The Circle of Fitness Activists

[noikeee]

The league isn't much of a challenge these days...

[noikeee]

FIFA World Cup Qualifying

 

The decisive match against Serbia which would certainly crown either team or Wales as 2nd placed in this group, proved to be an even, tense match. For 75 or so minutes our defensive 4-1-4-1 plan worked to limit Serbia's offensive, and we had the better chances but had not scored. I switched to the 4-3-3 to try to nick a goal and almost immediately a Tamás cross met Roland Varga's head and it was 1-0 for us! And so it stayed for an epic victory that clinched 2nd for us, pending on the final match against the Faroes.

The Faroes would not be very difficult, MTK striker Zoltán Tóth scoring his first 2 goals for the national team in a 3-0 win. Unfortunately, we would not qualify for the World Cup as we already knew - despite our 2nd place, we were dead last in the table for "best second placed" teams across the groups, and the win over the Faroes didn't gain us much ground there.

This system feels like a very harsh way to miss out on a World Cup, at least let us play a playoff and decide things directly! Nevertheless I am very proud of my players for 2nd place in this group and this bodes well for future competitions such as Euro 2024.
 

International debuts

This is a MTK player that I've not mentioned at all yet, because I only hired him after the last major update (pre-season). A promising 18 year old fullback, he's only third choice for me at club level at the moment, but has reached national team level and looked fine in his debut against the Faroes, with an assist. His potential isn't huge but with the lack of depth for Hungary I suspect he'll soon be my starting right-back for Hungary, and get a hell of a lot of caps throughout his career.

[noikeee]

Champions League group stage - rounds 4 and 5

 

The home match with PSG was just amazing and quite possibly our best performance in Europe yet. A 3-0 win! We got 2 early goals, resisted PSG the rest of the match and added another at the end. A match to remember.

Next against Napoli we would repeat the crazy 3-3 scoreline from Italy. This time Napoli opened up a lead 3 times and the 3 times we equalized, in another bonkers match. I'm somewhat disappointed that we had 5 CCCs to Napoli's 0 and ended up drawing, but nevertheless a good result against a strong side.

As we stands we're in the group lead again (!) but with no guarantees of qualifying. The good news is that whatever happens, we'll proceed in the Europa League at least, as in the final match we travel to Spain to face Villarreal, and it's impossible for both PSG and Napoli to overtake us at the same time.

[john1]

Wow! Fantastic results in CL!  I am sure you will still go through  

[oriole01]

Great results with MTK and the NT. What's your club rep looking like now?

[kidthekid]

incredible result against PSG

[noikeee]

17 hours ago, john1 said:

Wow! Fantastic results in CL!  I am sure you will still go through  

I'd say it's a coinflip, a draw in Spain seals it but Villarreal should be favourites, plus PSG are probably favourites in the other match and we don't want them to win.

12 hours ago, oriole01 said:

Great results with MTK and the NT. What's your club rep looking like now?

That's actually a bit of an issue, quite possibly one of the things that's hindering the club progress the most right now:

Last season we have broken into a 3 star reputation but that's still pretty goddamn low compared to the teams we face in the CL. Also the league itself is below the likes of the Azerbaijaini league and only just overtook England's League 1.  

 

This results in a) players wanting to move to bigger leagues and clubs, and b) very low player values, which in turn means bids for players are pretty goddamn low and nothing alike the real value of the players. Some of these kids are now actually legitimately competitive at CL level, yet check their values:

8 hours ago, kidthekid said:

incredible result against PSG

Cheers kiddo!

[noikeee]

Champions League group stage - round 6

It was a real blow when after 15 minutes Villarreal took the lead in pretty much the first vague chance they had. This put us in a bad position, but for a while it was still enough for qualification as Napoli were beating PSG 2-1.

... until Napoli took their 3rd and suddenly they were ahead of us on goal difference/goals scored. I switched to the more attacking setup, and we had a penalty.... which Sáfár missed. Bit later we took a goal though. Low cross from Ivan Tejic and Zoltán Tóth hitting the back of the net. It would prove crucial. Whilst PSG reduced in the other match (and it would finish that way, Napoli 3-2 PSG), the winning goal from Villarreal would knock us out vs Napoli on goals scored. We were more than a little fortunate to hold on, Villarreal extremely dangerous in the final minutes once switched to an attacking 4-2-4. But we did.

