Career Scratch: Faustino Asprilla & Juan Hernandez 1KC ⚽?[S4]

[Scratch]

2 hours ago, scratch99 said:

Adam Armstrong is not in the game....   I was thinking he might make a good back up striker as the bunch I've got now couldn't hit the goals with a bazooka...

Actually, I was thinking about this and it's probably a good thing. If he was in the game I would have bought him as a back up striker, then at some point it would have become the Armstrong Takes Over 1KC... I think I dodged a bullet! ?

[Taff]

Looking forward to another stressful @scratch99 career, I've managed to recover from the last one so lets saddle up Russell Crowe and get to it

[Scratch]

On 9/9/2017 at 04:14, Taff said:

Looking forward to another stressful @scratch99 career, I've managed to recover from the last one so lets saddle up Russell Crowe and get to it

Thanks mate. If I wanted to make it stressful for you all, I'd post an update right now! 2 games to go in the season. 2 trophies in the balance. Maybe I'll win them both, maybe none!  

But whatever happens, it'll be without Russell Crowe. Who needs him? Certainly not us. We have Faustino Asprilla dressed in a pink dinosaur suit teaching a horse to dribble a football. I mean, what's Russell Crowe going to do to top that? 

[Scratch]

Update - Season 1

Move aside superheroes and gladiators! Faustino Asprilla is riding into town with his trusty sidekick Juan Hernandez!

Spoiler

 

 

If the football world isn't shaking in their boots yet, they should be, as these two are going to change the face of football... Whether it's to introduce dinosaur suits and horses on the training ground or whether it's total domination is yet to be seen.

Targets

To be honest, I don't have a goal target for Hernandez this year. He's only 17, so we can't expect too much of him. I'd love him to get 20 or 30 goals, but anything's a bonus this year.

My main target this year is to win things. A key strategy of this save is to get the Colombian job when 67 year old Jose Pekerman retires in a year or so. The favourite right now is Colombian Jorge Luis Pinto, who has a Continental reputation and is in charge of Honduras. Faustino Asprilla needs to make a name for himself and fast!

Preseason / Transfers

Okay, first season, lots of shaping to do, but limited funds (£8M).

Transfers out:

Spoiler

Transfers in:

Spoiler

I shipped out a bunch of mediocre players, players with the wrong attitude (using their phones to read Vibe during training!) and a few I would have kept, but needed to sell for the money.

@danovic78 said that van Beek did well for him, but his CA and PA were the same (according to my coaching staff), so I wasn't hopeful of much improvement. I therefore traded this:

for this:

My strikers couldn't score, with only 5 goals between Jorgensen and Kramer in the first half of the season (with Hernandez playing about 50% of the time). So out they went in January, and I signed Cummings and Tammy Abrahams on loan.

Abrahams was disappointing, but Cummings was great with 15 goals in 23 games (half from the bench). A steal for £1M:

Marquez was a free agent who did really well for us, but I sold him for £6.5M to make way for Dendoncker in January.

Callum Patterson was also a great signing for us, bringing 13 goals from the right wing. Not something I'll allow once Hernandez can be the match winner, but a lifeline for us this season.

Finally, we bought Simon Tibbling, purely for the reason that he provided most of Armstrong's goals in the first part of my first 1KC (and paved the way for my son). He hasn't been in any of my saves since and I'd thought he must have been generated. I suspect we'll be able to command better players earlier than I could at Celtic, but I had to buy him.

Tactics

Nothing new here, still using my Armstrong 4 3 2 1 Attacking Direct Centre formation, but I do adjust a lot more than I used to, as the opposition changes their tactics.

Competitions

Holland Super Cup

We got off to a good start by winning the Super Cup on penalties, after it finished 3-3 at full time (against PSV).

Dutch Cup

We scraped through the Quarter Final, beating PSV with a 94th minute goal to Cummings, then blew FC Utrecht away 4-0 in the Semi Final, before beating AZ 3-0 in the Final.

Eredivisie

Okay, strap yourselves in, this will take a while:

Spoiler

 

We got off to a great start and were 12 points clear in November. Our performances weren't super convincing and if I hadn't been micro managing games we would have lost a lot more, but we just kept winning. But what happens when you get 12 points clear?

