Career Scratch Tries Ronny's Big Year [Finished]

[Scratch]

Time for me to try badge 6 of the Badge of Honour series: Ronny's Year from @FuddledFox.

The aim is to get CR7 to score a minimum of 78 goals for Real Madrid in the calendar year of 2021. I've just made it to Jan 1 as I type, so I have no idea whether this will be a success or not. I guess we'll see in a  couple of days!

This is what the man looks like right now:

And this is his history screen:

As you can see, he's scored at a decent rate so far. If he can maintain that, he should go close.

On the plus side, the players providing crosses are all young and should improve their service throughout the next year. On the minus side, well, he's going to age a lot more...

 

Here are the transfers I made:

Spoiler

There were quite a few players that just didn't fit my system, so they had to go. I brought in a few big names (KDB, Goretzka, Skriniar, etc), but on the wings (a key position for my tactic), I've gone with youngsters (Saka, Diaby, James, Saelemaekers and Matondo). The thinking was that there are not many people with 17+ Crossing, but these players should go past that with a bit of development. 

Which leaves us with the following two teams:

and 

I think we should be able to do alright with that squad, but we'll see if I need to improve it in future windows. 

As you can see Ronnie has the dreaded blue icon. He's not happy because I sold a superstar (how do you think I can afford your wages Sunshine?). He wan't happy for a long time because he couldn't settle into the area (I guess his favourite cafe had closed while he was away in Turin). And of course, he's concerned about squad depth (we have 30 players!). 

I'd normally give him a new contract, but he's down as retiring, so I'd have to ask him to reconsider. I'm worried that might make him retire at the end of the season (ie mid challenge), rather than the end of his contract. So I'll just play on with the lad moping around for now.

Anyway, there you go. Fingers crossed it works out!

Edited January 30, 2021 by Scratch

[Rich]

Ohh some nice signings, I can confirm that Dan James becomes a beast, only player I’ve had get to 20 crossing on this years version yet. And with your brilliance with training these youngsters you’ll get all the wingers firing him sure. Good luck mate 😁

[Scratch]

5 minutes ago, RichD said:

Ohh some nice signings, I can confirm that Dan James becomes a beast, only player I’ve had get to 20 crossing on this years version yet. And with your brilliance with training these youngsters you’ll get all the wingers firing him sure. Good luck mate 😁

Thanks mate. Yeah, I've got him in Beijing for my 3x1KC and he made it to 20 there too. Not sure he can make it there in the timeframe for this, but there are just so few existing players more than 16 that it seemed the best approach.

[Dai_]

Some great signings and a good start for him. This is where it gets real.

I thought you'd use the sniper tactic tbh. Nice to see a variant of it  That CM-AP-CM is so dependable. Any reason your wingbacks are pushed up? I've done quite a bit of testing and noticed with an attacking or overload mentality they will cross just about the same no matter where they're placed whilst offering better defensively if not pushed forward. 

[Rob]

Nice start and lovely signings.

[George Traistă]

Good rate so far, fingers crossed that he will maintain that!! 

Saka develops really good, very good as a winger and also can be retrained for wingback

[Ian]

Nice start, hopefully he can maintain this form. I’m always asking myself if it’d be better to try and play him a bit less and sub him off early if he scores in the first half of the season to keep him fresh or just play him as you normally would. Keeping him fresh seems like it could be a good idea but on the other hand I’ve seen with older players how they can decline rapidly if they don’t get the required game time. Just one of those conundrums I guess but good luck here as it looks like he has a good chance.

[Chris]

Nice signings there mate. Using almost the same system as I'm trying atm. I'm just testing to see if I get more out of the wide men pushed forward or dropped back (both wingbacks and Wingers) and also been experimenting with the WM roles. Good luck

[broodje kip]

Some great signings you’ve made that. Great start as well. Good luck

[Scratch]

10 hours ago, Dai_ said:

Some great signings and a good start for him. This is where it gets real.

I thought you'd use the sniper tactic tbh. Nice to see a variant of it  That CM-AP-CM is so dependable. Any reason your wingbacks are pushed up? I've done quite a bit of testing and noticed with an attacking or overload mentality they will cross just about the same no matter where they're placed whilst offering better defensively if not pushed forward. 

Thanks mate!

The wingback are something I haven't quite settled on. I've used them as WBs and IWBs, both in the DM line and the D line and that's just where I had them when I took the screenshots!

