[FM12] Rise of the Rebel Army

[Zeonflux]

Well after following Dexter Morgan's brilliant thread with Rhyl I've decided to follow his lead and not only return to FM12 which I thoroughly enjoyed when it was the newest addition to the series and have continued to play ever since.

I also decided that rather than start a completely brand new game i would continue with a career I had started a few months ago which had originally seen my take the reigns at a club in the second tier of Irish football in what was originally a British Steel run and instead i will adapt it and make the team in question a power house both domestically and in Europe.

There are a few goals i wish to achieve during this career:

1 - Dominate Irish football

2 - Make inroads into Europe

3 - Win a European competition

4 - Win the Champions League at least 5 times (It's coming to stay in Ireland)

5 - Have a Champions League winning squad which has at least 7 Youth Academy Graduates

Following these goals i will add more depending on how the career goes and once i've completed these i may move onto pastures new.

[Zeonflux]

I started my original career in the Republic of Ireland with The Rebel Army aka Cork City, a club who as recently as 2009 and had finished 3rd in the Irish Premier League before being relegated at the end of the 2010 season.

When i joined Cork City they were favourites for promotion and so were the obvious choice for the start of a British Steel challenge that i had originally intended to do with this career.

I comfortably won the 1st division title at the first attempt and by a good 8 points from Limerick.

The second season the board set a goal of achieving a European place for the following season (the league runs from January through to November) and we set about that task with the intent of accomplishing that.

Following a tense final few games of the season we had clawed our way back into the title challenge from 4th place and looked like a league title in our 1st season back in the big time was a really possibility but final day heartbreak ensued when Sligo won their final game of the season and took the title by 1 point, a draw and the league would have been ours.

Following our successful 1st season back in the Premier League I was able to try and bring in better quality to improve our team and i was looking for player to improve us in the middle of the park and up front and was delighted with who i was able to bring in on a free transfer.

Firstly comes the quality we needed in the centre of midfield and Laudrup brings it in buckets. If he can play for us as well as his Dad and Uncle then we have an absolute gem on our hands.

Secondly comes a striker of some quality for this league in the form of Daryl Fordyce who already has 30 goals in 18 full appearances and 1 sub appearance, again he come in on a free.

Following on from our qualification into the Europa League qualifiers we earned a tie with Georgian team Torpedo Kutaisi in the 1st Round of Qualifying.

We were playing the 1st Leg at Turner's Cross (our home pitch) and I was looking for us to come flying our of the blocks and get a decent result to help us out in Georgia.

The team didn't disappoint with a dominating performance from them and with Fordyce showing his class with 4 goals.

We went to Georgia knowing that a draw would be good enough

We were a bit shaky in Georgia with the occasion getting to us for the majority of the first half before Fergus Bell got an equalizer for us just before half time. Dunleavy scored an own goal shortly after the start of the second half but unlike the 1st leg neither team took control of the game and the game could have gone either way until the 81st minute when Fordyce got a second equalizer for us.

Our reward for beating Torpedo Kutaisi is a trip to Cyprus to play AEK Larnasus

[Zeonflux]

Our 2nd delve into Europe saw us take on Cypriot team AEK Larnakas.

Simply put we were awful, our back 4 may as well have stayed back at the hotel for all the good they did and our strikers weren't exactly doing much better. The only bright spot of the entire game for us came in the form of the lifeline we got from midfielder Aaron Mooy who scored our consolation/vital away goal.

We played the return leg at Turner's Cross and the locals were out in force with a near sell out crowd of 7026 showing up to cheer the lads on, and with us needing to get at least 2 goals to go through it was a tall ask.

Within 8 minutes we were back in the tie and by the 18th minute there was pandamonium in the stands as we took a 3-0 lead on the night and a 4-3 lead on aggregate. The game should have been beyond there reach before half time with us missing a couple of sitters and in the second half Fordyce should have had his hattrick as he had a goal chalked off as offside.

We face much stiffer competition in the 3rd qualifying rounds as we will be playing Kryvbas from the Ukraine

[pheelf]

Good luck with this in Ireland. I had a save myself with Bohemians in FM12 and I found it quite entertaining. The seasons aren't too long in Ireland and you have the advantage of entering Europe mid season so have an advantage with fitness there. You seem to have started well so KUTGW.

