[FM13] Please bring me my coat - it's Chile in here

[noikeee]

'sup everyone? ¿Qué pasa, hombre?

If you are a regular reader of FMCU forums you may have bumped into one of my previous careers, which were the following, listed in chronological order:

1. [FM11] Barcelona’ing the way through the lower leagues – is it even possible?

2. [FM12] The complete world encyclopedia of insults shouted at virtual football players

3. [FM13] The Third Journey, by noikeee

4. [FM12] One more time - moonwalking my way through 'mo clubs

You may notice something's wrong there - FM13 to FM12? Yes I went back. Wasn't really feeling FM13 in its early days. Thing is, after a few seasons of success discovering a whole new continent of football (South America), my will to play FM12 diminished dramatically after going back to Europe, and I eventually got super bored of it. I need a new challenge again, and why not return to the fun of South America, with the daunting task of having to figure out FM13's weird tactics on top of it?

You may also notice the ugly mug of the manager there, with watermark stamp on his forehead and all. For the first time I will be playing under a completely randomly generated alter-ego. Little is known about Chile's Leonardo Bustamante, with a completely blank footballing past, other than he's just been granted the managerial job of Chile's 2nd tier side CD Provincial Curicó Unido. He likes nachos, wrestling by fat dudes in funny spiderman masks, and fútbol.

I will be playing under the asking price rule as usual - any offer beyond X and I'm forced to sell a player:

1. A player’s maximum asking price is deemed to be the highest of the following 3 values:

1.a) The double of his player value

1.b) The value of the highest valued player in the whole squad

1.c) The value the club paid previously for him

2. I cannot set an asking price higher than the value given by rule #1.

3. I cannot reject a bid higher or equal to the value given by rule #1.

Shall we get on with it then?

[noikeee]

Technological speak and all that shizzle

Database: small + all international players from all continents + all continental rep players. Around 100,000 players total.

Leagues:

* Argentina (2)

* Australia (1)

* Brazil (3)

* Chile (2)

* England (6)

* France (2)

* Germany (2)

* Greece (1)

* Hungary (1)

* Ireland (2)

* Italy (4)

* Mexico (1)

* Netherlands (1)

* Portugal (3)

* Russia (1)

* Spain (3)

* Turkey (1)

* Ukraine (1)

* Uruguay (2)

This is a much lighter setup than what I'm used to, with usually twice the leagues. No add-on edited leagues neither. This is because from experience I know FM13 can be very slow when pushed. I expect to use the add/remove leagues feature in the distant future if I wish to move somewhere else.

Start date: January 2013.

[noikeee]

Curicó, 2nd of January of 2013

Hey look, here's a random provincial South American town! How exciting!

Our dear Leonardo's employers are CD Provincial Curicó Unido, which sorta translates as Provincial Sport Club Curicó United. Does not sound particularly glamorous, indeed nor is their history as they've only once have been up in the top tier, albeit as recently as 2009... got relegated straight back though.

No, they are part of the absolutely insanely structured Campeonato Nacional de Primera B, Chile's second tier, subdivided into two sets of 7 teams:

Wtf? I'm slightly apprehensive this might turn out to be a boring division, last time I had a very limited scope of opponents and a similar each-team-plays-eachother-4-times scenario, I got annoyed very quickly - that was a 10-team Swiss league back in my first FM12 career.

As for the lads I'll be managing, I decided to incorporate the reserves to make an almighty uninformative giant screenie:

From this massive list of average footballers, the most distinguished 3 are the following:

Pablo Otárola (SW, DC) - By some distance our better under-30 player. Is very quick.

Juan José Albornoz (AMC / MRLC, AMRL) - Our midfield playmaking wizard.

Ariel Pereyra (ST) - And this is where things take a wrong turn. Our best forward is THIRTY NINE years old. Uh-oh.

Goals for this season

My board just wants me to stay clear of relegation. I'll say that's fair, my team's fairly sh*t compared to the others in the league, we have a decent defence but that's about it, with a worrying poor attack.

