deltablue Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 Good showing Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted December 24, 2015 Author Share Posted December 24, 2015 Good showing Thank you DB. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobby_McDonald Posted December 25, 2015 Share Posted December 25, 2015 How does the apertura/clausura work? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted December 26, 2015 Author Share Posted December 26, 2015 How does the apertura/clausura work? That's the simple part of this league actually. Apertura/Clausura just means that the season goes on for 6 months instead of 1 year. You get a champion at the end of every 6 months and the league starts over again. First 6 months are called Apertura, the other 6 months are called Clausura. The rest I don't know how to explain without giving people an headache. First, the teams are split in two groups. We play in Group B, whilst another 9 teams play in Group A. When the league ends, the top 4 from each group meet each other in a little knockout tournament. That decides the overall Apertura, or Clausura champion. But there's still the matter of promotion/relegation. Only 1 team goes up, so what happens when different teams win Apertura and Clausura? They need to meet in another playoff, which they call the Grand Final. Then the winner of that goes up. Silly league being silly, they use yet another method to decide the relegated (only 1 team goes down). They just add all the points all year, Apertura or Clausura, Group A or B, and the team with less points goes down. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DodgeeD Posted December 26, 2015 Share Posted December 26, 2015 But then, just as you get your head around the rules, you switch to another Latin American nation, where the rules are completely different. Good progress in Costa Rica so far - how long do you think you'll stick around? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted December 26, 2015 Author Share Posted December 26, 2015 But then, just as you get your head around the rules, you switch to another Latin American nation, where the rules are completely different. Good progress in Costa Rica so far - how long do you think you'll stick around? Not that long, it's looking increasingly likely I'll give it a go for a 3rd season then leave. I like it here and am not in a hurry to try to reach the top of the footballing ladder, but I neither want to be stuck for long in a league that's difficult to get out of. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted December 26, 2015 Author Share Posted December 26, 2015 2018/2019 - End of season update - Municipal Turrialba Transfers No transfers again. Liga de Ascenso - Clausura - Group B With the fixture list being the exact same as Apertura, it all played out identical as well. We started on fantastic form with Eduardo Jiménez and Andrey Peña just absolutely tearing it up, and even José Antonio Pérez seemingly back to form, and won 4 of the first 5 matches to claim an unlikely early lead of the table. The fixture vs Universidad de Costa Rica gave us our 5th defeat in 5 matches against them; but that was a temporary (and expected) minor setback as we won the following 2 matches again, putting us in a very comfortable position at the halfway point. We needed to mess up pretty badly if we were to fail to reach the playoffs from here, but we had a slump in form exactly like we had in Apertura earlier in the season - 2 defeats and 2 home draws gave the chance for other teams to approach us. We were still in control however, and the win over Brujas marked our comeback. It didn't matter that we lost to Universidad again (making it 6 defeats in 6), as other results went our way and we were qualified at that point. The last 2 matches were rather meaningless but winning both gave us our highest points total yet - 30 points. In the joint league table, we came 6th with 55 points, which is almost identical to last year. This is slightly puzzling as I felt we had a much better season in both Apertura and Clausura, but probably explained by the fact we had a much tougher group, and as things were so tight, everyone took points from each other in Group B. Liga de Ascenso - Clausura - Playoffs There are no easy playoff opponents and in the quarter-finals we were to meet Puntarenas, who we hadn't come across yet but are one of the strongest sides in Group A. The first leg was really very dull. We scored early in a corner and tried to hold on to that; they equalized quite deservedly in the 80th minute and the final score was 1-1. The second leg wasn't much more open, but we naively gave Puntarenas too much space in the counter and after a few chances they finally scored. Fabricio Hidalgo would miss a sitter for us later, but we were unable to score and quite frankly the better team was through. Puntarenas would eventually win Clausura after beating Universidad de Costa Rica in the final... setting up the Grand Final again against Universidad for promotion, which they won again. Summary I obviously would've liked to have gone further in the playoffs again, but I am still happy with my side's performances, as this season feels like it's been a clear step forward. Thing is, I still don't feel like I'm going on the verge of promotion, we're getting better but some teams are still a level above. We're gonna need a serious lucky break if we're to go up, and I'm starting to wonder whether I'm wasting my time trying to make it happen. I've given myself a set minimum of 3 years in here, so I can settle for a while after so many different jobs, and I've recently signed a new contract for that 3rd season, but I don't think I'll stay beyond that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted December 26, 2015 Author Share Posted December 26, 2015 2018/2019 - Season review - Municipal Turrialba Squad and tactics Same tactics but I've been increasingly using two slightly tweaked alternatives - one for facing bigger, dangerous teams; and another for picking apart parked buses. The differences are small to the main plan. Finances Not great, we've been leaking money. Which is slightly inconsistent with my board, who had given me a much bigger wage budget for the season (which they've now unsurprisingly trimmed for next year). I still tried to stay far away from spending that whole wild budget, but apparently it wasn't enough to stop the leaking trend. Youth watch Another quality intake that spawned the following players. Ramírez in particular looks great and it's entirely possible we'll soon have a midfield duo made entirely of youth intake players, with him being paired with last year's intake star Alejandro Navarro: Adrian Ramírez (MC / DM) Randall Zuñiga (AMC) Rolando Azofeifa (M/AML) Victor Perez (DR) Steven Jara (DRL) Erick Mora (DC) Top 5 players of the season 5. José Antonio Pérez (ST) - Awful the first half of the season, I could hardly recognise him after having been one of our star players last year. Finally started scoring some goals when Clausura started, and ended the season on a decent haul of 12, despite some pretty average ratings. 