The First of Many Steps
Last season we finished solidly midtable, which was to be expected. Also expected, unfortunately, was the fact that my board is as parsimonious as ever and refuses to allow me to have more than 10% of the transfer budget, which means for the time being we are looking for players who can contribute while not costing us to much. We also needed to strengthen our youth squad and get some depth, even if that depth wasn’t necessarily “Deep”. Our goal this season was two fold
- Finish in the Upper Half of the table
- Try and sign players who could help us achieve that while providing us the bedrock to build our future successes on.
I think we did that, but holy frick was the offseason long. But I think it was worth it. In total we brought in 22 players this year, 21 of them in the summer transfer window alone. Conversely, 13 player went out in the summer, and 7 in the January transfer window. Granted, some of the outs were on loan, but many were players who while good enough to keep us midtable, weren’t good enough to bring us forward, and so out they went. And, in somewhat of a surprise, we actually banked a €2M profit.
I am not going to show all the players we brought in, frankly more than a few were just bodies for the U19’s and 23’s to practice against, but I will show you the ones who contributed, and because these are end of seasons screenshots, you can see how well they did.
Şirahman Kudaş and Kılıç Arslan Kuruçelik my scouts found in Turkey last season. Both are capped at the U21 level, and both played for Trabzonspor, who inexplicably let both of them go on frees. I signed them at the end of last season, but they could not play until this season. Both have potential, but as you can see, Kudas stepped in and had a fine season at Center Mid.
Magnus Bech Riisnæs is a center mid from Vålerenga, a squad with enough quality and depth they let him test the market. At 800K he was the right price, and he also had a fine season.
Miguel Terceros came in to player winger, and he had a great season, easily one of the best pickups we had.
Gerrit van den Berk was primarily a bench player, but I think he has a good future in front of him, and will contricute nicely of the defensive back line next season
Rafa Marín was on loan from Real Madrid, and was a solid presence at the back.
Rafael Camacho I brought in to be a jack of all trades at the attacking midfielders positions, and his versatility as a super sub caught they eye of a few teams, including Vålerenga, who is is moving to.
Blas Armoa is a Paraguyan International, who had lost his spot at Sportivo Luqueño, and came to us with the promise of First Team playing time, and as you can see, he did a finer job for us.
Ollie Smith wants to be a winger, but I made the loan player from Man City our striker, and he responded with a 7.21 rating and 23 goals. As much as I would like to keep him though, we just can’t afford him, a line which I fear has becomes this saves motif…
Dylan Lennon did a capable job as a spot starter, but I think we may have better options now…
Lasse Madsen played when Ollie Smith couldn’t, and although his form looks nice, you can definately t4ell during the games when Ollie Smith is on the field, and when Lasse Madsen is.
Joaquín Jara did a fine job for us at the DM position, but his form really fell off near the end of the season.
André Álvarez Pérez had a fine season as part of the Defensive Center back rotation.
Angel Bazán was out lone January transfer window pickup, a Peruvian international who didn’t get a lot of games, but with Smith going back to City next season, and Lasse not being any better (on paper anyways), the opportunity is there for Angel to grab the position and make it his own.
The Season
Our primary goal this season was to try and avoid injuries, to do well in the Cup, and to win the games we were supposed to win, win most of the game were were supposed to draw, and lose close. For the most part, we suceeded.
This season, Benfica, brought in €151M in players, Verratti for €18.25M, Davinson Sanchez foe €21.5M, Jonathon David for €48.5M, and Manor Solomon for €50M. And to facilitate that they sold €247M of players. Meanwhile my budget was at about 6M, so yeah…it could be a problem. And it was, as Benfica thrashed us 7-2. The rest of the beginning of the season went as expected, although Sporting needed and 86th minute goal to win, only losing by 1 to them is an accomplishment, if only a small one.
Beating Boavista was nice, but drawing with Porto was a bit frustrating as they were a man down the last 30 minutes of the game and we couldn’t capitalize. Draws against Vitoria and Braga were OK, as long as we aren’t losing points it’s all good, but Porto showed their quality when they beat us 4-2 in the Cup Group.
I don’t know that losing to Porto threw some sort of switch to get the team to buckle down and come together as a squad, but not losing ion the next 8 games was quite the accomplishment. Yes, it took extras time to beat Varzim in the Cup, but we came back to draw against Famalicão and Casa Pia. The year also ended on a high note for me, as I was voted coach of the year, and I turned down interviews from Lyon and Sassuolo.
Sixteen games between losses is quite the achievement no matter what level of football you are at, and we were tied with Benfica until the 73rd minute, when the broke ahead and scored 2 more. But I think they days of us rolling over and giving up are soon to be behind us. Am I upset that some of these draws weren’t wins? Sure, who wouldn’t be? But I am very happy they were not losses.
The fact our only two losses at the end of the season were to Porto and Sporting Speak volumes as to how far we have come in a short amount of time. The number of draws however tell me we still have quite the distance to go, but as a result of our late season push and not losing the last of our 4 games:
We qualified for the European Conference League. Sure, we might crash out early, but still, it European Football.
Gabriel Batista was stellar between the sticks for us. He’s not getting younger, and I doubt he will improve much, but a lot of the draws we had were due to him.
Rafa Marin and Ollie Smith did exactly what I expected them to do when I brought them in on loan, but it was Terceros who had the surprising season, with 12 assists. Rakip had a solid season as well, but I have younger players with higher potential waiting in the wings, so he will be moving on. Dimitrovic had a good seasons as AM(L), but he is starting to attract a lot of attention, and I am not sure how long he will be in Santa Clara Red. And as you can see, we have a lot of young potential on the squad, the question is can we not only develop it, but keep it for any amount of time to improve the club? That remains to be seen, but I know the job is going to be a lot harder because not only is the board still saddling us with just 10% of the transfer revenue, our budget for next season is just 4.02M, and our payroll isn’t much higher. It will be quite some time before were moving and selling players like Benfica and Sporting…
Financially speaking, were are on solid ground. However, we lost a ton of TV revenue money this season, and I am hoping a decent performance in the European games can make up for that next season. I was able to improve the facilities, but in July we got a welcome piece of news:
So, the season had come to a close, I was scouting my tail of in preparation for the next season, when this piece of news came across my desk:
If this screws up my transfer window in any way…
THE FOOTBALL MANAGER BLOG OF FM_JELLICO 