FM21: Unia Janikowo - This Year Is Our Year

[Rikulec]

Alright, now I'm 100% sure these are the final upgrades.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - September 2032 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

Legia drop points for the second time this season, allowing us to overtake them on goal difference and go top.

Puchar Polski

A routine win against lower league opposition.

Champions League

Our defence was severely weakened for the Shakhtar game and unfortunately it showed. The defeat at Rennes was always to be expected, but we did give them a closer game than the scoreline suggests.

Transfers

Michał Zatwarnicki - we paid Wisła £1,8M for a 15-year-old. I'll let you just have a look and decide if he was worth it.

Miroslav Gordic - £1,2M was enough to bring in this talented centre back from Crvena Zvezda.

[Toffle]

Il y a 15 heures, Rikulec a dit :

Michał Zatwarnicki - we paid Wisła £1,8M for a 15-year-old. I'll let you just have a look and decide if he was worth it.

It was well worth it buying the new Olivier Giroud 

[Rikulec]

55 minutes ago, Toffle said:

It was well worth it buying the new Olivier Giroud 

I'm actually retraining him to play MC, we'll see what comes out of it. The early signs are fairly promising.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - October 2032 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

Not the most consistent of months, I must say. The table is becoming surprisingly tight at the top.

Puchar Polski

No trouble here.

Champions League

We held on well until the opening minutes of the second half and in the meantime we even created a couple of good chances.

[Gizmo7]

All caught up with this now - a really enjoyable read of your journey in Poland, great stuff!

Will be following this closely from now on

[Rikulec]

1 hour ago, Gizmo7 said:

All caught up with this now - a really enjoyable read of your journey in Poland, great stuff!

Will be following this closely from now on

That's great to hear, cheers mate.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - November 2032 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

Three wins out of three put us in the driving seat as Legia get upset by ŁKS in the final game of the month.

Champions League

Another respectable performance despite the defeat against Real Madrid. The real important game this month was the other one though and we really turned up, showing Shakhtar who should get the Europa League spot.

[Bitner]

Wow, i'm back and you're rich, buddy. Invite me to them parties.

Cheers,
Bitner

[Rikulec]

7 hours ago, Bitner said:

Wow, i'm back and you're rich, buddy. Invite me to them parties.

Cheers,
Bitner

[Rikulec]

Boo.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - December 2032 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

Two perfect months in a row leave us in a very good position.

Puchar Polski

I was amused to see Kokoska score for us once more, but then he also found the back of the net at the other end of the pitch and things went downhill. We haven't beaten Legia in five games now, that's worrying.

Champions League

A cracking performance, we controlled the game from start to finish and really deserved to score even more.

[Rikulec]

That's probably not the best draw we could have got, but definitely not the worst either. It's a 50-50 tie in my opinion, it's going to be really close.

[Rikulec]

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - January 2033 - Unia Janikowo

Friendlies

Transfers

We keep making silly money from transfers. Of course I've already lined up replacements for both these players, including one particular winger I've had my eyes on for a while now.

[Northernpilgrim]

It's all going rather well! KUTGW mate

[Rikulec]

40 minutes ago, Northernpilgrim said:

It's all going rather well! KUTGW mate

Well, it's certainly not bad. Cheers.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - February 2033 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

No unbeaten season for us this year as we got FM'd by Wisła, at our own place too. We also failed to beat Legia once again, though we did come back from behind to rescue a draw.

Europa League

We had our hands on it and we blew it. The first leg was tighter than a pair of skinny jeans, but the final result was ultimately terrible for us. We needed to pull off something special in the Basque country... and we almost did. We were 3:1 up and cruising after Buras's goal. Shortly after he had a golden chance to further extend our lead, but he hit the post from a tight angle after luckily rounding the goalkeeper. And just a couple of minutes later a deflected strike from a difficult position went past Milenkovic and into the back of the net to shatter our dreams. We certainly seem to have a thing for heartbreaking European ties.

