mpm2342

Update time on a number of matches played. The next league game was a defeat to Man 62 in a game we should have won. We managed to defeat Europa FC who is our main challenger for the league title this season Rock Cup quarter final went our way. Narrow victory, but the play looked to be well in our favour. That's better. Solid game, no cards and a comfortable victory. Another victory, but more yellows and a red. We now have enough depth to not worry as much about suspensions etc, but still don't like them 2 more games left in the regular season before the playoff round and it is very tight at the top where the Lions and Europa FC have put a lot of distance from the rest of the league. No relaxing for us as any slip up at this stage could hand the title to Europa FC. It might come down to the game against them in the playoff round.

I was hoping we could achieve a bit more in Europe, but the suspensions and injuries killed our chance to make it through that round. The money has already helped improve facilities and add coaches. The league is really tight, Europa FC is playing great this season as well.

January has come and with it another transfer window. Before that, we defeated College '75 2-0, should have been a lot more based on the XG, but a win is a win. The social feed highlighted two Argentinian squads releasing players, so I offered trials and three of them were reasonably priced and definite upgrades, so I signed them. That pissed off Shmelev, so he is transfer listed now. Diaz will step into the lineup in Shmelev's place and the other two will sub in and play as needed. Might not start this season, depending on balancing playing time commitments. I am trying to set up for the European early season competitions, so am ok to bring in more non-homegrown players, especially with all the injuries and suspension problems we had during this campaign.

Continued league play with a loss to St. Joseph's which moved us to second in the league table. The team rebounded with a win over Lincoln which is a nice way to go into a couple of week break over the end of the year. Hopefully I can use the break to get the team rested, healthy and ready to take on the rest of the season.

Another league victory in the books and another Red card the team played this one a man down for most of the match, so am happy with the outcome. UEFA Europa Conference League - Game 6 Sixth game is against The Dynamo Kyiv from the Ukrainian Premier League. Ukraine is 15th in the European nation club rankings and Dynamo Kyiv is ranked 53rd in the club rankings. The fans and experts are tipping us to lose this game and that is definitely the likely outcome. We have a couple of players back, but still only 8 subs. Going to dial back the tempo and see if we can escape without too many more suspensions or injuries. Not bad. A loss, but not a blowout, not a crazy amount of cards and no injuries We got an extra £34.77K after being knocked out in the league phase.

UEFA Europa Conference League - Game 5 Fifth game is against The New Saints (TNS) from the Cymru Premier in Wales. Wales is 50th in the European nation club rankings and TNS is ranked 214th in the club rankings. The fans and experts are tipping us to win this game. We are short a lot of players, with only 6 subs available due to injury and suspensions, so hopefully can deliver. Well, that wasn't pretty. The team got outplayed and also went down a man at the 62 min mark. We lost Parker for 3-4 weeks which will hurt our depth even more. Fortunately, Key is very strong in the DLP role. If this trend continues, will have to look at dialing back the aggressiveness of the tactic as we seem to have some "untidy" players when playing the way they are.. Robba did not have a great game, so I am going to assume that Alonso is the better option, as he is the younger option and could play for the club for a number of years, so giving him the opportunity makes sense.

The senior squad depth chart based on ratings looks like this. The only significant change is the growth of Jay Key who added a couple of points to his rating. Oscar Marcos has joined the club now and as a 17yr old, will definitely get some play time. I'm not going to share all the stats at mid year as they are in line with what we saw earlier. The one that jumps out is that Robba is outplaying Alonso. As a homegrown, that will earn him more play time, but with everything context matters. Alonso played the big cup matches against the very strong teams and Robba played the league matches, so this may be false direction... we will see

Two more victories and we have played 10 games or half the season. Youth intake preview came in and looks dismal Time for the mid year squad analysis.

UEFA Europa Conference League - Game 4 Fourth game is against BATE from the Belarusian highest league. Belarus is 47th in the European nation club rankings and BATE is ranked 205th in the club rankings. The fans and experts are tipping us to win this game. We are short a few players, so hopefully can deliver. Well, that wasn't pretty. Got soundly beaten and another flurry of yellow cards. At this rate, it is going to be hard to field a team . Disappointing to lose a game we had a chance in.

Two more league games and two more victories. I rested a number of players for the Glacis match and it almost cost us as the game was closer than it should have been and closer than the stat line. The Mons Calpe game is more in line with what the starters can do.

