As much as I love this save, I have to admit we are in the phase where our performances are going to vary wildly, and there are multiple reasons for this, but the primary reason is that we are a young team, our average age is 21, and the Ability Curve of the ability of the squad is a bit…pronounced. We are good enough to win the League in Romania, and beat some other European clubs, but we aren’t in a position to compete with the bigger European Clubs on a consistent basis because we do not have the team to do so, we are waiting for the Youth Academy to produce it. Which means going forward, instead of the medium to big leaps we used to get to where we are now, the next few years are going to be only incremental improvements, or no improvements at all, or in some cases, stepping back a bit.
This season was one of those cases…
There were some bits of good news though:
And some Middling News:
The biggest loss here was Fieraru (Class of ’31). He has the ability to be a solid striker, either a #2 on our squad, if I ever switch to a Two Striker Formation, or a good player on a lower club. He had one year left on his contract, and Rapid pushed hard for him, and he wanted to go, and nothing could keep him here. Secreteanu (Class of ’26) was a solid option on the left side, but I have equally capable younger players who can take his place. Butoiu (Class of ’31) I had high hopes for, as did the Youth Coaches. The next 4 years he barely improved. Stancu (Class of ’25) has had a solid career for us as our D/WB(L), but Sepsi’s offer was too good to pass up, and I have younger capable replacements.
I was hoping for a good European run this year. I knew we weren’t going to go far in the Champions League, and also felt pretty confident that if we fell to the Europa League, we could do a credible job there, and if for some reason we fell to the Conference, thats fine, we could do a credible job there to. The preseason started well, the friendlies were good, the season kicked off, and we shat the bed.
I played mostly rotated sides in the friendlies, especially once I saw who we were playing in our CL Qualifying game. I needn’t have worried. Midtjylland’s quality was apparent from the first whistle, they scored their 1st goals in 10 minutes. And if beating us 4-1 wasn’t bad enough for our home crowd, they beat us 4-1 in front of their home crowd as well…where they scored in the 1st minute. If you take into account the 6-2 drubbing Cluj gave us, also at home, we lost by a 14-3 aggregate score in those matches….to face Mechelen in the Europa League. I don’t have Belgium loaded, but they fished 4th I think, because they didn’t show up in the 1-3 slots, and while we did well to hold them to a 1-1 draw, 16 y/o Rocky Jivan (Class of ’34) clawing the draw back for us in the 81st minute, a Stancu own goal and all around poor effort meant we lost in the 2-1 away match. So we fell to the conference league, where we met our new nemesis: Austria Wien. A 4-3 aggregate loss late, and we were out of Europe.
It has been our worst European performance to date…
I would like the think our lackluster efforts in Europe, with a heavy dose of yelling by me, spurred the guys onto start doing well. Or maybe they just didn’t want to play in Europe, I am not sure.
We went the entire month of September without conceding a goal, which was a good accomplishment. A close loss followed by a last gasp win was too exciting for me, I called it a night after those two matches, as we find ourselves part of a group of eight or so teams that could finish 4th or 12th, and noone would really be surprised with either result. Not losing in November was also nice, but the wheels wobbled in December, and we went into the break mid table. It was going to take quite a bit for us to make our way back into the Top 6.
And we stumbled just enough at the end to finish 7th, and go into the Relegation Group.
So Of Course we turned it on, lost only the one game, six shutouts and PK’s against FCSB see us finish 8th, and claim another European spot. We’re going to do better next year.
The Youth Intake
Last years Intake was really good, Jivan, Oprea, Mif, Vieru, Croitoru could be a Golden Generation. Jivan at 16 is already playing for the Romanian U21 squad, which is both good and bad. This years intake preview got my hopes up, but then:
Alin Munteneau
His Bravery is the standout attribute, but his Aggression, Tackling, Fitness and Work Rate are nothing the laugh at either. I suspect a lot of his “Average” scores are in the 9-10 range, and if he doesn’t meet his 4 1/2 star potential, he should still become a very solid midfielder.
Dennis Macanu
How a person with Good Determination and decent Teamwork can be Unsporting is a mystery, I am pretty sure it means his ‘under the hood’ attributed are pretty meh. He has a good foundation to build on, the problem is I have quite a few players that can play at D(L). At this point the best course of action is to get him into a good mentor group, then get him as many games as possible, maybe a loan spell or two, and see where we are in 5 years. But his potential isn’t enough for me to outweigh the Personality.
Alin Oltean
If he improves his Stamina, Strength, Concentration and Positioning, I think Oltean could have a long term future at the club, despite the Injury issues. What I am hoping is that he’s not another one of those players who comes in with their CA at 70, and their PA is 85. Another one to keep a closer eye on.
Nikolay Tuntev
The question isn’t “How Good is Tuntev going to be?” but rather “How good is Tuntev going to be before he leaves for ‘Gr€€n€r’ pastures. He’s only been eligible for a few months, yet already has a Bulgarian U21 Call Up, and a goal. I think he has wonderkid (160+ IMO) potential, and we are going to do what we can to get him there. I strongly suspect he will be getting first team playing time next season, and honestly, with his physicals and Ball Control attributes, and his overall Attacking Attributes, I don’t think we would be hurting the squad. Clearly the best of this years good intake.
Alexandru Olteanu
His Attacking and Possession attributes are already on the right side og good for the most part, if his defensive skills pick up, to where he is merely ‘Average’ as opposed to ‘Bad’, I think he’ll be a great DLP. As it stands, he has a couple of other players ahead of him on the depth chart, but they bring more issues to the table than Olteanu does. And having to many good players for a position is a problem I think a lot of FM managers would love to have.
Vlad Bălan
At 6′ 2″, he already has the height for the position, and while his Fitness is currently lacking, his solid physicals and defending means he has a good foundation to build on, and the Fairly Determined personality will help him there. He has a little bit of an injury problem, but that doesn’t worry me. What does is that he’s currently 8th on the D(C) depth chart, and how do I shepherd his growth to try and make sure he gets a chance at starting for us?
Teodorescu had 17 assists. 17 Unambitious assists to go with 8 Unambitious Goals and 3 Unambitious Player of the Match awards. If only her were a bit more ambitious…
Despite the teams overall performance, the players as a whole did really well IMO. I love that were aren’t relying on one or two players to do everything for us, and we had quite a few youngsters get some playing time, and contributing. It’s something we need to keep on doing, especially if we want more success. Our European campaign this year was a disaster, I am hoping we will do better next season. The last couple of Youth Intake have also been very good, I am hoping that’s a trend that’s going to continue.
Until then, we’re going to keep plugging away, and hoping and praying we keep the rock in front of us.
Ten seasons in, and I would be hard pressed to argue were aren’t exactly where we want to be. In addition to moving up 134 places to the 132nd position in European club ranking, we have improved behind the scenes, with secure finances, State of the Art Training Facilities, Excellent Youth Facilities, the best coaching group in Liga I…the only thing really holding us back is our reputation as a club, which currently sits at 2 1/2 National. That means we are still missing out on some of the better coaching options out there, especially at the youth level, because they do not want to come here. Don’t get me wrong, what we have is pretty good, but I know there are better out there. But we have a good, young, capable roster, and even though the pundits don’t believe in us (Again, the predicted a bottom half finish, this time 11th), I think we are poised to start doing some good things.
Selling one of our better youth prospects was not part of the plan though.
Vasile Ion (Class of ’30) is probably the first legitimate wonderkid (140+PA) player we’ve had come thru the ranks.
If I am being honest, I don’t think it’s his play for us that caught everyone’s attention, but his International and Continental play. 7 appearances as a 17 year old, 11 as an 18 year old, he’s easily the best young Romanian DM in the game. A few of the local clubs started asking about him last season, then some of the neighboring clubs, but in this years winter transfer window, a lot of big clubs started getting involved, when Napoli came and made an offer that I couldn’t refuse. Could I have gotten more money for him? At the time, probably not. And they offered him on a loan back until the end of the season which came in handy. I suspect the 40% sell on will as well…or it would, if we were buying players. A lot of the extra money is tied to international appearances, and I don’t think we will see a problem in getting them.
Transfer wise, the only real surprise was Rareş Florea going to Chindia for as much money as he did. I don’t think he worth anything nearing that amount, but never interrupt another club when they are making financial decision that are in your best interest. The only other ‘Out’ of any consequence was Rareş Florea, but Voluntarii can afford to eat the fee should he not pan out. Given the recent injury rating he’s picked up and his underwhelming loan spell last year, I don’t think he’s going to get much better.
Schedule wise, I think we actually did ourselves a favor by not qualifying for Continental football this season, as it means fewer games, and lets us concentrate on League play. And Holy Hell, did we get off to a really good start:
We played horribly at Arad, so a draw was not an unexpected result. The draw at Craiova was expected as well, the loss against FCSB not so much, but everyone in a Politehnica kit had a bad day that day. Our victories though, 4-1 against U Craiova, 2-0 against Rapid, 3-0 against Cluj, these are all solid to very good teams, and we handled them quite well. We are still using the 4-1-4-1 DM WB Asymmetrical, everyone knows it, is comfortable and familiar with it, and teams are still having issues dealing with it. I wanted to do well in the Cupa României this season, the board wanted us to get to the latter stages, and being in a somewhat weaker group certainly helped. It allowed me to rotate for some of the matches, and start some very promising youngsters.
Other than the loss against Craiova, at home no less, we kept up our winning way. Hlinca in particular is having a very good season as the DLF, well on his way to another 20+ goal season. Voicu (Class of ’26) has settled into the AM(C) role quite well, and Alexandru is having an excellent season between the sticks, well on his way to averaging less than a goal a game. Wins against Dinamo and Cluj, shutting out Arad in the return match, and a Quarter Final win in the Cupa României, we went into the winner break on a high.
