[FM13] Second Star to the Right...

[noikeee]

Congratulations on the title! At last, well done!

I can't believe Mexes isn't a starter, he looked like such a huge prospect a few years back.

[deltablue]

2 hours ago, noikeee said:

Congratulations on the title! At last, well done!

I can't believe Mexes isn't a starter, he looked like such a huge prospect a few years back.

Oh he still is, and he had another strong season. However he needed to be rested a few times in the first half of the season and when the fixture schedule lightened up, Gomes' form was far too good to drop him. In fact he and van den Hoogenband (in a similar contest with Gilson for the other forward slot) set a new average rating record. Given Mexes benefited from a bit of favouritism in the first few years at Gomes' expense it's only right that he should have to face a genuine fair fight for his position now. That's generally how I do it when I have the right depth of quality in the squad, even if it's only just making a comeback for the first time in a while.

[deltablue]

Gold Cup 2037

Does this mean Mexico technically manage to be reigning World and Continental champions at the same time after all? In the absence of the main American and Mexican teams I wondered whether another nation would step up. Honduras won 2 of the first 3 but have struggled to compete since with just a single final appearance after that, and they went out in the first round this time, along with Costa Rica, a regular 'best of the rest' nation in North America (never mention the term 'Central America' to my father). However Canada have managed to be a consistent 'there or thereabouts' team and they managed a 3rd final appearance in 5 tournaments. Surinam surprisingly completed the final four. 

[deltablue]

Summer 2037

The first thing that came to mind was that the pool of potential signings was definitely quite a bit smaller than last year, despite the title victory. It started out at lot like last year with standout players being hard to come by, and I was adding 'extra' players to the squad beyond the 'core' 22, though still with a legitimate window for them to get opportunities as second choice players at least when you considered the current regulars I was planning to move on at some point. It may seem strange stocking up on potential replacements now but last year's success was very much based on giving players I already had a more prominent role, rather than getting in anyone new to really make the difference. The Spanish defender Jimenez was already set to get more of an opportunity this time.

After the signing of Pirozzi from Verona continued the run of 'maybe' players, Tahiraj was a different prospect entirely, and made Gilson the first of the early 'not good enough in the long term' early stars to fall. It may seem surprising but with van den Hoogenband already taking over as first choice, there was already virtually no difference between the German and the Brazilian, and I didn't want to waste the talent of the former in a 3-way competition for a single place, with Zorc (who already looks doomed to be an eternal backup at best) still acting as a 5th forward just in case. While we haven't quite got anyone on 50kpw just yet (though Bouwhuis and Mexes are very close), having Gilson as the clear 3rd highest-paid member of the team didn't really make sense any more.

Chlup was temporarily the only member of the squad who wasn't signed from his home country (not counting Cetinkaya who has German second nationality) before Udo joined him, finally giving us a non-European or South American player, and not enough by himself to cause a problem come AFCON time. Like Tahiraj, he seemed like a player who looked pretty good already. The final two signings were made after a final check of the shortlist. Thomas might end up being competition to Cardia than Cetinkaya will never be, and he seemed worth his small fee to at least see how he turned out.

Ernst was borderline, especially as despite what looked like fantastic potential, we already had 3 players in both his positions, but I have a feeling he'll quickly start moving up the pecking order, possibly beating out Pirozzi or Faasse and being in a position to take advantage of Dunga and Tomov eventually being moved on, especially if Trabelsi fails to be convincing enough as Dunga's replacement on the right. Even players costing over 10M like him could prove bargains if they do make it.

We're still far from being the team we want to be. Once again there was no obvious solution to our lack of quality full-backs (though Salazar and Canacue are perfectly decent stand ins), Simonetti being on the same 'not good enough for the long-term' list as Tomov and Dunga means at the moment there isn't a clear first-choice defensive partner for Bouwhuis (though Marco Aurelio did well last season with more options this time with Udo and Jimenez), and Carranza is coping well enough as a Ball-playing defender but he's not as well-suited for the role as I'd like and like with the full-backs we have a lack of alternatives available, with Marco Aurelio being the closest we've got to a backup. We are also far behind in terms of quality to the top teams, but I'll cover that in the next post.

Signings

[deltablue]

CL Draw

We were still 4th seeds and having managed a group that wasn't too bad relatively speaking 2 years ago, we had no such luck this time. Arsenal won the competition 6 times in 8 years between 2024 and 2031 and while their only final appearance since was 5 years ago, they remain Europe's top side by ranking, and the 2nd richest club in the world (behind Barcelona) with a team to match such a high status. Lyon had to go though the qualifying round but have a bunch of stars who are around the equal of Arsenal (and are ranked 14th). Shakhtar will be no picnic either, and I'm glad only being able to play 5 foreigners in domestic games limits the number they have because they'll all very strong indeed, with a few good Ukrainians as well.

While in theory we shouldn't fear anyone by this point, our European exits against Chelsea and Porto show that we're going to struggle to compete as well as I want us to in Europe, especially if we show any weakness. It's not just 'men against boys' either. I decided to write about this here because it's not a wordy post otherwise. A lot of the time my past successes have generally been built on having a squad full of strong players as a way of compensating for not having the genuine top quality players of my rivals. Even when fully developed, only a few of my players are likely to be on the same level as all the truly incredible 'super-newgens' that Lyon and Arsenal in particular enjoy, just as Galatasaray had far stronger players than I could hope to have at Bucaspor, and Man City in particular in the Ipswich career.

That's not to say we can't compete, at least not in the long-term, especially as over time I hope to get more players who can be world-class but for now we have a bunch of regulars as mentioned in the summer post who have played an important role in getting us this far but don't look that much better even than some of the recent signings in their positions who are far younger, to say nothing of being far off the quality of their counterparts at other clubs, and a single Serie A so far (won by just edging out Juve multiple times and much earlier in terms of development than my original Milan team managed) shouldn't fool us into thinking we're back among the top teams already, and a bad defeat in the first game in Lyon hasn't done much to reinforce the idea that we're still too far behind.

[deltablue]

Oct 2037

This season has been a little frustrating so far, as we've had a lot of genuinely strong team performances with some costly moments (mainly defenders being poor) that leaves us trailing a little in the league, though things have been better since Torino. Managing to grab a draw in Naples helped us avoid dropping too far the league leaders but it was one of a string of fairly tough matches (including Bologna who were only just behind us in 4th at the time) which meant that we had to push until the end, no going defensive to preserve a comfortable lead (though I would have done so under heavy pressure) or taking players off so they'd be fresh to start the next one. Rough play by Napoli saw both Tomov and Milinovic off injured for about a month very early on, depriving us of a pair of midfielders precisely when we needed the depth, especially as we have no '3rd choice' central midfielder.

My comments in the above post about where we stand in compared to the big European teams may have seemed like getting excuses in early but it was written after the lacklustre defeat in Lyon which seemed to prove the point. I guess we always had a chance of getting something at home even against Arsenal but we remained slightly on the back foot before a quickfire double from a Mexes penalty and Dunga robbing the keeper gave us a win. Unfortunately in October we had a habit of going behind early on and couldn't get the home win we needed against Shakhtar, so while the group remains close, we've used up 2 home games including to the theoretically weakest team and need something from the return in Ukraine and the remained home game with Lyon to probably even get 3rd.

