Career The Triple Race to 100 - Seasons 13 to 15

[FuddledFox]

The Triple Race to 100

Welcome to my new save.

Now I have finished my Augusta H2H with @Ian I had planned for a TT to be my next long save but I wanted to test a few tactics first to see what way I wanted to go. As we all know testing can be kind of boring and it’s not something I massively enjoy so I decided to make it into a short 4 season career and get myself onto a leaderboard in the process.

The Challenge

I decided to give @BatiGoal Race to 100 challenge a go. The premise is simple as you pick a player under 20 who has never scored a goal in his career and get him to 100 goals as quickly as possible and before he 20th birthday.

https://fmmvibe.com/forums/topic/43963-the-race-to-100-challenge/

I decided to put my own twist on things after having a chat with Ian and @Rob though so instead of just getting one player to 100 goals I decided I would be trying to get three players to 100 goals before they turn 20 and playing in a front 3 the whole way through. What this will probably mean is I won’t be challenging the top of the leaderboard of any of them complete the challenge but it adds a nice bit of jeopardy to the whole career to see if I can get at least one of them to the magic mark.

Club Choice

I decided I would go for a small club in a league I have never managed in much before. Obviously the challenge is quite tricky though and I would need to hit the ground running with my team and players if they stand a chance of hitting 100 goals in the time they have.

For that reason I went to Wales and took over at TNS who are the only Professional club in the Welsh Leagues.

They are actually a merger between an old Welsh team Llansantffraid and an English team Oswestry Town and they play there games at the sparse looking Park Hall Ground which hold a couple of thousand fans and is actually on the English side of the border.

TNS will give me the basis of a very good squad in Domestic football but I wouldn’t expect a Champions League win during the few seasons of this save. There is three domestic competitions with the league, FA Cup and League Cup along with the Tunnocks Wafer Cup which is a British Cup involving Scottish lower league teams, English NL teams and Northern Irish teams.
Along with European qualifiers (and hopefully group games) I should have around about 40-50 games a season so not too strenuous on my young strikers.

The Lads

I needed to be careful with the ages of the players as I need them to be young enough to complete the challenge. It’s my expectation that one role in the front three will score more than the others or at least one player will score more meaning I needed a spread of ages so that the better player could get done quicker before the other two took over in turns with the better goalscoring role and set pieces.

With that in mind this was my picks, obviously they had to have never scored a goal in there career so I have put there history in a spoiler.

Olly Hamilton - Turns 20 in 2.5 Seasons

Olly joins from St Johnston in Scotland and he is my eldest pick meaning he turns 20 in December of season 3 which by my maths and baring any injuries means he will need to score at around a goal a game to reach the 100 goal total.

Spoiler

Jamie Lyons - Turns 20 in 3 Seasons

Just like Olly Jamie is 17 but he has a June birthday meaning he has a full 3 seasons to try and reach 100 goals. This means he should have more games and as soon as Olly either hits his 100th goal or turns 20 he will become my main man for set pieces and the middle role in the front 3 if that is the most prolific as expected.

Just the £3k was enough to get him from Bradford Park Avenue in the NLN so I doubt he has huge potential but he looks decent enough for the Welsh Prem.

 

Spoiler

 

Sam Cochrane - Turns 20 in 4 seasons

The youngest and probably worst player of the group is Northern Irish man Sam Cochrane who is just 16 and again has a June birthday which means he has a full 4 seasons to reach 100 goals. This means he doesn’t need to be as prolific in the first 3 seasons so long as he leaves himself with a reachable target for the final season when he will be the main man.

He was the cheapest as he was a free transfer.

Spoiler

I will be playing a front three the whole way through this save and I will be doing everything in my power to ensure all three players stay at the club for the full 4 seasons. So when Olly hits 20 I won’t sell him and I will continue to play him but he will shift in the tactic and won’t take set pieces. This is because it would ruin the premise of the save if I just went to a front 2 and then just 1 upfront as they reach 20 because the idea is to try and complete the challenge 3 times using 3 players all playing together at the same time as much as possible.

This is my initial front three set up and my expectations based on previous experience is that the middle role will score the most goals and if this is the case I will first play Olly there then Lyons and finally Cochrane to try and maximise there goal totals.

