Career Ian - La Masia Double Trouble - Final Update

[Ian]

La Masia Double Trouble

Hello and welcome to my next hopefully long career where I’ll be going for goals with Abel Ruiz and Ansu Fati as a dynamic duo for Barcelona. I’ve decided I’m not going to make any incoming transfers apart from youth graduates just to add another personal challenge to things. I had thought about only using players already at the club who started out at Barcelona which would’ve given me a fair few of the current players but I just didn’t think I’d be able to pull it off so went with using all of the current squad to give me a fighting chance.

Anyway, that’s the introduction and for clarification purposes here’s my chosen challenge, team and players.

 

Challenge

Double Trouble - Two strikers always playing in a two up top system aiming to score a combined 1200 goals under my management. As mentioned above I don’t intend on making any incoming transfers apart from youth graduates.

 

Team: Barcelona

A top team with a very good starting squad and a fair few great looking young prospects who I can hopefully develop. They’ve got de Jong, Emerson, Arthur, Langlet, Dembélé and a few others who are all in their early to mid twenties and then a fair few really young prospects sat in the reserves with two in particular standing out in centre back Cuenca and midfielder Moriba both of whom I have high hopes for. Of course both of my challengers also fit into the great prospect category and more on them two below.

 

Player 1. Abel Ruiz

The older of my two chosen challengers so hopefully he can hit the ground running. I’m hoping to avoid going the aerial route on this save so the decent 13 Abel has for that particular attribute should be useful but my focus from the off will be to try and improve his movement and then more than likely work on his stamina. Anyway, he looks good and I can just see him turning into a great player.

 

Player 2: Ansu Fati

My next challengers is just a baby at only 16 years old so I’ll more than likely have to be patient with him while he develops. He’s a smashing looking prospect though and like with Ruiz I’ll focus on his movement first and foremost and then more than likely switch to his stamina.

 

I’ll be back later with the next update but here’s a little preview shot and it’s safe to say Messi showed them how it’s done in the first season.

 

Thanks for reading. 

Edited August 1, 2020 by Ian

[broodje kip]

Good Luck.
Messi are supposed to steal goals or his real job is to assist?

[gunnersaur]

Good luck man Messi is a beast anyway always scores lots 

[BatiGoal]

Two fine players who could maybe even get you 1500. 😀

[Titjes]

Great player choice mate, good luck.

Don't forget about wague as right back (if you use one) , he's fantastic 😉

[broodje kip]

1 hour ago, BatiGoal said:

Two fine players who could maybe even get you 1500. 😀

He should go for 2000

[Rob]

54 minutes ago, broodje kip said:

He should go for 2000

Calm down lads. Just sit back and enjoy watching the marvel of Ian at work.

Good luck mate.

[Kun Aguero]

10 hours ago, Titjes said:

Great player choice mate, good luck.

Don't forget about wague as right back (if you use one) , he's fantastic 😉

And Alejandro Balde on the left 😉

Barcelona's definitely the best club to do an only youth graduates challenge, good luck in this one!

[Ian]

20 hours ago, broodje kip said:

Good Luck.
Messi are supposed to steal goals or his real job is to assist?

Thank you, he was magnificent this season. Hopefully he’s left a few goals for my duo to get.

20 hours ago, gunnersaur said:

Good luck man Messi is a beast anyway always scores lots 

Thanks, he’s great, I’ve got Coutinho coming back from his loan who may well take over from Messi for a few years and hopefully he won’t pinch quite as many goals as Messi did in the first season.

19 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Two fine players who could maybe even get you 1500. 😀

Thank you Bati, they are fine players but if I could get the 1200 I’d be more than satisfied.

17 hours ago, Rob said:

Calm down lads. Just sit back and enjoy watching the marvel of Ian at work.

Good luck mate.

Thank you Rob, hopefully I can do a decent job here.

18 hours ago, Titjes said:

Great player choice mate, good luck.

