Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...

Career Ian’s Inside Forward’s Trouble Doubles - The End


Ian
 Share

Recommended Posts

Hello and welcome to my latest career which will hopefully be successful.

I completed The Neymar and Mbappé Inside Forward Challenge a few weeks back, was then talking to the challenge creator @Rob who happened to mentioned an idea for a challenge and before I knew it I was planning my next career.

Here is Rob with a short piece to set the scene.

 

@Rob;

When you think of next-level goalscoring related achievements in FMM a lot of them have already been done:

2kc with a striker?  

Strikerless 1kc?  

Assists 1kc?  

A 2kc Double Trouble?  

For me, however, there is one standout challenge yet to be achieved:

A Double Trouble (1,200 goals) with two Inside Forwards.

Now, I’ve been wanting to challenge someone to do this for a while. So who better than the guy that I perceive to be one of, if not THE, best player of the game on here: Seahouses-own Ian. As he is at the forefront of creating solutions to the problems that tricky challenges present I think he has a great chance of beating this challenge.... but it’ll be tough.

So let’s all give him plentiful of support as we follow him on his tense adventure. Good luck Ian - it’s time to ride in to new frontiers and make them your own!

 

Thank you very much @Rob and now we move onto the introduction where I’ll confirm the club and players I’ve chosen for this career.

 

Introduction

The challenge had been set so I then loaded the game up, messed on a bit at Liverpool with Mané and Salah in the specified positions and after some brief tests I felt there was at least a chance I could do it. One thing became clear though in those tests was that I’d need a couple of great youngsters and a massive club to have any chance, maybe others can do better and use lesser players or a lesser club but I’m certain I can’t for this so apologies in advance as I’ve gone the elite route with a massive club and two of the best youngsters I could’ve picked quite frankly.

The first young player I thought of for this was Ansu Fati at Barcelona but I used him and Barca in a previous career a few months back so that idea was a non runner. I then looked at Real Madrid and found two great candidates in Rodrygo and Vinícius Júnior with the only issue being they are both only natural on the left inside forward position and both right footed. The natural position didn’t bother me as they both start out as yellow on the right and no doubt easily retrainable to natural in no time but in an ideal world I’d prefer a left footer for the right side so I did look at alternatives for the right position. After much deliberation I ended up thinking it’d be best just to stick with the original two as I knew if I went with another player I’d then struggle deciding which one of the original two to keep.

In short, I’m managing Real Madrid, my two challengers are Rodrygo and Vinícius Júnior and I’ll be attempting The Double Trouble Challenge, so the aim is for the two to hit a combined 1200 goals with both playing the inside forward positions on the FL line at all times.

9C4FC8AD-5131-40C3-A585-19B98EC9E1BA.thumb.jpeg.e04059a432d8944f761a1e45342f3dd3.jpeg

 

Rodrygo

Even at 18 years old he looks good with decent attributes but it’s the physical attributes that I usually look at with kids with the main worry being that they’ll end up with low stamina which can be a nightmare when it comes to game time. This lad has 12 already though so with any luck he’ll hit green level at least and his pace and strength are decent too so I’m happy. His creativity is a little low but with a decent mentor I’m hopeful we’ll be able to increase that a bit and my training focus will more than likely be on movement first and once that hits green I’ll more than likely try and get his stamina or pace up. I’ve even remembered to give him a number and that decision was easy as no.9 was his preference and Vini preferred a different number so you could say it's all going to plan so far.

EAF88358-C4F8-477E-A242-F62A18CD4AAF.thumb.jpeg.0a391ae1c919ebb94a7afb106b551cbb.jpeg

 

Vinícius Júnior

Another great looking youngster who is slightly older and will soon turn 19. He has slightly more pace than Rod and a touch less stamina and strength but both are still at decent levels for his age. His preferred number was 11 so he got his wish and now, he along with his partner will both have to prove their worth to the shirt. Both players do look fantastic but my tests have been conducted with Mané and Salah and while the hope is that they’ll reach the heights of those two eventually they aren’t there yet so patience will be required during the early years while they hopefully develop.

7F2BF4DB-24E1-4B60-8F23-72B096E87AF7.thumb.jpeg.28ade7c290c026e469a5d3be67d8e0a1.jpeg

 

So that’s the introduction done and I’ll be back with the first season update soon.

