up to see us display the league trophy giving us a new League crowd record. Our fourth home game of 10k plus people and first in the league witnessed a scrappy victory against our relegated opponents. Al-Subaie scored the only goal of the game in the 35th minute.

2017 ICELANDIC PREMIER DIVISION AWARDS

Footballer of the Year: Heart of my defence, Iain Ryan.

Young Footballer of the Year: All three places taken up by my own players. Cedric Goncalves, John Aleksic, and Joachim Oswald.

Golden Boot: Runner up Ibrahim Al-Subaie

Goal of the Year: Third Place Joachim Oswald

Team of the Year: Iain Ryan, Mateusz Duda, Ibrahim Al-Subaie

I still have 5 Champions League games but the Icelandic Season is over.

[deltablue]

Excellent beating Copenhagen, as they're one of the strongest sides below the top leagues.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks Deltablue,

On paper they're probably stronger than we are, but I think we took our chances better in these games. They were probably a lot closer than the final scoreline suggests.

I was hoping that a good showing against them might put us in good stead for the group stage. Alas I got AC Milan, Liverpool and Shakhtar (2nd year in a row). last year we had two 2-2 draws against the Ukrainians after leading 2-1 and 2-0 at the 80 minute mark in both games, this year I hope to surprise them.

[Jolanthustrel]

HK 1-2 Liverpool Champions League Group Stage: A cracking start as French Midfielder, Cedric Goncalves, Put us a head after 43 seconds with a well hit strike from 30yds out. Unfortunately for us Liverpool hit back five minutes later as Suarez turned one of my defenders inside out and slotted home between the keeper and near post. The match went into the break 1-1 and we were holding our own reasonably well. The second half started well also and we kept Liverpool scoreless until the 78th minute when Skrtel knocked in a scrappy goal from the inside the 6yd box. That’s the way the game stayed until fulltime, although we were denied an equaliser by the crossbar on the 83rd minute when Fre∂riksson tried to lob Reina but put a little to much on it.

HK 2-1 Shakhtar Champions League Group Stage: Finally cracked it! Our first group stage win. Buoyed by our good performance against Liverpool we came out firing. After withstanding some early pressure Joachim Oswald grabbed the lead in the 26th minute. John Aleksic then doubled the lead 5 minutes from half time to give us a comfortable lead going into the second half. The game stayed 2-0 for the majority of the second half until Shakhtar striker, Lacina Traore, scored in Stoppage time to peg it back to 2-1 but we held on for the next two minutes to see out the result.

Shakhtar 2-1 HK Champions League Group Stage: ARGH! Of the 7 goals I’ve conceded against Shakhtar, 5 have come from Lacina Traore, He opened the scoring in the 13th minute to give the Ukrainians the early lead. Xanthopoulos pulled us level again with a header from a corner on the 20th minute and for the next hour that’s the way the game stayed. In the 87th minute we finally broke and that man again, Lacina Traore, killed off our deserved draw.

HK 0-2 AC Milan Champions League Group Stage: Another brave performance against a top class side. We kept Milan scoreless in the first half unfortunately I must have kept my team in the sheds a little too long as the Italian giants scored 26 seconds after the restart through Mexican Attacking Midfielder Erick Torres. Former Man Utd striker Macheda added a second in the 76th minute to kill off the match. Milan had too much class but a valiant performance from our boys saw a respectable result.

Liverpool 2-2 HK Champions League Group Stage: The one that got away. If I was unlucky not to draw the game at home, I was even unluckier not to get the win at Anfield. It may have been a weakened Liverpool team, but we dominated and deserved to get all three points out of this game. BorgÞórsson conceded an early penalty which Daniel Agger slotted home to give the Reds lead in the 10th minute. Al-Subaie then responded in kind from the spot on the half hour mark to take the game into half time 1-1. On the 70 minute mark Henrik Randrup hit a stunning strike from 25yds out to give us a deserved lead. BorgÞórsson rounded of a horror match by scoring an own goal to hand Liverpool a draw, yet somehow managed a 7.5 rating?