That's right, you blow the lead... We weren't bad, but we lost a couple of key games, including a six pointer with PSV, who went on a golden run to catch and overtake us. With 2 games to go, we were 3 points behind with an insurmountable goal difference.

We won the penultimate game, while PSV could only draw. A life line!

We'd both be away in the final round. We needed to win, while hoping that PSV could only draw or lose.

By the 40 minute mark, things were looking good, but would it stay that way:

It remained that way until 68th minute, when Go Ahead put PSV further behind! It was surely in the bag!

PSV scored a late goal, but it was too little, too late, and the title was ours!

Tino celebrated by doing laps of the ground (on his horse), until the police took him away...

 

 

Number of Titles	Total	Eredivisie
Ajax	33	25
PSV	23	20
Feyenoord	16	11

EURO Cup

We beat FB Red Bull Salzburg 5-0 over two legs, then AZ 3-2, Athletico Bilbao 1-0, before beating Man Utd 4-2 in the Semi Final. That set us up for the Final against Roma. I was hoping we could win that and make it a quadruple. It wasn't to be:

We were massive underdogs and put up a good fight, but once we went down to 10 men in extra time they overran us and Totti won it for them. I was planning an article "How to win that Cup tie", but I'll have to park that for another time!

Verdict

A fine season for this stage of the save. After all a treble's not bad, right? But I would rather have won the EURO Cup and lost the rest, as that would have had a bigger impact on Asprilla's reputation (which is still Regional).

Development

Hernandez started the season looking like this:

And ended it looking like this:

Nice progression. He's at 2.5 stars out of 3.5 stars, with a "Potential to improve a lot in the future" verdict from the coaching staff. Hope there's a lot more to come!

He also has "Inaccurate long distance shooting", which could be a problem given he takes shots early. He also started "Feeling the pressure of first team football" in the last quarter of the season, but hopefully he will grow out of that.

Awards

Hernandez came 2nd in the Holland Young Player of the Year award, behind Callum Peterson who'd been great for us:

Maybe I'm going blind, but I didn't see any Player of the Year award or Manager of the Year award. Not sure what's up with that!

International Job Watch

I'll admit to being worried about this. At the end of the season, after winning the league and 2 domestic cups and being runner up in the EURO Cup, Faustino Asprilla still only has a Regional reputation. It needs to be more for me to be comfortable.

Spoiler

To top things off, Jose Pekerman's job status is Insecure, but that's not showing up on Jobs screen.

Spoiler

 

 

Is Colombia even manageable in this save? They must be, surely?

Goals

Hernandez got off to a decent first season. His best effort was a hat-trick in a game we needed to win to stay in the title race (fantastic ending):

But he was very hit and miss especially near the end of the season, when he started feeling the pressure. That hat-trick looking pretty lonely:

Anyway, I wasn't expecting much this season, so I'm happy with his output (especially as he was often a sub):

 

Progress

Season Goals:    21
Career Goals:     21
Remaining:      979
Current Age:     18

Wrap up

And so, season 1 down and a decent start.

I'll look to repeat the domestic success next season, but with more dominance. I'll also look to go as far as possible in the Champion's League, but winning that will likely be beyond us right now.

And as for Hernandez, I'll be happy with some more development and 20 or 30 goals. That's all he needs to do right now. That, and learn to ride in a dinosaur suit...

[danovic78]

Wow, you changed the whole squad there! A brand new team.

A good start with Hernandez and he has improved stats wise well in the first season.

Jorgensen is really not a goal-scorer but does play well in a support role like a DLF or Trequartista

[Scratch]

13 minutes ago, danovic78 said:

Wow, you changed the whole squad there! A brand new team.

A good start with Hernandez and he has improved stats wise well in the first season.

Jorgensen is really not a goal-scorer but does play well in a support role like a DLF or Trequartista

Thanks mate. Yeah, I tend to change the team a lot. I'm a team builder (I'm only an average tactician). Probably didn't change it as much as I normally do actually! ?

I went straight to a 1 up front formation, so no room for a DLF or a T, I tried Jorgensen on the Wing, but didn't do much, and when I played him up front, he just didn't score... Such a shame for someone who was the top scorer in the Eredivisie in real life last year... ?