That high continued until the League split. If not for the fact Universitatea Craivoa had an even better first half of the season (13/2/0 to our 10/4/1) we would have been in first place. But this is Liga I, and sometimes, the are strange things afoot.
THE YEWT
I think this Intake has the potential to be the best one of the save so far, not in terms of how many players we recruited, but how many of them are better than 120PA
Rocky Jivan
The only reason(s) Jivan might not get some starts next year are because he’s 16, and he’s 127 pounds soaking wet. After that, whats not to love? A left footed BBM DM/M(C), with Good Balance, Work Rate, Flair, Technique, Finishing, and a Bravery (17 minimum) that speaks of a Napoleon complex of “I don’t care I am 5’7″ I’ll kick you ass every day of the week and twice on Game day” attitude. And he’s got a Professional Personality. The question isn’t how good a player will Rocky be, the question is considering what we see is the basement, how high cam we go, and how long can we keep him before other teams come calling?
If Vasile Oprea‘s Possession and Physicals can catch up to his Attacking skills, he’d will be a very good attacking option. As it stands, at the moment he’s one of several in a somewhat large pond looking to take over if/when Hlincu leaves. Being Fairly Professional will certainly help.
I am not sure how to pronounce Mădălin Mif. If he and Oprea were combined into one player we would have a very good AM(C) on out hands, as it stands Mif has DLP written all over, Decent Attacking skills, Good Possession skills, and not that mobile. If his Defending skills were any better, or at least had the potential to be much better, he would be a great D(C). However, the lack of defending skills, his physical deficits, and the Unambitious personality mean he probably wont reach his potential, no matter what positions he’s playing.
As If Cristian Vieru joining the large pond that is our striker depth, the Low Determination is an additional anchor around his neck. Which is a shame, because I think after Jivan, he has the best base in terms of starting skills. I think if he does develop, it will probably be at an AM(C) sort of player. Cosmin Croitoru is in the same boat, but something tells me that the difference between Croitoru’s CA and PA is not that great. That said, other than Jivan he’s probably the one player from this intake who’s going to get first team playing time sooner rather than later.
Rocky Merişanu will probably forever be known as “The Other Rocky” from this years intake. He has a solid foundation to build off of, the question is how high. His personality says “Not as High as it Could be.” I suspect he will be a squad player at best, but the potential to be more IS there. Vasile Mihai is a player I think is undervalued by my scouts and coaches, even with the Unambitious personality. His Good Defending skills, Good Physical skills, Technique and Passing are intriguing, at least to me. Part of me suspects that he’s rated as low as he is because they believe the areas he’s already low then are not going get much better than they are now. Tudor Ungureanu is a decidedly average player at the moment. That is not a bad thing, as I suspect all of his Orange skills are on the low end, but should his Fairly Sporting personality not be a hindrance, he could be a serviceable squad player.
I’ll be honest, I am not sure whats going on when it comes to the League phase. Craiova went in 1st place, lost two games, drew one and won the rest, while we drew 4 and lost 1, while winning the others. That put them 5 points ahead in the Playoffs, yet somehow, in the League table, we pipped them by 2 points to win 1st place and a UCL spot, but Craiova are the Champions(?)
Granted, we needed some luck to win/not lose a couple of these matches:
But the good news in all of this was not winning the League (possibly), or qualifying for Champions League Football again, it was winning out first Domestic Trophy by beat Craiova in the Cup Final! Woohoo, something tangible to hang our scarf on!
Dumitru Hlinca has a fabulous season, Player of the year, new average rating record, 35 goals across all competitions, he’s really hit his stride, and he’s not the only one.
Răzvan Teodorescu set a new record with 24 assists across all competitions, Voicu had a solid season with 19 goals and 7 assists, Neagu and Alexandru had fine seasons as well, and I really think we’ve turned the corner with regards to where we can finish. Admittedly, finishing top third is good, but as we have seen in the past, so is finishing top of the relegation group. Going forward, European football has to be the goal, no matter what competition it ends up being, no matter how we qualify for it. The other thing I am interested in seeing is how well our next few Youth Intakes go. If they are the same…quality as this one, I think we will be very happy. These “lower” personality profiles are still disturbing though. Although we have seen some players grow out of them, the fact they are showing up with them, especially in the number of players that have them, is still disturbing. Until we can bring in a better HOYD though, we are stuck with the one we have.
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.
This year, it was a tale of two seasons. The first season we were Brilliant. The second season, less so, as a packed schedule, injuries, fatigue and the like conspired to bring us down a few pegs to midtable mediocrity, but the puppet masters behind the scnes forgot one thing:
This is the Romanian Liga I, and finishing Mid Table is not, as they say, “A Bad Place to be…”
The roster has slowly been sorting itself out the past few seasons. Older players who were here when I started have developed and have a place in the starting XI or on the bench, younger players who have started to develop have earned their place on the starting XI or on the bench, the Youth Team is well stocked, which means the the left over players on the huge roster we have are either:
Youth Players biding their time on the U19 squad, improving and getting ready for their chance at the First Team.
Older players who are capable backups but not full time starters.
Players young and old who will never see the starting XI
Players young and old who think we are still too small a team and want to move onto to bigger and better challenges.
Players who came thru the Youth System looking like Tarzan, played like Jane because our personnel at the time were not the best judges of Potential, and might never see a starting XI in Liga III…
The players we let go in the transfer window are in the last two categories.
The only real “loss” in this list is Eusebiu Iacob (Class of ’29), a AM(C) who can play the left and up top as striker. Physically Good, Technically OK, Poor everywhere else, his Unambitious Personality didn’t help, but somehow, in 11(6) appearances before he left, he had 5 goals, 2 assists, and a 7.25 rating. I tried to get to stay, but nooooo, Petrolul Ploiești in Liga II was a better option for him. Koszma (Class of ’28), never showed any big improvement, despite being one of the better graded players in that class. I suspect he is one of those Youth players who comes in at 80 CA, and his PA is 95…
UEFA Europa Conference League Football. That’s a mouthful, but it gets even better when you realize that because of coefficients and other things, we start in the League Path Second Qualifying Round, which is like 3 phases away from the Group stage…which means our European Journey started in July, against Zorya.
Man did we get off to a good start. I would love to take credit, but the fact of the matter is, I think it’s the formation. It’s one we have all seen before:
We are Attacking Wide, Overlapping and Focusing on both flanks, passing it into space, playing for set pieces, counter when possession has been won, distribute to flanks, and play a mid block with a standard defensive line. The only additional PI’s are for the positions, the WB’s aim their crosses at the Target Forward, as do the Wingers and the AM(C). The AM(C) runs wider with the ball, and thats really it. I’ll tweak it during the games if need be, but I am also not the sort of guy who watches on extensive highlight to spot such things. My philosophy, on this save anyways, is that if its working, don’t mess it up by tinkering.
Anyhow, we gopt off to a very good start, in the League and in Europe. Beating Cluj in the opener was nice, and although Zorya made a game of it the first leg, we put them away in the second, which meant we were facing CSKA-Sofia in the 3rd Round. Well, goodbye Europe, nice knowing you.
Except we beat them, 3-2 on aggregate. And we celebrated, until we saw POAK as our next opponent. Again, goodby Europe, nice knowing you.
Except we beat them, 6-2 on aggregate. Granted they had a player sent of in the 71st minute in the second game, but we were already 3 goals up at that point. And during all of that, we were winning all of our games in Liga I. Yes, we lost to Farul 1-0, but that was a Marin Own Goal, so technically we scored the winner…just, you know, not for us…
I would have thought we’d have fallen off a bit in October, after all 7 games in 31 days is a hard schedule, almost Brazilian really, but FCSB’s 2-0 against us was well earned, and Arad’s 3-2 was really a 3-0, we just got lucky on two goal late, they were made we beat the in the Cup 3 days earlier.
Beating PAOK got us into the League Phase, and out opponents there were:
KF Shkëndija, a good Macedonian Club
Nordsjælland, from Denmark
Royal Antwerp FC, from Belgium
Botev Plovdiv, from Bulgaria
Havnar Bóltfelag Tórshavn, from the Faeroe Islands
Genk, from Belgium
I figured we would win three and lose three, but if we could win three and draw one, maybe we could eke into the next stage. That plan worked out well in September an October, as we beat Shkëndija and drew with Nordsjælland (they scored in the 88th minute to deny us the win), meanwhile we were doing well enough in the Cup Group stage to get to the next round there.
November the wheels started to wobble. December they fell off…
We didn’t have any injury issues, the squad was just tired I think, and I rotated a little bit more than I should have in some games. The “good” news, if you can call it that, is that in our losses we weren’t getting blown out, which meant our differential was OK.
In all of this, we drew with Plotdiv, beat Havnar, and lost to both the Belgium squads, which meant we had 2 wins, 2 draws, and 2 losses, good enough for 8 points, 22nd overall. Onto the next round! Goodbye Europe, nice knowing you!
Zurich, Bodø/Glimt, Hajduk Split, Molde, Rapid Vienna, and we get…Tobol Kostanay??? OK then…
January and February were rough. The 5-1 win against Voluntari totally set me up, and again we were losing. Close losses, but still losses. The only bright spot, oddly enough, was our 5-3 aggregate win against a pretty decent Kazakhstan team. The downside to that win?
Facing Borussia Dortmund in the Round of 16…
We actually got ourselves right in Liga I during March. The only disappointment was the loss to Dortmund, but lets be honest, they are better than us, even with a rotated side. And we did get some luck in the draws to get here, but still getting to the Round of 16 is quite the accomplishment, and can only help us and the league going forward.