Mexes had a strong season in his own right last year (26 games, 15 goals, 9 assists and a personal best 7.63 average rating), especially considering he was still only 19, before being eclipsed by Gomes' amazing form, which judging by Noikeee's comment maybe made him look more sidelined than he actually was, or that his previously meteoric rise had taken a severe blow. As I've mentioned before, being the support striker he isn't expected to rack up the goals in the same way as van den Hoogenband (or Gilson before that) but with Gomes proving that it could still be done he's certainly upped his game on that front. Taking him off when I could (though not recently) has helped keep his starting spot so far this time. He currently has 74 goals in 139 appearances, far more than anyone else currently at the club (though the more recently established van den Hoogenband is on 51 in 64). After seemingly breaking through in the senior France team at Euro 2036 he's surprisingly just had 3 caps since, and often has been left out of the squad entirely even this season, but surely it would be crazy if he failed to make the World Cup at the end of the season.

 

[deltablue]

Jan 2038

Our poor European record continues, and while I knew finishing bottom of the group was a possibility, I still felt it was avoidable. After failing to beat Shakhtar at home (with an away goal that would prove costly), I wasn't too unhappy with a point in the return, our first clean sheet against them in 4 attempts. If we won at home to Lyon we'd secure a Europa League place at least and with a good chance of qualification proper, and with hopes lifted by an early van den Hoogenband goal, they still proved to be too strong.

The situation still didn't look too bad in theory as we were just a point behind them and level with Shakhtar but I knew we were unlikely get a result against Arsenal. After going behind we had to go for it and managed a Mexes equalizer (with a draw being enough to beat Shakhtar to the Europa League at least) before Arsenal took us apart. While there might be teams like Arsenal who are still clearly stronger, a lot of the time we seem to just under-perform against teams who we can't afford to be sloppy against but who we could certainly beat otherwise, and that needs to change in order to make progress.

In the league we were playing catch-up from an early stage but seemed on the verge of taking top spot in November. Unfortunately our good run ended when we let slip a 2-0 lead against Genoa (their first being a controversial penalty) and with the European defeats our form in all competitions looked very poor until the Christmas break, with just a derby win with 10 men giving us pre-festive cheer. Thankfully Napoli dropped a few points themselves or the gap could have been worse than 5 points.

While there were many culprits in various games, the left-back position remained a consistent weakness. Canacue was usually at least reliable as a short-term solution but not during this run, with Chlup managing to be even worse as a replacement. Peric was at least starting to look very promising on the right, giving us our best shot of finally having a quality full back (which seemed to be in short supply during the Ipswich career as well), but the situation on the left still looks bleak.

Thankfully the break did us a world of good and we rallied in January, winning all 7 games in the league and cup (including a surprisingly big victory at Roma), scoring 18 times and conceding just twice as the defence (and Canacue in particular) seemed to really return to form, cutting Napoli's lead slightly to 3 points, though they also started strongly beating Juventus 5-1 in the first game back followed by an 8-0 hammering of Inter in Milan! We have at least already played them an Juventus (our toughest couple of games on paper) giving us the opportunity to turn the home matches to our advantage, though they had no European football at all this season so no advantage there, even if our early exit means we don't have extra spring games that they wouldn't.

In the cup, we struggled past Bologna in the cup. Not helped by Udinese doing a number on our forwards in the previous match. Van den Hoogenband, Mexes and Tehiraj (who at least got his first goal after replacing the Dutchman) all went off with minor or serious injuries and while Mexes was thankfully fine, a suspension for Gomes allowed the 'forgotten forward' Zorc to play. However we then lost Canacue for a few matches right when he was being very good again. Atalanta were easier in the quarter-final, setting up a repeat of our last semi against Inter, and hopefully we'll finally get past that stage at the 4th time of asking.

[noikeee]

Not sure what the hell went on in Europe, but nice recovery in the league over the last few weeks.

[deltablue]

On 04/05/2017 at 10:27, noikeee said:

Not sure what the hell went on in Europe, but nice recovery in the league over the last few weeks.

We just very rarely play well against the good European teams (which includes Shakhtar) and they always punish us for it. It was definitely a tough group but we still could easily have done better.

[deltablue]

May 2038

Double winners! Well technically treble if you count the Super Cup at the start of the season (though I'm not sure I've even mentioned it) and that gives me as many major trophies this season as in the entire career before last season. However it looked very unlikely in February. Napoli were faltering badly but with a run of just 2 points in 3 games we were only matching their poor run, not taking advantage of it. The real problem was Juventus who overtook us to go 2nd with a game in hand, which was at home to bottom club Cremonese. Meanwhile the first leg of the cup semi saw us go behind in the first minute, concede again from a penalty 10 minutes later and soon survive a potential 3rd which was disallowed, which all seemed to suggest it was going to be a very bad day, though managing to fight back to 2-2 put us in a strong position for the second leg.

Suddenly everything changed when van den Hoogenband returned from injury in place of Gomes, who had woefully lost form and dragged Mexes' effectiveness down along with it. It wasn't just up front that we improved either. We conceded 18 goals in 17 league matches leading up to the winter break but just 12 in the 21 afterwards. Which wasn't quite as impressive as I thought that stat would be but is still roughly half the goals conceded per game, with just a single case of conceding multiple times in a league match. When briefly called upon for a few matches after a Canacue injury, even Chlup was reliable which after his showings earlier in the season seemed like a real miracle!

Once we hit form again things just snowballed from there, as despite a lack of regular midweek matches, I still took advantage of being able to go defensive and take off the players most prone to tiredness to help everyone be either at 100% condition or close to it week on week. That was especially evident against Juventus who had their game in hand in midweek, while Winkler, Mexes and van den Hoogenband had all served suspensions for picking up too many yellows in matches where we didn't need them, giving them a clean slate ahead of the run-in as well as keeping them fresher. They had already lost their advantage as an eventual winning Europa League campaign helped hold them back and a surprisingly easy win took us 4 points clear (and a head-to-head advantage) with the same number of games left, and since after the derby we only had 2 home games against bottom-half opposition and a trip to whipping boys Cremonese, I knew if we got a clear advantage we were unlikely to lose it, and having seen off Inter (in my 300th match in charge, which was appropriate as they were the first opponents and we won that too) we clinched the title with 2 games left as Juve lost to Cesena.

I went into the cup final full of confidence as Juve's Europa League final with Celtic in midweek had gone all the way to penalties and I expected to get the same fitness advantage as before but that didn't stop them from having most of the pressure (though less so in the second half). The decisive moment came when a Juventus defender lost control of the ball for Dunga to pick up and slot home, though it was our only shot on target out of 6 in total, compared to 15 chances for them so I can't claim it was a good final.

After winning the title last season, I wasn't sure we'd be getting a run together quite yet, especially as younger players developed and continued to be given first-team places, which is set to continue with Peric and Trabelsi proving to be reliable enough for a potential promotion next season, feeling encouraged by the sale of Gilson (as badly as that was received by the board and fans) last season working out, with a few more sales of players like Tomov and Simonetti who have found themselves in a similar position, though their strong performances (from Dunga especially) makes them tricky calls to potentially make. However on the strength of this season we should be fine, just once more we need to do better in Europe, tough draws or not.