This career will have three updates, one for each player.

It would be great to hear all your predictions as to if you think I will get all 3 to 100 or just 2 or maybe you think I have no chance of getting any of them to the magic total in time.

Thanks for reading.

[Rob]

I love this, Good luck!

[BatiGoal]

That pitch looks square to me 😂 😂 

Great intro, Fox, can't wait to see how badly you're going to do. 

[Ian]

Seems a tall order to get all three home but I look forward to seeing how it goes. Good luck. 

[smoggy90]

Like the twist on this challenge and three unusual names which is great!

Never played the welsh league but these lads look decent enough for it. I’ll say you’ll get all three to the target providing Hamilton stays relatively injury free. Good luck!

[FuddledFox]

6 hours ago, Rob said:

I love this, Good luck!

Thank Rob.

5 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

That pitch looks square to me 😂 😂 

Great intro, Fox, can't wait to see how badly you're going to do. 

With all the mountains and sheep they need to save space somewhere and square pitches is obviously the solution.

5 hours ago, Ian said:

Seems a tall order to get all three home but I look forward to seeing how it goes. Good luck. 

Thanks Ian, I hope I’m up to the challenge.

5 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Like the twist on this challenge and three unusual names which is great!

Never played the welsh league but these lads look decent enough for it. I’ll say you’ll get all three to the target providing Hamilton stays relatively injury free. Good luck!

Injury free is going to be key as there isn’t too much room for error but I like your confidence in me 😁

[Mr Tree]

Best of luck - will be interesting to see how the boss handles this, cos this looks a bloody tall order!

[FuddledFox]

12 hours ago, Mr Tree said:

Best of luck - will be interesting to see how the boss handles this, cos this looks a bloody tall order!

There’s quite a few factors needed to work my way for this to be successful with no one getting badly injured and Lyons and Cochrane getting a decent number of goals so they don’t have too many to go for when they become the main men.

Thanks fo the luck 😁

[Cockers2505]

Good luck @Foxy, I think you can get some good strong FREE players to help you behind the front three, so I believe you of all people can smash this.

[Scratch]

I like the look of this Mr Fox, especially due to it being in Wales. Should be plenty of goals on offer there, IF the lads develop quickly enough.

If I was betting on it, I'd bet you'd make it, but I have to admit it would be a speculative bet without a huge amount of confidence! If we're doing predictions, I'll hedge my bets and say you'll get 2 of the 3 over line, but that one of them will turn out to not develop much and will try hard, but just fall short. 🙂

Either way, I think you're going to do some great work here! Good luck.

[FuddledFox]

On 16/03/2020 at 08:21, Cockers2505 said:

Good luck @Foxy, I think you can get some good strong FREE players to help you behind the front three, so I believe you of all people can smash this.

I will definitely be looking for plenty of free transfers as TNS have some terrible facilities so I will be looking to spend any money I get on the training ground.

On 16/03/2020 at 09:40, Scratch said:

I like the look of this Mr Fox, especially due to it being in Wales. Should be plenty of goals on offer there, IF the lads develop quickly enough.

If I was betting on it, I'd bet you'd make it, but I have to admit it would be a speculative bet without a huge amount of confidence! If we're doing predictions, I'll hedge my bets and say you'll get 2 of the 3 over line, but that one of them will turn out to not develop much and will try hard, but just fall short. 🙂

Either way, I think you're going to do some great work here! Good luck.

It is a big IF when it comes to development as I know nothing about any of these players and have never used them before so I don’t really know if they have any scope to develop.

It will be interesting to find out though.

[Scratch]

1 hour ago, Foxy said:

It is a big IF when it comes to development as I know nothing about any of these players and have never used them before so I don’t really know if they have any scope to develop.

It will be interesting to find out though.

Ah yes, the true joy of FMM (for me at least). 🙂

[FuddledFox]

Player 1 - Olly Hamilton - Has 2.5 Seasons to get 100 Goals

The first player to hit 20 was Scottish striker Olly Hamilton and he had 2 and (roughly) a half seasons to hit the 100 goal total.