The main worry is just get tactics right, really, as my previous go at FM13 was a total failure in that area. Some sort of 3-5-2 variant seems fitting to this squad as is usual in South America, and that will be my starting point.

[Deisler26]

Good luck in Chile!

[Dexter_Morgan]

Good luck mate

[noikeee]

Good luck in Chile!

Good luck mate

Gonna need all the luck I can get! Friendlies have been going strangely well so far, to the point I want to shut off FM and cannot this afternoon. I see the transfer window shutting day (31 January) is still insanely slow in FM13 with a large amount of players, though. Been processing for some 5 minutes.

[Champfan10]

Love the thread name

[Animosama]

good luck

[deltablue]

Interesing, I actually lived in Chile for a bit when I was really little, and both my sisters were born there.

[noikeee]

Love the thread name

good luck

Thanks!

Interesing, I actually lived in Chile for a bit when I was really little, and both my sisters were born there.

Random! Ever been in Curicó?

[noikeee]

Pre-season 2013

Transfers

Didn't make a huge amount of moves in the transfer market but still picked up 5 freebies, got rid of 5 players and sold another 1 for a profit. The new guys:

Luis Eduardo Reinoso (ST / AMC) - teenage deep-lying forward who is already a regular for the Chile U20s at the age of 17. Promising.

Mauricio Tampe (DL / WBL/ML) - veteran backup left wing-back. Bit of a short-term option being aged 36, but is a pretty good player.

Claudio Valdivia (DM / MC) - possibly my best signing despite my scouts not really rating him. Very well rounded destructive DM. Did get a red card already though.

Miguel Chamorro (GK) - 17yo keeper, not within my regular options yet, one for the future.

José Herrera (DR / DL, DM) - A fullback which is a position I don't use at the moment, but can do DM and either WB position so it's nice to have a versatile solid backup like this.

The players that went off were nothing special, bar the keeper Luis Santelices who at 75K€ was quite a good sale, even if most of that will be paid in lengthy monthly instalments. He was at best the equal of our now undisputed #1 goalie Juan Martínez, so I could live without him.

Finances

The big sale of Santelices did not mean a large bank transfer immediately, but we will get small payments over the next 18 months which will help greatly with wages. Currently we're spending 10.5K€/month of our 11.2K€ wage budget; and at the bank we have a safeguard buffer of 63.5K€ accumulated. We don't seem to be leaking money neither with the projected balance for the end of the season being 85.1K€. It's all strangely stable and sensible.

The full squad for the 2013 season

(reserve players trimmed out now)

This is a considerably stronger side than what I would've expected in the Chilean second tier... but not really any better than our opposition, so that's no good. My main issue is age, we've got quite a few granddads here and will need to address that in the coming transfer windows.

Fixtures

Pre-season was hugely encouraging. We started off with 3 home matches vs teams of the top tier, and managed to only concede once with 1 win, 1 draw, and 1 unlucky loss. Having proved our worth vs bigger sides, we proceeded to prove ourselves vs minnows by beating lower league Colchagua and General Velásquez 4-0 3-0. Just positive vibes all around.

Come the league we got a bit of a rude shock though, defeat at home in the opening match. It was a bit of a freak match however, as we had dominated, even after going down to 10 men due to Valdivia's red card, and conceded an odd goal directly in from a cross from deep. My faith in the side was vindicated as we went to Ñublense to win by an accomplished 3-1 even if luck this time was a bit in our side, then we put our better showing yet to beat Puerto Montt by 3-1 again, this time outplaying the opposition and combining that with good finishing.

Competitions

Primera B 1st Phase South:

Player on focus

Juan José Albornoz (AMC) - Having already been the star of pre-season, Juan José continued his good form into the first few competitive fixtures of the year, with a goal vs Ñublense and a cracking performance vs Puerto Montt with 2 assists.