Youth Only saves are unintentionally cracked…
On the Youth Intake Front:
Eh, not too bad…
Angel Saizu is Physically solid, his Attacking Attributes are not too bad, an he already has good First Touch and Technique. Also in his favor, he can play up top in 3 of our formations positions.
Adrian Boncoi is going to be a midfielder, he just does not have the Physical attributes (or the size) to be as DLF up top. However, with his solid Attacking and Possession attributes, including the Good First Touch, Technique and Flair, he has DLP written all over.
Dragoş Butoiu is (hopefully) the best prospect of this Intake. From an Attribute point of view anyways, I am not sure how well a 5’8″ 134 pound D(C) works, probably as an M(C) or attacking DM probably, but given that he is brave enough to charge thru a metal door and aggressive enough to keep trying, he could be a good player in the future. He’s a growth spurt away from being very good IMO.
Robert Thoma has the Stamina, Work Rate, Decision Making and Aggression to be a very good Wingback. Everything else says he’s going to be on the end of the bench unless he improves by leaps and bounds the next few years….
If I could somehow meld Harold Tranculov and Butoiu together, I’d be happy. As it stands, Tranculov looks like he’s going to be one of those players who does his job well enough to not get noticed, always turns in a solid performance, and when he does something extraordinary you will be like “wait, he’s on the team? As a Starter?”
Our December thru February run ensured we finished out of the top six, but this is not necessarily a bad thing, because if you finish top of the Relegation group, you get to play for European Football. Totally not a bug…
We blitzed out way thru the group, a loss at Dinamo the only real blip. They then took us to penalties, which we won, and then we crushed FDCSB in the Final, meaning that again, we qualified for Conference League Football.
Some other good pieces of news:
Our Training and Youth Facilities were also improved, and we now have the following:
Our Best XI this year was very good, Hlincu in particular:
And because we aren’t buying any players, our finances are strong too:
On the player side, there were several good performances, and a few surprising ones.
First up, Tiberiu Alexander gained a full star during the course of the season, and he had several great saves, and a lot of good games, and he was injury free thru out. As much as I would like him to be the long term keeper, I suspect he, like many other players, will catch another teams eyes, and be swayed by their reputation, if not their money.
Răzvan Teodorescu again had a very good season, which makes me wonder how much better a player would he be if he had a better personality?
What I do like is that we are not relying on one player to get it done for us. Yes, Hlincu has 32 goals, but we 5 players with double digit goals, and 6 with 5 or more assists. Almost everyone is improving, albeit some more slowly than others, we have a clear hierarchy of who’s who in almost every position, the only thing that can screw that up now (other than me) is other teams coming in and poaching my players. Which is going to happen sooner or later.
For the team being, we are going to enjoy our seven days off, and start preparing for the next European campaign.
Now is when the save is going to start getting very interesting and cool.
We’ve known about “Fallen Giants”, clubs that were once big but have now fallen back, such as Saint Etienne in Spain, Buraspor in Turkey, Parma in Italy, Coruna in Spain, but what about those clubs who spent a long time climbing their way to the top, only to stay for a couple of seasons or less before crashing back down. Or what about those clubs that have always come close, but have never managed to get promoted to the top flight?
I’ve never seen posts about them before, but the word that comes to mind is in the title: “Icarus”. Given a pair of wings made by Daedalus, Icarus was warned first of complacency, then hubris. Instructed to fly not to high or too low, Icarus ignored Daedalus. He flew too close to the Sun, the wax holding his wings together melted, and he plunged to his death in the sea below.
Icarus flew “Too close to the Sun”, which I believe is an apt metaphor for these teams. All these teams can be found in the base version of the game, but the list of Icarus Clubs across all countries is quite large. This post is going to focus on European Clubs.
GERMAN CLUBS
Fortuna Düsseldorf won the Bundesliga in 1933, then fell all the way to the RegionalLiga levels. The made the Bundesliga in the 2012/13 season, and again in the 18/19 and 19/20 seasons, before being relegated back down to the 2. Bundesliga. They are probably the easiest Icarus team to take to the top.
SSV Ulm 1846 won the RegionalLiga Sudwest in 1998, and then finished 3rd in the 2. Bundesliga in 1999 and promotion to the Bundesliga. Despite a scrappy fight, they could not avoid relegation on the last day, and were relegated back to 2. Bundesliga. Their 2000-01 campaign was a disaster, they finished in 16th place and were relegated to the Regionalliga Sud, but the chaotic state of their finances led to the DFB denying them a license, which sent them all the way down to the 5th Tier Verbandsliga Württermberg. In the two decades since the club has weathered a betting scandal, insolvency issues, administration, but finally clawed their way back to the 3. Liga in the 2023 season.
SC Preußen Münster was a founding member of the Bundesliga, but were relegated after the inaugural season. In the mid 70’s the club’s board took a lot of chances to try and get the club promoted back to the top flight, that effort ended up with most of the board resigning because of the financial difficulties and tax fraud accusations. In 2006 the club again invested significant financial resources to try and climb the German pyramid, but again fell short. They finally made it to the 3.Liga in 2011, and finished 4th the following season, but ensuing seasons saw a variety of changes at the top for no return, and the club crashed back into the RegionalLiga. They earned promotion back to the 3. Liga in the 2021-22 season.
ENGLISH CLUBS
Yeovil Town F.C. is one of the true “Icarus Clubs” on this list, in that they have never played in the EPL or First Division. After spending most of it’s existence in the lower leagues of the English Pyramid, they finally reached the League in 2001. Two seasons later they were promoted to League 2, and in 2007 were promoted to League 1 via the playoffs after a 5th Place finish. The next few seasons despite lacking the financial muscle of other teams in the league, judicious scouting and loan signings helped the team get promoted to the Championship, but despite wins over Forest, Watford and Sheffield Wednesday, they were relegated. Their finances did not get any better, and they were relegated again the next season back down to League 2. In the 18-19 season the club dropped out of the EFL, and since then a variety of management changes have occurred, while the team has fallen down to the National League South.
I will admit this is a sentimental choice for me, I saw a video on YouTube (Probably by HITC Sevens) about the club, and the story resonated with me. A Small club, lacking financial stability, thru good coaching, good scouting, and overachieving players manages to get to the 2nd highest level of competition in the EPL, only to fall short. If that’s not an Icarus Club, what is?
Swindon Town F.C. made it to the Premier League in 1993-94 season, but were relegated after just a year. Their time in the Premier League was notable for two things:
One of their 5 wins was against League Champions Manchester City
They conceded 100 goals during the season, a record that still stands.
The club also earned the dubious distinction of being the first team in the Premier League to have been relegated to League Two in 2006, but a couple of years later missed out on promotion back to the Championship by losing in the playoffs to Millwall on penalties. After that the club made several appearances in the tile game, losing each time, but again were releagted to League 2 in 2021. Since then financial issue have plagued the team, to the point where the EFL deducted 3 points from them in 2021. Since then a variety of head coaching changes, and CEO changes, have led to the current instability at the club, with the club falling back down into League 2. Can you get the back to the promised land?
Barnsley F.C. finished 2nd in the First Division in 1997, which led to their only appearance in the Premier League in the 97-98 season. In 2002 The fell to League 1, and won promotion back to the ECL, where they stayed for 8 seasons. Relegation and Promotion followed, and again the club was promoted to the ECL in 2019, but relegated again in 2022. Barnsley holds the distinction of having played more games and spent more seasons in the second division of English Football than any other team. Are you the coach to get them back to the top flight and beyond?
Millwall F.C. spent two seasons in the top flight of English football, from 1988 to 1990. The club has been in existence for 97 years, in that time 90 of those years have been spent yo-yoing between the 2nd and 3rd Tiers of the EFL. The FA Cup Giant Killers made it back to the Championship in the 2017-2018 season, and have come close to making the playoffs several times. What separates a club like Millwall from Swindon in this case is good ownership. Under the stewardship of Chairman John Berylson, the club remained financially sound, and the money the won in their various FA Cup upsets certainly helped as well. However, in the summer of 2023, Berylson was killed in a car accident, with his son taking over as chairman. Since then the clubs performance on the field has been less than stellar, and they currently sit in the bottom half of the table. As head coach, can you bring stability to the squad, get them promoted, and help fulfill the previous chairman’s dreams?
Northampton Town F.C. were promoted three times in five years once. Starting in 1960 in the then Fourth Division, they made it all the way to the First Division, where they relegated after just one season. They then had the dubious distinction of being relegated back to the Fourth Division over the next five years, and since 1967 have bounced back and forth between the 3rd and 4th Tiers of the EFL. The last day of the 2023 season, they defeated Tranmere to get promoted to League One. Its quite possible that very few people outside of Northampton remember they played in the top flight once. Can you get them there again?
Leyton Orient F.C. is the second oldest club in London to play in the EFL. Like Northampton they spent just one year in the First Division, 1963-1964, and since then have bounced back and forth between the various EFL tiers. The new century has not been kind to the club, new ownership in 2006 saw two relegation’s and eleven managers over the next three years, ending the 112 years the club had spent in the EFL as they dropped to non conference for the first time in their history. Nigel Travis took over the running of the club in 2017, and since then there has been slow but steady improvement, the O’s won the National League in 2019, then promotion to League One in 2023 after finishing 1st. Slow and Steady may win the race, but fast climbs to dizzying heights make Headlines, can you put Leyton Orient on the front page again?