 

[danovic78]

18 minutes ago, scratch99 said:

Thanks mate. Yeah, I tend to change the team a lot. I'm a team builder (I'm only an average tactician). Probably didn't change it as much as I normally do actually! ?

I went straight to a 1 up front formation, so no room for a DLF or a T, I tried Jorgensen on the Wing, but didn't do much, and when I played him up front, he just didn't score... Such a shame for someone who was the top scorer in the Eredivisie in real life last year... ?

 

Me too to be honest, got a few set in stone tactics and build the squad for what I need.

Makes sense, hopefully he will get an upgrade in FMM 18.

[Scratch]

4 minutes ago, danovic78 said:

Me too to be honest, got a few set in stone tactics and build the squad for what I need.

Makes sense, hopefully he will get an upgrade in FMM 18.

His attributes weren't bad compared to the rest of the team and the rest of Holland (which seem pretty low to me), but something wasn't right in terms of getting the ball in the net. Maybe he just didn't fit the tactics... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[danovic78]

38 minutes ago, scratch99 said:

His attributes weren't bad compared to the rest of the team and the rest of Holland (which seem pretty low to me), but something wasn't right in terms of getting the ball in the net. Maybe he just didn't fit the tactics... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I could never really improve his finishing past 13 so it was a bit of a struggle in big games.

[BatiGoal]

I enjoyed the update.

I don't know whether I love or hate the first "squad-building" season. Maybe I've do so many this year especially during my 1-season challenges as well as the current CC tournament I'm just glad that part is over for now.

Things are looking good for season 2.

[Scratch]

41 minutes ago, danovic78 said:

I could never really improve his finishing past 13 so it was a bit of a struggle in big games.

He was 15 with mine, but it seemed to me that most of Holland was under powered... Anyway, he's long gone now! ?

[Scratch]

9 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

I enjoyed the update.

I don't know whether I love or hate the first "squad-building" season. Maybe I've do so many this year especially during my 1-season challenges as well as the current CC tournament I'm just glad that part is over for now.

Things are looking good for season 2.

Thanks mate!

I love that first squad building season and then the next couple as it comes together and you tweak things etc. It gets a bit boring for me  after half a dozen seasons when there's not much left to build... That's why I thought I'd like the Second Chances challenge, but it turned out it went too far the other way (lots of the first seasons, abandoned before they went anywhere). 

[FuddledFox]

3 hours ago, scratch99 said:

Abrahams was disappointing

I know the feeling 

Decent start mate KIU

[Scratch]

15 hours ago, fuddledfoxFM said:

I know the feeling 

Decent start mate KIU

Thanks mate! Just left a long comment over there with some tips about how I got Armstrong scoring in my first 1KC. Hope you get Tammy firing!

[Scratch]

Update - Season 2

After a decent, but slow start (compared to the other 1KCs around at the moment!), we head into season 2.

Our star is still young, so our expectations remain low this season. We just need him to develop a little and score the odd goal here and there.

 

Targets

Here are our targets for this season

• 30 goals: Last year he scored 21 goals, so 30 seems like a step up without putting too much pressure on him. I'll expect a lot more of him in a year or two.

• Win everything domestically, get out of the group stage in the Champions League: We need to build Faustino Asprilla's reputation so he's in the running for the Colombian job when it becomes available. It's only Regional at the moment.

 

Transfers

We're still shaping out team and still only have limited funds (£8M again).

If you're interested, here are all the transfer and team follies, otherwise known as "The Central Midfield Clear-out", "The Worst Signing" and "The Troublemaker":

Spoiler

 

Transfers out

\

 

Transfers in

For some reason, the free agent intake isn't shown. I guess they come in at the end of the previous season, before the New Season prompt, which happens pretty late in Holland.

 

The Central Midfield Clear-out

The biggest story this year was the mid-season clear-out of the central midfield ranks. Those positions are the most important in my system, as they feed the most goals to the striker. I seem to have a habit of collecting central midfielders as a result.

Partly that's down to the really good players being too expensive and not wanting to play for Feyenoord. I therefore buy a bunch of exciting young players in the hope they will turn into the next superstar. I buy more than I need, then play them all a bit and see which ones I think will make it and which ones won't.