Also on a high is Paraguayan forward Bibencio Servín, who is our top forward so far with 3 successful strikes.

Summary

Encouraging pre-season, good start to the league including being top if thanks to games in hand, all several variants of the 3-at-the-back tactics seem to be working, finances are sorted with the sale of our 2nd keeper... it's really all looking good in all areas at the moment. Bit early to take any great conclusions but I am optimistic.

[deltablue]

Thanks!

Random! Ever been in Curicó?

Unlikely, I was 5 when we left and I think we were only in Santiago

[Nobby_McDonald]

Nice tattoo on your manager's face.

[noikeee]

Unlikely, I was 5 when we left and I think we were only in Santiago

You probably don't remember a lot then.

Nice tattoo on your manager's face.

It's the face-generating program watermark, but I'm going to pretend it's a gang tattoo.

[noikeee]

March-May 2013

Fixtures

On the back of the 2 wins in February, we went to Lota Schwager to get a valuable away point before we did just about enough to beat Naval at home, then Deportes Concepción away with an efficient performance and a Servín brace. Another away point at Unión Temuco came before 2 more stressing matches vs title challengers Ñublense and Puerto Montt. We turned the game around from 0-1 to 2-1 in style to beat Ñublense and consolidate our 1st place in the league, before nicking a dull 0-0 at Puerto Montt, the first match of the season we failed to score in, but still a great result.

We seemed unstoppable, positive result after positive result, but conceding a late equalizer (91st minute) to Lota Schwager at home brought us a bit back to earth, despite Servín's best efforts as he scored another brace. This spurred us on to good things though - an away win at Naval that was easier than the 3-2 scoreline says, an absolutely fantastic 4-0 over Deportes Concepcíon that was the best performance of the season so far, and a somewhat lucky 1-0 over Temuco. That was 3 straight wins, and we backed it up with one of those dirty defensive performances to nick a very valuable 0-0 at Ñublense, preventing our opponents from closing in on us, and making it also a fantastic 13 consecutive undefeated matches!!

Competitions

Primera B 1st Phase South:

Player on focus

Juan José Albornoz (AMC) - His consistency is fantastic as he continues to show off his class throughout the league fixtures, is on totals of 7 assists, 2 goals, 4 player of the match awards, and a 7.56 average rating. Does not know how to play badly, and when he steps up a gear he can be devastating as Deportes Concepcíon fond out in that 4-0 drubbing with 2 assists and 1 goal.

Striker Bibencio Servín also remains on impressive form, as his goals total is now up to 10 as he leads the scoring charts of the division (which includes the 7 teams of the other group).

Summary

Umm, wow. I didn't foresee this at all after my previous struggles in FM13, as we're vastly overachieving and look like potential regular phase champions at this midway point. Unfortunately from what I understood of the rules, this stage is potentially totally meaningless as all it decides is the top 4 teams go through to promotion playoffs. So what it really matters is to play well when it counts later in the season. I may have named survival as the early season goal, but after what's been happening I certainly don't want to miss out on promotion now!

[Dexter_Morgan]

Brilliant going so far, keep it up

[B.W.G]

Very good start so far,best of luck in Chile

[Animosama]

looking good

[deltablue]

Excellent undefeated run.

[Nobby_McDonald]

It's the face-generating program watermark, but I'm going to pretend it's a gang tattoo.

Westside. Aiiii.

[noikeee]

Brilliant going so far, keep it up

Very good start so far,best of luck in Chile

looking good

Excellent undefeated run.

Cheers all.

Westside. Aiiii.

I'm not sure there's that whole westside and eastside stuff in Chile, but one thing I can tell is that our chap looks dangerous.

[noikeee]

June-August 2013

Transfers

I picked up 3 new players:

Nicolás Leiva (DM) (free) - We have a handful of players for this position already but with the likes of Pinto and Olivares on the wrong side of 30, we needed new legs. Nicolás is 22 and fairly decent.

