FiftyBeforeThirty

Huge congrats on Scotland - I called it (for only the second or third time...)! Austria seems an interesting prospect, breaking Leipzig should be fun! Here's hoping this is also a good league; certainly one I've not done a lot in and I'm sure a few more haven't experienced either.

Damn, and arguably only just reaching his prime, could be a further 7+ years of being a top talent too, so plenty of time to expand that record! Here's hoping!

Tough season but well survived - a shame to lose out on the best youth product this year but the central midfielder looks like a fantastic product and project. Here's hoping for more improvement going into next year!

Damn, heart ache. So close and getting even closer each time. Can't quite believe 4.15 xG only produced a single goal - so unlucky! Next year...

Ouch, looking like that early form was potentially other teams getting used to the league - fellow Bastians are going well too it would seem. Fingers crossed for a good close to the season coming up!

Good league form and going strong in Europe. Those First KO Rounds are incredibly tight ties and I'd say all of them are somewhat interesting! Could this be the year, dare I ask?

Solid month there, only 1 conceded in all 5 domestic games and 2 with the reserves in Europe. Definitely looking solid this season - so far! Big shock with Porto dropping off of the pace, I suppose they've still only lost once but as you mention they are way off the top.

Damn, that Monchengladbach potential European treble in 3 years is crazy - I assume they'd be the first in your save to manage that feat, and I don't foresee many similar cases in the future! Great result against United and hopefully a similarly strong performance against the Germans! The City - Leipzig tie seemed pretty good as well, and then there's still holders Liverpool. No fat lady singing yet!

Having a gander at this thread daily is like topping the car up with fuel for free - insane the amount of work you put both into the game, the analysis and the subsequent content and it is riveting as well as thoroughly enjoyable while immeasurably enlightening. As someone who has always wanted to "go deeper" it's a rocket in the rectum and gives so many little ideas for ways to begin to incorporate the statistics and analysis hidden behind a tab that's never used. I love it - so much! Thank you

Genuinely - the squad depth posts are some of my favourites - I love remembering which player is which probably to a similar degree to you, there's just a beauty to it I can't quite capture in words. Lovely work and will be interesting to see how some of the players start stepping up!

Great result there in the CL - certainly a foot and 3 toes in the Quarters, hopefully we'll see the progression to the next round accompanied by a decent draw! I feel it!

That's actually a thoroughly interesting idea - having the Cup promote a side, I'm inclined to love that! Good season in all, even if the form did drop off some. Hopefully things go better than expected!

Damn that's quite a tasty group, although A & C are massive misses for you (going off of today's teams). Some interestingly unusual Austrian teams there, hopefully they put in a good showing!

Damn, that's one heck of a World Cup for South Africa - at home as well! A shame that they couldn't get to that Durban final but certainly should do their rankings some good! Can't wait to see how this season goes.

Damn, form has taken a little dip but still up there and contending for 2nd, first may be a little further/far away but still a few months left yet to make up ground. Best of luck!

Jeez, that's a tough run of fixture congestion - hopefully most of them should be "easier" fixtures besides the obvious - would be amazing to sneak that top spot in Europe with a win against City too!

I'm English, moved to rural NSW around a month and a half ago

Quality draws - hopefully indicative of some good form and runs in the competitions - should definitely be an interesting few months coming up! All the best!

Not quite Aussie - yet - hopefully soon haha. That's fair enough with Celtic, love seeing deeper saves where the bigger teams fall off and the smaller clubs start thriving with long-term investment - wish the same could be the case for the Prem. Great stuff though as always

Such a flow of green for the results there, great stuff. Long may it continue into the new year too! Thoroughly impressive form and seems like it's almost at the stage of a long run in Europe to me...no curses whispered (hopefully)

As you say - a better season once more and a fantastic prospect there in the centre of midfield, could be a fantastic little prospect. Fingers crossed you can keep him for the upcoming season and push on towards the upper epsilons of the league!

One of the best parts about being in Australia is getting to see these updates through the day Great stuff here bud - and really unfortunate against Chelsea but definitely positives to take away for sure. Celtic barely making the top-half is crazy; have they dropped off or are we putting it down to poor form this year? Either way, all the best for the rest of the season and off-season - closer and closer we get

