[FM17] Against All Odds - USL Dunkerque

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

I'm still a little bitter over how the league ended, and the new seasons transfer window and player behavior has not exactly "Enhanced my Calm".  Bonus points if you know that movie...

So, without further ado, here's how the rest of the Ligue 1 season shook out:

First, the lowlights.

Losing to OM hurt, as we were better on the pitch that day across the board.  Of out 14 shotsd, 11 were on target, but Predrag Rajkovic was on his A game, and ended up with a 7.8 rating and a POM.

The Girondins 1-1 draw as a gut punch, after Otocka scored in the 8th minute we were on cruise control, when a corner kick pinged off about five different players, through Austins hand and right at Grujic, who toed it in in the 81st minute.

The Draw against L'OL was a gift as well, it took a Mammana OG in the 66th minute to give us the tie.  We really tried our best to throw it away, and were saved by the skin of our teeth.

Stade Rennais were the giant-killers last year.  They beat PSG, tied us, tied Monaco, tied OM, and tied and beat L'OL.  

We had twice as many shots, three times as many on target, and got a big fat nothing as a result.

Highlights:

Against FC Lorient on 1/17, the Les Bleus never say die attitude was in full effect, as we pressed them late in the game, and Martin Otocka scored in the 92nd minute.   I thought things couldn't get more exciting, until the next game against Monaco, when James Carter scored in the 93rd minute to give us the 3-2 win.  This game put us in front of Monaco for second place.  Beating Havre 4-1 and Saint-Etienne 3-1 were also nice highs as well.

The last game of the Ligue was season was a barn-burner.  We had a lock on 2nd place by this point, OM had a lock on 4th, but they came out on the attack and didn't quit.  They had 27 shots on goal, 15 on target, but a Hat Trick by Marco and the final nail in the coffin by Addo was fun to watch.

Honestly, we beat the teams we were supposed to beat almost all of the time, did better than OK against the teams that are just as string as if not slightly stonger than we are, and gave PSG, Monaco, and OM a fight.

Champions League Group stages and beyond?

I think the 12-5 on aggregate against Kobenhaven was the highlight, and losing to Barca by a single goal in each of our matches showed we could hang with some of the big boys.

Bayern Munich ran us into the pitch both games, but they didn't dominate us stats wise the first game.  The second game they just bossed us, but that was also the last game in a stretch where we played 10 games in 38 days.

In the Coupe De France and Coupe De la Ligue games...well, we almost didn't make it out of the Fourth Round in the Coupe de la Ligue.  OM played us very tough, and it took an Ernest Addo goal in the 91st minute to secure the win.  We met PSG in the Coupe de la Ligue Final, and they beat us 2-0/

The COupe de France was very interesting this year, as a lot of smaller teams had success.  Case in point, AS Nancy Lorraine.  On the way to the Coupe de France Final, they beat Monaco 3-0, Girondins 2-0, Stade Brestois 29...(PSG was beaten in the Tenth round by Stade Malherbe Caen).  Nancy took us all the way to a shootout, not too bad for a team that finished 19th an was relegated out.

But we won the Coupe de France for the second year in a row.

Tomorrow, winter transfers, player reviews and off season events.

Next season is the 10 year in game anniversary of when this save started, I'll do some player retrospectives and show just how big we as a club have gotten.

 

Thanks for reading and following!

 

Jellico73

[Jellico73]

1 hour ago, Willigenburg said:

To celebrate his 10'th year ingame and the progress he has made @Jellico73 asked me to design a home and away shirt for the team.

After a couple of messages I had a pretty clear idea of what to do. The home shirt incorporate the dolphin from the logo in the design, while the away shirt is a more traditional shirt. All sponsors are companies from around Dunkirk.

@Jellico73, if you want something different, please tell me

 

 

usl-dunkerque.zip

Excellent work Will, I really like the Blue Home Kit.

I really appreciate the help!

Jellico73

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus Et Blancs"

I was a bit busier in the January Transfer Window than I wanted to be.  I knew I had a couple of players I wanted to move, Andrei Lung was not one of them.

The offers for him were consistently in the low €20M range, except for PSG, who always came in at 23, then 25, then 27M.  And theres no way in heck I was going to trade him to PSG.

So he ended up going to Wolfsburg, for 21.5M, which is 5M more than I paid for him.  With the 156K p/m I am still paying Dinamo Bucharest for the next 19 motnhs as part of the original deal, I am still coming out ahead.

Seidu Boakye was upset he wasn't getting regular first team ball, and with John Austin between the sticks he wasn't going to.  I didn't get any oiffers for him when I put him on the list at a moderate price, or even a cheap price, and let him go on a free.  

Benjamin Dufour asked to be listed, and I got a decent deal for him to go to Girona.  I got him on a free, and although he was slated to be Lungs replacement I was comfortable letting him go, because of who I brought in.

Cadiz came in and made an offer for Inigo Arrese, and with the depth at D(R), even with Lung and Dufour leaving I was more than happy to let him go.

Ins:

Stephen Foose is the primary reason I am OK with all those D(R)'s leaving.  He was on my shortlist when I originally wnet searching for a D(R) and found Lung instead, and at the time Sporting Kansas City wasn't entertaining offers for him.  When Lung came in and asked to go to a bigger club, I went back to my shortlist, and not only was Foose still on it, his contract was expiring, and I signed him up as quick as I could.  He's just as good as Lung, and a bit cheaper salary wise, and getting him on a Free?  Icing on the cake.

Ted Mendes was transfer listed by request while at Saint_Etienne.  He was solid, but not spectacular for them, and even spent a season at La Berrichone, one of my affiliates, where he was again a solid player.  Paying 1.5M (and possibly 2.3M) for a solid player as versatile as Mendes is may be a bit on the high side, but at this level I think you have to overpay a little bit for players like this.  

I picked up Marko Jankovic because he's a quality player at 6 positions, and he's a solid tutor.  The fact I can keep him as a substitute in any game, Ligue, Cup or otherwise, and he can come in as a three star player and hold his own was well worth the 500K I paid for him.  If I can get two years out of him before he moves on or retires, it's money well spent.

My depth at Goalie was, to put it mildly, horrific.  Austin is my starter, and Boakye was a solid backup,  With Boakye gone my primary backup is 17 year 1 1/2 star player, albeit with potential, but If he's between the sticks, something has gone wrong. Sebastian Kotwica is a capable backup I am comfortable using for a few games if I need to, and he's also a decent tutor as well.

And thats the 20205/2026 season info.

Next year is our 11th in the save, and so far, it's been a rollercoaster ride.  I've lost my lunch twice now, and I swear some of the logic in this game is really going to make me question my sanity.

But all that's coming later!

Thanks for reading and following!

And thanks again to Will for the kit!

Jellico73

 

[Willigenburg]

4 hours ago, BoxToBox said:

Cracking work!

 

3 hours ago, Jellico73 said:

Excellent work Will, I really like the Blue Home Kit.

I really appreciate the help!

Jellico73

Thanks And you're welcome!

[Jellico73]

So, just some miscellaneous In Season and End OF Season Notes

First some end of 2025 awards and the like:

   

And our youth intake:

I kept Coulon and Pelltier, the rest...gah.  If my Intakes don't start improving in a couple of years I am really going to question why a Professional HOYD with 14PA, 15PP, 12 Det and 17 Adaptability can't find me better players.  in fact, I may just take a looksee and see whats available.

Then, in April, came a series of events that after the Andrei Lung....fiasco for lack of a better word, I should have seen coming:

   

 

If this is what I have to look forward too every time I find a good young player and develop them while still a top flight team....while still getting outspent by Monaco and PSG?  I'm still trying to figure out the logic behind this.  If I was a lower tier Ligue 1 team sure, I'd buy this, but we've been top 6 in Ligue 1 for a few years now...

Anyhow, end of season awards:

The board has hated my signing of Carter since th ebeginning, but he's now classed as a "wonderkid" and he had a great season for us.

Biakolo I picked up on a Free, he's been very good for us.

The scary thing about this?  Marco missed 6 weeks with a double Hernia, and in those six weeks Amoako and Sweeney scored 8 goals from the ST position.  

There was also this:

Nice to see PSG shut out of these awards.... ;-)

As a team, we played a lot of games across Ligue 1, Championship Football and other Coupe contests.

In Competitive appearances, we had some very good perfomances:

Marco, in 41 games, had 34 goals, 12 assists, and 7 POM's with a 7.35 overall rating

Jan K, in 44 games, had 21 goals, 8 assists, 6 POM's and a 7.21 rating while learning how to play AM(C).

Ernest Addo, in 55 games, had 13 goals, 34 assists(!), 9 POM's (A Ligue 1 record)and a 7.41 rating.

James Carter, in 49 games, had 17 goals, 13 assists, 3 POM's and a 7.18 rating

Martin Otocka, in 43 games, had 8 goals, 7 assists, 2 POMS and a 7.25 rating

Ranford Amoako, my jack of all trades player, had 10 goals, 8 assists, 2 POM's and a 7.13 in 43 appearances.

Eric Biakolo, in 40 games, had 9 goals, 6 assists, 3 POM's and a 7.27 rating.  He also had 18 yellows...

Zeca Gomes, for some reason, fell off a cliff, going from a good player with great potential to a good player with 'meh' potential.  In 45 appearences he had 2 goals, 2 assists, and a 7.10 rating, but on the wrong aside of things,m had 24 yellows and a red.  As a primary corner kick taker he was responsible for starting a lot of our scoring chances against other teams though.

Mithat Taskin only had 1 goal in 51 appearences, but he was about a solid a defender as you could ask for, and had a 7.13 rating.  Ha Hyun Ho was also solid, in 43 appearences he had 2 goals, 2 assists, and 2 POM's, and more often than not he was the primary defender responsible for stopping a lot of the attacks we found ourselves up against.  More importnatly, as a defender, he had 3 yellows the entire season.

John Austin had an off year, but then he also only missed two games all season.  In 50 appearences he had 61 goals allowed, but also had 17 shutouts.  

Yerry Mina was a solid backup on the Dline, with an assists and a 7.07 rating in 21 games.

Lee Sweeney was a solid backup for Marco, in 14 appearences he had 9 goals, 5 assists, 2 POM's and a 7.2 rating while learning how to play complete forward.

The board has been on a building bent lately:

They did this without asking me, I sure as heck wasn't going to say no...

Revenues are improving:

As a whole, France moved up to 3rd in the Nation Coefficients table, which gives us 3 teams in the group stage and a team in best playoff Champions League Wise, and 2 teams in Europa League Group and 1 team in Third Round Qualifying.

As a club we moved 7 places up to 29th, and we're also moved from 89th to 47th in the Richest Clubs List.  

But apparently we're still not big enough for some of my players...

Man United won the Champions League. beating Bayern Munich.

In Europa League play, Arsenal beat Watford.

I turned down job interviews from:

• Chelsea
• West Ham
• Barcelona
• FC Porto
• AC Milan

So, now its summer time, the transfer window is open, and I can feel a storm coming...

Thanks for reading and following!

Jellico73

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

You would think that finishing 2nd in the Ligue, doing well in the Champions Ligue, and telling the team we would be challenging for a Champions League spot again would be a good thing.

Until players started banging down my door asking for larger contracts, or the opportunity to go to "Better teams" for a "better chance" to win a trophy, I'd have agreed with you.

So, we're starting our 11th year in the save, and it's proving to be....difficult.

There was some good news:

The the transfer window started, and the floodgates opened.

First, Zeca Gomes came in and said "If we don't win some sort of silverware I want to move on."  Part of me imagines Thierry sitting at his desk, Coupe de France and Coupe de la Ligue Trophy's on the shelf, spotlights shining directly on them, with an arched brow.

Then Martin Otocka, who I had just signed to a new contract two years ago, comes in and demands a new contract.  I start the negotiations, and not only does he want 75K a year, he wants a highest salary match clause.  He's turned into a pretty good M(C)/DM, but not that good.  And when I tried lowering the salary and removing the match, he walked away, and his attitude tanked.

But the transfer window opened, and the offers started coming in.

Juventus came hard for Jan K:

and then

But I said no to both.

The Borussia Dortmund came in for John Austin, right after the season started, for 3.8M, and I said no.  And he came to the office and sais he really wanted to negotiate.  So I said sure, went back to Dortmund with a similar offer, and they said no.  Then Austin got all mad because I didn't trade him right away.  I wish there was an option that said "Look, I can't force the other team to take you."

Nothing too out of the ordinary here.  Except maybe the Bernini loan.  Recently promoted FC Metz was willing to pay 71K a month for my 2 1/12 star backup D(C)?  Sure.

Couple of notable names here.  Milos Degenek fell to 1 star, and I couldn't in good conscience resign him, especially because he was taking up a foreign slot on the club roster.  Luca Bittante left to become a U18 Head Coach.  Where I really dropped the ball was on Seasoc.  He was a solid 3 star player, but he was getting older, and wasn't getting any better, and he also wanted a huge raise.  Then Espanyol came in and wanted him on loan, and I said sure because I had some younger players I wanted to get some playing time.  And he was underwhelming.  Then while he was there I got a notice he had signed a contract with Victoria Plzen, I hadn't realized he was at the end of his contract.  I could have brought in maybe 3 to 5M for him on a transfer had I been paying attention.  The others were all younger players who werent developing like I wanted, or weren;t going to get a lot of playing time, and I want to avoid the "Fifteen Players on loan" issue again.

Finally, the outs.  Here's where the fun begins.

The first three were fringe players for me, and far enough down on the depth chart that I could afford to lose them.  Getting something in return for any of them was a bonus.

Mina was a solid backup for me, but he was getting older, and his attributes were going down, and he was taking up a foreign slot.  He was valued at 350K, I put him out for 250K and FC Metz snapped him up.

Van Dujn and were both older players who weren't going to see a lot of playing time here.  In fact a lack of playing time is why Van Dujn had gone out on loan, and his performances were...less than ordinary.

Ransford Amoako had some good moments for us, but at 25 years old, he wasn't getting any better, and Stade Malherbe Caen offered a decent sum for him.

You will see I let both my starting goalies go.  Austin went to PAOK for a lot less than he would have gone to Dortmund, but while his on the field performances were good (he had three shutouts), his attitude was abysmal, and I dont need that in the locker room.

OM made an unsolicited offer for Kotwica, and I said "Why not?"  When you see the ins I think you'll agree with me.

Thior wanted First Team time, and he wasn't going to get it.  After getting 825K from Montpelier last season for a loan deal, I put him on the market for 1.5M, and Trabonspor snapped him up.

Hoffenheim made an unsolicited offer for Sweeney, and I turned them down the first time.  Then someone came up on the transfer list that made me think I could get by without Sweeney.  I went back to Hoffenheim, and made a tidy sum of money for someone I brought in on a free.

After Otacka last salary demands I said to heck with it, and put him on the market.  A couple of teams came in with some good deals, but Leicester is who he signed for, for less money than he wanted from me.  In on a free, out for 12M, not to shabby.

Ernest Addo didn't want to stay.  Even when I offered him a lot of money.  A lot of teams came in at the 20M range, but I noegotiated Schalke up to 23.5M (based on appearences, international, and games played).  If I don't see the full sum, Its because one of his legs fell off.  In two seasons, he had 94 games playeed across all competitions, 27 goals, 60 assists, 17 POM's.  Maybe 23.5M is a biut on the low side.  Bt its 23.5M more than I got him for.

And I am off to work.  Ins will be shown later tonight.

 

Thanks for reading and following!

Jellico73

 

 

 

 

[Jellico73]

And the start of season In's

I do have some quality young players at M(C) and DM, but after letting all of my more expiereinced players go, I needed to bring someone in who could cover both positions well, and Sergey Tarasenko fits that role well.  I may have overpaid for him a little, and he earns more than anyone else on the team, but I've found to my detriment that having a weak midfiled is not a viable option.  I take it as a good sign that after he started playing for us, his value went up to €18M.

With Ernest Addo moving on, I needed a new AM(R), and after a little bit of searching I realized I already had a good AM(R) on my team in Jan K., and back he went.  Which meant I needed a new AM(C).  Marco Tulio comes to us via AC Milan, where he had a solid if unspectacular stint.  23 years old, 3 1.2 star current, 4 star potential, with the right training he can be a very good player in my 4-2-3-1, and if he's not, I am sure I can sell him and not take a loss.

Simonetto is another player my scouts have failed me on.  WIth Foose being on internationalduty a lot, I needed some depth at D(R).  Simonetto was a bit older at 23, but since I've had him his attributes havent moved a whit, and he's been getting a lot of playing time.  His one saving grace is his utility, he can play more than a few positions well, but at 1 1/2 stars if he's seeing a lot of playing time, I am in trouble.

With Zeca Gomes pitching a fit about silverware, and also being on International duty, I needed a quality backup at D(L).  Ali Kouassi comes from the Ivorian Premier League, and for €1.4M I think I got a good deal.  

You can only have 4 foreign players registered in Ligue 1 play, and I was always bumping up against that.  With Degenek retiring, and Mina moving on, my other foriegn players were Foose, Ha Hyun Ho, Marco Tulio and Lee Sweeney.  And with a lot of the quality players out there coming from non EU countries, I needed some flexibility should the need arise.  Lee Sweeney had never really found a spot on the squad, but he had developed nicely, but with Marco in front, he wasn't going to see a lot of playing time, because I normally don't use 2 strikers.  Noam Solomon popped up because his agent was shopping him, and when I scouted him I could not get him signed fast enough.  He's a slightly younger Marco who can't hit the long shot, but is still otherwise a very capable CF, and I am pretty sure I can count on him to fill Marcos shoes quite well should something happen.

Maksymilian Jaroszewski, Marcus Thuram, Murat Seven and Hasan Karatepe are all backup players and spot starters, but they are better than those I let go.

Gregorio Nigi is perhaps the best young goalie in the game.  And he's been very unhappy at Empoli, and he's transfer listed.  So I made an inquiry.  And they wanted 36.5M for him.  My remaining transfer budget (With sales and the like taken into account), is a little over 20M.  But I offered 15M now, and 25M in follow on payments that I know I would pay out eventually (15M over 36 months, appearence fee, games played, international caps and the like.  And Empoli said No.  Even when I offered them up to 45M with 20M now Empoli said no.  So I'll keep my eye on him come the January transfer window.

 

So I went looking at the loan list, and saw Bayern Munichs Bayern II goalie available.  And I snapped him up, with the provisio he can't be recalled.  If anything, he's a little better than the guy he's replacing, and if I can bring him on board via transfer, I will certainly do my best.

In other news, the rich got richer.  PSG decided they needed to strengthen their mnidfield, and went out and spent €94M for Oktay Bulut.  Sigh.

Next update will be all the games up to the first part of the group stages.  This could be a quicker exit than I want it to be:

 

 

Thanks for reading and following!

Jellico73

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

Were not quite yet halfway thru the season, and again, it's been a dogfight.

One thing I forgot to mention previously, we have a new overseas affiliate, the Brisbane Roar.  

First, the Ligue 1 matches:

I've actually got a nice routine set up for my friendlies I think.  Get a local teamn out of the way first, then its westward to San Jose, then Shanggang (then next year Brisbane), and back to the continent.  I wanted to give the guys a little more international expierence, beating up on lower ranked French teams is nice and all, but there is some money to be made as well.  I had a nice tour of England all set up until Watford pulled out at the last minute, but I still got some very good games in against some quality opponents.

First game of the season was PSG in the Trophee des Champions, and they just ran us into the ground.  Even with a weeks worth of prep and the like they just bossed us.

We got off to a quick start though.

Against Les Verts James Carter had an assist and a goal, while Jan K banged one in as well.  Our defense was really clicking, and we held Saint-Etienne to just 8 shots.

The home opener against Stade Rennais was our attempt to put on a goal bonanza.  I think the boiys decided that if you couldn't win by well placed shots, you could win by volume.  20 shots, only 5 pn target, no clear cut chances.  A MArco goal in the 44th minute was all we needed, as the defense again was stout, allowing just 9 shots.

Our draw against Girondins was annoying, to say the least.  We could just not generate any chances, but in our defense neither could they, and the 0-0 draw is what both sides seemed to be fighting for.  It wasn't a loss, but draws this early in the season don't help us.  This was also the last game AUstin played Keeper for us, as he was off to PAOK.

I'm still trying to figure out what happened in our game against OM.  We had more shots, more on target, a possession advantage, and a 1-0 lead going into the second half, but two Dolberg goals withing 5 minutes of each other gave them a 2-1 lead, and then their defense remembered how to play and just shut us down.  I think what happened was I played two DM's instead of two M(C)'s, and there was a disconnect between the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.  and my attacks were slow to develop as a result.  There was also a note that Marco was like twelve goals away from setting the club record. So of course he hasn't scored since.

FCSM always plays us tough, and this time was no different.  It took a Jan K goal in the 61st minute to equalize the score, and after that it was a defensive struggle.  But again, a draw this early doesn't really help us...

Marco was injured late in the game against OGN Nice, and was going to miss a few weeks as a reult.  Luckily Noam Salomon stepped up and blasted the eventual winning goal home in the 28th minute.  I'm not so worried about Marco missing time, as Salomon is more than capable of stepping in.  Florian Ameskanp, out new loanee keeper, had some very nice saves.  Austin would have made them too I think, but Ameskamp made them look routine.

