Career Idol Attempts the Germanic Europe Challenge

[Idol]

Having failed twice at the UK challenge I decided I'd have a little break. With the plan of picking up the batitrick of goalscoring challenges I decided to try what looks like the easiest one first. 

Only 3 leagues to do and the biggest target is a relatively makeable 67.

Season 1 - Target - 41 Goals

So we moved to Belgium, this is the first time I've ever managed in Belgium so I had a quick glance around the league first to see if there was a suitable striker to pick. This guy jumped out at me immediately. (Apparently I forgot to take a screenshot at the start of the season). 

He looks very good, maybe lacking a little in Dribbling and Technique but good in the important areas. 

The league began and we struggled. Apparently the teams in the Belgian league are slightly better than the Welsh league and I do actually need to have a defence. After a bit of tweaking we settled into a good formation that seemed to be getting goals but not conceding quite as many and we moved on. 

The Europa League went alright, easily qualifying for the knockout stages before getting destroyed by Sassuolo. 

And we won the league! I was very surprised after the start we had but in the end we did well, although we fell at the Quarter Final stage of the domestic cup. 

Sadly Coulibaly's season finished prematurely, as he missed a penalty then got himself injured with 3 games left to leave him sat high and dry - 

On 49 goals. I was hoping he might make the 50 mark but I plan to spend a couple more seasons in Belgium so hopefully he can improve next season (or maybe get replaced?). But he beat the target which was the important bit! 

[Taff]

Fantastic start dude, and the way you have performed in Ireland in your first two attempts in the UK I'm sure you'll batter the records no worries

KIU

[BatiGoal]

That's what I love about challenges in general. Getting people out of their comfort zones and into new worlds to explore. No doubt you'll crack this code. Goodluck!

[AndersJ]

Best of luck mate! Do like Taff and take at least one season more - quickly you will dominate the league . My personal AIM is the euro league ( minimum 6 games more than league and cup

[Idol]

@BatiGoal - Yeah it's definitely out of my comfort zone. I'm not a fan of the way the points get halved after the normal season, interesting way to engineer an exciting finish I suppose but not to my tastes. 

@AndersJ - Cheers, I planned on doing 3 seasons in Belgium, hopefully I'll beat the 49 mark in one of them.

Season 2

Season So, how did Season 2 go? Awfully! The normal 30 game seasons ended with us level on points with Standard, having scored a pathetic number of goals.

The Champions Group didn't go very well either, and 1 point from our final 3 games led to us conceding the title to a last minute goal from Oostende. It was an exiting finale mind you, with Oostende playing against each other either of them would have won the title with a win if I didn't get any points (I got hammered 3-1 by Standard)

Europe went alright, we got through a tough group in 2nd but sadly got knocked out in the 1st qualifying round to someone who's name escapes me.

On the plus side we did win the Super Cup and Croky Cup, which I suppose means the season wasn't a total write off. 

And now to the individual awards. 

The young striker I signed to play 2nd string to Coulibaly chipped in nicely, scoring 22 goals. 

However the number of injuries and drops in form from Coulibaly that lead to Costa scoring so many were horrendous, as he also scored 22 goals.

Definitely a frustrating season, back to the drawing board with a new striker for Season 3 I think.

[AndersJ]

@Idol i dont want to hammer your tactic or anything, but does your main striker plays alone up front? Is anyone taking goals from him, or are the 3-5 behind him helping him and only him? And is he PA ?

i hope you do better next season and find one with stamnia enough to play 80 min EVERY game  best of luck and remember to search for him like EVERYWHERE ✊

[Idol]

@AndersJ Yeah he plays up front by himself in a 4-5-1, this season I'd them in a 4-1-2-2-1 formation I've played around with him as PA and with him as not PA as well, not sure which works best to be honest as sometimes I feel like he's sometimes marked out of the game as PA. I play some combination of Ws out wide and an AP, DLP and a CM or BBM in the centre. 

[AndersJ]

Did you try him as cf and a APM right behind him to feed him?

[Idol]

Not in that season, which probably didn't help. I was struggling to win any games but really I suppose I'd lost sight of the target of goals for my main man rather than winning the league. 

[BatiGoal]

Winning the league isn't a priority per se but it could help in getting the right striker to the club. Just wasn't quite your season. Happens. Looking forward to the next one.

[mcandrew003]

Just caught up mate, your doing very well! Unlucky on that second year, but onwards and upwards!

[Ashez]

Unlucky second season but the first was impressive. Bring on season three  

[Taff]

It's ok dude we all have them seasons just dust yourself off, tell Koulibaly to hit the bricks and find yourself as new striker 

[Idol]

@BatiGoal @mcandrew003 @Ashez @Taff Cheers for the support guys, it is a bit annoying when you feel like you've got a decent squad in place then they end up just not firing. I suppose it happens though.