 

Thank you all for following.

Edited by Ian
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds like a very interesting challenges and a tough one at that, I’m sure if anyone can get them numbers it will be you Ian, good luck👍

Link to comment
Share on other sites
22 minutes ago, RichDave32 said:

Sounds like a very interesting challenges and a tough one at that, I’m sure if anyone can get them numbers it will be you Ian, good luck👍

Thank you Dave, I’ll try my best.

7 minutes ago, samhardy said:

Would that be a double trouble or a trouble double @Ian😂

Rob also came up with the title but I’ll not tag him again as he’ll be sick of me by now I’m sure.😂

It’s supposed to emphasise the risky nature of the challenge and I like it.

It is going to be tough and I may well fall flat on my face this time which would certainly please you I’m sure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
12 hours ago, Woody said:

Certainly a challenge but i have full faith you can crack this one.

Best of luck bud.

Cheers Woody.

10 hours ago, Aaron Thornton said:

Love the idea mate, should be a long and enjoyable career to follow, good luck. 

Thanks Aaron, hopefully it’ll be a success.

8 hours ago, Kanegan said:

That's a great idea mate. Looking forward to your exploits. 

Thank you Kane but the idea was all Rob’s, I was tempted to have a go at strikerless and this is as close to that as I could get without going strikerless. We’ll see how it goes.

4 hours ago, Rob said:

The title is fantastic.

I think this will be a story full of jeapordy and excitement, hopefully ending with success.

Thanks Rob, hopefully it’ll be a thrilling journey.

2 hours ago, Jsavfc said:

Good luck Ian, be interesting to see if you play with a striker. 
I was thinking about a formation based on IF last night actually, going to see if i can make one work but strikerless!

Thank you JS, I’m going to stick without the central striker throughout so if it fails then it fails.

2 hours ago, Aaron55 said:

Wow, good luck! Looking forward to seeing how you get on!

Thanks Aaron.

1 hour ago, Foxy said:

Having used advanced IF’s a fair bit I think this is very achievable, good luck.

Thank you Foxy, I haven’t or at least not without a central striker too so we’ll see how it goes. Unlike some of my recent careers I haven’t raced ahead on this and after the three seasons I’ve played I still have no idea if I can do it or not tbh. The system has changed from what I started with and I’ll try to explain the changes as I’m going. 

54 minutes ago, Scratch said:

This is going to be interesting. Good players, good club, I reckon you're on to another winner here... Wish I'd thought of it first! 

Cheers Scratch, hopefully you are right but if I fall flat on my face I have no doubt someone will come along, try it and get double 1kc’s.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Season 1

Hello and welcome to the first update where we’ll see what kind of start the two inside forwards and the team made. I mentioned in the comments that I’ve already played three seasons which isn’t so bad as I’ve often on previous saves gone a lot further ahead before posting than that but I was determined not to this time and to be honest it’s only my involvement in the Vibe Challenge Cup that’s prevented me from starting to post earlier. I don’t think this is going to be a massive score or anything like that and it’s just about trying to hit the 1,200 goal target for me so whether we can do it or not remains to be seen.

Let’s see how things went in season one.

 

Transfers 

We made loads of transfers as I overhauled the squad with plenty of big names leaving and plenty arriving as I went for a blend of peak aged players and youngsters to develop. Most of these players need no introduction so I won’t go into much detail but we ended up having a great summer window financially after selling Hazard to Juventus for a whopping £180m towards the end of the window. I’d tried to sell him earlier on but failed and there weren't really any players I wanted valued highly enough to use him as a part exchange option for so in the end I decided to just keep him with the idea of using him to mentor my youngsters. I’d even managed to build the squad so that he was basically just an extra, so when the massive offer came in I was straight on it as we’d be lucky to get an offer like that again I’m sure. We did however end up using the money in January with youngsters Gomez and Bentancur coming in to help us further build for the future. Shithouse Ramos left at the end of the season as his contract ran out which has caused a bit of unrest in the camp so I guess we’ll have to buy a superstar player next year to cheer everybody up.