Transfers

Miroslav Coufal - a player I've had my eyes on for a while now. He joins for £5,75M from Banik Ostrava, our new record high.

Jakub Stefaniak - a talented midfielder joins us on loan until the end of the season from Borussia Dortmund.

[Gizmo7]

44 minutes ago, Rikulec said:

Jakub Stefaniak - a talented midfielder joins us on loan until the end of the season from Borussia Dortmund.

Stefaniak looks like an amazing youngster! Did he come through Dortmund’s academy or did they poach him from a Polish club recently? 

[Rikulec]

4 hours ago, Gizmo7 said:

Stefaniak looks like an amazing youngster! Did he come through Dortmund’s academy or did they poach him from a Polish club recently? 

He came through their academy. I did even try to somehow bring him in permanently, but they said £140M.

[Gizmo7]

1 hour ago, Rikulec said:

He came through their academy. I did even try to somehow bring him in permanently, but they said £140M.

Wow - maybe one day then! 

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - March 2033 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

A record win followed by another dominant performance where we couldn't hit the barn door. Prime FM randomness.

Youth Intake

As expected, not a very promising crop, but Samek looks decent.

Krzysztof Samek

Tomasz Smyt

[Rikulec]

[Gizmo7]

6 hours ago, Rikulec said:

Krzysztof Samek

Really good mentals on Samek, and not horrific technicals either for a 15-year-old. Future squad player there, for sure!

[Rikulec]

5 hours ago, Gizmo7 said:

Really good mentals on Samek, and not horrific technicals either for a 15-year-old. Future squad player there, for sure!

His personality is a bit of a worry, I'm not sure whether he has a lot of room to actually grow. He's certainly going to be useful if he does though.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - April 2033 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

Only a complete disaster can prevent us from retaining the title.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - May 2033 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

No surprises in the final two games, although Górnik Zabrze did their best.

[Rikulec]

We've now properly dominated the league. With five wins in a row, can we become the first club ever to make it six?

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - Season Review - 2032/33 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

Results (Jul-Dec) - Results (Feb-May)

Competition Performance: Winners

We dominate once again, although this time Legia pushed us almost all the way through - kudos to them for a very strong season that would normally see them crowned as the champions. The loss to Wisła really stings though, we were definitely good enough to go unbeaten.

Puchar Polski

Competition Performance: Third Round

Given our success in the past years, I'm amazed we've only won the cup once so far and that was before we even reached the Ekstraklasa.

Superpuchar

Competition Performance: Runners-up

Disappointment in the shoot-out as we lose the supercup for the first time.

Champions League

Competition Performance: Group Stage

We beat two very strong teams to demonstrate that we really deserve a spot among the best. We also met our aim by finishing third and I'd go as far as saying we weren't very far off Rennes.

Europa League

Competition Performance: First Knockout Round

Another bitter European night as we gave away what would have been a spectacular - and well deserved - comeback.

Squad

One frustrating thing about getting stronger and stronger is that it's becoming really difficult to find young Polish players that have the potential to be good enough for us.

Transfers - Finances

A spectacular transfer window as we bring in a whooping £60M while also acquiring some real gems such as Stankov and Coufal.

We're getting filthy rich.

Player of the Season

1st - Zdravko Coric - what a player, what a season. He was simply unstoppable in the league, getting his first Ekstraklasa double-double since joining the club and becoming the best assist provider in the whole division. I'm surprised and disappointed that he's not even recognised as favoured personnel, this was his fourth season with us and I ****ing love him.

2nd - Ondrej Penicka - looking at him, you can clearly see that he's head and shoulders above any other striker in the league in terms of overall ability. Sure, Legia's Filip Jacko may have scored 34 league goals this season, but that's purely down to his incredible pace and dribbling. This guy, on the other hand, can work in any conditions. I'm sure we've still not seen his best version.

