Career Aaron attempts The English Killer: Olympiakos.

[Aaron Thornton]

Season 1 of 2:

This challenge stood out to me in many ways, one being I've never managed in Greece, but having done this challenge I must say to anyone who hasn't managed there yet to give it a go, it was thoroughly enjoyable and a refreshing change from managing in the usual leagues I'd go for. Without further ado who would I choosing to emulate the great Matty Derbyshire:

If you know this guy by looking at his face, I'll be very impressed, for most of you who don't know, his name is:

Osayamen Osawe! A pacey but not very prolific centre forward signed from Uerdingen in the third tier of German football, he has some decent attributes from the start, 17 pace and 13 for both stamina and strength is nice for me, shooting and aerial ability are a bit on the low side but hopefully with some training and development they can increase. 

Transfers:

In:

Scott McKenna is a machine and for 4.4Mil price tag he was a no brainer to play alongside Semedo. Antonee and Hamalainen come in to be 1 and 2 at left back, Kiko Femenia comes in as a quality right sided player who can play RW or RWB, Cooper and Middleton come in to rotate at LW. Leckie comes in to play RW, Vagnoman comes in on loan for his versatility in both wingback positions, Osawe of course signed to tackle this challenge and the return of the legend, needed a backup striker and spotted the reason for this challenge, Matty Derbyshire, 1.2Mil later and he was ours for his long awaited return to Greece. 

Out:

One notable sale, Randlejovic was quality, but the offer from Bayer 04 was too good to turn down, the rest were not to my liking so we cashed in. 

The Tactic:

Spoiler

The thinking with this was to overload the wings and keep the centre solid, Work into box of course to provide most of the opportunities for Osawe and Through balls to try to make effective use of his pace. 

Competitions:

Spoiler

• Well in front after MD26 when the league splits into two and play 10 more games, winning 9 and losing 1 finishing 26 points clear of AEK Athens
• Lost on away goals in the Greek Cup vs Xanthi
• A magical run in the Europa League left Atleti in our way in the final, with our Killer scoring a late winner to lift the trophy, a great underdog story for the ages

The Main Man: (Osawe) 

One injury this year, not too bad. 

One development increment left him looking like this:

Very nice increases, physicals stay the same, but shooting, decisions and movement seen a +2

Spoiler

42 goals in 48 games, a nice total for season 1 and hopefully with the team gelling a lot in the first year, season 2 will hopefully see an increase on these numbers. 

You can see from the TotY where our strengths were, right down the middle, McKenna and Semedo dominated opposition strikers, Fortounis was a creator and goalscorer in behind Osawe 

 

95(LP)+63(GD)+42(Goals)=200

Season 1: 200

 

Decent first season and very enjoyable to manage in Greece, the Europa League triumph was a big surprise I never saw coming. Seeyas on Season 2, where we will hopefully see a good total. Thanks for reading. 😊

 

[smoggy90]

Interesting player and a new name to me which is good. Fantastic first season mate. 

[Aaron Thornton]

3 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Interesting player and a new name to me which is good. Fantastic first season mate. 

Cheers mate, new name to me too. 

[Aaron Thornton]

Season 2 of 2:

With a good start to the challenge last season, we went into our final season with a lot of optimism, heres how we got on. 

 

Competitions:

Spoiler

• Win the league unbeaten, a monstrous 32 points ahead of AEK Athens
• Won the Greek Cup this year with Osawe scoring in the last minute of Extra time, as late as late goals get, 1-0 vs Larisa
• A decent showing in a group of death in the Champions League, finishing fourth, we were hard to beat, but couldn't win games. 

With the cinderella story of winning the Europa League last year, we got automatic qualification for the CL, meaning we didn't have the CL playoffs and going out early in the CL this season meant we had a lot less games, potentially problematic for a challenge of this nature as less games means less chances to score. 

 

Transfers:

In:

Out:

Went a bit crazy with the bosman singings, Bond, Ennis and Avdivaj were quality players at this level, the former became first choice GK, Ennis was backup to Osawe now with Matty getting injured so often, he looked a bit worse for ware and Avdivaj came in to add depth to the AM role. Oli Burke was a bargain buy at 2mil and added quality in depth to the RW. 

The outgoings were a few of the bosmans that were signed to make us some money that I inevitably never even spent, the rest were not required for our final season. 

 

Osayamen Osawe:

His attributes haven't shifted since he had that one development increment in Season 1.

Just one injury again and much shorter this time around, just 10 days out injured in December. 

Spoiler

39 goals in 39 games. A slight drop in goals from Season 1, with the team playing far fewer games than last season it took its toll on Osawe, played 9 less games and scoring 3 less goals. A 1 GpG ratio is nice though and he bossed it domestically. 

 

My manager profile finished up looking like this, conceding a goal every other game and scoring 2 per game, fairly standard. 

 

100(PT)+74(GD)+39(Goals)=213

(S1)200+(S2)213=413

 

Final score: 413

 

The highlight of the career had to be the Europa League triumph in Season 1, really enjoyed the switch to Greece for a couple of seasons and if you haven't gone there yet, I'd recommend giving it a try and maybe try this challenge, I had a blast. @danovic78 could you add to me the leader board please.

Thanks for reading and seeyas on the next one. 

[Scratch]

Well done mate, that's a great score. I enjoyed playing in Greece too, highly recommend others try it. I love that you picked a player none of us have heard of (though I guess any player in that price range would probably be someone we haven't heard of!). Anyway, short but great career, enjoyed reading about it.

[Rich]

Brilliant going mate, I’ve used Osawe a few times when I’ve been lower league and he’s always decent, you’ve done brilliant with him and got a great amount of goals mate. Haven’t managed in Greece before, looks quite enjoyable! Keep it up mate😁

[Aaron Thornton]

2 hours ago, Scratch said:

Well done mate, that's a great score. I enjoyed playing in Greece too, highly recommend others try it. I love that you picked a player none of us have heard of (though I guess any player in that price range would probably be someone we haven't heard of!). Anyway, short but great career, enjoyed reading about it.

Thank you mate, Greece was a refreshing change, reminded me a lot of Scotland with the league splitting in two, except there's a bit more competition across the league, unless your Olympiakos 😂

[Aaron Thornton]

56 minutes ago, RichDave32 said:

Brilliant going mate, I’ve used Osawe a few times when I’ve been lower league and he’s always decent, you’ve done brilliant with him and got a great amount of goals mate. Haven’t managed in Greece before, looks quite enjoyable! Keep it up mate😁

It was a first for me using him, but I'd imagine he'd do pretty well in lower leagues, I had the benefit of having better facilities though, which helped with his development