Ridiculously, we win the group, and even more ridiculously, Napoli and PSG are out with PSG not even in the Europa League. This was only really possible because everyone took points of each other, though.

Atlético stands in our way in the round of 16 - this is still largely the same side we know with Simeone managing, and Griezmann, Koke, Oblak etc. Top of the Spanish league at the moment.

[noikeee]

Mid-season update 2021/2022

 

 

The transfer shock of this period was obviously the big sale of Gábor Kitl, against my wishes, to Hoffenheim on deadline day. I also decided to let go RB/DM Máté Katona, who is a regular-ish option for me at national team level - shows just how big MTK are getting now, that my national team players aren't good enough for the club anymore! Oh and we hired a right-back late in August:

 

... whom you guys already know about since I presented him in my last national team update.

 

Domestically, this has been an hilariously easy season. We've simply won every single match except for an away draw with Ferencváros late in November, which greatly annoyed me. Still on course for an undefeated season in the league though, can we actually do that?

 

The attention now turns to the January signings, of which I have a slightly bonkers 5 players lined up - but only one should be for the first team now:

 

First of a few Czechs, should be the next Petr Cech.
 

 

15 year old left-back with a little potential, the little ambitious **** forced me to promise him I'll start him in the cup though.
 

 

... which on hindsight I wouldn't have agreed to, since I then found out about another Czech LB that's quite considerably better. Okay 2 years older but I'm quite excited about the potential of this kid.
 

 

Moving on, this 16 year old Croatian DM might not quite have all that much potential, so my staff warned me, but the compensation fee was peanuts so well worth the gamble.
 

 

Finally, the REAL reinforcement. He'll be 22 by the time he joins us which feels slightly like cheating my rules, but hey he's 21 now so **** it. I really needed a good DM now that Ádám Vass is near retirement age, so I paid an absolute fortune for this Romanian guy (2.6M€ plus INSANE wages which are almost twice as high as anyone else in the club right now) who can play CB and CM as well.

[noikeee]

Winter transfer window 2021/2022

I decided to focus more on using MTK to build up the Hungarian national team and so there was a little of extra transfer business here along those thinking lines. I loaned out quite a few players that I had little chance of giving any first team football, and hired 2 more Hungarian kids, beyond all those players I had already listed in the update above.
 

17yo MC. Fat chance he'll ever become a first team player for us, but I felt at this stage I could speed up his development and mould him more into the kind of player I want for the national team. 95K deal.

This is much more like it - one of Hungary's most exciting new young players joins from Debrecen for a princely sum of 2,1M€. I hesitated a little here because he gives competition to our own promising young strikers Fedor YP20A and Kovács YP20C which are all thereabouts the same level, and he's not quite the superforward I would've liked to hire to ultimately replace Kitl who was gone back in the Summer. Thing is, Szilvási is the quickest of all of these youth strikers (pace is the key attribute for me) and also "professional" personality. I'm "promoting" him to first striker immediately, already ahead of Tóth and will soon call him for the national team as well, I think it's the right moment.

[noikeee]

Youth intake 2022

 

 

Fail. This is terrible.

[noikeee]

Champions League Round of 16

 

In Madrid, a gamble decision to play Fedor YP19A upfront over Tóth or new signing Szilvási paid off as he scored the opening goal. We would hold on to the lead until the 73rd minute, and came out of Madrid with a delightful 1-1 draw. In truth, this scoreline had flattered us greatly. Atlético could've scored many more.

Back in Budapest, Dimov scored the opener and again Atlético equalized, resetting the whole tie, no advantage for either side. We were again being outplayed by Atlético in the beginning but then the course of the match changed a little and we started looking a little more solid (I didn't even change anything). And the Bulgarian winger Ivaylo Dimov, who has shone in the league this season but has been mostly pretty rubbish in the CL, would prove absolute key, as after scoring that first goal, he then assisted Tejic for our 2nd, and centre-back Vukajlovic for the 3rd at the very end in a side free-kick. We beat Atlético 3-1 and are off to the quarters!
 

The draw could've been much worse, we have a chance against RB Leipzig, but then again that's exactly the same thing I said last year at this stage when we drew Valencia - and then they beat us.