Every so often I have to cull the ones that are weakest and that's what happened in January.

As much as I love Tibbling from my Armstrong 1KC, he's not going to be top drawer, so I made the difficult decision to sell him. Promising youngsters Deco, Gustafson and Hamer went too. So did anyone around the age of 30: Kevin-Prince Boateng, Hadzic and Cabral (who'd been our first choice in season 1).

We still had a good bunch of midfielders left at the club and we brought in a couple of very promising youngsters: Havertz, Callegari, Marques (who can also play wide) and Heus (who graduated from our academy). So I still have too many midfielders! ?

 

Other Signings

Coman was too expensive, Pavon is not in this save, so I turned to Pulisic for a wide role. I've never used him before, but have heard much goodness about him. I also bought Michael Keane who developed into a monster defender in my EPL Second Chance save.

 

The Worst Signing

The worst signing was one of the free agent backup forwards:

who proceeded to moan all the time about not getting picked:

Come into my office lad and I'll explain to you things that are really unfair... Like a club putting their faith in a player who can't stay fit and then blames everyone else for it instead of trying to get back on the pitch.

To be fair to the lad, he had a recurring shin injury and there doesn't seem to be anyway to trigger the send to rehabilitation option.

 

The Troublemaker

I like having a really good keeper down the back, but they are so expensive! Predrag Rajkovic will be known to many as a young keeper who has massive potential and who is available pretty cheap. I'd pinned my hopes on him to develop into the keeper I needed, but he turned out to be a punk a$$ b!%^h in this save:

This happened about 4 or 5 times and I had to start fining him. Near the end, I'd had enough and fined him for 2 weeks instead of 1 and that was the end of our relationship. You think it's strained do you Predrag? No, it was strained months ago, now it's non existent. By the way, say hi to Reserves for me.

Luckily things didn't turn really sour until a couple of games before the end of the season, as I only had an average backup keeper. But he won't be playing for us next season.

The other problem we had with Predrag is that he kept getting overconfident. I guess that old adage of you get what you pay for was true in this case. He's been great for me in the past, so must just have been luck of the draw that he became a troublemaker in this save.

 

 

Competitions

Holland Super Cup

We won the Super Cup 1-0 over PSV:

Spoiler

 

Dutch Cup

We won the Dutch Cup 2-1 over PEC Zwolle, although it went to extra time and needed a late goal to avoid it going to penalties:

Spoiler

 

Eredivisie

No drama's this time around, we won the league comfortably!

We're still a long way behind Ajax and PSV, but we're coming for you fellas!

Number of Titles	Total	Eredivisie
Ajax	33	25
PSV	23	20
Feyenoord	17	12

 

Champions League

We finished top of our group, which was a good effort:

Spoiler

From there, we beat Tottenham 3-1 on aggregate, PSG 3-1, Man Utd 4-2, then faced Man City in the final:

Yee-ha! I really wasn't expecting to win it this early, but then again I'm not too surprised. It's fairly easy to win one off matches if you put the time in, even if your team isn't as good as the opposition.

Maybe I will write up how to do it, but essentially you make sure everyone has the highest possible morale before the game, then keep checking the opponents tactics every few minutes and countering any change they make. If you were going through the centre and they change to a narrow formation to counter that, then you go wide down the flanks, etc, etc.

 

Verdict

A quadruple! We won everything! I'll expect that later in the challenge, but it's great to be here already.

 

Development

Hernandez started the season looking like this:

Spoiler

And ended it looking like this, which is a decent improvement (but I want more!):

He did pick up an injury, but fortunately it was with only a few games to go:

He continued to have the "Feeling the pressure of first team football" message throughout the season. He's useless while that message is active and the only way to get rid of it is to drop him for a few games or praise him (works sometimes, but not every time).

 

Awards

Hernandez won the Holland Young Player of the Year award, in front of backup striker Cummings:

It was the same result in the Eredivisie Player of the Year award:

And this will be the last time I report on this as I think we all know how it's going to go from here-on-in.

 

International Job Watch

Winning the league got Tino's reputation up to National and winning the Champions League got it up to Continental (but not ranked), so we're in with a shout for the Colombia job when Pekerman retires. The question is, when will that be? I'm ready old man!