August 2021 It's been a long month of watching matches across most of mainland Europe this month; in total attending 13 matches. There's been highs and lows for teams around the country, and now with only 1 team left in Europe at the end of the month, even that highlight has been dampened. Enough spoilers, let's get right on into the action. Watched Matches As I said previously, a long old month, but it has been interesting and I've made quite a few notes that have affected some call-ups already. Performers such as Botka earning a potential cap make it all the more worthwhile to watch these games, he was fantastic when played out in the wider positions but has played in all 3 roles at the back this month alone. I'm hoping that I can bring him on as someone to run rings around tired teams - looking for overlaps and underlaps whenever possible. European Dreams - The Shattering Truth Prevails As you can see above, Puskas went out at the final hurdle in the Conference League, falling to Spurs 8-1 on aggregate. They didn't resist much at all, but it's hopefully seen as a decent showing for the side who finished 2nd last season. Fehervar were beaten 4-3 on aggregate though were poor in the away leg in Sweden. I gave them the highest hopes of progressing but they fell short by quite some way, unfortunately. Meanwhile Ferencvaros fell out of the Champions League to Greek opponents, Olympiakos who were the better side over the two legs, the Budapest side having very little in the way of favourable statistics in either tie. They fall into the Europa League, a huge bonus for us...until their group was drawn... I am really struggling to envision a world where they pick up any points, unless they manage to turn things around from what I have been seeing - they've been poor across the board so far and much improvement is required if they wish to see the knockout stages of the Conference League - as I can't see West Ham or Marseille dropping points to them. The Home Front The league has started off and 3 teams are as yet unbeaten, including Fehervar who also had their European campaign, quite impressive of a start for them it could be said. Honved, Ferencvaros and Ujpest are hot on the heels of Kisvarda and Fehervar though, and Honved have shown some utter brilliance so far, their 5-1 demolition was a joy to behold and really brought back some of that excitement for this save - seeing as they were the side that many of the Golden Team's players represented. Debrecen and Puskas are struggling at the lower half of the table - only picking up 2 points a piece, Puskas have of course been affected by the midweek cluster-bomb of fixtures, and faced a very confident Honved side, Debrecen - champions in 13/14 went down two seasons ago, to come up against last season - much to my own surprise while writing. They're a side with 7 league titles and espexially dominant between 2004-2014, so I wondered if they might propel themselves up the table this year, a though that has yet to come to fruition. First Call-ups Ahead of our first international games we had to decide on our squad. It's a relatively young squad with some older faces, especially up front, mixed in. There's a lot of potential in the team and a lot of different squads that I have to attempt to work my way around scouting, making my job even more difficult. As mentioned before, the call-up of Botka was very much directly impacted by the brilliance of his displays on the left side of defense for his side, and could potentially see him feature in one or more of the upcoming games. We will play what I believe to be our strongest 11 against England, and likely for the Poland game a few days later. There could be some changes implemented in the interim, though I want to try and give consistent opportunities for players. In the final game of the international break I would like to think we can try and move a couple of our younger players into the side - especially Bolla, Horvath and Balogh - potentially also Bakos, but we shall see how things go. I'm expecting a thumping against England, honestly, if we can stop them scoring 3 or more I'm more than happy, but it's more about the performance than the result in that game, for me at least. Against Poland I'd like to see us try and mute Robert Lewandowski as best as we can, he'll be crucial to any chances that they have of winning the game, though there is obvious talent elsewhere on the pitch for them also. Closing out the break against Andorra it'll be an experimental squad, but I'd like to see us try and score 3 or more goals, without conceding. They don't possess too much quality and I'm really just hoping that we can get some rotational players into the mix for familiarity with the tactic, so that we can do the same in October in the San Marino game, and a little in the Albania game though it could be a crucial match. As always though, this is Football Manager and anything could happen. Except Harry Kane not scoring. That never happens, right? The Month Ahead If I thought that this month was busy, next month is even crazier, I feel. 3 games during the international break and 12 games, once again across Europe, where we will see some of our players on the European stage. Here's how the spectating plan looks for September: We will be watching some of Europe's finest, and welcoming some of them to Hungary also. Leipzig have 3 of our best players so I want to try and get to Germany (or away games in the Champions League) as much as possible if I can. I also have tried to keep an eye on Szeged since they are home to Krisztofer Horvath who is on loan from Italian outfit, Torino. Horvath is probably our closest player to a generational talent and quite an exquisite player already, at just 19 years of age. I'd like to try and win favour with him by turning up to some of his games and watching him play, especially seeing what confidence a first cap for his country can instill in him. It'll be busy, chaotic, hectic and more, but September is exciting, even if it does contain a lot of competitive fixtures, not just for our national team but some of our domestic sides as well. I'm keeping an ever-present eye on proceedings in the leagues to see if I can't nab myself a job somewhere, even in the 2nd tier for now, but so far, so smooth for all of the managers there or thereabouts. Onwards and hopefully upwards!