Spoiler

349BF72E-83EA-4B26-A4E1-5864CD248D9E.thumb.jpeg.999a1de457b0d809ea50f72c338e4682.jpeg
BA4582F4-102E-4D79-A10C-C664E53D0231.thumb.jpeg.17986b2b46a43cc2cb86feb9927d168c.jpeg

9F8F929D-DB17-496D-9B60-5813C27C36D3.thumb.jpeg.195fb221ec9d3eb1ab27ae2c7359b71f.jpeg

2E43FAED-95EA-450F-9EEF-EE5A99A9646C.thumb.jpeg.29ad27e1ca73bde5c4fbcd642c867bfe.jpeg

4793529F-D1C4-42D2-A4A9-5C83C9877BE9.thumb.jpeg.2ebfa39e0590c3751736ccedfc230c62.jpeg

23D9AB1E-7D9B-43FB-AC7B-A135BAB7CB00.thumb.jpeg.4614bc0d48df4e0d864845d91dc74d53.jpeg

BF25FA56-75D2-4E70-8F0C-2A4EA71A05CD.thumb.jpeg.1264efe12015c109bf74c98124361445.jpeg

55EC3DA9-B344-4411-8E59-99B9956D08B1.thumb.jpeg.3f74b0aabd2e933e3178152e1d60667e.jpeg

 

Tactics

This was the tactic I used for the vast majority of the first season. As mentioned earlier, I’ve completed three seasons and the tactic has changed a bit each season so I thought I’d document the changes as the seasons go by. As I’m gearing up to start season four I’m planning on going back to something very similar to this after making changes for seasons two and three so take from that what you will. A lot of this below will probably be utter bollocks so feel free to treat it that way and just skip it if you wish.

666F9F26-1D6D-4593-9E4C-8BACE51C6E45.thumb.jpeg.73519029988d5883d2d41f3667702213.jpeg

 

Shape

Attacking mentality, narrow width, slow tempo, balanced creative freedom.

Defence

Normal defensive line, all over closing down, normal tackling and offside trap on.

Attack

Through balls in the final third, mixed passing style and focus and short goalkeeper distribution.
 

The idea was to hopefully dominate and score plenty of goals with the bulk of them going to the two inside forwards. Just two defenders so they need to be good, a flat five in midfield with two all round box to box midfielders, a good playmaker and two wide midfielders. I went with wide midfielders instead of wingers to try and work more passes into the two inside forwards so they can get their shots off. The attacking midfielder will hopefully be the focal point we lack in not having a central striker so he needs to be a great all round midfielder with decent aerial and strength.

We’re going with an attacking mentality which doesn’t need much explaining based on the system I’m using but I have used standard on similar systems so I will try that on my test saves at some point. I wanted to go with a narrow width to try and push the two inside forward more central and the slow tempo wasn’t my original thinking but I had to change it when what I’d tested at Liverpool just wouldn’t work at all at PSG. I’d had normal tempo and was even thinking of trying fast but the system failed at PSG and I found switching the tempo to slow helped things so I then tested that back at Liverpool with good success so went that way. It’s in my mind though and the PSG players were slightly different so more testing will be done as my idea was to be fast and direct at times to try and get the ball to the quick forwards early. I left the creative freedom as balanced and in defence I went all over closing down to try and win the ball back high up the pitch and with an offside trap as I find that works well with top defenders which we need to have. I went for through balls in the final third to try and force the midfielders to look for the through ball rather than delay things with the idea that the inside forward would likely be the players making the runs in behind the defence, this worked very well with Mane and Salah at Liverpool as there were loads of little through balls played between the defenders with one of the inside forwards running inside and scoring from the penalty area. This was Mane and Salah with 17+ for pace, movement and shooting though so my boys aren’t at that level yet but the hope is that they’ll eventually get there. Passing style and focus was mixed as I want that element of directness there but not all of the time and this is another reason why I want the all round attacking midfielder with decent aerial so those longer balls aren’t just totally wasted.

We have Courtois in goal with Lunin as backup and I think we may try and buy a better backup next year or even a younger replacement for Courtois, we’ll see. My central defenders were Ramos who has now left, Varane, Fabinho, Gomez and Militão so a decent bunch but I’m tempted to try and bring in another younger defender to replace Varane with a certain young Dutchman being the preferred player. I won’t go into attributes and such here as I’m already waffling on enough but I will do later if I’m successful and feel I’ve got the tactic kind of right which I know I haven’t yet.