Also worth noting: Hernandez got the call up and played 2 ITN games, but didn't score.

 

Goals

Hernandez got a couple of hat-tricks this year:

Spoiler

 

 

He was more consistent than last year and made it past my target of 30, but he'll need to step it up soon:

 

Progress

Season Goals:  37
Career Goals:   58
Remaining:     942
Current Age:    19

 

Wrap up

A good season, but time for Hernandez to step up next year. I'll be looking for him to become accustomed with the pressure of first team football and to score 50 goals. We're not quite where I want the team to be, but it's coming together.

See you all next season!

 

[AzmiG26]

Great Season mate! Hernandez improved a lot too, KIU.

[samhardy]

Much more consistent season and a good one for the club. Hopefully he starts hitting the big numbers soon! Always a good read with your careers

[BatiGoal]

Solid going, mate. Hopefully the Asprilla magic kicks in next season

[FuddledFox]

Great season! I didn't expect a champions league in only the second season. More solid numbers from Hernandez as well and he looks like he is progressing into a really good player.

[Scratch]

23 hours ago, AzmiG26 said:

Great Season mate! Hernandez improved a lot too, KIU.

Thanks mate, much appreciated - he's got a long way to go to match Eggestein though! ?

[Scratch]

23 hours ago, samhardy said:

Much more consistent season and a good one for the club. Hopefully he starts hitting the big numbers soon! Always a good read with your careers

Thanks mate! I'm a bit worried how big the numbers may be (or not be to be precise). A slow start to season 3. Just not quite as natural as banging them in as other strikers I've used. He still has time to come good though. Finger's crossed!

[Scratch]

17 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Solid going, mate. Hopefully the Asprilla magic kicks in next season

LOL, the Asprilla magic has already kicked in, but unfortunately it's the horse that's scoring all the goals in training. I'm tempted to put him on the pitch, but the Dutch FA seem to have some sort of issue with that... Some nonsense about not being able to register a horse as a player! I thought we were living in an age when diversity was improving! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Scratch]

17 hours ago, fuddledfoxFM said:

Great season! I didn't expect a champions league in only the second season. More solid numbers from Hernandez as well and he looks like he is progressing into a really good player.

Thanks mate! Progressing but I want more. But not really surprised by the Champion's League, it's really not hard to win one-off games, just I personally can't put that much effort into a full season of them. I sort of wish it was harder to win them, the game is too easy in a whole heap of ways...

[Scratch]

Update - Season 3

Feyenoord had a great season last year and Hernandez got off to a decent start, but there's plenty of room for improvement. He's still rattled by the pressure of first team football and gets tired out easily, so we enter season 3 hoping he's ready to step up.

 

Targets

Here are our targets for this season:

• 50 goals: Last year he scored 37 goals, so I've told him he should score 50 this year.

• Win everything domestically, make it to the Champions League Final: From here on in, we should be there or thereabouts every year. Our team is starting to be pretty good.

 

Transfers

This year we were given £40M which was a marked improvement, but still well short of what we need to purchase a top player. Therefore we continued to invest in youngsters with the possibility of becoming a top player.

Spoiler

 

Transfers out

We sold off a batch off promising players who weren't quite as promising as the ones we kept. We also got rid of the troublemaker Rajkovic and veteran Toornstra who had been pushed out of the team by youngsters.

Transfers in

We continued to bring in promising youngsters. Grant looks the goods as a central defender. Andorlini looks like he will be a top keeper, as does Rodrigues. I thought the same about de Boer but he turned out average, so I cut my losses and sold him for a £2M loss. We also bought more midfielders: Nouri, Berrio, Lazare.

 

 

Sugar Daddy Baby!

ear the end of the season, we triggered the Sugar Baby unlockable:

Gonna be able to spend big next offseason!