[rodesire]

Good job in CL, that draw looks very germany heavy!

[john1]

Fantastic to get a draw against RB Leipzig   

[noikeee]

International friendlies

 

Two friendlies against smaller opposition to warm up for the Nations League in which we'll be in the bottom division playing minnows. Against Lithuania I started with 4 players making their international debuts, and although it didn't seem like their fault, we were awful! Lucky to reach half-time 0-0 and then improved in the 2nd half scoring twice.

Against the UAE things didn't go much better as we reached half-time losing 1-0 and looking bamboozled by their narrow 4-3-3, but recovered fine in the 2nd half again, now scoring 4 goals.
 

International debuts

 

The Sampdoria goalkeeper seems ready to start featuring soon, and although the current generation of keepers in their 30s still give me guarantees for now, in the future sooner or later he'll be the starter.

 

I think this is my first youth player to reach the Hungarian national team? Perhaps not who I expected at first! A lack of depth in the DM position opens the door for Pintér YP19E, who although doesn't have wild potential, seems a valid squad option.

 

The Ajax midfielder/winger is struggling to break into their main team and is still stuck at Jong Ajax, but seems ready to become a regular option.

 

My new big signing for MTK goes straight into the national team, but didn't quite impress just yet. On the long term I suspect we'll have a big fight between him and Fedor YP20A (uncapped yet) as the 2nd option for striker, behind former MTK striker Gábor Kitl (who is now pretty much the national team's biggest star!).

[noikeee]

4 hours ago, rodesire said:

Good job in CL, that draw looks very germany heavy!

 

1 hour ago, john1 said:

Fantastic to get a draw against RB Leipzig   

Cheers guys, we'll see soon if the draw is good or not... 

[noikeee]

Champions League quarter-finals

 

We were unlucky in Budapest. In an even game in which we had the better chances, it was RBL who scored, a cross by rightback Bernardo that went in (though in the 3d engine it looked like a proper intentional shot!).

I knew we were up against it now and would struggle in Leipzig, and indeed that was the case. In neither match did we really break RBL's 4-4-2 properly (I've noticed this is the formation we struggle most with, already seen it last year against Valencia, and with the national team against Spain), and this time they opened a lead, Fedor YP20A out of the bench equalised and gave us a little hope, only for in the final minutes their Colombian striker Alfredo Morelos to finish his hat-trick. We drop out at the CL quarter-finals again.

[noikeee]

UEFA Nations League draw

Andorra, the Faroes and Lithuania. Terrifying.

[noikeee]

End of season update 2021/2022

 

In the most ridiculous fashion, we clinched the league title 8 rounds early whilst we were still in the middle of playing the CL quarters against Leipzig. The challenge now was to get the undefeated league title which we.... achieved!! I'm quite happy, I know this is a rubbish league but this is something I don't think I've ever done before. Videoton and Vasas threatened us with two away 1-1 draws near the end, but we did it. The final 33 points gap over Újpest in 2nd was also ridiculous.

And not just the undefeated league title... the undefeated domestic season, as we finished the cup with only wins, steamrolling past Vasas in the semi-final 2nd leg 5-0, and Videoton in the final 4-0. The usual, then.

From now on it's clear the only goal is the Champions League: after two years in a row making the quarters, I think we're close to being legitimate challengers. Need to get that Hungarian league rep and coefficients up though - it'll be another long boring grind through every single qualifier round next season.

 

 

[noikeee]

Squad review 2021/2022

Best 11

 

GK - Vladimir Denkovic
 
Becoming quite an incredible keeper, got called up by Serbia but hasn't actually been capped yet, which is a travesty. 30 clean sheets in 55 matches.

DR - Antal Sáfár
 
Now again "only" the joint best player on CA stars. The right-back which now already has 10 caps for Serbia, somehow managed to achieve the team's highest average ratings despite being part of my dream side that played mostly only in the CL (the 2nd string side typically gets better numbers now thanks to playing against Hungarian opposition every week).

DL - Veselin Todorovic
 
The other Serbian fullback isn't as good, but weirdly was the only of our players to make the Champions League Dream Team!

