DaneBramage

NK Dornava - June 2030 3. SNL Vzhod A mixed set of results to end the season. It was a tough run of games though, four of these teams were all higher in the table than us. Our only win was against Posavje, and they were the lone side below us. At least we didn't end the year with a defeat, two goals in the final ten minutes at Rudar Velenje saved a point, and also stopped them from being promoted. We finished below Ljutomer on head-to-head record, as they beat us both home and away. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - April 2030 3. SNL Vzhod The loss to Peca made it four league losses in a row, and five games without scoring. I made a couple of changes to personnel, bringing in two players from the 2029 youth intake, and was repaid with a win. 29l Slavisa Bezjak (DC) scored just a few minutes into his debut against Bukovci. 25b Primoz Repas was also re-instated back into the starting line-up after mainly being used from the bench this season, and responded with a pair of assists in a MoTM performance. The good times continued with two more big wins, and although the displays were far from our best, a couple of draws made it five games unbeaten. 25h Aleksandar Cerar was really poor against Koroszka Dravograd and earnt himself a fine, but he hit back in the best manner possible with a brace at Mons Claudius. Much happier now than I was in November. The board are too, a top-half finish is well within our grasp. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - 2030 Youth Intake I don't think this group is as good as the last couple of years. Although there are still plenty of players with 2-3 CA stars, since 28a Sasa Pirc left the whole squad was re-assessed and had their CA stars increased. Thus the quality is now being judged against a lower standard. New nationalities: a Norwegian, and a lad representing both halves of Ireland. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - November 2029 3. SNL Vzhod I hate this game. ------------------------------------ Goalkeepers 28a Zan Zizek missed his first penalty against Tehnotim Pesnica, but it wouldn't have affected the result. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - September 2029 Departures Bummer 28a Sasa Pirc wouldn't even entertain the idea of signing a contract with us, and barely a week after turning 17 he was off to Croatia. Can't really blame him though when you see that he's now on £725 per week, and valued between £450k and £1.2 million. There's nothing on the clauses screen, but I hope we're entitled to some sort of compensation when he next moves. He never played for us, but did have a record of seven goals in 11 games for Slovenia U19 while here. ------------------------------------ 3. SNL Vzhod After our dreadful finish to last season, then losing our next great hope, I entered the season without much optimism. A 3-0 tonking on the opening day had me fearing the worst, thinking this was going to be a long and miserable year. Then somehow we turned good. Like a flip of a switch, it was a complete change of fortunes. Four big wins in a row put us in a much better place. The goals have dried up a little since and conceding in the 89th minute to the only shot on target from Koroszka Dravograd was a kick in the nuts, but we got back into the winning column with a narrow victory over Mons Claudius, one which the stats suggested should have been much more definitive. Blimey, that's already a big gap between 5th and 6th. Let's hope I can stay with the top pack. ------------------------------------ Pokal Slovenije Through the first two rounds, mostly with a rotated team. Both games were against sides in lower leagues, so not the toughest tests, and perhaps we should have beaten Akumulator by more, but the win is all that matters. ------------------------------------ Goalkeeper 28o Zan Zizek is off the mark with his first penalty of the season. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - 2028/29 Season Review History, Facilities, and Finances I'd forgotten about this. Earlier in the season I'd asked for an upgrade to the youth recruitment and was denied, but after a bit of haggling it was agreed that it would take place if I played enough young players throughout the year. The reward popped at the end of the season. The board weren't happy with our league finish, which is nonsensical given that it's a record high. Regardless, they've extended my contract by another year. Our bank balance is way down due to the money put into improve the training facilities. Otherwise we would have made about £20k profit, so our balance should be positive again within a couple of years. ------------------------------------ Squad Stats No great performances really, the squad struggled in the higher tier. 25h Aleksandar Cerar finished as top scorer, but ended the season on a terrible run of just one goal in 11 games. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - May 2029 3. SNL Vzhod Ouch. A really poor end to the season, I didn't think we were ever going to stop losing. Luckily Smartno are really bad, and Sentjur had nothing left to play for on the final day. We slipped down another place to end up in 9th. The board are not happy, but I think I'm safe for now. ------------------------------------ Goalkeepers 28o Zan Zizek added two more, both from the spot. He now has a record of six goals in 14 games. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - 2029 Youth Intake A golden generation! 16 elite talents. A fair few players with good CA that would improve our team immediately, but again we can't use them until they turn 17. On the plus side, we can offer youth contracts now so they won't be poached immediately when they're old enough. Determination levels look good towards the top of the list. Couple of new nationalities with an Austrian and a Kosovan joining our ranks. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - March 2029 Facilities The improvements to our training facilities that started in the summer have now been completed. Our junior coaching is obviously the best in the division by a long way, and our training facilities are now on a par, but the youth facilities and youth recruitment aren't quite up to scratch. ------------------------------------ Departures We had a bit of a rough time during the winter transfer window. Clubs started sniffing around our players, and although we can offer contracts now, they can get much more elsewhere. One of my starting centre-backs 27o Dejan Pfeifer was stolen away, along with two of my potential stars from the 2028 youth intake. Basically as soon they turned 17 Radomlje and Rudar Velenje were in there before I could do anything. All three of these players are now on £100 a week. The maximum we're paying anyone at the moment is £35, so we didn't really stand a chance. ------------------------------------ 3. SNL Vzhod We got some immediate justice on the first day back, seeing 28m Oleg Bondarchuk in the Verzej line-up, having been sent out on loan by Rudar Velenje. We trailed 2-1 at the break, but turned it around in style during the second-half, picking up a big win and sending him home with a poor 6.2 rating. I have no complaints about the pounding from Tehnotim Pesnice, they're top of the table and looking good for promotion. We led straight from kick-off against Posavje, but when a centre-back was sent off after 33 minutes our afternoon was ruined. Our forward line had a real off day against Polana, not scoring from a combined 2.6 xG. They were rescued by goalie 28o Zan Zizek, scoring from the spot and then adding a stoppage-time free-kick. I think we're doing very well to have a midtable spot at this point, 10 points clear of the relegation area. But the board are currently disappointed with our league performance, so fingers crossed they don't do anything rash. ------------------------------------ International Recognition 28a Sasa Pirc continued to impress for Slovenia U19, with three more goals in two appearances. ------------------------------------ Goalkeepers 28o Zan Zizek had a productive month, with three goals in four games. ------------------------------------

Yeah, not great. But for my purposes right now it's not an issue. Apart from junior coaching, our facilities are awful. So no one really has any possibility of turning into an actually good player anyway. Just being good enough for right now is the priority, so CA trumps PA and personality heavily at this stage. That being said he's left almost immediately, so his personality should be listed as scumbag traitor. It is! This break is probably the busiest one I've had, plenty of our players are getting attention now so it's been a case of offering contracts and hoping for the best.

Thanks! I thought you'd cursed me after the first few games of October, but a win before the winter break has me feeling better. Six players from the 2028 youth intake will turn 17 before we return to action, then another two in March, so this should give us a boost for the rest of the season. At the very least it will be three of them straight into the starting line-up.

NK Dornava - November 2028 3. SNL Vzhod Yikes, this wasn't the form I wanted. Only once were we completely outclassed (hosting Odranci), the main problem was not concentrating until the final whistle. We dropped points against both Koroszka Dravograd and Sentjur by conceding in stoppage-time. And I was really annoyed by not beating bottom of the table Smartno. The media messages started piling in after the loss to Sentjur made it six games without a win. I switched back to the old faithful 4-4-2 for our final game of 2028, and an opening two minute blitz sent us on our way to a much needed victory. I've just realised the board are expecting a top-half finish this year, which seems a bit ambitious to me. I think the issue is that in the season preview 28a Sasa Pirc and 28b Aleksandar Markic were listed as two of the best players in the division, making us look better than we currently are, but neither can actually play yet. At least the latter is 17 in January, so will be available for the second half of the season. We're not in the top-half at the moment, but just below is keeping the board satisfied. ------------------------------------ Goalkeepers 23a Nemanja Jeric has been dropped after a couple of mistakes in recent games. 28o Zan Zizek is his replacement between the sticks, and he scored a penalty in his second game. ------------------------------------ International Recognition 28a Sasa Pirc has now made five more appearances for Slovenia U19, adding two more goals (record: 7 appearances, 3 goals). ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - September 2028 International Recognition 28a Sasa Pirc won't be eligible to play for us until next season when he turns 17, but he's the first player from our academy to be called up to play for Slovenia U19. He made his debut as a sub against Austria U19 (0-0), then scored on his full debut against Estonia U19 (2-0). ------------------------------------ 3. SNL Vzhod With 14 teams in the division we'll be playing 26 games this year, so it's our busiest league season yet. I'm glad to be playing more, though still annoyed by the four month gap between November and March. Our first couple of months at this level have been a mixed bag. Just one point from the opening three games was rough, but we then turned it around with a four game unbeaten run, including a big victory over Sampion. Our most recent games have been a pair of losses. The defeat to Ljutomer was fairly close, but we were well off the pace against Videm. In fairness, they're challenging near the top so I'll take not getting whooped as a (small) moral victory. No points for that though. Given that we lost our two best players over the summer, I think this is a decent start. The three wins so far show that we're able to compete at this level, but by no means do I think we're guaranteed safety this year. Both times we've lost this year it's then been followed up with a second loss, which is never a pattern you want to get into. I'd definitely like some more wins on the board before the winter break to ease those worries. ------------------------------------ Pokal Slovenije No repeat of last year's heroics. In fact, you could go as far as calling this a disgrace. The second-string humiliated themselves with this showing against a fourth tier side. ------------------------------------ Goalkeepers 23a Nemanja Jeric scored in back-to-back league games, including the decisive winning goal against Dravinja Kostroj. He now has a record of 20/22 from the spot. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - July 2028 Departures Well, this is a bit of a bummer. We'd stayed off the radar of the bigger clubs previously, but now we've got their attention. And as we hadn't been able to offer contracts, all of our players were free to be stolen. We now have a big gap to fill in midfield, as our two highest rated players were both signed away, to the 1. SNL and 2. SNL respectively. Both are on £100 a week. We do now have the option of offering wages, but it came just too later for these two. ------------------------------------ Facilities With our junior coaching now topped-out I tried to improve the youth recruitment, but yet again it was turned down. I then went for a different approach, asking for the training facilities to be upgraded instead. Surprisingly this was accepted, and works are now in place to be completed by December. Had I known the cost though, I probably wouldn't have gone for it. Our bank account has been emptied out. Hopefully it will prove to be a good investment. ------------------------------------

Thanks! I'm really enjoying this so far. Admittedly it has been a bit easier than expected, but I guess that's part of the experience of using created databases. The lower leagues might not be fully fleshed out, and you can take advantage of that by being the only team improving their facilities.

NK Dornava - 2027/28 Season Review History, Finances, and Facilities Everything's continuing to go the right way. A sixth straight season of improved league position, bank balance, and facilities. And finally a cup run too. I'm sure next season will be more difficult when we reach the third tier. ------------------------------------ Squad Stats 25a Aljosa Gulic was named our fan's player of the season. After being re-deployed from an MC to AMC position his performances really improved, and he ended up as our top scorer with 16 goals. 25h Aleksandar Cerar finished just behind him with 15 goals, and as all of these came in the league he was crowned the MNZ Ptuj Super Liga top scorer. Both wingers reached double figures for assists. The 2027 youth intake made a real impression this year, our first-choice line-up is now made up of one player from the 2023 batch, five from 2025, and five from 2027. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - June 2028 The play-off system is actually pretty simple. There are three promotion spots available, but seven divisions at this level. Two teams play each other so one is eliminated (though don't ask me how those two were chosen), leaving six teams. They then split into three games, and the winners go up. Promotion Play-Off Final We were forced into a couple of changes, as our first-choice left-winger was suspended for accumulated bookings, and the right-sided centre-back wasn't fully fit after taking a knock in the final game of the regular season. 25c Marko Vodovipec was fit again though to take his spot as the ball-winning midfielder. Any worries we might have had about the team possibly being a little incohesive were swiftly put to rest as we took the lead in less than 120 seconds through a sweet strike from 25a Aljosa Gulic. We dominated the game from that point onwards, and his second goal half an hour later firmly put us in command. He then clinched his hat-trick after the break, and two late goals capped off the rout. Promotion! And we received just under £16k in prize money. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - May 2028 MNZ Ptuj Super Liga Boom! Goals, goals, goals, and wins, wins, wins. Seven in a row to be precise. The title was sewn up with three games to and though we still won those final games even when the pressure was off, we made hard work of it. Champions! But that's not it. We now go into some sort of play-off system, which I'm not sure I fully understand yet. Fingers crossed. ------------------------------------ Goalkeepers A penalty from 23a Nemanja Jeric made it five goals for the season. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - 2028 Youth Intake Another excellent intake! They just keep coming. Our junior coaching is topped out now, so I guess this is pretty much the ceiling for now (until our reputation improves). So potentially future intakes won't immediately look better than the last each time. 28a Sasa Pirc is rated the best player at the club on arrival, and does look like a good player. In fact, the top nine players from this group are now rated the best nine players at the club. The previous highest rated player, 27a Borut Rozman, had a CA which varied between 4.5 and 5.0 over the last few months. It's now been re-assessed to 2.5 stars. There's one new nationality, a Ukrainian. In the tryout match they beat the Under 19s 7-0. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - April 2028 Pokal Slovenije We managed a second cupset this season, knocking out Smartno from the third tier. They're struggling to stay out of the relegation area, but if they were hoping for a better time of it in the cup we were having none of that and battered them. That put us into the quarter-finals, and at this point only the big boys were left. All possible opponents were from the 1. SNL, so it was almost inevitable that our cup run was over. We didn't stand a chance against Bravo, but I don't think we were embarrassed in defeat. We received £10k in prize money for reaching this stage. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - November 2027 Facilities A message popped up that the board were happy with our performances this season, so while they were in a good mood I got our junior coaching upgraded again. Still no movement on the youth recruitment though. ------------------------------------ MNZ Ptuj Super Liga The goals started to slow down and while we pulled out a couple more wins, the complacency led to an atrocious hammering at home by Gorisnica. I changed formation a little, going from 4-4-2 to 4-5-1. In part just to mix things up, and also because 27a Borut Rozman had now turned 17 and was available for selection, and I needed to find a way to get both him and 25a Aljosa Gulic into the team (both 4.5 star CA players). This gave us our groove back and we ended 2027 with a pair of big victories. That's a pretty nice gap to have going into the winter break. I just wish we could keep going. But as always, the four month break allows more players from the last youth intake to become old enough to play, so we should be even stronger when we return, ------------------------------------ Pokal Slovenije We received a couple of generous draws in the cup, both opposition coming from the leagues below. The second string made easy work of this, though the game against Panonija did include a couple of first-team starters as it was our last match before the winter break, so I didn't need to worry about resting them. ------------------------------------ Goalkeepers 23a Nemanja Jeric added another penalty to make it 20 career goals to date. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - September 2027 MNZ Ptuj Super Liga Excellent stuff. Four big wins and a draw. It could have been ever better too, but unfortunately we missed a penalty against Ormoz. They were relegated back into this division this year, so I'll still take a point against them as a decent result. Let's hope we can keep this up. ------------------------------------ Pokal Slovenije We're going on a cup run! Or beating our previous best at least, as we've made it into the second round for the first time. The starting line-up for each of these games was entirely rotated (apart from the goalie) to rest the first-choice team for the league, and it shows how far we've grown already that the second string were good enough. I was especially pleased with the victory over Interblock Ljubljana as they're in the league above us, albeit struggling at the bottom. ------------------------------------ Goalkeepers 23a Nemanja Jeric has already beaten his tally from last year with three goals so far, including our first goal of the season with a free-kick on the opening day. He did miss a penalty against Ormoz though. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - 2026/27 Season Review History, Finances, and Facilities I made the usual requests at the end of the season, but the board are firmly refusing to improve our youth recruitment. Our junior coaching got another bump though, and I think it is now the third best in the country, behind only the big boys of Domzale and Olimpija Ljubljana. For reference, both of those teams are in the top division and Domzale have just been crowned champions, while we're in the fourth tier. We set a new record high league position, and made another small profit. The cup performance, or lack thereof, was a disappointment again though. ------------------------------------ Squad Stats 23a Nemanja Jeric had his lowest scoring season with just two penalty goals. But in terms of doing his actual job, he had his best season with seven clean sheets, conceding only 21 times in 20 games. He was the fan's player of the season for a third time in a row. Top scorer was 25h Aleksandar Cerar with 13 goals, while 25a Aljosa Gulic and 25f Aleksandar Ernisa were the top creators with seven assists each. There are only two original players left in the squad now. Peter Stancic is our back-up left-back, and Matjaz Igerc is the third-choice central midfielder. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - May 2027 The draw against Grajena was hugely frustrating. Although a 93rd minute equaliser looks like a moral victory, only drawing a home tie with the team bottom of the table is not good enough. We were this close to a classic FMing, as our xG was 2.69 compared to their 0.16. Annoyingly, we made the same mistake against Markovci, this time 1.97 xG to 0.25. And we completed the hat-trick of crap results with a 2-0 loss to Apace, which again went against the xG, though not as extreme (our 0.98 to their 0.42). The loss to Apace ended our title hopes and Bukovci tied up the league with three games to play. Coincidentally our next game was hosting them, and with the pressure off we picked up the victory. Beating the champions is obviously an achievement, but it also added a bit of salt to the wound of the previous month. If we hadn't screwed up March and April we could have taken the title fight to the wire, but it wasn't to be. We won our final two games to end the season on a high, but also with a tinge of regret. Bukovci were just too strong for us. Although we had a very good season, one I am very happy with, we couldn't keep up with them. Their main striker ended up with 31 goals, averaging a strike every 44 minutes. ------------------------------------ Goalkeeper 23a Nemanja Jeric scored a penalty, just his second goal of the season. He now has a 93.33% accuracy rate from 15 attempts. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - 2027 Youth Intake The improvements made to our junior coaching are really taking effect now, as again the new batch of players outclasses anything that has come before. 27a Borut Rozman is instantly rated as the best player at the club, and the next seven players listed below are also all in the top ten. The players already at the club have had their CA stars re-assessed accordingly, and only three of them remained at 2.5 stars or above (4.5 for 25a Aljosa Gulic, 2.5 for 25c Marko Vodopivec and Matjaz Igerc). No second nationalities is a bit boring though. ------------------------------------