[Zeonflux]

Cheers Pheelf, it's definitely and advantage in Europe :thum:

I'm going to keep the Domestics updates seperate until the start of the next season and then i will do the updates bimonthly for the league and then the competitions will be done on their own.

Anyways just prior to our 3rd Qualifying round 1st Leg against Kryvbas i had the opportunity to bring in another player of quality.

Daryl comes to us after being released by Celtic and has all the attributes to be a real threat in the league, and due to being abl to register players before the first leg of each qualifier he was immediately registered to play against Kryvbas.

The 1st leg was at Turner's Cross and again the locals we out to show there support with a record attendance of 7105 to watch the action.

Another European night where we showed quality but again it was another night where we only showed it in glimpses and to say that we were worthy of taking a lead to the Ukraine is up for debate. Either way Murphy announced his arrival with a debut goal in the absence of the suspended Fordyce.

With the tie posed at 2-1 in our favour going to Ukraine for the 2nd leg it was a finely balanced tie due to their away goal.

We needed a draw or better and we blew it, we missed a couple of sitters and hit the woodwork a few times but we could not claw back an equalizer and so Kryvbas go through on away goals. Not too impressed with the team for losing a game that we could of and probably should have won, either way the £147k comes in handy for the club coffers.

I was also able to convince the board to search for a second parent club (we already have Celtic as one) to help us get some extra income.

[Dexter_Morgan]

Well after following Dexter Morgan's brilliant thread with Rhyl I've decided to follow his lead and not only return to FM12 which I thoroughly enjoyed when it was the newest addition to the series and have continued to play ever since.

Cheque is in the post Before I settled on Wales I was considering Ireland and might actually add it once Murray's career is over so it'll be interesting to see how you do.

Good start in the top flight and close to the title there. Getting through those first few Europa ties should really come in handy in terms of money and your rep, with my first European campaign I got to the same stage as you and it really did help for the rest of the save. Shame you went out but was always going to be tough against a Ukrainian side at this stage.

I think the hardest thing you'll find is getting the 7 academy players in the squad, i've still only got just got to 6 as it stands (Murray, Wood, France, McCosh, Penlington and Hansom) but hoping to have another 2 in there next year as they aren't quite ready yet.

Anyway, i'll be following so good luck

[Zeonflux]

Cheque is in the post Before I settled on Wales I was considering Ireland and might actually add it once Murray's career is over so it'll be interesting to see how you do.

Good start in the top flight and close to the title there. Getting through those first few Europa ties should really come in handy in terms of money and your rep, with my first European campaign I got to the same stage as you and it really did help for the rest of the save. Shame you went out but was always going to be tough against a Ukrainian side at this stage.

I think the hardest thing you'll find is getting the 7 academy players in the squad, i've still only got just got to 6 as it stands (Murray, Wood, France, McCosh, Penlington and Hansom) but hoping to have another 2 in there next year as they aren't quite ready yet.

Anyway, i'll be following so good luck

Cheers Dex Ireland is a pretty good nation competition wise, every season so far all the promoted teams seem to be doing with so it's fairly balanced.

Oh and if you had got Murray through at an Irish club he'd probably be closer to 2000 goals by now cause with me being in Europe this season i was in 6 competitions including the league.

As for the academy players in a Champions League winning team that's more of an optional goal for me, sort of a nod to the great Sir Alex and his class of 92

[BoxToBox]

Considering you're Cork City, the academy thing won't be as hard(though it'll still be difficult), if FM 12 is the same as later ones, they have the best youth intakes in the country.

[Zeonflux]

2013 Season Roundup

Following our exit in the 3rd qualifying round for the Europa League we had 4 games in hand on most of the teams around us (we we're in 4th) and the only team that was more than 2 points ahead of us was Shamrock Rovers.

We made life tough for ourselves at times by drawing and losing games we should have won but eventually our quality shone through and we comfortably finished 5 points clear of second place and 1 goal shy of 100 goals for the season.