Unfortunately for us Milan drew with Shakhtar giving them 5 points consigning us to last for the third year in a row.

[deltablue]

Good few points there.

[Fantastic]

Didn't even see this thread. Congratulations on actually getting a foothold in the Champions League.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks Delta.

We were so close to that Europa knockout round spot. If we'd managed to hold Shakhtar to the draw away or not concede the own goal against Liverpool it would have been us and a little more money in the bank coming my way.

Hi Fantastic,

Thanks. I'm hoping I can snag third in a group stage soon and help the Icelandic co-efficient move along a little quicker. Going to drag Icelandic football up if it kills me.

[Jolanthustrel]

Legend in my own bath water

Both the Manager and Assistant Manager are Legends at the club (although to be fair, he was a legend before I got here)

Seriously $8k a year?

[deltablue]

Legendary!

[bjoggi33]

Nice one getting on the legend list. I'm not even a Favoured Personnel yet .

[Jolanthustrel]

HK 1-2 Liverpool Champions League Group Stage: A cracking start as French Midfielder, Cedric Goncalves, Put us a head after 43 seconds with a well hit strike from 30yds out.

That goal is Number three

[Jolanthustrel]

Wha? Good form? I expect more than 2 goals from 14 games for a striker to be in good form.

Interesting, $13M to build a 10922 seater stadium. $10.25M to add another 5461 I've only packed it for Champions Leagues games and only two or three IPD games a year get more than 10k people turn up. takes the Stadium capacity to 16383

YAY! hopefully it will help do something.

[bjoggi33]

At least you got a stadium that fits more than 1100 people in the CL .

[Jolanthustrel]

Ouch

How many Group stages have you gotten to? Surely if you've gotten to at least 2 you'd have enough money to build a new Stadium. Have you asked? Because I had the money on hand they just built mine.

Gah. I'm annoyed with my new Captain. Less than a week after officially giving him the Captain's Armband and on the morning before an important Champions League Fixture he comes in and says he want to move to a bigger club. Unlike the last couple of people who I told to wait a year. He doesn't want to wait that long.

Also, my star players are being head hunted and the youngsters I'm looking at to replace them either cost more than I'm willing to spend (I got short arms and deep pockets) or don't look good enough right now to help my Champions League push and I refuse to turn HK into a retirement fund to ageing players.

[bjoggi33]

I just made my second Group Stage. The option for stadium and all that stuff has been grayed out since the beginning so don't know what to do about that .

Unlucky with the youngsters wanting to leave, my players have never wanted to leave expect for once when I sold my star defender to Rosenborg.

[Jolanthustrel]

Gah! I just asked my Chairman to relay the pitch to save our players getting injured. He said Injuries are a part of the game and I should learn to deal with it. Maybe if he'd put Synthetic turf down to start with it wouldn't have deteriorated.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2018 Review

IULC – Phoned it in. Only conceded 2 goals all tournament. A 0-0 draw with IA was the only blemish, though this was rectified with a 4-1 Semi Final win. KR brushed aside 3-0 in the final.

Icelandic Champions Cup – Beat Keflavik 3-0 thanks to a second half Joachim Oswald Hat Trick.

Icelandic Cup – Small blip in our first up game as FH took a second string reserve side to penalties. No more goals conceded all tournament as we took revenge on Keflavik for last years Icelandic Cup Defeat with a 3-0 win.

Icelandic Premier Division – A better first half than second half first 11 games saw 10 wins and a draw with a 36-3 +33 Goal Difference. Second half saw 9 winds 2 draws and a loss for 15-3 +12 For and against Cant help thinking that Selling Goncalves and Al-Subaie made a big difference to the team performance for all the wrong reasons.

Champions League – Qualification was a breeze although FC København did give us a scare before we came good and won 4-2 on aggregate. Group stage is a whole different monster and I’m still unable to crack third spot, although if I hadn’t sold Goncalves and Al-Subaie I might had had a better chance in group stage.