DC - Máté Komáromi
 
Still a starter, still missing out on a great career due to a terrible personality: "low determination"?? I never had the chance to tutor him (in fact that's a serious issue with the way I'm playing, since I only hire 21 year olds or younger I never get to hire anyone good for tutoring at all). Has now 20 caps for my national team but I'm starting to wonder whether the best thing for his development would be to sell him actually! Maybe he'd push himself harder and achieve that potential if he played on a bigger league.

DC - Dragoljub Vukajlovic
 
His rock solid CB partner by contrast has reached an incredible level, now rated on par with Sáfár as the best player in the squad. I feel Vukaljovic is even more impressive in terms of attributes, I think he's good enough to play at a world class club. Now capped by Serbia.

DM - Vladimir Screciu
 
The January signing hired to finally replace Ádám Vass hasn't really impressed yet, not really justifying the crazy wages he's earning. This is the worst position on the tactics to achieve good ratings, though.

MC - Dan Diaconu
 
A strong first season for the club saw Romanian youngster Dan Diaconu score 3 Champions League goals from midfield. The competition for the position is insane now, but he's got a lot of untapped potential yet to make it his unquestionably.

MC - Georgi Krastev YP18A
 
Still a starter, still rated by my staff as the best midfielder by a margin, but I'm starting to wonder now whether he's that much better than players kicking at the first 11's heels like Mateusz Rasmus and Jan Sabol. Still, this was a truly great season with 3 goals and 5 assists in the Champions League (and a wonderful 7.37 ratings there)

AMR - Ivan Tejic
 
I'm in a slightly weird place with wingers now, Dimov and Babic are by far the 2 most talented however I don't like playing both at the same time in tough CL matches, due to Dimov being better as a classic winger on the left, but then all the others are right-footed so if I pick Dimov I'm stuck with two IFs that don't cut inside. Hence Tejic played in the CL on the right with Babic on the left... and did great with 7 goals and 8 assists in the competition. But a serious word out to Milan Senic who played on the right in the league... and scored a total 24 goals becoming by far the top scorer in the squad. Yet not a part of our best 11!

AML - Viktor Babic
 
Babic was plain great though, whether used on the left or on the right (his best performances were on the left cutting inside), and got a brilliant 20 goals and 14 assists, 7 goals of those in the CL.

ST - Zoltán Tóth 
 
Kitl's shock sale in deadline day back in August put us in an awkward place with strikers, and for the first half of the season this place was Tóth's, the best we had. By now he's dropping to third choice though - the two youngsters Fedor YP20A and Szilvási (a 2.1M€ January signing) are disputing the place and have all the potential in the world. Whether Tóth has peaked. 15 goals and 11 assists - but just 3 of those goals in the CL.

Rest of the squad and 3 hottest prospects

AML - Ivaylo Dimov
 
Feels slightly bizarre that such a crazy good player didn't make my best 11, but I explained above when talking about wingers, it's hard to fit him in due to classic-wingerness (poor dribbling, only starting to learn how to play on the right-wing now). I think I'll give him a chance on the right-wing next season though and then we'll see. Rocked the league playing in our second 11, total 11 goals and 17 assists.

MC - Mateusz Rasmus
 
Almost got lost in the middle of so many quality MCs we have now, but this rather brilliant early season Polish signing is developing into one hell of a player. His only real problem is inconsistency.

ST - Róbert Fedor YP20A
 
It's a coinflip between him and Szilvási upfront now, but since I've been talking about Szilvási a lot lately (both at club updates and national team update) I might as well screenshot the jewel crown of our academy instead here. He got considerably lower ratings than Szilvási but actually scored more goals this season, 7. And is finally starting to develop properly after so many problems with injuries before. Ready for a national team cap now IMO.

Career progress table

 
 

[noikeee]

Holy **** I just got all these good news at once.

Obviously the big thing here at first glance is the rise in coefficients (although we STILL have to start in the very first CL qualifier, sigh), but these nations joining the EU is a big break for my transfer restrictions (only hiring Eastern European U21s). Serbia is a huge market for us and our squad has 6 Serbians whereas only 5 can play in the league. Suddenly we're down from 6 non-EU players to 0 (although that might be 1 if I bring back the Belarrussian Mukhamedov who's been out on loan), AND this also means that I can now poach the Serbian/Montenegrin/Albanian markets at will.