3rd - Adrian Skorłutowski - our star man didn't feel as decisive as in the previous seasons this time round, but still, if you look at his statistics, you'll see that his record was really good once again. Only three goals short of our top scorer Penicka in all competitions, a good number of assists, and the highest average rating in the whole team. This guy's a proper beast.

Next Season

The upcoming campaign could be quite big as it's going to see Poland have five teams in Europe for the first time. This probably puts even more pressure on us as our efforts will have a smaller impact on the country's coefficient, so realistically we have to do even better now, unless someone else pulls a rabbit out of the hat. Another thing is the elusive unbeaten season in the league, I'd love to do it next year.

[Rikulec]

Ooooh, I'm excited! I looked at the facilities page and it says that it's going to be a 13,300 all-seater, that's bigger than the population of Janikowo.

[Rikulec]

Some more news worth sharing following the end of the season. Surprisingly I didn't win the manager of the season award, it went to Cracovia's boss instead.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - Season Preview - 2033/34 - Unia Janikowo

Board Expectations:

PKO BP Ekstraklasa: Challenge for the title
Puchar Polski: Win it
Superpuchar: Not important
Champions League: Playoff Round

My Expectations:

PKO BP Ekstraklasa: Go unbeaten.
Puchar Polski: Not important.
Superpuchar: Not important.
Champions League: Group stage at least, maaaybe even more than that if we get a kind draw.

Budgets:

Transfer: £34,411,844
Wage: £699,423 (currently spending £168,990)
Balance: £55,740,108

[Bitner]

15 horas atrás, Rikulec disse:

Ooooh, I'm excited! I looked at the facilities page and it says that it's going to be a 13,300 all-seater, that's bigger than the population of Janikowo.

Bigger than your city HAHAHHUAHUAHU

Cheers,
Bitner 

[TheRobert]

13 hours ago, Rikulec said:

Jakub Słota's Management Career - Season Preview - 2033/34 - Unia Janikowo

Board Expectations:

PKO BP Ekstraklasa: Challenge for the title
Puchar Polski: Win it
Superpuchar: Not important
Champions League: Playoff Round

My Expectations:

PKO BP Ekstraklasa: Go unbeaten.
Puchar Polski: Not important.
Superpuchar: Not important.
Champions League: Group stage at least, maaaybe even more than that if we get a kind draw.

Budgets:

Transfer: £34,411,844
Wage: £699,423 (currently spending £168,990)
Balance: £55,740,108

34M £... WOW! Good luck in the next season

[Rikulec]

12 hours ago, TheRobert said:

34M £... WOW! Good luck in the next season

To be honest I can't see myself spending a lot of that money. The reason is that our squad is already pretty much as good as it can be given our reputation, so the only way to improve is to buy very young players that are already either good enough or close to good enough to play in the first team and hope that they develop and push us forward. In the upcoming update you're going to see a few players brought in with this idea in mind. Splashing out on established players doesn't make sense with my self-imposed restriction of only buying players from Central and Eastern Europe because there are no viable options on the market that would really improve our quality. I did try to bring in a couple of proper Serbian wonderkids, but they weren't interested in joining us.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - Pre-Season - 2033/34 - Unia Janikowo

Friendlies

Two close games in our usual short pre-season.

Transfers

A relatively quiet window so far, but I'll be surprised if there are no big sales this summer. Apart from what you can see, we also sold Sergiu Suflaru to a Russian side Ufa for £2,3M, but that happened before the season reset date.

Maros Gasparik - a very likely successor to Coric who can probably grow and become even better.

Boris Vukadinovic - our new starting central midfielder. His physicals should be a huge asset.

Kacper Kotwica - he had half of the Bundesliga interested in him, so I really hope he can live up to the hype.

We also promoted Jakub Warzycha to the first team.

