turnip Posted September 10, 2018 Author Share Posted September 10, 2018 Not the sort of squeaky-bum-time scenario I was expecting at the start of the season Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 10, 2018 Author Share Posted September 10, 2018 Season 17, Part 3: January - MaySPVGG Unterhaching, German First Division We didn't do much in the transfer window - a couple of teams sorted out future transfers for our players. We did bring in one player - a Polish U20 right-sided sort who went out on loan basically straight away. We also got rid of one of our GKs - last season's first-choice, who'd got injured at an awkward time earlier in the season, meaning I had to sign another keeper who was just quite a lot better. Youth I forgot to get screengrabs of last season's intake. The best were a striker and an MC I'll happily admit I only signed because of his name; my staff think he's got bags of potential, but I can't see it. This season's intake wasn't drastically different, just worse in terms of Determinatino. Lil' Mikey there is the younger brother of Ervin, who came through two years ago and is now hovering around the edges of the first team. Cup We lost in the Quarter-Finals, an unsurprising 1-2 defeat to BMG. League A good run-in, with 6 defeats and a couple of draws sitting alongside some great wins. Kamikaze football par excellence, if I do say so myself. We lost against the best teams, except for a dominant win against Koln. The thing I'm happiest with is Goals Scored - check that out. Only 1 less than Right Bastards Leipzig and their slush funds of dubious origin. A surprising finish in the European places - that outside chance of a Champions League spot was a hilarious carrot to find dangling in front of us on that final day - plus the £57m in prize money results in a quite remarkable season in all. Summary Some contracts are due to expire: notably Malul - who was asking for £18k-£25k at the start of the season but seems to have been happy to hang around without signing a pre-contract with someone else - Einarsson and Holband. I'll probably let Einarsson and Holband leave. Everything else is likely to depend on how much the board let me spend. The stadium was at 99% capacity across the season, so I reckon they'll look to expand that. I'm hoping we get at least enough spending money to get some new players in and renew the contracts we want renewed. Onwards, to Europe! 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 16 Unteraching German 2nd 1st n/a 1st Round 17 Unterhacing German 1st 6th n/a Quarter-Final Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 10, 2018 Author Share Posted September 10, 2018 Such riches... simply unimaginable... For the record, that's a £383k p/w increase in wage budget. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 13, 2018 Author Share Posted September 13, 2018 Season 18, Part 1: Summer Transfer Window SpVgg Unterhaching, German First Division The board gave us an extra £383k p/w and something like £18m in transfer funds to spend. We spent most of that. Malul left the club - he wanted £45k p/w and I didn't want to spend 1/13 of my entire wage budget on one player. Einarsson followed him, but Holband was happy to renew for an increase of £1500 p/w, so I didn't feel the need to ditch him. We only sold two players: an MC who never played all that well and our GK (late in the window) to Dortmund for £4.5m plus extras. We brought in a bunch of players. An Australian attacker I'd had my eye on for a few years, a Spanish DC we sent out on loan, a Spanish ST replacement for Malul, a Peruvian defensive type and a Danish marauding midfielder. We replaced our GK with a Norwegian from Monaco and, as deadline day approached, we finally managed to finalise the signing of a Uruguayan MR who appears to be made of papier mache, but looks like an absolute criminal signing at £900k. Our new GK is costing us ~1/15 of our wage budget. Somewhere, Malul is making a voodoo doll of me. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 14, 2018 Author Share Posted September 14, 2018 I forgot to include the important news that, for the 3rd time in this save, I signed Jan Kominek These days, he mostly going to be used as a backup Rotation option, with value as a tutor. I'm hoping I can persuade him to get some coaching badges as well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 15, 2018 Author Share Posted September 15, 2018 Season 18, Part 2: July - December SpVgg Unterhaching, German First Division We've brought in a couple of experienced players to be tutors. The fans have complained about them all, as they do. Cup We lost to Darmstadt in the Second Round. The board aren't thrilled and neither are the fans, but I don't care. League A good first half of the season. We're still somewhat rubbish when we're Away at the biggest teams, but we've had some big wins. We're scoring lots - bagging 4 goals or more in six games - and having periods in matches where we just tear teams to shreds. It's all a bit weird, but nice nonetheless. Europe We went into the Group Stage automatically. Drawn with Shakhtar, Sassuolo and Vitoria Guimaraes, we lost in Portugal but won the rest to top the group. We're off to Holland in the spring. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 16, 2018 Author Share Posted September 16, 2018 Season 18, Part 3: January - May SpVgg Unterhaching, German First Division I had another couple of invitations to job interviews. I got a bunch when we were in the second division as well. Boring. And Krizanac won an award. He probably has been our best player this season and was better than Malul in the back-end of last season as well, but this was still a bit of a surprise. Transfers We brought in a few youngsters, including a Colombian MC from Envigado (man, I'd love to get them as a Feeder), a BWM from El Salvador, a couple of Paraguayans and an Austrian and Swiss player apiece from amateur sides. Some talent there - Fiorillo's already made his debut and my scout was enthusiastic about Deras. Youth Intake Two players I can see being good enough for First Division football in the future, two others I can see having decent professional careers and then a steaming heap of turds. We've replaced the HOYD this year, bumped up Youth Recruitment and Junior Coaching and had the Training and Youth facilities improved, so hopefully next year will be less execrable. Europe We breezed past PSV: 0-2 and 4-2 wins were as comfortable as the scoreline suggests. When the news item about the draw came up and said "Liverpool and blah blah blah" are still in the competition, I said out loud "Looks like we've got Liverpool, then." And lo, so it came to pass. We got a 1-1 at Anfield, but lost 0-1 at Home and the dream (sniff) was over. League We came flying out of the blocks after the winter break, putting 4 past Stuttgart and Bremen, 5 past Darmstadt and 3 past not-Schalke and Dusseldorf before cruising to a 2-0 win over Bayern. Our form tailed off a little, but recovered enough to beat Hoffenheim 4-2 and then get a fantastic 1-3 win against second-placed RBL. That left us 3 points clear at the top, with a healthy goal difference advantage, and 10 points clear of 5th - with 6 games to do. We dropped 4 points in the run-in, but everyone around us - except Stuttgart, who got 13-1-1 in their last 15 games - slipped up. We went into the final game three points clear of Stuttgart and despite a pretty rubbish performance, drew 1-1 with BMG to clinch the title by a point Spoiler (and +18 GD) Summary I was a little hesitant at first about playing with the two XIs - and my AssMan did me no favours with his, uh, eclectic squad selection for Europe - but the weekend XI actually did a surprisingly good job. It helps that Nachreiner improved significantly, and that dropping out of Europe when we did meant our best players could do their thing in the league. As a mark of the progress of the squad as a whole, quite a few players who were rated 4 stars last year - and have improved since - are now at 3 stars. We're definitely still 'plucky upstarts', but I think our best players (Krizanaz, Perez, Sorensen, Wilson) would make it into at least half of the others teams in our division. A few Key Players who've developed nicely since I signed them: 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 16 Unterhaching German 2nd 1st n/a 1st Round 17 Unterhaching German 1st 6th n/a Quarter-Final 18 Unterhaching German 1st 1st EL - 2nd Knockout 2nd Round Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 17, 2018 Share Posted September 17, 2018 19 hours ago, turnip said: Already? This has got to be one of the most impressive threads in the forum this year, the rate of progress is just furious. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 19, 2018 Author Share Posted September 19, 2018 Season 19, Part 1: Summer Transfer Window SpVgg Unterhaching, German First Division I was expecting a fat wad of money for transfers, but the board took our £95m in prize money and immediately spent £33m on a new stadium. I had no idea who Florian Wehrle is/was, but apparently he's a **** scout who was a decent but unremarkable striker back when Unterhaching were also ****. Feels like that's a pretty low bar to be considered a "Hero". The board were actually remarkably stingy, given we'd just put >£60m into the bank. Although giving money to the board members for (presumably) hookers and blow wasn't a great idea either. We got £9m for transfer fees and about £10k extra p/w for wages. Not much scope to improve the squad with that. Even the £11m we got for going straight into the Champions League groups didn't get me any more spending money. We sold Lawal - he wanted a new contract on £22k p/w or so - for a couple of million and brought in a French defender on a free from Inter. We spent most of our budget on an Argie DL; the 2nd XI ML I went after signed a new contract with his club, so this guy should free Montes up to play at ML when needed. With time running out in the window, one of our backup STs tore his calf, so I brought in a Portuguese attacker I'd had my eye on for a while. And then, on deadline day, we signed an American DC we had on trial. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 20, 2018 Author Share Posted September 20, 2018 So, apparently we're playing our Champions League games at an alternative venue. Clearly, someone's got a sense of humour, 'cos we're playing at the Allianz instead. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 21, 2018 Author Share Posted September 21, 2018 Season 19, Part 2: August - December SpVgg Unterhaching, German First Division Cup We beat Hankofen in the first round and then Kaiserslautern in the second to set up a 3rd round tie against 3rd Division Aalen. We were pretty awful, but eventually ran out 1-2 winners. Europe We were a first seed and so got placed into a group with Lierse (I think a tycoon took them over), Shakhtar and Sporting Lisbon. If that sounds like a pretty decent draw then... yeah, it was. We qualified with no alarms and no surprises other than a 1-4 demolition job we carried out in Portugal. We've been drawn against Ajax in the next round. The legacy of my work is obviously a positive one - Lens, Gent and Hajduk have all also qualified for the knockout rounds. League It's reasonably clear that my weekend (second) XI isn't as good as my weekday XI. That said, they've still been pretty ****ing good. We've had a very good start to the season, scoring buckets of goals. I'm always going to appreciate beating Bayern, but a 5-0 win is almost a mini-orgasm, it's so brilliant. When that comes (heh, "cums") only a few days after a 6-1 sledge-hammering of then-2nd-placed Leverkusen, it's just piling on the pleasure. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 22, 2018 Author Share Posted September 22, 2018 Season 19, Part 3: January Transfer Windows SpVgg Unterhaching, German First Division Perez won the European Golden Boy, which is far less of a surprise than Krizanac was last season; he's been brilliant. We let our GK Ludvigsen leave, for £2.5m. We're also paying some of his wages, and if that suggests to you that I was very keen to see him leave, you're very astute. We also sent a few more players out on loan and allowed a couple of youngsters to leave for minor fees. The reason I'd gone off Ludvigsen, is because of Pierre, our new man between the sticks. He cost us £180k from Flamengo and my scouts and - now - my coaches all think he's got potential to be World-Class. £180k. Cheers, guys. Wilson, our ML, got himself injured and I may have overreacted, bringing in a loanee from Boca and then a youngster from NEC, given the injury was only for a few weeks. Still, the Dutchie looks good and the Argie can play up front. Otherwise, we brought in a kid from Tenerife and a slightly older Belgian as backups. I'm not expecting much, but they were cheap enough, and my scouts have been talking up Kawaya for a couple of years now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 23, 2018 Author Share Posted September 23, 2018 Season 19, Part 3.5: Europe SpVgg Unterhaching, German First Division The two legs against Ajax went roughly as I expected them to - a 0-2 win in Amsterdam, followed by a routine 2-2 draw at Home. In the Quarter-Final against Metz, we got a basically-deserved 4-2 win at the Allianz and then stuck it out at theirs to earn a cheeky 0-1 win. That gave us a Semi-Final against PSG. They have 3 players from my Gent days - Sergio Baez, Imran Jabrane and Laurens Charlier - as well as a now-34 year old Gijs Valk, from Lens. That they didn't beat us, I will state with full confidence, was because they've insisted on playing Baez as a DL. There's no other reason I can think of apart from "because their defenders got confused by 50-yard through-balls". 2-2 in Paris was followed by what would have been a nerve-shredding 4-3 at Home, with us defending for our lives in the last 20 minutes... except I Instant Result-ed the game, so the tension lasted about 15 seconds. The other Semi-Final saw Hajduk lose 5-2 on aggregate to Barcelona. The Final Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 24, 2018 Share Posted September 24, 2018 "Ethan Burger"... French. "Jardel"... American. "Patrick Awono"... Spanish. Awesome to see Unteraching, Lens, Gent and Hajduk all in the CL last 16! This is starting to approach the madness that were the CL later stages in @ManUtd1's FM17 career. And congratulations on another Champions League. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 24, 2018 Author Share Posted September 24, 2018 Season 19, Part 4.0: January - JuneSpVgg Unterhaching, German First Division Cup We beat Koln 0-3 in the Quarter-Finals (a few days after losing 3-1 to them in the league (spot the difference between the 1st and 2nd XIs)) to set up a Semi-Final with Dortmund. We lost, playing poorly. No-one cried. League We went 5 Away games without a win immediately after the league got back under way - 4 draws and the defeat to Koln in that run - but our Home form remained good. I thought the 11 dropped points would put us in trouble, but nope. Not-Schalke had a good run, but dropped points of their own, while Bayern kept tripping themselves up on their march towards the top - shipping 4 goals against RBL and Leverkusen and 6 against Dortmund. They only shipped 3 when we beat them for the second time this season, but the result was enough to clinch the title for us. For the last game of the season, I sent out the kids, giving 5 players their debuts. Additional notes So a ridiculously successful season, then, on the back of minimal investment from the board. After clinching the league, the board said I could have £20m to spend and around £40k p/w extra on the wage budget, which I sort of scowled at. Our existing financial position (~£50m in the bank going into April) wasn't bad and the prize money and TV money saw the club's balance hit £198m. I saw this and thought "A bit more for me, then." The board disagreed, I complained, they didn't care, I complained some more, they told me to shut up and then paid themselves £33m. I managed to secure Wilson and Sorensen on new deals, but Perez wants more than the board would let me spend and even in just the two weeks after the CL final, I had 5 more first team players asking for new deals ("You have plenty of time" did the trick). So, having pondered my situation, I quit. 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 16 Unterhaching German 2nd 1st n/a 1st Round 17 Unterhaching German 1st 6th n/a Quarter-Final 18 Unterhaching German 1st 1st EL - 2nd Knockout 2nd Round 19 Unterhaching German 1st 1st CL – winners Semi-Final Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
john1 Posted September 24, 2018 Share Posted September 24, 2018 Fantastic season Shame you have quit, but understandable But noticed Bayern isn't playing European Football next season? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 24, 2018 Author Share Posted September 24, 2018 1 hour ago, john1 said: Fantastic season Shame you have quit, but understandable But noticed Bayern isn't playing European Football next season? Yep, they failed FFP. I got a news item about another club failing FFP as well, but I don't remember who that was Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 27, 2018 Author Share Posted September 27, 2018 Season 20, Part 1: Winter Transfer Window Helsingin Jalkapalloklub, Finnish Premier Division I already had an idea of where I wanted to go when I quit, so I added the leagues, went on holiday and returned in time to toss my CV (at this point, I assume it's just a piece of A3 card with my name on) into the ring for the HJK job. I got the job. At which point I was the only member of staff. The team had won the league the previous season, and the standard of the squad can be judged by the fact that 2 stars was "Good Premier Division standard", but I brought in some reinforcements anyway. We got some Norwegian triallists in and came away with an MR, an ST and a couple of defenders. We also picked up a Paraguayan DL after a trial, found a German/Turkish playmaker for a small fee and - truly a Brucey bonus - picked up a Tahitian MC on a free. I'd like to say that he should have a decent pro career even if he doesn't make it with us, but let's face it, if you can't make it in Finland, you should just give up. There wasn't anyone desperately good in the squad when I took over, but we did have a DC who wanted to leave. Sadly for him, no-one told him that the Finnish and general European transfer windows don't line up, so when our window closed and no-one was immediately lining up to bid for him (in mid-April), he agreed a new contract with no Min Fee Release Clause. I like stupid players. Cup We qualified from our group, winning all 5 games, scoring 22 goals and conceding none in the process. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 29, 2018 Author Share Posted September 29, 2018 Season 20, Part 2: April - October Helsingin Jalkapalloklub, Finnish Premier Division Transfers Udinese activated Guzel's £675k Min Fee Clause before the end of their summer window. We brought in a few new players, but the main one of note was an M R/L who'd been plying his trade with Auxerre. We picked him up on a free and I was pretty happy. League Barely worth a mention. A cakewalk from start to finish. Dropped points were due to us having a bad day, rather than any particular skill from our opponents. We clinched the title with 6 games to go. Cup We thrashed FC Lahti 5-1, setting up a Semi-Final against TPS. They scored from their only shot on target, but an injury time penalty saw us get a deserved 2-1 win. The Final took place during an international break, which is an - erm - interesting decision, but we were playing a First Division team and won comfortably, 7-2. Youth Intake As usual, I forgot to get a screenshot of the full intake before I started offering contracts. Here's the group, minus the best three. I've decided not to bother offering contracts to players with less than 10 Determination unless they're rated at 3 stars or more. There's no-one particularly interesting among that lot, it's mostly a case that they're the ones most likely to make significant improvement, so might be useful in the future. Ojala and Keskinen look decent and it's rare enough that I have "too many" DCs, so that's where I'm re-training Keskinen, since I don't use DMs. That Determination, though. [shudder] And finally, the genie in the bottle: Nurmi. I reckon this kid would cause a raised eyebrow at whatever club he came through at. He was rated the best player in the squad as soon as he came through, so he made his debut from the bench 4 days later in a Champions League qualifier. Europe This is the reason I wanted to manage here. Finland are a crap national team with crap domestic teams. HJK are the biggest by some distance, but have been about as bad as you'd expect throughout this save. They've never gone past the 3rd Qualifying Phase in the Champions League and their 3 appearances in the EURO Cup group stage have seen them finish bottom each time. We started our campaign against Buducnost, winning 3-0 and 1-3. Next up were the diet energy drinks; a 0-1 win in Salzburg set us up nicely for a 2-1 victory back in Helsinki. Breiđablik were up next and although we weren't convincing, we went through 0-1 and 2-2. That left us with a tricky tie against Olympiakos. They travelled a pretty long way only to get spanked 4-1 and although they were better in the second leg, it was too little too late; their 2-1 win was for naught and we went through to a Group Stage consisting of Arsenal, AA Gent and Partizan. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted September 30, 2018 Author Share Posted September 30, 2018 Season 20, Part 3: October - November-ish Helsingin Jalkapalloklub, Finnish Premier Division League Champions League The Group of Death, for anyone interested, was definitely Group E, with Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Benfica and Ajax. We gamely lost 1-3 in Gent, before somehow squeaking 3-2 wins at Home against Partizan and Arsenal. We then had to defend for our lives to get 0-0 draws in London and then at Home to Gent. This meant that we'd guaranteed 3rd, although we would go through with at least a point in Belgrade. We went Counter and earned a 2-2 draw that we both went through. If you're in need of cheering up, imagine the phone-ins from Arsenal fans. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 2, 2018 Author Share Posted October 2, 2018 Crazy train still on the tracks Choo choo!