Anyone Played In The Swiss League Yet

[Gunner 101]

Fantastic business @Jogo Bonito! Looking forward to finding out who these new signings are. 

Haland sounds like a good prospect so hopefully you can keep hold of him for at least a season. 

[Jogo Bonito]

11 hours ago, Gunner 101 said:

Fantastic business @Jogo Bonito! Looking forward to finding out who these new signings are. 

Haland sounds like a good prospect so hopefully you can keep hold of him for at least a season. 

Thanks mate. The two returning players aren't amazing quality, but they will serve a useful purpose due to the HG status, Haland has done well in pre-season and will be HG at club by next summer. I'd rather not lose him, but hopefully I will get to use him for at least one season.

I might have to let Khaled Narey go as I now have two players ahead of him at RB and probably enough winger options. One of those is 18 year old Alphonso Davies. He was potentially going to be loaned out for a season, and an offer of 100% wages and up to £100k p/m loan fee from a Swiss team seemed to good to be refuse. But then I looked at how much he had developed after six months training, and realised I should probably keep him and use him as the RW understudy.

[Jogo Bonito]

BSC Young Boys - Season 3

So on to season 3, and it's time to see if we can retain our Swiss title

It was a good pre-season, and we've made a good start to the league campaign too

But Basel have returned to much better form, so this season looks like being a more difficult challenge domestically

We enjoyed a relatively comfortable passage in to the CL Group stages as Viktoria Plzen weren't the toughest test in qualifying 

We'll be up against AS Monaco, Bayer Leverkusen and FC Krasnodar in the group. Not easy, but certainly not a group of death 

On the transfer front, there were four arrivals for the first team squad and one free transfer striker from Georgia for the U18  group

Nikola Milenkovic is a highly rated centre back signed from Fiorentina. He should really strengthen the defence, and has settled in well

Florent Hadergjonaj was trained at the club which is the main reason for this deal. He'll be a useful alternative to Mbabu at right-back

Sandro Lauper was also trained at the club. He was signed because he has returned in real life, and can play centrally in defence or midfield

Raphael Dwamena has been a great striker in Switzerland. Despite the fee and selection dilemmas ahead, this opportunity couldn't be ignored

The outward players aren't particularly significant, but Ngamaleu and Davies were loaned out due to their foreign player status

The pair could have remained and been used for rotation, but we have wing options for this season and the loan fees are decent earners for us 

Our strength in the transfer market is demonstrated below, as nobody else in the country spent anything like we did

And this leaves us with the following 23-man squad for the coming season

GK: Von Ballmoos, Ortola

DR: Mbabu, Hadergjonaj

DL: Benito, Konan

DC: Nuhu, Milenkovic, Wuthrich, Burgy (Lauper can play this role or central midfield)

MC: Sow, Bertone, Song, Jae-Sung (and Lauper)

MR: Narey (who can also play right-back)

ML: Orsic, Fernando

ST: Assale, N'Same, Dwamena, Carneiro, Haland

We'll be playing 442 again as this seems to be suiting us really well

Back-up for the right-wing will be Alphonso Davies when he is recalled in the winter window

In the meantime Hadergjonaj, Fernando, some of the strikers, or some of the reserves (Billiat, De Tomas, Duah, Toure) can fill in if needed

In addition to those reserves mentioned above, we also have plenty of other decent players there if we need to call on them

Hoarau, Vanek, Oto'o and Boatswain (like Billiat and De Tomas) are available for sale but have had no takers

Aebischer, Togui, Mambimbi, Mohamed Aly Camara, Stuparevic and N'Diaye are still being developed and may make the grade next year

Veterans von Bergen and Wolfli were released in the summer and have now retired

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LooseFirstTouch]

Good job getting Dwamena in, he's starring for me in my Zurich save. You should have a pretty good shot at retaining the title with that level of talent, but looking through Basel the other day, they're seriously impressive compared to all others in the Swiss league. 

It's actually a really cool league to manage in, too. Zurich aren't the greatest, but I quite like the small squad and there are some good athletes in there. Dwamena is the star man, and even though Marchesano starts injured, he's a really fun player once he's up and going. I'm running with a 4-3-3 system, with 3 CMs, two wingers and and a centre-forward. It works well, because Zurich have good midfield options and, though Marchesano is an AMC, he can play deeper as well. I've also got the AMR locked into an AP-S role, so I'm re-training him to be able to fill in there as well. 

Dwamena is excellent up top, and Adrian Winter, despite looking pretty average, is starring in the AP-S role. We're currently in the mid-table area, but as is always the case with such a small league, we're only a point or two off second (Young Boys are running away with it).

Also, you mentioned Aebischer. How's he looking? My scout really likes him, but my scout kind of sucks, so I'm not completely sure what to make of it. Might try to bring him in on loan if he's any good.

[Jogo Bonito]

@LooseFirstTouch It's good to hear you're enjoying FC Zurich. Yes, I'm really pleased to pick up Dwamena, especially on sensible wages. When I tried to sign him at Fulham he demanded more than £80k p/w, which was never going to happen. I'm overloaded with strikers because of it - four was ok but with five it's tricky. Because of this, I have no choice other than 442 really.