4. Henry Espinoza (DL) - Another good season from our attacking left-back, but youngster Try Scott is starting to put in some quality performances in that position as well, and he might have a fight for the place next year. 3. Alejandro Navarro (MC) - Having been promoted from our youth ranks last season, I finally tried him in a league match vs Escazu in Apertura, and he had a dream debut scoring the winner from the penalty spot in the 89th minute. He immediately claimed the position with some great ratings and scored a few more goals. However, a serious injury (damaged achilles tendon) ruined what had been a superb first season for the club. 2. Andrey Peña (MR) - This lad looked good in theory when I signed him at the start of the season, but I never expected him to take Roy Sanchez's place, after all Roy had been our best player last year. However as Roy picked up an injury early in the season, I gave him a go and never looked back. Made the exact same number of assists as Roy last year - 16 of them; plus 5 goals. PLAYER OF THE SEASON - Eduardo Jiménez (AML) A spot-on signing that was a very serious upgrade from our previously underwhelming inside forward Bernal Drummond. I suspected I had found a good player when he scored a brace on his debut back in August vs Cariari Pocosi, and my suspicions were very correct. As our strikers disappeared during Apertura his goals were our lifeline, and at the times his ruthlessness in banging in Andrey Peña's crosses from the right was frightening. Unfortunately Eduardo disappeared a little in Clausura, only scoring once since February, but he still clearly did enough to be named player of the season by myself. [b]Season League Cups International Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Berwick Rangers (Scotland) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b] 15/16 League 2 - 5th Cup 2nd Rd, LgCup 1st Rd, TrCup 1st Rd --- Resigned at end of the season [b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Loughgall FC (Northern Ireland) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b] 16/17 Championship 1 - 10th IRC 6thR, LC 3rdR, ITC 2ndR, MUC winners --- Sacked; won Mid-Ulster Cup [b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Municipal Turrialba (Costa Rica) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b] 17/18 Ascenso - 4th (1/4f) / 5th --- --- 18/19 Ascenso - 3rd (fin.) / 3rd (1/4f) --- --- Apertura finalists Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason the Yank Posted December 27, 2015 Share Posted December 27, 2015 How does the apertura/clausura work? Pretty much as noikeee described it. In its most basic format, instead of a league campaign that consists of a double round-robin, you have two single round-robins played back-to-back. So essentially you play 2 half-seasons (each of which declares a champion) instead of 1 full season. So, for example, if you grafted it onto the current Premier League season, Leicester would be 2 points clear with 1 match left to play. Once everybody had played their 19th game, everything would be reset to 0 and Jan. 2 would be the start of the clausura; whoever finished top of the clausura would be the clausura champion. So you theoretically could have a situation where Leicester would be the English apertura champion and Chelsea would be the English clausura champion. There will be some variations on that. Some leagues (like Uruguay) have a playoff final between the apertura and clausura champions. Mexico uses an American-style playoff to determine the apertura and clausura champions. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
abulezz Posted December 27, 2015 Share Posted December 27, 2015 One of the most interesting FM16 reads yet! Fantastic stuff. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted December 27, 2015 Author Share Posted December 27, 2015 One of the most interesting FM16 reads yet! Fantastic stuff. I'm flattered, thanks! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted December 27, 2015 Author Share Posted December 27, 2015 2019/2020 - Pre-season update - Municipal Turrialba Transfers This time I decided to go for quality over quantity, with just 4 signings. However I'm struggling a little so far to get the best out of my 2 new attackers, having tried Mexican youngster Miguel Ángel Turrubiates at both AMC and ST; and experienced attacking midfielder Leonardo Viquez at AML and AMC; all with unconvincing results. Meanwhile El Salvadorian U20 international José Carlos reinforces the centre of defence; and Juan Manuel Cienfuegos looks like a perfect fit for our deep-lying playmaker position. I did a conscious effort trying to trim down the squad and got rid of a considerable amount of players. With the 2 new foreign signings, I would've had all 3 foreign spots filled up if I didn't decide to let go of midfielder Bruno Taborda, who curiously preferred to stay in Costa Rica instead of taking the move back home to Portugal. I also ran out of patience with young striker Fabricio Hidalgo who always looked great in theory but not on the pitch, a loan move might help him develop and will shut him up about the lack of first team football. Squad A slightly less bloated squad after my transfer dealings. Notice the amount of players that have graduated from the youth intakes the last 2 years - there's 5 of them, namely goalkeeper Anthony Mora, defender Roberto Arias and midfielders Adrian Ramírez, Alejandro Navarro and Randall Zuñiga. Most of them should rotate in the reserves, and Navarro is the only I expect to be a starting 11 regular, but it's still a remarkable rate of success from our youth setup. Fixtures The big news this season was our participation in the Copa de Costa Rica. That didn't take long as we met our "favourite" opponents Universidad de Costa Rica, and that unsurprisingly resulted in our 7th defeat in 7 matches against them after being comprehensively outclassed. The friendlies were promising apart from a laughable defeat at the hands of San Carlos ZN. Unfortunately the league couldn't possibly have started worse with pretty much the 2 toughest matches of the season, against relegated Cartaginés and against Universidad de Costa Rica again. It went awfully, with 0-3 to Cartaginés being our heaviest defeat in ages; and then the 8th defeat in 8 vs the other lot. I feared we would take a morale hit, however we recovered as if nothing had happened with 2 pretty solid wins over Puma and Generacion Saprissa. Summary Not a great start but at least we've got the 2 toughest matches out of the way, and we're still well into contention for the playoffs. Somehow the group has managed to have got even harder as midtable Escazu were swapped for Cartaginés who just dropped from the top division (and relegated Aserri for promoted Orión), so we've got a lot of work to do, but I'm confident we can at least scrap into 4th place. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobby_McDonald Posted December 29, 2015 Share Posted December 29, 2015 I'll stick to the simple English league system. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted December 29, 2015 Author Share Posted December 29, 2015 I'll stick to the simple English league system. You're missing out, these leagues are tons of fun! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted December 29, 2015 Author Share Posted December 29, 2015 2019/2020 - Mid-season update - Municipal Turrialba Transfers (Transfers) In early September I was offered a young Kazakh winger by an agent, so I gave him a trial. He looked potentally great, so I signed him up at pretty high wages. Turns out most of his attributes were on the lower end of the range... Either way I'm pretty sure Nikolai Turashbaev is the first Kazakh player to ever play in the Liga de Ascenso, and score too, as he got 2 goals. Interestingly I got increasingly larger and larger offers for our youth setup graduate Adrian Ramírez, so I decided to negotiate a 60K€ fee + 50% profit of next sale. Puntarenas FC were fine with it, so the kid became by a large margin our biggest sale ever at the age of 16, after 3 matches for the club. Liga de Ascenso - Apertura - Group B Things looked pretty nice when we beat Cariari Pocosi back in September, making it 3 wins in a row. I thought we were on our customary recovery to a customary playoff place and all would fall back into place. No way did I imagine we would embark on a sequence of 6 matches without a win! We just completely fell apart defensively for seemingly no reason (I hadn't touched anything tactically, and