Ha Hyun Ho got his annual goal against LOSC, a nice header from the corner kickinute, and LOSC was charging until one of their players was sent off in the 76th minute, when they just turned to the Defend side of things.  Solid game all around for everyone, defense in particular.

As good as our defense was the last two games, it fell back to middle of the road inb out match against L'OL.  Goals by Tarasenko and Salomon had us up, but a Junior goal in the 64th minute brought L'OL close, and a Pinto goal in the 89th minute saw the tie it up.  Tulio was actually charging the keeper unopposed off a beautiful cross from Foose, but as he reached the edge of the box and cocked his leg back to shoot, the whistle blew and the match was over.  Frustrating match all around.

A 2nd minute goal by Salomon was all we needed against Montpellier.  I'm reasonably sure the boys were mad after the L'OL game, and took it out on the next team up.  FOr the first half of the first half it looked like we were getting ready for a goal bonanza, but the remembered how to play defense and shut us down for the rest of the match.  Ameskop had a couple of brilliant saves in this one as well.

Salomon has proven to be a more than capable replacement for Marco, creating as many shots as he is taking most games.  This time it was his second goal of the day, in the 72nd minute, that gave us the win.  Zeca Gomes also had a goal, off a PK from just outside the box.  Toulouse didn't exactly give up when we went ahead 3-2, but they didn't put up much of a fight to try and equalize either.

Against Angers SCO, its boils down to the fact that we didn't miss our shots, and they did.  And again, Ameskamp had several good saves.

Out match against FC Lorient was one of those games that, when it ended, you sat back and tried to figure out how you almost didn't win.  We had 25 shots on goal, 10 on target, and a 54/46 possession advantage, FC Lorient had 2 shots.  TWO.  And it took a Gomes PK in the 87th minute to secure us the win.  Winning ugly is still winning I suppose.

FC Metz played us tough, and stats wise the game was pretty even.  A James Carter goal in the 36th minute was all we needed to secure the win.  Ameskamp has already had six clean sheets thus far...I'm not missing Austin as much as I thought I would.

En Avant is having an off year, and find themselves in a relegation battle.  We had a series of games on tap, so I played a very heavily rotated side for this one.  Solis scored for Avant, breaking Ameskamp scorfeless streak, but a Kabungo OG tied it in the 32nd minute, and a Turam goal in the 81st minute gave us the lead and the win.

So where does that put us so far?

Tied for second, behind Monaco only on goal differential.  I think if we can stay close we have a chance of knocking PSG off the top.  Of course, PSG has already beaten Saint Etinne 4-0, and Stade Renaais 7-0, and nice 6-0, so maybe they won't be stumbling anytime soon.  We play PSG on may 1 2027, with 4 weeks left in the season.  Something tells me that's going to be a pivotal game.

Champions League update tomorrow, after I finish the Group games.

Thanks for reading and following!

Jellico73

 

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

Before we begin, a friendly word of hard earned advice:

When you sick, everything hurts and your running a temp of 101, grinding your way thru a Ligue 1 season and the Champions League is not, as they say "A Good thing to do."

I hurt more now than I did when I started today out.

But I got through the season.  I may have cost me a lung and some sanity, but we got thru.

When I last posted we were 14 games into the season, fighting it out with Monaco for 2nd place and hoping PSG would stumble at least enough for us to make a real go at winning.  And we had some...issues with the roster that I was hoping to overcome.

So, how did we do?

We fought.  We scratched, we clawed, and at one point were within two points of PSG, but fell short.

That however, is not the story of the 2026/2027 Les Bleus.

We stumbled against HAC, but then put our heads down and really began to work.

Against ESTAC Troyes, we had a solid game, but Noam Solomon, or young STriker who I signed to provide some depth for Marco, went down in the 17th minute.  Marcu Thuram, who's capable but not who I would consider a long term starter, scored in this game.  I was hoping for the best, but then got word:  Noam was out for three months, with a torn calf muscle.

PSG came to our Stade, and I was hoping to try and catch up to them.  Two Marco goals in the 22nd minute gave us some hope, but PSG equalized before the half, and my defense shut them down the rest of the way.  Not losing is a result I will take.

Auxerre had a player sent off in the 4th minute for a two foot lunge, and we won with goals by Jan K and Zeca Gomes.  He wants some silverware, and maybe it's me, but he's putting in some more effort these days.

The game against Monaco was a heartbreaker in more ways than one.  Marco scored in the 79th minute, but Romero equalized int he 86th minute.  In the 91st minute, James Carter went down, and after the game I found out he was out, for three moths, with a broken ankle.

Against Stade Rennais my two Strikers each had a goal, and a brilliant shot by Calvez in the 16th minute took away the clean sheet, but we won.

Girondins played us tough, despite us having the advantage in shots and on target, they played a very patient waiting game.  Our loan goal came when a Foose cross was blocked by the Girondin goalie, and he blasted the reboud into the back of the net in the 88th minute.  A "Les Bleus" late victory if I ever saw one....

I thought for sure we were heading for a tie when Dembele equalized for OM in the 57th minute, but in the 80th minute, Jan K, whose played 4 positions this year, took a Tulio touch pass just inside the 22 yard box.  The keep was going left, following the ball, and Jan blasted it to the upper right corner.

FC Sochaux played a 4-1-4-1 that gave us fits, despite Thruams 5th minute goal they shut us down the rest of the first half, until Boris Kavcic hit a nice header off the corner kick right before the first half ended.  FCSM came out all cylinders firing in the second half, but our defense held, and we again kept the clean sheet.

I played a very rotated squad against OGC Nice, and Marko Jankovic rewarded my faith in him as a backup by hitting a fine shot in the 51st minute to give us the 1-0 victory.

The January transfer window came and went.  I tried getting Nigi, in fact I thought I had him with a deal that was 9.5M up front, and 2.5 in easily achievable bonus, he even went thru contract discussions with me, 35K a week, going to 45K after 10 International appearances, and just when I was expecting him to sign, I get a message he's signed for Southampton for 11M and 75K a week....but I have Ameskamp between the sticks, and he's been brilliant.  Maybe not getting Nigi was a good thing.

LOSC came in on the attack, but a Marco goal in the 7th minute, a Tarasenko goal in the 18th minute and a Tulio goal in the 30th minute had them on the backheel the rest of the game.  The second half was them playing contain to try and limit the damage.

The game against L'OL was a foul fest, 37 in total for both sides, but only three yellows given.  Neither side seemed to want the victory, but Florian Ameskamp made several brilliant saves.  What a find he has been.  How good has he been for me?

After the LOSC match I had a message, he broke USL Dunkerques record for shutouts with 20 in a season, breaking John Austins record of 19.  And there's still three months left in the season...

The match against Montpellier was harder than it should have been, even with a man sent off in the 34th minute they kept us on the back foot.  A Zeca Gomes PK from just outside the box in the 59th was all we needed to secure the win.

Toulouse played us hard the first half of the game, but I lit into the boys at half time and they responded.  Tulio scored in the 51st, Marco in the 69th, and Jan K off a PK in the 77th, a very solid win for us.

We stumbled against Angers.  A Lopes shot in the 24th minute put them up 1-0, and they shut us down for most of the game.  Most of the game is not all of the game, and Marco scored in the 88th minute when a TGulio pass found its way thru three defenders and in front of his right foot, six yards out.

By this time we were in a 2nd place with with Monaco, and the tie brought us even in points.

FC Lorient proved to be the tonic to cure our woes.  A brace by Marco, and a goal by Marco Tulio gave us a solid 3-0 win.  MArco also broke the club scoring record in this game, with 83 goals he broke Malik Tchokountes record of 81.

Metz played us very tough, and only some brilliant saves by Ameskamp kept the clean sheet going.  A Thuram goal in the 12th minute and a Biakolo goal in the 62nd minute gave us the win.

A 27th minute goal by Micka gave En Avant a 1-0 going into the half, but in Les Bleus fashion we stomred back in the second half.  James Carter, coming off injury, had a goal, and Marco had a brace, the final one coming in the 91st minute to shut to door.

Havre, by this time, had charged their way up the Ligue and we challenging for a top 5 spot, and they playe us tough.  Only a Roger OG in the 38th minute and some stellar defense saw us thru this game.  I was hoping to keep the good times rolling...

Because PSG was next, and this was a pivotal game.  If we won, we would be 1 point behind them, and they still had L'OL and Auxerre left to play, while we had Auxerre and Monaco.

40 shots, 21 on target later, PSG left with a 4-2 victory.  Florian had some great saves, but PSG spent most of the game in our half of the field.  Marcos goal came on a counter attack, and Ho's came off a header from the Jan K COrner kick, but this was embarrassing.  

We left it late against Auxerre, Marcos goal in the 82nd minute securing us the win.

Marco scored in the 82nd against Monaco as well, but it was too little, too late, and goals by Grimaldo and Silva in the 4th and 17th minute gave them a lead they would not give up.

Last match if the regular season and we dominated Saint Etienne, who are being relegated.  Marco had a brace, and Jan K had a goal and a missed PK.

More importantly, Auxerre beat Monaco 4-0, and we jumped them to finish 2nd in the league.

But that is not the entirety of our season.  Oh no, there was quite a bit more.

First, the Coupe De France results:

I'll be honest, I lost track of these games, even when I realized I was playing Le Berrichonne in the Quarter Finals, I had to stop and make sure.

And I was so invested in the regular season games against Monaco I was happy with the 1-1 draw, especially after they outshot us 2 to 1 and had the possession advantage all game.  A Tulio goal in the 63rd minute equalized for us, and as I said, I was happy with the tie, but when we went into overtime I realized this was a Coupe game.  We held out until the penalty kick phase, when Jankovic, Carter, and Biakolo hit for us.  Fabhino scored for Monaco, butAmeskamp blocked Embolo, Hojberg and Marcus Tulios attempts, securing us the win.

Where we faced PSG.  After 90 minutes we had them held to a 1-1 draw, Marco goal in the 77th minute equalizing Mischenko's 68th minute goal, but it fell apart in extar time.  Half my team was near 50%, and two quick goals in four minutes from Cruz and Martinez gave PSG the victory.  But they earned this one.  We had a chance to win it three times in a row too....

Our result against PSG here was frustrating for a couple of reasons, least of which they had beaten us just recently by the aforementioned 4-2 score in the regular season.

But we had the Coupe de  la Ligue matches as well, and we did pretty well there.

Actually, we did very well:

If we couldn't win one French Coupe, we would win the other.  I was actually trying to win both this year, I think its been about 10 years since a team has won them both in the same season

The story of this series of games was holding PSG scoreless for 90 minutes, then in the PK phase Ameskamp saved the Guedes and Pais attempts.

 

FCSM were defending Coupe de la Ligue winners, and they again played us tough.,  I thought we would be off to a quick start after Marco scored in the 5th minute, but it took a solid effort to keep FCSM out of the net, especially after Foose was sent off in the 76th minute for his second yellow.

This was a nice win for us, but I'll be honest, it was sort of lost in the shuffle.

Because of the Champions League.

We were in a tough Group, Group E:

• Man City
• USL Dunkerque
• Feyenoord
• Shaktar

And we did very well.

Our fIrst game against Shaktar all 4 goal were scored between the 62nd and 69th minute, this was also the game Taskin was injured for 2 months with a torn hamstring.

Our first match against Man City was one of those where stats wise, they owned us, but almost every shot we had was on target and in the goal.  It took and 83rd minute shot by Lukasik for Man City to secure the win, 

Feyenoord had a man sent off in the 10th minute, but we couldnt muster a lot of offense.  A Salomon goal in the 56th minute was enough to see us thru, despite Gomes being sent off for a double yellow.  

They held us to a draw at home, despite having twice as many shots their keeper was able to block anything that came close, but a draw isn't as loss.

Shaktar we ran into the ground, twice as many shots, a 55/45 possession advantage, goals by Tulio and Salomon.  They had a player sent off in the 45th minute after a second yellow, and then played the second half about as defensive as a 4-2-3-1 can be, I think they had maybe one shot on goal the last half of the game.  I'm OK with that, especially if I am on the right side of the score board.

Or next match against Man City was a lot more even stat wise,m we had more shots on target, they had a slight possession advantage, but a Marco goal in the 15th minute was enough for us to secure the win.  This was the only game City lost in the group stage, and with 3 wins, 2 draws, and a loss, we were into the First Knockout Round

Against Real Madrid.

Where we did this:

After holding them to a hard fought draw at home, holding them to 6 shots, 2 on target, we went off in Madrid, scoring 4 goals in the first half.  Zeca Gomes was sent off in the second half, which hurt his contract negotiating stance in more ways than one.  For a guy who wants to win a trophy he's doing eff all to help.  But Madrid didn't try all that hard even after Gomes was sent off.

So we were into the Quarter Final Leg.  Against Arsenal.  And we did this:

Thought I had the screenshot saved...

I realized I wasn't going to score in a shootout with these teams.  I'm just not as good as they are offensively.  But I can hit off the counter pretty well, and if I play solid defense (which we are more than capable off), we can steal a goal here and there.  An a goal may be all we need, as it was in this case.  After frustrating Arsenal at Emirates, we held them close at Stade Dunkerque,, when in the 53rd minute Bilal Assou, subbing for Carter, took a Thuram cross and buried it far post.  Giving us the 1-0 win on aggregate, and the opportunity to play...Man United, in the Semi Finals.

And the them continues!

After holding them to a 1-1 draw in Dunkerque, a Marco Tulio goal three minutes after Origi scored, we went to Old Trafford.  Man U had 28 shots on goal, 14 on target to our 8 and 4, but Ameskamp blocked an Origi PK in the 64th minute, Marco scored a minute later, which was equalized by Negro in the 80th minute.  Things were getting tense, when Taskin took a Jan K PK from just outside the right side of the box and headed it in past the Man U keeper, giving us the 3-2 aggregate victory.

And the right to face...Man City in the final.  Hey, we beat them once before.

It's the end of the season, the boys are tired, it's the last match:

And we ran out of gas.  The defending champs were too much for us, 26 shots on goal, 13 on target, 57/43 possession advantage.  Goals by Lukasik and Marchi gave them the 2-0 lead, but Marco scored off a Jan K assist in the 80th minute gave us a glimmer of hope, but there wasn't enough time to salvage anything.

2nd in the Coupe de France.  2nd in the Champions League.  2nd in Ligue 1.  Winning the Coupe de la Ligue is a bit hollow now....

But there was some good news, losing in the final gave us €11M, and we also made another €22.14M in TV revenue.  Over the current financial fiar play perios, we made €102M, which is huge.

If you scroll back up to the League table, you'll notice Auxerre on LOSC have Europa League Spots, despite finishing 8th and 9th.  That's because 4th place OM and 7th place Girondins both failed to get a license for the due to financial reasons.  OM lost a Champions League spot, which went to Havre, who originally had as Europa League spot.  Girondins lost a Europa League spot, which went to Auxerre.  Winner in all of this was LOSC, finish 9th and get a Europa League spot?  How many other 9th place teams can claim that?

One of the nice benefits of all that TV money?  The board decided to upgrade the training and youth facilities yet again.

OK, I'll have more details tomorrow, as I am wiped out.

Big question now is:  Can I sign Florian Ameskanp away from Bayern?  Klopp says he doesn't want to sell, and I don't want to overpay either....

Thanks for reading and following!

Jellico73

 

[BoxToBox]

Hell of an exciting season!

[deltablue]

Super in the CL, even if you couldn't quite go all the way. 

[Jellico73]

1 hour ago, deltablue said:

Super in the CL, even if you couldn't quite go all the way. 

It's funny, I never have gone into a season expecting to do well.  Something tells me that if I were to load the game at the beginning of the group stages again, I could have easily gone 1-6.  

But in all these cup contests and the like, you reach a point where you've met your level of expectation, and then your surprised you keep winning, and then you think "I just may be able to pull this out."

Unless I am playing PSG of course.  Best team money can buy.

They just bought this guy:

They already have Langerbein and Pais at the AM(L) spot, having paid 131M for both of them.

Any guesses as to how much they paid for this player?

 

Jellico73

[Jellico73]

3 hours ago, BoxToBox said:

Hell of an exciting season!

If I wasn't in the middle of the flu it would be even more exciting.  :-)

Thanks for reading!

Jellico73

[BoxToBox]

45m for the new guy?

[Jellico73]

 

[deltablue]

Far too much

[Jellico73]

118 Million.

 

My transfer budget, at best, has been 24M.

 

There needs to be some sort of random event where Hydrogen becomes economically viable and the oil barons collapse...

 

 

[BoxToBox]

118m Madness!

[Jellico73]

So, I thought I would give a brief hitsory of some of the players that have worn "Les Bleus et Blancs", and also give a general overview of the Football world in this universe.

Keep in mind, the first few seasons I played I didn't have the English or Scottish Leagues turned on.  Don't know why, but it is what it is.

The are just the French League stats, and do not include Cup, Coupe or other League games

2016 Notables:

Malik Tchokounte, Striker.  Until recently he held the record for most goals in a Les Bleus kit.  In 220 appearences he had 81 goals for us, and then a further 40 apperences and 16 goals for the Reserve Team and our affiliates.  I wanted him to retire as a USLD member, but his last season in the League, when he was out on loan, he tore a hamstring, and has since retired.  He pops up every now and then to remind us of a threat on the other team.

Thomas de Parmentier, AM(R).  The first of our assist oriented wingers.  While at USLD he had 48 goals and 43 assists/  Sold to FC Chambly Oise in the 2021/2022 season, he only played 20 games for them, then retired to become a coach.  He was the FC Felury 91 Reserves Head Coach, then the Assistant coach, and is presently the Red Star FC Assistant Coach.

Jean-Jacques Rocchi was our AM(L), and after a solid career retired in after the 2012/2022 season.  

Jean-Christophe Bouet, our Keeper, retired after 2018/2019 season.

2017 Notables:

Gaetano Muraglia (DM) retired in 2019/2020, and was a coach at FCM aubervilles and Le Mans FC before retiring for good.

Ahmed Al-Sadi played a few more years, then retired.  His name no longer goes anywhere when you click on it.

Alexis Araujo is still playing.  He split time between LOSC and the LOSC Reserves team until the 2022.2023 season, when he moved to Varzim on a Free.  After three years there, he spent a year in Vit. Seubal, and then moved to Gondomar, where he's the starting AM(C)

Ibrahima Sy is also playing.  After leaving USLD for Girondons, he spent three years there (two on the Reserves Team, then moved to Rizespor in the Turkish Super Lig, where he's been their starting keeper.

Johnathon Isambart retired after the 2020/2021 season, a solid, if unspectacular player who had a few memorable moments for us.

 

2018 Season:

Amilcar Silva.  I wanted him to be my D(L) and Sweeper of the future.  Instead of good he was merely average, and I let him go to Chamois Niortas FC for 1.3M in the 2022/.2023 season.  A Year later they let him go to GFC Ajaccio for 1.1M, and he is still there, playing D(L).  

Kouadio Yves Dablia joined the same time as Silva, left the same time as Silva, and went to US Avranches.  Avranches has bounced between the CN and Ligue 2, and he's been a starting D(C) for them until recently, when he moved to the rotation.

Jason M'Bock was the first in a long line of "Next Tchokounte", but I screwed up his development, and he never turned into anything for us.  After some solid performances on loan, I let him g.  He ended up at Aigle Royal, in the Cameroon MTN Elite 1 League, where he's had a serviceable career.  

Coupe hero Lloyd Isgrove retired at some point, but I did not keep his history.

Spain won the World Cup this year.  Hosted in Russia, Uruguay came in 2nd, Argentina 3rd.

Marinó Þór Guðmundsson was one of those players who looked good, performed OK, but never got better.  Has had some success at Ipswich after leaving us after the 2023/2024 season, but never realized his full potential.

2019 Season:

One of my Best seasons as far as bringing in players goes.

Thibault Magry went on loan more than a few times, because I could not figure out where his fit in my DM/M rotation of players.  By the time I got it figure out, I had better players on the sqaus, but he was a valuable rotation guy for the last three years he was at Dunkirk.  After going to Stade Brestois 29 for 1M, they moved him to KRC Genk for 2.8M last season, but he only played 5 games for them.

Antonio Vutov is one of a few Favored Personnel at the club.  I am not sure why though.  He was one of those players who was always good enough for a game or three, then would have a string of bad performances.  He did have some clutch moments for us, maybe that's why he's on the list.  After leaving us, he spent two years in Vincenza, a year in Messina, and a year in Sarnese, before Messina brought him back.  Serie B football agrees with him, last year at the age of 30 he had 15 goals and 5 assists.

Guevin Tormin helped take us from Ligue 2 and put us on the Ligue 1 map.  After five very good seasons with us, Charlton made us an offer we couldn't refuse at the time, and for 9M he went to the Sky Bet Championship.  In three seasons there he's been OK, he's played every game for them and averaged about 6 goals, 9 assists.

Yacine Adli is still at TSV 1860 Munchen, where he has had a solid career as their starting M(C).

Jan K.   If I had my way, he will retire as a team legend after hanging them up.  Came in as a AM(R), and 207 appearences, 48 goals, 49 assists later in now an AM(RCL) and a serviceable M(R).  He's also been the team Captain for about the last seven years.  Anything I've asked him to to, he's done as best he could, which is all any coach could ask for.  Juventus came last season, offering 34M for him to go play Serie A, but he's stayed with us.  I wasn't able to give Tchokounte a testimonial game, I am hoping Jan K gets one.