Carlisle United F.C. spent one year in the First Division, the 1974-1975 season, but then suffered thru back to back relegation’s, starting a journey that saw them go as high as the 2nd Division in 1982, then out of the EFL altogether in 2004 when relegated from League 2. They returned the following year, winning the League two title in 2006, relegated back down in 2014, then back up in 2023. To be honest, they might be more well known to casual fans because they’ve played in the League Trophy final Six times, winning it twice. The club was just purchased by new ownership, can they provide the financial muscle to not only help the club get promoted, but maybe rebuild a stadium that 114 years old and needs some flood barriers, at a minimum?
FRENCH CLUBS
Chamois Niortais FC was a regional club for most of it’s existence, until the mid 80’s when it achieved promotion to Ligue 2. This allowed the club to become professional, and they finished a respectable 10th place in their first season. The next season saw them go on a 17 game unbeaten streak all the way to 1st place, and promotion to Ligue 1. Despite a promising start, the team just did not have the caliber of players required to compete in the top flight, and were relegated after just one year. The club remained a Ligue 2 mainstay for most of the following years, with short stays in the 3rd Division. In 2008 the wheels fell off, with the club going winless in three months of football, and relegation to the Amateur Levels. This also meant they lost their professional status, owing to DNCG rules on the issue. Despite this, the club returned to the 4th tier the following year, and then back to the 3rd tier in 2011. In 20013, after again winning promotion to Ligue 2, they became a professional club again, however they were relegated back to the 3rd tier at the end of the 2023 season. The club has always had a small, regional fan base, but the right coach can lead them to bigger and better things, possibly even unseating PSG at the top of Ligue 1. Are you that coach?
LB Châteauroux, or La Berrichonne de Châteauroux, played one season in Ligue 1, the 1997-1998 season, but they are probably more well known for reaching the 2004 Coupe de France and losing to PSG 1-0. However, because PSG finished 2nd that season, Châteauroux played in the UEFA Cup the following year. The club spent the next few seasons between the 2nd and 3rd Divisions, and has spent the last 10 years in Ligue 2, avoiding relegation the past few seasons.Financially stable, the team doesn’t play in the most populous reason of France, but a good coach taking the team to the top of Ligue 1 and beyond would certainly bring himself, the club and the region quite a lot of honor and attention.
ITALIAN CLUBS
Ternana Calcio reached Serie A twice in the 70’s, staying in the top flight for just one season each time. The first go they only won 3 games out of 30, and the second time was not that much better. Despite a brilliant semi final run to the Coppa Italia in 1980, the club was relegated back to Serie B, then began bouncing between the C1 and C2 divisions of Serie C. Winning Serie C and returning to Serie B in 1993 proved costly, as the team was forced into bankruptcy. After re-entering the Italian pyramid in Serie D, the club again won promotions to Serie B, staying there until 2006. The closest they came to promotion again was in 2004, when they missed promotion by 4 points. A series of relegation’s back down to Serie D, and then Promotions back up to Serie B again in 2021 sees them in the second tier again, trying to break thru back into Serie A. Their fierce rivalry with Perugia is somewhat hampered by the fact that I Grifoni have spent 13 seasons in Serie A at various points in their history, can you take over at Ternana, dethrone the King’s of Umbria, then Italy, and then the world?
AC Trento 1921 is a phoenix club of Società Sportiva Dilettantistica Trento Calcio 1921 S.r.l, which went bankrupt in 2014. The club title was transferred to the current entity, which has been on both sides of the regional leagues and lower tiers of the Italian pyramid. The days of playing in Serie B are long past, as the club has bounced back and forth between Serie D and Eccellenz leagues. Recently though, the club has been on an upward tick, winning the Girone C title, resuming its Professional status, and staying midtable in its Serie C Division since 2021. North of the Trento Autonomous Region is South Tyrol, where FC Südtirol has been climbing the pyramid to the top of Serie B. A Fierce rivalry between the two teams has developed, can you put it to rest by reaching and winning Serie A before they can?
Potenza Calcio is another phoenix club, formed by two amateur squads who claimed the name after reaching professional status in 2018. The original club, Potenza FC, had been founded in 1920 before being de-registered by the Italian Football Federation in 2012. The clubs best years were from 1963 to 1968, when it spent 5 seasons in Serie B. A long decline soon followed, culminating in the 2010 match fixing scandal. Financial problems followed, leading to the clubs de-listing in 2012. The 2018 promotion to Serie C has helped it stabilize, and becoming professional has certainly helped as well. The club and it’s fanbase are looking to reclaim the glories of days gone by. Can you lead them to that glory, while kicking their Campanian rivals (Benevento and Salernitana) along the way?
SPANISH CLUBS
SD Huesca has had some recent success lately, but I am including them in this because the team that should have been here had I done this post two years ago is currently 7 points out of first place in La Liga. Huesca started the century in the Tercera Division, and since then has been gradually climbing it’s way to the top of the Spanish pyramid. 1 year stints in La Liga in 2018-2019 and 2020-2021 have given it a taste of what top flight football is like, and after Fortuna Dusseldorf they would probably be the easiest team to take over. Until recently, they’ve always been second in the region to Real Zaragoza, but that club has not seen top flight football since 2013. Climbing to the top of La Liga won’t be easy (Despite what Girona is doing in real life), but taking over this Huesca squad will certainly help.
Cultural y Deportiva Leonesa has a long history and an interesting future. They reached the top flight once, in 1955, but were relegated after that season, and spent most of the decades following in the Segunda Division, with periodic stints in the 3rd and 4th divisions. In 2011 the club was relegated due to financial issues, but since then it has worked it’s way back up to the Segunda until relegation back to the third division in 2021. What makes this club interesting is that it’s almost entirely owned by the ASPIRE group, a Qatari company that also owns Eupen in Belgium, a partnership with Leeds, and an Academy in Senegal. This gives the club an interesting network to work with, in particular the Senegal link IMO. A deft hand is going to be required to pull everything together and get this club back to La Liga, are you the coach who can do that?
AD Ceuta FC is on the list because it was founded as a merger between Sociedad Deportiva Ceuta and Atlético Tetuán. Tetuán played in la Liga for one season, 1951-52, and was relegated, then the merger occurred in 1956. The current club came into being when the original AD Ceuta club was dissolved in 2012 due to high debts. Since then the club has slowly climbed its way back up to the 3rd tier, with a Round of 16 appearance in the Copa del Rey. To make this save even more interesting, the club itself is not in Europe. Ceuta is an Autonomous city on the North Coast of Morocco, and its membership in the RFEF means that not only can you win La Liga, but the Conference, Europa, and Champions Leagues if you desire.
PORTUGUESE CLUBS
AD Fafe had a 30th anniversary to remember, as they won promotion to the First Division. That they were promptly relegated the next season is probably not as well remembered, especially as only a few years after that they were back down in the 4th Division. Since then it has bounced back and forth between the 3rd and 4th Divisions. Getting back to Liga NOS and breaking the stranglehold the Top Three have on the that league will be tough, but doing so with Fafe would be very rewarding.
C.D. Trofense climb to the First Division was one for the ages. After winning their group in 2006, they advanced to the playoff to determine who would be promoted to the Second Division. Regular time, Extra time, and 20(!) Penalty Kicks later, Trofense achieved promotion. After a solid midtable finish the following year, the finished top of the league and won promotion to Liga NOS. Despite some very good games, beating Benfica and drawing against Porto as an example, they could not avoid the drop, and in the years since have fallen back down to the Third Tier. Only 18km away from Porto, can you be the manager that takes them out of the Portuguese giants shadow and to the top?
UD Oliveirense last visit to the First Division was the 1946-46 season, but I am including the in this list because since 2001 they have spent of their time in the 3rd Tier, but in 2008 gained promotion to the Second Tier, and since then they have been trying unsuccessfully to gain promotion to the First Tier. The closest they came was a 4th place finish in 2000-2011, and since then they have avoided a relegation battle. The club is owned by the same group that owns Yokohama FC, and while at the moment the affiliate agreement does not include players, dipping into the talent pool that is Japan could help push the club back into the 1st Tier, and this time keep them there for longer than a year.
OTHER CLUBS IN EUROPE
HOLLAND: Emmen, Helmond Sport
DENMARK: BK Fremand Amager, B93, FC Helsingor, Koge BK, Vendyssel FF
SERBIA: Mladost Novi Sad
CROATIA: NK Dubrava, HNK Orijent
GREECE: Makedonikos FC
POLAND: Miedź Legnica
All of the teams listed in this article should be playable without any downloads. Any errors in the details are mine.
I hope those of you reading can find a team/save you like. I will try an do a South American one in the future as well.
European Dreams…Because Conference League is still Europe
After a 3 Month delay, I blame missed payments to contractors, the new Stadium is finally open.
It’s a lovely stadium, there’s room for growth in the future, I couldn’t be happier with it. I also couldn’t be happier with the board, who waited until we were financially stable enough to pay for the thing. Unlike my board in my FM23 save…
Looks can be deceiving:
This looks impressive, until you realize as a Youth Only squad, at least 16-17 of our players are getting playing time here, and then there are all the players we have let go to other squads in country.
Transfer wise, it was a quiet year. I alluded to it in my previous post on the save, this and the next few years are going to be interesting in terms of player we move and player we keep. The two are not mutually exclusive, because I know in the future there will be player we want to keep but can’t.
We are at the point now where players who aren’t going to be on the squad I am more than happy to sell to teams in Country, especially if they can help the squad. There are no real surprises here, although I had Radu graded pretty high in the Class of ’27, his true colors soon revealed him to be middling at best.