All I can say about Aebischer is that I am in my third year and haven't ever played him  for the first team. His stats haven't really improved, but maybe if you signed him and played him, he might do. FC Zurich is probably more his level, and he would probably be decent if you need an extra body, but I wouldn't expect fireworks.

[Jogo Bonito]

Season 3 update (part 2)

Having opened up a healthy lead in the Swiss League, this batch of games started with a 5-2 thrashing of nearest rivals Basel

We then got turned over by AS Monaco in the CL group opener, battling back from 3-1 down before conceding a late decisive goal

After that, we kept things going fairly well in the league for the next two months, with just one poor slip up at home to Lugano

And we kept progressing in the Swiss Cup, thanks to extra time wins on a couple of occasions

Things dipped at the start of November, and that began when a very late goal saw Leverkusen beat us 1-0 in Europe

Two league draws followed as the goals temporarily dried up, before we let in a late leveller as we travelled to Monaco

If that wasn't bad enough, we also lost 2-1 as we visited Basel in the league - allowing them to cut the gap to just four points

But then, as quickly as the slump appeared, it vanished

Four successive wins without conceding has put us back in a good place as the winter break arrived

Unfortunately, we finished 3rd in the CL group, with Leverkusen beating table-toppers Monaco on the last match day to pip us to 2nd

This means another Europa League adventure awaits, and for that we're drawn against Dutch side Feyenoord

We recently got another £4.4m clause paid out from the Jordan Lotomba sale, so there's plenty of cash available for the winter window

Having said that, new recruits are unlikely as we're well covered in all positions and there's not much incentive to spend

We'll be looking to shift one of our five strikers though. It's one too many for easy rotation, and ideally it will be one of the foreign players departing 

Here are the latest results and a progress summary  

[michalgottwald]

Young Boys huh. So much for loyalty.. Looks like you're having a fun save though!

After a swiss break for FM 17 and 18 I expect I'll be back at Grasshoppers soon. Always feels like home. The squad REALLY didn't tempt me this time around though, and there isn't much in real life suggesting that it'll be better for the new game. Still time to go back to where everything feels right though. 

 

[Jogo Bonito]

21 hours ago, michalgottwald said:

Young Boys huh. So much for loyalty.. Looks like you're having a fun save though!

After a swiss break for FM 17 and 18 I expect I'll be back at Grasshoppers soon. Always feels like home. The squad REALLY didn't tempt me this time around though, and there isn't much in real life suggesting that it'll be better for the new game. Still time to go back to where everything feels right though. 

 

Hi Michal, it will be good to see you back at GC Zurich in FM19, Sorry about the BSC defection, but the squad was exactly what I needed to inherit and it has been great fun. It's a shame that the arrival of FM19 will cut it short for me, but I will get season 3 finished before the BETA arrives.

In the meantime, to make you reminisce about Grasshoppers, I dug this out from my time there (FM15). If you can ignore the poor graphics, watch this from Innocent Emeghara - still the best goal I ever saw on FM.

 

Searching for this, I started to read your GCZ thread from that time again. Some great nostalgic posts in there from so many people...

[Jogo Bonito]

BSC Season 3 - Final update

The final stretch was on the horizon, but before then we had mid-season friendlies in the winter break, including a two-game Egyptian tour

And back on home turf, the Super League, Europa League and Swiss Cup resumed

We scraped past Feyenoord on away goals after extra time, but our European campaign ended in disappointing fashion - on away goals to Villarreal

But the league form was consistently good in February & March

The goals were still flowing steadily, and we stayed well clear of the field

April & May continued in the same fashion, and although we dropped points to Basel, they could only narrow our lead to nine points when beating us

We wrapped up the title in the Berner Derby against Thun, and then defeated Zurich 1-0 to win the Swiss Cup

So that brought the double, our best season so far

Here is the final league table, we were all very happy with that

The form graph is a true reflection of our dominance, the finances were great, and the board were naturally satisfied too

Here's the review of the season

And even Andreas was happy for once. He's actually due to step down next month too (retiring)

Here are the player stats for the season

We played some of the teenagers towards the end, and it was nice too give them some chances

Assale, Dwamena and Narey probably stood out, but everybody made good contributions

And our Brazilian winger Fernando also won the Super League Talent (Youngster) of the Year and Player of the Year awards for the calendar year

The end of season awards reflected the stats above, and our tried and tested formation was as shown below

[michalgottwald]

On 16/10/2018 at 20:13, Jogo Bonito said:

Hi Michal, it will be good to see you back at GC Zurich in FM19, Sorry about the BSC defection, but the squad was exactly what I needed to inherit and it has been great fun. It's a shame that the arrival of FM19 will cut it short for me, but I will get season 3 finished before the BETA arrives.

In the meantime, to make you reminisce about Grasshoppers, I dug this out from my time there (FM15). If you can ignore the poor graphics, watch this from Innocent Emeghara - still the best goal I ever saw on FM.

 

Searching for this, I started to read your GCZ thread from that time again. Some great nostalgic posts in there from so many people...

Wow - that goal is insane! And good to be reminded of just how fun a striker Emeghara was in his heyday.

And double wow - that thread really is nostalgia lane. A great bunch posting really good updates. Just going through Grasshoppers' playing squad from that time is great entertainment for me.