[Rikulec]

Yes, I admit, I did forget to update you on my son. So, his side Górnik Konin avoided relegation by finishing 14th. He contributed with four goals and four assists, having started in roughly half of the league games and also coming off the bench a few times. They didn't extend his contract though and now he's off to Lechia Tomaszów Mazowiecki, who, unfortunately, are in a non-playable league, so he's stepped down to the 5th tier again. He got a slight raise and immediately became their vice-captain though, so there are positives as well. Hopefully he can get another team promoted.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - July 2033 - Unia Janikowo

Superpuchar

Plenty of drama as we equalise with almost the last kick of regular time to make it to penalties and reclaim the supercup.

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

We're off to a sensational start, Vukadinovic being the early revelation.

Transfers

Edin Kovacevic - a promising young striker joins for £3,5M from Sparta Prague. My intention was to have him play for the youth team this season, but then Penicka picked up an injury that bought the youngster some minutes in the league. As you can see, he's already banging goals in!

[Gizmo7]

8 hours ago, Rikulec said:

Edin Kovacevic - a promising young striker joins for £3,5M from Sparta Prague. My intention was to have him play for the youth team this season, but then Penicka picked up an injury that bought the youngster some minutes in the league. As you can see, he's already banging goals in!

Driven personality and 20 determination at 16  He could develop in to an absolute monster for you.

[Rikulec]

3 hours ago, Gizmo7 said:

Driven personality and 20 determination at 16  He could develop in to an absolute monster for you.

That's what I'm hoping for! The early signs are very good, my scouts were absolutely raving on about him.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - August 2033 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

Still perfect, still yet to concede. We also finally beat Legia in the league.

Champions League

Poland's rise in the coefficient table allowed us to go straight into the third qualifying round this time. I was pleased with how easily we dealt with FC Viitorul, this really shows our progress if you remember our hard-fought tie with them a few years back. The Dinamo games were much closer, although we looked more or less in control in both of them. I think we've reached the point where group stage qualification is something we expect, not celebrate.

[Rikulec]

Oof, that's not good. We're definitely not going through and it's probably going to be our toughest battle for the third place thus far.

[Rikulec]

That's a nice record to have. The previous holders were Widzew, who set it all the way back in 1997.

[Northernpilgrim]

4 hours ago, Rikulec said:

Oof, that's not good. We're definitely not going through and it's probably going to be our toughest battle for the third place thus far.

That's a ghastly Champions League draw. Third would be an achievement from that group

[Rikulec]

6 hours ago, Northernpilgrim said:

That's a ghastly Champions League draw. Third would be an achievement from that group

To make things worse, other Polish clubs dropped like flies in their European qualifying games and we only have Cracovia left in the Conference League. That's going to hurt our coefficient badly, we're losing over 8 points this year and I can't see us making up for it.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - September 2033 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

We're no longer perfect, our defence remains impenetrable though.

Puchar Polski

They gave us no trouble.

Champions League

I think this season is a write-off already.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - October 2033 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. I've never had a run anywhere close to this in my 15 years of playing FM and CM, this is crazy.

Puchar Polski

Apparently we're not completely immune to defensive blunders though. A horrendous misunderstanding cost us a goal that actually left us trailing at half time, thankfully we managed to turn the game around after the break.

Champions League

I wonder what's going to happen first, conceding in the league or scoring in the Champions League?

[Rikulec]

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - November 2033 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

The run is gone and so is our unbeaten season. It was a deserved defeat as well, we simply didn't show up despite playing a relatively strong team.

Puchar Polski

Easy enough.

Champions League

Well, there are some positives. We've finally scored, we put up a good fight against Barcelona and perhaps even deserved a point, and we still have a shot at sneaking into the Europa League. We have to win in Portugal though.

[Rikulec]

Jakub Słota's Management Career - December 2033 - Unia Janikowo

PKO BP Ekstraklasa

Two more wins, two more clean sheets.

Champions League

We dominated the game and deserved to win, but we didn't and we have only ourselves to blame. That's pretty much season over for us right here.