As I expected/feared, who to let go and who to keep has been turning into quite the guessing game, especially with regards to squad death. It’s one thing to have a dearth of 5 Star PA players, its another when they are all in the same positions. As an example
Rotariu was my first choice to be the keeper of the future. He’s averaged about 8 starts a season, but I killed his development when I sent him on loan to CSM Deva and he started all of 11 games. Last year he started 13 and allowed 22 but had 5 shutouts. This year he had 15 starts and allowed 17 with 6 shutouts. He still has room to improve, but Vasiliu and Alexandru already have better GK related attributes, and of those two Alexandru is the better option, for now. But what if Alexandru is close to topping out? Can I afford to play Vasiliu? Rotariu isn’t going to get appreciably better IMO, but we need to balance giving the youngsters playing time while doing moderately well in the league. Luckily, there are loan options available, and I sent Alexandru out. The good news was that he was Hermannstadt’s starting keeper all season, with 29 games played, allowing 56 with 4 shutouts and 2 POM’s. It wasn’t enough to keep them from the drop, but if you were to see his defense, you would understand why he went out with two stars and came back with three. Barbu we will talk about more later, he’s from this years intake, but it looks like next year it’s going to be Tiberius as the First Choice, with Rotariu as the backup, if he stays.
This is just the keepers though. It’s becoming a fun problem to have in other positions, and it really does force you to spend some time looking at how players have developed over the season. In the past, with the Spreadsheet, that was easier to do. Attribute-less, its a lot more diving into data, and I like that, its one of the reasons I switched to the skin.
We started the season off on the right foot:
Our only Liga I loss happened at Sepsi, although to be honest we should have lost at Petrolul Ploiești, but the we also should have won at Craivoa and Arad. Hlinca has really improved since he started getting regular playing time:
Remember, 1-7 is Red, 8-12 is Orange, 13-16 is Blue and 17+ is green.
As we can see, he started out as a player who was at best near the top of Average, and now he is solidly Good, especially with the improvements in both his Physical and Attacking Attributes. He’s probably one of the better forwards in Romania, and considering he’s homegrown, that’s saying quite a bit, especially when you consider other teams are bringing in players like this:
On a FREE. From Cercle Brugge. But I digress…
One of the areas I was hoping to improve this year was in the Cup. The past couple of seasons we have either been left on the outside looking in or just blowing it, October is a pretty congested month, but one of the newer benefits we have is a decent amount of depth, so I feel more comfortable rotating the side against the lower league teams.
Another good run of games for us, including some very good wins against Dinamo, revenge against Petrolul Ploiești, and some questionable defense against Botoșani. In our Cup group we finished in 1st place on 11 points, which is quite good considering we we have finished in the past.
Our Cup ambitions came to a crashing halt against Craiova.
I went on the attack at the start of the second half, and we broke thru in the 62nd and equalized in the 77th minute, but before I could even set the instructions to protect the lead they scored. I swear I saw all my pixel players just sag on themselves.
We were flying high. The problem is Farul, Rapid Bucaresti and Cluj are all flying a little bit higher, but we entered the split in the Playoff Group. But before we got down to those games, the Youths arrived.
I have to remember this is ‘their’ definition of a ‘Golden Generation’. There are really, unless I am wrong, Four players to look at
Barbu, as we saw above, joins an already deep pool of Keepers. I think he’s one of those players whose ‘On The Cusp’ in a lot of attributes, where his GK Reactions are at least an 8, but I think they are closer to 12. Getting him playing time will be interesting, we need to get another affiliate, but I am willing to give him a shot.
Sergiu Fieraru. I am not sure why, but something tells me that Fieraru is not going to get much better than this. But that I mean he’s probably around a 80 CA player, and is going to top out at 90-95 no matter how much training or game time he gets. That said he’s a solid player, but I don’t have high hopes for him, especially if we want to grow as a club domestically.
I think Alexandru Dumitrache could be better than Fieraru, but the ‘Unambitious’ (Seriously WTF is up with this?) and the number of people in front of him is going to hamper him playing striker. What I may need to do is spend some time looking at training him and Fieraru in other positions. The good news is they are both already decent wingers as well.
Rareş Florea is the best of the rest, and I think he’s the opposite of Barbu, and all his orange attributes are probably 8 or 9. He has good First Touch, and Work Rate, but that’s about it. He’s going to really need ti improve the next few years on the II squad and on loan if he wants s shot at the starting XI someday.
All in All, a very ‘Middling’ Golden Generation.
We did a respectable job in the Playoff group, but as I mentioned before Farul was too far ahead to overcome. However, a 3 way race for 2nd Place developed, but our last two games kept us in 4th place overall on 55 points, while Bucharesti had 56 and Cluj had 57.
However…
Farul Constanţa won the Cupa României Betano, meaning the UEL 3rd Qualifying Round Match went to Cluj, and the UECL slots shifted down, meaning we are playing in Europe, starting in the 2nd Qualifying Round.
European. Football.
We will probably crash and burn but still, it’s a positive step forward for sure.
We had several very good performances, and more than a few of the youngsters are really stepping up.
Hlinca led the league with 25 goals. Matiş had a solid season, but it’s quite obvious he’s starting to fall off. Marincu had a solid season as well, but the first two surprises are Voicu (Class of ’26) and Vágó (Class of ’29) had very good seasons. That Voicu was primarily a bench player and was able to put those numbers up was very good to see. Neagu (Class of ’28) also had a solid season.
In a bit of surprise news:
And in some unexpected news:
Sure, the one save I am doing a Youth only save the board goes out, without my asking, and finds a senior affiliate who’s not really an affiliate for us…FML…
That said: EUROPEAN FOOTBALL!!! The next building block of many we need to to win it all. But I was quite happy with the season, it was already a success before we backdoored our way into the UECL.
One of the thoughts lingering in the back of my mind since the start of the save is “What if we become to successful to soon?” In many saves this isn’t something to worry about, but in a Youth Save (for many teams anyways), it is because if you are at a smaller club, when you get good Youth players who perform very well early in their careers, teams with more, be it reputation, money, and the like, will come calling for them. And they will leave, because despite the fact you are a brilliant Head Coach, the clubs has good facilities, good finances, and a growing reputation, you do not have the name, brand, continental or worldwide recognition and reputation to keep those players local. Case in point: Darius Niculcea. Perhaps the best player from the ’25 Youth Intake, he was forced into the starting XI for a variety of reasons, and he performed very well. So well that Napoli came and offered us €500K. And since he’s left, he sat on the bench for a year, and then went on loan for half a season to Bari, where he was OK. Would he have been better of staying here for another year or two? Maybe.
But my point, and I swear I am getting to it, is that really good young players who leave early hurt the club more than they help. We need to be winning, we need Continental competition games not for the money, financially we are on very solid ground:
but we need the to increase our stature in the game. This leads to a cycle of good youth players coming in, helping the team to succeed, then leaving while their replacements may not be as good as they are. As a result, a short, rapid rise to small success becomes a long, slow gradual increase to modest success, and then glacial progress to great success.
This is going to be a long save I think, unless the FM Gods smile upon us and gift us not only with great Intakes, but great success as well. I don’t believe we have had a ‘Great” Intake yet (I don’t care what the game says) but we have had some good ones, and some good, solid players have started to shine. Like Marin Neagu, Class of ’28.
The one thing that has worked in our favor is that our success has allowed us to recruit better domestic based coaches, and our success, and lack of player related expenditures, has left us with healthy finances and a board willing to spend some of that money on things we need. Like a new stadium, which we should be moving into the summer of ’30. And Facilities Improvements:
My goal this season was to finish around 8th. There are a couple of reasons for this:
It avoids a Relegation Fight.
It outs us near the top of the Relegation Group.
Why is this important? Because in Liga I 7th thru 16th go into the Relegation Group. In that 10 team group, 9th and 10th are automatically relegated. 7th and 8th go to a Liga I/Liga II Playoff.
And 1st and 2nd Play for European Football:
The winner qualifies for the Final:
And because of the whole “Half Points, then Full Points, etc rules, you end up with tables like this:
It’s possible to finish 1st in ‘Overall’ points, but now ‘Win’ the League.
Yes, it makes my head hurt too…But the goal is “Mid Table”, in that we finish high enough in the relegation group to challenge for European Football. I Can just hear my first talk of the locker room.
“OK, we want to be good, but not too good, and by that I also mean we can’t be too bad either. OK? Sparkling Mediocrity, that’s what we are aiming for this season, got it?”
I think they listened a little bit too well.
I don’t know that I could get those results again if I tried. And it’s not like we were playing for the draw either, a few of those games we had to come back from a deficit. Răzvan Matiş is turning into quite a good AM(C) in the Asymmetrical formation we are playing, despite the fact he hates big games.
The two biggest surprises so far are Dumitru Hlinca (Class of ’27) and Răzvan Teodorescu.
Hlinca’s Attacking Attributes have all improved to at least 13+, as has his First Touch. And I suspect that those attributes that haven’t changed were most likely on the low end when he arrived, and are now at least a point higher. World Class? No. World of ‘Good for this level of Football’? Yes.
Răzvan Teodorescu was part of the Class of ’24, right before I took over. Attribute wise, for this level of football, he’s Bril. But…
That UNAMBITIOUS personality just….gah…The thing is, he had had close to double digit goals and assists the last couple of seasons (9/4, 9/9, and 8/7), and I bet if he were to be, I don’t know a little more DRIVEN, he’d be 12+ in each category. As it is, a lof of his passes are either the 1st or 2nd in the route to the goal.
So, we weren’t exactly flying high, but slow and steady. Ahead of us lay the dread days of October, and did we let them get to us.
82nd Minute goal for Botosani and their win. 83rd minute goal by Rapid Bucharesti for their win. Arad, 3 goals up after 25 minutes played. With our earlier result, there was a 3 way tie for our Cupa României Betano Group Stage:
This was not the midtable finish I was looking for….