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 3, 2018 Author Share Posted October 3, 2018 The train now approaching the platform does not stop here A sudden loud noise, and a wheel rolls down the track in comic fashion Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 5, 2018 Author Share Posted October 5, 2018 Season 21, Part 1: January - June Helsingin Jalkapalloklub, Finnish Premier Division With a transfer budget in the region of £11m (a lot more than I could reasonably spend), I went hunting for reinforcements. BATE bought one of our backup MCs for £300k, while Perugia signed our best HG striker for his Min Fee clause, after I simply forgot to offer him a new contract. We'd already arranged the transfer of a Finnish GK as a backup to an Italian we'd signed at the back end of last season. We sold our Paraguayan DL and brought in a young replacement from Atletico, alongside a couple of Iberian DCs for small fees. We got a young ST from ManUre for £89k, loaned a playmaker from Sevilla and then spent £675k on a DC/DM type from Sparta Prague who we proceeded to play exclusively at DR. Our last exciting signing of this part of the season was a Salvadoran ST on a free. Europe As recorded above, we beat Porto over two legs but despite getting within a few minutes of taking Monaco to extra time, we weren't able to hang on to reach an (even by the standards of this save) improbable Semi-Final. Still, our efforts did lift the league ranking up 10 spots (we're now only slightly shitter than Serie C), while the club itself is now ranked 61st - between the Saint-Etienne and the lavender felchers themselves. We're still going into the Champions League at the same point as last year, though. Progress wears many faces, it would appear. League Much the same as last season: we only drop points when we play badly. The fact that we're poaching pretty much every player with any talent (consider that a relative term) in the league means our opponents are largely toothless. We're quite susceptible to late goals, but when you're 3-0 up, I'm not sure how much I can blame my goalkeeper for being a little dozy (I still call him unrepeatable things, mind you). Here's the situation as of the last league game in June: Cup A walkover so far. We've got the Semi-Final midway through August against a First Division team. Off The Pitch We pushed through upgrades to the Youth and Training setups, as well as getting Youth Recruitment bumped up to Well Established. Youth Facilities are still Below Average, which is annoying. The wages we can offer staff have improved, but still suck ass pretty hard. We've mostly relied on getting Finnish staff in, since half the clubs here can't actually offer wages and "a pittance" is still better than nothing. That said, we just managed to snipe a member of staff from Hajduk; nabbing their U-20 Manager to come and do the same job for us. He's pretty rubbish as a manager, but I'm favourite staff, so who cares. We've also got a coach who played for me at Lens for a couple of seasons. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 7, 2018 Author Share Posted October 7, 2018 Dear board, you seem to have made a mistake: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 8, 2018 Author Share Posted October 8, 2018 Season 21. Part 2: July - December Helsingin Jalkapalloklub, Finnish Premier Division Transfers We finally got a couple of young Brazilians in, after they'd signed contracts in January but been on trial until they turned 18. The best of them was an ML. The other important transfer was a Polish DR I'd signed at Unterhaching but whose contract had run out. He's better than Lundberg - our resident DR - but my AssMan didn't put him in the squad for Europe, so it looks like it's the league for him. League Nothing remarkable Cup Once again, the Final was during an international break. We had 23 players absent, conceded a penalty in the 94th minute that took it to extra time and then lost in the shoot-out. Europe We made somewhat hard work of our first games against Knattspyrnufelag Reykjavik, shipping 4 goals across the two legs (admittedly, we did score 8). Thereafter, it was straightforward enough, with wins over Sheriff of Moldova and Maribor of Slovenia. The Playoff saw us ameliorate some of Olympiakos' fans' horror from last year, as we ripped Panathanaikos a new one: 0-3 and 5-1 wins seeing us through to the group stages once again. A group with Chelsea, Roma & Monaco provided an opportunity for us to develop a new orifice, however. We lost 3-1 in the Principality and beat Roma 3-2 at Home. We then - with a number of players unavailable due to a sudden bout of contagious muscle and bone injuries (**** you, too, FM) - had a player sent off as we scraped a 0-0 at Home against Chelsea and had two players sent off as we scraped a 1-1 in London (somehow less scrapishly). We beat Monaco 2-1 in our Home game, which sealed qualification and then got a 1-2 win in Rome to make sure we finished top of the group. We'll be facing Köln in the First Knockout Round. Summary I'd planned to let Solbakken's contract run down, but he scored so many goals that seemed like one of the stupidest things I could have done. Our Wingers got a bunch of assists each - neither is particularly good, but they get down the line and put decent crosses in and we've usually got two warm bodies in the box for them to aim at. Trapani had a good season at GK - in August, it looked like Milan might come in for him, so I signed a replacement from Envigado, but nothing came of their interest, which I'm happy with. We've got a bunch of young players rated 3 stars or so, but progress has been glacial for most of them. None of them got enough game time to make it into the screenshot above, but I've got some midfielders who could be good, so I'm hoping I can sort them out with loans for next year. Young Players Update As usual, I forgot to grab a screenshot of the youth intake. We had a couple of good players - notably Mikkonen (below), who looks like becoming a long-term fixture at MR. At ML, Hämäläinen (who we paid Ilves £325k for) looks like being an equally long-term fixture, while Jäaäskeläinen could be a good option at MC and Lehtimäki a viable DL (if I can be bothered re-training Nurmi to DR). Hämäläinen actually got a few games at the end of the season after we sold our 2nd XI ML to Paris FC for £1m and did well, although ratings always look good when you're bossing the league. We're also planning to bring in a new Finnish ST from IFK Mariehamn. They wanted ~£5m for him mid-season, but I'm hoping to get him for a lot less now the season's over. 