had pretty much the same players at the back as last season), and things upfront weren't ticking neither, with Eduardo Jiménez 2 months out with injury and nobody really taking his place, despite some nice occasional flashes from new signing Leonardo Viquez. I tried pulling our defensive line and pressing game a couple notches down to avoid pacey strikers surging past us; and also switched our attacking midfielder to a support role as he really wasn't contributing with goals. This seemed to make us marginally better, and we took a win over Generacion Saprissa although that was the easiest match in ages. There was still time to recover, but disappointingly we couldn't beat Orión or Brujas, both winnable ties. This put us in an impossible position for the final match if we wanted to still make the playoffs - we could overtake our opponents on the pitch Barrio México, but had to overturn a large goal difference and had to win by 4 goals basically, whilst still waiting for Puma not to beat Universidad de Costa Rica. To my surprise this actually looked possible when we scored 2 early goals, and Puma never had a chance in their match. So we "just" had to score 2 more, but Kenneth Gamboa picked up our team's first red card of the season still in the first half making things extremely difficult. In the second half we conceded one, then scored another, but couldn't find the 2 missing goals and finished just outside the playoffs. Summary I'm very disappointed with our Apertura campaign, I knew this wasn't going to be easy given our even harder group for the season, but I was already playing under the assumption we were good enough to consistently, regularly qualify for the playoffs. This feels like a step back and I don't know what caused it. Even then, we still only missed out on goal difference so I can't start from scratch and throw the whole plan away... The plan is still to leave Costa Rica at the end of the season, but I grew too much of a liking for the club and the league to want to leave on a bad note. So my decision will depend a lot on how Clausura goes next, I might still decide to stay at the last minute. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobby_McDonald Posted December 29, 2015 Share Posted December 29, 2015 You're missing out, these leagues are tons of fun! Not if you like things simple and understandable! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 1, 2016 Author Share Posted January 1, 2016 2019/2020 - End of season update - Municipal Turrialba Transfers (Transfers) Unhappy with our performance in Apertura, I set out to find new players to reinforce the squad for Clausura. Midfielder Orlando Madriz, Panamian striker Miguel Moreno and defender Anthony Pèrez all looked quality in theory and all performed well. I've gone a bit wild with wages this season though and the club is in an increasingly tougher financial situation. So when Puntarenas came sniffing for another of your young players, left-back Try Scott, I negotiated another 60K€ sale plus a 25% share of his next transfer fee. I also sold centreback Juan Santamaria; and decided to release our former player of the year Roy Sanchez on a free, sadly he's just not of the same standard as my other right-wingers at the moment. He had the captaincy armband, which was passed over to Leonardo Viquez. Liga de Ascenso - Clausura - Group B We started well with an unexpected win over Cartaginés, and another over Puma although a 5-2 defeat to Universidad was harsh. I became focused on trying to fix our defensive problems and messed up with tactics a bit, but it ended up making us weaker in attack, and the following results were unconvincing. Still, we just about held a playoff position midseason. But things were about to get worse. Losing to Cartaginés and Universidad was normal (I believe this was my 11th defeat in 11 matches vs Universidad), but Barrio México and Puma are well within our reach so I really wasn't happy to pick up 4 consecutive defeats. I tweaked tactics again and dropped all hints of caution. Remarkably, it immediately worked extremely well. Our sequence of matches at the end of the season was theoretically easy, but I was still delighted to beat Generacion Saprissa, Orión and Brujas all by a 3 goal margin, whilst drawing away at Cariari Pocosi was a good result as well. We went into the final match vs Barrio México needing only to avoid a catastrophical combination of results to make the playoffs, and a 1-1 draw was more than good enough. In the joint league table we ended 10th with 43 points, our worst position and lowest points total yet, accounting for our poor Apertura campaign earlier in the season, and our extra difficult group - it's completely unfair to be lumped in with the Group A teams in here, really. Liga de Ascenso - Clausura - Playoffs For the first time ever I was happy with a playoff opponent as Guacanasteca were absolute shock winners of group A, and although I was wary they must've done something well to top their group, I knew they were beatable if we played well. And that was what happened in the first leg. In an open match we thumped them 4-1, thanks to some great finishing, and an amazing performance by Eduardo Jiménez with 3 assists and 1 goal. The second leg we were a little lucky to win - Mexican striker Turrubiates scoring his first goal for the club after a disappointing debut season - but qualification for the semi-final was never in doubt. And to highlight the huge superiority of Group B over Group A, all 4 Group B sides went through. To compensate for our acessible quarter-final opponents, we were paired with Universidad de Costa Rica in the semi-final. We braced ourselves expecting the 12nd and 13th defeats, but we shockingly dominated the first 45 minutes of the first leg, with two Turashbaev crosses ending in the back of the net, and resisted wave after wave of Universidad attacks in the second half to claim a famous 2-0 victory. Sequence ended! But there was still a tricky trip to their stadium to come, and it would be an absolutely epic match. We scored first on a penalty kick, but they made it 2-1 by half-time. They threw everything forward in search of the goal that would tie things on aggregate, and opened loads of space for us, that we failed to take advantage of, by missing chance after chance... until we finally got the goal in the 77th minute. It looked like job done, but then Universidad scored twice in the last 4 minutes!! Two extremely tired teams cancelled each other for 30 minutes of extra time, but there was still time for Orlando Madriz to score his first goal for the club in the very last minute and put us in the final! Cartaginés were our opponents in the final. The first leg looked as if it was building up to a dull 0-0 but things livened up in the final 30 minutes as we scored through Jiménez, then Cartaginés equalised and hit the woodwork twice - it ended 1-1. Come the return leg, we didn't start well, conceding a goal from a corner after 10 minutes. In the 2nd half we managed to equalize, however, through Miguel Moreno, and we resisted through several chances for Cartaginés to take the game to extra time. However we were absolutely knackered by then and couldn't avoid conceding another 2 goals, and we watched our opponents take the Clausura title. Summary What a weird season. We were utterly underwhelming all year long up until March, and then suddenly everything clicked together and we came closest yet to take the title (and eventually promotion). I'm not 100% sure this excellent run of form wipes out everything that happened before, but it came at the most important time; and I'm certainly delighted to reach the final, so I can definitely say our Clausura campaign was a success. I was mildly tempted to stay, as I'm starting to think a little more time here and we'd pull off promotion (or at least an Apertura/Clausura title), and these last few matches have been fun. But I've got bigger ambitions for my career to think about, so I'm gonna let my contract run out now. I think a move back to Europe is in order. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 2, 2016 Author Share Posted January 2, 2016 2019/2020 - Season review - Municipal Turrialba Squad and tactics The tactics took a few tweaks all year long as I struggled with results, until I finally found a combination that seems to be working well again now. Most of my worries were around the AMC as I felt the AM/A role wasn't really contributing much with rare goals, so I scaled him back to AM/S hoping he'd contribute more to buildup of play. But then we still relied far too much on crosses and weren't doing much through the middle, so I went back to plan A to try to make the AMC a scorer, but made him a proper Shadow Striker instead of a AM instead. And that finally seemed to do the trick, combined with a slight change to the forward from CF/S to DLF/S. I also toyed a lot with team instructions and even with mentalities other than Control, most of the season I took off the pressing settings to try to stabilize the defence, but I eventually reverted back to a full maximum closing down as I found the space we open up through this aggressive pressing, is a risk worth taking, as we concede less from crosses this way. Finances Ouch. On the pitch we're looking fine, but on the bank this boat is sinking fast. The numbers look extreme compared to last year because the prize money hasn't entered yet, I took last year's screenie after the prize money came in. But we are leaking money and my expansive spending on player wages, some of them that turned out not that good, hasn't helped. Youth watch I won't be here to watch them develop, but for the record we got these lads this year. Cantillano is rated 2 stars of current ability already but I'm not sure he's that great, I think he's slightly overrated by the game due to being two-footed: Cristopher Cantillano (DM, MC) Cristopher Quesada (MC / AMC) Gabriel Arias (AML) Top 5 players of the season 5. Nikolai Turashbaev (MR) - An expensive signing (on wages) that I was unimpressed with for most of the year, but he took the most of an injury to Andrey Peña (who didn't have as good a season as last year) to claim his place at that well-timed run at the end of the season. 3 goals and 6 assists. 4. Henry Espinoza (DL) - Ever reliable as in the previous years, and slightly better going forward this season with 5 assists. 3. Eduardo Jiménez (AML, AMC) - Not as good as last year as 2 serious injuries, that stopped him for 2 months each time, hindered his progress. Still came back in time to steal the show in a few matches at the end of the year. 9 goals, 4 assists. 2. Leonardo Viquez (AMC, AML) - A great signing that did well both replacing Jiménez on the left during his injuries, and as a shadow striker at the end of the year. Also claimed the captain armband. I strongly considered him for player of the year but I felt he was a little less consistent. Finished as top scorer on 12 goals. PLAYER OF THE SEASON - Miguel Moreno (ST) We struggled with strikers this season. José Antonio Pérez wasn't on good form and Miguel Ángel Turrubiates was a massive flop (although he did well occasionally as shadow striker at the end). That was all fixed when I picked up Miguel Moreno from Panama in January ahead of Clausura. He scored on his debut vs Cartaginés and ended on 11 goals, just one short of top scorer which is highly impressive given he only played half of the season for us, making a total of 20 starts. Also created some goals with 4 assists. [b]Season League Cups International Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Berwick Rangers (Scotland) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b] 15/16 League 2 - 5th Cup 2nd Rd, LgCup 1st Rd, TrCup 1st Rd --- Resigned at end of the season [b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Loughgall FC (Northern Ireland) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b] 16/17 Championship 1 - 10th IRC 6thR, LC 3rdR, ITC 2ndR, MUC winners --- Sacked; won Mid-Ulster Cup [b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Municipal Turrialba (Costa Rica) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b] 17/18 Ascenso - 4th (1/4f) / 5th --- --- 18/19 Ascenso - 3rd (fin.) / 3rd (1/4f) --- --- Apertura finalists 19/20 Ascenso - 5th / 4th (fin.) Copa de Costa Rica 1st Rnd --- Clausura finalists Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
abulezz Posted January 2, 2016 Share Posted January 2, 2016 How long do you plan on sticking it out in Costa Rica? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 2, 2016 Author Share Posted January 2, 2016 How long do you plan on sticking it out in Costa Rica? I've just taken over a new club. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 2, 2016 Author Share Posted January 2, 2016 Chapter 4 - A Century-Old Club Monday, 13th of July 2020, Dolný Kubín, Slovakia After my contract ran out in Costa Rica (although I again had to resign after the contract ended, as I was kept on a rolling contract), I'm absolutely delighted to report I have found a new job in Eastern Europe, where I haven't managed in a very long time (unless Turkey counts as I managed there in FM15 - this is probably technically incorrect but I usually consider "Eastern Europe" a term for only the former Soviet-influence nations). I will be managing for my first time in Slovakia, taking charge of MFK Dolný Kubín. I'm staggered at how beautiful the town appears to be! The stadium's a bit crap though, with a capacity of 1950. As for the club, expectations are low as the club were relegated from the second tier (the DOXXbet Liga) 2 years ago, and are only now back up. The board, in this year that the club celebrates its centenary after having been founded in 1920, merely wants us to "fight bravely against relegation". This seems a little unambitious - sure, we have just only gone up, but the finances are spectacular. We have ONE MILLION EUROS in the bank!!! The wage budget isn't great (25K€/month, roughly half of what I had in Costa Rica), but we do have a transfer budget of 109K€. Squad The squad is pretty damn short and completely unbalanced, I intend to keep playing a lone striker so I don't need 5 of them, there's also a serious lack of defenders and specially midfielders. I also need to hire a right-winger. However, the players that are good are VERY good. Some of these guys are clearly better than anyone I ever managed in Costa Rica and possibly my previous 2 jobs as well (some of the players at Berwick were pretty decent). These are my best: Marcel Oravec (AMC) - Our finest star. I don't think the current shadow striker role I use in my tactic is the best fit, but he's talented enough to play any role. I'm considering whether to play him a little deeper as one of my MCs. Martin Janco (AMR / AML) - Looks like he could be a great fit for my inside forward role on the left, but I'm concerned about the "hugs line" PPM. Also appears to be wanted by another club at the moment. Jozef Kapicak (GK) - I've got 2 pretty good keepers and this is the one rated higher by my staff. Igor Dragula (DRL, WBRL) - Getting a little old but still retains a lot of pace. Goals I've got some work to do to reorganize my squad, I expect to do quite a lot of transfers. Once that's sorted I see no reason why we can't beat the board's expectations and at least be comfortable in avoiding relegation - although with the caveat that I haven't had a look at any of our opponents yet. Either way I'm pretty excited to be back to Eastern Europe, as this is one of my favourite regions in FM and I don't think I've ever had a proper go in this region in all my careers in this forum. Closest I've done was an attempt at the Gundo Challenge with Olimpija Osijek of Croatia back in FM11. I ended up not finishing the challenge as I got bored when dominating the Croatian league, but remember enjoying it a lot for a while. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
