You Too Can Lose, and Still Be a WINNER!!!
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.
Thanks for reading!
THE FOOTBALL MANAGER BLOG OF FM_JELLICO 