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 16 Unterhaching German 2nd 1st n/a 1st Round 17 Unterhaching German 1st 6th n/a Quarter-Final 18 Unterhaching German 1st 1st EL - 2nd Knockout 2nd Round 19 Unterhaching German 1st 1st CL – winners Semi-Final 20 HJK Finnish 1st 1st CL – Quarter Final Winners 21 HJK Finnish 1st 1st ongoing Finalists Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 12, 2018 Author Share Posted October 12, 2018 Season 22, Part 1: January - June Helsingin Jalkapalloklub, Finnish Premier Division Transfers I made a pretty big balls-up with my goalkeeper: we got a fantastic 18-year old Brazilian GK in on trial, so I offered him a pretty generous deal, shopped my main guy around and he got pissed off before eventually leaving for Belgium, only for ****ing Chelsea to swoop in out of nowhere, snap the kid up and dump him in their youth team. Not sure how they found him; not sure how he got a work permit; not even sure why they need him with another 5 GKs in the U23s. The moral of this tale: **** Chelsea. Darmstadt (German First Division) came in for Contreras on January deadline day, with a pretty rubbish bid of £825k plus trimmings, but he wanted to leave and I'm hoping we can make more in the long-term. Marclecio - a former random Brazilian who was about a month off becoming Home-Grown - was the subject of a bid from Vasco de Gama of £800k plus extras and, much as I wanted him to stay, that was hard to turn down. So I didn't. On the inbound ferry, we got an Icelandic MR, an Egyptian MR, a Bolivian ST, the Finnish ST mentioned in the previous update, a couple of Italian DCs and an Italian ST from a C/A side who Serie A Torino immediately wanted on loan. We also brought in Jailton - from Unterhaching - for a couple of months as his contract was running down and he wasn't playing for them. The Egyptian broke his leg in something like his 4th match. Top stuff, dude. The best of the rest (freebies and cheapo signings) was another Brazilian who I should probably start giving some game time to. Man City came in for the Icelandicer to the tune of £1.5m + 25% of next sale. A decent offer for someone I'd had for only 6 months, so off you toddle, mate. Cup Into the Semi-Finals, although we actually failed to win one of our group stage games, against an SJK team who were in proper Gandalf mode (you shall not pass, etc). League We dropped points in the first game of the season as FC Inter took inspiration from SJK's larping, but other than that it's been easy enough. We're having to play in Counter a fair bit to actually have the space to play, mixing it up with the Killdozer from time to time. Fascinatingly - and to my astonishment - Finland qualified for the European Championships, so with a bunch of players likely to be on International Duty, we've had 5 games (I think) postponed. Despite this, Our last match before all the postponements still had us putting together a squad without any of our Finnish internationals (we won 1-4). Europe With a few players unavailable, we played well in a 3-2 loss in Germany, but couldn't hold on to an early lead in the Home leg, losing 1-2. Marseille beat Real Madrid in the final, but really I was the winner, as my ML had the most assists (also a new record) and the highest rating, while the top goalscorer was a Madrid player I brought to Europe way back when for Gent. Given how many players were away at the Euros, I was hoping the improvement to the nation's coefficient would mean that we'd be pushed back a couple of rounds. We weren't. So I attended all of Finland's games to make sure they were simulated at maximum detail. They got humped by Greece and Holland and were lucky to only lose 2-1 to Sweden. Mission accomplished, I'd say. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 13, 2018 Author Share Posted October 13, 2018 spit-take Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
john1 Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 27 minutes ago, turnip said: spit-take Insane! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 14, 2018 Author Share Posted October 14, 2018 A meaningless league game, 2 days after the weekend XI played and a few days before a Champions League match, so I sent the kids: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 14, 2018 Author Share Posted October 14, 2018 Season 22, Part 2: July - December Helsingin Jalkapalloklub, Finnish Premier Division Something that made me smile was seeing one of my Finnish DMs winning 'Goal of the Tournament' at the Euros for a shot he slammed home from about 30 yards. Transfer We 'lost' our Icelandicer and Egyptian MRs - to Lierse and Man City, respectively - sold an MC I hadn't planned on keeping for £400k to Rosenborg, and allowed another MC who'd been okay to leave for around £750k. In return, we got a new GK, ST, DL, MC and MR. Plus the usual riffraff. League We won the league again, without any issues. Teams are starting to go ultra-defensive against us, though. I even spotted a 'Flat Back 5 + 2 DMs' in the wild, when we hosted dog-**** awful Jaro. Cup We beat SJK in the final, with the usual raft of players unavailable due to international duty (a bug, it would appear). Europe We went in at the same round as previously, despite our recent efforts (we're ranked 40th at the moment, predicted to be ~35th or so next season (that'll go up if we can get a result in the next round) and the Nation Club Coefficient has Finland 20th). We beat Siroki Brijeg, Breidablik (again) and Maccabi Haifa on the back of dominant first leg performances. We didn't have quite so easy a time of it against FC Viitorul but were the better team in both matches. That put us in the Group Stages again, this time in a group with - sigh - Atletico Madrid, Monaco and Hoffenheim. We were deservedly beaten by Atleti at Home, but grabbed a point in an entertaining 3-3 in the principality and then arguably had the better of the game as we won 1-2 against Hoffenheim. In the second run of games, we beat Hoffenheim again (1-0) and lost 4-2 in Madrid. This meant that a draw against Monaco would be enough to see us go through if Atleti got a result against Hoffenheim; otherwise we would need to win. We scored in first-half injury time and in second-half injury time to snatch a 3-2 win and go through in second place. 