Career KTS back to the future (turkey) complete

[kts365]

Introduction

Becoming a little bored of waiting for an international job in my Rinus Michel Challenge attempt, I decided to start a second career to keep things fresh and @Ashez came up with a challenge which immediately piqued my interest.

This is going to be a tough challenge as we are trying to build a winning squad almost from scratch and with a limited budget. I have also loaded the Turkish league up first which limits the English players available to us. 

I had to pick a team first however. After a quick browse through team names and their facilities I selected Kasimpasa 

A team I've not heard of if I am honest, but it doesn't matter as I am replacing the entire squad bar one Turkish player. Which brings me on to the transfers

Transfers

I quickly demoted, transfer listed and offered our original players to clubs for reduced sums of money. I then hit the free and cheap transfer markets for English and Greek players (there aren't many Armenians and even less worth buying), as the funds really are quite limited and I'm after 22 players to form essentially 2 teams.

I ended up with the following players as my squad.

So I brought in 18 players for £6.49M

Quite a cheap squad there. Below are their attributes.

Spoiler

Some names there you will recognise in former England internationals and many you will not recognise. I'm quite pleased with some of the younger players there too as there is room to improve and I see plenty of 13s and 14s there too.

So I have to have one Turkish player in the squad and I picked one who was already here and had half decent attributes, and here he is. Not too shabby to play as a winger or inside forward all across that front line.

Team in place it was time to begin my season, with the board expectations to get into the Europa League. 

The Season

Now I am not going to lie. This was a super hard season. First up is the Turkish Cup.

We dominated our third round opposition and made it through to the group stage. This cup is weird.

As you can see, we won every group stage game to move on to the fourth round to face Eskisehirspor 

We had many chances but failed to capitalise on them eventually having to win on penalties. This brought us to the quarter final against Fenerbahce which is over 2 legs now.

A 2-2 draw gives fenerbahce an away goals advantage going into their home leg. Could we overcome this?

We could not, and dropped out thanks to a late goal from the opposition.

So with the cup out of the way we concentrated on the league. We had some injury troubles in our small squad as our older boys succumbed to the hard years and some of ourgency top guys had long injury spells. This led us to a very tough middle spell of the league Season as we dropped as low as 14th and I had to beg the board to keep my job more than once. We had a decent end to the season but where did we finish?

All in all not a bad finishing position when our problems were considered. I hope we do far better next year though.

The Player  

Now let's see how our Turkish player did this year. Did he score many goals and get many assists?

As you can see he was our top goal scorer and 3rd best assist maker meaning he was our top contributer to goals this year, being involved in 31 in all. How does this compare to the other players in the league?

Top goal scorer.

4th in assists but only 1 behind the top guy.

Easily the most PoM awards.

5th highest average rating. Can it be in the bag?

No! He somehow loses out to a guy who is only on one of the above lists. Oh and it's a Besiktas player. I feel like the big team player is being treated favourably because his team won the league. Torun has been robbed here *storms out*.

So we officially get nowhere in our challenge. Next year really needs to be better.

Edited December 22, 2016 by kts365

[BatiGoal]

I personally don't pay attention to any of the awards (player nor manager) tbf as they don't always make sense to me + I don't need AI's recognition. I know when I do a good job

This challenge is tough. The complete squad revamp makes it extra hard in your first season so I'm curious to see what you and your players can bring in season 2. Hang in there!!

[kts365]

2 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

I personally don't pay attention to any of the awards (player nor manager) tbf as they don't always make sense to me + I don't need AI's recognition. I know when I do a good job

This challenge is tough. The complete squad revamp makes it extra hard in your first season so I'm curious to see what you and your players can bring in season 2. Hang in there!!

The only reason I am bothered about player of the year is that it is part of the challenge for my Turkish player to win it. Otherwise I normally ignore these awards much like you do. Thanks for the support mate.

[danovic78]

Good first season transfers there, always very tough to totally revamp the squad.

Nice to some Toffees in there with Osman and Vaughan...

[Ashez]

Not gunna lie I think that's a cracking first season, not much was achieved but the "leg work" is done in building the squad. Hopefully you push on in season 2 and start gaining some achievements for the challenge  

[kts365]

8 hours ago, danovic78 said:

Good first season transfers there, always very tough to totally revamp the squad.

Nice to some Toffees in there with Osman and Vaughan...

Osman is still very decent for his age in the game. Vaughan was more of a super sub.

5 hours ago, Ashez said:

Not gunna lie I think that's a cracking first season, not much was achieved but the "leg work" is done in building the squad. Hopefully you push on in season 2 and start gaining some achievements for the challenge  

It was a season which truly made me appreciate the difficulty of your challenge.