Luciano Goux (DC) (loan) - A few injuries opened my eyes to the need of an extra backup centre-back and we picked up this lad on loan from Everton, despite the fact he's a bit old.

Nicolás Medina (ST) (free) - Fantastic striker who ended contract with his previous side Naval so I picked him up on a Bosman, unfortunately there's a nonsense rule that forbids us from fielding any player that has already played in the Primera B this season, so I can only play him the cup! Particularly annoying when I had to give big wages to convince him to sign for us!

Meanwhile in terms of exits, youngsters Carlos Guajardo and Franco Bechtholdt were loaned out whereas winger Leonel López was deemed not good enough and released on a free.

Fixtures

We were well on course to become 1st Phase champions before this, and more so after wins over Puerto Montt and Lota Schwager even if it took a late winner from Servín to beat the latter. We stumbled at home to Naval next, before momentarily picking up a great result winning 3-1 at Deportes Concepcíon, before a bit of a wobble in form: we drew at Temuco, lost at home to Ñublense to end a very long undefeated run (last defeat had been in the very 1st round!), then drew again at Puerto Montt. We were however well clear of the pack in 1st and already qualified for the next round, and finished the 1st Phase with 3 wins over Lota Schwager (2 goals in the final minutes for a crazy turnaround!), Naval (big 4-1 away) and Deportes Concepcíon (crazy goal-happy match that ended 4-3).

I thought at this stage we were through to some sort of promotion playoff, to my shock the rules are actually completely different, the top 4 of each zone go into a mini-league of 8 teams to decide who goes up, this is called the 2nd Phase. Our lead was wiped out but we got a bonus 3 points at the start for having finished 1st Phase in 1st. We started well with a 1-0 win over Puerto Montt but lost by the same result the next match at Coquimbo Unido, our only 3rd defeat of the season.

Meanwhile another competition started, the domestic cup aka Copa Chile. We were paired with lower league Melipilla for the 1st round, and whilst in the 1st leg we were barely spared embarassment by just tying the match in the 87th minute, we annihilated them 6-0 in the return leg. This sealed our qualification for a group stage, and in there we have started well by beating Ñublense away with a rare brace by midfielder Miguel Coronado, then getting a 3-2 over Lota Schwager at home.

Competitions

Primera B 1st Phase South:

Primera B 2nd Phase:

Copa Chile:

Player on focus

Juan José Albornoz (AMC) - Well, I'd love to focus on someone else for a change, but he is quite simply our best player. 4 goals, 15 assists, 8 player of the match awards.

35 year old centre-back Cristián Gómez is one of the many players my staff have warned me is now past his peak, but that's not what I'm seeing on the pitch as he's been on cracking form as well.

Summary

There really was no trouble cleaning out the 1st phase, the bar is raised a little higher now however as we get to face the tougher clubs from the North zone including the famous Everton of Chile (who is probably the bigger club in here and by a margin). I've noticed a minor drop in form which concerns me, we need to remain sharp to claim a place in the top tier next season - top 2 go up directly, 3rd and 4th go into a playoff.

[Animosama]

looking good

[AK22]

Going well. Long may it continue

[b101]

Good to see someone else start out with Cúrico! Loved Escalona and Albornoz when I was there, although the strikers were easily the weakest part of the side. Looking forward to following your progress after a very impressive start

[Nobby_McDonald]

I'm not sure there's that whole westside and eastside stuff in Chile, but one thing I can tell is that our chap looks dangerous.

Maybe he's a drug baron from Colombia then.

[noikeee]

looking good

Going well. Long may it continue

Cheers.

Good to see someone else start out with Cúrico! Loved Escalona and Albornoz when I was there, although the strikers were easily the weakest part of the side. Looking forward to following your progress after a very impressive start

I'm staggered anyone else started with Cúrico too around here! How random. Escalona has been great down my left wing but unfortunately I couldn't renew contract with him and he's off to Italy as the season ends. As for Albornoz, as I've continuously posted he's just been my star, spectacular performance. But to my shock and horror this is what happened in the last match I just played:

Maybe he's a drug baron from Colombia then.