Daryl was the catalyst for us this season scoring 39 in the league and an overall total of 65.The only problem I had with him all season was that for some reason if he didn't turn up for a game then more often than not we would end up losing.

We also got to all 4 domestic cup finals and managed to take 2 of them home.

Finally i was able to do some wheeling and dealing just before the end of the season.

Ralph comes to us after being released from DC United, he oozes quality and has everything to make the left side of our front 3 his own, he's already on training to increase his finishing stat and then he will be promoted to the central striker position.

[Zeonflux]

Pre-Season 2014

I had arranged a total of 7 friendlies to prepare us for the defence of our League title as well as our attempt at a domestic cup clean sweep and our first crack at the Champions League Qualifying rounds, which comes as a reward for our Title win last season.

We had an extremely comfortable pre-season with a highlight 5-2 victory over last seasons runners up Shamrock Rovers.

Ralph Marsden has hit the ground running with a fantastic 20 goals from the 5 games he played in. I decided to play him through the middle with Daryl Murphy and Albert Yague on either side of him due to an injury to Daryl Fordyce.

Yague himself got a great return of 9 goals in 4 and his performances are going a long way to seeing him as the second nailed on striker, leaving Murphy, Fordyce and another young regen from Denmark to fight over the last position.

Another string of great performances came from Michael Gault who has shone in the CM position after being moved forward from DMC. Gault wasn't really part of the starting XI last season due to others in the squad but after some clearing out of under-performing players and over-paid players during the break to bring our wage bill under the limit he's grabbed his opportunity and so will be partnering Laudrup in the middle of the park.

I also brought in Balan to help shore up the defence this season as we conceded way to many goals for my liking last term. He's defensively very good with question marks over his speed, strength and mental side of his game but that should only really be an issue in Europe, domestically he's a bit of a tank.

A few other details that i forgot to add in earlier updates are a follows:

We became a full time club following our Promotion to the Premier League.

We originally had a club value of 350k, but as of the start of the 4th season we are valued at 1.3M. Which is amazing as this time last year we were worth 450k.

We have 2 parent clubs - Celtic and Sivasspor.

For the coming season we have increased our Season Ticket holders from around 1700 to 2100.

And our Stadium rent is something Del Boy would be proud of:

[Dexter_Morgan]

Well done on the title. Marsden looks like he may be a good player for you.

I remembered that Irish clubs do have the advantage over the UK clubs in that they don't need work permits for overseas players, that should be handy for you. I've missed out on lots of quality due o work permit issues over the years

[Zeonflux]

March 2014

Cheers Dex, Marsden is definitely a top player for us and is guaranteed to bring us goals and fire us to the league title.

Prior to the start of the season I made one more signing, which was to improve the our quality in the Right Back position as we only have Sam Byram in that position and although he's got acceptable attributes for a domestic RB, he's seriously lacking when it comes to European quality.

With that in mind in came Ondrej Svec on a free transfer after being released from Slavia Prague. His Crossing stat is exceptional for a top European team let alone Cork City and he's not too bad for speed, his only downfall is his tackling and composure but he's been put on training for tackling so will hopefully improve pretty quickly.

Our start to the league has been great with only the opener against last years title rivals Shamrock Rovers coming close to being a tough tie. Mardsen didn't have the best game but last years star player Fordyce came off the bench to get a hat trick to help seal the win.

Marsden then took the league by the scruff of the neck and banged in 20 goals in the next 4 matches which included hitting 7 goals in a game on 2 occasions.

I'm more than happy with our start in the league and we've also had 2 cup game but i'll put those into their own post when the competition is over.

The only issue I've got with the team at the moment is that following the signing of Svec we're now nearly £1000 over our wage budget and i really wanna keep that down this season so I've got to let go of some players. There are 2 or 3 I've got in mind to go due to either their poor form, age or their wage compared to how they've performed, so I'll evaluate those and release those who are not gonna have a future with the club.

[Dexter_Morgan]

Good start to the season, always important to get early points on the board I feel in the leagues that start early in the year as once European qualifiers start the temptation to rotate comes in to get through the qualifiers and that's where the points can get dropped

[Zeonflux]

April 2014

Couldn't agree more Dex, following our European run last season having been second prior to our participation it all we had to do was maintain pace with the other clubs and then we basically used the games in hand to win the league, so a good dominant start is in order.