Don't forget about wague as right back (if you use one) , he's fantastic 😉

Thank you Mr Tits, I don’t use wing backs but most of the wing backs they have can be trained to the winger position so plenty of good options available.

8 hours ago, Kun Aguero said:

And Alejandro Balde on the left 😉

Barcelona's definitely the best club to do an only youth graduates challenge, good luck in this one!

Thanks Kun, unfortunately I don’t appear to have Balde, he mustn’t be on the November database that I’m using but that Cucurella who is out on loan for the first season looks like a good prospect on the left side at only 20 years old. Yeah Barca seems like the best team for this as my system of choice requires a very talented team and I’ve got a decent chance of maintaining that for a good few years hopefully.

[Ian]

Season 1

Let’s see how the opening season went.

 

Team Results

The team performed reasonably well in winning the league comfortably and were also triumphant in the Spanish Cup but we did lose out to Real in the Super Cup final as they just pounded us in a 5-0 roasting. In Europe we were dumped out at the quarter final stage by Juventus after a closely contested tie and it’s safe to say young Carles Pérez getting himself sent off in the 8th minute of the second leg in Turin didn’t exactly help our cause. All in all though a decent enough opening season with 131 league goals scored and a goals per game ratio of 3.33 over all competitions which is pretty good I think.

Spoiler

 

The Duo

The two boys were doing fine and were both regularly contributing with goals and then in early March Abel suffered a strained thigh and subsequently missed 3 weeks.

 

Fati then bruised his rib in training in early April and missed a week.

 

In the build up to the final game of the season Fati broke his collarbone in training and in the final game of the season Ruiz suffered a chest injury. Obviously those last two injuries came right at the end of the season so no real problem but could this be a sign of things to come on the injury front?

 

Abel Ruiz

Abel really improved during the season with his movement and stamina jumping up a fair bit and he contributed 33 goals in the 41 games he played in and also chipped in with 9 assists so a reasonable start for him.

 

Ansu Fati

Fati scored 24 goals and also contributed 22 assists in the 40 games he played in and I’m guessing most of the assists were just him passing the ball to Messi for Messi to then just put the ball in the back of the net. I’ll keep track of the assists but they aren’t really something I’m focusing on. Not such great improvements in attributes for Fati but he’s still really young so patience will be required there.

 

Challenge Score

Season 01

Ansu Fati: 40 Games, 24 Goals and 22 Assists

Abel Ruiz: 41 Games, 33 Goals and 9 Assists

Combined Total: 57 Goals and 31 Assists

 

Grand Total: 57 Goals and 31 Assists

 

Thanks for reading.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Ian

[broodje kip]

Great total Ian

[shosky]

Great first season for the two. With improved stamina, I see Ruiz doing 50+ in the second season. 

[Kanegan]

Good start with two very talented players. KIU

[Titjes]

Good start mate 😉

[bb]

Good start

[Ian]

20 hours ago, broodje kip said:

Great total Ian

Thank you Lord Danish.

19 hours ago, shosky said:

Great first season for the two. With improved stamina, I see Ruiz doing 50+ in the second season. 

Thanks Shosky, yes hopefully Ruiz with being the older of the two can hit some decent returns while Fati develops.

19 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Good start with two very talented players. KIU

Thank Kane, they are brilliant and I’m looking forward to seeing how good they become later on.

18 hours ago, Titjes said:

Good start mate 😉

Thank you Tits.

17 hours ago, bb said:

Good start

Thanks BB.

 

I actually forgot to put the transfers screenshot up so will do so on my next update. The main outgoing was Sergio Busquets I believe who I decided to offload when the offer came in. I knew he wouldn’t get loads of game time and whilst we didn’t need the money I thought I might as well let him go as I could just see him kicking off over lack of playing time later on.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Ian

[gunnersaur]

Great start man .... I have found Ruiz to be very good in careers I do he'll only get better and Ansu speaks for himself really only up from season 1 man 

[Rob]

Excellent start Ian. Fingers crossed the injuries don’t become a problem.

