The Kids Are Alright -Season 10

A TIPPING POINT?

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.

Thanks for Reading!

The Kids Are Alright -Season 9

Stepping back to take a step forward.

I will admit, everything lined up well for us last year. Getting to the Round of 16 in the UECL was quite the accomplishment, but as optimistic as I am, and overly so at times, I wasn’t expecting a repeat performance this year. I wanted us to do well, place well, and try and qualify for European Football again, but it was going to be tough.

This is Jaroslav Verdal. U Craiova 1948 spent €19.25M in transfers, he was €9.5(12.5)M of that.

Nassim Chefra, a very good deal at €350K for Farul:

Universitatea Cluj paid €1.3M for Milan Precupanu (Class of ’25):

and they paid just €49K for this fellow:

And UTA Arad paid €500K for this young midfielder:

Will I have players this good? Eventually, I mean, I HAD Precupanu, but he left for greener pastures, and then left again for even greener pastures. The issue is, we are a good, young team who is getting better in incrementally small steps. I’d love to use my €7.1M Transfer budget and 1.1M in available salary to improve the squad with some great younger players, but I can’t. What I can do is develop what I have, sell them for a goodly sum, and keep getting in Youth Players to replace them, which is possible, but is it probable? I think so, even when the decks isn’t exactly stacked in our favor.

The team literally had 10 days of vacation before having to report back, then it was friendlies, and before we knew it, the season was upon us. The only ‘loss’ in the transfer window was Lucian Ilie (Class of ’28), who went to Voluntari for €175K. I think he is the type of sale that is going to be common going forward, a good young player with potential buried on the depth chart, like 9th on the depth chart:

He’s a 3 1/2 to 5 star Potential player, and he had a good loan spell last season. The issue is I have Five players ahead of him who are 2-3 star CA, and 4 to 5 star PA already ahead of him. I was trying to loan him out again when Voluntari made the offer, and a somewhat larger salary with the promise of 1st Team playing time beat out my offer, and he left.

They season got off to an…well, it started.

We absolutely bodied Sloboda Tuzla in the Qualifying Round, but then drew with an Average Sepsi squad. Losing to botrh Cluj and Farul isn’t unexpected, but one of those games should have been a draw, and losing to Dinamo Bucureşti 4-0, as much as I want to blame it on the number of games we have been playing, was just a gut punch. They are a solid squad, but we’re better than putting up a donut on the scoreboard. We were 3-0 down after 18 minutes, i think the overall average for the club was a 6.2…just bleh. The upside was that while we were doing our best to crap the bed in the Domestic games, in Europe we were doing unexpectedly well again. Beating BATE Borisov on aggregate was very nice, and I thought we were going to be out when I saw we were playing Guimarães. However, we held them to a 1-1 draw at home, and an unfortunate own goal by a young newgen player gave us the 2-1 win at their house, and we made it to the League Phase, where honestly, we got a bit of a gift draw:

Rapid Wien and Celtic were the only two teams I Was worried about, luckily they were both traveling to us so that was a bit of a leg up…

Galaţi and Csíkszereda are teams that are going to be fighting relegation. The fact we beat one and lost to the other with the exact same squads that were well rested and preapred is a statement as to how the season was going. And again, our Cupa României group was a bloodbath, as we won just one game, drew 2 and lost 2 with a negative goal differential….

The UECL was going as expected though. In real life, Shkupi is a decent North Macedonian Squad, and Pyunik is a decent Armenian squad, in the game they are full of greyed out newgens that didn’t really have a chance, and it was reflected in the scoreboard.

November and December was….frustratingly good.

Drawing with Celtic and Molde, who with Rapid Wien were the three teams in the group I was worried about, was very good, especially as both player their best starting XI. Gorica is a decent Croatian squad, yet they went 7-0 (against Semi Pro Breiðablik, who has to achieve supremacy (IYKYK), the 0-0 at Brighton, 0-1 at St. Gallen, 1-0 at Maribor, 0-0 with us, and 0-0 at Viking…and they finished 16th(!). We finished 5th, but the other Romanian Squads in the League also did very well:

5th, 7th, 10th and 12th, that will surely help the Country rankings at the end of the day, I hope.