Star Player: This looked set to be Mexes but I couldn't ignore how immense Bouwhuis has been in defence for a few years already, being our most valuable player despite being a defender. He even played on the left for a little and managed to be successful there as well. I got him for nothing as well which means he even has Mexes beaten as a bargain.  

 

Squad Stats

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World Cup 2038 - Morocco

I had hoped for a larger representation at this World Cup. Even without Bulgaria and Croatia qualifying, we had 10 players initially called up but 4 were cut from final squads, Mexes being easily the big shock. He appeared to have made a breakthrough at the Euros 2 years ago, playing in 3 of France's 4 games and scoring twice and he probably would have been expected to stay there having made that step, but he had only played 3-4 times since (the last being almost a year ago) and we often out of the squad altogether. Since he didn't make it Gomes had no chance either. Of the other two, Salazar just wasn't good enough for a top team and Winkler's breakthrough hadn't come yet, especially with such tough competition in Germany's midfield.

As for those that did make it, van den Hoogenband got his debut appearances in a couple of warmups but didn't feature in the tournament itself, though Bouwhuis remained as consistently strong for the Netherlands as he was for us, and the same is true for to Cardia in the Italy goal, taking him up to 42 caps since making his debut after the last World Cup. Colombia had a poor tournament but after not playing in the first match, Canacue put in good performances in the other two. 

Ecuador made headines by beating Spain in the second round, the first time they had been beaten outright (not on penalties) in the World Cup since the Group Stage 16 years ago. Elsewhere Brazil were beaten to qualification from their group by Albania, while Japan appear to be strong again, at least enough to knock Argentina out my making it out of their group along with the Netherlands. After missing out on two AFCON's in a row, Morocco managed to restore some pride in front of their home fans by making it out of the group, and only narrowly losing to Italy.

Germany were clear and deserved champions, winning all 3 group games, narrowly beating Albania than easily casting aside holders Mexico and France. The final against England was very scrappy with both teams having a player sent off in normal time, then England seeing red twice more in as man minutes, just before Germany finally got a winner.

[deltablue]

Summer 2038

One of the hardest decisions to make in this game is if and when to drop or replace a player who is performing very well but is no longer strong on paper, especially when bringing in young players when those blooded early fail to become big stars and/or come under a lot of pressure from newer players with far more going for them. Out of 8 signings made in my first year in charge, only Mexes remains, with a 50% survival rate among the 8 from the following summer (Bouwhuis, Cardia, Milinovic and Gomes, who is slightly under threat). Backup keeper Cetinkaya is the only casualty from players brought in after that.

Van den Hoogenband's rapid emergence and Tahiraj's signing made Gilson the first big scalp last year, and that didn't do us any harm. Dunga would be a far bigger risk, as not only was he still first choice, but he regularly made a big difference in a lot of matches. Tomov and Simonetti were still good semi-regulars. Think of it as like sharks' teeth, one row outlives its usefulness, a new one take its place, and we had quite a few players already in the squad deserving of promotion to second choice at least (or first in Trabelsi's case) to get at least some opportunities. We even had the very young but still exciting Ernst and Pirozzi behind Trabelsi which is why I ended up selling Dunga outright, that and I knew it was a good chance to cash in, much like with Tomov.

The last point provides another motivation, as the bank balance had dropped a bit in the past few years and while 30M was still a decent amount of money, I wanted to take the opportunity to raise a lot more, as well as make a decent reduction in the wage bill. Both here and at Bucaspor I've been able to bring in a lot of young players for relatively little who end up being worth a lot more. We made a minor loss on Cetinkaya's initial 5M fee but that was easily over shadowed by the profit on the rest. Gilson had already been sold for 12.25M having been bought for 375k, now we could add Tomov (bought for 2.4M) sold for 17.5M, though like with Cetinkaya the vast majority was in installments, which at least gave us more regular monthly income for a while. Dunga went for 25M (all up front) having cost 1.1M and even Simonetti (who was a little harder to offload) was sold for 7M, also having been bought for 1.1M, so it's fair to say these players proved to be a good investment both on and off the pitch.

Incoming, not a lot happened. The early sale of players was helped by the ability to promote from within, instead of having to rely on bringing in replacements. I still had my attention on the full-back positions and having had both players on either side injured a few times in the past couple of years, having spares seemed like a good idea, especially with potential. In fact Lokando already looks similarly strong to Chlup, in a graph comparison anyway. I was wondering about a ball-playing defender as while Carranza had grown into a much better player in the position than I expected, we still had no one else that suitable. I have been considering buying and converting a midfielder (as I've often used defender/midfielders) but I can't make a direct comparison with Carranza and other defenders, the couple of candidates looked a bit too expensive to be worth it so we'll have to deal with that another time.

Signings

[deltablue]

CL Draw

We had somehow done enough to make it as 3rd seeds for the draw and I was utterly delighted. Firstly we have Granada, who are actually the reigning champions, beating Betis in an unlikely all-Spanish final. They're obviously not bad but they're also not the strongest team around and we've faced worse. They're sort of team we can definitely beat if we finally bother to turn up in Europe, though will had a hard time if we don't. I'd been looking forward to getting payback against Chelsea since the 9-0 hammering 2 1/2 years ago, though this may not be when we get it. Altay are surprise Turkish champions (they finished 9th the previous years) and are perhaps one of the weakest teams we could have got. We look set to be in Europe after Christmas this time, and might even be one of the 2 winners (probably ahead of Granada) in the 3-way race for qualification.

Bucaspor also made the Group Stage, managing to beat Napoli on away goals in the final qualifying round, an away goal scored by none other than the 34-yr old Moradi. He's still got it.

[deltablue]

Was just reading an article on the Arsenal-Man Utd match stating how much the 'weakened' Man Utd team cost (235.5M) and how Arsenal were 60M cheaper, and I decided to see how much my current 'first choice' team (Cardia, Peric, Canacue, Marco Aurelio, Bouwhuis, Carranza, Milinovic, Winkler, Trabelsi, Mexes, van den Hoogenband) cost and it came to just under 46.3M, with Winkler and van den Hoogenband accounting for almost half that.

The wage bill is 615kpw which is actually larger than I'm used to it being until recently and will continue to rise for a few years but it's still just 9th in the league, just over half of Napoli's (with the 3rd highest wage bill) and a third of what Cesena (surprisingly beating Juventus pretty comfortably at the top of the wage spend table) have. So this team isn't bad value.

[noikeee]

Trophies! Trophies everywhere! That was quite the run at the end of last season. Well done.

Who did you bribe to get that Champions League group?

[deltablue]

On 08/05/2017 at 10:28, noikeee said:

Trophies! Trophies everywhere! That was quite the run at the end of last season. Well done.

Who did you bribe to get that Champions League group?

Whoever it was it clearly wasn't enough as we still ended up with the reigning champions and the Chelsea side that beat us 6-0 at home in our last encounter

Been ill this week (FM isn't a game I really feel like playing much when fuzzy-headed) so no further progress so far unfortunately.