Our box to box midfielders were Brozovic, Gündogan, Tolisso, Bentancur who arrived in January and Casemiro so a good mix of ages and the plan is to maybe bring in younger replacements for Gündogan and Casemiro over the next couple of years. Our two advanced playmakers were the ever reliable Ziyech and the extremely talented youngster Havertz so one peak aged and one younger player to slowly develop. The wide midfielders were Saúl and Trent on the right and Robertson and Gayà on the left. Milinkovic-Slavic and Zaniolo were my preferred attacking midfielders so another case of one peak aged player and one younger player to develop. A lot of these players can play in multiple positions too and Saúl for example can more or less play everywhere so we are well prepared for any injury problems that might surface.

I went for Bernardeschi and Thauvin as our backup inside forwards and both are pretty dependable. After Hazard left I got Thauvin to mentor my two Brazilians and unfortunately it didn’t go well with both not enjoying the experience and Rod ending up hating Thauvin so the latter will probably be leaving before next season.

 

Team Results

We did fine in the league scoring a hefty chunk of goals but we couldn’t add any other trophies to our haul which was slightly disappointing really. It was Valencia who knocked us out of both domestic cups after some blanks were fired from ourselves and PSG beat us in the Champions League where we were incredibly unlucky in the second leg as you can see. Still, at least the first season is over and hopefully we can build on this and do better in the cups next year.

17AC33AB-2E43-4B90-B322-A5EC31545D88.thumb.jpeg.efacecd9afce3a19df2eff20c980800a.jpeg

Spoiler

5798FEAB-C6DB-4B0E-96A2-56E85A2E4DB3.thumb.jpeg.80fa36f287b3846e4b78449b73a7263e.jpeg
5D164F9F-236C-421A-8A8A-26EBB8089F7B.thumb.jpeg.49deffe1c8215691dae41b47b89eb65c.jpeg

750CA24C-C070-4E4D-904E-BA92096E7CE9.thumb.jpeg.02f96b13c7a7bc12f30f81b8736a8a16.jpeg

8EF62CB0-63DD-4E69-8C85-0134E9F3DBF3.thumb.jpeg.7edf12a7936e596d698c3557719390c9.jpeg

 

Fixtures

A mixed bag here with some brilliant results and some poor results where our defence let us down.

Spoiler

CB829C76-7B6F-4720-8A7C-9FDC85228B7B.thumb.jpeg.d4a9bbaa957ab56416b760a9b8edf75d.jpeg
41962007-B179-4FE5-82E3-E1853A0C366D.thumb.jpeg.34b893501ba8830c3692afbf9784578b.jpeg

3A8A12F8-7002-485C-8E12-2C6047E435C9.thumb.jpeg.c3fab9e1c0879d294c3cf4374ba9d638.jpeg

4260A486-7AD7-4104-9616-5FB213C38D58.thumb.jpeg.49c2f82d46f9e79cd43f94e217d70b6b.jpeg

9C2B426C-982E-4779-AB3D-56E6095AE806.thumb.jpeg.78280d2c2d34c8fa3020549338d6ca98.jpeg


 

Inside Forwards

There weren’t any great goalscoring games for our duo this season but a few games annoyed me at the time and prompted me to change things for the second season. The thing is though, hindsight is a wonderful thing as I’m not so sure they were as bad as I thought at the time. The 8-0 annoyed me due to the Ziyech five goal haul from the advanced playmaker position, yet Bernardeschi managed two goals from the inside forward position and the 7-0 had three inside forward goals too so not quite as bad as I thought really. It’s just when you hammer teams in challenges like this and your challengers or players from their positions don’t score most of the goals, you start to think something is wrong and if it starts happening a good few times you end up annoyed. This is the first season though and our boys aren’t developed yet so it shouldn’t have concerned me like it did to be honest.