How do you think he got to manage a professional team from nowhere without having known history? Connections man, connections.

[noikeee]

Curicó Unido - Youth intake 2013

Best player

Nicolás González (ST / AMRL)

Totally awful intake. Our youth facilities and recruitment is pretty poor but even then I was expecting slightly better.

[B.W.G]

Very good performances so far,shame your youth intake let you down as I thought it would be slightly better than that!

[b101]

As for Albornoz, as I've continuously posted he's just been my star, spectacular performance. But to my shock and horror this is what happened in the last match I just played:

Ugh, gutting about Albornoz. Do you plan on staying with Cúrico for long? I actually really liked the Chilean league once I got used to it, but they don't exactly have the biggest potential of the South American clubs.

[Nobby_McDonald]

Totally awful intake. Our youth facilities and recruitment is pretty poor but even then I was expecting slightly better.

They're all high on the baron's supply.

[noikeee]

Ugh, gutting about Albornoz. Do you plan on staying with Cúrico for long? I actually really liked the Chilean league once I got used to it, but they don't exactly have the biggest potential of the South American clubs.

Likely not. My laptop is overheating in FM and I can barely play.

[noikeee]

I've been scraping a match a day or something like that for the past few weeks as the laptop behaves funny. I seem to have fixed it though - touch wood - and finally grabbed promotion!

It was a bit of a crappy way to clinch it as we lost the penultimate match at Barnechea but other results went our way the same day. Full reportz laterz, fo shizzle.

[noikeee]

September-November 2013

Fixtures

I'm not gonna expand greatly because frankly I remember little from half the matches. We basically tried to hang on in the league for as long as we could, and despite not winning that often - a sequence of 5 matches without a win in September including a 3-0 home defeat to Ñublense was very worrying - we kept within promotion contention. A duo of back-to-back wins, first over Santiago Morning and Coquimbo Unido, then over Ñublense and Deportes Concepción was what eventually clinched it. We arrived at the final 2 matches needing 2 points and despite losing at Barnechea sealed promotion that day as other results went our way. CURICÓ UNIDO WINS PROMOTION TO THE PRIMERA DIVISIÓN!!

The cup was a bit of an annoying distraction, I basically paid little attention to it and fielded the reserves for most of the matches. It was enough to scrap out of the group but then we met a top tier team in the shape of O'Higgins and duly lost both legs.

Competitions

Primera B 2nd Phase:

Copa Chile:

Then defeated by O'Higgins in the 3rd round, 1-4 on aggregate.

Player on focus

Miguel Coronado (AMC, MR) - More often utilized on the right, the injury to star man Albornoz opened up a place for him in the middle, and he did pretty well in it.

Summary

Well that was a good season. I thought we had binned it at a point in this 2nd stage, which would've been annoying after dominating 1st stage that easily, but we still made it, beating pre-season expectations by a long way. Surviving in the top tier shall now be far tougher, specially given we have a squad packed with veterans whose skills are deteriorating fast.

[noikeee]

Season review 2013

Tactics and usual starting eleven

I used a handful of different variants of 3 at the back and 2 upfront, but it never went wildly away from this basis shown in the screenshot, which was our most common configuration. Both strikers told to tight-mark the opposition's full-backs (or more often, wing-backs or wide midfielders as almost everyone in Chile uses 3-at-the-back formations), and "Push Higher Up" used as a shout by default.

Squad

Top 5 key players of the season

5. Pablo Otárola (DC) - The fact he's not a great jumper hinders his ratings a little bit but he's our better centre-back in theory, his pace can cover for his ancient mates at the back. Wanted by teams in Kuwait and Dubai.

4. Miguel Coronado (AMC, MR, ML) - Rotated with Matias Grandis for a place in the right, then Grandis got injured and the place was his, then Albornoz got injured and he moved to a central spot where he shone brightly at the end of the year. Well rounded versatile midfield/wing creator.