abulezz Posted January 2, 2016 Share Posted January 2, 2016 Who wouldn't want to play football against that backdrop! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dexter_Morgan Posted January 2, 2016 Share Posted January 2, 2016 After a tough start in your career it seems things got better in Costa Rica just a shame you couldn't get a play off win. Good luck in Slovakia, i've only managed there twice but is a bit tough to make any kind of money there. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 2, 2016 Author Share Posted January 2, 2016 Who wouldn't want to play football against that backdrop! Hopefully all that huge space to expand the stands around is coded in FM! I reckon they could make that stadium a 30000 seater if they wanted and had the money! After a tough start in your career it seems things got better in Costa Rica just a shame you couldn't get a play off win. Good luck in Slovakia, i've only managed there twice but is a bit tough to make any kind of money there. But we have ONE MILLION EUROS!! I've no idea how on earth all that money ended up in our account. Presumably our board knows it won't last, because the transfer/wage budgets ain't great. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 2, 2016 Author Share Posted January 2, 2016 2020/2021 - Pre-season update - Dolny Kubin Transfers We were seriously lacking players and I hired a whole 11 of them: Defenders Martin Mravec (left-back), Janos Szepe and Ladislav Sostak (centre-backs), and Lukas Migala (right-back who can also play a little higher up as winger); midfielders Lukas Bielak, Eduard Gajdos, Radoslav Homer and Dusan Kolek; right-winger Ratislav Varadin; inside forward Robert Gesnabel; and 3rd choice keeper Lubos Urban. I'm not sure there's a single truly great player in this whole lot but I simply needed more bodies to fill up the squad, and didn't have neither the time to thoroughly scout Slovakia, neither the wage budget to pay true stars. Squad Looking a lot more like a proper squad, but I'm far, far from happy yet. Quite a few of these players quite simply aren't of the standard I'm looking for, or have the skills I'm looking for. Thankfully almost everyone is on a one-year contract as I'm strongly considering letting a lot of them run out at the end of the season! Fixtures We looked okay in the friendlies (I took over after the 2nd one), but most of them were against crap teams and I had no idea what kind of opponents we were to face in the league. I quickly figured out they were a lot tougher than I expected, as pretty much everyone has better star players than we do. The first few matches were wild, open contests, but despite us dealing with a massive injury crisis whilst I was still building the squad, and despite us looking awful at the back, we somehow managed to pull off two great 3-2 wins. But suddenly my quality trio of attacking players Janco (AML), Oravec (AMC) and Majsitnik (ST), who had looked magnificent so far, stopped creating goals. I'm not sure whether it was the fact they had far too many games on their legs this month, or if it was something else, but the goals dried up and at the other end we kept on conceding. This resulted in 3 consecutive narrow defeats, the last of them hard to take as the goal came in the 89th minute. Summary It's been quite an inconsistent start, but I'm still looking at this with some optimism. There's certainly the potential to improve - with all the injuries it's only now I've been starting to have any decent options available in the midfield; the players are starting to figure out my tactics; and despite a 10th place in the league table not looking great, it's not as if we're far off the other teams with the league being mega tight. This division splits in two at the end of a double round-robin, with the top 6 going into the promotion stage and the bottom 6 into the relegation stage. I think with a little luck we can break into the top 6, if not then avoiding relegation will already make for a decent first season. Ultimately on the long term what I want to do with this club is to try to get the first promotion in my career, and to do that I need to finely tune the squad to my needs over some time, which just wasn't possible in this rushed first transfer window. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltablue Posted January 2, 2016 Share Posted January 2, 2016 Good luck with keeping them clear of danger. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
simsy91 Posted January 3, 2016 Share Posted January 3, 2016 A country that I'd always like to manage in! You look like you have a decent attacking team and those three games you lost were against the current top three, hopefully you will push on for the top half finish. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fmFutbolManager Posted January 3, 2016 Share Posted January 3, 2016 That's a beautiful backdrop! What a stadium to manage at. Slovakia is a lovely country, too. Well, some of it anyway. Good luck. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dexter_Morgan Posted January 3, 2016 Share Posted January 3, 2016 before I seen your last 2 results I would have said there's definitely goals in your side, hopefully that is just a blip though. The main thing is you have a couple of points on the board and hopefully you can build on that in the coming months Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 3, 2016 Author Share Posted January 3, 2016 Good luck with keeping them clear of danger. Thanks. That's a beautiful backdrop! What a stadium to manage at. Slovakia is a lovely country, too. Well, some of it anyway. Good luck. My cousin lived there for a couple of years. From what he and his work mates used to say, I didn't expect anything other than a dull, grey industrial wasteland. A country that I'd always like to manage in! You look like you have a decent attacking team and those three games you lost were against the current top three, hopefully you will push on for the top half finish. before I seen your last 2 results I would have said there's definitely goals in your side, hopefully that is just a blip though. The main thing is you have a couple of points on the board and hopefully you can build on that in the coming months I'm close to the winter break when I'll post another update. What I can tell you is: you guys have got far, far too much confidence in me. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 3, 2016 Author Share Posted January 3, 2016 Wow, I just asked the board for a new wage budget and they straight away almost doubled it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 3, 2016 Author Share Posted January 3, 2016 2020/2021 - Mid-season update - Dolny Kubin Transfers (Transfers) I've hired 3 players during this period, but have had awful luck with them. South African midfielder Letsie Mahlangu at first looked like a lucky break when I took advantage from a crazy bug, when he picked up Slovakian nationality after being for 5 days in the country. The news item said he had been here for 8 years - I suppose his agent's really good at faking documents! However his performances have been awful. The second signing is a new striker called Marek Sovcik as I was fed up with the performances of our other strikers, but on his second match... he broke his leg. Finally, I picked up left-back Onyekachi Kalu who looks good but I haven't tried him yet. Slovnaft Cup When the 1st round was drawn I knew we were doomed from the start. With plenty of lower league teams to face, we ended up having to host Spartak Trnava who are one of