Spoiler

7FC86506-4348-410D-AB06-40F2096F136F.thumb.jpeg.da24578abae8cf43aeac31c09ad22dc2.jpeg
782D8A94-E975-463A-A63C-4F3E0251A527.thumb.jpeg.cae6da50212c2ad92af2f6df82414567.jpeg

 

Just the one injury to Vini this year which was one of those in game injuries that turns out to not be an injury post match but the player ends up so low in condition that they need to miss a couple of games anyway. I’m being very cautious with them so their game time is low and I don’t think they ever entered the field jaded. If they were slightly tired I’d stil play them sometimes, especially in the second half of the season but if they were jaded, I'd always rest them. The injuries will come later though I’m sure but I won’t be making the mistake of missing my physios retiring like I did on my warriors save.

Spoiler

FD2ED37D-048A-4537-B501-CD190EBA8D78.thumb.jpeg.d66b416d78fcacf4c2906613f63b7199.jpeg

 

Anyway, they kicked things off with 59 goals between them and it was Vini who contributed the most with 36 and Rod followed up a good way behind with just 23. Vini has that little bit more pace at this stage and my thoughts were that the through balls were benefiting him more than Rod so I had plenty to think about before going into season two. They started really well but kind of faded in the second half of the season as tiredness really kicked in so not a fantastic start but a start nonetheless and something to try and build on.

FC9F07EA-E53C-4FBC-80A5-18540508E755.thumb.jpeg.2b5cc333c6e042ec503e7609a8a12839.jpeg

Spoiler

9F40152A-8811-459F-AB03-ECFECBEAF5D2.thumb.jpeg.9344cbca68e6c782e329016845a09c6d.jpeg
1837567E-FBDD-4785-A01A-32EDE5C59191.thumb.jpeg.50db65b0a443fb8a3215bae920817d9a.jpeg

 

Here’s how the two players look with a before and after shot so you can see their development. I got them both natural on the right inside forwards position by around January time and just rotated them from side to side from time to time for the rest of the season. They signed new deals towards the end of the season and I tried to keep their wage lower by offering a higher sign on fee and I put a high release clause to try and avoid the risk of losing them early on which would be a total disaster. You can see they’ve improved a good bit, I keep harping back to Mané and Salah but they are my benchmark with pace, shooting and movement being the most important and it’s looking ok at this stage with both improving well. You’ll also probably notice both have lost a little bit of leadership which was due to their horrible mentoring experience with Thauvin, I wish I’d never even bothered getting anyone to mentor them to be honest.

Spoiler

Rod

0071E958-248B-4AD4-B680-7AFC1E7BF6FB.thumb.jpeg.71452a98539f8e929c6818a5e760f61e.jpeg

1A3D8D11-F4D8-4F0D-8C11-EE652DEF2850.thumb.jpeg.1f7b86ba6b527a02ff2a3ffb9fae81b2.jpeg

 

Vini

B03E9C75-209D-44C3-A58C-304424A5B84F.thumb.jpeg.8c8d483b350235e7b2f45b5d1d3342a5.jpeg

7AE4C0AF-6170-4025-8623-C29C06D396F1.thumb.jpeg.b8aa33d01af5308da8658c459533025c.jpeg

 

Manager

Nothing much to see here. A decent season for goals with 176 but not enough to challenge my previous best on the GpG challenge and nice to see all of my attributes 10 or above, don’t think they’ll stay that way for long though somehow.

Spoiler

259A37C1-FD71-442F-8DC6-1B637014AEE1.thumb.jpeg.32cdfafc675c54186346a8a7170db36b.jpeg

 

Score

Vinícius Júnior: 36 goals in 46 games

Rodrygo: 23 goals in 50 games

Double Trouble: 59 goals in 96 games

 

Thank you for following and I’ll be back with the update for the second season soon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That was a great read Ian and a brilliant start mate, love a good squad overhaul myself to get your own stamp on the club. Look forward to seeing how the next couple of seasons went.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Excellent idea and great start Ian. I had started a test traditional DT attempt with these guys at the start of FMM20 but never carried it on and have generally used the save to test things. Hopefully you will see the job through, and I’m sure you will mate. Look forward to following. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
18 hours ago, RichDave32 said:

That was a great read Ian and a brilliant start mate, love a good squad overhaul myself to get your own stamp on the club. Look forward to seeing how the next couple of seasons went.