3. Cristián Gómez (DC) - He is 35, slower than death by natural causes, and my staff all agree he's way past it. Still featured in 41 matches and had cracking ratings - 7.32 average is great!

2. Bibencio Servín (ST) - The Paraguayan is the guy we went to for goals. 23 of them was a brilliant return, nobody came anywhere remotely close as he was the only to register double digits.

1. Juan José Albornoz (AMC) - Proved himself to be as much of a superstar as superstars come by in the Chilean second division. 16 assists, 8 player of the match awards, 4 goals, 7.54 ratings average. I thought we were stuffed when he got injured for the last couple of months, somehow we made it without him but he was still clearly player of the year.

Career overview

[b]Season   League                  Cups                     International               Notes[/b]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Curicó Unido (Chile)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2013     Primera B - 2nd         Copa Chile 3rd rnd       n/a                         Promoted

[noikeee]

Well this is interesting. I don't even get to negotiate the bid, what they offer upfront is already higher than the price I could ask for according to my rule. I suppose Pablo will be playing in Kuwait next year, and we get a very nice cash income to sort out the squad.

[b101]

Good work on getting Curicó promoted - enjoy the mental Apertura/Clausura

[noikeee]

Good work on getting Curicó promoted - enjoy the mental Apertura/Clausura

Thanks. Certainly will enjoy.

[noikeee]

Pre-season 2014

Transfers

We have 9 new players, from a few different nationalities. Only one was a paid fee, the other 8 were free transfers:

Cristian Lema (SW, DC) - We hired a few centre-backs and this young Argentinian seems the best of the lot, quite good in the air.

Marcos Acuña (ML / D/WB/AML) - The only guy we paid money for, a club record of 35K. Can do the whole left wing as a very versatile player in both a positional sense and his distribution of skills. Also young.

Juan Pablo Arenas (AMC / MRLC, AMRL) - Interesting alternative to Albornoz and Coronado as AMC, can do the wings as well but lacks pace.

Pedro Irala Vergara (DM / MC) - 34 years old so only a short term solution but this tough Paraguayan has a pretty impressive footballing brain.

Julio Pérez (DC) - I struggled with finding truly good centre-backs and have invested in a bit of potential, like this Bolivian 22year old which isn't great but has scope for development.

Fernando López (DL / WB/ML)

Fernando Burgos (GK)

Darío Vitelli (DC / DL)

Eduardo Brock (DC)

The transfers screenie misses the big sale of Pablo Otárola to Kuwaiti side Kazma for a massive 400K€, which should sort out our finances for long even if at the expense of one of our best players. A few other notable players went as I chose not to renew their contracts, such as 40 year old striker Ariel Pereyra who was a regular starter last year. We also got decent fees in for backup strikers David Pérez and Angelo Castro as that was a position we had too many players, many of them average at best.

Notice the absence of key man Alejandro Escalona in the outgoing transfers, that is because his Bosman move to Italian side Lecce collapsed, and I managed to retain him by renewing with him! That was a brilliant surprise come early January.

Finances

Looking very very good with 519K€ in the bank account, the 400K we received for Otárola obviously helped. End of the season projected balance is even better at 757K€.

Wage costs have risen substantially to 28K€/month and I still have to negotiate many contracts of key players which are running out at the end of this season, which is worrying.

The full squad for the 2014 season

To be honest I'm not sold on the new signings, they're hardly a great improvement but things seem to be going well as you'll see next.

Fixtures

The assman set the pre-season with just 2 friendlies which is dodgy but we won both and gained decent match fitness from them. Come the league I thought we'd struggle as a promoted side, instead won both our first matches as well by just the one goal - I won't be complaining about that.

Competitions

Primera División - Apertura:

Copa Chile: starts later in the season.

Player on focus

Juan José Albornoz (AMC) - Has started the season in even better form than last year, despite the higher level of competition and despite his recent bad injury. 2 goals in friendlies and a goal in each league match. Just brilliant!