Great stuff in the League and Cup double - definitely continuing to move on up in the Scottish footballing world, despite a harder year with Celtic this time around. Thanks also for the tip, I'll have to give that a little look-see, cheers! Keep it up, can't wait to see how the World Cup pans out

July 2021 I suppose it is rather irregular to do updates at this stage of an international career but it feels necessary due to a couple of factors: I've been watching quite a lot of matches - trying to source new players and/or existing players for the squad to improve it. I'm trying to keep myself up-to-date with all of the goings-on in Hungary including the European journeys for clubs as well as in the domestic competitions. Unfortunately the league opener is on July 31st, so there's a few teams which have already played and then most teams have yet to do so. Hopefully this doesn't skew the view too much for all of you. Watched Matches I have watched a few, as I have said, but only started collating data towards the tail-end of the month. It's rather interesting actually - I've never really tended to watch games before now and I'm finding it rather relaxing and soothing knowing that I haven't got to shout at my under-performers or work miracles at half-time. Despite this relaxation - it is quite a lot less simple than sitting around doing nothing. As I also mentioned, I'm trying to keep track of the progress of all of the teams, and the early stages of the 3 main European competitions is hectic, to say the least. Nevertheless, here are my documented matches spectated for the month of July: The two European fixtures were interesting to watch for a couple of reasons and the domestic fixture was a Budapest derby that was quite the spectacle. Elfsborg 2 - 0 FC Basel - This game had very little to write about - Szalai hardly had a touch of the ball and Elfsborg shocked the former Swiss powerhouse. In the end, Basel would reverse the scoreline and take the tie on aggregate in the second leg. HJK 2 - 1 Ferencvaros - Ferencvaros progress 5-4 on penalties - This, for all the hyped billing for our Hungarian side, was nothing short of a slaughter with a blunt knife by the Finnish. They had chance after chance that they could not work into a commanding position over a Ferencvaros side that were down to ten men after 25 minutes (Bosnian trying to ruin my Hungarian teams' futures...). Luckily for Ferencvaros though, they held on for dear life and, although they were nowhere close to scoring other than the goal that came entirely against the run of play, they took the game to penalties where Dibusz pulled off the heroics with a save on the first penalty leaving the pressure on the Finnish side to come back, which they were ultimately unable to do. It wouldn't be the only time I saw Ferencvaros get away with it during this week of play... Honved 1 - 2 Ferencvaros - I had a feeling that this would be a rather good game, though expected Ferencvaros to walk out with a 1 or 2 goal cushion in all reality. The game, however, proved me almost entirely wrong for the first 90 minutes. Honved were comfortable in possession, had a brilliant performance from Bole on the wing (thankfully a Hungarian having a good game for a change) and looked the better side - almost unlucky to be heading for a draw. Then, in the 91st minute Marko Marin, former Chelsea and Wolfsburg attacking midfielder, stepped up for a free kick about 25 yards out. He struck it almost perfectly and curled it into the top corner past Szappanos who could do little more than throw himself helplessly towards the ball. Honved not only were unlucky in this way - they also had 3 disallowed goals in the game, each for offsides that grew increasingly closer to being called for a goal - though all correct decisions. An unlucky game in the first Budapest derby for Honved though if they can carry the form they showed in this game throughout the season then I can see them contending and pushing Ferencvaros all the way. A big "if" though, after such a blow against their local rivals. European Nights Ferencvaros Beat Zalgris (LTH) 6-1 on aggregate in the Champions League First Qualifying Round Beat HJK (FIN) 2-2 (5-4 p) in the Champions League Second Qualifying Round Face Ludogorets (BUL) in the Champions League Third Qualifying Round next month. Fehervar Beat Birkirkara (MLT) 5-0 on aggregate in Conference League First Qualifying Round Beat Panevezys (LTH) 4-1 on aggregate in Conference League Second Qualifying Round Face Hammarby IF (SWE) in the Conference League Third Qualifying Round next month. Puskas Akademia Beat Gagra (GEO) 5-1 on aggregate in Conference League First Qualifying Round Beat Stjarnan (ICE) 4-1 on aggregate in Conference League Second Qualifying Round Face Molde (NOR) in the Conference League Third Qualifying Round next month. Ujpest Lost to Austria Vienna (AUT) 3-3 (3-4 p) in the Conference League Second Qualifying Round. A generally positive showing in all - Ujpest went straight through to the Second Qualifying Round in the Conference League though fell to Austria Vienna on penalties, which I would still consider a very strong showing in all. Ferencvaros, Fehervar and Puskas Akademia are our remaining teams in Europe and all have a tie they could win on their day, though I think Fehervar are the most likely to make it through their tie. Ferencvaros have been unimpressive in the games I've watched and Molde should be able to overcome Puskas Akademia in my eyes, but I'm hoping and ready to be proven wrong. On the Home Front I'm going to skip this update as there's not much to say after just 3 games played. Rather expected wins all around - even if Ferencvaros didn't do it in the expected fashion. The Month Ahead It's a busy month for myself next month ahead of the international break starting at the end of August and heading into early September with our 3 games against England, Poland and Andorra. Below is a list of the games that I will be attending next month: A grand total of 9 games to watch. I'm trying to keep my options open in terms of watching as many different teams as I can, but on most weeks half of the games clash times and a 4th is overlapped by the previous on the Saturday, and on Sunday both games are played at the same time also. As a result, I'm keeping things realistic and doing things what I hope to be the right and real way.