Leonardo Capezzi came in on a Free about a third of the way thru this season.  He only played this season and the next for us, before Viillarreal came in for him.  After three mediocre seasons there, he moved to Real Betis, where he's the starting DM.

Zeca Gomes was the best of my youth intake this year.  I started him as soon as I could, first team playing time from almost the second season on.  He's been a solid 4 star potential guy his whole career, and may reach that point, but it won't be with Dunkerque.  Last season he came in and demanded a new contract, and when I said "No, but what will it take for you to stay?" he said he wanted some silverware.  Apparently winning one Coupe, losing in the final of the other, and losing in the Campions League final wasn't good enough.  When I offered him a new contract, he wanted 100K a year, and when I said no,  Jan K only makes 70K, and theres no way Zeca is getting more than Jan.  When I wouldn't meet his salary demands, I let him go.  Currently he's a whole slew of teams interested in him, Milan, Fiorentina, Malaga, and some french teams.  He's a Current member of Team France, after 15U21 caps he's probably the best young French D(L) out there, so he might get his 100K a week salary.  Just won't be from us.  I'm not as heartbroken about this as I thought I might be.

Helgi Gudjonnson came in on a free, and was the first striker I thought could replace Tchokounte.  He was good bordering on great for us, but also just left you wish that you had a more reliable striker at times.  In 87 appearances he had 47 goals. but when Marco became available I loaned him out to Sivasspor for a season, then sold him to Almeria for 3.3M.  He was underwhelming there, 11 goals in 36 appearences over 2 seasons, and he left on a free and ended up back in France, at AS Nancy Lorraine in Ligue 2, where he had 12 goals in 36 games.  He also has 22 Caps for the Iceland team.

2020 Season:

Souleymane Bah tons of unrealized potential.  I loaned him out to Roeslare and they played him a grand total of 2 games, which probably stunted his growth as a player and was the final act that got me to pull our affiliation.  His last season on loan for us he had 14 goals for US Orleans, next season he left on a free to USBCO where had had 13 goals, since then he's been a part time player.

Milos Degenek was another Australian player, never more than 2 1/2 stars but could play anywhere behind the centerline for us, which made him very valuable.  Not a lot of starts at tthe end, but a lot of releif appearences, and he was a capable tutor as well.  Only 1 goal in 70 appearences for Les Bleus, but he spent 8 years with us before recently retiring.  He also had 53 caps for the Australia national team.

2021 Season:

Antonis Kravaritis.  The third next Tchokounte, he was lost in the shuffle primarily because as a foreign player (He's an Aussie, if you couldn't tell by the name), he never got any playing time here.  I let him go to Valenciennes FC for 275K, and he had 45 goals for them in 5 seasons, not to shabby.  Valenciennes transfered him to FC Sochaux-Montbe last season for just under 1M, and he's been their backup Striker, a solid 3 1/2 player now, with 7U20 and 17 caps for the Aussie teams.

John Austin  Is the primary reason Karvaritis never got any playing time, he took up the foreign slot.  A good keeper for us, he came up big when I needed him too more often than not. This past season he threw an absolute fit when i turned down an offer from Borussia Dortmund, and I was so fed up with him I put him out there and took the best offer, which ended up being to PAOK.  He ended up having a pretty good season for them, splitting time in goal PAOK finished 1st in the Superleague.

Thibault Delhaye was a solid DM for us.  Good, but not great player.  I let him go because I had younger players I wanted to try and develop there, and Reading offered 750K.  He played a grand total of 18 games in two seasons there, before they let him go on a free to USBCO in the National.  He had a good season for them last year, but a good National/Ligue 2 player is probably his ceiling.

Ransford Amoako, Jacques oif all trades, master of none.  Good, but not as good as someone else, I really struggled to find a spot for him on the squad. His best season was probably hius last one with the club, where at various time he player Striker, D(R), M, DM, and AM(C).  He went to Stade Malherbe Caen for 775K, where he had a very solid seasons as their starting M(C).

Leonardo Fontanesi came in on trial, and stayed for two seasons as a really good D9C).  I let him go because Aston Villa offered a decent price for him, and I had a solid replacement.  Villa has been bouncing back and forther between the Premier League and the Championship, Fontanesi has been part of the rotation at D(C) for them.  Still a solid defender.

2022 Season:

Domingos Quina one of my many AM's who could play all three positions, he never quite found a spot with us.  He went to En Avant in the 2024/2025 season, and he's mostly their primary substitute on the line.

Craig Evans was a Welsh Striker whose potential caught my eye before I relaized he was never going to see it.  I knew things weren't going to work out when on loan  as the starter for USBCO, he had 4 goals in 15 appearences.  For some reason MTK in Hungary paid 1M to get him, and he's been OK as their primary backup, MTK has won or placed second in the OTP Bank Liga since he arrived.  He's still the starting ST for the Welsh team, with 17 appearences (and 28 U21 apps as well).

Johnathon Fernandez 4 1/2 star potential caught my eye, but he was part of the glut I had forward, and I let him gor for 225K to Frejus Saint-Raphael.  He spent two seasons there and moved to Stade Brestois 29, where he's a bench player.

Henrique Camara, one of my many Attacking mid's, I brought to play AM(C), and he was okay.  But AM(C) is my teams primary passing outlet, play creator (as an example, about 80% of the assists Addo had for me started off Jan K's foot), and he just wasn't one of those types.  In 59 games he had 8 goals and  8 assists, and was just underwhelming.  He went to Hamburger SV for 3.3M, but after 16 games he was at Stade Rennais on a 1.1M tranfer.  He's been back and forth between the RReserve TEam and the main team since, last season he was a loan to Saint Etienne and had a lone assist.

China hosted the World Cup, with Spain beating Belgium in the final, and Argentina again placing third.

 

2023 Season:

One of my better years, but I got lucky, and I will readily admit that.

Ha Hyun-Ho came in for 375K, and since has become a stalwart at the D(C) position.  He doesn't score, but his technical skills as a defender are fabulous.  Last year he had 6 yellow cards, and 10POM's across all competitions.  He''s a mainstay of the Korean team as well, with 73 caps for the senior team.

Antonio Cabral came in with high hopes, I wanted him to replace Tomrin eventually, but other events took place, and he only spent a year in Les Bleus.  He went to Trabzonspor for two seasons, and did well enough that Ajax paid 5.75M to get him.  Last season he had 11 goals and 12 assists for De Godenzonen, and should finish his career out there.

Marco Tumminello.  In the future, instead of looking for the next Tchokounte, I'm going to be looking for the next Marco.  Roma let him go, and I snapped him up as fast as I could.  If there were a "Hall of Very Good", I'm not sure Marco would be in there, because he doesn't excel in anyone area, but he is above average in where they all count, and he gets the most out of his 3 1/2 star abilities.  With the excellent wingers I have, playing him as a Complete Forward, in 124 appearences, he's scored 92 goals.  And those are just League games.  In Four years, across all non friendly contests (League, Coupe, Continental), he has had 190 appearances, 134 goals, and 36 assists.  He will be one of the all time greats.

Some famous player notes:

Lionel Messi retired and is now the assistant coach at Levante.

Christiano Ronaldo retired and became the Head Coach at Bolton, then Norwich, and then Middlesbrough (who are in the Premier)

Wayne Rooney became head coach of Leyton Orient after retiring as a player, was fired after six months, hired on at Shrewbury and took them to 11th place, then fired after finishing 15th the next season.

On a somewhat personal level, Remi Garde left OGC Nice in 202o for Toulouse, and was sacked after just 2 years on the job in 2021.  He spent two years out of football, then was hired by Valenciennes FC in 2024, was sacked after 261 days, and is no longer in the database as searchable.

Can't think of a better way to wrap this up, will do another one of these again.

 

Thanks for reading,

Jellico73

[Jellico73]

4 hours ago, BoxToBox said:

118m Madness!

This guy went to Man United from Bayern Munich for 119M this year too.

PSG were actually sellers this year, Michal Baranek went to Barcelona for 88M.

Mbappe went to Man City for 117M in 2021.

 

Jellico73

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

Toulouse FC used to be Remi Garde's stomping ground, but he's no longer in the game.  They are now coached by Nicolas Douchez, a former keeper who started at HAC, moved to Toulouse, then STade Rennais, PSG, and Racing Club.  He was a backup while at PSG, and he obviously took great notes.  He's my new best friend, even if he doesn't know it yet.

Why is he my new best friend?

Because Toulouse has beaten PSG both  time this season.  As has Olympique Marseilles.  And we've beaten them as well.  Half way thru the season, PSG has already lost 4 games.  The last time they have lost more than 4 games in a season was 2016/2017, when they lost 5.  

What does that mean?  Opportunities.  Oh yes.

Top of Ligue baby!  (My wife still does not understand this, but she tries, and I lover her even more for it.)

So, how did we get here?

Honestly?  I have no idea.  IF I knew what I was doing I'm sure I'd be fighting it out midtable or someplace worse, but man, this has been fun.

First up, transfers.

Most of these were easy choices to make, being younger players with no chance at a slot here, or older players who weren't going to get a ton of playing time.  

Bilal Assou can be a solid AM(L), but with Carter on the squad, he was unhappy being a backup.  Le HAC came in hard for Bernini, and I have decent depth at D(C), so I let him go.  Stephane Sparagna hit 31, and hit stats fell off the cliff, and he's now trying to be a coach.

Part of me whats to be upset Zeca Gomes has left on a Free.  I tried resigning him.  He wanted 125K a year, and a ton of bonus's that, if he were say an attacking mid or striker, I would have considered paying him.  But he's a D(L) with no heading ability.  He may be the best D(L) with no heading ability in the game, and thats not worth 125K to me.  So I let him go.  He ended up at Sassuolo, where he signed for 75K a week, has played 14 games and is averaging a 6.44.  He's also lost his spot on the French National team.  

The only other out of significance was Maksymilian Jaroszewski, Chelsea cam in and offered 250K out of the blue for him, and I said "sure, I'm good at Keeper."

And why am I good at keeper?  Here's why:

Yes, you are seeing that right.

Florian Ameskamp was in the last year of his contract when I got him on loan.  I did not realize that.  Last seasons January transfer window I enquired about getting him, and Klopp said he wanted a 102M for him.  

So I went and found Matthew Collins, who was going to join me in the summer after his contract at Cardiff was over.

But I went back to Florian's page to see what his current contract and salary terms were.  Maybe I could make an offer that would be, say, 50M aggregate, and that when I saw it.  

Contract expires: 6/30/2027.  Holy....I signed him so fast I didn't even look at his salary demands.  I clicked to make an offer, saw it and hit yes.  

Matthew Collins could be, with regular first team football, as good as Florian.  Right now I have a pretty good rotation going, and if I can't keep Collins, I know I can make a decent amount of money off him when he leaves.

Raimondo Belviso came in for depth and tutoring purposes.  Thurams stats were starting to really fall off, and thats before he broke his ankle and was going to be out for four months, but I didn't want to let him go at the start of the season.

Cesar Pellegrino came in to be part of the midfield rotation.  Which, given his fitness of '6', is all he will ever be.

I have solid depth at the AM(C) and AM(L) positions.  Where I don't have depth is at AM(R).  Jan K. is it, and he's getting older, and I need him for the entire season.

First I went out and got Roman Eller on loan from Borussia Mönchengladbach.  Most games I would play Jan K. 60 or so minutes, then have Eller come in, unless we were facing a lower table team, in which case Jan K would rest and Roman would get the start.   Then Roman broke his ankle  and was going to be out for two months.  

So I found Simon Boere on the Free list.  A solid backup and start spotter I think. 

I really like Noam Salomon.  He's a very complimentary player to Marco in the two forward formation I use, and he's also quite capable of spelling Marco for a game or two with no drop off.  In 3 games this season he had 3 goals and 2 assists.  Last season His left achilles tendon snapped, and he missed most of it.  This season his right achilles got jealous the left one got so much attention last season, so it snapped as well, and he's out til February, at the earliest.  If I keep him on the team.

After Noam went down (again) I went and found Martin Petrov on the transfer list.  Kaiserslautern didn't want the kings ransom for him, and since arriving, he's been every bit as good as Noam would have been, in 6 appearances he's had 6 goals, 3 assists, and 3 POM's while averaging a 7.31.  And he's six years younger than Noam.  Which is why Noam may be moving on.

I wouldn't say I had a huge hole on the D(L) side of things when Zeca left.  I have some okay 2 star players there, and Taskin can play D(L), but I need him to play D(C).  Diakaridia Haïdara is perhaps my best homegrown player for that spot, but I am not sure a 2 star player in a team that likes its D(L) and D(R) to not only bomb forward, but get back on defense quickly, is going to be good enough.  I wasn't comfortable starting him full time, so I went out and got Ken Woodward on loan from Chelsea.

He's been OK, but not great, and he's really not that much better than Haidara, who actually plays a better winger than Woodward does.  I suspect Woodward may go back to Chelsea when the January transfer window opens, and Haidara will be the full time starter.  Or they will split games.

Bruno Ferreira and Lior Tabib are players I brought in for the U19 team.  I've been spending a lot of time scouring the youth teams for players, and have actually found a few on frees the past couple of seasons.  If I can develop them properly, I will have some home grown talent waiting in the wings when some of the current team move on.  And, I have to admit, for a French team, I have Two Frenchmen in my starting XI.  Thats...well, it is what it is, but it does rankle a little bit.

Anyhow, we're at the start of January, and here's how the regular season has gone this far.

A lot of friendlies this year.  I have my affiliate rotation worked out, the Brisbane game falls in very nicely when half of the team is gone on International duty, so the reserves and youngsters get a chanced to play and see Australia.  the Friendly against Middlesbrough and Dinamo Zagreb came about because I had an open weekend and wanted to get players playing time.  Plus Ronaldo is coaching at Middlesbrough, and who doesn't want to say "I've beaten Ronaldo?"

PSG 'Dunkerqued' us in the Trophee des Champions.  Carters 3rd minute goal gave us a lead until the 81st minute, when Mischenko scored, and then in the 91st minute of a 92 minute game, Pais hit a shot that Ameskamp got a glove on, but it wasn't enough, and we lost 2-1 in a meaningless game against PSG.  But we played them well.  

The first five games of the season went really well.  Almost all of the players have a year plus in the formations I run, and it shows.

The game against Nantes is the one Noam was injured in, and they played us very tough.  Shot, on Target, possession, all were very even. We had four shots go off the woodwork, which is just a sign it wasn't really our day.  But it wasn't a loss, and I am OK with that.

I was expecting a tough game against FCSM, they've always played us well, and they have a knack for knocking off bigger opponenets, but losing to lesser ones.  A Couple of years ago they won the Coupe De Ligue, last year they were runners up.  I wasn't expecting a Jan K. hat trick and Carter chipped a goal in as well.  

Montpellier was a tough match, we went ahead 2-0 but they kept attacking, and in the 90th minute Paulo rifled a pass off a one-two that almost ook Collins head off.

Next up was Tours, my new bestest friend.  I was sitting most of my key players (Marco, Jan K, Carter) because PSG was a couple of days away.  Martin Petrov, my new Striker signee, had a brace of goals, and Mendes added in one of his own.  Ameskamp made a save I am not sure is possible from a physics point of view, but it's FM..so there's only so much I can do.  He kept the clean sheet as a result, so I'll take it.

Next up was PSG, in their Stade.  I was expecting a tough match.  Instead I got a foul fest.  Yes, PSG had 18 shots to our 12, 8 on target to our 6, but possession was even, and they had 16 fouls to our 9.  MArco scored in the 42nd minute, then Petrov added a goal right after the half started,  Saul scored in the 76th minute, but it was too little, too late, and we beat the Great Wall of Rulli, for the first time in a looooooong time.

Troyes came in and tried to foul us into a draw, but a Petrov goal in the 23rd minute was all we needed to send the off.  I played a pretty rotated side this game, a lot of people were tired after the PSG match, and Collins was very good in goal this match.  

The next few games were all very similar.  Score a goal while on control, move back to standard, and let the defense do their thing. Marco hasn't found the goal all that often so far, but Marco Tulio, playing En Ganche, has really stepped up, with 7 goals, 3 assists, and 6 POM's up to the midpoint of the season. Our only stumble, if you can call it that, was against L'OL, who are fighting it out with Monaco and PSG for the 2-4 spots. They have a very good squad.  Ha Hyun Ho had an unfortunate OG when an errant header off a corner kick went by Ameskamp, and while Tulio equaled in the 75th minute, L'OL Stopped our attack after that, and we left with the draw.  

We were going to lose eventually.  If not to a lower table team like Havre, then one of the teams fighting it out up top was going to do us in, and Monaco obliged.  Maximiliano Romero was a man on a mission, his first two goals would have been enough to ensure this win, even after Biakolo put one on the scoreboard for us, but his final shot in the 91st minute, an absolute cannonball of a shot off a nice touch pass, was his way of saying "We ain't going anywheres".  And our 15 game unbeaten streak came to an end.  

We got back on track against Auxerre.

Toulouse played us very well, it took a Foose PK in the 68th minute to secure us the win,  I expect Toulouse will be challenging for a top spot in a couple of seasons, right now they are fighting for Europas Leage Qualification, but sooner rather than later I think a lot of those ties are going to be wins.

The Nice match was a fun back and forth.  Jan K had a brace, Carter and Mendes each had a goal, and Christian Restrepo of Nice did his best Romero impression, but his brace wasn't enough.  

I played a very rotated squad against low end of the table Angers, and was rewarded with fine play from Mendes, who had a brace.  Franco Lopez put one past Collins for an Angers goal in the 79th minute, but the rest of the team did very well, and the 2-1 victory was gratifying.

We got back to our clean sheet winning ways against Racing Club De Lens, as Carter and Taskin(!) goals, and a stellar performance by Ameskamp between the posts.

Playing a rotated squad against FC Lorient, Petrovs brace and a fine performance by Collins was enough to see us secure the win.  

Champions League was going to be a bit rougher this year:

My hope was that everybody would beat up on Wil, and then the two least bloody between us, Juve  and Leverkeusen would advance.

And that's pretty much what happened

Bayer beat Wil twice and Juventus once, and lost to Juventus.  We beat Wil Twice, and drew with everyone else, with no losses.  Juve beat Bayer, lost to Bayer, and drew everyone else.  Will drew both their games with Juve and lost to everyone else, and with a whopping 10 points, 1 behind Bayer.  We moved into the Knock Out Round.

Against Real Madrid. Again.  

Well, we beat them last year, we can do it again.

And I won Manager of the year, again.  

But the season moves forward.  17 Ligue 1 games left, 9 points ahead of PSG.  11 Ahead of Monaco. 

It going to be a interesting last half of the season.

Thanks for reading and following!

Jellico73

 

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

"Une victoire creuse"

A Hollow Victory.

That's what the 2027/2028 USL Dunkerque campaign was.

First, the good news:

We won the Ligue.

PSG was in striking distance at one point, but we beat them a second time in Ligue play, then L'OL beat them, and Monaco beat them last game of the season.  This is the first time in well over a decade they have lost more than 5 games.

We did very well last half of the season:

For the immediate future, Martin Petrov is the next Tumminello.  In 32 games against all competitions, he had 24 goals, 7 assists, 8 POM's, and a 7.37 rating.  

We hammered En Avant and Nantes in back to back games, then in a very bland game, FCSM eked out a victory against us.  Antonis Kravaritis, former USLD Striker, had a goal in the 19th minute, which Petrov equalized in the 56th minute.  Then Biakolo got sent off in the 68th minute with a second yellow., and in the 84th minute, Taskin went to clear a corner kick, and instead it squeaked by Ameskamp for the OG, giving FCSM the 2-1 win.

After that, it was back to our winning ways.  The highlight was the 1-0 win against PSG at our Stade.  This was a good game to watch, Rulli and Ameskamp were both on form, we had more shots and more on target than PSG (19/9 to 15/.5), And possession was even.  We scored when Tasking lofted a ball about 60 yards down field, where Kolarek jumped between two PSG defenders and headed it to Petrov, who caught it on the bounce, and then the went low and left as Rulli went high and right for the block. Beautiful, Beautiful goal.  Who is Kolarek hear you ask?  When I invited Dinamo Zagreb in for a friendly, I scouted their teams.  And hidden away on their youth team, was Petar Kolarek.  17 years old (at the time), one U21 cap and one senior Cap.  

This good at 17, and I know with Marco's skills diminishing he's going to get playing time.  I got Petrov for 1.8M, I am sure in three or four years I can sell him for upwards of 20-40M if he keeps playing the way he does.  Marco was valued at 35M before injury, and Petrov will be as good as Marco by the end of next season I bet.  Then Petar is 21, my starting CF, and I'm fending off the big boys to keep him here.

And the kicker?  I got him for 1.5M.  And I beat out Monaco for him.

The only other January transfer moves I made were letting Eller go back home, he wanted too.  Noam Salomon went to Auxerre on a loan deal, his days at Dunkerque are over, LOSC came in for 3.6M for Cesar Pellegrino, who I had picked up on a free and had little playing time, and Pasquier went to Clermont for 76K.

But, back to the season.

Thierry played his 600th game as a head coach.

We were lucky to scrape a tie against Troyes, as Tulio was sent off on a straight red in the 61st minute, and threw everything and the kitchen sink at us to score.  We scraped a 2-0 against LOSC, and then ran into a Lyonnais team that was rested and raring to go, and they just outclassed us from start to finish.  Kuki's 2 goals were all they needed to secure the win.