 

Season 1 and 2 Competitions

It won’t come as much surprise that we dominated domestic football in Wales winning the League, League Cup and FA Cup in both seasons. In the Tunnocks Wafer cup we didn’t fair so well but Europe showed progress as in Season 2 I got through Europa League qualifying and made the group stage.

Season 1

Spoiler

CL Qualifying

Europa League Qualifying

 

Tunnock‘s Wafer Cup

League Cup

FA Cup

League

 

Season 2

Spoiler

CL Qualifying 

Europa League 

Tunnock’s Wafer Cup

League Cup

FA Cup

League

Team results are great as they mean more games but the main thing is how did Olly do and did he get 100 goals before he was 20?

Season 1

He showed some very nice growth which must have come almost exclusively through playing time as facilities aren’t great and neither are my bronze coaches all two of them.

At the end of Season 1 he looked like this and really my worry was would I be able to keep him as at 18 he is looking far too good for the Welsh league. Luckily as soon as he turned 18 in December I got him to sign a 5 year deal so he is at the club for the duration whether he likes it or not.

 

He proved himself too good for the league as well as he hit 40 goals in 45 games to get off to a great start in his pursuit of 100 goals. 

 

Season 2 - 60 Goals Required in 1.5 Seasons 

It’s a good job I did get him on a 5 year deal as clubs came sniffing and offers came in leading Olly to be pretty pissed off by the end of the 2nd season. His ambitious personality makes that inevitable but he isn’t going anywhere until all three players turn 20 and the save is over.

 

His physical attributes continued to grow this season but I think he is getting to the stage where he is as good as he will get at least playing in Wales.

 

He required 60 goals to get to 100 and I was hoping he might get there especially as I did better in Europe and had more games but unfortunately he just missed out by 7 goals from completing his challenge in the 2nd season. What that does mean is he just needs 7 goals before mid December in season 3 but the faster the better both for his challenge score and so that I can then focus on Lyons getting goals.

 

Season 3 - 7 Goals Required in Half a Season.

It didn’t take him long to get the final goals he needed thanks to European Qualifiers against teams as bad if not worse than us. He got his 100th goal in the first domestic game of the season on the 7th August.

His physicals keep on growing but his challenge is finished now but he will continue to play just he won’t (hopefully) be my main goalscorer.

 
 

It took him 19 years, 7 months, 3 weeks and 4 days to get his 100 goals which isn’t an amazing total for the leaderboard but remember he is playing as part of a front three so although he is on set pieces and is in the main scoring position Lyons and Cochrane are scoring a few as well for there own Race to 100’s.

Age Calculation Proof

Spoiler

 

 

Next Update
Once Olly hit his 100th goal Jamie Lyons stepped in to try and get to 100. He had most of season 3 to get there but you will need to wait for the next update to see how he did.

[Rob]

Hamilton was always going to get there. It was academical.

Well done!

[smoggy90]

Well done on Hamilton, i think he was the toughest one given his age but hope it gives you enough time for the other two. Good luck!

[Kanegan]

Great job with Hamilton. Fingers crossed for the other two.

[FuddledFox]

13 hours ago, Rob said:

Hamilton was always going to get there. It was academical.

Well done!

Just a shame Hamilton didn’t put his foot down a bit harder and get there quicker.

1 hour ago, smoggy90 said:

Well done on Hamilton, i think he was the toughest one given his age but hope it gives you enough time for the other two. Good luck!

He certainly had the shortest time to do it but he is probably the best player out of the three so it balances out a bit.

1 hour ago, Kanegan said:

Great job with Hamilton. Fingers crossed for the other two.

Thanks 😁

[FuddledFox]

Player 2 - Jaime Lyons - Has 3 Seasons to Get 100 Goals

With Olly Hamilton scoring his 100th goal in August of the 3rd season it meant that Lyons had the best part of a full season to get the goals he needed.

This was how he was looking going into the 3rd season. He certainly isn’t as good as Hamilton but he has all the right attributes and this is the Welsh Prem so the numbers aren’t bad either.