[Ian]

12 hours ago, gunnersaur said:

Great start man .... I have found Ruiz to be very good in careers I do he'll only get better and Ansu speaks for himself really only up from season 1 man 

Thank you Gunnersaur, yes hopefully they can steadily improve over the years.

4 hours ago, Rob said:

Excellent start Ian. Fingers crossed the injuries don’t become a problem.

Thank you Rob, yes hopefully they don’t become too frequent. Fati blamed me for his long injury due to being overplayed and he’s probably right I guess as I did push him.

[Ian]

Season 2

Our duo got off to a decent start in their first season so the aim for this season was to keep going and hopefully an improved return from the two youngsters.

I’ll start with the transfers.

 

Transfers

We let a few of the older players go and most notably Alba who I felt we no longer needed due to having a good few players both prime and young who could play in his position. Umtiti left for hardly any money at all as he’d kicked off during the first season about a lack of game time and I’d got sick of it so quickly offloaded him as I didn’t want him disrupting the harmony of our squad. Dembélé is also playing up and if I was allowing myself incoming transfers I’d be soon rid of him but I’m not and he’s rather good so I’ll keep him for now but eventually I reckon he’ll go. I let a few of the youngsters go which was an easy decision to make for most but not for a few of the more promising ones but I feel I can only keep so many. Marqués and Orel Busquets are the two that looked pretty good but the decision was made as I’d like to think we’ll be ok without them. I brought a few youngsters through from the academy with Cases looking the most promising and he can play anywhere in the final third so high hopes for him. The other two I’m not so confident in if I’m honest but they might surprise me I guess.

Spoiler

 

Team Results

No problem in the league and both domestic cups were won although we made rather hard work of the Super Cup as you can see from the fixtures below. We were actually rather lucky to make the Champions League final as we scored a last minute goal against Liverpool at Anfield in the semi final first leg which ultimately put us through on away goals. Didn’t matter much though as although we outplayed Man City in the final we just couldn’t convert enough of our chances so were left devastated. We were also rather humiliated against Juve in the Club World Championship quarter final as they knocked in five without reply and to be honest I expected as much as I’d got my rotation wrong and we ended up with too many tired players going into the game.

Spoiler

 

Abel Ruiz

No injury problems for either lad this year and Ruiz scored his first hat trick so hopefully more of those to come later.

 

He improved a good bit and is looking rather good now. I’m really happy that his stamina looks like it’s going to end up quite high and those other greens speak for themselves.

 

He actually didn’t perform much differently to the first season or even maybe a touch worse but 36 goals added to the tally and hopefully many more to come.

 

Ansu Fati

Fati also scored his first hat trick and added a second later on in the season so good going from him.

 

Some nice improvements for him too with his movement looking nice and that little green arrow next to his stamina is pleasing as if that particular attribute doesn’t go up to at least 12 I honestly can’t see us doing this.

 

A return of 32 goals for him which is a steady improvement on last year which can only be a good thing. The combined goal total of 68 is an improvement also and a step closer to the 90 goal return mark which is where we need to be.

 

Challenge Score

 

Season 01

Ansu Fati: 40 Games, 24 Goals and 22 Assist

Abel Ruiz: 41 Games, 33 Goals and 9 Assists

Combined Total: 57 Goals and 31 Assists

 

Season 02

Ansu Fati: 44 Games, 32 Goals and 19 Assist

Abel Ruiz: 51 Games, 36 Goals and 16 Assists

Combined Total: 68 Goals and 35 Assists

 

Grand Total: 125 Goals and 66 Assists

 

Thanks for reading.

[broodje kip]

Great season @Ian KIU

[Rob]

Another good season Ian.

[gunnersaur]

Great season Ian keep it up man

[smoggy90]

Great start Ian, both look very promising players. 