After that, it was a matter of scraping out wins.  3-2's at Girondins and Havre, 3-1, 2-1's, a 2-0.  The only real blip was Monaco, where we threw the game away.  2-0 going into the 60th minute, goals by Vujanko and Rutten gave Les Monegasques the 2-2 draw.

We beat our new best friend Toulouse, and then OGC Nice, and clinched Ligue 1:

 

But it was still a "Une victoire creuse", and here's why:

A Semi final loss in the Coupe de France to PSG, after Racing Club took us to penalties.

A Semi final loss to PSG in the Coup de la Ligue.

A Quarter Final loss to Barcelona.

Man City beat Bayer Leverkeusen to win the Champions League.  Monaco beat RB Leipzig to win the Europa Lieage.

So, we Win the Ligue, and can't even make it to the finals of any other competition we've been in.  Thats...annoying.

But there were some high points.  Signing Petrov was one.  Florian Ameskamp beat Rulli to win Goalkeeper of the year.  We maxed out attendence at almost all out home games, and I got the board to agree to a stadium expansion, new training grounds and new youth facilities.  We moved up one spot to 19th in the club rankings.  

By any reasonable standard this was a good season for us.

So why I am disappointed?

Well, there's next year.  Time to hunker down and get ready.  If I don't win at least two of the four between the Ligue, Coupe de France, Coupe de La Ligue and Champions Ligue I'm going to be more than a bit miffed.

 

Thanks for reading and following!

Jellico73

[BoxToBox]

Excellent win. Hopefully you've rattled PSG enough that they start next season in bad form.

[Jellico73]

4 hours ago, BoxToBox said:

Excellent win. Hopefully you've rattled PSG enough that they start next season in bad form.

It was a good season, I just wish it would have been better, ya know?

I knew I had a chance when 12 games in PSG was sitting on 3 losses, and there were a few times they pulled very close, but some late season draws when they needed wins hurt them.

The games I have against them are a bit more competitive.  The matches where I have 8 shots, 2 on goal and 40% possession while they have 30/15/60% are few and far between.

Ameskamp has been absolutely ridiculous for me.  Man City (I think, I am away from my notes) came in and offered a huge amount and the first thing I did after turning them down was sign him to a new contract before he could complain about me not letting him leave.

More on that tonight.

Thanks for reading and following!

Jellico73

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

Wasn't a lot of downtime between seasons, more than the last few years, but there were some interesting goings on.

Some I alluded to in the previous post, ground expansion, new facilities, both youth and training, and then the coaching carousel began.

Near as I can tell, Klopp left Bayern Munich to take over Man City, because Ancelotti left to take over Real Madrid, because Vitoria left to take over Barcelona, because Jardim left to take over Bayen Munich, because Klopp left to take over Man City....

And the Inter Milan Job came up as well.  

I turned them all down, because "French Football is my bread and butter."  Now, those guys make from 72K to 180K a week.

I make 9K, and a bonus for winning the Coupe de France.

I really ought to ask for more money.

James Carter, who is now a 3 1/2 star AM(L) for me, is now Home Grown.   Which helps competition wise.

Transfer window wise, things have been...interesting.

PSG paid 59M (and up to 90M) for this guy.  Because the two world class players they have at the positions he plays in aren't good enough?

DId I make PSG angry?  Am I not going to like them angry?

In other transfer news, Monaco's Maximiliano Romero (who had 40(!) Ligue 1 goals last season, went to Barcelona for 62M (84M).

In our transfer news, Porto came in and made a 10M for Boris Kavcic, my 19 year old D(C) whose been getting some regular playing time.  Ha Hyun Ho apparently plays every minute of every internaional game he's in, despite my instructions otherwise.  I'd ban him from International appearances if I new it would go over ok, but....Kavcic had quietly become a 3 start D(C), and he has potential still.

Man United came in with a 17.75M offer for Ameskamp.  9.75 up front, 3M additional over 12, 3M after 50 apps, League and cup bonus's.  He's one of the top keepers in the world, and he's a key cog in my plan for Ligue 1 domination.  As soon as I refused the offer, I went and offered him a new contract, 36K a week, 1.5M loyalty bonus, 7.5K app fee, 6.5K shutout bonus, yearly salary raise, competition bonus's...I'll pay what I have to to keep him.

For us, the window thus far has looked like this:

 

Kevin Bossard comes in from RB Leipzig as part of a planned midfield rotations.  Leipzig got him froam Nantes 3 years ago for 17.75M, but he rarely played.  And both Biakolo and Tarasenko were getting to many yellows fdor my taste last season.  If they keep it up, one of them will be gone come January.

Jerome Perrier come in on loan from Man City.  His primary job is to be a Striker, but I plan on using him in my AM(RL) spots to spell Carter and Jan K.

Remy Chauvet comes in for Youth team depth.  Could see a few games, but I doubt he'll ever be a full time starter.

Thusi Gumede I first saw in the African under 21 tournament.  19 years old and already has 14 Internantional Caps.  And he doesn't take up a foriegn slot. 

Amaury Cisse comes in from Monacos Reserves, a D(C) who can also play D(L) and DM, he's a backup.

Tomaz Medved I found on a free.  Not sure how/why a 16 year old would be out there on a free, but then I've also had some 15 yo as well I've brought in on frees.  He's youth team depth, maybe a backup if he develops well enough.

Rui Aires comes to us on loan from Sporting.  

But why do I have a 19 year old D(R) coming in on loan when I have the 23 yo 4 star Stephen Foose  as my D(R)?

Apparently his Achilles was upset all the attacking players tendons were getting attention.  

He's going to rotate with Bertrand Girond at D(R) for the season, but Aires will be the starter more often than not.

On the outs, nothing to surprising.  Salomon went to Hull for 7M, hopefully he stays healthy and they'll get something out of him.  

Saint Etienne came in for Mendes, and I have a couple of younger players I can rotate in to where he backed up.  In fact, I have some younger players I'd love to get some more playing time, but my fear is if I send them out other teams will take notice and make a grab for them...

Mael Durand, Matthieu Coulon, Patrick Mollering will all get some first team playing time.   Mehdi Varane was the best of last years youth intake, the plan is to train him up and then have him ready to take over a D(C) spot in five years.

And those in the know picked us to finish 5th.  

But we are going to to better than that this year.

 

Thanks for reading and following!

Jellico73

[Jellico73]

Minor edit:

 

Florian Ameskamps new contract:

Im sure he'll be getting a raise in a couple of years...

[Jellico73]

Andrei Lung, now a 22 year old 4 1/2 star D(R), was sold to Chelsea for €41M this last transfer window.

Sigh...

[Jellico73]

This is Kristjaan Speakman, my Head of Youth Development the past three seasons.

I have excellent youth facilities, a 4 1/2 star worldwide rep, state of the art training facilities, above average youth recruiting, and despite my U19 and Reserves coaching staff ranking 1st in their respective categories, only 'Adequate' junior coaching.

This is my latest youth intake.

I just threw up in my mouth a little....

JFC thats awful...

Granted, this is only the fourth most ridiculous thing I've had to deal with this season....

Jellico73

 

[BoxToBox]

That looks pretty rough, is it a case of just having a really good first team in comparsion?

[Jellico73]

I think its more a case of I have had some very good youth candidates come thru the past few intakes:

Miki I pilfered from Bilbao for 100K last season, and Medved I picked up on a free of all things.

And my 3 star guys are pretty solid too.

Great Expectations means great failures I suppose.

But, as I said, not thew most ridiculous thing thats happened to me this season.

Jellico73

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

As is my usual fashion, I had meant to do a mid season update, but two things happened.  First, I got into a playing groove, where it was "Just one more Game!" about ten times, and I went to bed late without posting.  Then it was up early to take my son to his dentist appointment.  My son does not do dentists, to the point where my wifes excellent insurance will cover the cost of essentially knocking him out, which is the bad news.  The fun news is that he's pretty much loopy the rest of the day, so I was able to play thru the rest of the 2028/2029 season.   It was...well, it was.  There were quite a few things going on that just don't make a lot of sense to me, but apparently they make sense to long time players of the game, so we will have to see what happens moving forward.

Our Ligue 1 Schedule up the the start of the January transfer window:

We got off to a very good start.  So did PSG.  And Monaco.

I spent the first few games fighting myself with tactics.  I almost always use a 4-2-3-1, or a 4-3-1-2, depending on the situation.  I kept trying to find a tactic that would let me use my strikers, wingers, and midfielders together, and came up with a 3-3-3-1, with 3 D(C)'s, 3 M(C)'s, 3 AM's, and a striker, but I am not the tactical genius to figure out why it wasn't doing what I wanted it to.  Eventually I went to a pretty heavy rotation at some key positions, last season Marco had 22 starts, Kolarek had 16 starts, and Petrov had 15 starts, and my midfield was a rotation of Tarasenko, Bialko, JeanJean and and a few others.

Anyhow, we were in fine form, even with some of the injuries we had, players stepped up and had solid games.

Against Monaco, Marco was the hero that day, as his 80th minute goal equalized the score and secured us the draw.  

Out match against PSG was also a nailbiter.  A Mischenko goal in the 65th minute gave them the lead, and it looked like they were going to win and secure 1st place, but in the 89th minute a Tulio Corner kick went of Kavcic's head far post, to Tarasenkos head near post, and into the goal.  

We had some other pretty stressful games as well, LOSC, Tours FC, were 1-0 games where a second half goal was what we needed to keep going.  

Going into the January transfer window, we we in first place.  PSG was 2 points behind, Monaco 4 points behind.

Then things started to get....hinky.

I wasn't planning on being active in the January transfer window.  Maybe a few loans, kept my eyes on a few players, nothing to serious.

Luigi Tiozzo came in on loan from Juventus.  I wanted some backup at D(C) because Ha Hyun Ho's international coach seems determined to run him into the ground while he's playing outside of France, and Tiozzo fit the profile I was looking for:  Young, skilled, and OK with being a rotation player.

Fredy Paredes I found while trolling through the U20 rosters of the South American U20 Championship teams.  I like that he plays M(C) and DM, and and 18 I can use him in the rotation to build him up.  For a flat fee of 2.6M, I know I can seel him more for that down the road if he improves just a little.

I've been following Mark Bijl for a couple of years now.  28 U21 appearences, solid stats, tons of potential.  I had enquired about him to Vitesse last season, and they said he wasn't for sale at any price.  But I fillowed him, and when I got a messgae that Aresenal had made and offer to him for something in the 11.5M range, I swooped in for 14.5M.  Despite my larger transfer budgets, I haven't felt the need to go out and spent 30M "Because I can.", so I was ok with spending that amount.

My depth at keeper wasn't great.  I had a lot of keepers but the diagram after Ameskamp and Collins in current ability/potential ability resembled a cliff.  Aristide Diomande is an Ivorian I first scouted on the u20 team, and on a whim I made an enquiry about him.  1.5M later he was coming in as our 3rd keeper.

Then the weird bollocks started happening.

Diakaridia Haidara came in upset because he wasn't getting first team playing time.  I had planned on using him as part of a rotation at D(L), but Thudi Gumede has exceeded all my expectations there.  I offered to start him in the Cups, but he demanded a trade.  I probably undervalued him, but his attitude was starting to affect the locker, and I won't be having that.

Simon Boare went on loan to Mouscron, then out of the blue AC Milan came in and made an unsolicted offer for Boris Kavcic, our young promising D(C).  And when I said no, he demanded a meeting and wanted to know why I was not listening.  So I went back to Milan with the same money overall, and they signed him.

Then, out of the blue, Jiangsu made an unsolicted offer for Ha Hyun Ho.  And I said no.  And the locker room went ape.

So I went back to Jiangsu, upped my offer by a couple of mil, and Ha Hyun Ho left.

And during this time PSG, Monaco, and Man United were making a push for Florian Ameskamp.

I said "Hell No!" to Monaco and PSG, not because their offers were insulting (they were) but theres no way in heck I'm letting a goalie that good stay in DIvision.

But Florian came to me and said "I want to win some trophies and I can't do that here, I want to go to Man United."

I offered him more money to say, he said no.  I said fine, I'll let you leave if I get 50M for you.  He said 25.  I said 35, and he agreed.  Two week later PSG bid 14.5M, and Man U came in with a 33.5M Bid.  Blivet.

So I got them up to 35M with some very achievable incentives, and Florian left.

Merde.  And thats still not the strangest thing that happened to me this season.

In comes Matthew Collins, who could be good, but at the same time every game it seems he has a mistake that almosts cost us the game.

And we're doing so well.  How well?

95 points in Ligue 1, 2 ahead of PSG, 5 ahead of Monaco.

How'd we get there?  By the skin of our teeth.

Against Racing Club it took a Marco goal in the 77th minute to put us ahead by 2, then Collins gave up a goal in the 84th minute that was of the "Oh, Look, the Balls going right by me, wait ten seconds then Dive the other direction...

Against OM were were 3-0 up going into the half, but a very dubious penalty kick and an 83rd minute goal gave OM the tie.

We were 2-1 up against Monaco, and then in the space of 4 minutes they had two goals, neither of which Collins really made a move for.  And I was highly miffed.

Toulouse was the same story, 2-0 going into the half, and two Aymeric Benoit goals, the second in the 88th minute, gave them the tie.

Now, I do realize that letting my 2nd and 3rd D(C)'s go could be part of the problem, except I also went to a formation with two DM's playing well back, and Tashkin, Cisse, and Tiozzo may be a bit of a drop off, but not a huge drop off.

We got ourselves right against PSG, a very nice 3-1 win that gave us the lead in the Ligue.  Up until this point we had been jockeying for 1st place the last few weeks.

Against Auxerre, well, I don't know what happened.  We had 17 shots, 8 on goal, and a 53/47 advantage in possession.  Auxerre had 3 shots.  Theie keeper was on fire, the next Rulli maybe, and all of my defensemen had more than a 7.1, because they spent a decent amount of time playing in Collins area.

L'OL played us hard all match, and deserved the tie IMO.  We had our chances, but couldn't make them count.

By drawing with Nantes, we won the Ligue.  Anti Climatic, sure, but the game itself was another one where we couldn't find the goal.  I yelled at the team.

They responded by going out and getting 5 against Montpellier.

The Coupe de Ligue was disappointing, again.

In the 4th Round we beat PSG on penalties, but that only happened becaused PSG got a 90th minute goal to send it to penalties in the first place.

In the Quarter finals we came up against a Ligue 2 Stade Malherbe Caen team, we lost.  At Home.  1-0.  Double Merde.

In the Coup de France we did a lot better:

FC Lorient almost pulled a Stade Malherbe on us, but Collins was a rock between the sticks, and then Lorient went wide on their 5th PK, and Gumede tucked it away for the win.  If I didn't know any better, I'd think we weren't taking these lower division teams seriously.

Against OM, Tashkins goal of a header was very nice, and we went to face PSG in the final.

Tough game to watch.  PSG ran us all over, and had several close calls, and a heroic save by Tiozzo saved a goal.  Les Bleus only had 6 shots, 3 of which were on target, but the defense held, and in extra time, Mark Bijl took a Kolarek cross and headed it past Onana for the winner, and we won the Coup de France.

Champions League...well...

Highlight of this was pasting Arsenal 5-1.  That was a fun game to watch.

Next up, Man United, and maybe Florian Ameskamp in goal for the Red Devils.

And did we ever get lucky here:

Not one, but two extra time goals to give us the 2-1 aggregate win.  And in the first game, we were a man down after 66 minutes because Taskin got a second yellow.  Then I realized Ameskamp wasn't part of their Champions League roster, and I was a little happier I didn't have to play him.

Second game a Rashford PK gave them the lead, and things were looking like they were headed to extra time, when Biakolo took a MArco cross of the throw in and blasted it upper left from the top of the D.  Brilliant goal that gave us the win, and a meeting with Benfica.

The pucker factor was high in the second game.  A Jan K goal in the 8th minute gave us a lead, that Collins propmtly gave away in the 46th minute when he failed to handle a ball my son could have kicked harder.  Rui Ares goal was matched by Leite in the 78th minute, and then 4 minute later Leite scored again to give them the lead, but Marco came thru for us in the end, and 87th minute goal that equalized the score and gave us the 4-3 aggregate win, and the right to face Chelsea (And Andrei Lung) in the Semi's.

The first game was a yawn fest.  Neither side had a lot of chances, or made anything of the ones they did have, but I'll take a tie at home any day of the week in a Champions League game.

We came to life at Stamford Bridge.  21 shots, 11 on target, 64% possession.  I'm not sure Chelsea knew which way they were going on the pitch sometimes, and if Courtois hadnt been in goal, I'm sure the score would have been hgiher.  As it stood, a Tulio goal in the 45th minute and a MArco goal in the 75th minute were enough to secure the victory.  

So we were on to Ataturk Olympiyat in Istanbul, to face Borussia Dortmund, in the Champions League final.

Dortmund went ahead in the 18th minute, on a Baumgart goal.

Marco equalized 2 minutes later.

Then it was a defensive back and forth.  Thusi Gumede got sent off in the 90th minute on a straight red, and we spent the rest of overtime a man down.

Then it was penalty kicks.  I literally could not watch.  Started the PK's and walked away, because I was certain Collins would bottle this somehow.

I was wrong.  I can admit that.

And all those players who left because they felt they couldn't win...

And that wasn't the weirdest part of the season...

No, that came about because of Stefan Hahn.  He was the young winger we brought in from Dortmund at the beginning of the season.

A Week after we got him he went out for six weeks with a lower back fracture.  No big deal, I kept him on the squad.

So, he finally gets healthy, and I play him the recommended 30 minutes in a Reserve game so he can start building up some fitness.  And the Marcelino wants to talk to me.

Apparently he's upset because Hahn isn't getting enough first team playing time.

.

.

.

.

.

I don't have enough hands to give this the facepalm it deserves.

But there we are.

Champions of the League, 2029. Coupe De France Winners, Ligue 1 Winners, and I do believe this is the first time in game we have not lost to PSG.  

All in all, a very good season.  :-)

 

Thanks for reading and following!

 

Jellico73

 

 

[BoxToBox]

Holy heck, what a crazy season, on and off the pitch!

Well done!

[Keano16]

Wow. Unlucky boys, you took a one way ticket!

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

One of the side effects of playing so many games is that your offseason is short, and you tend to miss a few things that do have some importance to you.

For example, when we beat Man United last season in the Champions League, and due to other factors as well I am sure, they fired Jose Mourinho.  The reason I found this out was an announcement that Mauricio Pochettino was leaving PSG to take the Man United job.

PSG in turn hired Mourinho...the Coaching Circle of Life as it were...

There were some postive things at the end of the year:

Thats a 10K expansion I didn't ask for.  Originally they were just going to ad something like 2200 seats, but apparently winning a lot means were popular, and popular puts people in the stands.  And you'll notice we are paying for this ourselves, no loan required.

We had a profit of €20M for the financial year, mostly due to the fact we sold €73M worth of players.  

And our financials were up across the board as well:

 

James Carter, who's quietly become one of the better AM(L)'s in the game, has progressed from 'Wonderkid' to 'Key Player', and signed a new 5 year deal that will see him earn €33.5M

In the club rankings we moved up to the 10th spot.  Competition wise though, Ligue 1 dropped 1 place to 4th position, costing us a Champions League place.  On the list of richest clubs, we went from 38th to 23rd, at just over €400M.  We have moved 

We were pretty active in the summer transfers.  I found myself having to make a couple of hard choices, and am hoping they won't come back to bite me.

First, the Ins:

Gibeon was a player we found in Brazil.  Not a wonderkid, but a young, versatile player who, if all goes according to plan (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....sorry.....)will be a spot starter and valuable backup in three years.  He's a Striker first and foremost, but his ability to play any of the AM's is what grabbed my attention.  That and the fact he was cheap.

I did let Matthew Collins go (Surprise, surprise), and while I was comfortable with Aristede Diomande in goal, when Felipe Arrieta popped up I liked what I saw, and when I compared him and saw his potential, I really liked what I saw.  

I needed a quality D(C), and Markus Ambrosius is who I signed.  I've been following him since he was part of the Germany U21 team, and he is a very solid player, which is all I am looking for from my D(C)'s.  Schalke kept loaning him out because he couldn't crack their starting lineup, and after playing three years in Basel, he requested a transfer, and I jumped on it,  for €6.5M.  He's got a bit off a fouling problem, which I hope I can train out of him.  But he's also been solid for us.

Amine Riou came in on a free, organizational depth.  Signed as a backup, knows he's a backup, is happy being a backup/rotation guy.  And he's been solid for us in that role.

Gregory Lambese comes to us from Club Brugge.  While I have a couple of younger players on my U21 team I think will be able to step up and take over the AM roles in the next couple of years, I needed some depth, and Lambese fits the bill.  Able to play both AM wings, he won't get sa lot of starts, but will get plenty of relief appearances.

Sedat Kalkin comes in on a Free from Beşiktaş.  He was never able to crack the starting lineup there, but his ability to play D(C). DM, and M(C) makes him a valuable cog in the Dunkerque machine.

Jerome Perrier I signed to be a backup and a tutor, roles he has performed very well.  He's also been a solid sport starter for us.

Florian Muhr I brought in on a free for depth, but almost immediately after I signed him, Fulham wanted him on loan, and I said "Sure, OK."  He's...OK, which means I don't feel bad getting him on a free, at the very least we will break even if/when he leaves.