 

The important thing though is how many goals does he actually have to get in the 3rd season in order to get to 100. The answer was exactly 50 as he had got 25 in both season previous although the 2nd season was actually a disappointment considering he played 12 games more but perhaps I over played him in the extra games we had due to getting to the Europa Group Stage.

 

Season 3 Competitions 

We again won all three domestic competitions and did better in the Tunnocks Wafer by getting to the semis before we lost to Dundee Utd which I was annoyed about because we were good enough to beat them.

I say that because we got through to the CL group stages this season so Dundee Utd should be beatable. We drew a group of death in the CL with Man City, Bayern and Athletico Madrid which lead to us losing all 6 games 3-0 which was a bit weird.

Spoiler

Champions League 

Unfortunately the next seasons competition had already started so I couldn’t get the group table but here is those 6 losses.

Spoiler

Tunnocks Wafer Cup

League Cup

FA Cup

 

League 

Jaime Lyons Result

The target was 50 goals and with a full season to get them I was hopeful that once Lyons went into the goal scoring position he would get the job done. Remember though that he is playing as a front three still and Hamilton is the better player so it isn’t like he has a free reign up front although he was on set pieces once Olly hit his 100th goal.

I’m not going to go down the suspense route with this mainly because I forgot to get the screenshots that meant I could do that 🤦‍♂️ 

He got the job done but it was getting close.

A hat trick in the penultimate league game of the season on the 16th of April took him to 102 goals for his career. He would have had two more games after this one including a cup final against a relegated team but obviously I would have preferred not to have got so close to the end of the season both for his score and just the risk that even a couple of week injury would have destroyed his chances.

That gave him a leaderboard score of 19 years, 10 months, and 2 days.

Score Proof

Spoiler

He also got a brace in the cup final which meant he had 104 career goals when he turned 20 on the 14th of June.

 

Next Update

With two players succeeding I have one more player, Sam Cochrane, who is the worst of the bunch but he still has one more full season to try and get to the magic 100 mark. 

This was his attributes at the start of the save and I can promise you drama in this final update.

[Ian]

Great work getting Hamilton and Lyons home and good luck with Cochrane. He looks a bit rough with all that red and orange but with a bit of luck and good guidance from yourself he may well be able to do it.

[Xjfbdh]

Looking good mate best of luck

[BatiGoal]

Well done, Fox getting 2 from 3 to 100 goals. As you said, playing all 3 at once makes things extra tricky. No easy task but I believe in a clean sweep 😉 

Btw how are you finding the Welsh league? 

[FuddledFox]

2 hours ago, Ian said:

Great work getting Hamilton and Lyons home and good luck with Cochrane. He looks a bit rough with all that red and orange but with a bit of luck and good guidance from yourself he may well be able to do it.

Thanks Ian.

1 hour ago, Xjfbdh said:

Looking good mate best of luck

Thanks Cereal.

12 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

Well done, Fox getting 2 from 3 to 100 goals. As you said, playing all 3 at once makes things extra tricky. No easy task but I believe in a clean sweep 😉 

Btw how are you finding the Welsh league? 

I have enjoyed it. Obviously with TNS the domestic stuff is easy but it could be fun to build up the club and team to be able to challenge in Europe. It also forces you to shop in a completely different market for players and it is always a nice challenge to look for the bargains or players that look shit at first look but actually could do a good job at this level.

One annoying thing that I found this season was because I got in the CL group stage the domestic schedules aren’t set up with that in mind so the games had some weird scheduling to content with.

[FuddledFox]

Player 3 - Sam Cochrane - 1 Season to Get 41 Goals

The final player of my Race to 100 triumphant was Northern Irishman Sam Cochrane. He was a free transfer at the start of the save and was the youngest player at just 16 meaning he had 4 whole seasons to get to 100 goals.

He was also by far the worst player of the three and has had to play a bit part role so far in terms of goalscoring. He has done ok in the first three seasons and has got over 50 goals but a poor 3rd season means he needs 41 goals to reach the target.

 

Season 4 Competitions

Before we see how Sam did let’s just see how the team preformed as a whole.

Domestically it was complete domination again but still the Tunnocks Wafer Cup alludes us. Europe was a huge disappointment this season as well as I crashed out of the CL qualifying at the first round after having made the group stage last year. That wasn’t that big a deal though or at least that’s what I thought as the Euro 2 competition started this year and I fancied my chances of a run in that.