UEFA Europa Conference League - Game 3 Third game is against VFB Stuttgart from the Bundesliga in Germany. Germany is 4th in the European nation club rankings and VFB Stuttgart is ranked 137th in the club rankings. Thought for sure their club ranking would be higher than that, but I see this the first time in a while for them to play in the European cup. The fans and experts seem to think we don't have a shot in this game. Going to switch to tactic 2 which is the same base as the very attacking tactic, but more conservative - hopefully to keep it close. I am pleased with the result, but from the stats, especially XG, we could have won that game Lots of yellow cards will cause us problems I'm sure.,,, Yep, Parker, Roman, Galliano and Rumbo will miss the next match against Bate. That's 3 of our FBs... grrr

Back in the Gibraltar league, the Lions dominated Man 62 with a few backups in the lineup for playing time and to rest the starts for the cup. A key game against our primary rival for the league prompted the best lineup to start and they did a fantastic job. Very good game all around.

UEFA Europa Conference League - Game 2 Second game is against AA Gent from the Jupiler Pro League in Belgium. Belgium is 9th in the European nation club rankings and AA Gent is ranked 49th in the club rankings. The fans and experts seem to think we don't have a shot in this game, though it is above 10% AA Gent was just too much for this team. Happy to not get blown out too badly

UEFA Europa Conference League - Game 1 First game is against Zeleznicar from the Serbian First League. Serbia is 14th in the European nation club rankings and Zelenicar is ranked 315 in the club rankings. The fans and experts seem to think we have a shot in this game The fans and experts were correct as we got a nice victory and to top if off, received £428K for the win. We are building a very nice bankroll this season with the current balance at £3M

The board agreed to add a performance analyst, an additional physio and an additional coach. These will all be helpful to develop players and keep them healthy. First game of the season was a massacre. The score was inflated over the XG, but there were some sweet goals in this one. Jay Key scoring top corner from long range was my favourite. We had a number of players on international duty and, as always when this happens, I check out the national team for FA. There were 4 of them who agreed to trials and one of them, Ethan Britto signed with us on a non-contract as a fringe player. He will be our best LFB so will get some quality play time and gives me flexibility to use Galliano in other spots. The injury bug hit us - Robba (GK) is out for 6-7 weeks, glad I have Alonso to step in. Negrette is out for 2-4 weeks and we have very good depth wingers, so that will be fine. Second game and another positive result for us Third game of the season saw us get defeated in a game we should have won. To make it worse, Yome was injured for 4-5 months. Starting to test the depth at winger.

We signed 3 more players before the transfer deadline, 2 depth players and one future star (I hope) Marcos is 17 and has great Pace, Acceleration, first touch and passing - perfect for the DLP or AM roles. The assistant report says he is close to full potential, but I have to (want to) believe that his physicals and other attributes can still be improved. Bosio is homegrown and a backup for the BWM role. He won't see the field unless Cottrell gets hurt. Hankins is insurance at the GK position in case one of the two main dudes gets really annoyed at me for not meeting their playing time expectations. One of the benefits to the cup games is I have enough game statistics to look at player performance an adjust starters if needed GK This is pretty close with the edge to Alonso for the save %. Will try to balance both of them but the fact that Robba is homegrown gives flexibility for other lineup spots so they will likely trade off until one of them gets mad, then I will try to loan Alonso out. CD Shmelev and Thompson are the starters, but Edwards is making a case for playing time. Will likely have a rotation here to keep them fresh FB Galliano starts at LFB and Roman is playing and training to be the RFB - is already competent in the position. Rumbo just always plays well and is a leader on the team, so will be a regular sub and will get some playing time to give the 18 yr old some rest BWM / DLP Cottrell and Parker have player pretty much all the games. Parker is awesome. Cottrell, not so much. The BWM role in the tactic did not produced good ratings last season either, so I might need to re-think that role.. will try it on support instead of defend for a bit and see what happens. AM Key has been the starter, but has the poorest metrics. He is homegrown and the other two are not, so this position will likely rotate with the GK position to keep the 5 homegrown in the lineup. Going to rotate Barber and Hurford and see how they perform as well. Hurford is the backup ST, so don't want to make him full time AM. Winger Negrette and McClafferty are the starters. McClafferty has been great, but Negrette has been out performed by Yome. That will earn some starts for Yome and I will keep an eye on it to see if the trend continues. ST Kawe is the starter and doing just fine. Hurford got 2 goals in his one start, so not afraid to use him as required either. The stats as a striker likely made his AM stats look better than they otherwise would. The position / role calculations has changed quite a bit from the end of last season: There are reasonable homegrown options at every position except for ST and one of the CD. That will give us lots of lineup flexibility and hopefully resilience to injury as well. The board agreed to turn professional at the beginning of next season! Let the good times role and lets get the training facilities and coaching better to take advantage of it.