Update on the way too guys.

[kts365]

Season 2

After a difficult first year we were looking to improve the squad for season 2 and hopefully win some stuff.

Transfers

This year I had to concentrate on increasing squad numbers a little as well as improving the general quality of players. 

I also had to replace Bobby 'solid as a rock' Zamora who retired suddenly at the beginning of the season. 

I brought in the following players. 

Spoiler

Quite happy with the signings here. There is experience, youth, depth and quality in my squad now.

The Season

Hopefully a better year than last year let us begin with our Turkish Cup run. We begin in round 3

An easy enough win to take us into the group phase.

We win our group, dropping only 2 points with a draw. Good so far. Next up is round 4.

We sweep aside Rizespor to once again hit the quarter finals.

In the first leg we dominate but only score 1 goal in response to our opponents 1st minute opener.

We again control the action despite our opponents getting another 1st minute opener (seriously defence, wake up) and take the win in extra time. We have surpassed last year's effort. Onto the semi's.

We have many more chances at home in the first leg but only managed a bore draw

We manage a 3-1 victory in the second leg with two injury time goals. Final here we come!

We face Bursaspor. The match is cagey. Two second half goals split evenly lead us to extra time......and penalties.

A completely poor shootout from both teams but we win the cup!

Next up, the league.

We fared far better this year in the league. After some early draws, and I mean a lot of them. roughly 2/3 games were draws, we began to pick up more wins and points. We got up to second behind league leaders Besiktas who we beat early in the season then drew with.

We caught them and went even on points around game 29 of 34. Our goal difference was lower but in Turkey that comes behind team vs team records in the pecking order so we lead the league by that going into the last game. All we have to do is win and the league is ours. We face Gaziantepspor. 

WHAT A GAME! Back and forth till the final minutes when our young winger Kazaiah Sterling scoring his second of the game.

It was academic anyway as Besiktas only managed a draw.

LEAGUE CHAMPS.

A great year for the team. Domestic double.

The Player  

So with the team winning things how did our Turkish player do?

Well he had some niggling injury troubles and missed out on quite a few games this year he still managed to be second and third in my teams goals and assists respectively. How did he do compared to other players in the league.

6th in goals

10th in assists

7th in PoM awards. I think you know where this is going.

Our main striker wins player of the year and Torun plays second fiddle again.

Some news on one of our youngsters though.

Sterling wins young player of the year. He did really well this year first being a great little sub then justifying his first team inclusion with some great performances. His attributes though?

At the beginning of the season he's looking below par even for his age.

By the seasons end he is looking like the first team player he became.

Anyway that was our year. A great one it was too.

Thanks for reading guys.

[kts365]

Season 3

After last seasons great performance we still need a Turkish super cup, turkish player of the year and s European title. Hopefully we clean up this year.

Transfers

This year our teansfers were minimal but vital. We had lost Rob Green and Joleon Lescott is not getting any younger so we brought in the following 2 players.

Some nice attributes in crucial areas on these two. 

The Season

So this season we aim for more glory. We begin with the Turkish super cup. We face Bursaspor.

We have the best of the games possession and chances as we win 2-1 to secure another achievement in our challenge.

Next up is the Turkish Cup, which we won last year. We again made the final. Could we retain?

Yes but only with 2 extra time goals.

Could we also retain the league title?

Not only did we not but we slipped to third. A little disappointing there.

Now we get onto another achievement we must win to get through our challenge, European Competition. We qualified for the Champions league but got drawn into a group of death. Napoli, Monaco and Shakhtar. We could be the groups whipping boys.

Not quite how it went down but we crash out of the champions league. However, this could be a blessing in disguise as we finished 3rd in the group and drop into the Europa League which should be an easier competition.

Our first foes? Ajax.

We thrash them in the home leg, this gives a lot of hope.

We were lucky here as one more goal would have seen us drop from the competition. We do gob through though. Next up are Southampton.

We lose the away leg and need a good home game to continue in the competition.

But we flop and drop out to the Saints. Better luck next year hopefully.

The Player  

This year I again stuck with Tunay Torun as he came close the first two seasons and he's still in his prime. How did this year go for our man?

Top scorer for the team and second highest assist count. Part of 45 goals. A decent tally.

How does he compare to the opposing players though?

Top gonline scorer

4th in assists

3rd in average rating but the guys above him only played 1 game a piece.

Most PoM awards. Is this our man's year?

Yes and we nail another part of our challenge.

We now have: 

• 1 League title
• 2 Turkish Cups
• 1 Turkish super cup
• 1 Turkish player of the year for our Turkish man.

Another great year. We need to get that European trophy. Hopefully next year.