Summary

Very early days yet but I am quietly confident about this start, we seem to have joined the upper level seamlessly. Questions remain about the quality of the squad of which I am not fully convinced, time will tell just how far can we go. The board wants me to stay clear of relegation. I think we can probably do that and am aiming more at midtable.

[noikeee]

OMGWTFBBQ

Now that's a match that surpassed my wildest expectations. Get in there!!

[noikeee]

February-April 2014

Transfers

The Chilean transfer window doesn't actually close until mid-February, and whilst I didn't sign anyone in the last few days I did allow a few minor players to leave: youngsters Carlos Díaz, Carlos Guajardo, Maximiliano González and Jaime Arriagada went all out on loan, striker Matías Arrúa left on a free and 4th choice goalie Claudio González was sold by 4.5K€.

Fixtures

We keep on having fun in a way that we're not supposed to as a recently promoted side. Disregarding two well-fought 3-2 away defeats to Univ. Católica and O'Higgins, we had a couple of brilliant months with several comfortable wins and generally positive results, we even were 2nd in the table for a while. Then April came and we wobbled a bit losing matches we shouldn't vs Barnechea and La Serena. Hosting reigning champions and clear table leaders Colo Colo next was meant to be a very tough test, but no, monster 6-1 win, what the hell??!!

Competitions

Primera División - Apertura:

Copa Chile: starts later in the season.

Player on focus

Cristian Lema (DC) - We've not made a lot of great signings this season, but unlike the others Cristian has been great value as his performances match his perceived ability by leading our defence trio. Also scored a couple from the penalty spot.

Another player I'd like to highlight is striker Nicolás Medina, this incredibly talented lad was unable to play in the league last year due to silly rules, and didn't impress in his few cup appearances. Well this season he's done more justice to his abilities and has scored 5 with a few great showings as a deep-lying forward.

Summary

I didn't see this coming? Instead of scrapping by on the bottom end, we seem to be comfortably mixing it up at the top. Chile's got this weird rule where the league table is utterly meaningless as long as you finish in the top 8, because it then goes into quarter-finals semi-finals and final. We're as good as qualified for that, but I'll take any guess as to how far we'll go in the mini-tournament deciding the opening stage.

[noikeee]

This just randomly happened in my division between 2 AI clubs:

I suppose Nicolás more than made up for that early own-goal, huh?

[elbilly]

Going very well in Chile so far, and what a result against Colo Colo, guess they took you too lightly! Doing yourselves very proud in the top flight

[noikeee]

Going very well in Chile so far, and what a result against Colo Colo, guess they took you too lightly! Doing yourselves very proud in the top flight

Thanks, I do think the Colo Colo result had a lot to do with overconfidence on our opponents, and a bit of motivation gone just right for us, it was a flat out weird match.

[noikeee]

Primera División Apertura Quarter Final 1st Leg

This was a cracking match to start the day with in the morning before going to work (addicted to FM much ). We just kept things tight at the back and restricted them to very few shots despite gifting them loads of possession - then on the final minutes Servín did the business. Servín is on extraordinary form at the moment, scored in every match since the demolition of Colo Colo in which he scored 4 himself, is happy now that he renewed contract with us (after moaning for a bit he wanted to move to a bigger club), and is now the top scorer in the league.

Cristian Lema put in an extraordinary 9.0 performance at centre-back in this match as well.

[B.W.G]

Excellent first season in top flight so far,that win over Colo Colo was quite astonishing!

[AK22]

What a brilliant start to life in Chile! Very respectable in the Opening Stage too - well done!

[deltablue]

Good luck in the rest of the playoffs.

[ashton321]

Brilliant so far mate. Great result against Colo-Colo. Even more impressive as they are top.

[noikeee]

Tks all, I am very pleased with how things are going, yeah. We did drop from 3rd to 5th at the end of the opening stage but it means little as we qualified for the quarter-finals anyway.