noikeee Posted August 27, 2018 Author Share Posted August 27, 2018 We've already completed both these upgrades this season, but we're getting them again. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 27, 2018 Author Share Posted August 27, 2018 Holy **** how did I miss this. I was wondering why did I receive a news item about "oil rich Ferencváros"... and why were they bidding for one of my players who was a starter last year (btw I think I'm gonna sell him to them). This is great news for the development of the league, if they can get a bit of momentum they could help us with the coefficients and maybe even with producing players for the national team. They're having a **** season though, down in 5th. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 27, 2018 Author Share Posted August 27, 2018 Youth intake 2025 Holy crap, Csaba Gáspár is an amazing forward, it's a shame his potential might be limited, I hope this is later revealed to be higher, because it's an absolute brilliant starting point for a 16 year old. Torök is an okay DM, the rest I'm not seeing anything special here. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 27, 2018 Author Share Posted August 27, 2018 He's lost his place to Fedor YP20A on the left wing this season, but due to that he's been playing in the league and doing great, currently our top scorer with 12 goals. I got offers as high as 10M€ for him this winter. Now by the time he comes back from his injury he's probably gonna be worthless. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 27, 2018 Author Share Posted August 27, 2018 Yes, Csaba Gáspár won another star of potential after signing for us. Now 3.5 yellow stars of potential plus another black star. This is the most exciting player we've produced since Fedor 5 years ago!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamdfry Posted August 27, 2018 Share Posted August 27, 2018 Gaspar looks quality. Hopefully Ferencvaros' takeover helps the Hungarian league grow and potentially provide you with more domestic competition. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 27, 2018 Author Share Posted August 27, 2018 UEFA Champions League 1st knockout round With Juve expected to line up in a 4-2-4, it provided me the ideal situation for me to insist on the 5-2-3-0 in Turin. It sort of halfway worked, but not quite. We were not terrible but Juve were better and deserved to win, although Fedor YP20A flourished on the trequartista position, scoring our goal and becoming man of the match. A 2-1 defeat was not ideal and stopped our undefeated status this season, but still a result we could come back from in Budapest, largely thanks to the away goal. Back home we reverted back to a 4-3-3 and for the first half we pretty much did to Juve what they had done to us in Turin, dominating them and having the best chances... except they scored and we didn't. We arrived at half-time losing 0-1 and I told my players "you know what, you've been unlucky". This was true and also proved inspired words, as they came back from the break reenergised. Branimir Sutulovic has been having a crap season but finally showed up with goals in minutes 53 and 59 to make it all square in the tie. Then Fedor put us a goal up with a penalty, and Ilic added another to make it a brilliant 4-1 win. It could've been more, the game registered for us 8 clear chances and 8 half-chances!!! We're back to the CL quarter-finals, our 3rd time this career. Bayern? Bring them on. We have no past meetings with them so no idea how hard it'll be - I suspect pretty hard as they have a Portuguese forward with 9 goals 6 assists and a 8.69 rating in the competition this season..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 27, 2018 Author Share Posted August 27, 2018 34 minutes ago, adamdfry said: Gaspar looks quality. Hopefully Ferencvaros' takeover helps the Hungarian league grow and potentially provide you with more domestic competition. Helped them to **** all so far, they're building a pretty neat team for the level they are at, but the results are awful. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 27, 2018 Author Share Posted August 27, 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying It was a pretty terrible beginning to the World Cup qualifying as we were very usettled by Belgium's unusual deep 3-4-2-1. We hardly shot at goal at all for the majority of the match, and were highly fortunate to score late on against the run of play, to make it a respectable 2-1 defeat. Against Kosovo it was a 3-1 win with a Fedor YP20A brace, but quite frankly we were again unconvincing and trembled against what was on paper an inferior side. The home defeat to Belgium puts us in a position where we're up against it from the beginning, in a qualifying format where even 2nd place should not be enough - what I'm hoping for is that we can get a lot of good results against a weak trio of Albania, Armenia, Kosovo, to somehow sneak in as one of the best 2nd placed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidthekid Posted August 27, 2018 Share Posted August 27, 2018 3 hours ago, noikeee said: Holy **** how did I miss this. I was wondering why did I receive a news item about "oil rich Ferencváros"... and why were they bidding for one of my players who was a starter last year (btw I think I'm gonna sell him to them). This is great news for the development of the league, if they can get a bit of momentum they could help us with the coefficients and maybe even with producing players for the national team. They're having a **** season though, down in 5th. The vice captain situation is soap opera quality Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 28, 2018 Author Share Posted August 28, 2018 13 hours ago, kidthekid said: The vice captain situation is soap opera quality Hahahaha that is great, I hadn't even noticed that, but I dunno wtf went on there. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjoe Posted August 28, 2018 Share Posted August 28, 2018 17 hours ago, noikeee said: 16 hours ago, noikeee said: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 28, 2018 Author Share Posted August 28, 2018 5 hours ago, Benjoe said: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 28, 2018 Author Share Posted August 28, 2018 On the young man's 2nd start for MTK, he goes and does this: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 28, 2018 Author Share Posted August 28, 2018 UEFA Champions League quarter-finals The match in Budapest was sensational. We were at the top of our game in the 1st half and reached half-time beating Bayern by a delightful 3-0, however there was this feeling we'd been highly fortunate that Bayern hadn't scored on any of their chances. Indeed, my fears proved correct when they came back with not 1 not 2 but 3 goals, in an extraordinary comeback making it 3-3! This was not over though, and as I kept fiddling tactically something clicked in the final minutes, the inspired midfield machine Konstantin Gladyshev added his 2nd of the night to make it 4-3 and substitute Roland Szilvási made it 5-3 in injury time. 3 away goals given to Bayern, but still a solid win over a top team. Come Munich I decided to innovate, after using variants of the 4-3-3 wide in the first leg I switched to the 5-2-3-0 here but with the fullbacks moved to wingbacks making it a back 3, in an attempt to control better Bayern's 4-4-2: It could not have started better as a Szilvási cross found Fedor YP20A for a goal as early as minute 7. The 5-2-3-0 with WBs seemed to work, although largely thanks to Bayern being surprisingly cagey despite now needing 3 goals! We'd hold on to the 1-0 lead for the whole of the match until minute 90, Bayern had been using some long through balls and eventually one of them created a goal, through star striker Hugo Gregório. It did not matter as we qualified comfortably with 1-1 in Munich. It's the first time we make the Champions League semi-finals!!! Antonio Conte's Barcelona awaits, we've not faced Barça before neither, their current side is built on Dembelé, Coutinho, Dele Alli and a monster regen striker named Daniel: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 28, 2018 Author Share Posted August 28, 2018 Another record by the kid. He's now youngest ever scorer in both league and cup. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 28, 2018 Author Share Posted August 28, 2018 Oh such a long, heroic, treacherous journey! Incredible commitment from those who make it!! .... it's a 2h40m flight between two major European capital* cities, schedule it on the right days and you can do it round trip for less than 60€: *sorry I kind of forgot Barcelona wasn't a capital, it kind of is if you're on the side of those who think Catalunya should be independent tho Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 28, 2018 Author Share Posted August 28, 2018 UEFA Champions League semi-final - 1st leg Lining up on near-full strength missing only Tomislav Ilic (replaced by Michal Mares as mezzala), on the 4-3-3 wide. Barcelona line up on a 4-2-3-1 with DMs, as such I felt it was a bad idea to switch to the 5-2-3-0 which would've put the Trequartista straight in the middle of their 2 DMs. ... and I'm afraid it's one of those bad days where everything that could've gone wrong went wrong. The result is extremely harsh but Barça's tactic did unsettle us, and they were slightly superior to us. We'll need an extraordinary miracle to still come out of this one and reach the Champions League final. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rikulec Posted August 28, 2018 Share Posted August 28, 2018 Ooft. There's still some hope though, right? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 28, 2018 Author Share Posted August 28, 2018 UEFA Champions League semi-final - 2nd leg Tomislav Ilic returns, we also return to a 4-1-4-1 shape we've not used in a while although typically we'd do it on defensive mentality - that is not the case here as we need to look out for goals and hope for a miracle. Well this was just pretty much the same as the 1st leg, except we were far less of a threat here - nevertheless Barcelona just somehow scored 3 goals from what, half a real chance? I got so lost tactically that found myself playing a 4-4-2 with 2 DMs by the end, in the style of my previous career with Derby. I am quite disappointed with the way this tie turned out, with the progress we've made in recent years I certainly wasn't expecting a 0-6 aggregate defeat, on the other hand I'm quite happy at our performance overall in the competition as we reach this stage for the first time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 28, 2018 Author Share Posted August 28, 2018 17 minutes ago, Rikulec said: Ooft. There's still some hope though, right? Well there WAS some... very vague, but... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidthekid Posted August 29, 2018 Share Posted August 29, 2018 still a great run in the UCL. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 29, 2018 Author Share Posted August 29, 2018 So... we have right about half of Czech Rep's U21 side. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 29, 2018 Author Share Posted August 29, 2018 8 hours ago, kidthekid said: still a great run in the UCL. Not good enough though. I told them all to do 100 laps around the pitch once we arrived back in Budapest. Immediately once the plane landed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 30, 2018 Author Share Posted August 30, 2018 End of season update 2024/2025 The Winter transfer window saw 3 Czech players arrive, 2 that I had shown already in the mid-season update plus a new rightback. With a new rightback arriving, I decided to sell one... former outstanding player Antal Sáfár who not too long ago was an unquestionable starter, but who had lost his place in the team to Sándor Laczkó this season! Another move that I wouldn't guess I'd make just 1 year go, was selling centre-back Branislav Mirkovic to our tycoon-owned rivals Ferencváros, I'm trying to strenghten the rest of the league and he had now dropped from starter to 4th choice CB. The RB replacement for Sáfár, I think he might've been a bit of a casting error as he's been playing pretty poorly! I think he lacks a tiny bit of pace and this ruins the rest of his game despite being a super complete player. We hit new heights in Europe by reaching the CL semi-finals for the first time, but this was also a notable season domestically as we were more dominant than ever before. Just 3 draws and 0 defeats in the league makes it our best performance there yet with a record points total - a ridiculous 35 points ahead of Ferencváros who did at least limp to 2nd place. On the cup we continue on the unbeaten run ever since 2020, now 54 games unbeaten in the competition. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 30, 2018 Author Share Posted August 30, 2018 Squad review 2024/2025 Best 11 GK - Vladimir Denkovic Has had better seasons, but continues to be an absolutely superb keeper. DR - Sándor Laczkó A surprise rise to the main 11 as he overtakes Sáfár for the RB position, to the point I even sold Sáfár in January. When I hired him from Szeged 2011 a couple years back for 45K (!) I only wanted to develop him a bit for the national team and never in a million years expected him to develop into a player this good. He's not particularly amazing in the context of this now ever stronger team (although he's a star for my Hungary), but has grown into a pretty solid fullback and there could even be more potential here. DL - Tomas Hofmann With Veselin Todorovic having a serious injury, the LB place went to Tomas Hofmann but this was already a planned change for the season anyway as I started rating Hofmann higher late last year. The Czech youngster seems to have already maxed out his potential, and his first team status might be shortlived with the emergence of Marin Sumberac and Georgi Marinov both already next in line, but he's doing pretty well for relatively limited skills in theory. DC - Máté Komáromi Back to the first team as Branislav Mirkovic is the 3rd Serbian defender to lose his place in the best 11 (in the whole squad actually, he was sold to Ferencváros) - we're suddenly now no longer anywhere alike the all-Serbian defence we used to have just last season! Komáromi's relaxed personality means he took more time than others to get near his potential, but eventually he's getting there and slowly retook the CB position that had been his in seasons gone by. For MTK he's not a huge star though (he's unquestionable for Hungary) and with his contract having just 2 more seasons, and the expected emergence of Mykola Spivak in the position, his MTK stint might be coming to an end in the near future. DC - Dragoljub Vukajlovic The only Serbian to resist in our back 4 might well just be the best defender at the club, full stop. If he had a tiny bit more pace he'd be world class, I think. DM - Vladimir Screciu The versatile Romanian remains our best option for DM for the 4th straight season, but is now looking like probably the weakest link in our starting 11. We don't have particularly brilliant depth in this position and this is helping him - nevertheless there's a bit of a threat in 18 year old Senad Corovic. MC - Konstantin Gladyshev This guy is pretty much an absolute monster in midfield and one of my favourite players, I'm glad I did the madness of splashing 22M€ in him last season - we've already received bids for almost the same value. He's just been awesome, a particular highlight was smashing 4 goals in the Champions League, despite usually playing as BBM, the most cautious of the 2 MCs. MC - Tomislav Ilic At Gladyshev's side is another absolute gem, a Serbian midfielder/passing wizard that looks