Stepping back to take a step forward.
I will admit, everything lined up well for us last year. Getting to the Round of 16 in the UECL was quite the accomplishment, but as optimistic as I am, and overly so at times, I wasn’t expecting a repeat performance this year. I wanted us to do well, place well, and try and qualify for European Football again, but it was going to be tough.
This is Jaroslav Verdal. U Craiova 1948 spent €19.25M in transfers, he was €9.5(12.5)M of that.
Nassim Chefra, a very good deal at €350K for Farul:
Universitatea Cluj paid €1.3M for Milan Precupanu (Class of ’25):
and they paid just €49K for this fellow:
And UTA Arad paid €500K for this young midfielder:
Will I have players this good? Eventually, I mean, I HAD Precupanu, but he left for greener pastures, and then left again for even greener pastures. The issue is, we are a good, young team who is getting better in incrementally small steps. I’d love to use my €7.1M Transfer budget and 1.1M in available salary to improve the squad with some great younger players, but I can’t. What I can do is develop what I have, sell them for a goodly sum, and keep getting in Youth Players to replace them, which is possible, but is it probable? I think so, even when the decks isn’t exactly stacked in our favor.
The team literally had 10 days of vacation before having to report back, then it was friendlies, and before we knew it, the season was upon us. The only ‘loss’ in the transfer window was Lucian Ilie (Class of ’28), who went to Voluntari for €175K. I think he is the type of sale that is going to be common going forward, a good young player with potential buried on the depth chart, like 9th on the depth chart:
He’s a 3 1/2 to 5 star Potential player, and he had a good loan spell last season. The issue is I have Five players ahead of him who are 2-3 star CA, and 4 to 5 star PA already ahead of him. I was trying to loan him out again when Voluntari made the offer, and a somewhat larger salary with the promise of 1st Team playing time beat out my offer, and he left.
They season got off to an…well, it started.
We absolutely bodied Sloboda Tuzla in the Qualifying Round, but then drew with an Average Sepsi squad. Losing to botrh Cluj and Farul isn’t unexpected, but one of those games should have been a draw, and losing to Dinamo Bucureşti 4-0, as much as I want to blame it on the number of games we have been playing, was just a gut punch. They are a solid squad, but we’re better than putting up a donut on the scoreboard. We were 3-0 down after 18 minutes, i think the overall average for the club was a 6.2…just bleh. The upside was that while we were doing our best to crap the bed in the Domestic games, in Europe we were doing unexpectedly well again. Beating BATE Borisov on aggregate was very nice, and I thought we were going to be out when I saw we were playing Guimarães. However, we held them to a 1-1 draw at home, and an unfortunate own goal by a young newgen player gave us the 2-1 win at their house, and we made it to the League Phase, where honestly, we got a bit of a gift draw:
Rapid Wien and Celtic were the only two teams I Was worried about, luckily they were both traveling to us so that was a bit of a leg up…
Galaţi and Csíkszereda are teams that are going to be fighting relegation. The fact we beat one and lost to the other with the exact same squads that were well rested and preapred is a statement as to how the season was going. And again, our Cupa României group was a bloodbath, as we won just one game, drew 2 and lost 2 with a negative goal differential….
The UECL was going as expected though. In real life, Shkupi is a decent North Macedonian Squad, and Pyunik is a decent Armenian squad, in the game they are full of greyed out newgens that didn’t really have a chance, and it was reflected in the scoreboard.
November and December was….frustratingly good.
Drawing with Celtic and Molde, who with Rapid Wien were the three teams in the group I was worried about, was very good, especially as both player their best starting XI. Gorica is a decent Croatian squad, yet they went 7-0 (against Semi Pro Breiðablik, who has to achieve supremacy (IYKYK), the 0-0 at Brighton, 0-1 at St. Gallen, 1-0 at Maribor, 0-0 with us, and 0-0 at Viking…and they finished 16th(!). We finished 5th, but the other Romanian Squads in the League also did very well:
5th, 7th, 10th and 12th, that will surely help the Country rankings at the end of the day, I hope.