Matt Barrett popped up on the loan list, and I took him on board.  Mostly because I can't rely on Foose's surgically repaired Achilles, and the fact that he's gone quite a bit as part of Team USA.  I do have Ryan Clarret training to be a D(R), but he's also 17, and I'll take a 2 star D(R) over a 17 year old DM learning to be a D(R) any day of the week, especially with our schedule.

On the outgoing side of things, we were busy.

All the frees were U19 players who were never going to see first team starting time here at Dunkerque.  All the players out on loan are getting first team time, and believe me, I am staying on to of that.

Joseph Eyenaga was a youth player with potential who never realized it, and as he played primarily AM(L), wasn't going to see a lot of playing time either.  AA Gent snapped him up as soon as I put him out there.  

Sabatino Bernini I brought in for backup/depth, but he never played for us, instead going out on loan.  The few times I did play him he was horrible, and I took a €2M loss on him after he signed with PAOK.

I made up some of that with Hasan Karatepe moving on.  He was also a D(Everywhere) player I brought on for depth, and the few times he played for me he was very meh.  He wanted to go out on loan, and his best season was at Lokeren, where he started 29 games and had a 6.46 rating.  Clermont Foot paid €1.3M for him, and as I got him on a Free, that offsets most of what I lost on Bernini.

Matthew Collins is the first player I think I've traded to a team in the same Ligue I was in.  I could be wrong there.  But for every great play he made, he made at at least two where I was asking the FM Gods "What the eff is that ****?!".  I would have preferred him going to a better team than Saint Etienne maybe, but he's thier first team keeper now.  Two wins for us.

Simon Boere I brought is as a backup, signed him as a backup, and then he started complaining about first team playing time.  I tried selling him last January transfer window, but there were no takers, but Mouscron took him on loan, and he had a respectable season for the
m.  FC Utrecht signed him this time around, and he's been underwhelming so far, 1 assist and no goals in 17 games.

Fabien JeanJean was a product of our youth system I had high hopes for.  A good DLP and BTM from the M(C) position, he made the U21 team, but he topped out at two stars, and was getting consistently beaten when we played the bigger clubs.  And with Mark Bijl and Kevin Bossard coming on board, and with Erik Biakolo and Sergey Teresenko already here, and with Jimmy Paredes waiting in the U19 team to take a spot in the rotation, he was the odd man out.  Tours FC jumped on him as soon as I listed him, and as he's not a great player, I had no trouble letting him go to another Ligue 1 team.

The next out was a tough one.  Marco Tumminello was a great signing for us, and was key to our successful runs in the Ligue and Championships.  He was also 31 and earning 70K a week, and his skills were diminishing, and he was getting injured more.  Also, first team play for Peter Kolarek has been a boon, my young striker was 2 stars when I signed him, in 32 starts over two seasons (and some relief appearences), hes now 4 stars, with 5 star potential, and he's only 19.  The bridge from Marco to Petrov to Kolarek has proven to be very short.  I thought about keeping Marco, but I have yet to find a 2 striker, 2 winger formation that works, and playing a rotation of him, Kolarek, and Petrov was bound to make two of the three mad.  But the final determination was that he was in the last year of a contract, making 70k a week, and he wasn't getting better, and in fact was getting a little worse.  I did not want to sell him to a Ligue 1 team though, and took a bit less money from Everton to let him go.  He's the second stringer there, and has had an underwhelming season so far.  For the time being, he's the best Free signing I've made since the save started.

Erik Biakolo left on a coin flip.  Seriously.  I play a 4-2-3-1, and depending on the team/situation, one or both of my midfielders will drop back to DM, and in some cases I'll take out my AM(C) and move him to DM as well.  So I have a lot of players who are good M(C)/DM's.  On screen, Biakolo was taller, heavier, slightly better in the mentals, better aerially, and worse attacking.  He was also a bit more versatile position wise, and he was a year older.  With the depth I have at M(C) and DM, one of them was going to go.  So I flipped a coin, and Biakolo lost.  He was valued at 30M, I listed him for 25, and RSC Anderlecht made a non negotiable offer of 22M for him.  In for 275K, out for 22M.  That's nice.  

Som as it stands so far, I've played to the January transfer window.

And our season has been very up and down.Here's the up:

We're currently in 1st place, with 48 points.  PSG is a point behind us, but they have also played 2 more games than we have.  

PSG edged us on PK's in the Trophee des Champions, but it ook a lucky Ferreria goal for them to even the score at 82 minutes.

We started our Ligue 1 games against Saint-Etienne.  5 goals later I am pretty sure Issa Cissokho was asking himself if Matthew Collins was truly the keeper for him.  

And we kept winning.  Kolarek and Carter seemed to be in a competition early on about who could score the most goals, a competition Kolarek is winning hands down now.

Our first stumble came at Metz, when a questionable penalty gave Tulio a chance in the 93rd minute for the win, which he did put away nicely.  It was quite controversial though, even I had to admit it.

Our first loss came to L'OL, who ar just 7 points behind us, when Trincão put home a nice shot in the 68th minute.  We had out chances, but couldn't capitalize.  

We got back on track pretty quickly, beating Monaco 5-3 was a fun match to watch, it should have been 5-1 but Tavares and Tulio scored for Monaco in the 87th and 90th minutes (and didn't I yell at the boys for that) to make the score look interesting.

We were ties with PSG 1-1 going into the 80th minute when Christian Barraza, their backup striker, was put in for Esteban Cruz.  He scored twice in two minutes, and I literally shut the game down and walked away in disgust.  

We got our revenge a couple of weeks later agains L'OL, beating them 2-1, and then came the Club World Championship?

I have no idea what this is.  I blame this on my lack of world football knowledge, and living in North America.    But we beat ES Tunis 2-0, and Kolarek, who has really come into his own, scored both goals against Cruzeiro to give us the win and the Cup. 

We played Saint-Etienne again and put another 4 goals past Collins.  Marco Tulio had a hat trick, and I'm sure if Cissokho had hair (he's bald in the photo I have of him), he'd be pulling it out.  

So, at the start of the January transfer window, this is where we stand:

It looks a lot closer than it actually is, because we have two games in had (I think thats right.

And thats been the ups so far this season.  Well, I won Manager of the Year again, and managed my 700th game.  Geaux Me!

Here's the downs:

Injured in the West Ham friendly.  Should have chosen tails....

This is going to be his last year as a member of Les Bleus.  I like him, I like his ability, he's been a great replacement for Lung.  But I think this is like the 4th year in a row he's missed significant time due to injury, and I'm not going to pay a player 90K a week for 2/3rds of a season playing time.  I have 127M in the transfer budget, I may as well spend some of it.  This happened in late August.

This happened a week later.  He's been a great second choice option this year, especially with Kolarek getting rested every few weeks.  10 starts, 4 goals, 4 assists, 2 POM's and a 7.35 rating.  Even if I didn't have Kolarek I would have let Marco go, Petrov is more than capable.  

You don't know him yet, but you will.  I picked him up on a Free when he was 16.  Not sure how, but he showed up on the scouting reports, and I liked what I saw.  His ability to play AM(C), M, and DM make him very useful to us, and he was doing really well on his loan assignments.  

And last, but not least, the final salt in these injury wounds.  This happened in our last game.

Thats not the low point of the season though.

That was this:

I was expecting a tough draw.   Man United was 3rd in the Premier League last season, Schalke 4th in the Bundesliga, and Shaktar 1st in the Vyshcha Liha, and this wasn't the Group of Death by any stretch, but still.

We stumbled against Shaktar, an 80th minute Kolarek goal saving the draw, despite outplaying them the entire game.  Against Man United we were outplayed from start to finish.  Ameskamp was great in goal for them, although Tulios score against him was brilliant, we just couldn't make the most of our chances.

Our first match against Schalke we couldnt get anything going.  The sat the entire game, and were happy to take the draw.   

Two weeks later Marco Tulio (off all people), was sent off on a straight red in the 13th minute, when we were already up 1-0.  we were 2-1 up at the half, but Schalkes 2 goals in the second half gave them the lead.  Carters 88th minute goal gave me a glimmer of hope, but we lost and were now in 3rd place.

We got ourselves right against Shaktar, but going into the Man U game we needed a win, and then we need needed winless Shaktar to beat Schalke.  Neither happened, even if Arrieta hadn't scored an OG in the 78th minute for mishandling a ball, Schalke shut out Shkatar, and we were out of the Champions League.

Winners last year, out in the Group stages this year.  Now it's onto the Europa Cup.

But man, does that suck.

In other news Jan K played his 275th game for Les Bleus.  We have a 5 star Worldwide reputation, I am at 4/12 star ability with a world class rep, and any top tier team always comes to me asking if I want to interview.  

Now if the only pay me that way...

 

Against All Odds, I bottled the Champions League.

 

Thanks for reading and following!

Jellico73

 

 

[Hootieleece]

Matthew Collins will probably play great against you. Probably have clean sheets too.

 

That is why I never trade a player to a team I directly compete with..........

Because The few times I did.......it bit me in the a**!

It's ok if its a team you might see in European Football or is in a lower league and that team gets promoted into your league.

but the players still seem to bite you in the a**!

[Jellico73]

Thus far we've scored 9 goals against him.  

But theres a reason I didnt trade Ameskamp to Monaco or PSG.

 

Jellico73

[ManUtd1]

Tremendous work in here - been catching up.  It's always nice being part of the reason an opposing manager gets sacked, too.  

[Jellico73]

Thanks!

There's still some...oddities...that have me questioning some under the hood stuff SI has in the game, but it's been so far, I'm still enjoying it.

Jellico73

 

 

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

How Could a season be so successful, yet so unfulfilling.  I am certain there are existentialist philosophers pondering such things at the local cafe, and I hope they know the answer, because I sure as heck don't.

When I last posted we were at the January transfer window.  I wasn't to active on the 'In' side of things, I scouted a few players, tagged some for later, but on the "Outs', there were a few.  

Bruno went out for some first team playing time.  Youth games are good, but he'll develop faster (I hope with some, any, First Team experience).

Girond, well, I just wasn't happy with him.  What playing time he was getting he didn't do much, in fact he was below average, and where were at below average isn't going to cut it unless there's extenuating circumstances, and as of no, there isn't.

Sergey won the coin flip, but still lost.  After he came back from injury not only was he well off his form, we really didn't have a spot for him any more.  Between Bossard, Bijl, Kalkan and Paredes, I have 4 M(C)/DM's who can play where I need them to, and Sergey found himself the odd man out.  I put him on the transfer list, but Ajax jumped all over him, paying me 325K a month with an 15M option at the end, and I said yes.  Novara came in for Perrier on loan, and I felt I had enough depth to let him go.

Ligue 1 wise, we did well.  Very, very well:

Yes, you are seeing that right.

1 Loss, 1 Tie.

For an overall season record of:

New Ligue 1 Record for wins.  New Ligue 1 record for points.

This seasons nemesis?  Olympique Lyonnais, who beat us in both games we played 1-0.  Slaven Bilic and L'OL always play us tough though, and they weren't the only ones.  We got almost everyone's best shot.

Petar Kolarek has been everything advertised and more.  At 19 (going on 20), he's got to be the best young striker in the game, a 4 star Complete forward who, across all competitions this season:

In 61 games, had 45 goals (A New Team Record), 1 PK goal, 21 Assists, 14 POM's (A New Ligue Record), and and average rating of 7.55, a new Team record.  Without his talented feet I am not sure if we could have won some of these games.  Lord knows we tried bottling a few of them.

Against Troyes, he put us ahead in the 63rd minute after former Les Bleus player Antonis Kravaritis equalized.

I gave him a rest against Tours, and Ptrov responded with a brace, and Jan K added another goal.

We were a well rounded attack.  Carter, Tulio, Jan K, all were scoring.  We weren't getting a lot of clean sheets (goals in the last 15 minutes of the game are killing me), so some of the games look closer than they actually were.  Nantes and Metz both scored after the 80th minute.

Our only stumble came against L'OL, when an 82nd minute Nic Romero goal gave them the lead, and we could not come back.

We got ourselves right against LOSC, Tulio with a 27 minute Hat Trick.  

Mark Bijl knocked our lone goal in against OM, and against Monaco we looked to be headed for the draw when 92nd and 93rd minute goals gave us the 3-1 win.  I'm not sure Monaco knew what happened, and I say that with some authority becuase I am not sure what happened....

Petroc had a brace against Racing Club de Lens, Carter a Hat Trick against PSG, whom we thrashed 4-2 in a game that wasn't as close as the score looks.  

We stumbled again against Toulouse, but they played us very well all match, and frankly I was lucky to escape with the draw.

A Kalkan header gave us the victory over Stade Rennais not once, but twice.  As a result of this, and the fact that they were being relegates, Stade Rennais fored thier coach, and poached one of min to be there new head.  I think teams have realized I am not leaving Dunkirk alive, and instead are poaching my coaching talent.  IIRC, I think we clinched the league after the second Stade Rennais win.

In the Coupes, well

In the Coupe de Ligue:

It was a close run thing.  Victories over Lyonnais (A small measure of revenge), and Creteil-Lusitanos put us in the Semi's with Girondins de Bordeaux.  We were up 4-1 at Half, and after a rousing speech and pep talk, were very sloppy and slovenly, as two second half goals pulled Les Girondins within 1.

We had PSG in the final, and it was looking like it was headed towards extra time when in the 87th minute, Foose drove home a nice shot form the out corner of the box, giving us the 1-0 victory, and Automatically qualifying us for Europa League games.  

In the Coupe de France we kept up our good run. 

I will admit I did not play the Raon-l'Etape game, leaving that to the assistant.  Can't argue with the result though.  

The game against L'HAC was closer than the score appears, after Kolarek socred in the 40th minute, Tashkin (whose quietly had a very good season) was sent off on a red, but HAC had a player sent off 15 minutes later, and Carter put us ahead 2-0, with a late HAC goal accounting for their score.

FCSM also played us tough, but I wasn't expecting the Tours match to go to PK's.  Nor was I expecting all three of their first PK takers to miss or have Arrieta save.  Then it was onto the finals, against Saint-Etienne, and I smiled, because Matthew Collins was in goal.

For the record, against Les Verts, the standings this season were 3-0, with the goal total being 12-4.  

Last, but not least, by much, Europa League play.  I really wanted to win this, especially after such a poor performance in the Champions League.  I suppose losing in the final counts as doing well to some people.  I'm not to happy about it.  

The games aginst Rangers were fun to watch, a lot of back and forth, but Petrov seemed to have their number.

I'm not sure what happened against Stoke, one minute the game started, three highlights later we were up 3-0, and even after going defensive we knocked in two more goals.  I played a very rotated squad the next game, and they did very well.

We almost threw it away at Anderlecht, after a home draw we went there.  Anderlecht got on board first, then Gumeded equalized in the 64th minute, but in the 88th minute a Cardona goal put them ahead.  It took Kolarek, scoring off a poorly deflected shot in the 90th minute to salvage the draw, and the win on away goals.

Atletica Madrid was next, and after a hard fought draw at home O was expecting more of the same in MAdrid, but an early Bossard goal put them out of sorts early, then Tulio had a brace within three minutes, and Carter added a fourth goal a few minutes later.  30 minutes into the game we were ahead 4-0, and I coasted the rest of the game, setting up a final against Man City.

It was the next to last game of our season, and we were tired.  From 3/31/2030 to 5/22/3030 we played 17 games across all competitions.  Thats 17 games in 53 days, a game every three days.and 10 of those games were Europa or Coupe games.

Aginast Man City, just enough went wrong.  Goals by Barbosa and Mbappe put them up 2-0.  Kolarek equalized with 2 goals in 13 minutes, but a Foose OG in the 76th minute obviously rattled him, because 10 minutes later Lukasik ran right through him and banged a shot home, leaving the score 4-2.

Also, in a round about way, this game reinforced my decision to never play a series as an Premier League coach, unless I do what I've done here and take a team all the way up.  Juergen Klopp had Man City finishing 4th in the Premier League, behind Liverpool, Man U, and Arsenal.  A lot of injuries, a lot of drawn games, but 4th in the Premier League with a Champions League spot is respectable.  Especially after a 5th place finish the year before.  He was also the UEFA Super Cup winner, Club World Championship Winner.  He won the Europa League, but lost or tied 8 of his last 10 games, so Man City fired him.  To hire the regen coach of 8th place SOuthampton.

With owners like that, who needs enemies?

My youth intake was horrible.  Again.  In fact it was so horrible i fear that putting it up on the forum will cause it to crash in response.

Well, not really, I was so disgusted by it I didn't take a screen shot. My best prospect was 3 1/2 stars.  And there was just one of those. I'm giving my current guy one more year, and after that, he's out.  

But, we had a rare accomplishment is the football world:

Annual Awards wise, Kolarek was the fans Player of the Year, with 50% of the goal, and also young player of the year.  Ambrosius was the signing of the year.

Ambrosius was also named Ligue 1 'Most Promising Player'.  Kolarek was the Ligue 1 Star of the Competition.

Arrieta won Goalkeeper of the Season, despite a low number of clean sheets.  

Commercially, were doing very well:

We also set a new team attendance record, because of our expansion, we rented out Stade Félix Bollaert-Delelis, a 38K seat stadium in Lens, and we averaged 29, 557.  As our new Stadium will seat 30K, that's very good.

France moved up to 3rd, gaining another spot in the Champions League.  We moved from 10th to 8th in the club rankings, and had a 21.5M profit for the year.

Player wise, we had some very good performances.  Kolarek of course, but Carter also had a great season, in 43 appearences across all competitions he had 17 goals, 11 assists, 6 POM's and a 7.34 rating

Marco Tulio, my AM(C) (and sometimes M(C), had a quietly great season, if that makes sense.  In 54 appearences he had 18 goals, 18 assists, 6 POM's and a 7.21 rating.

Jan K was his typical good self, in 48 appearences he had 9 goals, 15 assists, and 5 POM's, along with a 7.18 rating.

Marc Bossard has been a  very offensive DLP, and I mean that in the most courteous way.  In 53 Appearences over all competitions, he had 10 goals, 4 assists, a POM and a 7.27 rating.  Is goal scoring part of a DLP repertoire?  I know his 87% pass rate is.

Marc Bijl also had a good season, 3 goals, 5 assists, a POM, 7.07 rating, and some very good defensive play.  

After Jan K, Mithat Taskin is the oldest man on the squad.  He's down to 2 1/2 star ability, but I swear he made at least fifteen appearances on the Ligue 1 Team of the Week.  61 Appearences, 4 goals, 5 assists, 2 POM's, a 7.18 rating, almost two tackles a game, he was very stout in the center of the field.

Markus Ambrosius had 4 goals, 2 POM's, a 7.15 rating as Taskins battery mate on the backline.

Thusi Gumede may only be 5'4" and weigh 136 pounds, but he's becoming quite the force on the DLine for me.  In 47 appearances he had 3 goals, 3 aqssists, 3 POM's, 3.88 tackler per game, an 80% pass completion, and a 7.27 rating.  

Stephen Foose...well, he was healthy almost all season, only missing six weeks, and it showed.  42 Appearances, 10 goals (4 off PK's), 4 assists, 3 POM's, 3.67 tackles per game, and a 7.28 rating.

Arrieta isn't exactly the second coming of Ameskamp, in 55 appearances he had 56 goals allowed, but he also had 19 shutouts.  I do think his 6.89 was the lowest rating among the starters.

I did switch up tactics a bit, going to a 4-3-1-2 about a third of the season.  That gave Martin Petrov some starts, and in 24 appearances he had 14 goals, 9 Asissts, and 5 POM's.  He's started to level out developmentally, and I suspect this will be his last season here in Dunkerque, as Kolarek is performing very well, and I have a couple of younger players I would like to get some playing time.

 

Bayer won the Bundesliga, Real Madrid won La Liga, AC Milan won Serie A.  

Bayern won the Champions League, beating Barcelona.

England won the World Cup in 2026, I think I may have mentioned this previously.  The Columbia U23's won the 2028 Olympics, Mexico and Spain 2nd and 3rd.

Messi is the AssMan at Wolves,  Cristiano is the HC at Charleton, Rooney was fired from Doncaster in 2028 and is still looking.  Vardy coached at Milwall for 8 months, and honestly, my knowledge of foreign players is about at an end.  

So, in summation, we won the Quintuple.  Won Ligue 1, the Coupe de France, Coupe de Ligue, got knocked out in the group stages of the Champions League, and lost in the Europa League Final.

That's not a disappointing result, so why am I not happy?

Next couple of seasons are going to be transitioning for the team I think.

Thanks for reading and folliwng,

Jellico73

[ManUtd1]

Ok. First things first. I'm very jealous of your press officer, given that mine is typically a balding middle-aged man. Camille needs a transfer to Club Brugge. Yesterday.

Wait, what was my second point...?

[Jellico73]

Does anyone know what "Flat Footed" in French is?

 

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

When I originally asked for a stadium expansion two seasons, they saud "Sure, here's 2000 more seats."  Halfway thru construction we won the CHampions League, and the board said "Maybe 2000 seats isn't enough, let's add 10,000."  We had to rent a stadium for a year, and all of our games were 98% capacity or more, so 30000 seats is probably a decent sized for us, especially as Dunkirk is only about 100K inhabitants.