[deltablue]

Sept 2038

It's interesting how timing plays a part in perception. If you asked me this morning how the season was going I'd have said it was a complete mess, having been beaten embarrassingly easily by Juventus in the Super Cup (with Winkler getting sent off, because even with Tomov gone, a playmaker who isn't a serious card magnet is seemingly too much to ask for) then lost at home to Lazio in the first league match. Selling the players I did in the summer meant various others needed to step up and at first they really didn't, though players I expected a lot more from like Salazar (seemingly engaged in a race with Peric to be the biggest liability, like Chlup and Canacue on the other side last autumn) and van den Hoogenband were at least as culpable. With Juventus away after the international break I was expecting us to already have a big battle on our hands to get anywhere near a 3rd title.

However before that we went to Spezia, a team who had been promoted twice in 3 seasons from Serie C1 and were in danger of being seriously out of their depth in the top flight, and even considering the weak opposition (after all we've struggled to overcome lower division opponents in cups a number of times) we really clicked all over the pitch (except in goal where Cardia didn't have enough to do to look good and I might as well have given him the day off), helping to kick us back into a high gear, and having surprisingly managed to beat Juventus it didn't take long to go top despite the opening day defeat. One thing of note was that Mexes' goal against Spezia (well deserved after a couple of assists) was his 100th for the club, in the same month he turned 21. 

I did find myself feeling a little wary ahead of the first CL game despite the weak opposition, not wanting to take an away C group match for granted but it proved as easy as I hoped. It was a genuine shock to have an easy time of it against holders Granada as well, especially given we were usually very poor against the better European sides. After going ahead, our second goal could have come a lot sooner than it did, and it might even have been more, already putting us in a decent position to qualify depending on how things go against Chelsea, and leaving me hopeful that we're finally able to play well in Europe.

[deltablue]

1,000 Matches

(The bottom is a bit messed up!)

The win over Bologna was the 1,000th match of the career. It seems odd that it's already come around as this hasn't been my fastest paced career by any means but we are over 26 years in so I guess steady progress is being made. I have gone beyond 2,000 matches in a few career with 2746 being my record, and one I hope to beat this time.It did seem a little odd to get Milan after so few major trophies but aside from the fact that they were nowhere near as big as usual, there was still a lot of progression made up the ranks in Sweden and Turkey. We don't talk about Norway.

[deltablue]

Dec 2038

I guess things are going reasonably well I was worried at the start of the season as mentioned in the last update but after losing on our opening day we only dropped 4 points from the following 14 league matches, and even after we appeared to be in slightly worse shape in December (not helped by being taken all the way to penalties then losing to Cagliari in the cup) we had only dropped 4 more since.

During such an intense run of matches we needed both players in some positions to be fit and we didn't always have that leading to Canacue and the midfielders in particular having to constantly play when they needed a rest. Salazar was injured in the CL defeat to Chelsea with Peric having been out for a while so Angloma had to make his debut against Roma the day after his 16th birthday which didn't help as we lost 2-goal lead twice, though I couldn't blame him too much especially as he wasn't the biggest culprit, and he did a lot better in the next couple of games before Peric was fit enough to take over.

Unfortunately we lost van den Hoogenband (about to be awarded 'European Golden Boy') for over 2 months in the Atalanta draw (an especially unlucky result) with Tehiraj having failed to live up to his goalscoring potential so far. However we still managed to keep Napoli comfortably behind us with a draw in Naples (meaning we've already faced our 3 closest rivals away) before taking advantage of finally having a full week between matches to end 2038 with a surprisingly comfortable win over Fiorentina, though Juventus beat Napoli (who then lost a game in hand they played the following midweek) to take over as rivals vaguely in touching distance if they win their own game in hand.

In Europe I was very surprised when we beat Chelsea away. Even if we hadn't gotten a winner after their equalizer I would still have been very happy at being able to perform far better against our European counterparts than in previous seasons. The return didn't go so well, opening up the race to win the group (though we still looked likely to be one of the 2 teams qualifying) as we suffered from a Bouwhuis suspension exposing the lack of established star quality among the other defenders and just a bad day all round. An easy win against Altay coupled with Granada having failed to beat them in the previous round secured qualification though since Chelsea had a head-to-head advantage I felt we needed to beat Granada in Spain to top the group. However while we did eventually manage that (though not without a lot of close calls at the other end in the first half) Chelsea somehow crashed 4-1 in Izmir meaning we didn't need it after all. So who do we have next?

The list of runners up look scarier than the group winners, so I was worried we'd get a tough team again but this year the draws seem to be finally going in our favour as we got Sevilla, one of the weaker potential opponents. They do have some very good players, especially in midfield, but I still feel we're the stronger side and should be looking to progress.

[deltablue]

Mar 2039

After the first league win I wondered whether it was too early to start a run of titles, though having won a second time we seem to be cruising to a 3rd. Even after the first leg defeat to Sevilla, where we lost at Pescara (our first league defeat since the opening day) no thanks to Winkler picking up 2 yellow cards in the first 8 minutes, and then only just managed to salvage a point against Cagliari, our 11-point lead was barely dented. Then again Serie A isn't that strong right now judging by Napoli (in the qualifiers) and Juventus both dropping out of the Champions League and into the Europa this season, and the fact that we became the first Italian team for a few years to make the quarter-finals as Italy is clearly the weakest of the big 5 nations, though still comfortably head of the rest. Easily dealing with Juve (who we've beaten 5 times in the last 6 league matches) and Napoli doesn't make us one of the top European teams, as has been proven in the past few years.

It did look like we were heading for another European exit against Sevilla. Gomes, van den Hoogenband and Mexes all managed to be poor as we missed a few good chances to take the lead in the first half in Spain before disappointingly going down 2-0. I knew we still had a chance though we needed to really shine back home at the San Siro. Early on it looked like much the same story as the first leg, before a van den Hoogenband penalty and a fierce ranged strike from Winkler allowed us to level the tie at the break. They started to threaten for the first time which caused a few scary moments as a single away goal would probably sink us but despite a Carranza goal being disallowed, Gomes did enough to send us through after the great team performance we needed.

Most of the relatively weaker teams are weeded out by this stage but I was still hoping for Olympiakos or Real Madrid. Man City did seem very scary at first, especially given the way they've dominated the Premier League (and are just as far ahead as we are in Serie A) but their squad did seem a little on the small side as well as carrying a few injuries, as well as not being quite as devastatingly strong as I've sometimes seen them be. Maybe we have more of a chance than I originally thought, especially as we can take it easy in the league. For example a few players who were suspended or rested in the run up to the second Sevilla game (since we had a busy schedule at the time) were kept out of the team against Roma as well (and we still won) making it easier to make selection/tactical choices to keep the team fresh for the midweek Champions League matches, without sacrificing league fixtures at the same time.

[deltablue]

Asian Cup 2039 - South Korea

After a bit of a change last time it was back to business as usual with reigning champions and runners-up China and Bahrain failing to even make it out of the group stage while Japan returned to dominance, hammering Australia 5-0 in the final avenging a group stage defeat. Turkmenistan (ranked 121st and having only made a singe appearance) were notable quarter-finalists.

