Career Late Arrivals

[URz]

9 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Wow, Toulouse turning up the heat. KIU 

This squad is the strongest of the 3 so far.

6 hours ago, veerus said:

That's awesome.  I knew France was weak but this is pretty promising.

Nice change after Spain 😉

 

8 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Would be incredible if you could hold on to that 3rd spot. 

Unlikely but it’s the dream!

 

1 hour ago, Scratch said:

Coming in late, but great job so far, especially with Toulouse! Real shame about losing Mitrovic in the first season. But doing great mate and this looks like a fun save. 

Definitely a fun save as all teams and leagues have been very different so far.

(Have you seen who’s on loan to the last team Frosinone?)

Edited November 12, 2018 by URz

[URz]

Team 3: Toulouse - Second half of their season

So could this amazing Toulouse squad keep going and do themselves (and @BatiGoal ) proud by hanging on to that 3rd place?

January and February Games

Spoiler

 

Apart from a blip against Strasbourg, a great start to the year. Monaco and Caen being particular favourites. So looking strong so far!

 

March and April Games

Spoiler

The roller coaster is really in full swing now. PSG result kinda expected but Montpellier was poor and the less said about the the last game of this set, the better! Guincamp game wins “most exciting” especially with us scoring a late OG to bring them back into it.

 

May Games

Spoiler

So we have a great start to May which ended with a key match against the only team who could now knock us out of 3rd spot. Things were going really well until Fergie-time (or is it now FMM19-time) and a later corner 😫

This left the table looking like this with 1 game to go

So if we win, we are guaranteed 3rd. Otherwise it will depend on Marseilles’s result.

Spoiler

We blew it! Really poor performance all round.......and at half-time, Marseilles were winning

Spoiler

Montpellier got a late equaliser!!!!!!!!

So we finished the season in an incredible 3rd place.

 

 

Players Info

Spoiler

El Mokeddem had been listed for loan when I took over and luckily I turned down the early requests because he turned into a real gem playing behind the striker.

 

Manager Profile at the end

 

So what an amazing season and what a great Toulouse squad that achieved this with no additional transfers or loans.

Challenge total so far: 67 + 58 + 73 = 198

 

The only slight dark cloud on the horizon is that I’ve just looked at the 4th and final team for this challenge and Frosinone have a squad that at first glance could make the Valladolid one seem strong. 🤔

Edited November 12, 2018 by URz

[veerus]

The guy in the challenge thread who was posting updates to it seemed to do ok with them. 

Nice score in France!

[BatiGoal]

Another stellar season. Enjoyed it. Bring on the next league 👍 

[URz]

Thanks @veerus and @BatiGoal .  Glad you’re enjoying this as much as I am (even if my head keeps telling me to sort out the defense with this tactic.......which I’m not going to do for the final team! Heart over head)

[Kanegan]

Sensational season @URz and to do it without any transfers too. Wow!!!! Now, just win the goddamn Serie A and you will be a legend in this parts.

[URz]

14 minutes ago, Kanegan said:

Sensational season @URz and to do it without any transfers too. Wow!!!! Now, just win the goddamn Serie A and you will be a legend in this parts.

Thanks as always for your support @Kanegan ..... and for your oh so realistic target setting 😛

Interestingly the Frosinone board have a opposite level of expectation of me:

 

Hopefully I get closer to your expectations than theirs 😉

[Kanegan]

Sure mate, this will be a walk in the park. 😂

[URz]

Team 4: Frosinone

So we move to Italy for the final leg of the Bottoms Up Challenge and take on Frosinone.

A first look at their squad wasn’t super encouraging and their board don’t seem that confident either

But we’re not afraid of a challenge, so here’s the new manager’s profile

 

Looking more deeply at the squad, I noticed a loanee from Inter: Andrea Pinamonti. Now if he can get to anything like the levels that gave him a 1.5KC for @Scratch in FMM18 then we might just be alright here 🤔

I decided to just get a few loanees to cover shortages in the squad - like only having a single DL.

 

August to October Games

Spoiler

 

We starting off trying to draw our way through the season before a couple of loses seemed to galvanise us and we actually won a couple at the end of this period!

 

November brought some unwelcome news for one of the players who was intrumental in the recent good results

 

November and December Games

Spoiler

A bad defeat to Torino but otherwise a cracking couple of months. Even holding our own against Juve, if not AC Milan.

 

So at the end of the calendar year we have amazed everyone and sit just outside of the European places. 

 

So all to play for in the final 19 games of this challenge 🤞

[Scratch]

Good luck! That's a good start and puts you in a decent spot for a run up the table! 🙂

Love that Pinamonti is there - but he's pretty young. I got 25 goals from him in 38 games (he was injured) in the first season, so it's a long way from his prime later on. Will be interested to see what you get out of him (I some goals up above, but not bucketloads).

[BatiGoal]

Agree with Scratch, a pretty good position to be in. Still all to play for and end this challenge on a high. Come on, now!! 

[URz]

Team 4: Frosinone

So this challenge comes down to the final 19 games in Serie A. Can Frosinone prove unlikely heroes and end this challenge in style?

 

I did look at this list of exciting potential loanees who were suddenly interested in joining little Frosinone for the remainder of the season

.....but decided to keep the squad unchanged after such a good start.