[shosky]

Another wonderful season although I had thought Ruiz would get more goals but 36 is still a respectable return

[Kanegan]

Great season @Ian. Keep going.

[Ian]

@broodje kip, @Rob, @gunnersaur, @smoggy90 & @Kanegan

Thank you all for the comments, much appreciated.

@shosky, Thank you and I also thought Ruiz would get more or at least much more than Fati did. Hopefully he can get himself up to around 50 mark soon.

[Ian]

Season 3

We just need to keep going at this stage and hope our scoring returns keep on improving as the boys hopefully develop into fine players.

 

Transfers

We only brought one youngster through who looks like a decent prospect for centre midfield and possibly better than some of the original youngsters already at the club so I’ll try and give him a bit of game time over the next few years. You can see we let a couple of veterans go in Piqué and Rakitic as they’d declined horribly and a few youngsters were offloaded or loaned out but unfortunately we lost Carles Pérez to Liverpool as he wanted to leave. I had high hopes that Carles would be the main backup player to my duo but he had other ideas.

Spoiler

 

Team Results

League was comfortable with only a handful of games where we dropped points and a decent 132 goals scored. Unfortunately the mighty Juventus disguised as Zebras got us again as they ended our Champions League hopes in the quarter final with the all important winning away goal coming in the dying seconds of the return leg. We’ll get them for this later I’m sure and it’ll be sweet. No Super Cup this year either with more last minute action from our opponents Atletico Madrid who forced extra time and took over fairly quickly after centre back Cuenca got himself sent off. We did win the Spanish Cup though with as comfortable a 2-1 over Real as you’ll ever see.

Spoiler

 

The Duo

The dynamic duo went big early on with a nice combined five goal haul in a 9-1 victory over Getafe so things were looking good.

 

Fati then pulled up a week later with a twisted ankle which would keep him out for a month.

 

He got back up to speed quickly enough after his injury and there were a few more good moments for our duo throughout the season.

Spoiler

 

So things were looking good and then Fati tore his hamstring in training at the beginning of April which would be the end of his season, hopefully that won’t become a recurring injury.

 

Ansu Fati

He’s showing signs that he’ll develop into a great player and as I keep mentioning his stamina could be important so nice to see that on the rise. Anyway, he ended up with 28 goals this season which I’m happy with considering his injuries. Just before his injury I put him on penalties and all free kicks in an attempt to get him on the race to 100 goals leaderboard which seemed like it’d be comfortable but that injury has thrown that up in the air. We still have a decent shot though with him needing 16 goals before the end of October next season when he turns 20 so we’ll have a go.

 

Abel Ruiz

Abel put up an improved return with 44 goals in 50 games so a step closer to the 50 goal mark which is a decent target at this stage. My system isn’t perfect I know and I’m sure it can be improved but I’m confident that if we can keep a decent level of domination over the other teams particularly in the league with a high amount of team goals we can get the job done providing we can keep the two players happy that is. Of course a lot will depend on what happens when we have to transition the next generation of youngsters into the fold so we’ll see how that goes over the next few years I guess.

 

Challenge Score

Season 01

Ansu Fati: 40 games, 24 goals and 22 assists

Abel Ruiz: 41 games, 33 goals and 9 assists

Combined Total: 81 games, 57 goals and 31 assists

 

Season 02

Ansu Fati: 44 games, 32 goals and 19 assists

Abel Ruiz: 51 games, 36 goals and 16 assists

Combined Total: 95 games, 68 goals and 35 assists

 

Season 03

Ansu Fati: 31 games, 28 goals and 18 assists

Abel Ruiz: 50 games, 44 goals and 20 assists

Combined Total: 81 games, 72 goals and 38 assists

 

Grand Total: 257 games, 197 goals and 104 assists

 

 

Thanks for reading.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Ian

[Woody]

Doing splendid 😆

[Ian]

23 hours ago, Woody said:

Doing splendid 😆

Thank you woody, they are doing well so far.