Qualifying Fixtures | Group Stage Fixtures

Key Players

Didier Simondi: 17 goals and 13 assists

Carlos Cunha: 6 Goals and 17 Assists

Iain Ryan: 11 goals 3 Assists

Fritz Markle: 19 Conceded 30 Clean Sheets

Awards

Footballer of the Year: 1st Carlos Cunha, 2nd Markus Stadler, 3rd Iain Ryan

Young Player of the Year: 1st Didier Simondi, 2nd Joachim Oswald, 3rd Ronaldão

Golden Boot: 3rd Ibrahim Al-Subaie

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/7360/ipdgoaloftheyear.png[/img]"]Goal of the Year: Didier Simondi

Team of the Year: Fritz Markle, Ronaldão, Iain Ryan, Andrey Semenov, Carlos Cunha, Markus Stadler.

[bjoggi33]

Nice season. Unlucky on the one loss in the league .

[Jolanthustrel]

Nice season. Unlucky on the one loss in the league .

Thanks mate, So close to my undefeated League season. My first 50+ goal season also so chuffed about that, but at the halfway point I was looking at more than 51 goals.

I bought a Spanish Midfielder during the off season (well for the majority of Icelandic clubs that aren't HK) as well as an Argentinian Midfielder. The Spanish Midfielder had a whinge that there was too much competition for his spot. I reassured him he was in my first team plans. 2 weeks later he tells me that he wants a transfer because he wasn't getting First team football. At this point I only played two champions league games that he couldn't have been regestered for. Not to mention the fact it was still at least 2 months away from starting the Icelandic Upper League Cup. No one else was playing First team Football either you nitwit! That was all in less than 2 months...

I accepted his transfer request and immediatly offered him to everyone, no reasonable offer will be refused. Then he was then homesick and I told him I was looking at selling him to a club more like home, he said that would make him feel worse so I told him to go home. Thankfully he was only bought in on a free.

*headdesk*

[bjoggi33]

Maybe he didn't like the cold weather .

[Jolanthustrel]

LOL maybe. He came back played one game and now wants to be taken off the transfer list.

Ronaldão turned up last year just before Christmas and found it hard to adjust to life in Iceland so I sent him back to Brasil for a month. Coming from Brasil that doesn't have winter to Iceland in December must be a bit of a shock to the system, especially for an 18 yo. Only happens with South Americans and Those from the Iberian Peninsular for me.

[Jolanthustrel]

Whoo Didier Simondi, 5 goals perfect 10 rating!

[Jolanthustrel]

Champions Qualifying Round 2

I was flung so far into eastern Europe I ended up in Central Asia...

Kazakhstan

Leg 1: HK 6-1 FC Aktobe. We weren't as accommodating as their last Icelandic host. According to Wikipedia they played FH in 2009/10 and won 4-0 I had to restore Icelandic Pride and did so with Gusto.

Leg 2: FC Aktobe 0-3 HK. Wasn't as lethal as I'd have liked, but the job was already done.

Champions Qualifying Round 3

I'm wondering if there are any Eastern European nations I haven't visited yet?

Moldova

Leg 1: HK 1-1 FC Sheriff Tiraspol Disappointing draw, especially when their goal was an own goal by us.

Leg 2: FC Sheriff Tiraspol 1-5 HK. Sheriff to an early lead that shocked us into action. After a brace from Fre∂riksson and Hattrick from Simondi, we shot the Sheriff and didn't spare the deputy before running off into the Playoff round where we face Belarusian side BATE Borisov

Im running out of Countries that were from behind the Iron curtain to visit.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2019 Review

IULC – Won every game culminating in a 1-0 final over KR. Breaking a few Records along the way

IULC Records Held by HK

Highest Average Attendance: 9306 – 2019

Most Games Won in a Row: 13 -7.4.18-4.5.19

Most Games Without Losing: 20 20.3.13-26.4.15

Most Team Goals: 33 – 2019

Most Assists: John Aleksic 10

Highest Average Rating: Joachim Oswald 8.74 (5 appearances) 2019

Icelandic Champions Cup – Beat Grindavik 7-1 they didn’t bother turning up, we even scored their goal for them.