As frustrating as November and December were, January and February was worse:
Eleven games without a loss is nothing to sneeze at, but 4 wins and 7 draws might be worth a sniffle or three. And some of those game we deserved to lose, Cluj in particular. It seemed as if once we equalized we were content to play for the draw, and no matter how much I yelled, threw bottles, and berated them, their “Give a Damn done broke”. We staggered into March needing to put our best foot forward to avoid being in the relegation group, but we tied our own shoelaces somewhere along the way:
I knew after playing the the first time around Rapid Wien was a good squad, and the obviously studied us because they picked us apart in the 2nd game, and we tumbled out of the League. The goal was now to tray and get to the top of the relegation group and fight for the European spot again, but losing to U Craiova put that thought to bed. The rest of the season was us trying not to lose and to avoid a relegation scrap, because honestly, I am not sure which team would have shown up had we been in that position.
We did just enough to avoid the Relegation battle. You would have heard my sigh of releif, if not for the wailing and gnashing of Voluntari fans. They not only lost 6 of their Relegation Group games, winning and drawing two apiece, they were forced to play in the Liga I/II Relegation Playoff, where they drew 1-1 the first match, they were 3-0 up, gave up 3 goals in 12 minutes, and then lost on Penalty Kicks. And the coach still has his job, so far…
Final Standings:
And the remaining Romanian clubs did pretty well in the Conference:
And that should help a bit.
The Youth Intake was deceptively good. I say deceptively because while we have some great potential, I suspect at least one, if not more of these players is already near their PA. Oddly enough, this was not considered a “Golden Generation”:
The Best:
PAUN is…intriguing. He’s probably destined for a AM?IF role, but his strength and Work Rate being in the red are worrisome, as is his Decision Making, Composure, Anticipation and Finishing. If I can get him some U19 game time and some loans spells, he should develop enough to cosnider some starting XI time, but that’s getting to be a tougher task to juggle. The Injury Proneness is a worry as well.
BEZERCU is everything Paun isn’t, and that’s a bit worrisome, because of all the players in this years intake, he’s the one I think is the Chimera. I hope I am wrong, as his Physical and Possession attributes are a solid foundation to build on, and his Attacking Attributes aren’t that bad either. If he develops, he will be quite a solid player.
I can’t pronounce his last name, but ANDREI looks to be the best of the bunch, until that glaring “UNAMBITIOUS” personality jumps out at you. Granted, we already have a few players on the starting XI turning in good performances with that personality type, but that just tells me they’d be even better players if they were at least, say, Balanced…Andrei is probably the best all around youth player this intake, I graded him lower because of said personality, and I don’t think he cares…
MILAN and Andrei might be cousins, given how I can’t pronounce either of there names the same way twice. He has the making of a prototypical D(C), but again that Low Determination personality is a killer. You can’t teach height though, so maybe some mentoring and the like can get it improved, and he can become a quality contributor.
The Rest:
Again, Personality dragged these two players down the scale. Of everyone who came in thru this years intake, Drăguşin is the most ready to play, with good Defending Skills, Good Attacking Skills, and Good Technique. If his Quickness was to really pick up, he’d be a great Winger, but as it stands he’s already a capable WB. I think he has one of the highest ceilings in this years intake, but again, that personality…
Bucur is the other player I think is near his PA already. As much as I would love for him to top out as say a 4 star BBM, I suspect his attributes are on the low end for each color, which means improving won’t get him out of that range all that often either. As an example, his Stamina is probably and 8, and it will top out at 12, his Off the Ball is 9 and will top out at 11 sort of thing…
All that said, next years intake had better be pretty good in the Personality department, o my HOYD (Fairly Professional, Outspoken yet Reserved) is going to be looking for a new job.
The team did take a step back this season. I don’t think there is one overarching reason for it, but a lot of smaller reasons that when taken together, show why. A Busy schedule, Injuries in the second half of the season (Alexandru, Teodorescu, Voicu and Hlinca all missed at least 6 weeks), and better competition means we have to work a little harder going forward.
In Other news, we have three left from the starting squad still getting regular game time, how long that lasts I am not sure, but as next season is our 10th, it might be worth it to see who, if any, of the youth players that have left have become contributors on their new teams.
Thanks for Reading!
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