The year ended, and then began again, about the way I expected. Unexpected was beating Farul, expected was Arad scoring in the 1st minute then parking the bus. The Loss at Bucharesti ensured we would not make top 6, and it was a big sigh of relief when we thumped Sepsi to finish in 7th place.
Meet the New Youth, almost the same as the Old…
Only six player from this years Intake Worth Talking about I think. And their personalities were all over the place again as well…
Mercenary isn’t a bad personality to have. It’s not a good one, either, but if we show our loyalty to and provide Costi Popescu with opportunities, we increase the changes he will stay with us long term. His lack of Fitness and Strength is glaring, but he is Quick, Agile, his Attacking Skills are pretty solid, as is his Technique. I don’t think he will be a Striker for us though.
Being Unambitious on the other hand, almost certainly guarantees Andrei Laszlo will never be as good as his PA. The same can be said for Răzvan Teodorescu, who despite his already good attributes could be even better if he were just Balanced. Andrei will be given opportunities though. How long and how many are up to him though.
Branimir Feti continues our streak of players with Low Determination. And that’s a shame, because he’s a very solid player even with a DET that is <7, and could be a very good DLP/Carrilero type of player. For the time being he’s merely “Meh”…I hope he can see what Răzvan Teodorescu is doing and act accordingly, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
Vasile Ion has the best opportunity to be the best player out of this group. Not because he has the highest PA, or because he has a ‘Fairly Professional’ personality, but because he can play 3 positions we have a need at. He will probably be the first to get a decent amount of playing time out of this group.
I think whatever hopes I put in Alex Tănase, he will fall short of them. I am pretty sure that all of his attributes are on the lower end of the scale and he lost a star from when he came in to when we signed him. His versatility might save him, his injury proneness and horrible Possession attributes probably won’t.
Doru Vancea actually gained a star from the Intake to when we signed him. He’s probably got the best CA of all the Youth players from this year, but that could mean his ceiling is not the much higher (comes in at 80, tops out at 100 sort of thing). He has DLP written all over him, whether he wants to believe it or not. I think he has the best long term potential at the club, maybe not as a full time starter, but definitely as a back up/ squad player off the bench.
Our relegation Group battle went almost exactly to plan.
We beat up the teams at the bottom, beat most of the teams we were supposed to beat, and didn’t have a lot of “unexpected results”. The game at Csíkszereda was a draw until the 89th minute (blast and damn), and I knew we were in for a long day at Rapid Bucharesti when the first goal was an own goal by Ilie Formagiu…that loss hurt us, but beating Sepsi put us at the top of the group, meaning we got to play Universitatea Cluj in the first Playoff Game.
While the Shot’s and On Target are similar, we were clearly the better team. It was frustrating not to get more than the one goal we had, although the 2nd goal looked like a winner until the woodwork jumped up and saved it. Four days later we played against Farul Constanţa at their house for the right to go the Conference League.
The bossed us, as much as any team can in a 1-0 Extra time goal victory. All of our Attackers were sub 6.7, and it was Vasiliu (Class of ’28) in goal that stopped it from being a route. How he ended up on a 7.1 is a bit mind boggling, seeing what he faced and stopped I think it should have been higher. But if we are being honest, Farul Constanţa is simply a better team. I have mentioned it before, but if this wasn’t a Youth Only save, we would be the New Farul, bringing in Youth Players from across the region, training them up at our impressive facilities, and moving them on for profit. Heck, they are loaning players in From places like West Ham to fill positions, we can’t do that. We made them earn it, and as trite as that sounds now, I’ll take it.
The League Table ended up thusly:
FCSB won the Cupa României, which is why they are going to the Europa League. But I will take a 9th place finish, now and for the next couple of seasons.
We had some very good performances this seasons as well, quite a few players I was hoping would take it up to the next level did, some more than just one.
Matiş getting 23 goals as an AP on Attack is quite good, but it’s Teodorescu’s 12 goals and 18 assists that stand out for me.
There were several good performances from the rest of the squad:
Hlinca is becoming the player we thought he could be, in fact he was a big reason Matiş was able to score as much as he did, Dumitru was constantly getting doubled teamed and drawing defenders away from Matiş. Voicu had a good season off the bench, Vago had 2 goals and 10 assists from the M(C) position, Purcea was solid at D(R). The only position I had real concerns about was at Keeper. We let Rareş Murariu go at the beginning of the season and he retired. Our best options for replacing him were Nicolae Rotariu (Class of ’23, before I arrived), Tiberiu Alexandru (Class of ’25), Ciprian “Low Self Belief” Şandru, (Class of ’27) and Adrian Vasiliu, Class of ’28.
For some reason, Rotariu has never grown above two stars. There could be reasons for that, the best is that as the club has gotten better, so has he, but as star rating are based on the players at your club, he’s grown with the rest of the squad but not gotten better. He started 15 games for us, and ended up with a 7.21 rating. The good news is we didn’t hear a lot about him doing bad things. The Bad news is we heard nothing about him doing good things. Alexandru went on loan to a Liga II Club, started 18 games and allowed 18 goals, and the club he went to was relegated…Sandru and Vasiliu are the same age, and while on paper Sandru is the better keeper now, I think Vasiliu will be the better overall keeper, which is why I gave him starts this season. Next season the job is his to lose.
I just hope my faith isn’t misplaced.
All in all, a good season. I think the days of relegation worries are behind us, and there are very few players from the original squad left. The question now is can we fend of those teams coming after a Matis or Dumitru, can our youth players develop accordingly, and can we possibly, maybe just do enough to get European Football?
There is good and bad with a Youth Only Save, and depending on what your point of view is some issues can be both.
No Scouting to worry about, other than next opponents
No Transfers to worry about, at least coming in
Squad depth can be an issue
Sometimes you are forced to play bad players because you have no other option.
The list can go on, but for the moment, these are the primary issues, and to be honest the first two not being a factor means I am breezing thru seasons, because I am not spending time on scouting.
But we are five seasons in now, and that means most of the older players I have inherited have gone, sometimes against their will, and there are quite a few Youth Players starting/coming off the bench. What does that mean?
This:
I tend to be pretty…agnostic when it comes to formations. Do I have preferences? Yes. Am I going to try and fit my squad into those preferences? If it means I will not be hurting myself or the club in the long run, sure. On the other hand, in order to get my best players on the field, if that means I have to go with something a bit….different, I will.
Circumstances didn’t exactly force me into this formation, or it’s mirror, but the fact is this let me get my best players, established and up and coming, on the pitch, and if we are being honest, for me it’s been a solid formation. When it works, it works, and when it doesn’t it doesn’t.
These are the base instructions, and I tend to be more of a pregame/in game manager when it comes to making changes.
Speaking of Changes:
Voicu is in an interesting position for me, he’s a young player with potential in a position I have some pretty good younger players, and getting first team playing time here was going to be iffy, so we sent him on loan.
In the January transfer window, there weren’t a lot of surprises. Sporin had lost a couple of stars, I blame the scouting department, and he wasn’t going to see a ton of playing time here. The fact his Attacking and positional attributes did not visibly change also tells me that if he was improving during training and the Youth games, it wasn’t by a lot, and if the needle wasn’t moving by a lot, he was probably close to his potential.
Florin Ilie was part of a good D(C) rotation, but being primarily a D(R) he was a bit miffed when we didn’t play the asymmetric that suited him best. When Craiova came asking about him, he wanted to go. After negotiating, I think we got a fair deal for him.
Brădău is similar to Sporin, a player with potential who after three years of training and some spot starts was over taken by other players. I think he could be a decent squad player, but hje wanted first team playing time. I don’t know that he will get it at Iași, but he will probably get more time there than he will here.
Everyone else who left was either an earlier Youth Intake player with no future here, or an older player in the same boat.
Predicted to finish 15th with 600-1 odds, I knew we were better than that. I was aiming for mid table, top of the Relegation Group.
We had all of a week before Training started, and we got to work on the new formation right away, and it started to pay off immediately:
The 4-0 against FSCB was nice, and I was happy with the draw against Cluj until for some inexplicable reason one of their defenders fouled us in the box on a corner kick, and Matiş tucked it away for the last gasp win. The loss against Gloria Buzău was frustrating for several reasons. One is that my guys assumed that because they are recently promoted and are the other relegation pick, they are a bad team, and as a result put in a halfassed effort, the teams average rating without Murariu’s 7.2 is a 6.2. The secondis that they assumed they could turn it on when they needed to, and when they did Gloria Buzău counterattacked and scored their second goal, and would have had a 3rd if not for a brilliant save by our keeper. Losing at Farul Constanţa is not a bad thing, truth be told they are the team we could be if we were also able to do transfers, but as it stands they are about 5 years ahead of us in terms of Youth development, but we will get there. Eventually.
September was great. We had a long break, came back primed and rested for a busy October, 8 games in 24 days sort of busy, and promptly crapped the bed. The good news was that two of the three teams in our Cupa României group games were lower Liga, so I was able to play mostly rotated sides, but at the end of the day, the 3-0 loss to Argeş left us 3rd in the Group, tied with them on 10 points, and they not only had the goal differential but the head to head.
We went into the winter break in 4th place, thanks to only losing the one game against a U Craiova squad that if we are being honest, could beat you 3-1 or lose to you 3-1 depending on which version of their team shows up, and I was thinking it would be nice if we didn’t have to play in the relegation group. Of course, finishing the top of the relegation group mean you get a chance to play for European Football, I am not sure why, the Romanian Football Association does things its own way because they can apparently…but I was riding pretty high, our Youth Intake preview was good, and we had 9 players called up for International Duty. I was feeling good, the team was feeling good, our chances were good, so of course we did our best to throw it all away.
