DaneBramage

NK Dornava - 2033/34 Season Review History, Finances, and Facilities This is the first time we've finished lower than the previous year, but it was still a good result. Our youth recruitment is still going in the right direction and at 17/20 there's probably only one upgrade left (am I right in thinking this is the one that can't go all the way up to 20?). Still not able to request improvements for our youth facilities though (is this a bug or does something trigger it?), and training facilities will be expensive. Our bank balance is going down, so we'll have to hope that one of our 50% clauses on next sales come through soon, but nothing's looking promising. Another transfer for 28a Sasa Pirc would also help for a solidarity payment. He's only played three times in two and a half years at Sheffield United, so maybe they'll want to cash in with just a year left on his contract. ------------------------------------ Squad Stats 29k Thomas Brauner was top scorer for a third time. His initial strike partner wasn't up to the task, but when 33m Damjan Buzinel came into the team he also added goals. Despite playing less than half the season he was our top creator. Our wingers both managed a few assists, but both scored more than they created. ------------------------------------

How they do make such a mess of this? I know it's a minor thing really, but it seems such like an easy fix.

NK Dornava - May 2034 Morons Apparently I have the stupidest players on the planet in my squad. In my pre-season promises I said the size of the squad would be reduced. 15 players were sold or released, but apparently that wasn't enough. I also said we'd utilise youth players, which should be a given for a youth only save. At least 18 starts were given to 17 year olds and at least 29 starts were given to 18 year olds (and probably more depending on when birthdays were throughout the year), plus loads more for 19 and 20 year olds. Heck, the player that's whinging about it is only 19 and started 22 games. I tried apologising to both as 27h Matej Vidovsek is an important player, able to cover either full-back spot, and 30a Sandi Grbec is one of my best players on the right-wing, but it didn't pacify either and both put in transfer requests. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - May 2034 3. SNL I hate Tehnotim Pesnica. We've played them ten times and lost on eight occasions, only picking up four points from them. After that, we ended the season strong. The win over Peca was our biggest of the season, and was a mini six-pointer as they'd have jumped over us in the table if they'd won. Both strikers scored on the final day. We were top scorers in the league with 60 goals, nine ahead of anyone else. But the 39 we conceded was the worst defensive record in the top half of the table. ------------------------------------ Goalkeepers The 8 goals scored by 30n David Oblak is the joint best we've seen from an individual season, and he is now our second highest scoring goalkeeper. He only has half as many as 23a Nemanja Jeric, though the majority of these were scored at a lower level. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - April 2034 Interview Offer I received my biggest invite to an interview so far, at Mura who were 8th in the 1. SNL at the time. ------------------------------------ Departures 32i Martin Marjanovic should have been our next big thing, and he did well after coming in to the team at 17 (4 goals and 7 assists in 18 games). But he had his head turned in the summer, and we never managed to get him back on side. Rather than lose him for nothing in six months I had to get rid now. The initial fee is basically nothing, but hopefully the 50% clause on his next sale should produce something in future. ------------------------------------ Incoming I brought back a previous player, but quickly regretted it. 25a Aljosa Gulic made three appearances, and we didn't win any of these games. His average rating of 6.2 was bad enough, but when he then complained after a team meeting was called to criticise the team, that sealed his fate and he was quickly released. ------------------------------------ 3. SNL As mentioned in the section above, our form after returning the winter break stunk. Before Christmas I'd moaned about needing to turn potential losses into draws, however we struggled to score despite dominating at Mons Claudius and Ljubno and turned potential wins into draws instead. I made a couple of changes to the team in April, and brought in 33m Damjan Buzinel once he turned 17. He contributed almost immediately with both goals and assists and suddenly we were on a four game winning run. It should have been five, we took an early lead over Ljutomer but couldn't add to it despite an xG of 3.93 and ended up only gaining a point. 