[noikeee]

 

We're kicking off our CL campaign in Wales this year. Meeting the winner of Zilina-FH next.

[noikeee]

The national team reaches the top 30 of the FIFA rankings. We were 80th when I took charge...

[noikeee]

Champions League 1st Qualifying Phase

  

Ah, just the odd 14-0 aggregate victory. I used an attack of IF/A-IF/A-F9 in these matches and Bangor really didn't enjoy having to face us on this setup.

Zilina next.

[noikeee]

Pre-season 2022/2023

Transfers

 

Might seem a bit bizarre here that I'm making a lot more money than spending, but what's going on is that I'm selling a lot of players that used to be starters yet I don't use anymore (ex. Akos Baki, Márk Koszta, and controversially even striker Zoltán Toth who was just a couple months ago our starter and an option for Hungary); and also making sure there's no important Hungarian national team options sitting around unused.

My plan is that my 2nd string side, which plays in the league, should be mostly made of promising Hungarians to build them up, so anyone that's standing on their way has to go. Also I don't mind letting good players sign for our league rivals, hopefully players like Tóth, Baki and Koszta make Debrecen and Vasas stronger so that they can get better results in Europe.
 

 

Here's a player that's a project in progress to build up for the national team, will be on that 2nd string side that plays in the league, get that pace higher up a little bit more and you're on the brink of being called up for Hungary. This 18yo centre-back cost us 600K.
 

 

But standing in his way in the 1st eleven for MTK is this Serbian CB, who is just brilliant and completes our all-Serbian defensive line: from now on goalkeeper and all back 4 are all Serbians! Cost me just 300K which is a crazy bargain.
 

 

More of a long-term project, this 16 year old Czech forward which can also play on the left-wing (and whom I'm adapting to the right-wing) shouldn't play yet, but to hire him I had to promise him cup matches...

 

And here's something extra, perhaps our best signing this Summer is this new English HOYD, I'm not sure what will happen with nationalities as I'm not supposed to have English players, I'm using only Eastern Europeans per my rules, but I couldn't pass up on a great HOYD.

 

 

We're essentially at the same level as last year, except we now have completed a very strong defence with the signing of Mirkovic, plus we have January signing Szilvási upfront on form and starting to quickly develop into one hell of a striker - I hope these two reinforcements can give us a further edge in Europe and put us closer to the dream of challenging for the Champions League.

But let's see what happens until the end of August with transfers (hopefully we don't lose a key player due to the board accepting a transfer again, like we did last year with Gábor Kitl) and we still have to go through another 3 qualifying rounds, you just never know, it's always possible I could lose a match out of nowhere and be in trouble.

[noikeee]

Champions League 2nd Qualifying Phase

 

The first leg was an easy win, the second a bit underwhelming. A hat-trick by Ivaylo Dimov (looking really good as AMR now!) masked what had been a bit of a poor performance.

AEK next, another team we should be beating. We still have a club rep that's lower than even a team like AEK, though. Sigh.

[noikeee]

Champions League 3rd Qualifying Phase

 

Another 3-0 first leg win, but we had to work a bit more for it than we had vs Zilina.

In the second leg it was all over as soon as we got the early goal then they were down to 10 men, and for the remaining of the match we kept the ball and controlled the game.

 

@Jupjamie's favourite team stands in our way from a 3rd consecutive season in the CL group stage.

[Bedese]

NO MERCY!

[noikeee]

Champions League Playoff

 

This was a slightly weird tie with 2 owngoals in our favour in the 1st leg, and 1 more in the 2nd. We did great in Budapest, totally dominating Dinamo and smashing them 4-0, but struggled a little in Zagreb, nevertheless still salvaging a 2-2 draw through a goal from now 3rd option striker Krisztián Balla YP20G. It didn't matter though, qualification had been sealed in the 1st leg really.

.... and we get a group that's somehow even worse than last year.  This is nuts, we pay the price of somehow still being 4th seeds after 2 consecutive years going all the way from the 1st qualifier to the CL quarter-finals. I know last year we actually managed to qualify, but the odds shouldn't be in our favour now, I think.

[noikeee]

1 hour ago, Jupjamie said:

NO MERCY!

Good enough?

[Bedese]

44 minutes ago, noikeee said:

Good enough?

YES!

 

Well done!

