TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Through to the next round We we're good away from home and only need to progress once more to be guaranteed another group stage. Vålerenga are better than Lech though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Goodbye Vålerenga We destroyed them. Condé came back in our central defence after being away on international duty and netted a hattrick with two goals from set pieces and a penalty. This is good! The winner of this round will go up against the Danish Champions FC København. They are pretty much the strongest team in scandinavia in this game. That will be interesting. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 A costly draw... We were pretty much guaranteed progression, it came at a big loss however as our top Right Back Francis will be out for probably the remainder of the qualification in august. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Draw at home This is not looking good. Before this match we had another injury as Tumminello our right Winger will be out for about two months. Then as I was working with registration we somehow managed to unregistrate both Tumminello and Isma Cerro (probably our best winger) and only register Daniel Arzani (who we're actually trying to sell). It was an even match, that could have gone either way, we didn't manage to capitalise on their red card. That could prove costly in the next match. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 (edited) It went as expected We didn't stand a chance, but managed not to make it worse in the second half. Overall FCK just has a much better squad than us and it showed. Furthermore Alex Lopez got injured three days before the match. It was a bruised shoulder and as we didn't really have any other strikers registered I played him in the first half and it didn't work. We can still qualify for the europa league but are guaranteed Conference League. I'm guessing we could redeem ourselves in the conference league, but the shape of this squad right now is not the best. Samaris has agreed a contract with Chaves from Portugal, but I'm delaying the deal because we really need him right now... Next up we have Vålerenga (once again) in the Europa League playoffs Edited August 31, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Anything can happen: Not our best match, we should have secured a bigger win. I was about to switch our Richards when he got the red card, and it really set us back. We're still in front, but this is not how the matches in Champions League went. Anything can happen in Norway... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Europa League! It wasn't a pretty match, but once again we beat Vålerenga over two matches. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Europa League Group Stage Draw I think we have an okay chance of making third place. We are realistically able to beat WSG Tirol. We can hope Braga and Sociedad underestimate us. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Transfer update: In: Out: We've made some changes to the first team: Lorenzo Andrenacci is our new goalkeeper. Iacobucci wanted away and we managed to get about 350K for him. In Central Defence we have bought ind Andrea Meroni and Senou Coulibaly. We needed som better players and these look like they'll be able to be up for the challenge, although Coulibaly is rather slow and paid too much for my liking. In midfield we made a big last season with Nguiamba, but have sold him again as he wasn't the best midfielder and never did well in defence either. Lucas Lima is not looking like the big deal I thought he would be, but he's an okay sub for now. At the end of the transfer window we said goodbye to our captain Samaris who has done well, but ultimately would be going away because of his age. Things went a bit easier when suddenly Baldursson became available: Other than that we sadi welcome to Yade who will be a sub for our wingers and strikers. Raicevic wanted away and will be leaving in January. With all these changes our starting 11 will be looking something like this throughout the autumn season: Our old reserve Maistro has stepped up and become an integral part of our midfield and now all of a sudden we don't have any players over 30 in our starting 11. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Super Cup winners in San Marino This season we didn't throw it away. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Draw against sociedad We got our first point in the group against probably the hardest opposition. Great start. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Loss against Tirol Our strikers really weren't up for it in this match... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Draw against Braga An okay result considering we didn't have any chances. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Win at home against Braga This was a spectacular match. Everything went against us when they were up 1-3, and then all of a sudden things just changed. Alex Lopez was having a bad day, and we put Tumminello up front from the wing and he returned the favor. Massive win for us. This gives us a great chance of progressing from the group. We can still lose everything against Tirol, but right now things are looking good. If we win against Tirol and Sociedad wins, we're in the Europa League in February. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Reputation: After being rock bottom for some time, we have gone up and become the most reputable club in San Marino. We were actually very low even after the european succes of last season, but this year we've gone up. I have a feeling that we've not gone down because we haven't sold too many players this season, and we've also had succes both in San Marino and Europe so far. We'll hope we can do better over time soon, so that we can attract better players once we have a higher reputation. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 We're through to the first knockout round of the Europa League We're stuck in second place now after a match we won easily against Tirol. After 15 minutes both Sociedad and Folgore had scored and we never looked back. Great result and fantastic with yet another progression from the Europa League Group Stages. We really shouldn't be above Braga, but we are!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 We end the group with a win Fairly even match, where they didn't get many chances and we more clinical than usual. Good way to end the group stages, and we get some more money from the win, which we'll spend in central defence once again. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Dinamo Kyiv in the first knockout round Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted August 31, 2023 Author Share Posted August 31, 2023 Few upgrades They don't want to upgrade the youth facilities though. It hasn't even been an option. That might take some time to get up to full capacity. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 1, 2023 Author Share Posted September 1, 2023 I've made a terrible mistake! I've sold Marco Tumminello, and we should have gotten a lot more for him. Udinese came up with about 950K euro and 50% of profits from next sale. He wanted away instantly, and it seemed like a good offer, but he was one of our three best players, and we could still make good use of him. I'm already regretting this a lot, and it will be a lesson for the future to keep a hold of our best players even though they might get frustrated. Eventually things will pass and they move on. He had two and a half years left on his contract to do that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 1, 2023 Author Share Posted September 1, 2023 Our biggest transfer so far! As I'm always keeping an eye on who is available on the transfer list all of a sudden Palacios became available. I'm thinking this is one of those chances we have to take, and we actually end up getting him though he is now our highest paid player by far. He initially wanted half a year contract, bu we made him agree to an optional extension. We're gonna have to try and extend his contract again very soon, but this is one of those transfers that will redeem the sale of Tumminello, and take us to a better level. Our central midfield is actually looking very good for now, so I'm thinking of using him as an inverted winger on the left side of the pitch. We do have Isma Cerro over there, but having played him for 2,5 seasons, we're getting to a point where we're not progressing further with him, and changes has to be made before we start to degress. 5,3M with all clauses activated. Lets hope he can become the star man for many seasons in this squad. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 1, 2023 Author Share Posted September 1, 2023 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 1, 2023 Author Share Posted September 1, 2023 Win away from home! Clinical performance from the players and we got a huge result ni a match we shouldn't have won, but we did! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 1, 2023 Author Share Posted September 1, 2023 We're through to the second round! Massive result in a match where everything once again went our way. We had some trouble in the buildup as we had lots of suspensions and injuries. Furthermore we sold more players than we could register in January, which results in our european squad being quite thin for now. A little detail is that we used our left back as a right winger. He has okay stats for that, and it was the only way we could field a team of players where we wouldn't have to use grey players in the starting 11. Great result! We have PSV Eindhoven in the next round. Not the worst draw. We could be able to cause an upset once more. This is going to be interesting. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 1, 2023 Author Share Posted September 1, 2023 It's not looking good I might have been too optimistic thinking we could cause an upset here. They were all over us, and we didn't really stand a chance. There were no real highlights to our game. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 1, 2023 Author Share Posted September 1, 2023 Our season's over Another bad match, mostly at the expense of lots of changes in january and injuries. We didn't have any offensive players on the bench and had to switch cevoli (san marinese half star player) in. OI haven't made a transfer update on what happened in january, but at the end of the window we got an injury for Francis our best right back and one of the best players at the club who would be out til May. I brought in Wague on a half year contract and I believe he has given away three penalties so far, within a month and a half. His contract won't be extended. The season is over in europe and we did well once again. PSV were simply much better, but we're getting there. In three-five seasons time we'll be beating PSV 4-1. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 NxGn We finally have some players on the NxGn list, or at least some of the are incoming transfers. I've tried my best to sign a lot of youngsters, so right now we're waiting for over 70 youngsters to come join us when they've turned 18. I'm trying to spend every bit of the transfer budget, so that we have lots of players for the future. The plan is to let almost everyone og out on loan for the first three or four seasons, and then all of a sudden we should have a team that would be capable of challenging for the Champions League. Meanwhile I'm gonna try and make the best of the transfermarket. If we can sign more players like Palacios for the first team, we're gonna be able to reach the group stages of the Champions League real soon. I don't mind being in the Europa League, or the Conference League for that matter, as the most important thing for us right now seems to be getting a higher national coefficient. The club coefficient will come as well. This season we we're seeded third in the Europa league, and depending on the clubs in the competition next season we might end up raching second seeding, which would make our chances of progression much more smooth. Enough of that. Let's get to NxGn: In second place we find Marc Aso who we're signing on a free in the summer of 2024: He's a decent talent who can cover up all positions in our midfield. I'm considering whether or not we will loan him out or keep him at the club. We need homegrown talent, and right now we only have José Mario at our squad who will be decent enough for the future, and will be homegrown in summer 2025. We might give Aso a season away on loan and then keep him, that way he can still be homegrown in the future, but it would be all the way in the summer of 2028. In 23rd place we find Guillermo Mena: Massive talent, and a future right back in our squad. Possibly a year away on loan and then we will integrate him into our squad to be homegrown in 2028. Squad registration has proven a big hindance in our european campaign as our width is non existent when we have injuries or suspensions. In 25th place we have Radovan Jevremovic: Promising centre back, who will be going out on loan to reach his potential. We've had succes with sending Andy Harwood out on loan this season and he is arguably our best left back now. I'm hoping the same will happen here. I think we're gonna keep lending Harwood out for a few more seasons. I've secured a long contract with him, and the prospect of him getting even better is tempting. I don't think he'll be proceeding as well right now in San Marino as our Training Facilities, staff and the general level of the league isn't good enough. I don't want to stall his progression, and in a few years we'll have a left back who could be competing at the highest level of football. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 On to the next season. We already have a new goalkeeper incoming, and Palacios is demanding a contract we can't afford right now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 We say goodbye to Ben Arfa. He was not registered for this season, and I just couldn't get myself to sack him. Good thing he didn't get to play at a lower level Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 (edited) End of year improvements in Europe Edited September 2, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 Champions league draw: We were actually one of the seeded teams and ended up getting the bulgarian champions. We should be able to beat them, but it was not a lucky draw. The winner of this however is almost certain to be guaranteed a european group stage this season: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 We win in bulgaria A match that should never have been this exciting to watch! We went ahead and then gave it all away. Matias Palacios scored a dirct free kick to claim victory and with what we just saw, we better win at home. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 (edited) Win at home Just as expected we were better than them in San Marino. Even after the red card to our new backup player Gradit, Tsadjout kept scoring. He won't be doing that for much longer. We got a bid of 1,3M Euro for him, and he got mad that we brought in Slobodan Tetic, so now he's going away. Tetic was actually brought in to replace Alex Lopez who turns 31 soon, but it will be tsadjout who says his goodbyes first. I don't think Alex Lopez will be at the club when we reach then end of august though. Tetic is a much more complete player than Tsedjout. Tsedjout was actually brought in when we sold Tumminello in january, and now we've sold him for more money than Tumminello. He was never as good as Tumminello. Tetic is! We're up against Levadia Tallin in the next round of qualification. We should be guaranteed a win there, and then we'll already have Conference league secured. Edited September 2, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 Win in Tallinn Almost through to the next round. The winner of this match goes up against Sheriff Tiraspol or Astana. Astana won the first match 0-1. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 Four consecutive european group stages! Now it's only a matter what competition we'll be in. We have Astana in the next round. We should be better than them. Let's hope we can get to the CHampions League playoffs at least. It gives a few millions more than the europa league playoffs. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 Win in San Marino Not the biggest margin. It could be a very tense outing in Kazakhstan. The winner is up against either Dundalk or FC København. FCK won 0-2 in Ireland, so it will probably be another meeting with the danish champions if we go through to the playoffs. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 We're through! It's gonna be at least Europa League again this season! It wasn't a beautiful match at all and our goalkeeper has turned to be worth every penny we spent on him this season. This is massive. We have Europa League once again, and with the playoffs I dont know if we can beat FCK, but we're much better than last season now, so anything can happen. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 The stuff dreams are made of! We blasted them off the pitch! I don't even think I saw a highlight with an attack from FCK. This is crazy. We're going into the champions league. Our coefficient run might get from this, but we'll be financially secure for the future with the money. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 We lost, but not by that much! Champions League incoming! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 2, 2023 Author Share Posted September 2, 2023 Well... Maybe we'd have been better off in the Europa League after all... It doesn't seem like we have much chance of progressing and I'm hoping we can at least get a draw in one of our homegames. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 3, 2023 Author Share Posted September 3, 2023 Our finances: With the latest injection, our economy is better than ever, so of course i've tried to get youth facilities and a higher transfer budget: We got the most important thing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 3, 2023 Author Share Posted September 3, 2023 (edited) Transfer deadline: Kill your darlings The summer transferwindow is over, and we've seen lots of changes in the squad. We've said goodbye to some of the players that were pivotal for our early succes in the game, and had new faces come in, to try and take us further. This has resulted in our starting 11 now looking like this: This means we've said goodbye to Michael Fabbro and Alex Lopez up front. Alex Lopez was responsible for our europa league quarter final in the second season where he scored 76 goals in 53 matches. 21 of those were in our european campaign. He's become a legend at the club. Alex Lopez has been replaced with Alex Millan, who is a younger faster version of Lopez: In midfield we're still going with Baldursson and Palacios even though their contracts are running out this season. Palacios doesn't want to renew his contract due to us not being big enough for his ambitions. Baldursson was upset by others bidding 200K euro. He agreed a price of 1,5M but has since been upset we rejected lower offers (all of them want us to pay half his wages). I think there's a chance Baldursson will renew his contract. With palacios we'll be keeping him and let his contract run our if we have european football after january. Otherwise we'll try to sell him. If we sell Baldursson it won't be the biggest loss, as we have taken in Kiernan Dewsbury Hall, who will be decent cover for both positions and might end up challenging for the starting 11 soon once he's fit: In defence we got in Denys Bain on a free transfer this summer. He's just better than Meroni in every way, so it was a no brainer, even though it's short term. We're still playing with Julien Serrano at left back and were on the lookout for a replacement, but we'll save that for January. In goal we have replaced Andrenacci with Andreas Linde. It just made sense as he's a much better and more experienced goalkeeper: Overall we're stronger in that position for now. He doesnt like big matches though. Let's hope he gets around that trait. He's bought for the big stages in europe. Still his stats would imply that he's better than Andrenacci, and he's already done enought to justify the 1.1M euro we paid for him. Those were the biggest updates for now. We might have a better squad, but i doubt it'll make any difference in our group. Unless of course they underestimate us, like we've seen happen earlier. We'll find out in a few weeks when we start at home vs. Milan Edited September 3, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 4, 2023 Author Share Posted September 4, 2023 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 4, 2023 Author Share Posted September 4, 2023 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 4, 2023 Author Share Posted September 4, 2023 Our Champions League campaign is already a succes A draw at home against Milan, in a match where the teams were quite even, but every time we went ahead, they pegged back almost immediately. Great result though and chapeau to Gradit who took a red card by preventing a free run in the dying seconds of the match. the replacement, young Jose Mario, passed the ball back to Linde who was surrounded by two Milan players and my heart stopped in that second only for Linde to blast the ball out of the park. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 4, 2023 Author Share Posted September 4, 2023 Every cloud has a silver lining: "worth reading" Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 4, 2023 Author Share Posted September 4, 2023 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNapalmNerd Posted September 4, 2023 Author Share Posted September 4, 2023 (edited) Loss in Portugal THey were just a better side than us. What worries me the most about this match is the continuing tendency to give away penalties in european matches. Edited September 4, 2023 by TheNapalmNerd Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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