Thank you Dave, there were changes made tactically for seasons two and three but I think I’m now totally settled going into season 4.

18 hours ago, Rob said:

Great starting Ian, especially with the squad and tactic bedding in. Well done!

Thank you Rob, hopefully as they age their returns will improve. I’m making sure on this save that every player in the squad must play a good bit in a bid to avoid the moaning. It could hinder us but if it does it does as I want to keep this save clear of all of that moaning like what seemed to happen to us all in the warriors battle.

18 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Great start Ian.

Thanks Kane, hopefully we can kick on from here with better cup results and more goals from the inside forwards.

16 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Excellent idea and great start Ian. I had started a test traditional DT attempt with these guys at the start of FMM20 but never carried it on and have generally used the save to test things. Hopefully you will see the job through, and I’m sure you will mate. Look forward to following. 

Cheers Smoggy, the idea was all Rob’s and it came at a good time as I wasn’t sure what to play next. These two do look brilliant and not sure I could’ve picked a better duo, well certainly not two that start out at the same club and same nationality.

The season 2 update of this could well be tonight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Season 2

Hello and welcome to the season two update of this inside forward double trouble attempt. Last time out we had a bit of a mixed season as the team had a very dominant league campaign in scoring a hefty amount of goals but we couldn’t add any other cups to the trophy cabinet and I suppose the two challengers made a somewhat decent start in scoring 59 goals. This season we were hoping to put up a better showing in the cups and hopefully get our two inside forwards to score a few more goals so let’s see how it went.

 

Transfers

I mentioned last time out that there was a bit of unrest in the camp after shithouse Ramos left at the end of the season, well that was put right pretty quickly as superstar youngsters De Ligt and Donnarumma arrived early on in the window. I used Thauvin who Rod started to dislike as makeweight in the De Ligt deal and sold off Varane to Atlético as it was always in my plans to try and replace him with a younger centre back at some point. Donnarumma was brought in with the idea of kind of rotating him with Courtois until I feel he is good enough to be no.1, I even managed to get him to sign as a rotation option but that didn’t matter as all I’ve had is moaning from him as he clearly wants to play every single game so not sure he’ll end up as our long term goalkeeper to be honest. Iñaki Williams was my chosen player to replace Thauvin and while he cost us a canny fee, I feel he’ll be well worth it as he’s only in his mid 20’s so should hopefully have a few good years left in him yet. Gündogan was only bought last season as a stop gap and he left this year with Can coming in as a slightly younger player and one that can also play at centre back so good to have. Although it’s not showing, Gündogan was used as a part exchange in that deal but I’ve discovered that if you sort the transfers separately into ins and outs then half of the exchanged players don’t show. There was one youth graduate I decided to keep and a good few players who’d been out on loan the first season came back to be sold to help us bring in more funds but we aren’t exactly short in that department anyway to be honest.

Spoiler

27F55499-E2CE-4467-843B-DC0D3D561912.thumb.jpeg.b5366e573b2af42ff49d9d23e6108f8a.jpeg
EAC6746D-8054-40EF-A13F-B09CDB23C465.thumb.jpeg.0ab3452aab44b46fd633bc942edf272a.jpeg

C3688F3B-D19B-48E5-9080-9528A42D14F0.thumb.jpeg.5c6447cab8bfa7758b201f87e3f14a30.jpeg

7353C479-C81E-4E14-A5A3-F570ADD07DF8.thumb.jpeg.5fd3a66979659042bb1fc48ee3bdaab6.jpeg

 

Tactics

I won’t go into much detail here as you all know I’ve played three seasons which means I know whether these changes were successful or not. Basically, I changed both of the box to box midfielders to centre midfielders with the idea to try and force more of the goals to the inside forwards with the hope that it wouldn’t hinder our somewhat high goal scoring. The fear was that it might make us a bit limp with not enough forward runs from deep so if things had been awful early on I’d have switched them back to box to box midfielders but I can at least confirm that that wasn’t the case and we kept these changes throughout. The through ball was dropped around December time also as I was convinced it was hindering Rod who doesn’t quite have the pace I feel is needed yet.