But anyhow, the stadium was finished before the start of the season, 

And it looks nice:

    

    

 

In other news, James Carter has become a French citizen.   He's reached his 4 1/2 star ability, and could probably improve a little bit in a couple more areas, but he has become the left winger I thought he could be when I poached him from Birmingham.

I'm taking a slightly different approach to transfers this season. While part of me abhors a huge roster, I have also worked myself into a place where I have a pretty good starter, a decent backup, and then youth in almost all my positions.  And sometimes not even then.  I do have some quality youngsters coming up, but I am in a position where if I try and play them on a regular basis, I am sacrificing opportunities to win.  Which, if we were still a CFN or Ligue 2 team, I'd be OK with.  But losing one game is often the difference between qualifying for league play or not qualifying at all in Ligue 1.

Which leads me to my major gripe about this save.  Well, one of them.  When you get promoted to Ligue 1, your reserve team automatically goes into the CFA-A.  Your Reserve coaching staff takes over everything unless you say you want to, and you play a full season in the CFA.  And then, if your relegated, like I was my very first season, your reserve team goes away, because FM doesn't sim the lower leagues, and it never comes back.  Ever.  Which means while I have a Reserve team, the only "competitive" matches it plays are arranged friendlies, and you're getting the B (Or C) team from your opponents in most of those games.

So, I'm going the Juventus route.  Sort of.  A lot of the players I have brought in on frees for depth purposes and the like, I am loaning out to other teams for first team playing time.  I'll try to get monthly fees for them, or at least not pay any of their salary while gone.  Of course, most of these guys would be on my Reserve team, if I still had one, but needs must and all of that.

On the In's for the first half of the transfer season, we weren't to active.  But we did drop a chunk of change.

Hrvoje Mihaljevic is a right winger whose also a very capable fullback, and can play M(R) and AM(R) if you need him to.  I got him from Monaco because Foose was away on international duty a lot, and when he wasn't, he was injured, and my D(R) options were underwhelming.

Then, a week later, Dirk Göbel popped up on the transfer list.  I've had my eye on him for awhile, first scouting him when he was part of the Germany U21squad, but never made any inquires.  HE was transfer listed by request, and when I inquired, Bayern wanted 45M for him.  I countered with 20M now, 20M over 48 months, 2.5M for 50 apps, and 2.5M for 10 international appearances, and they said yes.  

With a couple of exceptions, all of the Free's in are 18-21 years old, current 1 1/2 to 2 star ability, with 3 to 3 1/2 star potential.  The exceptions are the Australians.  Not sure what they put in the water at the Center of Excellence, but all of them have at least 4 star potential.  The only drawback at the moment is that Ligue 1 rules only allow 4 foreigners to be registered, and I have 4 already.  Arrieta, Paredes, Tulio, and Foose.  But the U19 guys will go to the U19 squad.  I can keep the rest here and get them some playing time, which I will admit seems unlikely for most of them, I'll loan them out and make some money off of them then, and then sell them a couple of years down the road.  

      

      

      

 

Maybe it's me, but I never see a defender (other than a keeper) come out of the FFA COE.  Strikers and attacking Mids with tons of potential, yes.  D(C)'s and the like?  Nope.

The only two on this list that are surprises (to me anyways) are Grishin and Borysenko.  Because I signed them both on frees when they were 16.  And they are just now showing up.  Don't know where they've been, or if they've even been playing, I assumed when I signed them they would show up next available date, but nope.  

Montoya it the only other outlier here, 22 years old with just 2 start potential and current ability, he's my sub at AM(R), because I found out the hard way when Jan K goes out for any period of time with an injury, the next four players I have that could sub for him are all out on loan.  Minor PBKAC error on my part there...

On the Outs, couple of unexpected moves here:

Well, first, all the loans I am not paying any of their salary.  Those players who went out on monthly fee's, in almost every case they monthly fee is more than their 4 weeks of salary would be as well.

Sergey Teresenko made such a huge stink about lack of playing time I listed him for transfer and for loan.  He was underwhelming last season for Ajax, 16 games played, 2 assists, and a 6.61 rating.  I didn't mind loaning him to OM, especially as I am not paying him anything and there is an option for OM to keep him for future fee of 11.57M.  He's bounced between the OM first and Reserves team, and has been mediocre at best.  My assman has raised concerned about his lack of first team playing time at OM, but at this point, I don't care.

With Gobel and Mihaljevic on board, I listed Foose for transfer.  As much as I like him, and he's been very good for us, he's injury prone, he's away on international games way to much for my taste (which I do realize is a measure of how good he is), and he's leveled off.  Schalke picked him up for 300K a month, but I am paying him his salary, so I am losing a bit of money on this deal, but I am ok with that.  He's been OK at Schalke, hopefully he will do well enough I can trade him in the summer transfer window.

Over the last couple of seasons, Mithat Taskin has quietly gone about his job.  If you had asked me how well he was doing, I would have never guessed he averaged a 7.2 rating for the last 5 season, or 2 POM's.  He always popped up in the player of the week awards, which for a D(C) is a sign of how good he's playing, because he was by no means a goal scoring, assist machine.  Last season he had 2 goals and 4 assists, both season career highs.  He did fall off in ability somewhat, but I was comfortable leaving him in a D(C) position, because I was going to have a rotation going on there. Then Sporting CP swooped in with an offer, and I turned them down, and he said "Hey, I'd like to go".  And me being me, I said "Sure, let me talk to them."  The originally offered 13M for him, but I went back with 16M and offered to pay half his salary, and he went.  Pelletier was a 20 year old striker/AM who was never going to realize his potential here.  I listed him for 150K and Leixoes offered 100K, for a player valued at 37K I am more than happy with that.  

Florian Muhr was underwhelming when he took over for Foose last season.  Clermont Foot made an unsolicted offer for him, and with my pickups, I was more than happy to let him go for 1M.

Last season, in hindsight I suppose, wasn't a disappointment.  How can winning 5 cups be considered disappointing?  This season though, we have to have some success in the Champions League, otherwise some very good players are going to want to leave.

This season, we're off to a good start again, but the competition has been tough, as expected.

I was able to do a North American Tour this year.  Yes, I played my second and third stringers a bit, but I made a decent amount of money, and it was nice to get our name in front of some decent crowds in North America.  The only thing I crewed up on was not scheduling San Jose, them being an affiliate and all that.  Right after we played Shanggang we got a notice that they were now so big being affiliated with us wasn't useful any more, so I went back and got Roeslare back as an affiliate.  Hopefully they do a better job of playing my players this time.

Starting the season off with a string of victories, especially starting off by beating PSG, was very nice.  

Our first stumble came against Saint-Etienne.  We could not get anything going against them.  Dominated possession, had out chances, but only a Tulio goal salvaged the tie.  Against Collins no less...

Our first loss came against Olympique Lyonnais, but they are a good team this year, currently in 3rd place, and they matched us all game.  Their goal was a well deserved one, and their defense was stout enough to turn away the few chances we had.

Our next loss was against PSG (of course).  We played them quite well, they only had 8 shots the entire game, but a Dario Ferreira goal in the 9th minute was all they needed.  The Great Wall of Rulli retired, but his replacement, Jospeh Asiedu from Ghana, is more than capable.  

We got back to our winning ways quickly.  Our only stumble was against US Creteil-Lusitanos, and this was inexcusable.  They are mired at the bottom of the Ligue, will probably be relegated.  Not only did they have more shots than us, they dominated us in possession as well.  First I was concerned, then I was assertive, then I was aggressive.  I don't think I've yelled at the team like that in ages, but were in a 2 point race with PSG, we can't afford to not be winning these sorts of games.

But, as you can see against teams like Stade Brestois, Tours, and Montpellier, were scoring a ton, and the youngsters are doing pretty well when they get playing time.  

There is some danger ahead though.  Girondins de Bordeaux has built up quite the team the past few seasons.  This year they have already beaten PSG, L'OL, and Monaco.  In fact, they are in 7th place, we haven't played them yet, and the only team above them to beat them has been LOSC, who are currently in 4th place.  Thats not what has me concerned though.  If you were to look at the French National teams, you would see they have three players on the U23 team, and seven on the U21 team, and they are all pretty good as well.

Champions League wise, well, we doing better this year:

I think our group was a little bit tougher this year, Leipzig was 3rd in the Bundesliga, Atletico 3rd in La Liga, Ludogorets won the Parva Liga.  As long as we didn't throw away our opportunities like we did last year, we had a good chance of moving on.

In the end, it came down to beating RB Leipzig our last game.  Win and we were in.  Tie and we would need some help.  Lose and we were going to be on the outside looking in.

We did well against Madrid and Leipzig our first game.  I yelled at the boys again after the 1-0 to Ludogorets, and they responded with a 6-1 shellacking.  For some reason Arrieta was my PK taker, I was more than a bit surprised when I saw him lining up, but that '4' skill he has got the job done in this case.  

Madrid stomped us on the 26th, but we were a tired squad them, and two of their goals came after the 80th minute.

Our last game against Leipzig was tough, but Kolarek came thru in the 60th minute, as a Gumedes pass found him at the top of the box and he cannoned it home.  He keeps this performance up he'll be my first homegrown world class player.

Oh, which leads me to this little nugget of info:

This is suprising to me, because I don't have a lot of good youth players I let go.  Gomes for sure,but hes not top flight (heck Sassulo sold him to Bournemouth for 8.25M, and he's on the B team there with 0 starts.  Last season he had 19 games a a 6.21 rating for him.

So, Carter, Jan K, Andrei Lung (maybe, he was here for three years), Foose maybe?  Thats all I can think off, but 12?  If they say so.

But thats where we are after the start if the january transfer window,  15 wins, 2 losses, 2 draws, 47 points, 2 ahead of PSG who have a game in hand.

Kolarek is avergaing a goal a game, Carter is sitting at a 7.52, Jan K already has 5 POM's.  

Against All Odds, is this the year we win the Ligue, the Cup, and both Coupes?

Lets find out!

Jellico73

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

The January transfer window was winding down, and Bayer Leverkeusen made an offer for Markus Ambrosius, the  D(C) I picked up from Basel last year for 5.5M.  He's been a very good player for us, this year he has 2 goals, 3 POM's and a 7.51 rating.  And I declined the offer.

And the team went nuts.  I mean "Lets have a team meeting right now as to why your taking food out of Markus kids mouth now or we go on strike nuts.

And I'll be honest.  It was late.  I was tired.  I didn't want to deal with this sort of drama.  

So I quit the game, loaded the save, Bayer made their offer, I said yes, and €22.5M later, Ambrosius was in Germany.

Which left me with a hole in my D Line.  Now, I have some younger players with some nice potential, and Kalkin has been rotating in and out for a few games.  There was still time left in the transfer window, so I went looking, and found Pascal Vincent, who was at Wolves.  I'm not sure why a 3 star D(C) with 3 star potential is a World Class Center back, heck Ambrosius was slighlty better than him in most categories and is just a Center Back, but he's 24 years old and also plays a competent D(L).  So, for €30M, and possibly 36M, I bought him.

Then I waited.  And waited.  And waited a few more days.

Then Ligue 1 registration closed, and he was still not in Dunkirk.  The next day, he shows up, and I can't register him for the rest of the Ligue 1 season.  But I can register him for Champions Ligue.

Warning, rant follows:

Spoiler

What the eff is this ****?  Seriously.  This is the third time in as many years I've signed a player well before the transfer window closes, and they show up the day after Ligue registration closes, but before the transfer window closes.  Does this happen in real life?  Have teams agreed to transfer a player immediately, and then 12 days later contract negotiations start, and then a week later its finally signed?  A DAY AFTER REGISTRATION CLOSES?  Is there not some sort of incentive for a player to sign before the window closes?  Its an honest question, because I've lost a half hour scouring the web for instances where a player has been transfered two weeks before the window closes and still isn't registered.  And my search fu is strong.  JFC, what an fustercluck of rules going on.

Rant Ends.  Sorry.  I realize that my knowledge of world football rules is, at best, a few power point slides deep, but man...

My only other signing was Liridon Gurma, who I poached from Chelsea.  I say poached because they spent 7.25M to get him from Zurich.  I paid 400K for him.  

The rest of the outs were loans:

Anyhow, back to the Ligue.

We finished strong.  Very strong.

We didn't lose the rest of the season.  And we were domninant in several games.

Kolarek had a hat trick against Saint Etienne, meaning my decision to sell Collins was the right one.

The Girondins game was tough.  We outplayed them the entire match, but it took an Arrieta PK (yes, he's taking PK's, I am not sure why.  He has decent skill there, but I didn't select him for that), to salvage the tie.

It took a lot of prayers (and maybe a small animal sacrifice) to Pedestriana, but she heard our calls, because in the 92nd minute against PSG Marco Tulio scored the equalizer, and we were tied at the top of Ligue 1.

Two games later, we tied Monaco, and then Monaco tied PSG the next week as well.

Against Auxerre, we just could not get anything going.  The team was tired, dinged up, but it was a great back and forth.  35 total shots, 12 on goal, even on fouls and we had a slight possession advantage, but noone could put the ball in the back of the net.  Auxerre is a good team, they finished 4th this year, but PSG beat US Creteil, and I had to pray very hard to Pedestriana that somehow, someway, either Saint Etienne or Angers (11th and 15th respectively), could pull off the upset.  We needed a PSG loss, because even if we tied, we would lose on goal differential, even with our 5-0 pasting of FCSM.

It was not to be.

We lost to PSG and L'OL.  PSG lost to LOSC and Girondins.

What killed our season was the draw to Creteil, who were in a relegation battle all season, never higher than 17th.  94 points, and you come in second.  Now I know how PSG felt last season.  And the year before that.

We stumbled in the Coupe de France, again.

This time it was Monaco, beating us in the Quarter Finals.  But we beat PSG before we lost, so there is a small victory there:

Monaco would go on to win the Coupe de France.

In the Coupe De Ligue, we did better.  We won it.  Again.  

Not without some drama though.

Angers took us to penalty kicks, which we won 4-3.  And that's after we dominated them the entire game.

PSG took us to penalty kicks as well.  Which almost didn't happen after Carter was sent off in the 104th minute for his second yellow.  But Arrieta was a hero between the sticks, and we won the shootout 3-1.

This is the third time in 5 years we have won the Coupe de La Ligue, first back to back winners since PSG won it in 2021 and 2022.

We had our youth intake.

But first, this is my Head of Youth development:

Whats not to like about this guy?  Professional, good JPA, JPP, 20 for Working with Youngsters, 17 Determination.

And this is the Youth Intake:

And before anyone says anything about Picard looking nice, I'd say sure. All 5' 4", 114 pds of him.  Does the game mimic growth spurts?  After 5 years of Superb Youth Facilities, Scouting range and whatnot, should I be disappointed this was my intake?  

Champions League about gave me an ulcer this year.

It took an Arrieta(!) 93rd minute PK to give us the win over AC Milan.  

Beating Man United was great.  Part of me wants to imagine Thierry waving "Bye Bye!" to Florian as we celebrate our victory.

Barcelona required a lot of prayers and a medium sized sacrifice.  Marco Tulio was the hero here, with an 83rd minute goal that gave us the win on away goals, and the right to face Arsenal in the finals.

Two wins in three years.  I am not complaining, at all.

:-)

Kevin Bossard was the hero here, his extra time goal securing us the win.  I a completely related side note, Carlos Ancelotti "retired" after we won, but he was also 72, so that makes sense.  Arsenal lured Klopp away from Real Madrid, who hired...noone at the moment.  They haven't asked if I would be interested in interviewing.  I wouldn't be, French football is my bread and butter.

    

We sold our our stadium the whole season, so were expanding, again, to 40K seats.

One day the board announced were only going to get 30% of the transfer money now, apparently we're in debt?  Well, OK, last season it says we were 62M in the red, but at the start of the next season i'm 62M in the black?  Oh, that includes transfers.  OK.

We moved 5 spots up the club rankings chart, to 3rd.  France however fell to 4th, so we lost the Champions League spot we just got back.  And sometime in March I coached my 800th game.  However, despite my successes, I did not make the top 4 in the Coach of the year awards.  

And I got a new contract.  Now I am making 19K per week,  Before taxes.  :-/

Player wise, some nice performances.

Kolarek is well on his way to World Class Striker status.  He got a new contract during the transfer window, Real Madrid came sniffing and I am not letting this one go.  He's values at 55M.  Last season, in 54 appearances across all non friendly competition, he had 31 goals, 16 assists, 9 POM's, and a 7.36 rating.

James Carter is now a World Class Winger, having realized his full 4 1/2 star potential.  He got a new contract as well, after Man City came asking about him.  He's valued at 54M.  Last season, in 45 appearances across all non friendly competition, he had 12 goals, 14 assists, 6 POM's, and a 7.45 rating.

Marco Tulio had a fabulous season.  Last season, in 55 appearances across all non friendly competition, he had 17 goals, 14 assists, 3 POM's, and a 7.24 rating.

This next season is going to be Jan K's 13th at Dunkerque.  He's never played anywhere else, and he never will if I can help it.  This past season, in 48 appearances across all non friendly competition, he had 16 goals, 14 assists, 8 POM's, and a 7.31 rating.

I had a nice midfield rotation going all season, but one stood out.

Marc Bijl, who I paid 14.5M for three years ago, has grown by leaps and bounds.  Now 22, he has 4 star current ability, 4 1/2 star potential, at one point near the end of the season he was values at €70M.  Playing mostly DLP from the M(C) position, in 46 appearances across all non friendly competition, he had 4 goals, 6 assists, 2 POM's, and a 7.14 rating.

Kevin Bossard was the other primary starter most of the season.  In 38(5) appearances across all non friendly competition, he had 3 goals, 4 assists, 4 POM's, and a 7.15 rating.

Liridon Guruma appeared in 20(1) games and had a goal and a 7.08 rating.  

Sedat Kalkan had 45(4) appearances, split mostly between D(C) and DM, had 2 goals, 1 assist, 1 POM and a 7.12 rating.

Freddy Paredes could be my DM version of Bijl.  He went from 1 1/2 stars to 2 1/2 stars over the course of 21 games, playing mostly Regista.  Only 1 assist, but he had some nice defensive plays.

Thusi Gumede has topped out at 3 stars.  And he spent half the season (it seems) on International duty with South Africa.  in 25 appearances across all competitions he had 4 assists and a POM, but his extended absence and his yellow cards issue (14 in 25 games!) were the primary factor in my getting (trying to anyways) Vincent.

In his half season for us Markus Ambrosius had 28 appearances, 2 goals, 4 POM's and a 7.4 rating. playing DC.  

Hrvoje Mihaljevic had an outstanding first season with Les Bleus.  In 52 appearances across all competitions, he had 11 assists, 4 POM's, and a 7.31 rating, as a DC/D(R).

Dirk Gobel also had an outstanding first season with Les Bleus.  For the 45M I paid for him, I got 54 appearances across all competitions, 2 goals, 1 assists, 4 POM's, and a 7.25 rating, as a DC/D(R).

Felipe Arrieta had a good year.  Quiet, but good.  In 57 appearances he allowed 38 goals, had 8 goals scored as a PK taker, and had 24 shutouts, and a 6.98 rating.  3 star current, 3 1/2 star potential, he's a place holder at the moment, a more than capable one.

Oh, and somehow, my Reserves team ended back up in the CFA.  Not sure how/why that happened, but it has made my manager life a little easier.  Last season they finished 8th, but I think I am going to get them a couple of new coaches this offseason.

And that was our season.  

More highs, more lows, but European success has been very nice.  Here's hoping we can keep that going.

Thanks for reading!

Jellico73

 

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

"Ce sont les temps qui tentent les âmes des hommes."

Season 16(?!) is a crossroads for the team.  With the success we have had in Ligue 1 and Europe, we've made our mark on the map of World Football.  The next question is: How long can we stay there?  We're a squad in the first stage of transition.  As I rarely keep older players on the roster, and I've been packing my youth and Reserve teams with a range of talent, I am also reaching a point where some of my long time older players are declining, or not progressing, and it's a fine balancing act between playing them to ensure the win, and playing the youngsters to get them some quality first team playing time.

As it turns out, in a few cases, the decision was taken out of my hands entirely.

But first, some good news:  My stadium expansion has finished.  Now 40,000 seats.  

I've been quite active in the transfer window.  With my Reserve team being put back in the CFA, I needed to beef it's roster up some, and I also needed to keep my U19 roster stocked as well.  Gone are they days of me running a 35 man roster, this season we're at 60 so far, and quite a few of them are loaned out as well.

First, the IN's.  A lot of these players are either 

1. Older professionals who are happy playing on the Reserves team, getting some first team chances, while tutoring.
2. Younger players with potential who wouldn't get a lot of playing time on my squads, but who I am comfortable with loaning out.
3. Players like Didier N'Guessan.  When someone like that pops up, and is available on a Free?

 

      

      

        

Odegaard, Cinetti, Julliard have all proven to be very good tutors, while the other older (22+) players have been valuable members of the Reserve Team.  Or have made me some money by going out on loan.

We were very active on the outgoing market.

How Active?  You have to scroll down to see them all:  

  

But, as an example of what I have been doing, I brought in Pavel Bykov on a Free.  His base salary is 8.5K, hes a 3 star current, 4 star potential M(R) who can also play some AM(R) and WB(R).  As soon as I signed him Dnipro wanted him on transfer, instead he's on loan for 60K p/m, and I am only paying 50% of his salary, so I am coming out 43K p/m ahead.  I think, Math is harder on a holiday.  Heck, Sharifi I brought in on a free, he's getting 15.25K base pay, and TSG Hoffenheim is paying 100K a month for him with no salary contribution from me.  Granted, he's been coming in as a rotation player for them in violation of our agreement, but still.  Every little bit helps.