29k Thomas Brauner was also prolific this period, and became our all-time top scorer with 53 league goals. A placing in the top two has stayed out of reach, we could probably finish up anywhere between 3rd and 6th now. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - 2034 Youth Intake A golden generation! Three players with starting CA at 2.5 or above is good. I will always be happy with a new highly-rated striker. Two defenders well over six foot is also something to enjoy. Four different nationalities, the United States, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, and Palestine is a nice surprise. Unfortunately, I'm not signing any of them. Five players are being ditched because of a combination of crap personalities and low starting CA, and this includes each of these three. In the tryout match they beat the U19 team 8-4. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - November 2033 Takeover and Facilities After a couple of false starts the board have sold up and a new board are in place. No money is being invested so it doesn't really make any difference, but the new chairman is in my good books after approving a youth recruitment upgrade with minimal fuss. ------------------------------------ 3. SNL We scored a lot of goals in our wins this month, though at times we made hard work of it. We had to come back from two-down when we hosted Peca, we kept inviting Sampion back into the game, and the subs turned what looked like a poor draw with Odranci into a big win in the final ten minutes. I can accept the loss to Tehnotim Pesnica, they're one of the teams I identified as being better than us. But the defeat to Sentjur was embarrassing. We had 27 shots (10 on target) and an xG of 4.05 so should have battered them, but somehow lost. And it could have been even worse had 30n David Oblak not saved a penalty. He also scored three of his own this period. We're actually not as far off the pace as I thought we would be, but it's clear to see what the issue is. We've lost more games than any other in the top-half of the table, we need to find a way to get at least a point from those games. We've scored more than anyone else in the division, but have conceded a lot more than the teams around us. We've let in 23 so far, Ljutomer 18, then the rest of the top six have conceded 10-12 each. The top three were also our rivals last year, while the relegated from 2. SNL team Dravinja Kostroj are underperforming. ------------------------------------ Pokal Slovenije A rotated side suffered a heavy defeat to 2. SNL opposition. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - September 2033 3. SNL Five wins, three losses. The losses were expected as two were to sides I'd picked out as being amongst the strongest last year, and the other was to a newly relegated team. It doesn't look like we're going to be in the mix this year, too many losses this early will have us on the back foot and I doubt that the other contenders will have as many issues this time. Immediately losing to most of them has shown they're definitely better than us on their day. I forgot to take a screenshot of the league table at this point, but I believe we were in 5th place. ------------------------------------ Pokal Slovenije A mostly rotated XI easily beat a lower division side. 30n David Oblak scored the first goalkeeper goal of the season. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - 2032/33 Season Review History, Finances, and Facilities We secured our highest ever finish (for the tenth time in 11 seasons), and I would have snatched your hand off for 2nd place at the start of the year. Given how close we were though, even as late as mid-March, it did hurt a bit how badly we fell out of contention for promotion. Five losses in nine games took us out of the mix, though four of these were to the other contenders, so at least it was losses to good competition rather than the also-rans. The proposed takeover of the club fell through, but the owner is still looking to sell. ------------------------------------ Squad Stats Goalkeeper goals have slowed down, with 30n David Oblak only netting two penalties this year. Doing his actual job, he was generally impressive with 15 clean sheets, including 12 in the first 14 games. When he did concede though he often conceded a lot, letting in three goals twice, four goals twice, and five and six goals once. 30a Sandi Grbec was named fan's player of the year for his 10 goals and 8 assists in 21 games, mostly coming in the first half of the season. He was less productive after Christmas, and an injury finished his campaign early. 