Every time I think one is is better, then we have a game where we don't get many chances and I swtich them up and we seem to do better (for a bit). I swear FMM21 is messing with me, I seem to have this problem a lot this year (not being able to settle on a role/instruction because results keep changing).

Maybe I should try them asynchronous next! 😄

Actually, my very next game (when I play next) is against a weak team in the cup, and I'm thinking about just going with my TT Blaster tactic to destroy them and hope Ronaldo gets a bag of goals as part of that... Probably can't switch to that long term because my squad is shaped wrong, but it might be a useful experiment.

[Scratch]

10 hours ago, Rob said:

Nice start and lovely signings.

Thanks mate. That's the part I enjoy a lot, building a squad with a vision in mind. I liked the half season to get ready, although I have to say I was a little caught out by how short the half season was - I bought youngsters I wanted to ramp up, but they haven't had enough time yet!

[Scratch]

9 hours ago, George Traistă said:

Good rate so far, fingers crossed that he will maintain that!! 

Saka develops really good, very good as a winger and also can be retrained for wingback

Thanks mate. Yeah, I've used him once before, but have looked at him in a lot of other saves. I like players like that who can cover both left sided positions. I've also retrained Robertson as an LW, so I have plenty of top quality cover, no matter what Cristiano says.

Same down the right, with Saelemaekers who can play WB. Each side has at least 5 players for 2 positions and lots of flexibility.

[Scratch]

8 hours ago, Ian said:

Nice start, hopefully he can maintain this form. I’m always asking myself if it’d be better to try and play him a bit less and sub him off early if he scores in the first half of the season to keep him fresh or just play him as you normally would. Keeping him fresh seems like it could be a good idea but on the other hand I’ve seen with older players how they can decline rapidly if they don’t get the required game time. Just one of those conundrums I guess but good luck here as it looks like he has a good chance.

Thanks mate, I'm playing him most games and subbing him off when he hits the 80 to 85% zone. I'm giving him the odd one off (he's still playing once a week though), because I do think they get a bit lacklustre after a while and having them fresh helps.

But yeah, if you don't use it, you lose it, and nothing makes a player decline more than not getting enough game time. I find the post match training screen helps - you can see how close they are getting to 0. Sometimes they drop outside of that, but if they are near the top end of that, you're probably safer to rest him. Getting down near 0? Better play him and hope he gets a good rating to push that up and away from 0!

[Scratch]

3 hours ago, Chris said:

Nice signings there mate. Using almost the same system as I'm trying atm. I'm just testing to see if I get more out of the wide men pushed forward or dropped back (both wingbacks and Wingers) and also been experimenting with the WM roles. Good luck

Thanks mate. Never really experimented with the WM roles. Was going to say maybe I should try them somethime, but I can't see past Ws for this sort of challenge. I am very very aerial focused...

added 0 minutes later

1 hour ago, broodje kip said:

Some great signings you’ve made that. Great start as well. Good luck

Thanks mate. Lets hope it continues...

Edited January 28, 2021 by Scratch

[Chris]

42 minutes ago, Scratch said:

Thanks mate. Never really experimented with the WM roles. Was going to say maybe I should try them somethime, but I can't see past Ws for this sort of challenge. I am very very aerial focused...

Me too mate. It seems to be the most effective way of singling out a striker. I'd much rather play straight through the middle but the game just doesn't like it... Atleast, I've not found a working method yet anyway.

You might be surprised at how many crosses the WMs make tbh. Although I find them much more effective without wing backs sitting behind them, or using IWBs instead. 

[Scratch]

4 hours ago, Chris said:

Me too mate. It seems to be the most effective way of singling out a striker. I'd much rather play straight through the middle but the game just doesn't like it... Atleast, I've not found a working method yet anyway.

You might be surprised at how many crosses the WMs make tbh. Although I find them much more effective without wing backs sitting behind them, or using IWBs instead. 

To be honest, I think through the middle works a little better than last year, but there's nothing like leaving the striker in the box by himself and crossing it in to make sure that most of the chances fall to him! 🤣

Will have to try WMs sometime, sounds promising, but not this time around as I want to try to stick the approach I set out with. Maybe next time I try this though! 😄

[Scratch]

End of Season 1

No further transfers in the January window - I need to give these youngsters a chance to develop. Here are the screenshots anyway:

Spoiler

 

From a team point of view, it was a reasonably successful season, winning everything except the CL final:

Spoiler

 

As for Ronny, he stayed injury free, but is slowing down:

And he ended up scoring 64 goals this season:

 

Given that he had 25 on Jan 1, that means that in 2021, he has so far scored 39 goals in 29 games. 