Season 3

Having decided Coulibaly wasn't the man for me I brought in a new striker, meet Andres Chavez. I forgot to get a screenshot early on apparently, he lost a bit physically after yet another injury. 

He's got some of the good traits I look for, good shooting and ok in other areas. 

He set off brilliantly, sneaking 3 goals in 3 shots on target as we got dominated by Oostende. 

7 Goals in 3 games was a great start, then his form dropped like a rock. 

A couple of weeks later an injury kicked my plan for the season into touch. 

The Champions league group went well, but we were beaten by Bayer Leverkusen in the first knockout stage.

But we did the domestic Dubbel, which was nice. (Trippel if you count the supercup)... And now I want a beer. 

Pretty close in the league but we just edged it. 

And as you may be able to guess, we didn't beat 49 goals. Coulibaly ended up forcing his way back into the team, achieving a decent return despite missing a lot of games and coming on as sub quite a lot too. 

My original plan was to spend 3 seasons in Belgium but I felt that Gent were getting better as a team and I found a decent striker to lead the line, so I decided to stick it out for a 4th season. 

Season 4

Great stats and I'd seen that he managed to do some excellent work in the Belgian league in @AndersJ run at this challenge so I figured I'd give him a run. 

He was backed up with a glorious loan signing, and I adjusted my tactics to be more aggressive, as the goals scored in the last few seasons had been disappointing. 

... This game doesn't want me to do well in Belgium! 

I also have the most negative Assistant Manager ever. 7-0 and you can't even find a single positive!? 

The Champions League went pretty well in the group stages, just finishing below Tottenham on GD. 

However that put us up against Man City in the first knockout round. We had an unfortunate first leg, losing 4-0 in a game we could reasonably have looked to draw. Jesus and Sane showing their quality to put us to the sword.

So we went out to Manchester looking to put in a good performance.

How... What... Until that goal went in on the 78th minute I was getting really annoyed.

8 Shots for Diamantakos, 5 on target, no goals. Ho hum.

We put on a much better showing in the league, taking a 12 point advantage from the normal season (which becomes 6 in the champions group).

And a solid showing in the champions group secured a good winning margin, winning 9 and drawing 1.

Another clean sweep domestically as we won the Croky Cup for the 3rd consecutive year.

And the main man. Well... Injuries took their toll. He played pretty well when he did play but he had too much recovery time and had a few spells of bad form that cost him a shot at the big time.

At the end of the season I had a pretty good reputation, and decided to give up on the top of the leaderboard, I just want to complete a challenge. So I tendered my resignation at Gent and got a pretty good job in Nederland. 

And I'll leave you with news that Bruno Bento does not know how to have sex. I mean he could have waited a full day between groin injuries!

 

[Brenty92]

Unfortunate in the injuries dude, like you said though forget about topping the leaderboard for now and just get there, you can always restart this challenge at a later date to better your score if you wanted ?? good luck in Holland mate (give @BatiGoal something to cheer about in his homeland ?)

[AndersJ]

Idol my tag team partner, he is a great striker, what role does he have and i assume he is PA right 

added 0 minutes later

?? sorry my iPad is making trouble

[Idol]

1 hour ago, AndersJ said:

Idol my tag team partner, he is a great striker, what role does he have and i assume he is PA right 

added 0 minutes later

?? sorry my iPad is making trouble

He played as AF, he missed well over a month with injuries and there's always a few games where he struggled coming back from injury.

Yeah he was set to PA all season. even when he wasn't playing. 

[Ashez]

Solid seasons there mate, such a shame about the injuries though. Out of interest what training do you use? IT? 

Good luck in Holland  

PS - That last joke proper cracked me up, so childish ain't we  

[Taff]

Unlucky with those injuries but a solid season and now you're moving on up, lets see those numbers go up as well

[Idol]

21 minutes ago, Ashez said:

Solid seasons there mate, such a shame about the injuries though. Out of interest what training do you use? IT? 

Good luck in Holland  

PS - That last joke proper cracked me up, so childish ain't we  

I based my training on the ones linked on Vibe and try to keep it to 10 points total. I normally get 2/3 players who complain about it but not many. Injuries haven't been bad in the rest of the squad so I'm guessing it's not that but it could be a combination of too much training and too much game time.

Growing up is entirely overrated! 

21 minutes ago, Taff said:

Unlucky with those injuries but a solid season and now you're moving on up, lets see those numbers go up as well

Cheers Taff, injuries suck in this kind of challenge.

 

[Ashez]

In this type of challenge I typically don't use IT but just standard/default training. As you want and only really care about one big season I find availability is more important than the risky boosts IT can give. Sure he might score a few less due to not being as good as he could be but I'd rather risk it that way compared to risking a season defining injury. 