 

Competitions

Holland Super Cup

We beat AZ to win the Super Cup, but it was tough work, with a 94th minute equaliser required to get us through to a penalty shootout:

Spoiler

Euro Super Cup

We beat Real Madrid 2-1 in the Euro Super Cup:

Spoiler

Club World Championship

We won the Club World Championship 2-0 over River:

Spoiler

Dutch Cup

We won the Dutch Cup 3-0 over NAC:

Spoiler

Eredivisie

Another easy win:

Spoiler

Three in a row, but still a long way behind Ajax and PSV:

Number of Titles	Total	Eredivisie
Ajax	33	25
PSV	23	20
Feyenoord	18	13

Champions League

In the later stages, we beat Athletico Madrid 3-0 on aggregate, Real Madrid 2-0, and Barcelona 4-1 to set up a Final clash with Napoli. We won that 2-1, with the winner coming from Hernandez in the 87th minute:

Back to back Champions League trophies, from here on in our target is win everything! We can beat anyone!

Verdict

A sextuple! Always wanted one of them... Not a bad season.

 

Development

Hernandez started the season looking like this:

Spoiler

And ended it looking like this (only a slight improvement, hope it's not over yet!):

He had a couple of weeks out:

Spoiler

He continued to have the "Feeling the pressure of first team football" message throughout the season. I had to hope praising him would remove it and if it didn't I had to drop him for a game or two. So annoying!

Strangely, my assistant started saying he would respond to public pressure (previously private), which is the first time I've seen a player switch. Fortunately he still responds to private praise, which was very important with getting rid of the "Feeling the pressure of first team football" message.

He also became unhappy with his training routine several times and I had to reduce it and offer him a new contract. I'm trying to keep him on Intensive for Fitness and Attacking, Medium for Tactics and Light for Defensive and Motivational, but it's just a bit much for him after a while.

 

International Job Watch

Winning the Dutch Super Cup got Tino's rank up to 9th, then the Euro Super Cup got him up to 1st. All we needed was for Pekerman to retire! And then:

Of course I said yes! At that stage, Hernandez had two caps and no goals:

The first 4 games didn't result in any goals ? but he scored his first in the final game. We need some promising youngsters to emerge as the're not a lot of choice at the moment.

 

Goals

No hat-tricks this year, just slow and steady goal a game type progress:

Not as many as I planned, but still not worried yet. Not sure what's up with the no Assists things, as he definitely had some during the year...

 

Progress

Current Age	20
Season Club Goals	44
Season INT Goals	1
Career Club Goals	102
Career INT Goals	1
Total Goals Scored	103
Goals Remaining	897

 

Wrap up

A great season for the club and more steady development from Hernandez, but I'm really hoping he'll step up next year to score 50 to 60 goals. His team mates are getting better, so hopefully we'll start scoring more and it will all click! We'll see next season.

 

[FuddledFox]

Not a bad season and now you have all the sugar daddy money your squad is going to insane which can only benefit Hernandez.

[AzmiG26]

You got him firing more! In short time, one goal per one match rate maybe?

Nice to see that you got the Colombia Job, it sure will help you. 

[Scratch]

8 minutes ago, FuddledFox said:

Not a bad season and now you have all the sugar daddy money your squad is going to insane which can only benefit Hernandez.

Thanks mate, though to be honest I'm a little conflicted about the Sugar Daddy money. I am literally involved right now in an auction starting at £72M for Coman and I think I have some youngsters already who will grow to his level. Going to be hard to spend that much money which will keep the youngsters I'm attached to out of the team. Though I daresay I will spend a bit. ?

[Scratch]

8 minutes ago, AzmiG26 said:

You got him firing more! In short time, one goal per one match rate maybe?

Nice to see that you got the Colombia Job, it sure will help you. 

Thanks! Yep, need him to get more than one a game soon. Hopefully next year. That's the plan.

The Colombia job is nice and I planned the save around getting it, but I don't think he can play all the games. It does mean I have more games so can pick and choose the easier ones. ?

[Taff]

Another good season and the INT job will help him out as well KIU

[FuddledFox]

1 hour ago, scratch99 said:

Thanks mate, though to be honest I'm a little conflicted about the Sugar Daddy money. I am literally involved right now in an auction starting at £72M for Coman and I think I have some youngsters already who will grow to his level. Going to be hard to spend that much money which will keep the youngsters I'm attached to out of the team. Though I daresay I will spend a bit. ?

Great youngsters come through and bucket loads of money. Nice problems to have?