Did have some big moves out though.  Starting small:

Matthieu Colon, Bruno Ferreira, Patrick Mollering, Troy Brown and Christian Heinemann were all Top Ligue 2 talents who were just not developing the way I wanted them too.  And many were agitating for first team playing time as well.  A couple of them, Mollering and Ferreria, I would have been OK playing, but I would have been looking to improve on them sooner rather than later.  They all went out for at least their value.

Paul Bolling was the first big out, he was one of the first product of my "Lets impersonate Juve" transfer system.  Brought him in, sent him to Colchester, where as a full time starting M(C) he had 41 appearances, 0 goals, 6 assists, and a 6.33 rating.  I put him out there and Malaga snapped him up.  

Jerome Perrier wanted first team playing time, but at 27 years old and 2 start current and potential ability, he wasn't going to get it here.  At best he was my 3rd option at Striker and either AM wing, but FC Kobenhaven made a decent offer for him, and I took it.

Jacob Wood came in on trial for us, had 3 goals in 4 games, and then had a decent rest of the season playing for the Reserve Team, with 2 goals and an assist in 10 games.  However, his 2 star current, 4 star potential became 2 star current, 2 1/2 star potential, and he also would have spent the season on the Reserve team again.  I was OK with that, but I put him out there just to see what would happen, and West Brom snapped him up for €8M.  He's a rotation player for them, but he's had 6 goals in 17 appearances for them so far.

Kevin Bossard was the first big out.  He was entering the last year of his contract, his skills had topped out, and Marc Bijl is on his way to becoming a world class Midfielder, and Fredy Paredes isn't to far behind.  Sedat Kalkin and Lidion Gurema are cabable backups as well, ansd Bossard was the odd man out.  Man United snapped him up for €21M, and he's not even starting there.

Thusi Gumede was a little harder to let go.  Vincent is a capable D(L), but after him, my depth is weak.  Gumede though, I don't know.  He was 3 star current, 3 star potential when I let him go, but it felt like he caught a case of "Collins Disease", where for every good play he made, there was also a bone headed one that made you smack you head.  I put him out there at €18M, Southampton offered 15.5, and away he went, and he's not doing well, sitting at a 6.32 rating.

The arrival of Hrvoje Mihaljevic meant Stephen Foose's time at the club was over.  I thought about loaning him out again, but when I put him on the market for 20M, Liverpool came in for 16M, and after some haggling, I got them up to 17M up front, going to 20.5M after some achievable goals.  A change of scenery has done wonders for Foose, in 19 games he had 5 POM's and a 7.47 rating, better than any season he had for Les Bleus.

We got the season off right:  With a tour of South America!  And then Turkey!

We played mostly rotated sides, but the team did well.

We started the Ligue 1 Season of Against Angers SCO, and had a solid 2-0 win.  But this also happened:

Okay, this is bad, but 10-12 weeks out is not as bad as it could be.  Besides, this is why I have Odergaard.  And it also means Mael Durand can get some playing time, and Gibeon as well.

In the Super Curp, RB Leipzig took us to extra time, but a Kolarek goal in the 115th minute saw us through.  

Or first stumble of the season was against, of course, PSG at home.  This game was disappointing in many ways.  First, the draw, which was a punch in the gut because Piero Zirafa, their World Call AM(C), was sent off in the 29th minute for a 2 foot scissor kick lunge thing, and despite being a man up, we could only muster 6 shots, 2 of which were on target.  We gave away the ball too much.  

We got back against Montpellier, and then despite our best efforts against Monaco, we could not score more than one for Jan K, who was making his 325th appearance for Les Bleus.  

Our game at Girondins was a cracker to watch.  Jan K and Kolarek had a brace, Paredes scored as well, but Girondind didn't give up, as Arrieta turned away several shot after the 75th minute.

We stayed on a roll with wins against L'HAC and LOSC, and then in our Champions League match (which I have not shown here), Tulio scored a goal in the 6th minute, and left with a torn hamstring in the 60th.  Out for 2-3 months.

So thats my AM(L) and AM(C) out.  

Despite outplaying Nice, they held us to a draw, Jan K with the equalizer there.  We hammered Auxerre and Saint Etienne, scraped out a win against 20th place Nantes, a game that should not have gone that way IMO.  We took our frustration out on Racing Club de Lens with a 3-0 thrashing, then a 2-0 win over Olympique Marseilles, and kept our winning ways going against Metz, L'OL, FCSM, Tours, and Montpellier again.

But the injuries keep piling up.

Carter came back from his torn hammy, and then injured his back lifting weights in training on October 21st, out for 4 weeks.

Against Metz, Jan K injured his hip kicking the ball, out for three months, minimum.

Martin Odegaard, my backup AM(everywhere) missed five weeks in December and January with a twisted ankle.

And in our last game against Montpellier, Petar Kolarek had his jaw broken, and is out 4 weeks.

So, at one point, for a brief period, my Striker, entire Attacking midfield, and primary backup were all out injured.  Carter and Tulio are back this week though.

And we haven't lost a game yet in Ligue 1.

And were still in second place...

 

Tours beat PSG 3-0, and we drew with them early on, but they have not lost.

SIgh.

Champions League wise, we did OK.  I Group D, with Andelecht, Schalke, and Will, we went 3 wins, 1 loss, and 2 draws, and meet Man United in the Group Stage next.  I am not that confident to be honest.  Yes, we've beaten Man U and Florian before, but this season?  I am not so sure.

The Schalke game we lost was especially disappointing, as we took a 2-0 lead into half, only to give up 3 in the second half.  

My Reserve team is doing very well, currently sitting in in 1st place in the CFA-A Division, in fact they are running away with it:

Gibeon and Miki have actually gotten a decent amount of first team time as well, what with all the injuries, but its nice to know we aren't going to be relegated again.

I didn't win coach of the year, I cam in second.  First time in almost seven years I haven't won that.

So, I have the next half of the season to play.  

Hopefully we won't keep the medics to busy, and PSG will lose to someone like Nantes or FCSM.

 

But I am not going to bet on that.

Thanks for reading and following!

Jellico73

 

 

 

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

32 Wins.  5 Draws.  1 Loss.  101 points.  

What does that get you in the 2031/2032 Ligue 1 Season?

Second Place.

Have I already said "Thanks Tours!"?

I did?  It may not be enough.

I'd like to say there are valid reasons for me updating this later than usual.  What normally happens is I will grind away through half the season, post, then grind thru the rest of the season, and post.

After the last first half of the season, things looked ready to fall apart.  And yet we kept winning.  Players would go down injured (more on that later), and we kept winning.  It got to the point I was so tense about losing, I could only play a few games at a time.  But I decided last night to finally "Cowboy Up" and get the season done.  On an unrelated side note, I am home sick today, these are not related in any way, unless SI can give me food poisoning.

But, before we get to the rest of the season, I just wanted to share a few screenshots of what we overcame.

Peter Kolarek:

James Carter:

Marco Tulio:

Jan K:

Oh, and our D(R)/WB(R) was suspended the last 5 games of the season for an elbow he threw in a game.  Fun times.

These required more than a few players to step their games up. and they did.  We were neck and neck with PSG all season, and at one point they had an opportunity to get ahead, but, well, you'll see.

We were very quiet in the January transfer window.  

Gianluca Vanni came in on a loan, I needed a D(L) and wasn't to happy with the ones I had.  Erik Massini, Luigino Traverso, Sean White, Ralk Mainka, Nicolaus Girault and Kader Keita are all players who joined the "French Juve" transfer system, cheap to buy, willing to play on the Reserve Team, loanable if need be.

The only major out was Martin Petrov.  If you had asked me two seasons ago how much I could have gotten for him I would have said €30M easy.  But his numbers not only hit a wall, they started falling.  Which for a 25 year old Striker is not a good thing.  He requested a transfer because he wasn't getting playing time, and my only caveat was that he not go to a Ligue 1 team.  A few teams at the bottom of the table made a run for him, Nantes in particular IIRC, but he ended up going to Sunderland for 11.5M, where he was...average?

My Youth intake was, again, another pile of blah:

I'd fire my current HOYD, but there's noone out there as good as or better than him.  What kills me is all the red in DET and CMP...

Anyhow, second half of the season:

In addition to my normal 4-2-3-1, I started playing this more often:

I played this on 'Standard/Fluid', and a lot of teams had a rough time dealing with it.  One of the things I was able to do with my players versaltily this year was start in this formation, and if I needed to move to the 4-2-3-1, the W(R) became the D(R), the DCL would move to D(L), the M(L) would move to AM(L), and I still had my three subs to make.  I probably played this formation 75% of the time, and it got me this:

Our first real test came against Monaco, and we're lucky we scored three goals in the first half, because they came after us in the second half.  It was this game that showed me how well Arrieta has been playing for us this season.  This was even more impressive because I had an attack of Rectal Cranial Infarction Syndrome, and forgot to remove a bunch of players from the Reserve game played earlier in the day, and as a result, Tulio played AM(R), Paredes (A DM) played M(L), and Vanni played D(C).  Tulio was great, Paredes had a goal and an assist, but the pucker factor was high, and didn't get any better in the second half.

When Kolarek went out, Gibeon stepped up.  He was having a fine season in the Reserves, and while he may never be a full time first teamer for us, his versatility makes him one of my most valuable players.  As a bonus, he counts as homegrown, and doesn't take a foreign player slot on the roster.

Mark Bijl has also stepped up his game this season, reaching his 4 1/2 star abilities.  He was our catalyst in the midfield, usually the starting point for our attacks.  He has this uncanny ability to lob the ball 30 plus yards in the air, landing i at the feet of the player who then keeps dribbling without breaking step, a few times I watched the highlight going "Wow..."

Our game against PSG was our last big test of the second half.  At this point we were a point ahead in the standings.  Win, and we would be 4 ahead, and the rest of our schedule was packed with mostly bottom of the table teams.  Lose and we'd be 2 points behind, needing some help to get ahead.

So of course, we drew.

It was a very even game.  Pais scored for PSG in the 21st minute, and the Sidney was double booked withing three minutes, getting sent off in the 33rd minute.  They went full on defensive, and for the next 42 minutes I couldn't do anything, until in the 75th minute, Carter took a ball N'Guessan threeaded thru four players down the left side of the box, and whipped a cross in to Gibeon, who was easily able to tap it in.  Liridon Gurma, one of my rotation DM/D(C) players, felt that its was unsportsmanlike to have a man advantage against PSG, so he got sent of in the 85th minute, wherein PSG went full on overload attack attack attack...luckily Paolo Cinetti was on his "A" game, and he stopped eveyrthing that came his way.  Why I chose to rest Arrieta this game I am not sure.  See Rectal Cranial Infarction excuse above....

After PSG, we really didn't have any challenges.  Beating Auxerre 3-0, FC Nantes 4-0, and then we played Racing Club De Lens.  Who were sitting in 17th place.  

And we almost threw our season away.  Down 2-0 at half time, I yelled and swore, the players reacted well, and then ran around like a bunch of six year olds playing herdball for the next 30 minutes.

Dirk Gobel scored on a header in the 74th minute, and then, in something I still cannot believe, well, you tell me if you believe this:

But, we tied.  And PSG was playing the next day.

And they tied as well.

And who do we have to thank for our good fortune?

Admit it.  None of you said Saint-Etienne.  I shudder to think what the outcome of this game would be if Collins were in goal.

After Racing Club, our only real challenge was Olympique Lyonnais, and we beat them handily, 3-0.

We got an absolute gift the next to last week of the season, when FC Sochaux-Montbe, in 18th place fighting relegation, held PSG to a draw.  PSG responded to this by going out and thrashing Havre Athletic Club 5-0 last week of the season.  

Jose Mourhino, who I am pretty sure is a bigger jerk in the game than in real life, pinned his teams hoped on 20th place Angers to beat us, thereby giving PSG the Ligue title based on goals (I think).

Even after we beat ANgers 2-0, Jose was complaining.  I do not like computer Jose.

Competition wise, it was a mixed bag.

In the Club World Championship we beat Guangzhou, but lost to Santos FC on Penalty kicks.

We had a great draw in the Coupe de France, facing a CFN and two CFA teams in the early rounds, until we ran into Auxerre in the Quarters.  We were in the middle of a bunch of games in a short amount of time, Kolarek, Tulio and Carter were out with injury, the rest of my team was at about 85%.  Auxerre got on the board with a PK in the 1th minute, and then recent signee Erik Massimi got sent off on a straight red in the 40th minute.  We clawed back, Maxime David scored in the 71st minute, and then in the 88th minute to give us the 2-1 lead.  And then, in the 93rd minute of a 92 minute game, the ref called an absolute horrible penalty on Mike during a Auxerre corner kick, and Auxerre equalized.  Figueredo scored for Auxerre in the 107th minute, and we were out of the Coupe de France.

I was mad about that penalty being called.  I was so mad I protested, protested some more, to the press Helen Keller wouldn;t have called that a penalty, and got a three game suspension.  It was worth it.  

The Coupe de la Ligue was tougher still:

It took penalty kicks to beat Monaco, but we bossed Girondins, and then against PSG in the semi's we couldn't hit anything.  Kolarek and Jan K were out for this game, Carter wasn't full strength, and we fought hard, but in the end PSG's better players saw them thru.  At least it wasn't a Ligue game.

Champions League.

After winning our group, we faced Man United in the First Knockout Round, and the team averaged about 85% health.  Mael Durand scored in the 88th minute, off another Carter whipped cross, and then a minute later for some reason Colin Faissol stuck his leg out to stop a Mihaljevic cross and knocked it into his own goal, and we escaped Old Trafford with a 2-0 win, and a 2 goal away advantage.

Two weeks later, in our shiny new expanded stadium, with a full strenght team for the first time in awhile, Petar Kolarek knocked home two goals, and while Pascal Vincent had an unfortunate own goal early on in the game, we beat Man U 2-1, 4-1 on Aggregate.

Hey Florian?  How goes the trophy hunt?  Yes, I'm still bitter over that.

Next up, in the Quarter Finals, our old friends, Borussia Dortmund.

They played a 4-4-1-1 that gave us fits all game, and Rodriguez put them on the board early with an 8th minute screamer.  In the 45th minute, Carter had a PK from about seven yards outside the box on the right side he curved into the upper corner, must have been channeling his inner Beckham with that, and we left Signal Iduna with the draw, and an all important away goal.

A week later we had figured out how to stop the 4-4-1-1, and Kolarek, with two very nice Carter assists, had a Hat Tricks worth of goals.  Dortmund could hardly muster an attack, and we advanced with a 4-1 aggregate win.

To face Shaktar?

Shaktar beat Dacia in the second Qualifying Phase, then Aktobe in the Third Qualifying, then in the playoffs beat APOEL.  They ended up in Group A, against Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, and FC Utrecht, won 4 games, lost 2, and advanced to face Schalke, who they beat 2-0 aggregate.   In the quarters they beat Barcelona 4-3 aggregate.  That's a great cup run by anyones standards.  They played us tough, a Miki goal away and a Kolarek goal at home, coupled with a brilliant performance by Arrieta in goal, saw us thru to the Final on a 2-0 aggregate score.

The team we were facing won its Group with 4 wins and two draws.  Beat Bayern Munich 9-5 on Aggregate, including an 8-2 drubbing at Bayern.  They beat Sporting 3-1 aggregate, and Bayer Leverkeusen 7-1 on aggregate (5-0 at Leverkeusen) to face us in the finals.

We have a winning record against them, because we play them about four times a year it seems.

It's an All France Champions League Final, because were facing AS Monaco.

90,000 fans in Wembley stadium.  Tulio is out.  Carter is out.  We've beaten and tied Monaco in Ligue 1, and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar is eager to beat us.  They come out on the attack.  Marcus Tulio (not to be confused with my Marco Tulio) , is the best AM(C) /Striker in the game, and they are one of the few top flight teams I see play a 4-3-1-2 Diamond.  They scored 74 goals in Ligue 1, just 8 less than we did, but they also gave up 32.  They are going to attack, and attack some more, and when they are done attacking, they keep attacking a bit longer.

Monaco outshot us 21-8.  They had 7 shots on target to our 4, they had a 62/38 possession advantage, and at the end of regulation, the score was 0-0.

In the 10th minute, Christopher Inocencio, their 22 year old world class AM(C) (Only €19.5M from Sao Paulo), took a Tuilo cross from the left side and rifled it past a diving Arrieta.  Miki had a shot in the 110th minute, Paredes knocked a shot over the crossbar in the 115th, but it was not meant to be.

French Football won the Champions League.

French Football lost the Champions League, and our long season was over.

Several players had better than expected seasons.  

Petar Kolarek can rightfully claim to be one of the best Strikers in Football.  Despite missing several weeks, in 48(1) appearances across all competitions, he had 31 goals, 6 assists, 9 POM's and a 7.37 rating.  At 22 years old he is just starting to reach his prime, and is a half star away from fulfilling his 5 star potential.

I was expecting big things from James Carter this season.  I was not expecting him to miss five plus months of football due to injury, but when he played, he was brilliant.  In 30 appearances across all competitions, he had 9 goals, 12 assists, 4 POM's and a 7.39 rating.

If injuries affected one player more than another, it was Marco Tulio.  My 4 star AM(C) ended the season as a 3 star AM(C), and in 21(7) appearances across all competitions he had 8 goals, 1 assist and 1 POM, and a 7.00 rating.  I was expecting him to start declining, he is 29 after all, and has been a top player for the past ten or so years, so I had a plan in place to replace him.  If his numbers keep falling, I can't see him in a Les Bleus uniform much longer.

Jan K is well on his way to being the Clubs Legend, ahead of Blanchard, ahead of Tchokounte.  He's played 344 games for Les Bleus, and in 5 games will own the club record for most games played.   If I have to prop him up in goal a la El Cid to get him that record, I will.  In 34(1) appearances across all competitions he had 8 goals, 13 assists, 3 POM's and a 7.18 rating.  His contract was up next season, and I got him to sign a two year deal.  I suspect it will be his last football contract.

 At 23 years old, Marc Bijl is a 4 1/2 star current, 5 star potential "Cultured Midfielder".  I don't know what that means.  I do know that in 54 appearances across all competitions, he had 8 goals, 7 assists, 3 POM's a 7.2 rating, ans was the start of many a Dunkerque attack, and the rock opposing attacks broke themselves on.

Fredy Paredes is my primary DM.  The 23 year old Paraguayna international in now 3 star current, 4 1/2 star potential, and had a solid season plaing mostly DLP(S) for us.  In 44(1) appearances across all completions, he had 5 goals, 4 assists, 4 POM's and a 7.18 rating.  What Bijl cannot get to, he usually does.

I had a rotation going on the D line when I played my assymetrical 3-5-2-1 whatever you want to call it.  Pascal Vincent, Sedat Kalkan, Liridon Gurma, and Dirk Gobel saw the majority of playing time at the various D(C) positions.  

Vincent really is a world class defender.  In 55(6) appearances across all competitions, he had 3 goals, 2 assists, and 6 POM's, along with a 7.24 rating.

In 48(2) appearances across all competitions, Kalkan had a goal, and assist, a POM and a 7.07 rating.  Gurma, in 24(8) appearances had 3 goals, 2 assists, 2 POM's and a 6.93 rating.

Dirk Gobel may not be worth the entirety of the €45M I paid for him, but in 53 appearances across all competitions he had 5 goals, 1 assist, and a 7.10 rating.

Hrvoje Mihaljevic played WB(R) the majority of the season, and in 51 appearances he did not have any goals, but did have 6 assists and a 7.07 rating.

Felipe Arrieta had a season Florian Ameskamp would envy.  In 53 appearances across all competitions he allowed 31 goals, had 31 shutouts (21 at Ligue 1), 3 POM's, and he scored 6 goals as a PK taker.  3 POM's and a 7.10 rating round out a fine season.

And, more impoartantly, we were one of the least penalized teams in the Ligue this season.

Several younger players stepped up due to injury.  Most started the season on our reserve team, where they performed very well.

Gibeon played CF when Kolarek went down, and filled in at AM(C) and AM(R) as well. In 19(4) appearances in non CFA appearances he had 8 goals, 3 assists, 3 POM's and a 7.10 rating.  In the CFA playing primarily Striker he had 17 goals, 2 Assists, 3 POM's and a 7.29 rating in 14 games.

Miki played every where on the front line, and replaced Bijl a couple of times at M(C) as well.  3 star current, 4 star potential, the 20 year old I paid Bilbao €100K for had 6 goals, 8 assits, a POM and a 7.14 rating in 19(6) Leage appearances, and 3 goals, 17 assists 2 POM's and a 7.43 rating for the Reserves playing mostly AM(R).  I suspect he's going to step into Jan K's spot shortly.

Playing M(L), AM(L), and some M(C), Mael Durand filled in for Carter quite capably.  In 27(5) league appearances he had 3 goals, 13 assists, 4 POM's and a 7.06 rating.  While playing mostly AM(L) for the Reserves team in 27 games he had 8 goals, 7 assists, 3 POM's and a 7.19 rating.