 

January and February Games

Spoiler

Frosinone started the calendar year strongly with some great wins (beating Napoli being particularly impressive) before suffering a couple of reverses. Goals still the order of the day!

 

March, April and May Games

Spoiler

Frosinone then reverted to the kings of the score-draw for a few games before re-finding their winning touch. Goals and excitement still the order of the day for Frosinone fans!

So with two games to go, Frosinone had achieved a brilliant league position

However, the FMM fixture creator had dealt them the same 2 difficult opponents that they had faced in their final 2 games of December: Juve and Milan.

Final Games

Spoiler

We manage to hold the newly crowned Serie A winners to a well earned draw.

So it comes down to a trip to the San Siro

...and to be honest, Frosinone never really looked like getting anything from a very strong and resolute Milan in this game!

So was it enough and did other results fall our way?

So Frosinone got pushed out of the final European place.......but if you’d given any Frosinone fan an 8th place finish at the start of the season, I’m sure they’d have taken it. A disappointing end but a great achievement for this squad.

 

Final Manager Profile

 

Player Ratings and Stats

Spoiler

So Pinamonti ended as top scorer but as @Scratch guessed, he was just too young and not really ready for greatness yet.

 

So at the end of this challenge, the final score is 67 + 58 + 73 + 56 = 254 points.

 

I have really enjoyed playing Keegan Newcastle style football with these 4 teams and the results have exceeded my expectations in all 4 cases - although I’d have to just about give Toulouse the “team of the challenge” award.

A big thank you to all of those you have commented and supported me. This has been a really fun and relatively quick challenge that @veerus has created.

[Scratch]

Great job mate, really impressed with what you did with those clubs - that's not easy... Was fun to follow along too!

As for Pinamonti, yeah, top lad, will be a great striker, but not quite ripe... 

[Kanegan]

Great score mate. A very fun challenge and you really shined in this one. Looking forward to your next 👍

[BatiGoal]

Great finish to the challenge! Enjoyed the ride and agree on Toulouse, best season out of the four. 

Congrats with a solid score. Let's see if someone can beat that. 

[URz]

Thanks @Scratch @Kanegan and @BatiGoal for all your support and comments throughout this challenge.

Got a busy few days but I think I’ll try out the @BatiGoal GTO tactic with Toulouse later in the week to see what a different attacking tactic can do for them.

[veerus]

Challenge thread updated.  Good job.  Thanks for attempting this.  Since it's allowed to replay individual seasons, if you beat your score with Toulouse, post it here and I'll amend your total!

Also, question - would you have enjoyed this challenge more or less if there was an incoming player restriction... say, no more than, 3 new players on loan/purchase per team?  I envisioned this challenge as a tactics puzzle without the time consuming team building.  Your loan army season did a bit of both.

[URz]

14 hours ago, veerus said:

Challenge thread updated.  Good job.  Thanks for attempting this.  Since it's allowed to replay individual seasons, if you beat your score with Toulouse, post it here and I'll amend your total!

Also, question - would you have enjoyed this challenge more or less if there was an incoming player restriction... say, no more than, 3 new players on loan/purchase per team?  I envisioned this challenge as a tactics puzzle without the time consuming team building.  Your loan army season did a bit of both.

Funnily enough, when I look back, I do feel a little guilty about the Valladolid Loan Army. How about seeing what the next few players taking the challenge feel?

[URz]

On 14/11/2018 at 17:01, URz said:

..... I think I’ll try out the @BatiGoal GTO tactic with Toulouse later in the week to see what a different attacking tactic can do for them.

Finally got round to this! Not the most scientific test method: I started a new save with Toulouse (with no budgets in first window) and loaded the @BatiGoal GTO tactic. I decided to just let the vanilla version of the tactic run for 6 months and compare the final results with the results from the challenge.

Well it was just as much of a roller-coaster as my original, but in a different way!

The start was not good and as we approached the end of September, I feared the sack

Problems in midfield and with the CBs if the EME dots and stats are to be believed.

Luckily the board didn’t pull the trigger, and without any changes to the tactics but with the players growing into it, the remainder of the calendar year was quite different:

So the final league position at the end of December was

So 9-4-6 and 31 points compared to 10-7-2 and 37 points. However, if the results for November and December had continued, then GTO  could well have overtaken my final score.

The half-season percentages

Player Information

Spoiler

What have I learned? I guess what I already knew, that tactics are just one intergral part of the whole and can’t just be dropped in (even if they are great tactics in their own right like GTO). They must match the players, the training and the expected style of football for the team.

Finally, thank you @BatiGoal for such an exciting tactic.

 

Edit: There were actually 2 reasons that I did this test. The first was because I really liked the look of the GTO tactic. The second is because I believe that a better tactic than mine would blow this challenge wide open. Still believe the second is true, but quite like the idea that it will take a little more effort than just dropping in a great tactic.

Edited November 20, 2018 by URz

[BatiGoal]

Cheers for testing it out with Toulouse. It's good to see there's progress the further you go in the career. I think tweaks in the final third option I mentioned in the GTO thread would probably have helped securing your midfield a bit and make it more consistent with weaker teams, or like you said for players that need to grow into it.