We continued our fine start to the season by winning 3 out of 3 in the League during April. Marsden and Spittler (a regen who we got on a free last season after being released) were both given 2 weeks holiday following the 3-1 victory over Derry due to them being in need of a rest and in their absence up stepped Partick Mortensen (another regen for FC Midtylland) to continue firing the goals in place of Marsden and Gault was dropped into the DMC position with Svec replacing him in MC and Byram returning to the RB position and doing very well.

Following the previous update I decided to release 34 year old DM/M Colin Healy who was simply not playing due to poor form and several injuries, he was joint out the door by Daryl Murphy who while doing alright was not worth the £1500 a week he was on and he refused to negotiate down.

With change comes opportunity with Mortensen getting more game time up front with Yague and Marsden before replacing Marsden in the centre whilst he's out.

Finally i noticed a very troubling issue which could come back to bite me in the proverbial which is to do with Ralph Marsden, to get him to sign i had to put in a minimum release fee which was £500,000 now the problem there is 2 fold. Firstly I definitely don't want him going anywhere and secondly he's currently valued at £1.1M so we'd lose out on a shed load if a club does come in for him. So far there are not interested clubs but with him being in the US National Team with a record of 6 goals in 13 apperences and with us scheduled for Champions League Qualifiers later in the year it may only be a matter of time until someone comes calling. I have tried offering him a new contract but I can only offer him £1.3k a week and he won't even negotiate due to it being too low.

[Zeonflux]

May 2014

Following on from our dominant displays last month we put in a very poor performance and were lucky in all honesty to get a draw from the Waterford game. Limerick then felt the backlash from the team after i ripped into them following the draw and we strolled to a 7-1 victory. Next followed our worse period of the season so far with our first loss and then we pipped Shamrock Rovers before struggling to a 3-0 win over Monaghan United. Finally we returned to form by putting 6 past St Pats with Yague getting 4 following Marsdens departure to Brazil with the US National Team.

We also played in our first final of the season after beating Linfield and Glentoran on the way to an easy 5-0 victory over Dundalk. In all honestly 5-0 flattered Dundalk with Marsden unlucky to only get a hat trick and Yague should have had a hat trick as well.

We also had a terrible couple of weeks during the break for the World Cup, firstly Chelsea came in win a £1.3M bid for Svec which the chairman instantly accepted. I was a bit annoyed as i'm positive that we could have got more for him but considering that Svec came in on a free then £1.3M is fantastic especially for the Irish Premier League.

Then if that wasn't enough following his 2 goals at the World Cup, Groningen came in for Marsden and i already new the out come when the Chairman again accepted the offer. That being said he had no choice considering Marsden had a £500,000 release clause but for some reason Groningen decided that they weren't interested in that and offered us £2.4M with another £525,000 after 20 goals as well as 25% sell on clause (Chelsea also did the same for Svec). So all in all not brilliant for us in terms of the quality of the players we lost but for the club its fantastic.

So with the influx of cash from those 2 transfers the maximum our wage budget can be has increased from £16,000 to a whopping £45,000 or it could be put into the transfer budget which increases to £1.6M. Due to our upcoming appearance in the Champions League Qualifiers I decided to use the money to bring in some quality Irish players as last season i was having to put youth players into the squad to fill my quota of Irish players.

Lynch came to us on a free from Portadown and will be used as cover in DMC for Spittler or as a rotation in the MC positions to cover Laudrup. His passing attribute is one of the highest in the team and hopefully he'll use that to good effect throughout the season.

Norwood was the only player to join us that cost anything, he joins from league rivals Sligo Rovers for £300,000 over 48 months and the fans weren't happy about it, but with a bit of time they'll see that the former Manchester United youth player has bags of quality and will simultaniously improve our rotation options both in Europe and domestically but also affect our rivals performances.

Joe McKee joins after being released by Burnley, and will instantly be out set piece taker with 20 for Free Kicks and Penalties, with top stats in Finishing, Composure and Long shots. He will be a threat for us from anywhere outside of the box.