[deltablue]

It was great to see your CL group last year be so close and competitive.

[noikeee]

UEFA Nations League Division D

 

No surprises on our start to the Nations League, as we score routine 3-0 wins over both Lithuania and Andorra. The only thing of note here is that against Andorra, the 3 goals were the first international goals by 3 MTK players: Milan Senic (in a rare call-up due to injuries), Roland Szilvási, and Sándor Laczkó.

 

We have an obligation to comfortably top this group...

[noikeee]

11 hours ago, deltablue said:

It was great to see your CL group last year be so close and competitive.

I wish we can repeat that this year!

[noikeee]

AI in the Hungarian league gone mad, from 0-4 to 8-4!

[noikeee]

UEFA Nations League Division D

 

We continue a pretty uninteresting slaughter of an uncompetitive division. Against the Faroes we got the biggest win yet of my stint as national team manager (5-1), and against Lithuania we again won by 4 goals (4-0) although this is misleading as we struggled quite a lot to get going, and Lithuania could've opened the score themselves.

 

We're as good as promoted now, but surely the goal is not just that, but to win all 6 matches. I'm not entirely sure on the rules here, but I believe it's not just promotion to Division C at stake, but also a qualifying chance for Euro 2024? That would be great.

International debuts

Two players that just switched allegiances/nationalities to Hungary got their first caps:

 

We were in serious need of a new left-back, so this German-born, versatile LB is a great addition, even if not quite at the level I'd ideally want (10 for tackling in particular is pretty poor).

 

We were also given this Spanish-born winger, but although he looks pretty good on paper, he had a pretty terrible debut against Lithuania.

[noikeee]

UEFA Champions League group stage - rounds 1, 2 and 3

 

We didn't kick off the group stage particularly well at home to Inter. They were superior and gained a 2-0 advantage and we could only reduce in injury time.

We started better in Stamford Bridge, scoring the first goal, but quickly Chelsea drew and would gain momentum until they beat us 4-1. A bit of a misleading result though, as their finishing was far better than ours, it had been closer than that.

In Madrid we finally did something. Limited Atlético's attacking intent to nothing for long, until they had a penalty... that Denkovic saved. It looked on course for a 0-0 until they scored out of nowhere with 15 minutes to go. It wasn't over though as I switched to the more attacking tactic (the 4-3-3) and it worked, the ever reliable Bulgarian midfielder Krastev YP18A gave us a pleasing equalizer in the 88th minute.

 

Given the crazy hard group I can't be shocked that we're last, but after the performances in the last 2 seasons this feels a little disappointing. Nevertheless, the draw in Madrid makes me think we can still get something here, with a bit of luck.

[john1]

At least the scoreline was close especially a draw at Atletico   

[noikeee]

International friendly, and UEFA Nations League Division D

 

The most remarkable about the Hungarian national team matches in November, probably wasn't another 2 hammerings of minnows in the Nations League (4-0 over the Faroes and 6-0 over Andorra - 6-0 is our newest biggest win now), but the also surprisingly comfortable 4-1 friendly win over Japan. That bodes well for the future - and also means we've won every single match we played in 2022.

 

We meet expectations in our group by winning every match. We never really belonged in Division D anyway...
 

International debut

 

Time for another MTK young defender to reach the national side, this time Márton Köveshazi, a 18 year old CB I paid 600K for this Summer (already in anticipation of this step, and as a way to mould him for Hungary). He's developing well and finally no longer too slow for the national team.

[noikeee]

UEFA Champions League group stage - rounds 4 and 5

 

The Atlético match was a killer blow. Although I cannot possibly complain about the effort of our players here, who disputed this match neck-and-neck with Atlético, we conceded at the very beginning a goal by José Gimenez and that would be it. 1-0 defeat, and mathematical elimination from the Champions League.

Our pride was hurt and we finally showed up properly in Italy, with our first win of the group stage. Inter fielded a 4-3-1-2 against us and that was a very bad idea for them. We exploited the wings, divided the match again like we had against Atlético, but this time scored from our chances, and ran out 2-0 winners.

 

Despite our win in Italy, the situation doesn't look good. We need to beat Chelsea and hope Inter don't beat Atlético, to make it to 3rd and continue in the Europa League.