29k Thomas Brauner was top scorer again, but down on last year's tally. Goals and assists were pretty well spread over our wingers and strikers, but the rest of the team didn't contribute much in this regard. The majority of the first-team squad will be having their contracts renewed, but the back-ups whinging about wanting pay increases will be given the boot, both for annoying me and so we can trim the squad. Our U19 squad currently has 44 players in it, including overage players, so that's obviously too many. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - May 2033 3. SNL The loss to Brezice meant the title race was over, and Rudar Velenje were crowned champions. With the pressure off, we turned into world-beaters for the final three games, just smashing through the opposition. 29k Thomas Brauner and 31a Stefan Karjnc each used this as an opportunity to fill their boots. My pessimism in the last update was unwarranted. While we did drop down to 5th after the loss to Brezice, each of the three teams that finished below us dropped points over the final three games, meaning we rose back up to 2nd. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - April 2033 3. SNL Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. We got absolutely smashed by Rudar Velenje. Men against boys. After half an hour we were down to ten boys, but at that point it was already 3-0. We didn't stand a chance. It was truly pathetic. And then it got worse from there. We lost 4-3 to Krsko, despite allowing them an xG of just 1.00. Despicable. Over the course of these two games 29l Slavisa Bezjak made four mistakes leading to goals being conceded, so he was fined a total of four weeks wages. I dropped all of the defensive line and the goalkeeper for the Ljubno game, but the replacements were just as bad and we slumped to a third loss in a row. I put the AssMan in charge of team selection for the final game of the month, and we just about scraped a narrow victory to at least stop the rot. 32a Sandi Grbec (8 goals and 8 assists in 20 appearances) tore his knee ligament in this game though, ruling him out for the rest of the season. Well off the pace now. I'd be surprised if we keep a hold of second place, wouldn't be surprised if we dropped down to fifth. ------------------------------------ This came in after the Krsko loss. I'm not looking to move, thinking of this as a one club save, but I did half consider it due to my bad mood at that point. They're six points adrift at the bottom of the 1. SNL though, so probably a bad idea anyway. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - March 2033 Facilities I put in another cheeky request and it was accepted without much hassle. The board are currently looking to sell the club so I thought it would be rejected for that reason, but I guess they figured they'd just approve it now for an easy life and then the affect on finances will be someone else's problem. I'd really like to improve our youth facilities, but the option to request this has literally never been available. Hopefully it will trigger at some point and it's not some kind of bug. ------------------------------------ Incomings I brought back a right-back who'd previously been stolen away by Rudar Velenje. He didn't play much in his five years there, playing more while on a couple of loan spells, but did benefit from their better training facilities. ------------------------------------ 3. SNL We were missing our best two players against Sostanj, following a couple of knocks they'd picked up in the winter friendlies. Luckily the opposition was rubbish, and 32e Senad Omladic grabbed a double on his debut. Tehnotim Pesnica have been underperforming this season, but they had enough about them to beat us in a disappointing home loss. Before Christmas our defensive record was impeccable, but it's been dodgy since returning to action. We beat Peca pretty easily, but still somehow managed to concede three times. We temporarily jumped above Rudar Velenje, but then dropped back below again after our loss. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - 2033 Youth Intake A golden generation! 13 players from this batch were kept. Three players were ditched for crap personalities, and a few others were lucky that their starting CAs were a bit higher otherwise they'd have been joining them. Just the one additional nationality this year, a lad from the Faroe Islands. In the tryout match the youth candidates beat our U19 team 7-1. 33m Damjan Buzinel scored a brace and was immediately rated as the third best striker at the club. ------------------------------------

Wow, that's quite the dramatic (and traumatic) couple of months. Incredibly harsh firing from Envigado. Definitely something off with the rules of the league not being understood by the board when managing expectations. The less said about the second job the better. I'd well and truly be binning off Colombia for a bit now.