Olsen is the final signing of any note and as with Balan last season he's a top defender with all the right defensive stats for us domestically and he'll be put on training to improve his composure. Also he's able to play anywhere alone the back four so he's very versatile.

We also brought in Irish former Leeds Left Back Alan Sheehan.

Right back to Europe we were in the draw for the Champions League 2 Round Qualifier and we were picked out of the hat against the top rated side in Georgia Dinamo Tbilisi.

We played the first leg at Turner's Cross and the fans were out in force with us getting a new highest gate receipt of £180,000 which is great for the coffers. I was more than a little sceptical at our chances against Dinamo as we had lost both of our top players in Svec and Marsden and so was just hoping for a good performance especially from the defence who let us down last year.

We started the game in typical European fashion with us getting an attack straight from kick off and Yague put the ball just wide but form the following play Tbilisi got in down our left and a deep cross was easily put into the back of the net and i was expecting he worse. Tbilisi had a few more efforts on target before we registered another shot but soon after we grew into the game and in the 24 minute Mortensen drilled home a close range header to level the match. Both teams went in level at the break but after the restart we got into the groove and started to get a strangle hold on the match. In the 54 minute Fordyce danced around the edge of the box and drew the keeper out before turning and laying the ball back to the edge of the box for Oliver Norwood to score from the edge of the box with his 1st for the club. Fordyce then grabbed himself a goal when he was played in by a great defence splitting ball by McKee to curl the ball around the keeper and into the back of the net to make it 3-1. 9 minutes later and after some lovely 1 touch passing between Murphy, Mortensen and then Fordyce who played the ball around the corner for Norwood to run onto before playing the ball across the keeper and into the far corner of the net. Tbilisi occasionally probed before getting a second when the left back played a simple long ball over the back for and their striker ran onto it before placing it past Hutton in goal in the 87 minute. The game wasn't over then as McKee still had time to get his second goal in 2 games for the club with a free kick from the edge on the box which he dispatched into the top corner of the goal.

[Dexter_Morgan]

McKee should be superb at that level

[Zeonflux]

July 2014

July started with the defense of our Munster Senior Cup which we won last season by beating Limerick in the Final. This year we played Youghal United from the Munster Second Division and promptly wrapped up our second trophy of the season out of a possible 6 if you include the Champions/Europa League.

Due to the World Cup and the Munster Cup final was well as our European commitments we only had 2 League games in July and we won them both comfortably and i can say compared to last season I am far happier with the squad as we have great depth in quality all around the team for this level of football and so i was able to play a different starting XI in these 2 games than i did for the Champions League games in between. Hopefully the money from the sales of Marsden and Svec plus any money we get from the Champions League will help us to grow quickly so in the future we can keep a hold of our better players. Also we do need to invest in the youth system as there aren't many better Irish players knocking around that I could afford wage wise so the youth are the only hope until our reputation increases.

Now following our 5-2 victory at Turner's Cross we were confident going to Georgia that we could safely see our way into the next qualifying round knowing that Tbilisi had to go for the win. We started brightly and in the 17th minute Yague going into space on the right flank and sent a ball across the face of the goal where Fordyce muscled his way in front of the defender and passed the ball home from 6 yards. The game quieten down for a while then until the 44th minute when Tbilisi scored from a corner. Following half time Tbilisi had alot of possession but didn't threaten much and in the 66th minute we made them pay when Keane returned a long clearance from the Tbilisi back towards there goal and Mortensen collected it on the edge of the box before moving to his left and putting the ball past the keeper. the game was well and truly over when McKee played a lofted through ball between then center backs into the path of Yague as he ran into the box before shimmying the ball around the keeper and finishing in style.

Our opponent in the next round is perennial European whipping boys APOEL from Cyprus, hopefully the boys will do better than we did against AEK Larnakas but having said that I feel the team all round are a lot better than what we had last year.

[deltablue]

Corking signings. Could make some decent European progress soon.

[Zeonflux]

Champions League 3rd Qualifying Round

Cheers Delta, the team is really starting to come together which is really please.

Dex, McKee overall is probably the top player attribute wise for us and he's getting quiet a few assists already.