[noikeee]

UEFA Champions League group stage - round 6

 

A disappointing end to the group stage. Although we limited Chelsea to just one goal, which came only in the 2nd half, we never looked like beating Chelsea here and were vastly outplayed.

 

We're out of Europe already, unfortunately, and will have to focus on the domestic front for the entire 2nd half of the season - an unusual situation we haven't been in for a couple of years.

[noikeee]

Mid-season update 2022/2023

 

Not much of note on the transfers front, mostly just a lot of loans.

 

There's been a surprising amount of draws in recent weeks, as we've drawn 4 matches in the league. However, we still continue unbeaten, in a run that goes all the way back from the 2020/2021 season, currently 59 in a row without losing in the league. We're also on a continuous 24 matches won in a row in the cup (27 without losing), since 2020. The last domestic match we lost was in the league against Videoton in April 2021!

Apart from records, new practical considerations come into mind for the 2nd half of the season. For the past couple of seasons I've appointed a "first 11", "second 11", "third 11", which played in Europe, the league, and the cup, respectively. This worked great to keep everyone fit, and everyone happy as everyone played matches. This season I even added a new dimension to this, by focusing on developing Hungarian players for the national team in the second 11. But without Europe for the 2nd half of the season, I cannot do this anymore as I've got to play the stars or else they'll get annoyed they don't play football. I might have to loan out a few players so they keep getting first team football... 

This also means that there's little point in hiring many new faces in January, as I have to shrink the squad, not increase it - and even my 2nd 11 was good enough to dominate Hungary, nevermind the first which will be playing now.

 

[noikeee]

Wow, considering we were FOURTH seeds, I'm delighted with this draw!  I wouldn't expect us to finish ahead of Switzerland, Sweden and Ireland, but we certainly have a chance!

[withnail316]

2 minutes ago, noikeee said:

Wow, considering we were FOURTH seeds, I'm delighted with this draw!  I wouldn't expect us to finish ahead of Switzerland, Sweden and Ireland, but we certainly have a chance!

That's a very tidy draw. 3rd is a play off spot, isn't it? You've every chance of that at least.

[noikeee]

11 hours ago, withnail316 said:

That's a very tidy draw. 3rd is a play off spot, isn't it? You've every chance of that at least.

No, they've changed because of the extra 4 slots for the Nations League. So now it's 1st place, plus the best 9 out of 10 2nd placed teams, automatically qualify.

But I think this means if we fail to finish top 2 in the qualifiers group, then we can still qualify as we won our Nations League group - supposedly this will give us access to a playoff later.

[withnail316]

I'd forgotten about that, interesting to see how it all unfolds.

[noikeee]

Youth intake 2023

 

The CB is quite interesting but a bit slow, and other than that I'm not seeing anything here.

[noikeee]

UEFA European Championship qualifying

 

A very nice start to our qualifying for Euro 2024, as we comfortably dispatch another 2 minnows, the Faroes 5-1 and San Marino 3-0, to continue our remarkable sequence of 13 consecutive wins. However, it must be said that almost all of these 13 wins have come against rubbish teams, and also that all the difficult matches in this group are yet to come...

An amusing feature of these matches is that Gábor Kitl's 17th cap for Hungary, against San Marino, gave my MTK side 2.2 million euros as part of his deal to move to Hoffenheim 2 years ago... Also, MTK's centre-back Márton Köveshazi scored his first Hungarian goal against San Marino.

 

First place, but as I said, early days yet. Some great news though as Ireland drew with the Faroes, and everyone's already losing points to each others!

[noikeee]

End of season update 2022/2023

 

With no Europe and therefore fewer matches to play, I loaned out some of our brightest prospects to get games - notably Hungarian internationals Sándor Laczkó (Hungary's best fullback at the moment) and Zsolt Pintér YP19E; or Czech prospect Dusan Kodes.

I also hired a kid:

 

He's not that good but this 18yo Bosnian MC has 3 stars of PA + 1 black star according to my staff. 83K€ deal.
 

 

Guess what happened, we win everything unbeaten again. Now up to a run of 73 matches unbeaten in the league, and 34 matches unbeaten in the cup.

A particularly satisfactory moment was watching our youth product Róbert Fedor YP20A get a hat-trick in the cup final - and from the AML position that I've been training him at.