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 16 Unterhaching German 2nd 1st n/a 1st Round 17 Unterhaching German 1st 6th n/a Quarter-Final 18 Unterhaching German 1st 1st EL - 2nd Knockout 2nd Round 19 Unterhaching German 1st 1st CL – winners Semi-Final 20 HJK Finnish 1st 1st CL – Quarter Final Winners 21 HJK Finnish 1st 1st CL - 1st Knockout Finalists 22 HJK Finnish 1st 1st ongoing Winners Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 16, 2018 Author Share Posted October 16, 2018 Season 23, Part ?: Selected Young Players Update Helsingin Jalkapalloklub, Finnish Premier Division The Tahitian I signed in my first season here has developed quite well: Having gained Home Grown status last season, he was able to claim a spot in the Weekend XI, getting 13(5) appearances at 7.10 (let's assume that average rating is massaged slightly by the team's overall performance). He's mostly been played as a BWM, which is a waste of his talents and somewhat stupid given his weakling status, but I'm training him as a Box-To-Box because I think his overall game is well-suited to it (if you ignore his Finishing, anyway). He attracted a bit of attention in the January window, but I don't think anyone made a bid. Jaaskalainen has also made decent progress in the last 12 months or so: He also got regular game time last season in the Weekend XI, making 13(6) appearances with 3 goals and 4 assists. I've vacillated a bit with him, between making him an MC (as a Box-To-Box, because his Vision is poor) and simply retraining him as a False Nine. He's been playing in Midfield, though, because I think he's marginally better suited to it. Performances have been decent again, nudging just over 7.0, but enough to get him noticed. We fielded a variety of bids for him in the January window. Man City showed the most interest and I eventually accepted a reasonably good bid for him: I didn't want him to leave, mind you, so I offered him a new contract - on an astronomical £2500 p/w and he accepted. Which I was happy with (we really don't need the money). Ari Mikkonen has been the star of the show in terms of progress, mind you: With the departure of my two MRs halfway through last season, I gave him a spot. He did okay in his 12(3) appearances - 3 assists and an average of 6.89 - but the mitigating factor is that he went straight into the Midweek XI. So 10 of those starts were in the Champions League. My staff's assessment of him has bobbed up and down a little, but my AssMan (14/14 for JPA/JPP) reckons he's got 4+1 Potential and I'm inclined to agree, since he's made improvements across the board. No-one's come in for him yet but it's only a matter of time. Brucey Bonus This guy was the pick of last season's Youth Intake that I actually remembered to get a screenshot of, but forgot to include in the update. I'm retraining him as an MR, but there's a lot to like here. He's made good progress since he came through (the perks of having great facilities), but I don't expect him to play too many games this season. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 18, 2018 Author Share Posted October 18, 2018 In the 'what did you think was going to happen?' corner, we have this league game against newly-promoted MP: We won 2-0. In the 'maybe you should have done what MP did' corner, we have this league game against FC Lahti: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 19, 2018 Author Share Posted October 19, 2018 Season 23, Part 1: January - June Helsingin Jalkapalloklub, Finnish Premier Division Transfers Out We sold Hermoza and Polychronidis. The former went to Stuttgart for ~£2.5m, while the latter went to (ahem) Arsenal, also for £2.5 (plus 35% of next fee). Even the game was taking the **** out of the Gunners for that deal. Other important departures were Toni Rantala - our stalwart MC - who wanted a new challenge and moved to New York for £450k; while Juuso Karlsson finally annoyed me enough that I sold him to Rayo Vallecano for £1.3m - he's made 3(1) appearances, been ****, and as of the end of June is whining about not getting enough game time. Transfers In We replaced the two strikers we sold with a product of the Arsenal academy and a young Croatian. lmao at the thought that Preddie came through at Arsenal. We also picked up a Finnish DC from Honka - a replacement for Karlsson - as well as getting a DR from Honduras who was injured when he signed, but I repeatedly forgot to actually include in my Weekend XI even after he recovered. I also bowed to the inevitable and signed a bunch of older players to act as Tutors, because we were really short on older players. Cup The group stage was a little scrappy, what with the changes to our strikers, but we qualified easily enough. The Quarter-Final was against a First Division team and gave us a comfortable 4-0 win. League We tweaked the tactics, setting Preddie and Ljubas as Target Man (Support), and giving them specific roles at both Attacking and Defensive corners. The result has been our best half-season yet, by some margin. I'd written most of this update by the time actually lost a game - IFK Mariehamm going 0-2 down to us before apparently bringing their sub gorgon on; the only explanation for our statuesque defending that I can think of. Europe We faced Man City in the last 32, got slightly pummelled in both legs, but only lost 2-1 on aggregate. Also, the 'how to make Finland better' plan is starting to bear some fruit: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 20, 2018 Author Share Posted October 20, 2018 Youth Intake A load of rubbish aside from Lahtinen. And I suppose Jarvinen isn't 'claw my eyes out' awful; I mean, his Mentals are, but there's something to work with on the Technical side. I am excited about Lahtinen, though. My current Finnish GK - Hyokyvaara - is decent enough, but having someone, y'know, better, would be nice. We've also had the latest round of improvements finish, and things are looking good: There is still some way to go with Youth Facilities, though. The club had kind of ignored those before I joined. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 20, 2018 Author Share Posted October 20, 2018 Season 23, Part 2: Europe - the early days Helsingin Jalkapalloklub, Finnish Premier Division I've been playing FM and CM for 20 years and had no idea which country Trakai were from. They did about as well as a Semi-Professional Lithuanian team were ever likely to do against us, I suppose. Young Boys were a remarkably tough team to get at this stage of the competition, but we won convincingly enough. Meanwhile, I thought we might have trouble with Rangers, but they've only got 3-4 good players - my scouts gave the rest a rating of 45-55. We're the 3rd seeds (!), drawn in a proper '**** you' group with AA Gent, Koln and ManUre. Sigh. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 20, 2018 Author Share Posted October 20, 2018 Season 23, Part 3: Transfers, League & Cup finale(s) Helsingin Jalkapalloklub, Finnish Premier Division Our July transfers were a mixed bunch. We brought in a superb-looking, but rather underwhelming Czech attacker, a Colombian MC, Italian GK (who I'd previously signed for Unterhaching from a non-league Swiss team) and an Italian MC The Colombian ended up going out on loan, where he's been okay, but once my AssMan pulled his head out of his anus, he managed to register the Italian for the European squad, which was handy. Apollonio could be a very solid player for us, but having signed him for £6m, I suspect he'll get annoyed at me rejecting the sort of bids I can imagine other teams making for him in 6-12 months time. A few players left - our underwhelming Italian duo of Bolla (£1m, Lazio) and Franco (£1m, Man City) and an exciting Italian ST (£1.8m+, Man City) alongside a number of less notable players. The League A stroll. The Cup IFK Mariehamn, in the Semi-Final, were ridiculously tough to break down, while we were lucky to win the Final (albeit we had 37 players on international duty). Summary (I have to do this now, before the end of the Champions League Group Stages, because this is when the 'next season' starts as far as the game is concerned.) No real surprises at the top of the list. Nurmi is just a very good DL; Lundberg is decent but realistically is only playing because he's Home Grown. Preddie had a terrific season as a man-mountain who also took about half of our penalties (and earned a surprising call-up to the England squad as I was writing this), while Solbakken (whose contract had been due to expire, and who was asking for £17k p/w, but I just checked and now he only wants £1500) was good again - better than last season but not quite at his best. Hamalainen took over as ML in the Midweek XI and seems to have perfected the crossing arc required to land a ball on Preddie's head, while Blondel was good but not as precise from MR in the Weekend XI. Cocada and Villa both got Midweek XI slots and played well. Further down the list, Ari Mikkonen should have played a bunch more games, but kept getting kicked off the pitch. In his absence, Vaisanen played and did very well, while Toni Mettala was marginally the better pick for the Weekend XI ML slot at the start of the season and basically never stopped playing well. I was continually irritated by AI bids for my players this summer - particularly my Home Grown ones. It was Nurmi and Jaaskalainen at the start of the season, and then Olsson and Hamalainen started getting attention. And the bids were rubbish. Yes, the league reputation is pretty poor (still), so player values are down, but if the asking price is set at £15m, don't bid £1.3m. Or, fine, bid £1.3m, but then go fist yourself with a barbed wire glove. Thankfully, we kept most of them happy through judicious use of the "Dude, think of your bros..." option. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 21, 2018 Author Share Posted October 21, 2018 Season 23, Part 4: Euro semi-wrapHelsingin Jalkapalloklub, Finnish Premier Division We edged exciting 3-2 wins over Gent(H) and Koln(A) and then an 8th minute penalty was enough to beat ManUre at Home, in a thrilling match that only saw 1 other shot on target. We weren't as good in the return at Old Trafford, losing 1-3, but we got a deserved 4-2 win over Koln to secure qualification. We still needed a win to ensure we topped the group, and we managed that with a 1-2 win. As it happened, Koln beat ManUre, so it wouldn't have mattered. Our options in the next round aren't inspiring - Ajax, Paris SG, Barcelona or Monaco. Oh dear. We got Ajax, so we might make it to the Quarter-Finals Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 We'll be playing FC Metz in the final. Bring it on. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 Champions League Final I'll be honest, I'm confused about this one. He scored 21 goals, but he only scored 10 goals? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koetzer Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 Great achievement! I'm actually more surprised to see Metz in the final, did they have a tycoon here? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
turnip Posted October 23, 2018 Author Share Posted October 23, 2018 3 hours ago, Koetzer said: Great achievement! I'm actually more surprised to see Metz in the final, did they have a tycoon here? I think so, yes. There was a time when they were offering stupid wages around; but this is 15 seasons ago or so. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.