NK Dornava - November 2032 3. SNL Wow. Super chuffed. No goals conceded and 16 points from a possible 18. 30a Sandi Grbec is really impressing with two winning goals this month. He's already hit double figures from the right-wing, along with six assists. The star of my 2032 youth intake was a right-winger and I assumed he'd go straight into the first-team, but maybe it won't be such an easy decision to make now. Our defensive record is insane. We've only conceded nine goals, and they came in two games. Outside of that we've kept 12 clean sheets, 30n David Oblak already beating the previous record with half the season still to go. ------------------------------------ Pokal Slovenije Higher tier opposition, so I threw in the second-string to rest up the starting XI for the league instead. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - September 2032 3. SNL We made a cracking start to the season - five games, five wins, five clean sheets. Flying. I started to get my hopes up that this could be our year, and then Rudar Velenje visited and smashed us. Our overall record against them is one draw and six losses, I'm just fed up with playing them. Hope they get promoted this year just so we don't have to play them again next campaign. Then we got battered by Krsko as well, just to make it clear that the bigger teams can stomp us at will. Seven players were fined after that performance. We rebounded with a win over Ljubno, it should have been emphatic but our forwards had an off day. Despite the two losses we're still in the mix, but I'd put all of the other sides in the top five as favourites over us. ------------------------------------ Pokal Slovenije Comfortable win against lower tier opposition. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - 2031/32 Season Review History, Finances, and Facilities I'm very happy with how this year has gone. We've improved our position again, got our youth improvement upgraded (now 9/20), and thanks to the 28a Sasa Pirc money our finances are looking good. Plus there's still more to come from the remaining instalments, and possible appearances clause (currently two of the required 10 games have been met). We've picked up 10 more points than our previous best at this level, and scored 14 more. At no point did we lose two games in a row, our worst run was four games without a win and three of these were draws. ------------------------------------ Squad Stats The season awards were swept by 29k Thomas Brauner. With 23 goals, 10 assists, and an average rating of 7.71 he was the obvious candidate for the fan's player of the year. Our wingers 28f Rok Oblak and 30a Sandi Grbec came on strong in the second half of the season and each made a good amount of goal contributions. Four players from this squad will be leaving in the summer. Goalkeeper 29p Maric Kastelic threw a strop when an offer of £0 for him was rejected during the winter break, and is refusing to speak about a new contract. Right-back 27m Nino Fink will be returning to Maribor once his loan ends. Sub midfielder 29n Goran Gorenc has agreed to join Nafta Lendava once his contract expires. Striker 29g Borut Kocar had one spell when he scored five games in a row, yet managed zero goals in his other 20 appearances. Why did I stick with him for so long?! And he thinks his wage should be doubled! Not happening, jog on sunshine. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - May 2032 Facilities While we were on a good run I requested an improvement to our youth recruitment, fully expecting the usual rejection. I selected a different starting argument from normal, and surprisingly the upgrade was agreed straight away without question. ------------------------------------ 3. SNL The sparkling form of 29k Thomas Brauner continued with five more goals in these five games. He was unselfish too, also providing five assists in this time. 28f Rok Oblak was the main benefactor from that, scoring a magnificent seven goals, including a hat-trick against Brezice. While our main striker and left-winger were impressing, our other striker was having a 'mare. We'd rotated players and roles in this position, but it had now been 12 games since whoever was lining up as the left-sided striker had last scored. I changed the role to complete forward, and 28l Mitja Buzinel came in and scored a brace in each of the final two games (his only goals this season). The final day saw an absolute goalfest take place. It was a bonkers scoreline, but we lead from the 12th minute onwards and the result was never in doubt. After the dodgy March it had looked like we might be losing our grip on 5th place, but a strong ending to the season (seven wins from nine) saw us pull away and finish comfortably. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - April 2032 3. SNL We returned to action with a bore draw against Sampion, then got hammered by Rudar Velenje. None of our goals came until we were already 4-0 down and we'd left ourselves way too much to do. We then laboured to a two-all draw with Ljutomer, a creditable result in the circumstances - after a red card we had to play more than an hour with then men. I held a team meeting before April began to try and bring morale back up, and it worked. We picked up three good wins, and 29k Thomas Brauner was a man on fire. He grabbed a hat-trick in the first win, scored a brace in the next, then provided a pair of assists in the third. We're just about still holding on to 5th place, but the gap down to 6th has shrunk from five points to just the one. Looking down the table, seeing Sampion in bottom spot illustrates how poor the draw with them was. And I like how perfectly midtable Odranci's record is. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - 2032 Youth Intake A golden generation! What I really wanted from this batch was a striker, but luck was not on my side. 32i Martin Marjanovic looks class though. a lot better than our existing right wingers. When he turns 17 (in just over a year) he'll be straight into the starting line-up. I didn't bother signing two players, due to poor personalities and a lack of ability. If someone's good enough to play for us I can look past the personalities at this stage, but when they have the lowest CA as well it's not worth it. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - January 2032 Ex-Player 28a Sasa Pirc is on the move again. He didn't really impress much in the Netherlands, with 6 goals in 37 Eerste Divisie appearances for Jong Ajax (and only three sub appearances for the senior team), but it was enough to catch the eye of some big clubs. Manchester United were scouting him for a long time but didn't make a move, and it was Sheffield United who swooped to bring him to the Premier League for £8.75 million. We're due a total of £176k as a solidarity payment, which would be a massive amount if we received it all in one go. Instead, the transfer has some structured payments, so we're getting £74k upfront then another three instalments of £32k each. The fee could increase by another £3.2 million if he makes 10 appearances, so that could potentially bring in another £64k for us. ------------------------------------

Thanks. Part of the problem was that my best players could easily be stolen away, so anyone that did start to develop quickly left. I can offer contracts now so at least I'll be able to keep those who do show some quality a bit longer.