Icelandic Cup – No slip ups this year. Cruised through to the final before beating Fylkir 3-0

Icelandic Cup Records held by HK

Highest Attendance: 15938 Vs Keflavik IC QF 2019

Highest Average Attendance: 15938 – 2019 (1 game)

Most Games Won in a Row: 14 - 3.6.15-15.5.17

Most Games Without Losing: 14 - 3.6.15-15.5.17

Most Team Goals: 21 – 2019

Top Goal Scorer: John Aleksic 8 – 2019

Highest Average Rating: John Aleksic 9.07 (4 appearances) 2019

Fastest Goal: Are Slåtta 15 seconds Vs KR 3rd round 1.6.16

Icelandic Premier Division – Our first undefeated season. We were phenomenal! No last minute slips of concentration, no not turning up. We were lethal in front of goal and rock solid in defence. While we conceded three more goals than last year, we made up for that fact by scoring an extra twenty two.

IPD Records held by HK

Highest Attendance: 16209 Vs FH 28.5.19

Highest Average Attendance: 15414 – 2019

Biggest Win: 7-1 Vs FH 28.5.19

Most Games Won in a Row: 23 - 29.9.18-28.9.19

Most Games Without Losing: 27 - 3.9.17-17.9.18

Most Games Without Conceding: 9 – 10.6.18-12.8.18

Most Team Points: 66 2019

Most Team Goals: 73 – 2019

Top Goal Scorer: Didier Simondi 25 – 2019

Most Goals in a Match: Didier Simondi 5 Vs FH 28.5.19

Highest Average Rating: Didier Simondi 8.06 (20 appearances) 2019

Champions League – Qualifying

Three more trips behind the old Iron Curtian as we took on FC Aktobe of Kazakhstan (9-1), FC Sheriff Tiraspol of Moldova (6-2) and BATE Borisov of Belarus (7-2) This season I was seeded in all the Pre Group stage rounds which meant I wouldn’t draw FC København for a third consecutive year.

Group Stage

Group stage looked tough with Man Utd, Marseilles and Celtic but I had hoped if United and Marseilles could keep Celtic quiet then I might have a chance against them. They kept their part of the bargain and so did I.

HK 2-1 Celtic

OM 2-0 HK

Man Utd 2-2 HK

HK 1-2 Man Utd

Celtic 0-3 HK

HK 1-1 OM

Awards

Footballer of the Year: 1st John Aleksic, 2nd Carlos Cunha

Young Player of the Year: 1st André Flückiger, 2nd Ilija Jelic, 3rd Ronaldão

Golden Boot: 1st Didier Simondi

Team of the Year: Fritz Märkle, Gauti Borgþórsson, Carlos Cunha, John Aleksic, Didier Simondi

Manager of the Year: Me

In other News

More ground expansions...

And scratch what I said about not Drawing FC København, I got them in the Euro cup draw

[Jolanthustrel]

Europa Cup Run

1st Knockout Round

FC København 1-2 HK Continuing my battle with København to be kings of Scandinavia. Disappointed to concede the goal but we were already two away goals up at that point.

HK 3-1 FC København Went down two goals early and at half time had some stern words with my players. they responded the way I'd hoped and so we kicked on in the second half to score three unanswered goals and take us to the next round. 5-2 on aggregate

2nd Knockout Round

On my first ever trip to europe I was eventually knocked out of the Europa Qualifying rounds by Dynamo Kyiv. This time we took revenge...