 

Team Results

We had a better season overall for results as we won everything except the Supercopa where we lost out to at Atlético in a wild game. We didn’t score as many goals in the league though and although we won the Champions League, I didn’t feel we were all that great and were lucky in a few of the knockout rounds whereas last year I thought we were very unlucky to lose to PSG but a win is a win I guess. It was Dortmund we beat quite comfortably in the final and Barca were beaten in the Copa del Rey final but it wasn’t vintage that’s for sure as it was via a penalty shootout. We beat some decent teams on the road to the CWC final where we just about got the job done with a last minute winner from one of our backup inside forwards against PSG.

0E1B108D-F539-49DB-B02C-5ADE077B723B.thumb.jpeg.e042a0113628b4e479611e1f37c485c1.jpeg

Spoiler

9BE57210-0D69-4D54-BAAF-4F7FDF54318F.thumb.jpeg.3afa3b97c1a7ef1d0a32c3c6b5c31c40.jpeg
0D0E6780-FB18-4DE4-A38C-F4224F4DB05A.thumb.jpeg.89bf322b14472f39702c06dda780126d.jpeg

ECD428C7-2F46-4AF4-B267-E1998E06AE28.thumb.jpeg.37ae38ed42751584c1aece171d415a51.jpeg

ECB89B67-6A88-4412-994F-FCEB130F316A.thumb.jpeg.b8fc54ea74780d3c860cf3c98e5f2b0b.jpeg

 

Fixtures

You can see the Champions League knockout games where I’d say we were a touch lucky but then again, looking at the stats of those games makes me think that we’d have considered ourselves unlucky if we’d have lost so you just take it.

Spoiler

3A1FD972-1966-4632-9782-F9F0E10AC91D.thumb.jpeg.9ead6d027cf0a0651987f8c7055979ec.jpeg
D871796C-39DF-4513-8AFF-DD265D88B5A0.thumb.jpeg.5731c3120f93b8e00bd84a62bdaba54b.jpeg

C9792ADE-2755-4600-9971-F944DD05DDF4.thumb.jpeg.6719c8932be447eb2af8c54043cf3036.jpeg

E77F7593-DB79-4008-AD49-ACCBF44EB849.thumb.jpeg.2a29fe3162fcd9b499028eee81c928cd.jpeg

D7C30172-819B-432D-AF35-694389CE3C1E.thumb.jpeg.f8b0598097dccf12a39151df774eb6b1.jpeg

F77AB312-CFC5-4941-877A-D523E8D4E41A.thumb.jpeg.415bf3411dc459ea6a9e36cb4294e4dd.jpeg

 

Manager

Not too bad with all attributes at blue level or above for now but the money spent is starting to rise and it’ll probably start getting to obscene levels soon I’d say.

Spoiler

B1E61286-4683-4346-8A10-3B3DC87A4F4F.thumb.jpeg.28c67ac0b1b1b49f91ff11056a9e5505.jpeg

 

Inside Forwards

Rod missed a good few games in January and February when he was away at some international U21 tournament and he suffered the only injury to either player with a short layoff in March.

Spoiler

CD47653F-1E1C-4614-982F-8D15E7377CC1.thumb.jpeg.366656d98c800842ee777182008ae818.jpeg

 

There were some better games for the duo this season with these below being nice standout games.

Spoiler

A456B226-CFEF-4DA6-A7EB-BBC6E513038C.thumb.jpeg.62628c26df08c2ebc91211d4a2a0f08e.jpeg
912D27EA-196A-40E7-AFDB-AA88C1ED41B9.thumb.jpeg.057f177a3ac18213f8c82b9764a6bed9.jpeg

A29D3233-5A5F-4CB7-A93E-95509B4669FA.thumb.jpeg.97b9ca621ad77bbca4c4a6ffcec5bd0d.jpeg

 

Vini went the full season without injury but still missed games due to fitness and even though Rod was unavailable for a good spell at the U21’s, both ended up playing a decent amount of games largely helped by the CWC at the end of the season. They also scored more this season with Rod hitting 39 goals and Vini repeating the 36 he managed last season, so 75 in total which might seem better but when you consider they played in 15 more games I’m not so sure it was at all. Vini seemed to go south in the second half of the season and it could well have been tiredness but losing the through ball in December is in my mind but the opposite happened to Rod as he improved after so a conundrum for myself there. Still, we’re heading in the right direction and just need to keep going as they hopefully continue to improve. With them both being Brazilian, I am checking to see if the international job comes up but unfortunately I think I’ve missed the first chance as they now have a different manager to the guy they started with so we’ll have to wait a bit longer for another chance there.

