turnip Posted July 17, 2018 Author Share Posted July 17, 2018 11 hours ago, raz4la said: It's interesting how many good players you get to sign to your teams, a lot of them are either from South America or from Eastern Europe. How is you scouting setup? Just going through what the scouts says or doing something else then that? My scouts can be quite lazy, so I periodically look through national/U-21 squads and scout anyone who's been called up who is either significantly young or playing at a low standard of club compared to the rest of the squad. Between that and the work my scouts do independently, I get quite a few good recommendations. And sometimes just scouting players from teams who produce good players (like Envigado). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
john1 Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 Pretty good move to Croatia And good signings you have brought in Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted July 20, 2018 Author Share Posted July 20, 2018 Season 11, Part 2: November - January HNK Hajduk, Croation First League Transfers PSG came sniffing after Martinez, so we had a chat; he said he wanted Champions League football, but agreed to stick around to find out whether we qualify for the big cheesy trophy or not. It's nice when my players aren't sociopathically ambitious. He's now wanted by Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool and Tottenham as well. Elsewhere, a Chinese club came in for my 31-year old MC so I cheerfully waved him goodbye for £1.9m. With my new-found riches, I bought a Saffer DC and an Iranian DL and brought in an MR on loan and another MR on a free, because I'm a signings-hungry degenerate. Domestic We're now top of the league, with a 9-point gap over Dinamo, courtesy of the 7 league games we've played since the last update. Thanks Winter Break! We're out of the Cup, though, losing to HNK Gorica 2-1 three days after we beat them in the league. Europe We topped our group, although not convincingly in the end; a scrappy 1-1 with Partizan giving us just enough. Next up is Stoke. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted July 22, 2018 Author Share Posted July 22, 2018 Season 11, Part 3: February - May HNK Hajduk, Croatian First League Domestic No alarms and no surprises. We wrapped up the title with 7 games to go, which gave me a chance to give a few bit-part players some game time. We finished the season unbeaten. Europe We took a 2-2 result against Stoke back to ours and added 2 goals with no reply. Our reward was a trip to whatever hovel Hoffenheim play in. Similarly, we got a 2-2 at theirs and were able to scrape a 2-1 at Home to settle the tie. That gave us a QF draw against Man City. Sorry, "Oil Rich" Man City (thanks for that FM!). We played well for a 3-1 win at Home but were utterly outplayed in Manchester and did well to take them to a penalty shootout, which we lost. Still, that's a more than handy run for a first season. Youth Intake A pretty decent intake, with some real potential. Gracan is obviously the star, and good enough to make 7 first-team appearances before the end of the season (courtesy of already being 16 when the intake happened). Summary A very promising first season. As you'd probably expect, there were some handy players already at the club; notably up front, where Krznar and Pavic scored 54 goals between themselves. In midfield, Pavlovic and Wagner (Wagner is also an MR, trust me) each got a bunch of assists, while at the back Novak and Ragipovic were useful (if somewhat underwhelming). I did manage to tie Martinez down to a new contract one we'd won the title (thus guaranteeing at least 2 games in the Champions League), but Serce is now being looked at by some bigger teams. Not that I can blame them, he had a good season. Off the field, we have some improvements imminent: And the financial situation just got a whole lot better: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
john1 Posted July 22, 2018 Share Posted July 22, 2018 Cracking players you have found! What is your scouting set up like? Or do you scout clubs/nations yourself? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted July 23, 2018 Author Share Posted July 23, 2018 Fish in a barrel: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted July 24, 2018 Author Share Posted July 24, 2018 That would be my Gent team holding the record. For now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted July 25, 2018 Author Share Posted July 25, 2018 Season 12, Part 0.5: Champions League Qualifiers We got lucky with our opponents, to be honest. Even RB Salzburg were about as easy as the Playoffs were giving out. I was a little hesitant after the first leg against them, but decided to just go for it and went with the Killdozer. Justified, I'd say. Our reward is probably the second-hardest group - after ManUre, PSG, Valencia and Sporting: Still, getting a few points isn't out of the realms of possibility. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted July 28, 2018 Author Share Posted July 28, 2018 Season 12, Part 1: July - October HNK Hajduk, Croatian First League Montano and Pavlic both left, both for their £3m release clauses, to Liverpool and a Tycoon-owned FC Metz. Martinez also left, although we got £5m for him on his way to not-Schalke. We (obviously) re-invested the money. We'd already signed a DC and GK on free transfers, but we added a versatile Ecuadorian (£1.7m), a Colombian MC (£275k), a Bulgarian ST (£1.5m), Scottish attacker (£425k), Peruvian MR (£375k), a replacement Colombian DL (£500k) and an Egyptian D/RC (£400k). Domestic It's basically Attack vs Defense. We're unbeaten so far, but we've needed some late goals and solid second-half performances to make that happen. Europe We managed to grab a win in Milan and I reckon we've got another point in us. Given that Milan are struggling, that might be enough for us to take 3rd place. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted July 30, 2018 Author Share Posted July 30, 2018 Season 12, Part 2: November - January-ishHNK Hajduk, Croatian First League Muhammed Serce left - he'd agreed to hang around for another year, but when Dortmund, Arsenal, Juventus et al. came calling, he said he wanted to be able to discuss terms. We agreed on £5.25m + 35% of his next fee with Juventus, which I'm pretty happy with, particularly since he's already played a couple of games for them. Business - as usual - was busier on the 'incoming' front. We brought in a new ML from Colombia (a theme, I realise, if a not entirely intentional one), a new MC to give us a different option and a DM/DC type from Hungary, along with a few cheapo players. Domestic Not much to report. A handful of games since the last update, in which we've drawn two and won the rest. We also steamrolled a non-league team in the Cup, so we're into the Semi-Finals. Europe As expected, we got pasted by Real Madrid in both games, eked out a thoroughly-undeserved 0-0 in Gent and clinched a second undeserved win against Milan at home. Which meant we finished 3rd, qualifying for the Europe League Knockout rounds, where we've drawn Steaua Bucharest. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted July 31, 2018 Author Share Posted July 31, 2018 **** me Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dllu Posted August 1, 2018 Share Posted August 1, 2018 And yet: "Backup player but could still improve". Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 3, 2018 Author Share Posted August 3, 2018 Season 12, Part 3: February - June HNK Hajduk, Croatian First League Domestic I think teams were even more defensive against us than they were last season. It mattered little in the end and we wrapped up the title without me doing much more than muttering/shrieking things at my players that I'd be thrown out of a Frankie Boyle gig for saying. We won the cup, despite playing the second leg of the semi-final during an international break. Thankfully, we only had 26 players on international duty, so we won 4-2 comfortably. Europe Ah, the Euro Cup Knockout rounds. Gotta love the faint smell of failure that lingers over everything. Steaua were trickier than I'd expected, but we fought back for a 3-3 draw in Bucharest and then had a comfortable 3-0 back at ours. Fiorentina made the mistake of attacking in the first leg in Split - we picked them off for a 3-1 win and then defended well enough to get a 1-0 win in the second leg. Lyon didn't learn any of Fiorentina's lessons and were dealt with more ruthlessly - 3-0(H) and 1-2(A). Porto awaited us in the Semi-Final and demonstrated that you can't always brute-force your way past a very good team. We lost 2-3 at Home and although we played well to win 0-1 in Portugal, we couldn't get the second goal. The goal for next season is to make it through the Champions League Group stage, although we might need the coefficient to cooperate for that to happen. Good news at the end of the season, when the coefficients were updated so that the Croatian League winners (that would be us, if you haven't been paying attention) qualify automatically for the Group Stage. Youth Intake We ended up signing everyone to at least a Youth Contract. You've already seen Roglic. Klima looks like being a solid player in 3-4 years, but is a way off for the time being. Young Players We've got some good young players in the (very large) squad I haven't mentioned who could play a useful part in the next couple of seasons. So it's show and tell time! Only 18 years old, but has already made 49 First Team appearances, scoring 22 goals in the process. Given that both Krznar and Pavic want to leave, Kuran is likely to play a large part next season. Signed on a free from one of the lesser Ivorian clubs, in spite of a curiously weak scout report, he'd be solid gold with an extra point or two in Pace/Acceleration. As it is, he's a useful backup at the moment with - I'd guess - Premier League potential. Has been out on loan for the last season. Rated very highly by my staff, but I'm not sure I have a use for a Winger with that little speed. I might look to retrain as a DR Wing-Back. My staff seem to reckon his potential is on a par with Kuran's. Physicals and Mentals are weaker, though. I might try a spot of Tutoring to see if we can get those up a bit. Another player I wouldn't be sending out on loan if he was quicker. There's a solid player here, mind you, I'm just not sure he'll get much game time ahead of Sandro Roglic. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltablue Posted August 4, 2018 Share Posted August 4, 2018 Definitely need to remember to keep an eye on Roglic. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 5, 2018 Author Share Posted August 5, 2018 Season 13, Part 1: Transfer Window HNK Hajduk, Croatian First League Time for a quick look at some numbers, which is always exciting. Croatia's national team is ranked 7th in Europe, 14th overall. That'll probably go down, since it looks like they had a pretty average last cycle (failing to qualify for the World Cup). The Croatian First League is now the 16th most reputable domestic competition in Europe, up from 23rd... last year..? In terms of club coefficients, Croatia is 10th - looks like a good season (from us, I guess, no-one else is achieving anything) could take us above Holland and possibly Scotland (still massively overrated). Our own coefficient is doing nicely these days and sees us ranked 33rd, behind Feyenoord and Roma and above FC Kobenhavn and Udinese. For the record, Gent are still top-10 and Lens are top-20. Transfers On the departures side, we sold my first- and second-choice goalkeepers. As expected, Krznar and Pavic also wanted out, so they