[Idol]

Roughly half an hour before you posted that message the player that was ripping the Netherlands to bits for me got injured for a month. I think I might try it! Just need to find out what the basic training looks like again.

[Idol]

I've double checked and my training has been set at the default levels at Ajax so I guess I've just been unlucky  

Anyway, onwards to the Netherlands. As luck would have it when I left Gent the biggest job in the league was available, and they quickly signed me up. As the proud manager of Ajax surely this stage would be a cakewalk! 

Sadly the Dutch league is held in slightly lower esteem than I hold it, so signing a top level striker immediately was difficult. 

Season 5 - Edinson

An old favourite Edinson Cavani came in as the crop at Ajax were all a bit lacking. He's a little over the hill but still has good physicals and decent other stats.

 

Ajax finished the previous season in 6th, which left us in the Europa League. We qualified 2nd from the group behind Bilbao but comfortably ahead of 3rd. We got Napoli in the 2nd knockout round which was the end of that.

Edinson was showing sporadic form, but that's a little to be expected from an older player.

And the season came to an end with no injuries!!! Madness! Sadly, Cavani fell a way short of the target with a respectable haul of 44 in 51 apps. 

We won the league, and had made a lot of player transfers and built up a more significant kitty for the next season which filled me with some confidence

The Dutch cup was added to the league as well to make it a Double.

Season 6 - He's on FIRE and he's injured... Fuuuuuuuu

So, with a good transfer and wage budget to go at I spent a lot of time getting rejected by good strikers. I brought in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (or however you spell it) on a free but I wasn't satisfied that he would do the job. 

Eventually I found the right level of striker, and paid what I felt was over the odds but I was getting a touch desperate.

It's Barcelona's Munir! I can't say I've ever heard of him but armed with near 20s in Pace and Stamina and greens in Shooting, Dribbling, Technique, Movement, Decisions and Creativity I felt like he was a winner. A cool £20m was spent to prise him away from Barca, and his weekly wage was nearly double his highest paid team mate but I felt good about him.

 He started the season really well. 

And a tough champions League group was navigated successfully. 

He even won WPOTY, which is impressive since he'd hardly played any games for Barca. 

The first round of the Champions League saw me up against Benfica, who I'm sure aren't any good... Not champions of the world or anything...

As we hit the winter break the game time had really done Munir a lot of good, and he looked a world beater.

36 goals in his first 29 games. Still 20 goals to go for the target but he was looking pretty safe.

Unless...

What is it with people and their bastard groins?!? I double checked and my training was definitely set to the normal levels, totalling 9 points. And so I went into the big game with Benfica without my talismanic striker. 

Thankfully a solid 2-1 home win was backed up with a dominating performance at the Estadio de Luz. In the next round I faced Fiorentina, with Munir coming back to fitness to appear for 5 minutes in the first leg and starting the 2nd leg. A solid 2-2 draw away was utterly thrown away in the first 10 minutes at home. Thankfully a penalty and a wonder strike from my BBM (a seriously good player who Celtic bought for £500k in the first season, one to remember I think, admittedly he'd cost me £15m) led to penalties, where a flawless performance from my boys brought victory and the semi final draw.  

Which brought us to the Semi Final, against Barcelona. A hard fought 0-0 in the home leg gave me a chance, hopefully Munir could nick one against his former club and send us to the final.

Oh... Maybe not then. An early goal from young attacking midfielder Indy Tijshen brought some hope, but sadly we couldn't hold on.

The league was won in some style, going at nearly 2.75 gpg and the cup was once again won to make it a domestic double. 

He'd only managed to play 7 games between his first injury and the 2nd, however he had done well in the period, but would it be enough? He needed to score 56 goals to beat the legendary Henk Groot.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

What a relief that was... When he got injured that second time I properly shit myself until I'd double checked what the target was! So what do you guys think, try him for another season and see if he can rack up 80 or just head to Germany and wrap this up?

 

[Brenty92]

Squeeze one more year out of him before making the move ?? well played mate!

[AndersJ]

Beautiful!!! Great club and extreemly good player you got there! Hope you destroy my record :)!

[BatiGoal]

Quite a good attempt with an ageing Cavani but Munir did fantastically well with the amount of games he got. He would've hit it harder had those injuries not stopped him. Tough choice now. If the perfect club comes along it'd be hard to resist but you're well ahead of schedule and looks like Munir can easily break his current record. Can't wait to find out what the decision's going to be.

[Taff]

Great season with Munir mate, he was quite a decent little striker when I managed Barcelona in my Western Europe Challenge, unlucky with the Injuries but I agree with Bati, if one of the big German Clubs comes up go get it if not give Munir another season 

[Idol]

I got offered a job at a small club in Germany, you might have heard of them?

Now I am torn!

[MasonT827]

You probably won't get this opportunity again, I would take it

[AndersJ]

Let it go, its too small for you .....?