Dynamo Kyiv 1-3 HK We scored in the opening minute, they hit straight back in the third. We fought hard and found our reward with another two goals in the 25th and 49th to take the first leg

HK 4-3 Dynamo Kyiv A great game for the neutral, or an absolute coach killer Kyiv scored two in the first 13 minutes then I hit back straight after their second goal. in the 24th and 26th minutes we scored another 2 to give us the lead 3-2 and 6-3 on aggregate Kyiv leveled the match in the 34th minute before we finished the scoring in the 38th minute and that was it for goals in the match. we took the tie 7-4.

Quarter Final

HK 2-0 Manchester City This match included a first for me. The first time one of my players has returned to play against me in Continental Competition. Milton Favre an Argentinian\French Midfielder whom I picked up for £3.3M before City took him off my hands 6 months later for £5.75M returned to HK Staduim but it was an unhappy return. he picked up a yellow card and city lost the match. If he didn't leave he could still be playing Continental Football, sucker.

Manchester City 1-1 HK City huffed and puffed but they couldn't blow our advantage down. They took an early lead buy we equalised on the hour mark to kevel up the match and give ourselves an away goal. No matter what they threw at the Flying Fritz he took the MotM award with 14 saves including one from the spot. That would be some great fantasy points right there.

Afterwards the Man City Manager Paulo Bento told the media he's not my biggest fan. I'd be hurt if I gave a stuff. I'm still in Europe, you're not!

[Jolanthustrel]

All good things must come to an end

Europa Cup Semi Final

[deltablue]

Good run though.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks Deltablue,

I felt once we drew København we'd have a good run, we ultimately could have drawn Leverkusen in that first round and not gome anywhere so I got lucky, but we milked it for all it was worth.

Thankfully I went on a youth spending spree at the end of last year so Ultimately they played the ULC while my 'first team' played in Europe.

[Jolanthustrel]

Mateusz Duda is the first player I've bought to take up Icelandic Citizenship, with the hopes of playing Internationally for Iceland. Unfortunately for him Icelandic RB Gauti Borgþórsson is also ahead of him in the pecking order at the club. English Defender, Iain Ryan, and Portuguese CM, Ivo Magalhaes, are also close to taking up Icelandic citizenship and should also be in contention for positions in the Icelandic National Team.

I kind of feel sorry for Poland though in regards to Mateusz Duda. First he feels he'd only accept a call up from the German national team, then he goes for Iceland Poland never got a look in.

[Jolanthustrel]

Damn add\remove leagues bug. I now have over 300k players in the game and it's really grinding. If I hadn't updated to 8GB RAM it would be even more painful. While the Matches still play with good speed, getting through the long Icelandic winters is starting to take its toll in boredom.

I might shelve this game for a bit. I recon I'm just one good european season from geting automatic Group stage status in the Champions League so I'm disappointed in leaving just short of that goal. I'm also getting tired of my reputation being dragged down by the rest of the Icelandic teams who just fight it out for 2nd place and having my players whinge that they want to move to bigger teams.

[cswalk08]

Just read up on this career. Fantastics work! You had one hell of a run in the Europa league. Shame about the bug and speed issues you're dealing with. Best of luck in resolving them and hopefully you can continue this great save.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks mate,

It's been a lot of fun. I've really grown attached to this team and the players who've come through the club. I'll try to push on through this season and give a 10 year update to wrap things up then just update European Achievements if I continue.

[Jolanthustrel]

English Defender, Iain Ryan, and Portuguese CM, Ivo Magalhaes, are also close to taking up Icelandic citizenship and should also be in contention for positions in the Icelandic National Team.

Both have now made their Debuts for the Icelandic National Team. Ivo Magalhaes interestingly made his debut for his adopted country against the country of his birth.

[nie jem frytek]

Any updates?

[Jolanthustrel]

Well I've loaded up this save again. Expect to see a few updates coming over the next week.

[deltablue]

Welcome back.

[Jolanthustrel]

Just realised I'm 2 seasons behind on updates, 3 with the current season I'm playing... anyway, here's the first of them.

Season 2020 Review

Icelandic Upper League Cup: Won easily by my reserves as the first team was pushing through the knockout stages of the Europa League. Guthni Olaffson lead the tournament with 9 goals while Irish Winger, Ellis Ross, chipped in with 7 assists. The final was very one sided as we beat Fylkir 4-1.