NK Dornava - November 2031 3. SNL Vzhod I usually include a month or two's results at a time, so going three months without posting could mean one of two things. Either we've been playing well and I haven't wanted to ruin that by tempting the FM Gods. Or we've been playing badly and I've been too annoyed to write about it. Luckily, its been the former this time. There's a lot of green on the board here. 29k Thomas Brauner has been in great form with 12 goals in 13 league games, including a brilliant hat-trick against Sentjur. His strike partner 29g Borut Kocar had a slow start to the season, and counting the end of last season too had gone more than a dozen games without scoring. Rather than going with my normal approach of criticism I went with encouragement instead, and he responded with goals in five successive games. Our only losses in this period came to the top two. The draw against Tehnotim Pesnica was the sixth time we've played them, and the first time we've taken a point. Very happy with this. I was expecting a tougher season this year, maybe even a step backwards, but we're surpassing expectations at the halfway stage. ------------------------------------ Pokal Slovenije A while back I asked the board for a senior affiliate to try and get a bit of extra cash. They agreed and linked us up with Beltinci. There's no annual fee though, and they've never tried loaning us any players either (that I wouldn't be able to use anyway). The arrangement has been pretty pointless. So that's why Beltinci are purple here. They beat us easily. Our goals came when we were already four down. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - August 2031 Departures Our starting right-back was unsettled by Maribor showing an interest, though their initial approach to just take him for free was swiftly rejected. They then came back offering a friendly only, and we again rejected it. At this point 27m Nino Fink kicked off and said he wanted to leave, and would do so at the end of his contract (one year remaining). So when Maribor came back for a third time offering £7k, we managed to negotiate it up to £25k + 50% of next sale + a friendly. After the deal was agreed, Maribor then asked if we wanted to keep him this year on loan, so we've still got him for another 12 months. ------------------------------------ 3. SNL Vzhod Two good home wins, two bad away losses. Goalkeeper 29p Matic Kastelic was productive in the wins, with a goal in the first and an assist in the second. 29k Thomas Brauner scored in both games to solidify his position in the starting line-up. The losses were both poor, though the stats suggested they shouldn't have been quite so emphatic. We had almost as many opportunities as Technotim Pesnica, but just couldn't put the ball in the net. And three individual errors in defence cost us against Rudar Velenje. ------------------------------------

NK Dornava - 2030/31 Season Review History, Finances, and Facilities This is the first season that we haven't improved our position from the previous year. There were bright spells, but also really poor periods. It feels like we've hit a rut and will probably be in the third tier for a while. Pointing out the obvious here, as it's the thing everybody wants, but could really do with a class striker coming through. ------------------------------------ Squad Stats 28l Mitja Buzinel top scored with 14 goals. A respectable tally, but no one else even getting close to this amount was disappointing. 28d Denis Vuk was next with six goals, plus the same amount of assists. This was enough for him to earn the fan's player of the year award. He's leaving in the summer though, along with 28g Matic Horvat, both off to Krka Novo Mesto. They thought this was a chance to move up the divisions but after their new club's relegation, they'll be back at this level next year. It's a big hit for us, losing both of our starting left sided players and the two best rated by CA. ------------------------------------