the biggest teams in the country. Unsurprisingly it was a pretty one-sided match with the favourites winning 3-0 - although I found the result a little exaggerated. DOXXbet Liga - East Our run of mediocricity continued with the 5th consecutive defeat (if we count the cup match) vs Presov. Things would get marginally nicer with 4 draws in the following 5 matches, but we still were yet to get another win despite doing our best. We tanked to the penultimate place, only ahead of Rimavská Sobota, and the following match was precisely against them - a huge game for us. This finally resulted in a win, and we again beat Humenne. It's probably not a coincidence these are the exact only 2 teams we had beaten earlier in the season, I see a pattern here. Finally, we went into the winter break with 2 consecutive 2-2 draws. Having not managed in any nations that have it for a long time, I had forgotten just how much I hate the winter break - the next match is only in March... Summary There's no way of dressing this up as a good season, things aren't going our way. It's definitely made me recall my earlier poor experiences in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the difference is there's little expectations this time. I'm benefitting from another bug as the board seems to think we're top of the table (I wish), but either way all they had asked me for was to "fight bravely against relegation" (aka the "we're doomed from the start and anything better than dead last is a bonus" level of non-expectations), so I'm not really underachieving. With 4 fixtures to go and 7 points separating me from the top 6, I don't think there's much hope of still making the promotion stage. However, assuming the points aren't reset once we enter the relegation stage, we seem to have a decent cushion over the 2 teams below us and I'm not terribly worried... yet. I haven't quite figured out the rules, looking over the previous years most of the times 1 team gets relegated, but sometimes 2 go down instead, it's weird. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason the Yank Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 Maybe bottom side goes down automatically and next-bottom goes to a playoff? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobby_McDonald Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 Looks a nice place. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 6, 2016 Author Share Posted January 6, 2016 Maybe bottom side goes down automatically and next-bottom goes to a playoff? That was what I thought of at first, but there's no mention of it on the rules. Just says "bottom team is relegated". The weirdest thing is that, now that the league has split into promotion/relegation stage, I'm still on a group with all the other bottom 6 East teams, but all my fixtures are scheduled against the West teams. Effectively everyone plays against teams outside of their group, but gets scored on their own group. Seriously, who the hell thought this one up. Makes the Costa Rica system seem simpler or at least far more sensible. I can only think of two weirder rules I've ever encountered in FM: in Malaysia when I got promoted after finishing midtable for winning some random cup in a previous season (that tops everything surely); and in Spain when a promotion playoff didn't have away goals at the end of 90 minutes, but then at the end of extra time when it's still tied, it doesn't go to penalties, the team that finished higher up in the league gets promoted. Looks a nice place. If only what's going on the pitch was nice as well (to be fair in the last few matches I've just played tonight we've improved a little). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason the Yank Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 That was what I thought of at first, but there's no mention of it on the rules. Just says "bottom team is relegated".The weirdest thing is that, now that the league has split into promotion/relegation stage, I'm still on a group with all the other bottom 6 East teams, but all my fixtures are scheduled against the West teams. Effectively everyone plays against teams outside of their group, but gets scored on their own group. Seriously, who the hell thought this one up. Makes the Costa Rica system seem simpler or at least far more sensible. Hmm, maybe what happens is it's 3 teams in total, and it's the bottom side in each group plus whichever is the next worst regardless of group. Just a guess. I can only think of two weirder rules I've ever encountered in FM: in Malaysia when I got promoted after finishing midtable for winning some random cup in a previous season (that tops everything surely); and in Spain when a promotion playoff didn't have away goals at the end of 90 minutes, but then at the end of extra time when it's still tied, it doesn't go to penalties, the team that finished higher up in the league gets promoted. Liga MX has a similar rule in its championship playoff. 2-leg ties in each round, but if teams are tied on aggregate and away goals then the higher seed goes through. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014%E2%80%9315_Liga_MX_season#Liguilla_-_Apertura Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DodgeeD Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 I remember once playing in Uruguay (or was it Argentina?) and one team sneaked into the final play-off spot and made the championship final. They lost with the pain of defeat being compounded by their relegation as the bottom side in the three season average points table! What's wrong with a straightforward double/triple round robin? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 6, 2016 Author Share Posted January 6, 2016 Hmm, maybe what happens is it's 3 teams in total, and it's the bottom side in each group plus whichever is the next worst regardless of group. Just a guess. Nope, that's not that neither. Sometimes it's 2 teams from one group and 1 team from the other; sometimes it's 1 team from each group. Baffling. Liga MX has a similar rule in its championship playoff. 2-leg ties in each round, but if teams are tied on aggregate and away goals then the higher seed goes through.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014%E2%80%9315_Liga_MX_season#Liguilla_-_Apertura In Mexico it almost makes some sense, because the top 8 qualify for the playoffs that decides the champion, and if it wasn't for these little advantages it would make no difference whatsoever whether you came 1st or 8th in the league. I remember once playing in Uruguay (or was it Argentina?) and one team sneaked into the final play-off spot and made the championship final. They lost with the pain of defeat being compounded by their relegation as the bottom side in the three season average points table! What's wrong with a straightforward double/triple round robin? Yeah average points is bonkers, they instilled that one in Argentina to prevent River Plate and Boca Juniors from going down as they guessed a team that big wouldn't underperform over several years... and then River got relegated anyway. So they changed it to something even crazier now - a single round-robin top league with 30 teams. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fmFutbolManager Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 My cousin lived there for a couple of years. From what he and his work mates used to say, I didn't expect anything other than a dull, grey industrial wasteland. Depends where you go. I dated a girl from Slovakia and the parts I saw were nice (once you got out of the 'eastern european' parts). It's a former communist country, so it's not going to look too pretty! Bratislava and the old town is nice. Anyway, back on track I've hired 3 players during this period, but have had awful luck with them. South African midfielder Letsie Mahlangu at first looked like a lucky break when I took advantage from a crazy bug, when he picked up Slovakian nationality after being for 5 days in the country. The news item said he had been here for 8 years - I suppose his agent's really good at faking documents! However his performances have been awful. Pay them enough and those Slovaks will fake anything for you Jokes aside, I feel you with the signings not turning out as well as you'd hope. I've made a couple of those in my Fiorentina save this season... Hopefully yours will come good. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 9, 2016 Author Share Posted January 9, 2016 Depends where you go. I dated a girl from Slovakia and the parts I saw were nice (once you got out of the 'eastern european' parts). It's a former communist country, so it's not going to look too pretty! Bratislava and the old town is nice. Anyway, back on track Pay them enough and those Slovaks will fake anything for you Jokes aside, I feel you with the signings not turning out as well as you'd hope. I've made a couple of those in my Fiorentina save this season... Hopefully yours will come good. You know how FM is, good attributes don't necessarily mean good performances as there's so many other factors - hidden attributes, form, adaptability when they're foreign, etc. Thankfully the latest signings I've made since the winter break are coming good, and are giving us a pretty noticeable boost. I'll probably finish the season and post another update later today. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 9, 2016 Author Share Posted January 9, 2016 2020/2021 - End of season update - Dolny Kubin Transfers (Transfers) One of the areas of my team I was very unhappy with was my centre-backs - both theoretical starters Andrej Kmet and Ladislav Sostak were underperforming badly, and I had ended up playing backups Davide Duro and Janos Szepe instead. Thankfully in this transfer window I managed to get rid of both Kmet and Sostak, and replaced them by Daniel Andreev and Miklós Balogh who my scouts found in their travels around Eastern Europe. The other area that I was struggling in was strikers - Majsitnik had gone on a lenghty goal drought, Kral wasn't good enough and Sovcik broke his leg. So I said to hell with a sensible squad size and hired a 4th stiker, Brazilian teenager Terra, who conveniently is also a good fit for the shadow striker role as AMC. I also brought in the experienced but pacey Peter Fieber to provide some competition to Ratislav Varadin on the right wing. DOXXbet Liga - East With just 4 matches remaining of the regular stage, I decided it was a good time to risk playing all recent signings, to try them out and get them gelled with the squad before the relegation stage. It didn't go well for the first match when we lost 2-0 to leaders Presov; but it did give us a 3-1 win over Moldava, in our most convincing performance of the whole season so far, and another 3-2 win over Haniska, as forward Majsitnik was suprisingly back to form with a great performance scoring a brace. Coming into the final match there was almost a mathematical chance of still making it into the promotion stage - we were 3 points behind the teams in 6th and 7th, but were always going to lose out on results between teams. We beat Ruzomberok 1-0 away, an unheard of 3rd consecutive win, to end up 8th on equal points with Spisska Nova Ves; and, crucially, a massive 11 points safety cushion over 12th placed Moldava going into the relegation stage. DOXXbet Liga - Relegation Stage - Group A I'm still in desbelief at the idea that in this stage we continue to be scored against the East teams, but play the West teams. It's insane, the only barely plausible explanation I can think of is that this is to create 2 extra fixtures - if we play against the West we meet 6 different teams, but if we play against the East we only meet 5 teams as we can't play against ourselves! Anyway, we started our trips to the West with a defeat to Dubnica... not a great start. That was a very fleeting setback however, as soon we emerged as one of the strongest teams in this mini-group (or groups), and we won 4 of the next 5 matches. We were soon leading our group, although I don't recall at which specific point as this was all a blur - it's not like I paid much attention to these matches tbh, with pretty much nothing at stake anymore. A loss to Senec was our last one, and when we beat Zilina B 2-0 in the penultimate match, we sealed 1st place. This was great but a word of warning - almost every win was by a single goal and we often got a bit lucky as other teams squandered chances, so maybe I shouldn't be thrilled with my team's performances just yet. The last match still had a story to tell - forward Marek Sovcik finally scored his first after returning from a broken leg recently, and then proceeded to break his ankle. Geez, thanks FM. Summary This was a much, much better second half of the season. It feels good to win matches consistently, although it made for a very boring relegation stage with nothing meaningful to fight for. It wasn't lost on me that we spent the last few months facing the weakest teams in this division; as well as the fact most wins were tight and attritional. I'm not banking on us having progressed to a new level just yet (if the feeling I have is that our winter signings gave us a big boost, specially the centrebacks), but I do want to do better next season, and certainly make the top 6 and the promotion stage. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 9, 2016 Author Share Posted January 9, 2016 2020/2021 - Season review - Dolny Kubin Squad and tactics The squad is just enormous, I know I know, my fault. This is what happens when you go trial-and-error through as many players as you can, to find the ones that actually perform. Notice plenty of them finish their contracts at the end of the season, so I want to trim down the number of players considerably, but I won't promise anything. As for the tactics... I was a stubborn idiot and started every single match with the exact same settings I had in Costa Rica. Hey it's not like it was specially suited to that team or anything, it was a pretty generic tactic. I did occasionally tweak things as the matches went on, and am open to changing things again in the future if I don't see progress in the next season. Finances This is after the prize money came in, so through this season I just squandered half of the money the team had in the bank, oops. In my defence I didn't come anywhere near to the wage budget. However this is the larger wage budget I had asked for earlier in the season... the one I started with was much lower. Youth watch We don't appear to have as good a youth academy as I did in Costa Rica, and this year only a single usable player came up: Juraj Kunzo (MC / DM) Top 5 players of the season 5. Andrej Majsitnik (ST) - I started with high hopes for him as he seemed my better forward, but then he went on a very lengthy goal drought and I lost my patience with him. I hired two new forwards in Terra and Sovcik, and got ready to release him on a free at the end of the year. But he recovered with a nice run of matches he scored goals in, and finished the year as second top scorer on 10 goals. 4. Peter Fieber (MR) - An excellent winter signing that stole the place of youngster Varadin on the right, who hadn't been playing badly himself. Got 5 assists in half a season which I'm pretty happy with. However I don't think there's many seasons left in him, and I may soon need to search for a replacement. 3. Martin Mravec (DL) - Martin might be forgiven to think I don't have trust in him - despite signing him at the start of the year, I spent the first few matches playing Filip Molnar in his place instead; and midseason I picked up another left-back in Onyekachi Kalu. He emerged as the best option from all however, with a great season. I reckon in my tactic the wingback role always helps the ratings of my left sided fullback... 