Obviously at this stage the focus is now exclusively Europe and the national side. Dropping out at the CL group stage was a blow I didn't really expect (although that was more because the group was ridiculously difficult), and I've now got a real issue with several players complaining they want out - I suspect at some stage I'll have to start selling or their contracts will run out. But the coefficients should soon be catching up with our CL success in previous seasons and in the qualifiers, which I hope can give us an important boost. I also have quite a lot of hopes of making it to Euro 2024 and am putting as many MTK resources into helping the national side as I can (but recent youth intakes have not helped).

 

 

[noikeee]

Squad review 2022/2023

Best 11

GK - Vladimir Denkovic
 
My staff put him with only 4 CA stars and CB Vukajovic with 4.5, but attributes-wise I think there's a decent argument that our keeper is the best player in the whole squad now? 7.08 ratings seems unusual, I've rarely seen anything above 7 for a keeper.

DR - Antal Sáfár

Seems to have hit his potential but the right-back is still one of the finest players in the squad. An extraordinary 11 assists!! 

DL - Veselin Todorovic
 
Still a good player but now seriously threatened for the position by the younger Czech LB Tomas Hofmann, who got 11 assists like Sáfár. However Hofmann played more league matches whereas I kept Todorovic for all the tough fixtures, and did great in them.

DC - Branislav Mirkovic
 
Mirkovic's signing early in pre-season completed all our-Serbian backline, but he might not be a long-term solution, as there's question marks about his ability compared to his more illustrious Serbian defender team-mates. Great performances on his first season for the club though - 7.54 ratings was great.

DC - Dragoljub Vukajlovic
 
Now rated the best player in the squad, whilst I am not so sure between him and keeper Denkovic, there is little question this is a magnificent center-back that could play for far bigger sides. With his contract running out in 2 years time, PSG interested, and the player very much interested in leaving, we might not be able to hold on to him for much longer.

DM - Vladimir Screciu
 
I'm not entirely sure he has earned the massive wages I've been paying him. There's definitely better players in this squad but I just haven't been able to find better alternatives for DM in the transfer market.

MC - Dan Diaconu
 
Fellow Romanian Dan Diaconu has reached the Romanian national team, and stayed there, earning 9 caps. Our midfielders in general did great in the Champions League but it still feels like this is an area of the team I could improve.

MC - Georgi Krastev YP18A 

If Diaconu was good in the Champions League, MTK youth product Krastev was amazing, shining mostly in the qualifiers but summing up an incredible 9 assists in the competition. Overall 8 goals and 15 assists in probably his most impressive season yet.

AMR - Ivaylo Dimov
 
He's struggling to learn the AMR and MR positions but nevertheless that's where I use him. Dimov was absolutely sensational in the CL qualifiers whilst I used the most attacking tactic that placed him at AMR, but once came the group stage and I reverted to the 4-1-4-1 and he had to play MR, he looked poor and I had to drop him. Nevertheless, an incredible statistic of 9 goals and 7 assists in the CL, and 20 goals, 16 assists overall - making him the player that was involved in the most goals in our whole squad.

AML - Viktor Babic
 
On the left Babic had a more subdued season, with "just" 15 goals and 11 assists. I was expecting more, he did better last year.

ST - Roland Szilvási 
 
Last season's costly 2.1M€ signing has finally paid off, becoming this season's top scorer with 22 goals at the young age of 20. He's developing at a great pace - in fact the word "pace" stands out about him and that's why I like him - and has also become a regular fixture of my Hungarian international side, having gone on to score 6 in 8 caps.

Rest of the squad and 3 hottest prospects

ST - Róbert Fedor YP20A
 
My MTK academy's finest Hungarian prospect is finally becoming a big player - with 19 goals scored this season he seriously threatened Szilvási's place upfront. I'm also adapting him to AML and if all goes well should at last become an international in the next couple of fixtures for Hungary.

GK - Martin Barcuch
 
The "next Petr Cech" has not played much on loan to Debrecen but is rated at potential at the very highest by my squad (4 PA stars + 1 black star). I can very much see him becoming big.

ST - Dusan Kodes
 
Also aged 17 and also Czech, Kodes took much better use of his loan to Peks, causing serious devastation in the league with 10 goals and 3 assists in 14 appearances.

Career progress table