ever more sensational every time he hits the pitch, finishing this season with a superb record of 10 goals and 12 assists. I might be tempted to say he's our best player at the moment? AMR - Ivaylo Dimov The Bulgarian winger is not as talented as our pair of midfielders Gladyshev-Ilic, but finished the season with the highest average ratings out of the regulars - again. The goals and assists numbers are lower than last year but still pretty good: 15G, 8A. AML - Róbert Fedor YP20A It's been an unforgettable breakout 12 months for our greatest youth product yet: First he announced himself to the World with a brilliant Euros for Hungary (which raised his reputation considerably, he became Hungary's most well known player, attracting ever-more-bonkers bids from all over Europe). Then I decided to make him AML shoving aside the unfortunate Viktor Babic (who then damaged his cruciate ligaments), and this resulted in a superb season for MTK: top scorer (20 goals) and most assists (15). Even shone as trequartista AMC in that odd 5-2-3-0 system I played occasionally. And keeps scoring for Hungary as striker. ST - Branimir Sutulovic I decided to move aside Roland Szilvási for Sutulovic upfront, based on the Serbian forward having much more complete skills on paper, and on the goals he had scored in the league last season. But you know what? He was absolute rubbish!! Just 6 goals and 4 assists is incomprehensible, specially given 13 league starts - he had scored 11 from 6(4) games last year, ffs. I'm still insisting on him due to his attributes just being far better than Szilvási's but he's running out of chances. Rest of the squad and 3 hottest prospects LB - Georgi Marinov Born a CB, I'm now determined to turn him into a LB and he might just get serious chances to play there next season already. His potential seems enormous, and he's starting to look ready. I'm still slightly unsure what kind of player will he turn out to be, but it'll be an amazing player either way. MC - Michal Mares The January signing was immediately branded a "wonderkid" and it's not hard to see why. Dazzlingly quick and a great finisher, he is a natural fit for a mezzala role and already shone in it in the league with 5 goals in 8(2) apps. ST - Csaba Gáspár YP25A I could single out here other amazing prospects like left-back Marin Sumberac or midfielder Srecko Spremo (we're definitely loaded right now in both the LB and MC positions), but one of the most exciting things that happened this season was the emergence of this homegrown striker, who quickly claimed for himself the record of youngest ever goalscorer in both league and cup. I'm concerned his potential might not be all that, but he's already a pretty good player as it is: and that will lead him to another sensational landmark that I'll give him very soon... Career progress table Please note our increase in reputation from 3* to 3.5* stars, which has led to all the market values of my players pretty much doubling overnight! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 30, 2018 Author Share Posted August 30, 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying Our trip to Yerevan was proving tougher than expected, as we struggled to convert our opportunities. We besieged Armenia all match long but struggled to put the ball in the net. Eventually it came through Norbert Balogh in the 63th minute and we felt reliefed. It stayed 1-0 for almost until the very end, when we were already thinking of the flight back, bam, Armenian goal on a counter in the 92nd, against the run of play. It's a 1-1 draw and this late goal might prove very, very costly... Back in Budapest there were no such troubles, we went into the break winning 3-0 and it would finish a comfortable 4-0. I'm convinced that 92d minute Armenia goal might've cost us a World Cup place - we are unlikely to beat Belgium to 1st place in this group, so need to bank on being one of the best 2nd placed teams, and only the 3 best (out of 10 groups) qualify. As such it is absolutely vital that we max out as much points as possible against everyone - those 2 points we lost there might be the whole difference. International debuts An injury crisis and a wish to tie down to Hungary 2 players that were born Serbian, meant this international break saw an unusual 4 international debuts at once: The former MTK midfielder gained Hungarian nationality through the 6 years he spent with us, and although he has now returned to Serbia to play for Partizan, was willing to get capped by Hungary. Should only be 6th choice for midfield (although I'm regularly calling up 5 MCs!) but he was moaning about having 2nd thoughts about his switch to Hungary, so I had to call him up. In a very similar case, the also Serbian born Ivan Tejic is still with MTK and has already switched to Hungary for a while, but I reckoned since I was tying down Nikolic, I might as well do the same with him. Unlikely to play often now, because we're not using wingers but 3 strikers. Our 3rd youth product to reach the national team, this is a most unusual case - he gets capped by Hungary BEFORE he even plays a single match for the MTK main team, aged 17. This speaks volumes of how few options we have at DM (for Hungary), as he's not even all that special - all it took