82C19BA4-7D49-4F12-9794-B243748DB9B9.thumb.jpeg.dc59654b3ca4af36024e81252d3506dc.jpeg

Spoiler

65600AA2-1715-44CE-B387-CDAB7B905A72.thumb.jpeg.de95b2d290f4fce641d062a66501fdc6.jpeg
3EB0E1C0-8153-4048-9B72-AB573896E80A.thumb.jpeg.6cf43cbf5bc2fa197336bde6977eece7.jpeg

 

The two are developing really well and my focus hasn’t changed from trying to get their movement, pace, shooting up with also Vini’s stamina being something I’d also like to see get to green level at least. They look great as is though in truth and I’m sure their fitness will improve as they age and they’ll hopefully not be jaded or slightly tired quite so much.

Spoiler

DA4F5D9C-8C7D-41A2-AD45-E50D56F4FEF4.thumb.jpeg.deb8f35bd83bcadc50caf240c6d63e75.jpeg
EDC5F101-7B3C-4C42-9EC4-549ED262EA00.thumb.jpeg.84bf583f2d38d56c0a2e3ca6eca13041.jpeg

 

Score

 

Spoiler

 

Season 1 (Goals/Games)

Vinícius Júnior: 36/46

Rodrygo: 23/50

Double Trouble: 59/96

 

 

Season 2 (Goals/Games)

Vinícius Júnior: 36/57

Rodrygo: 39/54

Double Trouble: 75/111

 

Overall (Goals/Games)

Vinícius Júnior: 72/103

Rodrygo: 62/104

Double Trouble: 134/207


 

Thank you for following and I’ll be back with the update for the third season soon.

Edited by Ian
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really good business in the market there, I’m sure De Ligt and Donnarumma will lead you in to the next few years and the the two main lads are looking really good now, I’m sure they’ll push on again from this. Good going mate 👍

Link to comment
Share on other sites
19 hours ago, Hamza lfc said:

Great second season!!

Thanks Hamza.

17 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Much improved tally from Rodrygo. You are slowly kicking in now. Good luck with the next few.

Thanks Kane, I’m dabbling a bit with the system and I’m going to have to get that settled at some point but I suppose if they’re hitting 75 now, you’d think they could easily get into the 90+ area in a few years which is where we need to be.

16 hours ago, Rob said:

Really good Ian. Sounds transfer business too.

Thanks Rob, I just don’t want to end up in a situation where I have loads of older players that need to be offloaded at the same time and I’m trying keep the squad as small as I possibly can to avoid the moaning. It’s going ok on the moaning front so far so long may that continue as I hate the game when it’s starts getting messy.

16 hours ago, RichDave32 said:

Really good business in the market there, I’m sure De Ligt and Donnarumma will lead you in to the next few years and the the two main lads are looking really good now, I’m sure they’ll push on again from this. Good going mate 👍

Thank Dave, hopefully we are well prepared for the future with a good few youngsters so hopefully the business from now on will just be the odd new player coming in each season.

13 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Great season mate, going fantastic as they still have youth on their side. Plenty of time. 

Cheers Smoggy, yes I’m going with the idea that they should still improve a bit as they age, hopefully anyway but if I could just get the Brazil job for a few years I’d have loads of confidence. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking good mate! They will surely get better and better. Loving seeing IFs score so much, I always go for the boring TM / AF route...

I think Slow is underrated. I experiment with it every so often and it doesn't seem to lead to less chances or goals - or at least not a lot, I sort of think that you might get less chances, but better quality ones, but I haven't been able to prove that happens at all. 

As for Donnarumma, haven't had much luck with him this year. He's decent, but not great and I generally end up selling him. He just seems to let through more goals than I'm expecting. Haven't had him complaining too much though. I had him play every second game for a couple of years and he was fine with it. If it was more than one game out, then he quickly got upset, but not if it was every second game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...