left for £1.9m+ and £1.5m respectively. We let one of our DCs go on a free, since he wasn't really improving along with our backup ML - a Northern Irish guy who'd got 12 goals and 21 assists in 42 games for us - in a decision I debated for quite a bit longer. Still, this save is about constant improvement, so off he went. We had a couple of bids for Villamar that were way below what I'd accept. The day after I rejected them, he tore his groin muscle. I mean, that's one way to deal with disappointment, I suppose. Similar story with Kuran, who had Europe's best and bri-, uh, richest swoop in with stupidly low bids. I rejected them all, he complained but didn't follow up with anything. Honestly, there were times during the window when I didn't have any idea what I was doing. We signed a new GK - Croatian, for the Champions League registration - a young Czech ST, a Brazilian DC, a Welsh DL (from Barry), Czech DR and Belgian ML, amidst the usual flood of young players. And then, on deadline day, I had a look at transfer-listed players and picked up a MC from Marseille on the basis that he's good enough for the first team but old enough to also be a Tutor. There was also a kid we picked up ex- of PSG, initially on a trial, who my coaching staff got very excited about. I can sort of see it, but I'll check back once he's had some tutoring and see where we are. Europe We beat Partizan to make the Group Stage. Seeded third, we've been put in a group with Barcelona, Juventus and Ajax. Looks like the Europa League is the dream again this season, lads. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 8, 2018 Author Share Posted August 8, 2018 On 05/08/2018 at 23:38, turnip said: Europe Seeded third, we've been put in a group with Barcelona, Juventus and Ajax. Looks like the Europa League is the dream again this season, lads. That said... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dllu Posted August 8, 2018 Share Posted August 8, 2018 Did Barcelona send their youth team?? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 9, 2018 Author Share Posted August 9, 2018 Season 13, Part 2: July - December:HNK Hajduk, Croatian First League Domestic A very good first half of the season, even by our standards. We still face teams putting 10-11 players behind the ball when we're at Home (even Dinamo have started going 4-1-4-1), but we've been good at breaking them down. Actually, the biggest difference so far is that teams often aren't even bothering to attack once they go a goal or two down; they just continue to sit back. We are out of the Cup, however. A tie in Zagreb against Dinamo went to penalties and we lost. Europe Madness. We went 1-2 up against Barcelona at the Nou Camp, only to lose in the 95th minute. At Home to Juve, we rolled up in the Killdozer and went 2-0 up, had a man sent off and were pegged back to 2-2, only to score in the 79th and 90th minutes and get the 3 points. Ajax were summarily dispatched 4-1 at Home and then we edged a 0-1 in Amsterdam. Our Home tie against Barca was just bonkers, as seen above. For some reason, my team just went apes**t after conceding the equaliser and tore them to pieces. In the final group match, we played a Juventus side featuring 4 players I've previously managed. We missed a penalty in the 5th minute, they had two players sent off and the game ended 2-2. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 10, 2018 Author Share Posted August 10, 2018 Season 13, Part 3: Winter Transfer Window HNK Hajduk, Croation First League Out For the second season in a row, Liverpool came in for my MR - Revillo, this time. I didn't really mind, since he'd basically hit his PA ceiling (according to my coaches, anyway). We got £1.8m plus a bunch of clauses, most of which I doubt we'll see, but we still took a profit. The Czech kid we signed in the summer also left, ManUre picking him up for his Min Fee Release Clause. He hopes he'll learn a lot, I hope he'll rot in their Reserves. BMG picked up our Iranian DL for £6.25m+ and then came back for our Slovak DC for another £7.75m+. So glad we could be of help, you arseweasels. In We got an Egyptian MR in for £535k from Ismaily, a pair of Colombian (of course) MCs for a shade under £1m combined and then spent some money on a bunch of youngsters. Kuran signed a new contract on £7.5k p/w, while Villamar (whose performances have been consistently excellent (when he's fit)) also agreed a new contract on £20k p/w. Neither has a Min Fee Release Clause, which is why their wages are as high as they are, but it's a small price to pay for... uh, charging a high price. As in, I'm asking for £25m for both (I'll accept £17.5m or thereabouts) - Villamar's probably good enough to attract some bids in the summer, Kuran probably not quite yet. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
john1 Posted August 10, 2018 Share Posted August 10, 2018 Fantastic achievement to get out of your CL Group Some cracking young players you have signed Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 11, 2018 Author Share Posted August 11, 2018 Villamar asked for a chat as he wanted to join Braga. I fobbed him off with the "We've got some mega talents here, hang around a bit brah", but still... ****ing Braga? At least ask to join one of the Manchester scummers [edit] And in what is definitely becoming a trend, he gets injured a day later. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 12, 2018 Author Share Posted August 12, 2018 Season 13, Part 4: February - June HNK Hajduk, Croatian First League Domestic We clinched the league title with a fair few games to go, which just made 'motivation' the major barrier towards the end. Take this match: We dominated, but conceded some really stupid goals and were lucky to turn it around towards the end. Ah well. Europe We had one of those games against Roma in Rome, somehow getting a 1-5 win. As convincing as we weren't in that result, we had the same sort of performance at home and were lucky to get a 3-3 draw. That took us through to the Quarter-Finals, against Manchester City. We scraped our way to a 1-1 at ours and - although we came close - we couldn't hold onto a 0-1 lead in Manchester, losing to a 95th-minute goal. It seems harsh, but see the Inter Zapresic game above for evidence that we had our fair share of luck this season. We've got a reputation problem at the moment, where despite our good performances in Europe, our best players are constantly tempted away by 'better' teams. And while we can bring better players into the squad, they're never far from wanting to leave. So we're on the treadmill of frantically scouting for players who'll be an improvement and hoping the overall trend of the squad's ability is increasing faster than we're losing our best players. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 12, 2018 Author Share Posted August 12, 2018 First friendly of pre-season. 9 minutes in, my 'main' striker goes down with what ends up being ruptured cruciate ligaments. You'll have to imagine my verbal response to that news item. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 17, 2018 Author Share Posted August 17, 2018 Season 14, Part 1: Summer Transfer Window HNK Hajduk, Croatian First League We lost our Mozambican DR, selling him to Club Brugge for £1.7m and our Bulgarian ST moved to Germany for £3.9m taking his 19-Long-Shots-and-Shoots-From-Distance-PPM-but-never-actually-took-any-long-shots talents with him. Our previous first-choice ML was sold and after promoting the backup to the first team, our new Backup ML - a Croatian kid who'd been out on loan last season - was the subject of interest and started throwing hissy fits until I sold him on deadline day for £3.5m + future fees and 35% of next fee to Inter. Coming in were a Wonderkid Brazilian MC for ~£6.5m, a slow Peruvian DC for £1m, a Uruguayan MR (with a Spanish passport - bonus) for just under £1m and a Portuguese ST for £3m. Replacing our ML are a Czech kid (£2.2m), a Czech DC we used to have at Gent and a San Marinese ST I signed while I was at Gent. All in all, this is actually a rare season where - so far - we've got a net transfer spend. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 19, 2018 Author Share Posted August 19, 2018 Jesus, dude, **** OFF [edit] Yep, you can **** off too Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 19, 2018 Author Share Posted August 19, 2018 This news item was so unexpected it took several seconds to register, by which time I was looking at a different news item. He's simultaneously the youngest and 'least valuable' player in the squad - over £17m less valuable than the next cheapest outfield player. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 20, 2018 Author Share Posted August 20, 2018 Season 14, Part 2: July - December HNK Hajduk, Croatian First League Domestic League form is as good as usual, although we're starting to have more difficulty from a tactical point of view. The Killdozer is - as the name suggests - about as unsubtle a tactic for breaking teams down as it's possible to get without going 4-3-3 with 3 Target Men, and teams are adapting. See below for my thoughts and response to such a tactical challenge. In the cup, we had serene progress to the Quarter-Final where Inter Zapresic and some atrocious defending had me shrieking as loudly as I thought I could get away with for 1:15am, before two late-ish goals sealed a 4-2 win. Europe I almost miss the qualifiers, where we'd rock up and obliterate an unfortunate Azeri team twice in two weeks, since we now start straight in the groups. Our competition this season in the group stage were Man City, Red Bull Salzburg and RC Lens (still with a couple of players from my era). We lost 3-2 in Manchester and then won by the same scoreline at Home to Lens before Salzburg gave a friendly reminder of those halcyon days of splattering weak teams across Europe (albeit 4-0 and 1-2 wins don't look as dominant as they were). We then deservedly beat Man City at Home 2-1 to clinch qualification before coming out on top of a riotous 4-3 game in Lens. Our reward for topping the group? Real Madrid. **** you again, FM. Tictacs So, as I said above, we're hitting a bit of a stumbling block tactically at the moment. I've had my sides in a 442 since Lens and we haven't really deviated from that much, apart from a rather odd creation I tried for a while at Gent. But teams are now lining up in a 532 against us, which poses a few issues: - Firstly, our 442 has been based on closing defenders down and forcing the keeper to kick long. Basically impossible to implement with 3 DCs spread across the width of the pitch and only two STs to chase them down - Once they've got the ball to a DC, they've got plenty of options to pass it to, including 3 MCs, making it much harder to close them down in the middle of the pitch and force a mistake (until the last 20 minutes, anyway - we've had a lot of success then) - Teams are also supplementing their short passing in their own half with long balls to their strikers. Our defenders are generally pretty good at tackling, but we don't have an abundance of genuine pace at the back - particularly not in the Weekend side - Since every league team is setting up defensively against us, when we attack they can get 5-8 players in the box really quickly, reducing our options somewhat (and making seemingly every other shot a hopeful punt from 25 yards, cue more shrieking from me) The 'solution' (I use the term loosely) is to shake things up a bit and give this a go: The middle ST is flexible - an AF is a good choice when we're in front and someone running in behind is useful, while a TM has benefits when we're throwing crosses into the box. Likewise, the middle DC is flexible - someone quick on Cover (doesn't even need to be a great DC) for when they're going long, or on Stopper if they're looking to pass their way through. Potentially, if they don't have much pace up front, there could be scope for this player to be a Libero. The Wingback slots will be taken by our Wingers. Not ideal, but the plan is to spend most of our time attacking anyway and we can always swap players around if we need to. I'll give it a good go in the second half of the league season and see how it goes. We've got a good enough points cushion to afford dropping a few points. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 20, 2018 Author Share Posted August 20, 2018 Season 14: Part 3, January Transfer Window HNK Hajduk, Croatian First League A very quiet one by my standards. I was expecting a major run on the squad but it never appeared. The only two players to leave were our Welsh DL to Wet Sham for £500k (his contract was due to expire) and a Norn Irish attacking prospect I could never get much out of, who moved to Spurs for £2.5m plus future extras. ManUre came in for Bi Zamble, but when I rejected the non-negotiable offer, he said "I want a new contract" and after getting rid of his Min Fee Release Clause, we settled on an astronomical £1500 per week. Villamar had agreed to hang around a year to see if the squad's youngsters would improve and by the start of the window he was happy enough that he dropped any interest in a move. I did a double-take, I must say. We also sent our want-away Czech ST prospect on loan to Leverkusen for the rest of the season. I'm hoping he gets a couple of goals and earns a few bids - he was **** whenever I played him. Coming in were a Peruvian replacement for the STs and - apart from a couple of young DCs and the future transfer of another DC (from Germany) that was basically it. A quick reminder that the fans thought I'd overpaid for Villamar. Your regular reminder that with fans - like various political commentators (*cough* Dan Hodges *cough*), you should listen to what they say and immediately think the opposite. Meanwhile, I didn't post an image of Lee Bunce when he signed since he was a free transfer from Pontardarwe in Wales, but here is the lad from Woodlands, South Yorkshire who was called up for the England national squad (and didn't play). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 22, 2018 Author Share Posted August 22, 2018 Colombo missed a penalty in the first leg as well. Whoopsie! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 22, 2018 Author Share Posted August 22, 2018 Season 14: Part 4, January - May HNK Hajduk, Croatian First League Domestic We wrapped the league up without any alarms. Dinamo's form kinda fell off a cliff this year, bringing Rijeka into consideration for second place. In the cup, we played a 2nd Division team in the semi-final and despite a fair amount of complacency in the second leg (more like "immobility" for our defenders), we comfortably made the final. In the Final, we traded early goals with Osijek and then blew them away in the second half to win 5-2. Europe As can be deduced from the screenshot in a previous post, we made it past Real Madrid; having lost 1-2 at the Bernabeu and gone in 1-1 at half time in the return leg, Sime Kuran bagged a second-half hattrick and despite Madrid's main striker having a host of chances, he fluffed the lot. After that, we excitingly drew Gent in the Quarters. We went into the Away leg in the Killdozer and chaos ensued. The second leg was more subdued and although we lost 0-1, that was enough to go through. By this point, I'd decided to dial things back a little tactically, and a 0-0 at Home against Monaco was followed by a 1-1 in the principality. We weren't the better team, but who cares, right? Our opponents in the Final (a first Champions League final for Hajduk) were Bayern. Not the best team in Germany this season (that would be Red Bull Leipzig) but they were good enough to beat us 1-2. Albeit in a fairly even game. I would question the news article - is it really a fairy-tale for them to win it for the 6th time? Surely the fairy tale ending would have been for us to win? Goddamn fake news. Anywho, our U-19s won their Champions League, so really it's us who have the moral victory. Summary Anyway, that was fun and tense. Time to move on. The squad's in a good place and will be utterly destroyed by whoever replaces me, but the facilities are looking good, so they should make hay domestically for the next couple of years at least. With the run in Europe, the coefficient for next season should have Hajduk in 20th place - behind Dortmund but above AC Milan and Porto, if that gives any context. Next stop... I'm not sure yet. I'm thinking about Germany, maybe taking over in the 2nd or 3rd tier, but I might just see what comes up. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingjericho Posted August 22, 2018 Share Posted August 22, 2018 Great job! May I suggest you have a career overview map, where we can see all the seasons you did and what teams you managed? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 22, 2018 Author Share Posted August 22, 2018 That's easy to do. Season # Club Division (Tier) League Performance European Performance Cup Performance (National/League) 2 RC Lens French 3rd 1st n/a Semi-Final / 2nd Round 3 RC Lens French 2nd 1st n/a 11th Round / 1st Round 4 RC Lens French 1st 3rd n/a 9th Round / 3rd Round 5 RC Lens French 1st 1st CL - 1st Knockout 10th Round / Winners 6 RC Lens French 1st 1st Quarter-Final Quarter-Final / Winners 7 AFC Tubize Belgian 3rd 6th – promoted via playoffs n/a n/a 8 AA Gent Belgian 1st 1st n/a n/a 9 AA Gent Belgian 1st 1st CL - 1st Knockout Winners 10 AA Gent Belgian 1st 1st CL – winners Winners 11 AA Gent Belgian 1st 1st CL – winners Winners 12 HNK Hajduk Croatian 1st 1st EL – Quarter-Final Winners 13 HNK Hajduk Croatian 1st 1st EL – Semi-Final Quarter-Final 14 HNK Hajduk Croatian 1st 1st Final – losers Winners Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 26, 2018 Author Share Posted August 26, 2018 Season 15: Part 1, July - October SPVGG Unterhaching, German Third Division As mentioned above, I mostly looked at Germany this time around. My preference would have been Munchen Lions (1860) in the 3rd Division, since they still have great facilities, but they'd changed managers not long before the end of the season, so that seemed unlikely. As chance would have it, however, Unterhaching had just been promoted back up to the 3rd tier and looked in decent shape. It still took the board almost 2 weeks to appoint me after the interview, mind you. No staff, but a pretty large squad and modest expectations seemed like a good fit. With quite a large squad and no real prospect of flogging most of them, I only made a small number of signings. We brought in a crapload of triallists and signed three of them - one a youth reject from Anderlecht, one a Metz Reserves stalwart and the other a DC from Gent who had me as a favourite person. I can only assume he came through the season I left as I have no recollection of him. Aside from them, my scouts found a young Czech winger with 4.5 CA stars, who was available on a free. Other than the new guys, notable players include a German U-19 DC who I'm already sick of for whining about not being allowed to leave (listen, you arseweasel, if they're not willing to pay your £100k release clause, you're going nowhere) and an U-20 winger. Competitions We started with 3 wins from 3, but once that had turned into 3 wins from 7, I decided to change things up tactically. We've put the 4-4-2 on the backburner for the moment (we don't really have the players for it) and gone to a fairly standard 5-3-2. The result is that by the end of October, we're 3rd in the league and unbeaten in 8. We're actually struggling a bit at home (probably need to be more attacking), but doing well away in recent weeks. Oh, and can I say how nice it is to be back in a league with 20 teams? Not having to play the same teams 4 times each season is welcome relief. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 27, 2018 Author Share Posted August 27, 2018 Season 15, Part 2: November - JanuarySPVGG Unterhaching, German Third Division Competitions We've gone 4-2-2 (W-D-L) since the last update. Pretty good, given our pre-season expectations, but sufficiently 'not good' enough to see us drop a place in the league. We have, however, picked up the 4-4-2 again for Home games and that seems to be going okay for now. Transfers With the club haemorrhaging money at an appalling rate (-£2.1m since the start of the season), I basically put every non-first-team player on the transfer list. Most of them have contracts expiring in the summer anyway. Getting rid of 4 of them cleared up some space in the Wage Budget, while Rottger moving to Stuttgart for £100k + 25% of next sale gave me a little more wiggle room. Enough wiggle room for some signings, anyway. We brought in a versatile left-sided player from Wales (via Ireland) and some scandinavian freebies, alongside a young Hungarian GK. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted August 28, 2018 Author Share Posted August 28, 2018 Season 15, Part 3: February - MaySPVGG Unterhaching, German Third Division Competitions With our fresh-faced reinforcements, we had a very good run-in. We didn't win many games convincingly - even our 6-1 win over Cottbus can be described as 'jammy' - but we only lost one match (0-2 to then-top of the league RW Essen) and although we drew 3 of our last 4 games, we squeaked over the line to get promoted. An 84th-minute winner against Bayern IIs meant that we finished top - a point above Munchen Lions - but with other results falling the way they did, we'd have gone up even in defeat. Youth Intake Not much talent there, irrespective of the star ratings. Karl and Kahrimanovic are the only two I can see having decent professional careers, but I'm not bothered about youth intakes at this point with Unterhaching. Summary For next season, I'm looking at keeping Kovacs, Psilopoulos (he has some potential), Holband, Kalleklev, Gavalas, Tjelmeland, Mach, Neal, Badiane, Aksetoy, Schwarz, Tegeback, Felder and Furthaler. Everyone else can leave. That said, I'll probably lose Holband, Gavalas and Mach. So whatever. Here's to the second tier! Season # Club Division (Tier) League Performance European Performance Cup Performance (National/League) 2 RC Lens French 3rd 1st n/a Semi-Final / 2nd Round 3 RC Lens French 2nd 1st n/a 11th Round / 1st Round 4 RC Lens French 1st 3rd n/a 9th Round / 3rd Round 5 RC Lens French 1st 1st CL - 1st Knockout 10th Round / Winners 6 RC Lens French 1st 1st Quarter-Final Quarter-Final / Winners 7 AFC Tubize Belgian 3rd 6th – promoted via playoffs n/a n/a 8 AA Gent Belgian 1st 1st n/a n/a 9 AA Gent Belgian 1st 1st CL - 1st Knockout Winners 10 AA Gent Belgian 1st 1st CL – winners Winners 11 AA Gent Belgian 1st 1st CL – winners Winners 12 HNK Hajduk Croatian 1st 1st EL – Quarter-Final Winners 13 HNK Hajduk Croatian 1st 1st EL – Semi-Final Quarter-Final 14 HNK Hajduk Croatian 1st 1st Final – losers Winners 15 Unterhaching German 3rd 1st n/a n/a Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 30, 2018 Share Posted August 30, 2018 I'm surprised you got bored of Croatia that quickly after losing the CL final. Surely staying for a little longer to see if you could win it would've been worth it? Intriguing bunch of challenges you've been picking this career though - this includes Unterhaching. All are "my kind" of clubs except I always fancied Dinamo over Hajduk! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 1, 2018 Author Share Posted September 1, 2018 On 30/08/2018 at 02:41, noikeee said: I'm surprised you got bored of Croatia that quickly after losing the CL final. Surely staying for a little longer to see if you could win it would've been worth it? Intriguing bunch of challenges you've been picking this career though - this includes Unterhaching. All are "my kind" of clubs except I always fancied Dinamo over Hajduk! Honestly, I wasn't enjoying the league. Too many matches where we were just bashing our heads against whichever bus had been parked in front of the opposition goal. The other issue was that I was basically hitting the limit of the quality of player I could attract to the club. Yeah, I probably could have hung around a few years, developed the league reputation a bit more and pushed again for the Champions League, but... eh. This isn't that kind of save for me. There's no point plugging away with a club if you're not enjoying it, particularly when there are endless clubs where I can go back to what I enjoy - bringing in hundreds of triallists and trying to find the wage budget to sign the best ones. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 1, 2018 Author Share Posted September 1, 2018 Season 16, Part 1: Summer transfer SPVGG Unterhaching< German Second Division I let basically everyone except the players mentioned in my previous update leave. It wasn't until I'd done that that I realised that the league has a minimum number of German-national players that each squad must have. Oops. I did have to do a fair amount of scrambling to find suitable players - the club's reputation is pretty woeful, as you'd expect for a club that's just got back-to-back promotions. We lost our Welsh lefty Neal to 1st Div. Hoffenheim for what should shake out at around £400k plus 25% of next fee and loaned a few youngsters out. Coming in were (deep breath) **** it, too many to specify. A selection are presented here for your viewing pleasure: Take note also, if you will, of the token Welshy (below) brought in after Neal was sold. "You fool", cried the plebs "He's rubbish and you're an idiot." Clearly, however, they are the fools; every team needs someone whose entire job is simply to run around a lot. Also, we signed a young Israeli striker my scouts spotted while I was at Hajduk - he was 4-star rated then, but we didn't really need him. He was still on a non-contract at his club, though, so even though I reckon he was slightly over-rated at the time, I was happy to snap him up. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 3, 2018 Author Share Posted September 3, 2018 Season 16, Part 2: July - December SPVGG Unterhaching, German Second Division We were dumped out of the Cup nice and early - a 1-3 loss to top-tier Wolfsburg disappointing no-one and leaving us with the freedom of few midweek games. In the league, though, things have been going remarkably well so far. We've gone back to 4-4-2, since we now have the players for it. I wouldn't say that a record of 11-4-3 from our first 18 games is spectacular, but in a league that no-one's exactly lighting up at the moment, it's been good enough to have us sitting on top with a little over half the season gone. Most of our goals have come from the Israeli - enough that I've had to bench Furthaler, who's still bagged 5 in 10 appearances - and our pint-sized MR. We've also tied up our best players for at least another season (insert obligatory "although I expect Holband and Gavalas to leave") and have sorted out a bit more fresh blood for January. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 4, 2018 Author Share Posted September 4, 2018 Season 16, Part 3: January Transfer Window SPVGG Unterhaching, German Second Division We let some of our backups leave for small fees. In return, I brought a bunch of triallists in again and signed a couple. There was a DR we had on trial who I really wanted to sign, but other clubs (somehow) got wind of him and he signed for Kaiserslautern instead. Distinctly unim****ingpressed. We also signed a couple of ex-Hajduk players - yet another ex-Pontardawe player and a Croatian striker who'd been on a non-contract but they for some reason decided to release him. Decide for yourself how much of a moron the current manager must be. Honestly, even with those players coming in, the best news was us being able to reject a bid from Werder Bremen for Orel Malul. For a player who's giving us an actual chance of promotion, their bid was surprisingly stingy and they only negotiated up in modest increments (4 bids) before I finally got ****ed off with them and made a counter-off non-negotiable. They backed off and Malul hasn't complained. Yet. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 5, 2018 Author Share Posted September 5, 2018 4 games to go... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 5, 2018 Author Share Posted September 5, 2018 And then, without actually having played another game... Probably just as well, to be honest, I reckon Nurnberg have our number for our next game. Also, our ML tore his hamstring, so nice not to have to worry about that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 5, 2018 Author Share Posted September 5, 2018 I'd like to say I have no idea what's happened this season but I've got a fairly good idea We also just 'clinched' the title, and we still haven't played our next game. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 5, 2018 Author Share Posted September 5, 2018 Season 16, Part 4: January - May SPVGG Unterhaching, German Second Division As demonstrated through the screenshots above, our run-in was very good. We lost at Home to Kaiserslautern, drew against Bielefeld, Karlsruhe, Aue and Frankfurt and won the rest. Definite hints of aquaplaning, although some luck on the injury front as well (until we'd clinched the necessary, anyway). The hilarious imcompetence of our rivals for promotion - who spent the last few games on a circus clown act kind of theme, losing to bad teams in increasingly stupid ways - certainly helped keep the drama to a minimum for us. Players No real surprises with our players. Malul got most of our goals, scoring more than one goal every 90 minutes. Auchenburg was his partner for most of the season and set him up for quite a few of those goals. Braun, on the left, was like a super-charged Duracell bunny, with a crapton of assists and goals and also running almost 50km more than any other player in the league over the course of the season, in addition to leading another bunch of stats for the year. If I can get him back on loan next season, I'll be delighted. For finances, we were a little over £3m in the red... and then we got £15m in prize money. Which is nice. Next season... send help. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SmileFaceGamer Posted September 6, 2018 Share Posted September 6, 2018 8 hours ago, turnip said: Season 16, Part 4: January - MaySPVGG Unterhaching, German Second Division As demonstrated through the screenshots above, our run-in was very good. We lost at Home to Kaiserslautern, drew against Bielefeld, Karlsruhe, Aue and Frankfurt and won the rest. Definite hints of aquaplaning, although some luck on the injury front as well (until we'd clinched the necessary, anyway). The hilarious imcompetence of our rivals for promotion - who spent the last few games on a circus clown act kind of theme, losing to bad teams in increasingly stupid ways - certainly helped keep the drama to a minimum for us. Players No real surprises with our players. Malul got most of our goals, scoring more than one goal every 90 minutes. Auchenburg was his partner for most of the season and set him up for quite a few of those goals. Braun, on the left, was like a super-charged Duracell bunny, with a crapton of assists and goals and also running almost 50km more than any other player in the league over the course of the season, in addition to leading another bunch of stats for the year. If I can get him back on loan next season, I'll be delighted. For finances, we were a little over £3m in the red... and then we got £15m in prize money. Which is nice. Next season... send help. Lower Bundesliga is a bit out of my range unfortunately. I can work with a lower league (up to L1) English team, but not sure about lower Bundesliga Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 8, 2018 Author Share Posted September 8, 2018 Season 17, Part 1: Summer Transfer Window SPVGG Unterhaching, German First Division I was hoping to have a bit of money to throw around, but the board appear to have taken a 'safety-first' approach to the finances, which I can't really blame them for. So our 'We're gonna get relegated, but let's put up a fight!' pre-season pep-talk took on a somewhat resigned tone. That the players lapped up anyway, the weirdos: "Yeah, we're gonna have a great season!" Transfers Out We released quite a few players of minimal interest. And then, with the start of the First Division season looming, Hertha spent £2m+ for Petr Mach, which free up a little bit of wage budget and gave us some cash to spend. Transfers In We pissed away a fair chunk of our wage budget on a couple of German players, brought in two loanees to plug gaps in backup slots, reinforced our defensive positions, signed a cheapo Saffer striker and nabbed a Paraguayan MC from 'sort of' under the noses of ManUre and Chelski. Probably our best 'signing' (as it were) was Braun, whose loan deal I hadn't realised was actually for two years. Cue sighs of relief from me when I noticed that. Braun On a final note, having played the first game of the season, I looked at the Salary Per Annum list for the league. Ours is roughly 3% of Red Bull Leipzig's! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 8, 2018 Author Share Posted September 8, 2018 Season 17, Part 2: July - December SPVGG Unterhaching, German First Division A point I forgot to make in the transfer window update (probably because I had my fingers in my ears, all LaLaLaLaLaLaLa-like) was that I literally couldn't afford to sign new players and renew contracts. We got the new players, thus over half my squad have contracts that expire at the end of the season and I have roughly £1.5k spare in the wage budget. This can't end well. First Division We got some points on the board from our second match (Hertha, at Home), after we opened with an entertaining 2-3 loss to the team most easily known as BMG. We're not keeping many clean sheets, but we've scored 2 or more goals in twelve of our seventeen matches so far. We are tweaking things a little, tactically. Given the huge disparity in talent between ourselves and almost all of our opponents - most of our team are considered Decent->Good Second Division players - we are starting with Counter in a few games. We've been outplayed regularly without really doing the opposite (the 5-1 against Augsburg was deffo 'one of those games') but we live for those moments where a player humps the ball forward and one of our strikers sprints onto the end of it to score. Also, the 2-1 win we got over Rancid Buttchuggers Leipzig made me do a little dance in my room. German Cup We're in the Quarter-Finals, thanks to a 1-3 win over Hertha that followed a couple of wins against lower-league teams. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 8, 2018 Author Share Posted September 8, 2018 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 9, 2018 Share Posted September 9, 2018 Stellar job with this bunch so far, remarkable to be that high up the league. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 9, 2018 Author Share Posted September 9, 2018 A proper mental game, with some belters Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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