The board approved (with some discussion) improving training facilities, youth recruiting and junior coaching. Big step to start getting better. Just put in a request to turn professional. The extra training will make a difference for sure, will ask to add more coaches and keep asking for upgrades every time it becomes available. Next up is the Pepe Reyes Cup where we faced off against Europa FC and came out victorious after a hard fought battle including extra time. A late goal by Kawe sealed the game for us. Not the most prestigious competition as of yet, slotting in between some Irish cups. Hopefully as the league gets better, the ranking of the cup will get better which will give a boost to the teams. Next up is the regular season.

Next up is one of the best named football clubs out there .... Knattspyrnufelagid Vikingur. Say that 3 times fast Vikingur R play in the Icelandic Premier Division. Iceland is ranked 43rd in the European Nation Club rankings and Vikingur R is ranked 391. We should have a chance to play some close ones with them First leg at Laugardalvollur Stadium, Love the name so much, just had to check it out. The stadium and location was fantastic and the game was pretty good too We came out with a 3-2 away victory. Fairly even game overall puts us in a good position for leg 2 at home. Second leg at home and, Vikingur R made the comeback, winning2-0 and knocking us out of the Europa League. It was a good run from the team. We received another £85K and an additional £171K for being in the Europa league. With a positive balance of £334,793 time to go ask the board for upgrades. Whoa!!! Wait just a minute! Here I was happy to get into positive financial territory and then got this email: Say WHAT? Time to get some upgrades done and time to ask to turn professional. And to top it all off, this email came in too: Can you believe it? I have a personal assistant named James Borge! Definitely moving up in the world All kidding aside, I thought the European adventure was over, but no, 6 more games await with some potential victories could means some more £ on the horizon as well. Oh Happy Days!!!!!

UEFA Europa League, Champions Path Third Qualifying Round 1st leg at home produced a draw. We had the edge in XG and possession, but not enough to feel bad about the score. No real notable performances and a distinct lack of cards, so happy about the discipline. Leg two away from home produces a win when we didn't play the best. It is nice to pull one out when behind on a number of the match metrics. Kawe got injured in the last match, but Hurford stepped in and did great with both goals. Very happy with the team. Another £85K and on to the next round.

Next up is KuPS in the UEFA Europa League, Champions Path Third Qualifying Round KuPS play in the Finnish Premier League. Finland is ranked 33rd in the European Nation Club Rankings and KuPS is ranked 197. Lower ranking than Astana, but still pretty strong. Looking at the other Gibraltar clubs, Europa FC was knocked out in the second round of the Europa League and Magpies were out in the first round. Signed a couple of players as well: Aaron Alonso is a very good, young SK. I am probably going to loan him out for the regular season and play Robba and have him as the starter next season Frankie Edwards will be the primary backup at CD and a solid starter if one of the first two goes down with an injury. Going to be tricky balancing the playing time commitments, but it's a short season, so it's doable Also signed some players for the U23 team, but not going to show them as they are unlikely to make the main squad. If any of them progress well, I will post them at the end of the season.

EUFA Champions League Champions Path Second Qualifying Round The first leg is complete. There must have been a party or something that the Lion's squad was eager to get to as the parade of men sent to the dressing room was astounding. I have not seen a game with this much "colour" before. 8 Yellows and 3 Red cards.... 3 Red cards, wow! Down 3-0 heading into their stadium, so things are not looking good to advance further. Second leg in the books and the end of the Champions path for the Lions. Astana as just too good, but very happy for the team to make it to round 2 and collect some prize money. £85K for each round for a total of £170K. That almost gets us to a positive balance overall.

Wow, Great season! How satisfying that must be. Very much enjoying the story and your recaps.... The live stream of the finals had me on the edge of my seat just waiting for Arsenal to come flying back - and they didn't... so cool!