Icelandic Champions Cup: Another one sided affair as we scored all four goals in a 3-1 victory over Keflavik.

Icelandic Premier Division: Won 21 Drew 1, only blemish on an almost perfect league season was a 3-3 draw with Keflavik when my players probably had an eye on the up coming fixture against Bayern Munich. Scored 91 goals helped by Croatian Striker, Dario Zivkovic scoring 12 goals in the final three games of the season almost snatching the golden boot from Didier Simondi.

Champions League Qualifying Rounds: Dinamo Bucharest (8-1 agg) Mogren (5-1 Agg) and BATE (7-2 Agg) were all brushed aside rather convincingly to reach the group stages thanks to 9 goals from Didier Simondi. The only blip being a first up draw against the Montenegrin side Mogren.

Champions League Group Stage: Feyenoord, Olympic Marseilles, and Bayern Munich all stood in my way at the group stage. A first up 1-2 loss to Bayern followed by a 0-0 draw against Feyenoord had me worried about missing the knockout rounds of both European Comps, then a trip to the French Riviera kick started our campaign again. 0-1 win in France thanks to a goal just after half time from Carlos Cunha followed by a 3-0 win back on home turf including two goals minutes either side of the break shell-shocked OM.

Bayern once again reminded us that were still a small fish in a big pond with a 3-1 defeat meaning we had to match OM’s result against Bayern to go through to the Champions League Knockout rounds if we lost and OM won or drew we were back in Europa Knockouts.

News came through from France that OM had won 2-0 but that didn’t matter, we beat Feyenoord 3-1 to snatch second spot on results between us and OM, a better for and against also sealed the deal.

Awards:

Golden Boot: Didier Simondi (27), Dario Zivkovic (22)

Footballer of the year: 2nd Carlos Cunha, 3rd Iain Ryan

Young Player of the Year: Ronaldao

Goal of the Year: 1st Matej Baglama (Curled effort from 18yds)

Manager of the Year: Me

Fair Play Team of the year: 2nd HK

Team of the Year: Fritz Markle, Iain Ryan, Carlos Cunha, Didier Simondi,

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2021 Review

Champions League Knockout Rounds (2020/2021): Man City took revenge for their defeat in last seasons Europa Cup Quarter Final. We lost 2-0 at home and with nothing to lose I tried to play an overload style but we lost the return leg in Manchester 3-1 to bomb out 5-1 on Aggregate.

Icelandic Upper League Cup: We scored goals for fun. Apart from a first up 2-1 win over cross town rivals Brei∂ablik we never scored less than 4 goals for the rest of the competition. 4-0 Vikingur, 9-1 Selfoss, 4-3 IBV, 4-0 KR, 11-0 Valur, 6-2 Þrottur, Semi Final 7-1 FH, Final 6-2 IA

Icelandic Champions Cup: Another one sided affair as we defeated Grindavik 4-1

Icelandic Cup: Another competition we just phoned in. Only the final against Keflavik gave us any issues as we only won 2-1.

Icelandic Premier Division: Won 21 lost 1, only blemish on an almost perfect league season was a 2-1 loss with Grindavik. Again just before a Champions League fixture so maybe the concentration wasn’t completely on the game at hand. This season saw us crack 100 goals in the league finishing up with 106 for and only 7 against. Such an amazing development since only 5 years ago we’d only scored 39 goals in the league.

Champions League Qualifying Rounds: My good European runs have started to pay off for Iceland’s co-efficient. This season we were placed into the third round qualifying instead of our usual start in the second round. We brushed past Skenderbeu of Albania (9-0 agg) and Sheriff of Moldova (6-1 Agg) to ease into the group stage.