Didier N'Guessan was my signing of the season, and he came in the January transfer window.  3 star current, 4 star potential Ivorian international I wanted to be my replacement for Jan K.  Instead he spent most of the season filling in for Tulio.  In 26(2) Ligue appearances he had 6 goals, 9 assists, 3 POM's and a 7.15 rating.  Why only Ligue appearances the eagle eyed among you may ask?

Spoiler

Because I forgot to register him for the Championship games.  Yes, in this case I had my own attack of Rectal Infarction Syndrome. Now close this and keep reading.

Felipe Arriete won Keeper of Ligue 1 this season, beating out PSG's Asiediu (AKA Rulli Junior, I swear).

Our Reserve and U19 teams had great seasons as well.  In a twist I can only describe as Ironic:

PSG Reserves beat us by a point to gain promotion to the CFN.

Our U19 team won the French Under 19 Group 3 for the second year in a row, beating Auxerre U19 by a single point to take the title there.

Players on Loan, had a lot of them.

18 to be exact.  Patrick Petersen was entirely my fault, Eintracht Frankfurt paid to get him, then never played him, and he got lost in the shuffle.

Some pretty solid seasons for those players on loan, all of them were starters, all got first team playing time.  Biggest disappointments were Charbonnier and Sharifi.  Charbonnier is a DM who can play D(C )and M(C), he's 2 star current 2 1/2 star potential, but the half season he played for Zulte Waregem in the Jupiler Pro league was underwhelming.

Sharifi, well, I signed the 21 year old 2 1/12 current, 4 star potential player on a free.  The instant I signed him he was worth 16.5M, he spent a week on the reserves then when to TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, who were paying 100K a month for him.  In 18 games as a BWM DM, his primary position, he had 1 goal 0 assists, 0 POM's, a 6.30 rating, and missed 8 weeks when he sprained one, and then the other, ankles.  And everytime I talked to him his attitude sucked.  No way is he seeing first team playing time here anytime soon.  Minor spoiler, he's on loan at Feyenoord now, and they are paying 150K a month and half his salary.  He better have a good season for them, because if he doesn't, he's gone.

Most everyone who was loaned last season will probably go out on loan again.  Bykov and Kontos have teams enquiring about their availability for transfers, but I am going to hoild off on that I think, unless I get a great offer.

Financially we are doing very well:

Because of our countries showing in the Champions League, we gained another qualifying spot.

We moved up 1 spot to 2nd, behind Man City, in the European Club Rankings.  Arsenal top the rich list, and we fell from 17th to 24th, but our finances were so good we paid off all the debt we took out to expand the stadium.  I'll take that any day of the week.

We're currently on a 54 game unbeaten streak in Ligue 1, PSG was the last team to beat us.

Our key players are getting older, but if this season was an indication, we have some capable youngsters ready to step in and keep the team atop the mountain.

Against all Odds. we clawed our way to the top again.

 

Thanks for reading and following (and watching)!

Jellico73

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

It's taken awhile, but I do believe Les Bleus have reached a point where their popularity, stature, continued winning ways and appearances on the world stage have finally made an impression on those who play for us.

How?

Bayern Munich came in hard for Mark Bijl, who wasn't even on the transfer list.  For €51M up front, going up to €75M (€70 of which was a sure bet, 5M was dependent on them winning the Champions Cup).

And I rejected the deal:

There's was no whining, complaining, no new contract demand, his team mates weren't upset.  Is it possible we've turned this corner?

Again, we were pretty active on the transfer market.

I've changed up my scouting routine.  Almost every one I have is out scouring a region for hot prospects.  I'll search a country when prompted, but only for three months, and I am hitting every competition out there as well.  I am not going completely youth movement, but I do think it's a bit easier on the finances to buy low and sell high as it were.

Almost all of the players we brought in the Summer transfer window are older, Reserve team players who are also proving to be excellent tutors.  I've found a couple of promising youngsters, and a Striker that may compel me to try and find a 2 striker system here in a couple of years.  Most of these players are 2 star current, 2-3 star potential, and I am comfortable starting them a game or two.

Here's my summer ins:

 

And here is my Diamond in the rough:

All of these players came in on a Free.

I've had my eye on Quartey for awhile now, 18 U20 goals in 26 appearences for a Ghanian team that's not that strong is a plus.  I'm trying to spell Kolarek a little more this season, trying to keep him fresh, and the drop off has been very noticeable when I do that.  Quartey had potential, as long as I don't screw it up.  

On the 'Out' side of things, again, we were very active.  

We've sold only three players:

All had reached their potential with the club, and weren't going to get any better.  I did try loaning them out as well, but got better than expected value on all of them, including Lejeune.

The loan market, we were again very busy.

Almost everyone went to a club thats paying anywhere from 50 to 100% of their starting salary.  A couple of these I am paying very close attention to as well.  

Kader Keita is a 20 year old keeper, 2 star current, 4 star potential getting full time first team soccer in Ligue 2, and he's having a pretty solid season.

Pavel Bykov is 22 year old, 3 star current, 4 star potential M(R) who also plays AM(R).  I am hoping he will be part of the competition to replace Jan K when Jan moves on, but for the moment he's starting for Benfica, and having a pretty decent season.

Stephen Reid is a 20 year old 2 star current, 3 1/2 star potential D9C) from Australia.  I know, just a post or three ago I was complaining about the lack of defensive players from the FFA COE.  I was wrong.

The others are all what baseball aficionado's here in the US would call a "4A" player, meaning they are to good for the Reserve team, but not good enough for the first team on anything more than a part time basis.  It's likely that 90% of these guys will never suit up for a Les Bleus home game, but getting them first team playing time gets them out there in front of people, helps them develop some, and instead of languishing on the bench here at Stade Dunkerque, they get some good playing time.

This season has been, interesting.

I realized I hadn't played a couple of my overseas friendlies in a couple of seasons, so we went to San Jose and Seongham.  Then as a condition of one of the transfers we made last year, I had to play Spezia in a friendly, which I turned into a Tour of Italy.

It could have gone better, but I played mostly rotates sides most of the games.

Here's how the regular season has shaken out thus far.  I am a bit past the January transfer window.

I wasn't to worried about losing all those friendlies.  In all of them, I was playing my B team, and they were playing their starters.  I'm trying to keep players healthy for the season, because I know its going to be a tough one.

Losing to PSG in the Trophee des Chamapions is not how I wanted to start the season.  Jan K had a very nice goal, but Olexy Mischenko had a brace to put them on top.

We started the regular season out really well, with nice wins at Olympique Lyonnais and AS Nancy Lorraine.

We stumbled against Monaco the first half, 2-0 down after 25 minutes of game play, but a Kolarek brace in 5 minutes had us tied going into the half, and then Gobel had a header off a corner kick in the 63rd minute to give us the win. And then I got this message, while Jan K was on international duty:

He's only a few games away from breaking the club record for appearances too.

 We had nice wins against LOSC and Racing Club, and then ran head on into PSG again.  They bossed us from start to finish, we had 2 shots on goal, one of which was on target, Paredes earned a double yellow in the space of two minutes, we were lucky they only scored a goal.  But losing ended our winning streak, and put PSG ahead of us in the standings.  And then there was this:

This is the first time I've heard anything from the club that wasn't positive.  Then again, he's been in charge almost twelve years (?) I think.  I've always had a great relationship with him, only had to throw my weight an popularity around a couple of times the last decade to get something.  We're a rich club, worth €343M, amd in the middle of a board takeover apparently.  I may not be able to take this €99M transfer budget for a spin after all....

Anyhow, we had nice wins against Nice, FCSM, and Troyes.  We aren't getting a lot of clean sheets this season, but I am OK with that.

Then, against, Auxerre, we tripped.  They've been very up and down this season, and as much as I'd like to blame the Champions League game we had three days earlier, the fact is we had 22 shots to their 11, 12 on target to their 7, and a 52% possession advantage.  And they were 2-0 up heading into the half.  We pulled even in the 69th minute, after Gibeon and N'Guessan goals, but someone fouled Camara in the box during a corner kick, and in the 72nd minute Alonso put Auxerre ahead for good.

We took our frustrations out on Metz, and then fell down against Saint Etienne of all teams.  And Matthew Collins.  Marek had a brace of goals for Saint Etienne in the first half, and Kolarek brought us back to within one, but then Collins remembered he was actually a pretty good keeper and denied us the rest of the game.

A draw against Girondins, then back to our winning ways.  2-1 at Tours, a 5-0 demolishing of Havre Athletic, a nice 1-0 against Stade Rennais, then a blip as Tours held us to a draw, which we didn;t deserve as they essentially ran us into the pitch, and then we spent the majority of the last half a man down when Kalka was double yellowed in the 50th minute.

We took our frustrations out against OM.  Kolarek had 4 goals, Jan K 1, and we kept up the winning against Montpelier, Nancy, and Racing Club.

And then we fell flat on our face at LOSC.

Gobel got a yellow in the 1st minute, and Vila scored for LOSC in the 2nd.  Karahan, starting for a tired Kolarek, scored in the 5th minute, and then again in the 11th.  LOSC equalized in the 28th, then went ahead in the 50th.  Vincent equalized in the 68th minute, LOSC went ahead in the 74th, and Gobel got sent off in the 80th minute, leaving us a man down.  Throwing caution to the win, I surged everyone forward on overload, tight marking, tackle hard, and was rewarded with Karahan's third goal in the 85th minute, giving us the draw.  Against the 17th place team.  

We did get even with PSG though, beating them 3-1 in our Stade.  

Champions League wise, well, it was a tough draw.

We were top of Group C, and then Had Borussia Dortmund, Feyenoord, and Hibernian.  

We eked out of the group, with three wins, two draws and a loss.  We owe Hibernian big time, as they drew against Borussia Dortmund once and Feyenoord twice.  Dortmund only won 2 games, drawing their other 4.

Now we get to face Benfica in the FIrst Knockout stage.

Monaco and PSG made it through their groups as well.

In the local Coupes we are doing well, although we had a couple of mis steps to overcome"

We needed PK's to get pas L'OL in the Coupe de la Ligue Quarter FInals, and after beating FCSM, we face PSG (who else?) in the Coupe de La Ligue final.

In the Coupe de France, we needed PK's to get past Racing Club, but a nice 3-0 win against Chambly Oise has us facing Nice in the Eleventh round.

Petar Kolarek has been a player possessed this season.  In 30(2) appearances across all competitions, he has 32 goals, 3 assists, 12 POM's and a 7.71 rating.  So of course Man City is making a move on him.  In Champions League games he's averaging as goal a game, in Ligue play he has 23 goals in 19(1) games.

Despite missing a few weeks, Jan K is the team assist leader, with 13.  He also has 6 goals, and a 7.5 rating.

James Carter has 3 goals and 11 assists.

Miki, who has played AM(everywhere) and M(C) this season has 12 goals, 4 assists, 3 POM's and a 7.61 rating. 

Pascal Vincent is averaging a 7.33 while playing D(L) and D(C).  

Doesn't feel like it but Arrieta has had 15 Shutouts across all competitions this season.  

Here's where things stand at the moment:

PSG is a game ahead, but they still have Monaco, Olympique Lyonnais, Montpelier and Girondins to play.  

We end our season against Montpellier and L'OL.  SImply put, we need some help to come out of top of Ligue 1 again.

And the other big teams are starting to circle around some of my players again.

Against All Odds, we're going to need a bigger boat.

Thanks for reading and following!
Jellico73

 

[Jellico73]

There are times when this game frustrates me to no end.

At the beginning of the season, Bayern made a play for Mark Bijl (A €75M play).  I said no, and everything was fine.

About halfway through the season, one of the Manchester teams started courting Kolarek. I don't remeber at the moment because I am at work.  
Which is fine.  

Manchester started doing the usual things to court a player, the GM came to all the games, the Manchester players made some overtures in the press.  
Kolarek went from being happy, to being OK, to possibly thinking about a move, to being interested in moving, to wanting to move.  So I looked at his contract.  
It's not bad, but it could be better,and one of the things I am a bit produ of is that I do have my salary under control, I have 700K additional to spend on my weekly wage budget already, and with a €99M transfer budget. I know I can fiddle some more out for weekly wages if I need to.  Money wise, I am more than good.  

So I try and offer a new contract to Kolarek.  His agent comes back with demands.  He wants an improved midfield attack, and he wants a huge raise.
I take them both off and hit submit, his agent comes back with "He wants a huge raise." And I can't go forward without it.  
I say sure.  He's the best player in the game this year.  Manchester is willing to pay over €100M to get him, and I want to keep him, so I am more than happy to pay him 300K a week if I have to.

Contract negotioans start, and his demand of 250K a week (locked) is greyed out and in the red.  It seems my new board (at least I think they are new, 
to be honest I am not quite sure the sale has gone thru yet), will not let me pay him more than 160K a week.  And hes already earning 135K.  So what do I have to do?  In order to get out of the screen, or at least let the game progress, I have to walk away, I have to walk away from negotiations.  Which further sours my all world player on staying at the club.  And a month later I go back to try and see if I can't renegotiate, and he's unwilling to talk.

Now, I usually don't keep unhappy players, but I'll make an excpetion in this case.  

But, and here's what I am troubled by.

USL Dunkerque is a Top 3 club ranked club in Europe. Were financially secure, we're in the Champions League every year now it seems, were going really far in the Coupe de la Ligue and Coupe de France, so it's not like Kolarek is leaving for much greener pastures.  If my finances were a shambles, if the club were not as big as it is, if were were not as successfull as we are, I can see the reasoning behind limtiing what your willing to play a player.  If this were ten years ago and we were in Ligue 2 try fighting for promotion, yeah, I could see him wanting to move, but at this point, but at the present time moving from Dunkerque to Manchester is not exactly a lot of shades of green better when it comes to pastures.

And, to reiterate, I have 700K available in my weekly wage budget available as of now, and I have a €99M transfer budget I can adjust down and probably get a few million more into that wage budget if I needed to.

So why am I being restricted on how much I can pay my players?

Kolarek and Bijl are my two best players at the moment, both are young, both are 5 star current, five star potential, and for the life of me I can not see any good reasons I shouldn't be able to sign them both to a long term deal that pays them a huge amount of money.

The club has the stature to sign 5 star players, it has the money to pay the transfer fee for a 5 star player, I have more than enough in weekly wage budget available to pay for the best players, but I can't use it?

That makes no sense to me.  What am I missing?

But, on a brighter note, this goal was very nice to see:

If Kolarek does leave I'm not exactly in a world of hurt, but I'd like to be able to offer him top 5 player in the world money and let the choice be his.

Thanks for reading and following!
 

Jellico73

 

 

[Jellico73]

"Against All Odds - Les Bleus et Blancs"

 

The 2033 season comes to a close in Dunkerque, and it has been a season of highs and lows, which was not unexpected.

In the January transfer window we weren't as active as I thought, but we made some nice pickups I think.

Kim Jae-Hyun is young AM(R) with 4 star potential, and a possible replacement for Jan K if Bykov doesn't work out.

Joe Pascoe is one of the first defenders out of the FFA COE i have seen, and could be a solid player.

Patrick Raab comes to Les Bleus by way of Mainz, and played a solid D(L) for us.

David Denis we signed in January, but he did not move to us until June.  A D(LC) Hot prospect, I think he can be better than his three star potential.  

We were a lot more active on the 'OUT' side of the transfer market.

Hibernain came in for Voisin, and agreed to pay 100% of his salary, so I let him go.

Odegaard essentially forced the trade to Jiangsu, and I probably got less than he was worth, but he didn't want to be here anymore, and I was happy to let him go.

Buraspor was after Torres something fierce, and I am not sure why, but I was more than OK with loaning him out.

Quartey was a recent pickup who I wanted to get First team playing time, and STVV made an offer for him.  7 goals in 20 appearences wasn't to bad for the youngster.

Gibeon wanted to go out on loan becuase he wasn't getting first team playing time.  Anderlecht snapped him up, and then he played all of one game for them, and I never got as notification about his lack of playing time.

Roth is a youth player who went out.

Kalkan wanted to leave for some reason, and Borussia Dortmund snapped him up for €30M.  

Marco Tulio was my second string AM(C),  and wanted more playing time.  I put him on the transfer list and noone bit, then put him on the loan list.  Swansea came in with the best offer, not only were they paying his salary and 275K a month, they had an option to pay €9.5M at the end of the year to get him permanently, which they did.

Mihaljevic was a mistake on my part.  My best D(R) saw Real Madrid was interested in him, and I thought I could get them to pay what he was worth (and maybe a little bit more).  Instead they didn't bite at all, and Mihalejevic was more than a bit peeved.  I put him on the loan list, and Roma snapped him up.  And then he played three games for them.

HAC made an unsolicited off for Steve Julliard, and he had a very solid season for them.

The best news of the year though, was this:

I swear, this is the weirdest contract I have seen in my short FM career.  But if this is what its going to take to keep him, I'll definitely sign it.

Marc Bijl on the other hand, feels that the Bundesliga will be more of a challenge, and wants to go.  And I'll let him, because I think I've found a very capable replacement.

Season wise, we met most expectations:

But it was a very close run thing.

 

What helped us was that after losing to us, PSG did not go into a tail spin per se, but they definitely fell off.  They tied Monaco the week we beat FCSM, and two weeks later when we beat FC Metz they lost to Olympique Lyonnais.  A couple of weeks later when we lost to Monaco, L'OL beat them.  They stayed 3 points behind us, and when Tours stomped us, I was sure our chances of winning the Ligue were done.

And then effin Saint Etienne with Matthew Collins in goal beat PSG a day later.

To say am I a bit peeved by this is a mild understatement.

PSG was 3 points behind us going into the last game of the season.  If we lost, they would win on goal difference.  We needed a tie against a very good L'OL team to ensure we won.

And we lost, 3-1.

And then Havre Athletic Club tied PSG, and we won Ligue 1, for the 5th time in 8 years, in the last game of the season.

Competition wise, well, we did pretty well.

We needed penalties to get by L'OL, and LOSC played us tough, it took a very nice Kolarek goal to get us the win there.

And then we had a very nice win against PSG in the final.

Coupe de France was weird.  We struggled early against some very good teams, then got a break the last couple of games we played, and then played PSG in the Finals.  Again.

Champions League. Well, I'll let the results speak for themselves:

We got lucky against Benfica, winning on away goals.

The we got to face PSG in the quarters.

For those not keeping trace, we played PSG SEVEN times this season.  We won three, lost three, and tied once.

PSG could salvage some dignity, despite losing the Coupe de France, Coupe de la Ligue, and Ligue 1, the won the Champions League, beating Bayern Munich 2-1.  West Ham won the Europa League.

Petar Kolarek, in my biased opinion, is the best young Striker in the league.  23 years old, 5 star current, 5 star potential rating.  Last season, in 48(2) appearances across all competitions, he had 51 goals, 14 assists, 16 POM's and a 7.79 rating.  He broke the Ligue record for most POM awards, and in 36 Ligue 1 games had an average rating of 7.96, and new Ligue record.  Ligue 1 star of the competition, Ligue 1 Best Player, Ligue 1 top goalscorer, and Europs top Marksman.  And he didnn't even place in the top 3 for World Player of the Year.

James Carter had a stellar year again as well.  in 48(10 appearances across all competitions, he had 12 goals, 19 assists, 5 POM's and a 7.37 rating.

After a year of full time First Team soccer, Dider N'Guesson is now a 4 star current, 5 star potential AM(C).  In 43(4) appearances across all competitions, he had 12 goals, 8 assists, 2 POM's and a 7.16 rating.

Jan K missed two months with a hip injury, but came back with a performance anyone would be proud of.  In 47 appearances across all competitions, he had 11 goals, 24 assists (His 17 in Ligue 1 were the most in the Ligue this season), 4 POM's, and a 7.34 rating.  He also broke the club record for appearances,.  I don't know how much longer he will be around, but he will be missed.

Marc Bijl had a solid season as well.  In 57(1) appearances across all competitions he had 3 goals, 6 assists, a POM and a 7.06 rating.  But apparently the Bundesliga beckons, and he won't be a memeber of Les Bleus much longer.  COurse his current value is €74M, so he's going to make the club a bunch of money before he leaves.

Fredy Paredes had a solid season at DM.  In 44(2) appearances across all competitions, he had 2 goals, 3 assists, a POM and a 7.08 rating.

Peter Vincent lived up to his World Class description this season.  In 55 appearances across all competitions, he had 3 goals, 2 assists, 2 POM's and a 7.23 rating.

Of my other defensive backline players, Dirk Gobel played the most games, everyone else rotated in and out.  In 44(2) appearances across all competitions, Gobel had 1 goal, 1 assist, and a 7.07 rating.

Felipe Arrieta won Ligue 1 goalie of the year this season, In 57 appearances across all competitions, he had 20 shutouts, 3 PK goals, and a 6.99 rating.

The Youth Team won their division this year, again, but the Reserves had an off year, finishing 4th.

Our youth Candidates weren't as horrible this year as they have been in the past, so that's a plus:

Our owner is still looking to leave, and the Summer transfer window is fast approaching.  Hopefully it wont be a long drawn out affair.

Against All Odds, we managed a treble, and the media is still predicting us to finish third.

Will they ever learn?

Thanks for reading and following!

Jellico73

 

[olliep]

Just read through this.  You put so much into it and it looks great. Well done.

[Jellico73]

6 hours ago, olliep said:

Just read through this.  You put so much into it and it looks great. Well done.

Thanks for reading!

 

Jellico73