First things first I made another free signing just before the APOEL games in bringing in former Chelsea youth player Conor Clifford he fits the bill of the player i'm after as he's Irish so meets the CL homegrown requirements and this stats are second only to Spittler for a DMC player. I did try and sign him on a pre-contract before he left Chelsea and he wanted £9,500 a week, I signed him for £1,700

Now i'm gonna make these 2 match reports short as i'm short on time but basically the tie was over after the 1st leg. I would like to say we were amazing but in truth APOEL were appalling only our 1st goal was unstoppable the rest came from APOEL mistakes or us catching them on the break. All that really needs to be said is that their keeper got a rating of 4.4 and both full backs got 3.9.

The return leg was more like it and proved that we were very lucky to get such a big win in the 1st leg. We took the lead through luck but they were all over us from the 1st whistle and rightly deserved to win.

We avoided Rangers, Kobenhavn, Partizan, Steaua and M. Haifa in the CL Playoff and got Slovan Bratislava so if we're lucky we may get to the group stages at the first time of asking!

[Dexter_Morgan]

Really good draw by the sound of it, at worst you've got the Europa group which will still be a lot of money for you

[Zeonflux]

Really? I didn't realise that I just thought I'd be out of Europe if I lost

[Dexter_Morgan]

From 3rd qualifier of the CL onwards if you lose the tie you go in to the next stage of the Europa

[pheelf]

Fordyce had a corker of a game against APOEL didn't he...more games like that and you'll be in the Champions League knockout rounds before you know it

[Zeonflux]

He did put them to the sword pheelf but APOEL were dreadful their highest rated player in that match was 5.1

[Zeonflux]

Champions League Playoff 1st Leg 2014

So after getting past Dinamo Tbilisi and APOEL it all comes down to a 2 legged tie between ourselves and Slovan Bratislava of Slovakia to decide if we go into the Europa League group stages or if we become the 1st Irish team of this save (and as far as I came remember) to enter the Champions League group stages where we can get mega bucks to improve the club and reputation to improve the team.

For the 3rd time this season we welcomed foreign opposition to Turner's Cross for the 1st leg and the locals were out in there numbers completely selling out the ground will all 7300 seats filled.

The atmosphere built with the players and the fans knowing that we would need a good result to take with us to the return leg in Slovakia.

Kick off came and we looked to take control immediately and had a couple of probing balls into the box that came to nothing. In the 10th minute Yague was set free down the left and after finding no backup as he approached the box he turned and played the ball back to Alan Sheehan just inside the Bratislava half on the left, he sent in a hopeful ball towards the back stick to where Fordyce and Mortensen were arriving but the Keeper was always favourite and should have collected it easily but show how he spilled it and it nestled into the bottom corner to send us 1-0 up.

From ther we continued to conrtol the game in had a couple of decent chances saved which include the keeper getting down low to his left to deny Yague and then making a reaction save to turn Fordyce's header for the resulting corner against the bar. Bratislava were holding on but in the 24 minute Laudrup was quick to close down one of their centre backs following a corner and then played Fordyce in, he then cut inside on his right foot and curled a sublime finish around the keeper and into the right hand side of the goal from just inside the left of the box.

We had a couple of other chances to get a couple more goals but poor finishing and good blocking kept us to just the 2. Down the other end Bratislava only managed the 2 shots and both were off target thanks to Balan, who was calm and cool at the back making great decisions to either play his way out from the back or just boot it clear when the need arose.

Hopefully we can maintain our form in Slovakia as we typically play worse when away from Turner's Cross in Europe.

[Zeonflux]

Champions League Playoff 2nd Leg 2014

We travelled to Slovakia for the return leg of the tie know that a place in the group stages was waiting for us, if we could last the 90 minutes and following our away performances last season I was worried that we'd fall at the final hurdle for the Group stages and end up in the Europa League. Not that I would turn that down just that with us so close it would be a bitter pill to swallow.

Anyway our fans certainly didn't let us down even if I wasn't too sure about the team as 4000 of them made the trip to Slovakia with hopes of us making the grade and bringing top class opposition to Turner's Cross.