[deltablue]

AFCON 2039 - Tunisia

Tunisia seem to be on hosting rotation with South Africa and Egypt/Algeria and they failed to make it out of the group, at the expense of last year's World Cup hosts Morocco who were appearing for the first time in a few tournaments. The Ivorians won for the 4th time in 6 with South Africa being runners-up for the 3rd time in that period and the second time in a row, though they at least managed to avenge their defeat to DR Congo 2 years ago. Aside from the wide men this isn't a quality Ivory Coast team, their double goalscorer in the final playing for La Serena in Chile.

[deltablue]

May 2039

The tie with Man City seemed to be over after just 10 minutes when Winkler got sent off for two yellows and I had to withdraw van den Hoogenband to plug the midfield hole. They had already shown themselves to be a threat so I was bracing myself for things to go very badly. The we were able to hold firm and actually managed to get some chances later on but didn't do very well with them. It didn't help that Milinovic went off with a minor injury that meant he was unfit for the return, same with van den Hoogenband in the league match in between.

In the away leg we were still in a position where a single goal could be gold but after an even game they broke through not just once but twice as even Cardia was looking a little shaky for the second match in a row. Mexes gave us some hope with his 10th goal of the competition (eventually giving him the golden boot) and came close to equalizing just afterwards but we couldn't do much after that. On balance they did deserve it (and ended up winning the whole thing) but there was a bit of a 'what if?'

We already looked like we were slowing down in the league but after the title was clinched against Atalanta I threw in the younger players for the final few games (with Thomas saving a penalty on his debut) and despite those fixtures not being the easiest on paper we seemed to get a bit of life back and won them all. We're looking very comfortable in the league despite being far from the finished article both in terms of a few troublesome positions and the development of existing players. We also looked better in Europe though still not good enough.

Star Player: For any player to average over 8.00 is quite something, and for a defender it's especially exceptional. 

Squad Stats

[noikeee]

Starting to dominate Italy here. Surely won't be long until you're making some serious damage in Europe.

[deltablue]

On 28/05/2017 at 01:31, noikeee said:

Starting to dominate Italy here. Surely won't be long until you're making some serious damage in Europe.

I was wondering if I'd get a comment by the time I got back

Anyway I think it's safe to say that we're the strongest team in Italy now (probably could do with winning the cup on a more regular basis, or at least reaching the final but that's not the end of the world.

I don't think we were too bad in Europe. Man City (who ended up as champions) may have been the better team for most of the tie but not by a large margin, plus we played most of the first leg with 10 men and had 2 more key players our for the return just 6 days later, which could have brought about the heavy European defeats of the past. It's still going to be tough to be serious challengers but I don't think we're far off.

It doesn't help that Italy is slightly off the pace of the top European leagues, so besting Juventus (who we've beaten 5 times in our last 6 league encounters) and Napoli doesn't makes us an elite European team just yet like we would if we were the top team in the Premier League or ahead of the big two in Spain. I mentioned we were the first Italian team in the quarter-finals for a few years (though we usually had one of Juve or Napoli before that) and the only one to make it out of the Group Stage this time even.

One interesting little thing on the side that I might now have mentioned is that the Europa League final was a rematch of the previous Champions League final, with Betis getting payback on Granada.

[deltablue]

Gold Cup 2039

By this point I was expecting Mexico to assert regional dominance (after all their B team were reigning champions) after a poor start but the Americans still showed themselves to be formidable opponents, deservedly winning after facing a tricky route to the final. However we'll always have that St.Lucia defeat to laugh at the Americans about. Meanwhile Canada made yet another final but still no wins.

 

[deltablue]

Copa America 2039 - Colombia

The Americans were proving to be surprisingly good at this footsoccerball thing, their U23's topping their Copa group (and making the semi-finals) while the Mexicans were bottom of theirs. Still... St. Lucia. The Brazilians had been underachievers so far, winning a single Copa since the start of the save (and we're now 27 years in) with just one 2nd and 3rd place each, as well as having failed to make a World Cup semi (in fact having gone out at the group stage just a year ago, and not for the first time) but they partly made up for that with a second win now, beating previously dominant Argentina (without the injured Carranza) in the semi-finals followed by a decent but unimpressive Uruguay team in the final.

[deltablue]

Summer 2039

I'm pretty sure the talent pool is shrinking, whereas the lack of budgetary restrictions and increasing rep mean it should be the opposite. A few nations have been removed but I doubt they've had that big an effect. Just as well I don't need to do much each year. Once again sales of previously established players were the main event to start off with. Having signed an extra pair of full-backs last year I felt Lokando and Angloma were worth bumping up to second choice to help with game time and while Chlup was clearly a 'never will be' even though his performances were no longer terrible, Salazar was a closer call. However Peric had already replaced him as No.2 and with his value and 40kpw wages I felt he was worth more as a sale than as a squad member and whoever ends up being first-choice, I'll probably be happy with my right-back options for a while. Having bought in a left-back as a 'spare' full-back I'm retraining him for the right as well, especially given he's right-footed so depth shouldn't be an issue.

Marco Aurelio was on my mind to leave as well but we were already 1 central defender 'short' in the squad (assuming at 2 players per position, plus a few more across various positions as a bonus like I've done quite a bit recently). I had started training Xuxinha as a defender given the 'Ball-playing Defender' shortage as well a brought in another midfielder to be trained for that position as well (which is what I anticipated doing), though that's only a long-term thing. Even with a proper defender also brought in he's still a decent squad option and and useful for tutoring, especially given he's a Model Pro and we still don't have many players old enough.

Our remaining problems haven't been solved yet but I like to think we've taken steps towards dealing with them. All three signings were 10M+ which isn't ideal but it's still not too expensive given the resources we have now and even at that price, any player who does make it could be considered a bargain. The more we develop the more we can afford the slow and patient approach.

Signings

[deltablue]

CL Draw 2039

Oh dear! We were still 3rd seeds but even then I hoped to get an easier draw than this, especially when you consider that FC Inter, Sarajevo, Trnava and Banat all made the group stage. Compared to those teams, even Krasnodar look far tougher as the weakest team in the group, with a few players who are much stronger then you'd expect. Then you have Real Madrid and Man Utd. Madrid have 4 CL wins this decade though their league record is mixed, sometimes finishing outside the top 2 including last year and ending up as low as 5th a few seasons ago.  Man Utd are title-less and have only occasionally been top 3, so I guess could be a lot worse though their squad it certainly still very strong.

Regardless of the draw, we should aim to qualify, and that goes for every round. I feel we're now at a stage where we can look at any opponent and think 'We can beat them', though we only ever will some of the time. Man Utd certainly look like a team we can qualify ahead of and if we don't, I expect big things from the Europa League. It's time to start thinking like a top team again. Things will go against us sometimes (probably including at least one match here) and that's ok, it's part of football and FM in particular, but we should always feel the possibility of victory is there.

[noikeee]

I had a CL group of Real Madrid, Man City and Inter. Wanna trade?

[deltablue]

Dec 2039

It's a massive birthday update! My main thought 'not bad, but should be doing better'. The domestic campaign started off comfortably enough but soon a lot of draws started to creep in from (often multi-goal) winning positions as either I was wary of going defensive when we were chasing a goal to finish each match off, or did it too early in the case of Palermo as opportunities to take it slow and save energy were few and far between. Our rivals were struggling to fire as well so were still top for a while before Juventus overtook us. We still kept our unbeaten record until Inter where we played almost the entire game with 10 men after a 2nd minute red card, which knocked us back again just as we looked like hitting our stride (and having regained the advantage over Juventus), and tougher games before Christmas (to which we can add Bologna away as the first match of January) caused us to drop a bit again. It's still tight and I'm confident we can recover and be champions again but we really should be comfortably ahead.