From looking at the successful completions of this challenge, I think I'm trouble here. The most games anyone has gotten out of Ronaldo in the first half of season two is 25. He still needs 39 goals, so he needs to improve his ratio, while he's deteriorating.

The only thing that gives me any sort of hope is that the wingers have leveled up to the point where they have 16 or 17 crossing, so the delivery is getting better and will continue to improve. I may need to dip into the transfer market to improve team further. 

But I'm not confident heading into the final leg of the challenge.

 

Edited January 29, 2021 by Scratch

[broodje kip]

Tough job you’ve next season Scratch, I hope you can do it. Good luck 🙏

[Scratch]

17 minutes ago, broodje kip said:

Tough job you’ve next season Scratch, I hope you can do it. Good luck 🙏

Thanks mate. Like I say, not confident, this one is a tough challenge. If I fall short I will have to totally go back to the drawing board.

[Rob]

I hope this is a ‘live’ post because we could be in for a classic here. It’ll be the age old debate of whether it’s more important for your focussed player or the supporting cast to be awesome.

Best of luck!  

[Scratch]

5 minutes ago, Rob said:

I hope this is a ‘live’ post because we could be in for a classic here. It’ll be the age old debate of whether it’s more important for your focussed player or the supporting cast to be awesome.

Best of luck!  

Thanks mate... 

If it comes down to the wire, I might do the live blogging approach.

Two major signings in the off season: Sane to see if he improves service from the LW spot, over Diaby and Saka who are okay, but not great; and Barella, just because...

[broodje kip]

1 minute ago, Scratch said:

Thanks mate... 

If it comes down to the wire, I might do the live blogging approach.

Two major signings in the off season: Sane to see if he improves service from the LW spot, over Diaby and Saka who are okay, but not great; and Barella, just because...

Because he’s Nicolo Barella!

[Dai_]

This might be tight. Are you at all tempted to use your TT tactic? See if that gets you the goals you need?

[Scratch]

41 minutes ago, broodje kip said:

Because he’s Nicolo Barella!

Um, yeah, hes' great and I really like him in the team. Although, now I have too many top notch midfielders (7 for 3 positions, not counting Berge oe Maier) so gotta juggle them...

[Scratch]

2 minutes ago, Dai_ said:

This might be tight. Are you at all tempted to use your TT tactic? See if that gets you the goals you need?

I tried it for one game and it was meh... I think it would work if I persisted with it though - but still trying to get the 4 3 2 1 (or actually 2 2 3 2 1) working.

He only got 2 goals in the first 3 games, then this:

The difference was I'd had him on AF and I changed him back to TM because he's down to 12 Pace now. I'm assuming there's more to it than that though and it won't be some magic bullet, but I'll keep trying this for a while.

The other thing I'm doing is playing James in every game on the right wing instead of alternating him with Saelemaeker. His Crossing is 17 and hopefully will improve faster if he plays every game and then will lead to better service. But only 4 games in so we'll see how it all goes. 

[Dai_]

11 minutes ago, Scratch said:

I tried it for one game and it was meh... I think it would work if I persisted with it though - but still trying to get the 4 3 2 1 (or actually 2 2 3 2 1) working.

He only got 2 goals in the first 3 games, then this:

The difference was I'd had him on AF and I changed him back to TM because he's down to 12 Pace now. I'm assuming there's more to it than that though and it won't be some magic bullet, but I'll keep trying this for a while.

The other thing I'm doing is playing James in every game on the right wing instead of alternating him with Saelemaeker. His Crossing is 17 and hopefully will improve faster if he plays every game and then will lead to better service. But only 4 games in so we'll see how it all goes. 

Well good luck. I hope you get there man. 🤞

[Rich]

Hope you get the 39 goals Scratch, it’s a tough challenge this one, good luck mate 🤞🏻

[Scratch]

22 minutes ago, RichD said:

Hope you get the 39 goals Scratch, it’s a tough challenge this one, good luck mate 🤞🏻

Thanks mate. I'll either fall well short, or it will be right down to the wire. Not sure which will those I'll prefer actually!

[Scratch]

So, October 23rd, with 12 games played, meaning we're about halfway through and he has 19 goals (exactly half of the target):

[broodje kip]

That’s great. Keep going.