The game started with Bratislava taking the initiative and trying to reduce the deficit early but they were lax at the back allowing Byram to whip in a deep cross that was met by the head of Keatings who replaced the injured Fordyce up front. From then on Bratislava took the game to us and where banging on the door before they scored a header from a well worked free kick. They continued to threaten but couldn't find another way through and so we went in at half time level at 1-1 on the night but with us 3-1 up on aggregate with what could a vital away goal.

I told that lads that I had faith in them (as I found their lack of faith disturbing ) and we came out for the second half a different team wih the introduction of Danny Murphy (not the former Liverpool and Fulham player) shoring us up at Left Back as Sheehan was having a mare and Mortensen was replaced by Conor Bryne. From then on we pushed Bratislava back and began to get shots on their goal. Laudrup came close to finding us a second but his shot hit the inside of the bottom of the left hand post and rebounded to the only Bratislava defender in the box who duly cleared to safety. Both teams then pressed for a second on the night with Bratislava looking to get back in the tie and us looking to kill it off.

After a long stalemate the decisive moment in the tie happened in the 84th minute, following a beautifully weighted in swinging corner from the left Keatings pulled free of his marker and leaped like a salmon to thunder a header past the Bratislava keeper, sending the 4000 travelling fans, the team and myself absolutely mental. Bratislava pushed for a second but Balan and Olsen at the back kept them from getting close and a few minutes later it was all over.

Cork City are in the Champions League Group Stages!

[Zeonflux]

August 2014

2 days after our heroics in Bratislava we went to Zurich for the Champions League Group Draw and after hoping to get a big team to visit Turner's Cross we ended up with arguably the biggest as we were drawn with 9 time Champions League winners Real Madrid. WE also got Zenit and Shakhtar.

We also got £6.17M for qualifying for the Champions League Group Stages, this increased the clubs value from £2.3M (which it had risen to prior to the Bratislava tie) to £6.5M following the group draw. With the new found cash i got the club to improve the training facilities which they agreed to do so soon we'll have better facilities to help progress the players.

Back in the domestic side of things we continued our relentless push to a second successive League title by sweeping aside all comers in August. Due to the Champions League games I used squad rotation to help keep the first team fit for the European games and the second XI showed their class by easing to 4 wins from 4 which included great wins over League rivals Shamrock Rovers and Sligo Rovers which essentially handed us the title as we are now 4 points ahead of Shamrock and level with Sligo but with 4 games in hand over both of them.

I also took the opportunity to bring in some more players to improve the squad.

I picked Stevens up following his release from Aston Villa and he's gonna be the back up for Sheehan next season and i'll be moving Danny Murphy on as he's now 31. Stevens has solid stats and is being trained on tackling but otherwise he's a bargain at £1400 p/w.

Apostolov also comes in on a free but with some respectable technical stats he'll get the occasional game whilst working on his quickness. For a 16 year old he's only going to improve and make the team better as he does so.

The final incoming player is Oliveira who i'm looking to replace Marsden and with Finishing and Heading of 16, composure and pace of 12 and acceleration of 11 he will get goals, and lots of them.

[BoxToBox]

Great work in Cork!

[Zeonflux]

September 2014

Cheers Box, we're looking strong in the league and have done well to make the CL groups stages!

September was all about maintaining pace with Sligo and Shamrock as we had another couple of league games rescheduled due to CL group matches. We comfortably won 3 out of the 4 with a labored 0-0 draw with Dundalk the only set back but this was mainly due to injuries and rotation as well as some great defending from Dundalk.

We also took part in our 3rd cup final of the season and comfortably beat Finn Harps 2-0 with our second XI out on show. This made it 3 trophies out of a possible 5 for us this season (i'm not including the CL or EL in that count).

Finally we had a youth intake and there wasn't much on show for us although I did sign up a RB and a LB.

Attribute wise Morrissey isn't too much different from Byram and as he's Irish he will count towards our Irish contingent in European competitions. Plus with 19 Determination and at only 16 years of age i'm hoping he'll improve greatly once we move into our new training facilities next season.

[Dexter_Morgan]

Great work making the CL group and looks like you are going to domiate domestically this season