Europe also started well, and I was happy to sit back after taking a shock lead against Real (having had some very close calls at the other end) knowing that if we restricted them to an equalizer it was still a decent result and that's what happened. I hoped to build on it against Man Utd and that's what we appeared to do when we took the lead, despite van den Hoogenband going off injured (the first of two spells where he was out for a month) but then Jimenez happened. The 19yr old Spaniard has been good for large parts of this season but he had a nightmare here, easily losing possession for the equalizer and then conceding the penalty that gave them the lead. He couldn't come off fast enough after that though the rest of the defence were poor for their 3rd. Two wins over Krasnodar along with a draw and a Man Utd win in the other fixtures still put us ahead of Real Madrid and a Tahiraj winner against them at home sealed qualification with a match to spare, which is just as well as the defence were even worse than in the first match, taking us to 8 goals conceded against them compared to just a single one (in Madrid) in the other four.

Injuries may not have helped our stuttering form. I already mentioned van den Hoogenband being out injured twice with Tahiraj (who is at least now capable of getting a few goals) failing to live up to his initial promise as understudy. The second time was shortly after Mexes was ruled out for 2 months in the November international break with Winkler also on the 'out until Christmas' list, which wouldn't have helped our stuttering form, and the second heavy Man Utd defeat came at a bad time as well. So who do we have in the next round?

Not for the first time, the 'easier' side of the draw (the group runners up) looks at least as tough as the 'hard' side, which worked to our advantage this time as we avoided the worst teams and got Celtic instead. They have some good players (including Tomov) and were Europa League runners up a couple of seasons ago but I still think we should be aiming to win comfortably if we're not still in a bit of a rut.

[deltablue]

4 minutes ago, noikeee said:

I had a CL group of Real Madrid, Man City and Inter. Wanna trade?

I'll give you Man Utd

[noikeee]

5 minutes ago, deltablue said:

I'll give you Man Utd

I'd still take them. You only lost 5-1 to them. I got walloped 6-1 by Real.

Also, your FM is bugged, Cesena is top.

[deltablue]

1 hour ago, noikeee said:

I'd still take them. You only lost 5-1 to them. I got walloped 6-1 by Real.

Also, your FM is bugged, Cesena is top.

Ouch! Cesena isn't as much of a shock as you'd think. In the first seasons at Milan they were a strong 'there or thereabouts team, like Arsenal or Tottenham these days. They dropped of the radar for a few years but it looks like they're returning to form again.

[deltablue]

Mar 2040 (with added Champions League)

It looks like an incredibly exciting climax to the season and if that doesn't get you guys interested, nothing will

With our sluggish autumn form that got particularly bad in the run-up to Christmas, I was worried about going to a Bologna team who were actually just above us, but was surprised how easily we beat them (at least until we sat back with the job seemingly done and allowed them to get close). A busy schedule (though it's long been greater news when it isn't) didn't stop us from really returning to form and racking up the wins again in all competitions. It helped that van den Hoogenband and Winkler were back after a couple of months on the sidelines, though we had to wait another month or so for Mexes.

However Cesena and Juventus remained similarly consistent and while we did manage to edge ahead in the league, after 2 draws in a row ended our winning run we've had to keep racking up the wins after that to stay in front. As if our lead didn't look fragile enough, we have to go to both Cesena and Juventus in our next 4 matches along with home games against Inter and Fiorentina, the only two teams to have beaten us domestically this season. It's fair to say we unless our rivals start to stumble, we can't afford any slip-ups if we want to win a 4th title. We also face Juventus in a repeat of the cup final of 2 years ago, except they'll be the fresher team this time around. Having won the previous 3 league titles with many more wins surely to come it wouldn't be the end of the world to miss out this time but I really want to see how long a run we can manage.

We looked to comfortably have the Celtic tie wrapped up in the first leg (which is why as long-term followers of my career know, I reject 'accepted wisdom' and prefer to play at home first, since I like to potentially take the early advantage in a European tie rather than try and chase it) but trying to sit back and take it easy in Glasgow failed miserably and after 2 quick Celtic goals I abandoned that approach, realizing that we needed to chase a potentially decisive goal. They still leveled the tie and I was worried we were going to mess it up big time but Trabelsi restored the advantage (an away goal as well) with a Winkler brace putting it beyond them and giving us a draw on the night having been 3-0 down.

Dinamo had knocked out Juventus on away goals in the last 16 and I was celebrating getting them as our quarter-final opponents (though PSV would have been nice as well) but the longer it took us to score at home the more I was worried that we might potentially be another scalp. Gomes eventually managed to give us a goal but we failed to make it comfortable. I still knew that we only needed a draw (or a 1-goal defeat if we scored) to go through in Zagreb, against a far weaker team, so I was confident and van den Hoogenband's early penalty (extending our aggregate lead and giving us an away goal) seemed to back that up. When Carranza gave us another tie seemed to be settled. Another European away defensive horror show allowed them to score twice and level the match, though we could thankfully have afforded to concede another and still go through.

It's a fascinating set of semi-finalists. PSG were the last team to win and that was 20 years ago, and after they were beaten finalists the year after, only Bayern have been in the final a couple of times, and while the most recent was just 3 years ago, the other was 13 years before that. The picture I'm trying to build here is that we haven't got any teams that stand out as dominant European powers in recent years, instead being left with four strong sides with very little to choose between us, and it's impossible to predict how this will go.

I do think that we have just as good a chance of winning as any of the others, as long as we finally put in a good defensive performance away from home after 3 poor showings in a row (conceding 10 goals in the process) against Man Utd, Celtic and Dinamo. PSG will punish us far more than the latter two sides if we don't show up at either end of the pitch, that's for sure. However I already felt that when we're at our best, the sky's the limit and now is our chance to prove it. It won't help our tight league race but just making the final would be fantastic and while I'm really not the sort of manager who chooses one goal as being more important than another (though I do give slightly in certain circumstances, including resting players for the second leg against Dinamo despite the tight league situation), I'd happy take European glory over another league title right now. 

So, League, Cup and Champions League, all within pretty close reach. Will we win any of them, or will we end up empty handed after all that effort?

 

[deltablue]

May 2040

Whoa that was intense! I must admit that for a time I thought we had lost it. We managed to do what we needed to do against Inter but the trip to Juventus did not go well. We had a strong recent record against our arch-rivals, including some away wins, but on their form and with a CL semi coming up it was a very different story this time, and their second goal took them above us in a 3-way tie. We looked to have bounced back when we went 2-0 up against Fiorentina but with an eye on the second leg against PSG a few players were being rested and I felt confident enough to go defensive. That backfired as it's done so often this season and with Cesena away coming up I felt we were set to miss out but both our rivals lost the following day, nudging us ahead again.

