Madura United FC
2024
Time flies when you're having fun! I last left off with an insane tycoon takeover of a 1.5 star rep Indonesian team that seemed hell-bent to deus ex machina me in the right direction going forward. Since then, the transfer policy has been simple: Outscout, outspend, outwin! I shattered the national transfer fee record by a factor of 5 to sign a regular starter-level player from the bench of DC United, just because there was simply no way I could possibly spend beyond my means. It should go without saying that bringing my team together was a bit like hunting down the Infinity Stones. With all that in mind, how did we do?
Not even close.
We won the league with five games to spare. We had an absurd goal output, and the only reason we didn't have the best defensive record in the league is because of how often we gave up complacency goals. After putting together the Infinity Stones, we were inevitable. The stars that made this trophy possible were new signings Andi Aziz and Otávio, a striker and center back respectively who plugged our weakest positions with bonafide starpower, and Masril Prima, a stunning creative player who averaged over a goal contribution a game in all competitions.
And in the cup, we got ourselves a double! We got a fairly easy draw all the way through, only facing one other ISL team before our final match with Persib Bandung. Persib is the only club that has given us a consistent challenge in the league, and they were the favorites on the other half of the bracket and made it through. The first leg of the final (yes, the final was two legs) coincided with an international break for the Southeast Asian Championship, and both squads ended up losing a few players to international duty. But we came out firing, securing a 2-0 away leg win, then simply preventing Persib from coming back to haul our second trophy of the challenge. A quick shout out is in order for Herry Muliadi, the aforementioned former DC United player who had an inconsistent season, but carried the squad on his shoulders during the semifinals and finals. Without his timely performances, it's quite possible that we go to penalties against Persib and lose out on the cup.
A couple more additional housekeeping things: I've started a living document using Google Sheets that'll track my progress, with updates at the end of every session I play. It's currently just got the stuff needed to track the conditions for the challenge, but I hope to add video clips of each trophy win, images of the key players of each team I manage, up-to-date competition standings, and more things that I might think of. I'm having a blast with the challenge so far, and I'd be excited to share as much of the save with this small group of dedicated virtual managers as I can.
Also, I think it's worth it to share the file of the Madura United tycoon situation, as it's a really unique and interesting scenario that I hope someone else may have a fun time playing. I saw a dedicated thread for posting such saves, so I'll do it there some time soon.