Champions League Group Stage: PSG, Olympiakos, and Bayern Munich met us in the group stage. We started the group stage with a 2-1 loss in Paris before coming home to stun Munich by the same score line. Then Olympiakos felt our wrath. We’d met before in my first group stage where the results were 0-0 at home and a 1-0 won to the Greeks to see them into Europa. Those results were not repeated. 5-0 win at home was just the warm up to an 8-1 thrashing in Greece. Didier Simondi scoring 8 goals over the two legs (2 at home, 6 in Greece).

PSG were welcomed to Iceland with -4’C temps but after our goal scoring exploits against Olympiakos I thought we might be in with a chance but the French resisted our attack and scored just before the break. Fortunately they left us enough time to level things up before the halftime whistle and that’s how the game remained until fulltime.

Out for revenge for their loss earlier in the group stage, Bayern burst out of the blocks with goals in the first and tenth minutes. We never really recovered after that and were always playing catch up. South African striker Abduraghmaan Brown dragged one back on the hour mark but Bayern were too good at home and we lost 2-1. A draw with Bayern probably would have seen us through to the Champions League knockout stages as Bayern, PSG and ourselves would have finished on 11 points but we fell just short and were relegated to Europa again.

Awards:

Fair Play Team of the year: 2nd HK

Footballer of the year: 1st Andrey Semenov 2nd Guido Vanhamel, 3rd Iain Ryan

Goal of the Year: 1st Dario Zivkovic (Takes on two players before scoring with a powerful shot)

Golden Boot: Dario Zivkovic (23), Didier Simondi (19), Abduraghmaan Brown (14)

Young Player of the Year: Ronaldao

Manager of the Year: 2nd Me

Team of the Year: Fritz Markle, Gauti Borgþorson, Andrey Semenov, Iain Ryan, Ronaldão, Didier Simondi, Guido Vanhamel, Dario Zivkovic

[ashton321]

Good stuff this mate just read from start to finish you have some amazing progress well done

[deltablue]

Getting decent in Europe now I see.

[Jolanthustrel]

Good stuff this mate just read from start to finish you have some amazing progress well done

Thanks mate, I got lucky early on and have built solidly on that ever since.

Getting decent in Europe now I see.

Yeah if we get a favourable run we can go far. If we can miss the real BIG clubs, I recon we could snatch the Europa League, I just have to learn to avoid Man City now. After beating them in the Europa League QF a few seasons ago, they've blocked my progress in the next two seasons. Paulo Bento really doesn't like me for some reason. French team Managers also hate me\my style of football. :\

Next season in europe, Iceland have an automatic Group stage spot.

[Jolanthustrel]

Season 2022 Review

Europa League Knockout Rounds (2021/2022): Galatasaray gave us a scare in Turkey, Going a goal up early before we were able to pull one back just before half time. They scored again to make it 2-1 with fifteen minutes left to play but some heroics from Brown and Zivkovic in the final ten minutes snatched a 2-3 victory. The return leg was a 3-0 win to us with Zivkovic grabbing a brace and Simondi grabbing one to take the tie 6-2.

Next up Monaco, WE drew 1-1 with the Monegasque team scoring shortly after the halftime break through Argentine Striker. Arevalo. Monaco hit straight back after the restart and that’s the way the game finished and thankfully for us, with a vital away goal. The return leg saw another tight affair, up 1-0 at the half thanks to Zivkovic Monaco then levelled things up with a goal just after the hour mark. With extra time looming French winger Jacquot popped up to slot home the winner with 7 minutes left on the clock.

A scrappy affair in the Quarter final vs Man City knocked us out of the competition. A 1-0 loss it in Manchester followed by a 0-0 draw at home was the best we could muster and we were knocked out of Europe once again to Man City.

Icelandic Upper League Cup: We again scored goals for fun. 45 goals scored, 3 conceded in nine games. Our ‘worst’ result was 3-1. A semi-final 12-1 thumping over cross town rivals Brei∂ablik was the highlight of the cup that culminated in a 4-0 win over Leiknir Raykjavik.

Icelandic Champions Cup: A repeat of the ULC final almost even down to the goal scorers as Simondi scored his second hat-trick in 2 games.