We could have lost every game in February, we probably should have, but with the draw at Voluntari and the win at Chindia, we clawed our way back into 6th place, and into the Champions Playoff Group.
And then came the good news of the save:
Not too shabby, especially when you consider that at this level of football, and compared to our squad, 5 star is probably 115 to 125 Ability, and you can go far with a team made up of those sort of players. On the other hand though:
That’s 8 Youth Players with Horrible Personalities. And I think I have seen more players with ‘Low Self Belief’ this save than I have in any other save since I started playing FM.
Vince Vágó, Florin Vlădilă, and Robert Chiseliţă are the best of a good bunch of players. Vágó is already on the high side of Average when it comes to his Physical and Attacking attributes, and while his Defending Attributes are on the lower side, his Possession Attributes more than make up for them. He has DLP written all over him, and if his Composure and Movement Attributes come up, he could be a mainstay in the midfield.
Tiberiu Alexandru, Class of ’25, is the next Keeper in waiting, but Florin definitely has first team potential. The problem is how do I get rid of this whole ‘Low Self Determination’ Issue. I could try and get him in a good mentoring group, but he also needs game time to improve, maybe a loan when he’s older will help?
If it weren’t for the Low Determination and Injury Proneness, Robert Chiseliţă could be a very good D(LC) His Physicals are already solid, as are his Defending Attributes. His Attacking and Possession skills are lacking, but what else do you expect from a 16 y/o kid? If some of those Movement Attributes come up, he could also be a capable DM
Of Eusebiou Iacob, Victor Niţă, Lennart Meyer and Robert Hexan, I think the one who doesn’t belong is Meyer. Yes, his starting attributes are nice, but he came in at 4 stars and is now a 3-4 star sort of player. The fact the has has a Balanced personality is more than a little salt in the wound, because I think what we see with him currently is what we are going to get. On the other hand, Robert Hexan is one player who I think will be better than he appears to be. Yes, the Low Determination is a killer, but his Physical and Defending Attributes are quite solid, and he’s also solid with regards to his Composure, Decision Making, Anticipation and Technique, plus he has the one thing you cannot teach: Height. at 6′ 4″ and 165 pound already, he’ll be on the bench at 17 getting some first team playing time. Maybe we can play him into a better personality.
The season finished out a little better than expected. Yes we finished at the bottom of the group, but with exception of the Cluj match, we played pretty well, even in our loses. The highlights were beating Farul, who finished 2nd overall, and getting our revenge on Cluj. Craiova, the League winners, beat us handily, but that’s not unexpected. We finished the season in 6th place overall, a long way from relegation, and quite a few youth players had plenty of quality playing time as well. As for the new formation (and it’s mirror), they worked out quite well.
51 goals from our top 4 attacking players is very nice, Matiş and Teodorescu also chipping in with 20 total assists is also very good. Dan Pureca, starting at WB(R) most of the season, made the most of his skills by chipping in 10 assists as well. Of the squad we inherited when we took over, only a few are left. Marincu, Pureca, Matiş and Murariu are the last, and Murariu is probably going to be leaving soon. Luckily we have several good candidates to replace him.
In other news our new stadium build is going well, the club is happy, the fans are happy, I do not expect to see any big changes this coming season, and to be honest I would not expect another top 6 finish. But I have been surprised before…
Usually when do a more Youth Oriented save, I am at a club I am building up, there’s a decent amount of solid to good older players that will carry us forward, as as my youth progress from raw 15 and 16 year olds to 18 and 19 year olds with potential, they go out on loan or if they are good enough, they go onto the 1st Squad bench.
Here at Timişoara, I don’t have that luxury. While the older players I have are OK, there aren’t enough of them to carry the team forward, which means any youngster with potential not only gets first team playing time, they go right into the Senior Squad. There they not only get the playing time they need, they develop, and some have turned into players who are quite good. Like Darius Niculcea.
He’s easily the first good player we’ve had come thru the Youth Intakes, his first season as a part time starter he had 24(2) stars, with 1 goal, 3 assists, and 1 POM. Last season as the full time starter he 3 goals, 6 assists, and 1 POM, and both years he was selected to the Romanian U21 Squad.
So of course 5 games into the season Napoli offered 400K for him, I didn’t have a release clause on his contract, and he signed with the Italian club. They did offer him on loan back, and I accepted.
That’s how I am going to approach this going forward. If a club comes after one of my players, I am not going to ask for a loan back as part of the deal, but if they offer it to me, I’ll consider it. In this case Nicucea is the best D(R) I have, so I accepted it, an he went on to have 1 goal and 12 assists with us before leaving.
TRANSFER’S
Ursan, Păunescu, and Chivu are all Youth Players that I didn’t think were worth a grade, meaning 2 star potential or less. The fee’s for Ursan and Păunescu are based on future performances, and I doubt I will see them.
Zamfir (pan flute not included) was part of the Youth Intake the year before I took over, a defensive player who could play all 3 positions on the back line. He was decidedly average in all of them, and as a result did not get a lot of playing time. For whatever reason, Dinamo Bucureşti made an offer for him in the Spring Transfer window, and after debating whether or not to file a bug report, I took it. Who am I to stand in the way of a club making a bad financial decision? I’ve my own bad decisions to make. Chindia Târgoviște is a Liga II team, and to be honest if they are spending €100K on a middling winger like William Popoviciu, they aren’t getting promoted anytime soon IMO.
We are starting at least 4, and possibly5 players from the the ’25 Youth Intake. As I mentioned above, I don’t have the luxury of sitting them in the U19’s and waiting for them to develop, so they’re going to be starting. Yes, it’s Boys v Men, but it build character.
That’s the slogan for the next few years: Construiește caracterul!
The goal is to avoid relegation. Acts of God aside, we aren’t finishing above midtable anytime soon, but avoiding relegation is an achievable goal. The question is how close to relegation are we going to be. My mantra has always been I am ‘mostly’ ok with losing, as long as we keep it close. I don’t know how long I can keep repeating that though.
There’s no middle ground. We’re either losing close, usually, or winning. The lack of draws is concerning. The low point was losing to a Liga II side in Hermannstadt in the Cupa României First Stage on penalties. Răzvan Matiş missed a PK in the 20th minute, then scored in the 117th to put as ahead, but the defense fell apart and they scored in the 120th…and then three of my guys missed their PK’s.
The first half opf the season was painful, but there were a couple of bright spots. Marius Marinescu started the season on two and a half stars, and at the midpoint he was up to Four. Along with 8 goals and 3 assists. Vasile Mihăescu, from the ’26 Intake, is starting at DM, and he’s improving, which is good. Goran Simedru, from the ’25 Intake, is also having a solid season at D(C).
As down as I was about some of our performances, at the half way point were were in 12th place with 16 points, and our goal differential was -6. One of the things in our favor was that both Gloria Buzău and Oţelul Galaţi have won 2 and 1 games respectively.
The New Year got off to a good start, as we did not lose until we played a very good FC Argeş squad, and our last loss before the League split was against last years winner Universitatea Craiova
Our Youth Intakes Are Officially Manic…
They are calling it a ‘Golden Generation.’ I’m thinking it’s 14 Karat Gold…
This is a screenshot of the best Youth Intake players to come thru this season:
3 Unambitious
1 Unsporting
1 Low Determination
1 Fairly Loyal
1 Balanced
2 Fairly Professional
This from a HOYD who is Professional. Next years had better be better than this…
Marin Neague is a pest of a winger, in that he’s all of 5′ 2″ and 100 pounds, but Physically speaking is good…except for the Strength. And Work Rate, and Balance. His Attacking and Possession skills are also average, but this is a good foundation to build from, assuming his Unsporting self wants to improve.
Paul Koszma is already pretty good on the Physical and Defending categories, and his Technique is also decent as well, but again, her Personality is going to be the biggest impediment to reaching his potential.
Adrian Vasiliu is our 3rd (or 4th if you count the year I wasn’t here) 5 star potential Keeper. I do not know how much longer Rareş Murariu is going to be the starter, he made some noise about wanting to leave in the January window, but Adrian will be in the race to become the 1st Choice keeper. Of course, of the 5 Youth Keepers I have, 3 are Unambitious…
And I somehow missed 4 and 5 when nicknaming them…I’ll figure out a format, eventually.
Dan Secreteanu can play the left side of the pitch, but I think I am going to make him a D(L), maybe a wingback, as his attributes are already average in those areas. If his strength comes up, and some others as well, he could be a solid contributor for us.
Ilie Formagiu, 6’4″ 170 pounds at 15 YEARS OLD Ilie Formagiu, will start playing next year. Off the bench, unless he just bodies someone out of the way. Physically and Defending wise, he’s Average, but his Good Work Rate and Jumping, and his Excellent Bravery, should be an asset in Set Pieces. I think he has the best potential out of everyone who came in this Intake, now it’s up to me to not screw him up.
Dan Popescu…I am not sure what to think of him. Good Agility, Endurance, Quickness and Determination, average Possession skills, he has the potential to be a solid winger for us. But again, that personality…
I really want to like Armin Caraiman. They have him as a Target Forward, and from a Physical point of view, I can see that. His Attacking and Possession Attributes though…but in his defense, his personality is going to be an asset. If his Positioning and Concentration Improve, he might be a better DLP…
Lucian Ilie already had Good Technique, Fitness and Work Rate, but I am not sure how he would fare on the attack as a Mezzala. The good news is that Attribute wise, his is ‘Meh’ at every position except Roaming Playmaker, where he’s “Bleg!’ We will have to see where is in a couple of years…
Marian Tudor has the making of a solid DLF already, with Good Composure, Flair, Finishing and Technique. Aggressive as well, but I can’t help shake the feeling that what we see is pretty much what we are going to get. This is one time I wish I were wrong, but I am a fan of players with Determination, and the one thing we can stay about him is that he’s not…
Paul Freanţ could be a solid AM(C) if his physicals improve, if they don’t he will most likely be an M(C) in a CM/DLP sort of role. The problem is that’s a crowded position for us, and if he doesn’t stand out right away he might not get the playing time early.