July has been good to us. I went to my expiring contracts shortlist to see how many of the young Spanish players became free agents. There were quite few, so I offered trials to all of them and they accepted!!! Getting the reputation bump, playing in the Europe competitions and them being free agents made the difference. As I waited for their attributes to reveal, a number of them understandably got bids from other clubs, however we did manage to sign one player from that group and one Gibraltar depth player: Samu will be our new FB on the right side after training. Got a couple of other bids out for even better ones and if they sign, will send Samu out on loan. I love his speed and acceleration which is perfect for the high tempo tactic. Mikey Yome is a solid backup across the front 4 positions. Consistent player, cheap, agreed to fringe player and provides extra insurance against injuries. Onto the Cup matches. The first game against Alashkert was VERY surprising. I was hoping we could hang with them, but we really put a beating on them. Kawe was amazing, Parker is living up to the Captain role and just no words... didn't think this would happen. Game two back at home with a 7 goal lead was hoping the momentum would continue with a victory and it did. Much closer game on the scoreboard and the match stats. Parker and Kawe scored again and played well. The attacking group on this team are going to be a force this season. The EUFA Champions League Champions Path Second Qualifying Round has us drawn against Astana. Astana play in the top Kazakhstan league and are a much bigger club. Kazakhstan is ranked 29th in the European Club rankings and Astana is ranked 125th. This is going to be a challenge.

The EUFA Champions League Champions Path First Qualifying Round has us drawn against Alashkert. Alashkert play in the Armenian top league and have a 2 star reputation. Armenia is 35th in the European nation club ranking and Alashkert is ranked 253 in the Europe club rankings, so on paper they should be better than us, but not by a huge margin. Will report back after the first leg on how the game went and any additional transfer and staff moves. Setting up the training schedule to get the players in match shape and hopefully happy

Fast forward to June 30th when players and coaches contracts expire and we can really start setting the squad for the new season. Gibraltar dropped 2 spots in the Club rank, but still have the 3 spots in European competitions... hopefully this season the teams can win a game or two. The Lion's reputation went up a bit which should help with signing players and the Lions made their appearance on the European club rankings. We got a healthy transfer budget of 70K which I reallocated to scouting and payroll keeping just enough in case I need to give signing bonuses or such. No need to pay transfer fees for players yet. Over the month of June we added 5 players to plug some holes from a variety of sources. Spencer Barber came to us by looking through the Gibraltar league for expiring contracts and saw that he was a non-contract, so offered a trial. The trail was accepted and he turned out to be a very good AM and an OK winger and DLP. He will be a very useful backup with potential to start as an AM. Max Cottrell was found looking at expiring contracts and offering trials. Glacis agreed for him to come on trial and he turns out to be a very good BWM and solid backup at CD. He will likely start at BWM if I can't find an upgrade. He is consistent and loves big matches which is a strong positive. Jack Thompson came to us through an Intermediary. They were looking to sell him, no way I was paying transfer fees, so I checked if they would loan him and they would ... for FREE!! Jack is our second best CD and our best Right defender. So he will start, just a question of where. Corey Hurford was a top FA target for us last off season, but he wanted way too much to sign, so I watched him go to Lincoln. Sure enough, Lincoln put him up for loan this season. Lesson here - If you can't sing someone, keep tabs on them because they will often quickly come available on loan. Most of the time, they still cost too much, but sometimes, it works. In this case. I am paying £20 p/w playing fee and £0 non-playing fee. Hurford will be a backup Striker (had him potentially as the starter until the 4th player on the list came along), the backup winger and 3rd on the AM depth chart, so a very useful player. The most exciting siging for us is Kawe. I got an inbox item saying the Lions were pursuing Kawe and I was "WHO? Never heard of him" just one of those random rumour emails. So I checked him out and the only stats I could see were Pace 12-15, Finishing 12-15 and Dribbling 12-15. That got me very interested. He was on £160 p/w and I figured it would be questionable if he would accept a transfer and he would probably want a lot more than that, so I checked the loan option and BRA was willing to loan him out for FREE !!! Backflips and an offer quickly ensued. The offer for real and the backflips just in my head so I didn't hurt myself. After that, it was wait with bated breath as Kawe announce he no longer wanted to leave BRA, so I thought for sure he would reject the loan, but no, he came. And look at this guy! He is a prototype AF which is what I play in the tactic with a rating of 57.7 which slots him very nicely near the top 5 average for the league. Very excited to see what he can do. On the staffing front, the board agreed to add another coach and we let Chozas Hermoso go as he was not good enough .