Juventus dropped more points before our game with Cesena so when we took an early lead my mood had turned around considerably, as we would be 3 points ahead if we won with just 2 much easier games left. Despite a red card for Bouwhuis we won surprisingly comfortably and suddenly title No.4 seemed on after all. We had a few suspensions for Bologna (which was actually useful for giving a few key players a rest) while Mexes was back in after a couple of games out due to low morale and his fresh condition made a big impact as he scored twice in the first 10 minutes, taking us within a whisker of the title, clinched comfortably against Crotone on the final day.

Against PSG we started very strongly, but both Mexes and van den Hoogenband were struggling and we could have been clearly ahead very early on. Trabelsi and Gomes eventually gave us a good 2-0 win but we could have had a couple more. We seemed to be holding out well enough in Paris before the curse of the defense struck again. We gave them a penalty which allowed them to pull a goal back before the break and they didn't take long to level the tie. I still knew that unless we were being hammered, a single goal for us would be a big boost to our chances so when van den Hoogenband slotted home I felt we were in a far better position to at least go through on away goals, but we managed to hold on to the aggregate win anyway. Bayern await in the final in Lisbon.

With the title in the bag and having reached the Champions League final the pressure is off for the two finals. We have everyone fit and available ahead of both matches (with our opponents each having a handful of injuries and suspensions) aside from Trabelsi who got a groin strain against Crotone. I had decided to focus on Pirozzi over Ernst as No.2 in that position and he was already looking like a very good 18yr old but he has only started 7 matches for the club and hadn't really been able to do much more than being alright with getting game time and he's unlikely to be able to make a big individual impact.

[deltablue]

Cup Final 2040

Well that was easy. We beat them 2 years ago as the fresher team and I expected to be at a disadvantage this time. However while they had a midweek Europa League final that time, our schedule had eased up since the penultimate league game and we were in a position to keep players in a top condition for each match. It was one of those matches where it felt a lot longer than it actually took to take the lead, with a fast-paced team move ending up in van den Hoogenband playing it back to Mexes who immediately fired home. The Dutchman got the second from a similar position and when Mexes slipped past the defence for a 3rd. We now have a domestic treble under our belt. Can we cap it off with the big one?

[deltablue]

Champions League Final 2040 - AC Milan vs Bayern Munich (Estadio da Luz)

Having only made the quarter-finals for the first time I didn't expect to be in the final this year, especially not after two hammerings by Man Utd in the group stage and looking at risk of letting comfortable leads slip against weaker Celtic and Dinamo sides in the knockout rounds. PSG proved that we could do it against stronger teams and I feel confident about our chances of beating Bayern, especially as they have a few key players out injured and even full strength I feel we're evenly matched. I never expect these finals to be easy (though the last one for Ipswich against Bayern was, among others in the past) but there's definitely a lot of optimism.

Milan line-up

Subs
Xuxinha
Lokando
Udo
Tahiraj
Faasse
Gomes
Angloma
 

Pirozzi was only making his 9th start for the club (having only made 2 sub appearances in Europe before) and being on the receiving end of a heavy foul in the first minute wouldn't have eased his nerves, and an early booking made me worried that he was going to do something stupid, and if I had Ernst or even Trabelsi on the bench (since the latter was recovering better than expected, and while still far from fit might have been ok as a sub in hindsight) he wouldn't have lasted long. We had the early pressure but couldn't do much in terms of chances, mainly being provided by free-kicks as they kept on fouling. We even had a penalty in the 38th minute only to see it saved, and that was that for the first half.

The second half saw a brief Bayern threat but little else until late on, with the main highlight being a powerful Mexes header from a spectacular Winkler cross which was disallowed. With Pirozzi only briefly managing to be above disappointing I decided to take him off for Gomes as a 3rd forward in extra-time as the game started to heat up again with a couple of corners being forced at both ends. I didn't have to wait long after that for a breakthrough as van den Hoogenband played the ball from the end line to Mexes who tapped in at point blank range, and this time it was allowed. A strong but wide shot from Bayern served as a warning that we hadn't won yet, however it soon was as Peric managed to steal the ball to help us break, and played it to van den Hoogenband who calmly slotted home, even adding another assisted by Gomes, easy as you please, and it was goodnight Bayern as we finally shone in an otherwise underwhelming final.

[deltablue]

Summary

That was definitely an exciting season, if only because it looked like we had missed our chance to comfortably lead the league and struggled to get a clear advantage even when we were very much back on form, to the point that until we beat Cesena I was really doubting we could win the title. In Europe I didn't feel we were contenders until after the first leg of the semi-final, which makes it feel a little strange to have won, though I think it was well deserved in the end. Even without threatening too much up top for most of the match, we were otherwise playing very well as a team (which is why I didn't take anyone off aside from Pirozzi) and were the better team on the day from the start, even though that wasn't saying much. That gives us a clean sweep of trophies for the season (four in total, including the Italian Super Cup) with the prospect of adding the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup to that later in the year.

We have 8 players going to the Euros in Norway this summer, Milinovic for Croatia (finally making a major tournament after three failed qualifications in a row), Mexes, Trabelsi and a recalled (his only cap was almost 6 years ago) Gomes for France, Cardia for Italy, van den Hoogenband and Bouwhuis for the Netherlands and Jimenez for Spain. I wonder if any of them will taste further glory.

Star Player: Despite another strong season for his compatriot and strike partner respectively, it's hard not to give it to van den Hoogenband, especially as it's probably no coincidence that a lot of our disappointing results came when he was injured. He's up to 138 goals in 169 appearances after just 6 years at the club so his final career tally is going to be very impressive.

Squad Stats

[noikeee]

Congratulations! That was quite a run in the Champions League considering you hadn't achieved much there yet in previous seasons. Shades of Magic Milan starting to show up here!

I still think your formation is absolutely bonkers though. 

[deltablue]

On 08/06/2017 at 12:21, noikeee said:

Congratulations! That was quite a run in the Champions League considering you hadn't achieved much there yet in previous seasons. Shades of Magic Milan starting to show up here!

I still think your formation is absolutely bonkers though. 

It certainly took me by surprise, given I don't think we're quite among the strongest teams in Europe quite yet and had a relatively easy ride after the group stage (even Bayern were clearly weakened in the final, to the point that half the work Cardia had to do in both finals as keeper-captain was lifting the trophies). However having worried that European success would be harder to come by this time I'm glad to get a first Champions League win under our belt.

You know I came across it completely by accident It's interesting to see it work, with the full-backs getting far up the pitch on the attack (and the winger almost acting as a 3rd forward) while still giving us the numbers while defending and the support forward (Mexes or Gomes) getting very far back to get stuck in reinforcing the midfield as well.

[Raware]

A fantastic season all round   even if you do have a weird tactic!  (Although having looked at @noikeee's thread, I've decided that yours is actually normal in comparison!)

[deltablue]

Sorry for the silence. I was ready to do a Euro update at least but other things have taking up my attention and I'm only now giving any attention to FM for the sake of finally finishing off pre-season. Might be a while before I'm properly active again.

[deltablue]

Euro 2040 - Norway

It's been so long that I can't remember what I was going to say and I have to look it up all over again, especially regarding what happened with my players. England somehow claim yet another European title (meaning Silva of all people remains the only one of my players with an international win throughout the entire career!) but unlike their double victory in the 2020's (the second of which was at home) they do seem to have a strong team with some genuine stars.