was 2 injuries to DMs. But the big debut of this break is our 4th youth product to reach the national team. With 2 injuries to strikers he was genuinely one of the best available options, and I felt he was good enough to give him the following remarkable record: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 31, 2018 Author Share Posted August 31, 2018 So today I've been wondering about this huge dillema which is this crazy offer for Ilic: Pros (of accepting the bid): 70 million euros! (potential, but I'm expecting to earn most of it). Plus profit from next sale! I don't think I'll ever get another bid like this for him - and I might need to sell one day if he won't renew. It's a position I have crazy good depth in, the most obvious replacement is Michal Mares (see the squad review post above for screenshots on both players). I'm having to loan out perfectly good midfielders as I can't play them all. You could even say Mares is better than him at some things. He's publically making a scene of wanting to leave, and so are a bunch of other players, hurting team dynamics to an extent I've not seen in previous seasons. Selling him would bring a little relief in this area. Cons: He's pretty much our best player full stop. With our restrictions of players to hire (only U21s, only behind-the-Iron-Curtain nationalities) it's not easy to poach players as good as him. This also means I've got little use for the money as very rarely do I find players within the restrictions that are worth it, and usually they're cheap anyway. He's still got 4 years of contract. I think I can handle the current dynamics mutiny. Although I can't play all the good midfielders I have, I can very much play both him and Mares, given that Mares plays in the league and Ilic in the Champions League. This would only really open a chance for the next in line which is Mateusz Rasmus (already maxed out his potential) or Lukas Prucha. I stalled the bid, now that I re-opened the game I was going to accept it, but now that I've wrote this all out I've weighed all the cons and pros and see the cons weighing just a tiny bit more! It's that close. I'll reject it now, but who knows what I'll do if they come with an even crazier bid.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 31, 2018 Author Share Posted August 31, 2018 This is the current squad mutiny situation: Think having half the first 11 pissed off isn't ideal for morale, but other than that I'm not expecting any major consequences. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoxToBox Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 1 minute ago, noikeee said: This is the current squad mutiny situation: Think having half the first 11 pissed off isn't ideal for morale, but other than that I'm not expecting any major consequences. That list of concerned players, looks a mighty fine reserve side to me. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 31, 2018 Author Share Posted August 31, 2018 Pre-season 2025/2026 Little note: I usually do the pre-season update right before the first league match whereas this time I forgot and have already played 3 league matches. Transfers A transfer window marked by a huge record signing; and the sales of a couple of players that used to be starters but have long faded in impotance - we say goodbye to fullback Veselin Todorovic, and to recently-capped-first-time-by-Hungary winger Ivan Tejic. Homegrown goalkeeper Zsolt Gyarmati, who was once our starter, is gone too on a free - he might soon get his first cap for Hungary too, but he's just not good enough for MTK. Let me show you first the 2 big signings for the first team: It's a new record deal as we splash 33.5M€ on this Shakhtar midfielder!! An incredibly complete player that could play anything from fullback to BBM to carrilero to defensive winger, here he's needed as DM as a long expected upgrade to Vladimir Screciu. Also people have told me he has the same name as a Call of Duty villain which surely makes it worth the cash. Yet another midfielder, but the interesting thing about this 18 year old Croatian is that I do not intend to play him in any of his currently accomplished positions - I want to turn him into an inside forward on the left wing!! It's a huge gamble and I paid 10,25M€ for the priviledge of trying to pull it off, but his potential is astonishing (if only he had a decent personality! I don't have good tutors) Now onto the long-term, below the first team signings: Yet another freaking midfielder. He only cost me 65K though, so worth a gamble. Bit expensive, this Czech winger that just turned 17 cost me 2,4M€ but he has real potential. My scouts told me good things about this Georgian striker, but apparently they were smoking crack as his potential was gone as soon as he arrived. No big deal, only lost 60K with him. Striker. 17. Serbian. Good potential. **** personality. Long way to go. 135K deal. A nice 18yo Belarussian ball winning DM. 425K deal. Holy f*ck what kind of freaky steroids did Branimir Sutulovic take during pre-season, he's already scored more goals in the first 3 league matches (7) than in the entire last season in all competitions (6)!!!!! That is an absolutely mental stat and really puts in context what an absolutely dreadful season he had last year. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 31, 2018 Author Share Posted August 31, 2018 Told you I'd deal with the squad mutiny - it's not even mid-August and Ilic is already happy again! I'm gonna be honest, it's ridiculously easy to hold on to players in this game. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidthekid Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 He would make a good inside forward indeed, can't wait to see his development Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 31, 2018 Author Share Posted August 31, 2018 UEFA Champions League group stage draw Could be worse? Being 2nd seeds (for the first time!) definitely helped, but we still need to beat at least one Spanish or one German side here to go through. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 31, 2018 Author Share Posted August 31, 2018 57 minutes ago, kidthekid said: He would make a good inside forward indeed, can't wait to see his development His personality is **** tho, I'm concerned he may never meet his huge potential. (I'm assuming you're talking about Marko Celcic) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 31, 2018 Author Share Posted August 31, 2018 Another crazy offer, **** all chance I'd ever sell Róbert though! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoxToBox Posted August 31, 2018 Share Posted August 31, 2018 I'd have told them get to **** for it being non-negotiable alone. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted August 31, 2018 Author Share Posted August 31, 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying and international friendly Wow, the match against Albania must've been one of the worst I've ever had as Hungarian national team manager. We were absolutely awful! Took almost the entire game and endless changes until finally clicking with something that seemed to be working tactically in the final minutes (now a 4-1-4-1 shape), and just about got the equalizer, but Albania had been the well clear superior team here. An utter embarrassment. The friendly against Russia also ended with a late equalizer for us, after we had trailed off since minute 1. This was a better performance, we looked uninspired for a while but eventually started creating danger in the 2nd half. Also ended up on a 4-1-4-1. The group has gotten weird, because Belgium lost at home to Albania. I'm very pessimistic, I think these points we lost to both Armenia and Albania will cost us immensely. Our only hope now is to somehow beat Belgium away and steal first place in the group, because we've already lost too many points to be one of the best 2nd placed. International debut The MTK-homegrown goalkeeper that I just released on a free to be picked up by Nacional, finally reaches the national team as I gave him a cameo appearance in the Russia friendly. The old generation of keepers is fading, and I need to start giving some experience to the alternative options that will remain (to starter keeper Gergely Hutvágner). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 1, 2018 Author Share Posted September 1, 2018 500! including some 350 instant-resulted fixtures Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 1, 2018 Author Share Posted September 1, 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying For the key match away in Brussels I decided to come up with a completely new tactical scheme, to counter their unusual 3-2-3-2 that had completely bamboozled us the last time we had faced Belgium: This proved to be a great option! We reduced Belgium to only fleeting occasional chances, and got the first goal through a great Gábor Kitl solo run. When substitute Norbert Balogh added the 2nd I thought we were clear, but we still wobbled a bit after Belgium reduced. Nevertheless we held on and even added a 3rd in a corner in the last minute of injury time for a famous 3-1 victory. That might just have earned us a World Cup slot. Away to Kosovo, expecting a defensive side, I switched to the 4-3-3 wide I usually play with MTK. We got the lead early through Ivan Tejic's first international goal (a recent move away from the 4-3-3 narrow which didn't use wingers, means I'm now calling up often the Serbian-turned-Hungarian winger), but to my horror Kosovo equalised late in the 2nd half. I felt the World Cup slipping away, unfairly in a match we had been better, only for Róbert Fedor YP20A, always him, the star of this career, adding a 92nd minute goal out of nowhere from a little distance. A vital, vital goal. The win in Brussels completely changes everything - all we need now is just to beat Albania at home in November, to return to the World Cup after a 40 years absence. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 1, 2018 Author Share Posted September 1, 2018 UEFA Champions League group stage - rounds 1, 2 and 3 The group stage started with a slaughtering of Galatasaray - 4-0 by half-time, 5-0 by the end, Fedor hat-trick, never in doubt. At the Camp Nou we had to face an European champions Barcelona fielding a 4-3-3 narrow and although the 5-2-3-0 we used in this situation seemed to work as we reached half-time winning 3-2, Barça turned it around in the 2nd half for a hectic 4-3 win. In Leverkusen we again insisted in the 5-2-3-0. It again seemed to work at the beginning as we took the lead through Dimov in the very first minute, but we lost steam and late on Leverkusen would equalise. It's somewhat disappointing to be in 3rd place, and with Leverkusen top of the group, the maths get more difficult. However we've already completed the two toughest away trips so there's still a lot of hope for going through. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 1, 2018 Author Share Posted September 1, 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying A shot from just outside the area from Dominik Szoboszlai put us 1-0 up from minute 8. However, this would prove far from an easy game. Just like the away match in Albania, this Albanian side proved a very tough nut to crack and looked pretty much our equals through the first half. I got nervy, our qualification was in danger. But we got better in the 2nd half after a formational switch from 4-3-3 wide to 4-1-4-1, and eventually Gábor Kitl added our 2nd. And we held on to it. We did it, we're in the World Cup! One of the best moments in my career so far as Hungary returns to a World Cup after a 40 years absence - the last time had been Mexico '86. We will now be in Canada '26. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 1, 2018 Author Share Posted September 1, 2018 Meanwhile, of bloody course this international break couldn't have been only champagne and sprinkles and unicorns: That's going to completely ruin the career of the poor lad, I had huge hopes on him and had splashed 10.25M€ on him in the Summer. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rikulec Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 Great job qualifying for the World Cup. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 1, 2018 Author Share Posted September 1, 2018 UEFA Champions League group stage - rounds 4 and 5 Against Leverkusen's 4-4-2 we were again struggling to get going, so eventually I settled on yet another new formation: a strikerless 4-6-0 diamond, essentially a diamond plus 2 IFs. It worked as we ran away 3-2 winners but in the dying minutes when Leverkusen turned up the attacking, we trembled a lot - although we could've scored more, too. In Turkey we took 30 minutes to score a goal, but after that there were very little problems - easy 4-0 win... and with this we qualify. It's somewhat surprising that we're already through after the situation we were in just 2 matches ago, but the win over Leverkusen decided it as we got head-to-head advantage over them. Now we can win the group but need to beat Barcelona at home for that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 1, 2018 Author Share Posted September 1, 2018 32 minutes ago, Rikulec said: Great job qualifying for the World Cup. Thanks, definitely one of my highlights of this career so far! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidthekid Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 congrats on the world cup. Really enjoying this save. This should have been the save where you compare your achievements to Mourinho. Could be closer with he Hungarian league titles Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 FIFA World Cup Draw - Canada '2026 A draw that's not great but not horrendous neither. I was obviously hoping to get hosts Canada out of the top seeds here... instead we get a chance of revenge against France who knocked us out of the Euros, but realistically it's gonna be a fight between ourselves and Mexico for 2nd place. However 2nd place is dangerous as presumably we'd face Brazil next. Dunno what to expect from Iran, they always have good players in FM but we should be slightly superior. Whichever way, it's already great to be in the World Cup, I'm aiming at a last 16 spot now, that would be a good enough participation I think. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 11 hours ago, kidthekid said: congrats on the world cup. Really enjoying this save. This should have been the save where you compare your achievements to Mourinho. Could be closer with he Hungarian league titles Thanks, I'm definitely really enjoying playing it, think it's been one of my most fun careers lately. Dominating the Hungarian league could get boring, but since I'm IR-ing the league I don't lose useless time with it, and since I'm developing tons of players and focusing on building them for the national team, I'm always busy. Also the recent tactical adventures experimenting with new formations have been fun, even if I'm starting from a base of a tactic that I didn't develop myself. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
noikeee Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 UEFA Champions League group stage - round 6 A bad way to finish the group stage, as we fail in our bid to take top spot, instead repeating the poor performances we put in against this Barcelona side in the semi-finals last year, with another 3-0 defeat at their hands. I'm probably doing something wrong tactically, but they feel unbeatable at the moment. Leonardo Jardim's Manchester City, currently top of the Premier League, awaits next. A tough draw. Nice to see AZ Alkmaar and Bordeaux at this stage! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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