Thats going to be an ongoing theme with the save going forward, with a lot of depth, some of it potentially quality depth, in some roles, finding who is the best performer is going to be hard.
But I didn’t choose this sort of save because it’s Easy. I chose it because I thought it was going to be easy…
We did more than enough to avoid relegation. Marinescu looks like the real deal, he’s been too consistent this year for me to believe otherwise, and we had some very solid performances across the board.
Matis had a solid season for us, but several teams are interested in him, and keeping him might be a detriment to the younger players in his position. Răzvan Teodorescu gives me hope that all my ‘Unambitious’ personality trait players will improve and be good, if not great for this level, of contributors
Oh, and the board has plans of it’s own as well it seems:
We beat the odds again, and I believe we have the makings of several quality younger players ready to step up and take over the next couple of year. The climb to the top is going to have some ups and downs, and a lot of plateaus as well, but I believe we are definitely on the way up. It’s going to be a slow process though, but one I am looking forward too.
I hope you all are looking forward to it as well, thanks for reading!
I’m going to be 100% honest here: In game, I am about 10 seasons ahead of what I am posting. There are a couple reasons for this:
I started this during the Winter break
Youth saves are very fast to play thru, especially when the time sink you enjoy, Scouting, isn’t a factor
I am having fun with it, and sitting down in the AM and logging off in the PM on a weekend realizing you just went thru four full seasons and aren’t exhausted is a good thing. Isn’t it?
That said, I still have no fricking clue how the Promotion/Relegation Groups in Liga I work, so lets see if we can figure this out now:
1st thru 6th Qualify for the Playoff Group.
7th thru 16th go to the Relegation Group.
Liga I Championship Group RulesLiga I Relegation Group Rules
Half points plus point plus carry the 1 and…..my head hurts. Seriously.
What I have learned is not only can you finish 1st in total points and not win the Liga, you can also finish last in points and not be relegated. For the teams at the very top and very bottom in a year where the points difference between them and their nearest competitor isn’t all that close, it doesn’t matter. 6 teams in the Championship group separated by 10 points? It matters…
This season was going to be brutal. The pundits picked us to finish 15th, and that was optimistic I think. I am pretty sure they are taking into account possible transfers, but without any of those coming in, were stuck with who we have, and who we have is a bunch of mediocre (for this level of football) players, and some potential. What we lack is a Striker, or three. Sburlea started for us last season, and was the very definition of ‘Meh’, and the available options I have aren’t any better. Brădău has the potential, but his personality is really holding back his development, and I think throwing a young, unproven striker into the fray in an effort to tray and stave off relegation is not a good recipe for success.
So I went back to a 4-3-3-0 Strikerless.
The results were about what I expected.
My philosophy in situations like this is as follows:
Do not play to ‘Not Lose’
Draws are much better than losses
If you lose, try to make it close
The first half of the season, we were mostly successful in following that:
In a nutshell, we were losing to the teams who were most likely going to bet us, drawing the teams we had a chance with, and beating the teams we were supposed to beat, with few surprises really.
The draw and win at Craiova was nice, they have a very good squad. UTA Arad, Voluntari. Sepsi OSK are also strong, but the league is Farul Constanţa’s to lose. They are the club we aspire to be in a few years, Excellent Youth Facilities, Excellent Training Facilities, Exceptional Youth Recruitment, and Good Academy Coaching, and because FCSB lost so many players, including their best youth prospect, they aren’t running away with anything like they did the year before. The other good news was that our goal differential was not that bad either, and at the end of the year, we were in 9th place, with 19 points from 4 wins, 7 draws and 4 losses, with a -2 goal differential.
Our biggest issue was lack of offense. Sburlea had definitely fallen off, but young Răzvan Teodorescu, who I believe was in the Youth Intake the year before I joined, was having a solid season despite his Unambitious personality. Darius Niculcea had made the D(R) slot his to lose, and had also improved by quite a bit as well. We went into the break fairly confident we weren’t going to be in a relegation fight.
I am not sure it’s coincidental, but when the League splits in MArch into the two groups, that’s right around the time the Youth Intake happens.
I thought going itno the New Year we may have had a chance to stay midtable, but 6 of our first 8 games were against teams at the top of the table, and it showed. I thought we would eke the draw out against Sepsi OSK, but they got two late goals quick. Winning two games and drawing FCSB was also nice, but we ended up in the Relegation Group, and that wasn’t a surprise.
A Decent Intake?
5 Elite Talents and 5 Good talents are nice, but what I am looking at are positions, and I am very satisfied with this intake. Another potential future keeper, two young choices at Striker, winger options, Midfielder options, this is a solid intake for us. We’re going to look at just the top 10.
The Best
Ciprian Şandru is the 3rd Youth Intake Keeper that has come across as 5 star Potential, and with Nicolae Rotariu (Another good young 5 Star Potential Keeper), that gives us 4 with talent. The question is which one develops first, and while my gut says Alexandru is going to be the best one of the bunch, I am going to rotate the others in as best I can and see how they do. Ciprian is already a solid young keeper, his attributes are a great foundation to build upon, and if his Keeper attributes increase accordingly, he can be a solid keeper at this level.
Radu Chirilă has a lot going for him. Already having good Endurance attributes, his Bravery and Balance are also good, and I suspect that most of his attributes that are in Orange would turn blue, if not for the fact he is Unambitious. Yes, he’s 4 1/2 star potential, but he has to want it, and his personality ensures that getting there is not going to be easy. At All.
Ionuţ Oltean is what I call a ‘Feast and Famine’ Youth. Where he is good, he’s actually pretty good. Where he’s bad, he’s very bad, and there’s not a whole lot in between. Unless his Attacking Attributes improve dramatically the next couple of years thru training and playing time, he’s not going to be a winger, but his lack of height and weight makes him an iffy midfield prospect IMO.
Of this years Intake, I am most happy with Dumitru Hlinca. Already having Excellent fitness, Good Flair and Technique, and with most of his other Passing Attributes already solid, he would be a great Targetman if he could jump and head, but as he can do neither of those, he’s going to be a DLF. His potentail may not be as high as the others, but he will be on the pitch before anyone else, because I need a decent striker up top.
Already 180 pounds and 6′ 6″ at 16, Eduard Nanu is a man among boys. Here’s hoping he’s not one of those player’s who is a “Look Like Tarzan, Play Like Jane!” sort of player. Physically he is already solid, and his Defending Attributes are solid as well, but I can’t help thinking as solid as he is now, he’s not going to get that much better.
The Better(ish)
Eduard Sevaciuc’s PA is based on a world where everything goes perfect. The fact his Physically lacking is something his Attacking and Possession Attributes might help cover up, but his lack of good defending attributes at this point means he would need to work hard to become a serviceable M(C)/DM. His casual personality all but ensures that will never happen.
From and Attribute standpoint, Dafin Ilie (II) and Remi Şurpanu are similar, and where one is lacking the other is good. Ilie has the best potential to be a full time starter IMO, rather he has the best chance because his lack of height, Injury proneness, and Unsporting Personality means he will most likely not get much better than he already is. Physically speaking, Remi is the better of the two, and he’s also better at all three center field positions…but his Personality is also dragging him down as well. I’d feel beetter about these 5 players if the personalities were anything in the middle of the pack, but this Casual/Unambitious/ stuff is just…awful…
Dan Dascălu has a solid foundation to build on. The question is what is he building? I think he could be a winger with about a 110-120 PA, which for this level of football is very good, but his Attacking Attributes would have to improve by leaps and bounds for that to happen. It’s it possible? Yes. Is it probable? I doubt it…
Last but not least, well mostly least, is Cristian Dumitrescu. He is definitely the first instance of “He looked so good from the stands, but on the pitch he’s mid.” I’ve seen. He came in at 3 1/2 stars potential, and now he’s 2-2 1/2. That tells me where he is now, he’s not going to get that much better without some help, and as yet another player with an Unambitious personality, he’s not going to utilize that help.
All told, not the best Intake really. This whole personality range is frustrating, as my current HOYD has a Balanced one, but the past 3 Intakes I’ve had ~15 Unambitious, ~4 Unsporting, a Low Self Belief, a Temperamental, and a Casual…yikes…
We were headed towards the Relegation playoff’s, then we thumped Petrolul 6-3, and drew our next to games to secure 12th place overall. We did just enough in the Relegation group to finish 5th, which put us above FC U Craiova, and they ended up being relegated because they lost in the Playoffs. But in the overall standings, they finished a place higher than us.
A reminder to not take the ‘post season’ lightly.
Although, it could be worse, they could be UTA Arad, who finished 2nd overall but last in the Championship group, meaning they missed out on European football.
Performance wise, as one would expect from our finish, the team was average. No scorers in double digits, not assists in double digits, two of our best young players already out the door, and already some older players I am ready to move on as well.
I coached my 100th game, the board still hasn’t let me go on a coaching course, and while our finances are solid, we have to rent a new stadium to play in because the current one we are renting does not meet league requirements:
Next Season? I expect more of the same. This is that point where the older players I had when I took over the squad are going to start moving, some of them even if they don’t want too. The question is do I have capable replacements for them, and in many cases the answer is “We Shall Find Out.” As long as we don’t stumble, we should be fine.
THE FOOTBALL MANAGER BLOG OF FM_JELLICO 