[Ashez]

Somehow missed the season two update but just caught up and going really well mate! 

Really storming through the challenge after the tough start! Club form seems really good, shame about dropping to third though. 

Europe will be the tough aspect but hopefully you can start improving the squad now to a level where challenging is possible. Keep it up mate  

[kts365]

14 minutes ago, Ashez said:

Somehow missed the season two update but just caught up and going really well mate! 

Really storming through the challenge after the tough start! Club form seems really good, shame about dropping to third though. 

Europe will be the tough aspect but hopefully you can start improving the squad now to a level where challenging is possible. Keep it up mate  

Thanks man. The team have really surprised me with how good they can be. Just looked back at the challenge requirements. I honestly thought it was 1 cup and 1 super cup rather than just 2 cups. Good job I won that second cup this year Eh? Haha.

Europe really will be a tough nut to crack.

[Ashez]

A happy surprise then  haha. 

Targeting the Europa League is a plan IMO, but that still won't be easy. 

[kts365]

29 minutes ago, Ashez said:

A happy surprise then  haha. 

Targeting the Europa League is a plan IMO, but that still won't be easy. 

Fingers crossed then as I only qualified for Europa League this year

[kts365]

Season 4

We are one cup away from nailing this challenge unfortunately that cup is any European continental one.

Transfers

This year I did all I could to improve the team, increase depth and invest in the future of the club.

I finally got the defender I've been after. Harry maguire. He may not seem like a big target but for thisome club he is.

Spoiler

The Season

This year we are concentrating on the Europa League, but before we get to that let's visit the other competitions. First up is the Turkish super cup.

In a 7 goal thriller we lose out to Besiktas.

Next up the Turkish Cup.



Galatasaray take us down with some ease in the semi-final. Did we at least win the league?

No! We lose out by 3 points to Besiktas again!

So finally we have the main event, the one we need, the Europa League.  First is the group stage, we draw Villareal, Lokomitiv Moscow and Slovan Bratislava.

We won the group having lost only one, and in a turn of luck Bratislava manage to finish second in the group, well done them. Next up, the knockout rounds. We face Liverpool.

I decided to employ a counter attacking strategy and it worked out pretty well as Liverpool dominate but we win with the 2 goals away from home to get an advantage for leg 2.

We win leg 2 in a more ebven contest to get the 5-1 aggregate victory and onto the next round where we face PSV. Hopefully this should be a little easier than Liverpool. Again we employ a counter attacking strategy.

Again it works, as PSV get the better part of the chances but we beat them 5-1 regardless and look forward to leg 2.

We lose 2-0 in the second leg but we manage to hold on for the aggregate win, we move to the quarters. We face Italian giants AC Milan. This will not be easy.

Or will it? We win 6-3 that is a lot of goals. What does leg 2 hold?

Another 7 goals. 16 goals over the 2 legs. Thrilling stuff and we move on to face......Besiktas! Time for revenge.

We dominate and smash them in leg 1. 3-0 to the good guys. Leg 2?

1-1 that'll do 4-1 aggregate victory to send us to the final. The opposition? Atletico Madrid. Tough stuff. The score was 1-1 at full time, I made some late subs. Would this pay off?

Yes! The pressure was all too much for a tired Atletico side. We are Europa League champs. 

That is it. Challenge over. We win everything we need on 4 years and I must say I'm surprised, the team was simply fantastic.

• 1 League title
• 2 Turkish Cups
• 1 Turkish super cup
• 1 Europa League championship
• 1 Turkish player of the year for our Turkish man

Thanks to @Ashez for a great little challenge. Now to move on to something else.

[BatiGoal]

You smashed it! The league must have been very competitive since the champions Besiktas only recorded 20 wins out of 34.

Congrats with finishing the challenge!

[ian77]

Great career KTS, I like to manage in the Turkish league, wat was your tactics to get kasimpasa playing so good?

[Ashez]

Congrats

[kts365]

5 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

You smashed it! The league must have been very competitive since the champions Besiktas only recorded 20 wins out of 34.

Congrats with finishing the challenge!

Was rather competitive. I found myself drawing and losing games thinking "I'll drop a place or two there" but I never left the top 3 or 4. Thanks mate.

4 hours ago, ian77 said:

Great career KTS, I like to manage in the Turkish league, wat was your tactics to get kasimpasa playing so good?

I mainly used 3 tactics.

This was the main one.

If that wasn't working or I was being pummelled by a team attacking the hell out of me or if I was defending a lead I switched to these instructions

And if I was really up against it (if my slow defenders failed) I'd try this tactic based off a tactic from last year.

 

25 minutes ago, Ashez said:

Congrats

Thanks mate and thanks for the challenge.