It wasn’t to be though as again we crashed out in qualifying in a game we should have won.

Spoiler

Champions League

Euro 2

Tunnocks Wafer Cup

League Cup

FA Cup

League 

 

So this is it can I make it 3 out of 3 of players on the leaderboard.

On Sam’s player history above you might have noticed he played a lot less games in season 3 than the previous two seasons and there is a good and horrific reason for that.

Towards the end of season 3 he broke his leg and was facing 8 months out!!!

This was a huge blow to his chances but it came at as decent a time as possible because he needed an achievable 41 goals and a couple of those months would be the summer break.

I worked out he would be back around mid December but it was actually a week or two sooner than that and his first game of the season came on the 3rd December.

He marked the occasion with a brace to rekindle my hopes that he could get the goals needed.

 

He was still looking pretty crap as a player but his main asset, his pace, was returning.

 

It was going to be very tight as to whether he would get the goals needed as he would need to average nearly two GpG for the rest of the season but he showed he could do it at least in that first game.

Remember he is playing as part of a front three along side Hamilton and Lyons but he is in the main goalscoring position now and is on set pieces.

Any kind of injury was always going to make this almost impossible as I needed him as fit and playing as often as possible.

In the middle of January his challenge was effectively over.

 

In Wales by this stage of the season there are very few midweek games so a month injury means missing 4 or 5 games but that was simply too many for him to stand a chance of getting the 36 goals he still needed.

Just to rub salt in the wound he then got a 10 day injury once he returned.

 

 

 

A look at his progress chart just shows how much football he actually missed and it makes grim viewing at least for me.

 

When he was on the pitch he showed he could handle being the main man as he scored at a goal a game but that was only across 12 matches. If he had got the full season it’s highly likely he would have completed his race.

 

Let’s look at the positives though as playing a front three I still managed to get two of my three players onto the Race to 100 leaderboard and I would have taken that at the start of the save.

I was keeping a track of the total goals and the trio are well on track for a TT if I was to continue and despite his injuries Sam isn’t listed as injury prone so it’s possibly just one bad season for injuries.

The main thing stopping a TT though is that Hamilton wants out of TNS desperately and is asking for £10k a week to sign a new deal and I am a little way away from being able to offer those kinds of deals.

Projected Gls is based on them playing 1000 games.

Hamilton, Lyons and Cochrane final goal totals and attributes.

Spoiler

It is possible that this save may continue as a TT in some way but I will have to see. I am still enjoying the save and it would be a shame not to see if I can become a force of some kind in Europe and if I can finally win the coveted Tunnock’s Wafer Cup.

Time will tell on that but in the mean time thank you all for reading and commenting.

[Mr Tree]

unlucky mate, gave it a good go

[Scratch]

Wow, that is terrible luck! I had my prediction right (2 out of 3), but not my reasoning (I said they'd just be crap, didn't pick the horrendous injuries). If he'd stayed fit he would have made it with ease. Great job mate, would be interesting to see you play on...

[Kanegan]

Hard luck mate but 2 out of 3 is a great return. Well done. 

[FuddledFox]

3 hours ago, Mr Tree said:

unlucky mate, gave it a good go

Some times the game just goes against you but I’m glad I stuck with him and got him to 20 instead of just packing it in when it was obvious he wasn’t going to get the goals needed.

3 hours ago, Scratch said:

Great job mate, would be interesting to see you play on...

Thanks, there is a good chance I will continue but I just need to work out how i proceed with a TT and with which players.

2 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Hard luck mate but 2 out of 3 is a great return. Well done. 

Thanks Kane, if one was going to fail I would rather it be this way than because of anything I had control of 😁

[smoggy90]

Unlucky with those injuries but still great job getting 2/3. Hope you carry on for the TT.

[Ian]

Horrible luck with the injuries but that’s the game and can’t complain as getting two home is great going. They look good for the TT if you can keep them all happy so look forward to that attempt if you fancy it yourself that is.

[Rob]

Would love to see the TT. You obviously know how to smash this as when for they lapped the goals up.