Icelandic Cup: Won again, beating Keflavik 3-0 in the final. Only goal we conceded was against lower division side Neisti Hofsos.

Icelandic Premier Division: Won 20 Drew 2, 87 for 6 against. Internationals took a whole host of players for one of the draws while the other draw I put out a severely weakened side to rest my stars for the Champions league group stage. Still disappointing to draw, I thought they should have been up to it.

Simondi scored 30 goals in the league, and missed two games through international duty and a rest. I’m really going to miss him when a big team puts in a bid too good for my chairman to refuse. He currently had 110 league goals from 89 games.

Champions League Qualifying Rounds: Bohemians (Ire) were dispatched with ease, 5-2 in Irelamd then 6-0 at home for 11-2 aggregate win. BATE Borisov stood between us and the Champions League group stage. In a tie that was tougher than it should have been we drew 1-1 on Belarus before a 1-0 win at home put us through. (I did win that home tie 6-2 but the game crashed making me replay it.)

Champions League Group Stage:

Barcelona 2-0 HK: Barcelona cruise past HK at Camp Nou

HK 3-2 Fiorentina: Simondi’s 50th goal of the season sees HK past La Viola

HK 11-0 Young Boys: Young Boys Spanked in Iceland

Young Boys 1-3 HK: Simondi brace helps HK see off Young Boys at Wankdorf

HK 3-3 Barcelona:HK & Barca warm up cold Icelandic night with high scoring draw.

Fiorentina 1-2 HK: O.G. brace sees HK out of the Group Stage

Awards:

Footballer of the year: 1st Iain Ryan 2nd Ronaldão

Goal of the Year: 2nd Abduraghmaan Brown (Curled past the keeper from the edge of the area) 3rd Didier Simondi (Takes on two players before scoring with a powerful effort)

Golden Boot: Didier Simondi (30), Dario Zivkovic (14)

Young Player of the Year: 1st Martin Krsko, 3rd Nicolae Constantin

Manager of the Year: 2nd Me

Team of the Year: Martin Krsko, Iain Ryan, Ronaldão, Didier Simondi

[deltablue]

Seemed like Man City was close.

[Jolanthustrel]

Thanks Delta,

Yeah, I was disappointed not to at least score at home. While against the smaller sides we can be devestatingly leathal we're still lacking the cutting edge against the bigger sides. Yery wasteful in front of goal. Man City are starting to become a bit of a bogey side at the moment. I'm hoping to avoid them in the knock out stages of the Champions league.

[Jolanthustrel]

10 Years On

HK's best overall 11

Name              Pos  Apps   Gls   Rat

Fritz Markle      GK   204     0   7.05
Mateusz Duda      DR   152     0   7.20
Iain Ryan         DC   296    48   7.41
Andrey Semenov    DC    92    12   7.57
Ronaldao          DL   169     1   7.49
Carlos Cunha      MC   172    26   7.49
Guido Vanhamel    MC    99     9   7.33
Didier Simondi    AMR  181   215   8.19
Sebastien Jacquot AML   97    39   8.06
John Aleksic      SC   156    79   7.56
Gu∂ni Olafsson    SC   123    61   7.38

Reserves

Jesse Joronen     GK   156     0   6.83
H. K. Halldorsson DC    89     4   7.06
Ivo Magalhaes     MC   101    11   7.18
Hafsteinn Briem   MC    97    25   6.99
Joachim Oswald    SC   101    54   7.43
Gauti Borgþórsson DR   141     2   7.34
Dario Zivkovic    SC    86   100   8.13

Iain Ryan is club captain and since taking up Icelandic citizenship also national captain.

Mateusz Duda and Ivo Magalhaes have also taken up Icelandic citizenship and played for Iceland.

Gauti Borgþórsson & Gu∂ni Olafsson are both Youth Products and also play in the national team.

Didier Simondi has been named in the World Team of the Year starting XI in 2021 and 2022