As frustrating as November and December were, January and February was worse:

Eleven games without a loss is nothing to sneeze at, but 4 wins and 7 draws might be worth a sniffle or three. And some of those game we deserved to lose, Cluj in particular. It seemed as if once we equalized we were content to play for the draw, and no matter how much I yelled, threw bottles, and berated them, their “Give a Damn done broke”. We staggered into March needing to put our best foot forward to avoid being in the relegation group, but we tied our own shoelaces somewhere along the way:

I knew after playing the the first time around Rapid Wien was a good squad, and the obviously studied us because they picked us apart in the 2nd game, and we tumbled out of the League. The goal was now to tray and get to the top of the relegation group and fight for the European spot again, but losing to U Craiova put that thought to bed. The rest of the season was us trying not to lose and to avoid a relegation scrap, because honestly, I am not sure which team would have shown up had we been in that position.

We did just enough to avoid the Relegation battle. You would have heard my sigh of releif, if not for the wailing and gnashing of Voluntari fans. They not only lost 6 of their Relegation Group games, winning and drawing two apiece, they were forced to play in the Liga I/II Relegation Playoff, where they drew 1-1 the first match, they were 3-0 up, gave up 3 goals in 12 minutes, and then lost on Penalty Kicks. And the coach still has his job, so far…

Final Standings:

And the remaining Romanian clubs did pretty well in the Conference:

And that should help a bit.

The Youth Intake was deceptively good. I say deceptively because while we have some great potential, I suspect at least one, if not more of these players is already near their PA. Oddly enough, this was not considered a “Golden Generation”:

The Best:

PAUN is…intriguing. He’s probably destined for a AM?IF role, but his strength and Work Rate being in the red are worrisome, as is his Decision Making, Composure, Anticipation and Finishing. If I can get him some U19 game time and some loans spells, he should develop enough to cosnider some starting XI time, but that’s getting to be a tougher task to juggle. The Injury Proneness is a worry as well.

BEZERCU is everything Paun isn’t, and that’s a bit worrisome, because of all the players in this years intake, he’s the one I think is the Chimera. I hope I am wrong, as his Physical and Possession attributes are a solid foundation to build on, and his Attacking Attributes aren’t that bad either. If he develops, he will be quite a solid player.

I can’t pronounce his last name, but ANDREI looks to be the best of the bunch, until that glaring “UNAMBITIOUS” personality jumps out at you. Granted, we already have a few players on the starting XI turning in good performances with that personality type, but that just tells me they’d be even better players if they were at least, say, Balanced…Andrei is probably the best all around youth player this intake, I graded him lower because of said personality, and I don’t think he cares…

MILAN and Andrei might be cousins, given how I can’t pronounce either of there names the same way twice. He has the making of a prototypical D(C), but again that Low Determination personality is a killer. You can’t teach height though, so maybe some mentoring and the like can get it improved, and he can become a quality contributor.

The Rest:

Again, Personality dragged these two players down the scale. Of everyone who came in thru this years intake, Drăguşin is the most ready to play, with good Defending Skills, Good Attacking Skills, and Good Technique. If his Quickness was to really pick up, he’d be a great Winger, but as it stands he’s already a capable WB. I think he has one of the highest ceilings in this years intake, but again, that personality…

Bucur is the other player I think is near his PA already. As much as I would love for him to top out as say a 4 star BBM, I suspect his attributes are on the low end for each color, which means improving won’t get him out of that range all that often either. As an example, his Stamina is probably and 8, and it will top out at 12, his Off the Ball is 9 and will top out at 11 sort of thing…

All that said, next years intake had better be pretty good in the Personality department, o my HOYD (Fairly Professional, Outspoken yet Reserved) is going to be looking for a new job.

The team did take a step back this season. I don’t think there is one overarching reason for it, but a lot of smaller reasons that when taken together, show why. A Busy schedule, Injuries in the second half of the season (Alexandru, Teodorescu, Voicu and Hlinca all missed at least 6 weeks), and better competition means we have to work a little harder going forward.

In Other news, we have three left from the starting squad still getting regular game time, how long that lasts I am not sure, but as next season is our 10th, it might be worth it to see who, if any, of the youth players that have left have become contributors on their new teams.

Thanks for Reading!

The Kids Are Alright -Season 8

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 Kids Are Alright -Season 7

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.

Now how do I fix these Youth Intakes…

The Kids Are Alright -Season 5

Out with the Old…

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…