2. Marcel Oravec (AMC, MC) - Started the season on absolutely magnificent form with an incredible amount of key passes in most matches. He struggled to score from the shadow striker role however (got 3), didn't get as many assists as I expected from such a skilled player (5) and ended the season on a pretty incomprehensible run of poor form. I did try to rejuvenate him at the very end, switching him to deep-lying playmaker and surprisingly he was doing well this time. PLAYER OF THE SEASON - Martin Janco (AML) My staff only rate him at 1.5 stars on the inside forward role on the left. That is absolute nonsense as he had a great season as a reliable scorer (and a decent dribbler when necessary), particularly during Relegation Stage at the end of the year when he was superb. 13 goals and our squad's top scorer. [b]Season League Cups International Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Berwick Rangers (Scotland) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b] 15/16 League 2 - 5th Cup 2nd Rd, LgCup 1st Rd, TrCup 1st Rd --- Resigned at end of the season [b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Loughgall FC (Northern Ireland) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b] 16/17 Championship 1 - 10th IRC 6thR, LC 3rdR, ITC 2ndR, MUC winners --- Sacked; won Mid-Ulster Cup [b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Municipal Turrialba (Costa Rica) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b] 17/18 Ascenso - 4th (1/4f) / 5th --- --- 18/19 Ascenso - 3rd (fin.) / 3rd (1/4f) --- --- Apertura finalists 19/20 Ascenso - 5th / 4th (fin.) Copa de Costa Rica 1st Rnd --- Clausura finalists [b]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dolny Kubin (Slovakia) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b] 20/21 DOXXbet Liga - 8th / 1st (RlgSt) Slovnaft Cup 1st Rnd --- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dexter_Morgan Posted January 9, 2016 Share Posted January 9, 2016 Pretty comfortable in the end, any targets in terms of position next season? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 9, 2016 Author Share Posted January 9, 2016 Pretty comfortable in the end, any targets in terms of position next season? I want to make the promotion stage, so for that I need to finish in the top 6. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 10, 2016 Author Share Posted January 10, 2016 2021/2022 - Pre-season update - Dolny Kubin Transfers After a comprehensive clearout of many players, I invested mostly in defence, bringing in Italian goalkeeper Gabriele Rapisarda, young right-back Martin Kovanic and centre-backs Denys Choknadiy and Martin Luberda. A little later, midway through August, I finally found a club willing to take on Eduard Gajdos who I'd wanted to get rid of for a while, and that opened up a place for a midfielder - so I spent a bit to bring over Frederik Bilovsky, who in theory looks like my best signing as he seems to have everything I want in a deep-lying playmaker, but his first few matches have been unconvincing. Squad How easy is it to stack up on players! 2 players for each position, plus a third keeper, a third striker (a necessity in my opinion when Sovcki's so injury prone), and a young DM who is too old to keep playing for the U19s and I wasn't able to loan out... and that's already a squad of 25. This is still essentially the same group of players although I do think the defence has gradually been upgraded over the last few transfer windows and we are slowly getting better. What isn't getting better is the finances, we might "only" be spending 44K€/month on wages when the wage budget is set at 66K€/month, but this is still far, far from sustainable. At this rate we're going to end this season with a negative balance, which is staggering given that just a year ago we had a positive balance of 1 million euros. I might have to start making some hard choices and voluntarily let go of anyone on high wages, good player or not. Fixtures The pre-season friendlies were worrying, as we lost every match bar the last one vs a very modest team. This gave me some doubts about my team coming into the start of the league, and the first 2 matches didn't go much better. A 1-1 draw with Liptovsky Mikulas was okay, but a 4-1 loss to Zvolen, when we were comprehensively outplayed, wasn't. But on hindsight that doesn't look that bad - Zvolen are leading the league. And things were about to improve a lot, as we won our next three matches, albeit all by uncomfortable 1-0 scorelines. This seems to go along my feeling we're getting better defensively. We lost to Podbrezová next, but they're pretty good, in fact they're 2nd right below Zvolen; and finished the August league fixtures with another tight 1-0 win, thanks to a late goal by midfielder Dusan Kolek. Meanwhile, the cup has also started, and for the second consecutive year we were given a ridiculously tough match, at home to the leaders of the league above us - despite plenty of lower league teams being on the draw. I swear this is rigged against us! However to my surprise we dominated the match. Majsitnik missed a penalty kick, but redeemed himself assisting for Horodnik's goal a few minutes later. It looked as if we were going to win 1-0 again, but Streda equalized with a few minutes remaining... only for Horodnik to still score again for us and give us a pretty fantastic win. Summary I'm very pleased with this start, not only have we improved in the league and look set to meet our goal of reaching the top 6 if we can continue getting points at this rate; we've also somehow managed to knock out the Fortuna Liga (top tier) leaders out of the cup, whilst outplaying them. Compare this to last year at this stage, when we were 10th in the league and lost 3-0 in the cup to a similar team, and the evolution is clear. But it wouldn't be the 1st, 2nd or even 3rd time in my career that I think I've found the right track for success, then things crumble apart. I'm not counting on anything yet, and we do have a clear problem in a lack of attacking power. Our strikers Majsitnik and Terra have been awful so far, and Janco's not been able to contribute with goals as usual from the inside forward position. But I also think that we're just a striker and maybe 1 or 2 more players away from being a team that's genuinely capable of challenging for promotion. And we need that promotion as soon as possible to tackle our incoming financial problems. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dexter_Morgan Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 Good start there, should comfortably be in the promotion stage if you carry on like that Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 12, 2016 Author Share Posted January 12, 2016 Good start there, should comfortably be in the promotion stage if you carry on like that It's looking good... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 12, 2016 Author Share Posted January 12, 2016 We host the biggest team in the country and almost fill out the whole stadium, making it a record attendance. The gate receipts? About a quarter of what we pay our players per month. That explains a lot... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldesel23 Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 Good Thread mate. Slovakia 2nd Division is hard to play, specially in the Promotion phase. Good Luck Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted January 17, 2016 Author Share Posted January 17, 2016 Good Thread mate. Slovakia 2nd Division is hard to play, specially in the Promotion phase. Good Luck Thanks! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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