Every Milan player had the opportunity to face at least one of their teammates, though not all of them got playing time. Trabelsi was the star of the show for the French, finishing 3rd in 'player of the tournament' with a couple of goals and 6 assists. Mexes was surprisingly sidelined for a while after what appeared to be his breakthrough 4 years ago but no longer and he now has 23 goals in 35 international appearances, though while he played in every match he was only once on the pitch for the whole game, getting his only goal of the tournament in that quarter-final against Spain, though not against Jimenez who picked up his first couple of caps in the warm-up matches but was on the bench for the tournament proper (the only one of the Milan pack not to get a single minute).

Van den Hoogenband is surprisingly still only a bit-part player at international level. For all his goalscoring prowess at club level he's yet to score for the Netherlands and single sub appearance against Croatia took the number of senior appearances to just 9. Bouwhuis had no such trouble as he's been as much of a high-performing key player for them as he is for us. Cardia has also been established internationally as Italy's No.1 for a while now. With 61 and 67 caps respectively, they're easily our highest capped players, with Milinovic unsurprisingly the only one who comes near on 55 for Croatia (Mexes' 35 is next), though admittedly they are also our most experienced players, being the only ones aside from Gomes older than 23.

Milinovic and Croatia deserve their own mention. They had been absent from the past 3 international tournaments but certainly made up for lost time,going all the way to the final. Milinovic certainly have any problems with encountering familiar faces. He faced Trabelsi, Mexes and even Gomes (getting his only minutes) in the group stage, thankfully none of them being involved in the collision that saw him go off injured, Cardia in the last 16 and Bouwhuis and van den Hoogenband in the quarter-finals, maybe having something to do with why the latter's only appearance in the tournament was a poor one, after all out of everyone playing for opposing nations (which rules out Bouwhuis), who better to keep him quiet?

[deltablue]

Summer 2040

I finally realized why my player search pool has been shrinking in the past few years. A lot of the staff I inherited (including the scouts) had been around a long time and were getting very old. As they retired we've been losing scouting knowledge so hardly any players show up from outside the big nations. That does include Portugal. With a certain generosity of spirit. I wasn't even seeing Mexican players any more and a few previous signings like Milinovic and Canacue (as well as Tomov and Fagner, both signed from Bulgaria) probably wouldn't be on my radar at all now, so I've rejigged my scouting (previously with everyone roaming to find new talent) to send one scout to every region but one (Central Asia) since we've a got the numbers and while there may be little point in scouting at least half of those, there should be Eastern Europeans, Scandinavians, Mexicans, North/West Africans and maybe the occasional player from other nations that I have a better chance of seeing, where there were almost none of any of those before.

My previous policy of stocking up on a handful of 'spare' players yet again meant that I could sell a few early on without needing to get in direct replacements later in the window, though the first team has pretty much been settled enough that there haven't been the same level of risky sales of a few previously established players as in earlier years. That's probably just as well without many standout players to sign (though maybe getting wider scouting knowledge again will help). Mullins was a surprisingly early no-brainer. We have lacked quality backup for Winkler (and maybe even he isn't as good as we could eventually get). For a few years I've been admittedly bad at paying much attention to a player from the youth intake named Taino who is one of the reasons Faasse was sold, and while he will finally get more of a chance, it'll be interesting how Mullins' development (he has to learn to play in central midfield for a start) shakes things up.

With Xuxinha now able to play in defence (with Rousvoal close to joining him) and having done so a little last season I'm slightly reshuffling the defence. I always thought Carranza would be good as the established partner for Bouwhuis we've been lacking, if only he wasn't the only player we had vaguely suited to be the BPD. Now he's liberated to play in the standard defensive position, which may seem a bit harsh on Jimenez who was doing a good job of establishing himself over the past couple of years, but was still the youngest starting defender and the most likely to make a mess of things.

Rousvoal's fate would depend on whether I was able to sign a defender or midfielder, since he'd be the backup for one position and the new guy for the other. Like Taino, I look at him (having just recently turned 19) and think he deserves more of an opportunity. He had been third choice in the pecking order in midfield last season but while he's still behind Xuxinha, the latter's move to defence and his own impending ability to do the same still improves his position. In the end seeing the tacking stats of the other new signing Perrot means that while he can also play in both positions, Perrot will be considered more of a central midfielder and Rousvoal a defender.

Signings

[deltablue]

CL Draw

I was very much looking forward to being top seeds as holders (having only been 3rd at best before) but the draw still wasn't that easy. Tottenham are a good side and as it happens we were due to play them in the European Super Cup the day after. We won but they took us to extra-time, which served as enough of a warning shot that they could be a challenge. Shakhtar are a familiar face from our earlier CL campaigns, and they were pretty tough back then. They're still reliant on their handful of foreign stars (mostly South American), who are genuinely very good, while suffering from a relative shortage of local talent. Anji's squad doesn't look quite as good but they do at least have more balance with some Russians alongside the key foreigners.

It will still be a shock if we don't qualify and I even expect us to top the group but I wouldn't be surprised if we dropped a bunch of points along the way.

[deltablue]

Oct 2040

It all started well enough, even if the Super Cups were hard work. The first warning signs came when we went behind against Anji, which ended a run of 7 clean sheets in all competitions even if we came back to win comfortably enough. We failed to do so again when the same happened against Lazio even though we really should have and a crushing defeat to Juventus handed them the advantage for now. It was just a really bad day, not helped by the fact that I'm more willing to rest players now and give players a run if they do well enough after coming into the team that trying to preserve my best team. Milinovic and Winkler were genuinely in need of a rest (though not critically so) while Lokando and Pirozzi were having stints in the team on merit (until that match anyway), so we were far from our strongest on paper, but that didn't excuse the horror show or the fact that more senior players were Peric and van den Hoogenband were at least as poor.

That actually was our only other blip in the league and we soon managed a narrow but important win over Napoli, but things weren't going so well in Europe. Tottenham were as tricky as I expected them to be but the Shakhtar defeat really was a shock. The return followed by the home game with Anji should still see us through comfortably before the final match at Tottenham which I'm not optimistic about.  Still as last season proved, if we can't beat them to top spot, it's not the end of the world.

[noikeee]

Uh, what the hell happened in Turin against Juve? Harsh.

[Benjoe]

Your two new signings are looking very solid.

Mullins is an unreal enganche at 16 and Perrot is an excellent defensive midfielder. 

[deltablue]

10 hours ago, noikeee said:

Uh, what the hell happened in Turin against Juve? Harsh.

Everything. Our first choice midfielders had to be rested. The policy of allowing younger 'second choice' players to stay in the team for a run weakening us further on paper. Even established players were awful and I forgot to mention the 2 red cards.

The fine tradition of playmakers getting constantly booked continued in Winkler's absence with Taino. Trabelsi (who is 'competent' there and has been used when needed a handful of times in the past) was moved back and decided to get into the spirit as well. 

3 hours ago, Benjoe said:

Your two new signings are looking very solid.

Mullins is an unreal enganche at 16 and Perrot is an excellent defensive midfielder. 

I actually dismissed the idea of signing Perrot a couple of times and I can't remember why. Getting enough opportunities might be hard but Mullins shouldn't have as much difficulty once he can play further back.