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Career Tree in Ireland - 27 seasons, quit with LOI in 9th overall


Mr Tree
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Great work mate.

Nice spread with the goals! That said, maybe you need one of them to step up and bag like 60 or something so they can send El Gamal packing and claim the World Footballer of the Year award. :D

68 games is a lot! I did notice that there's an awful lot of Cups there. How many cups have you won according to your profile page? I always wanted to crack 100 trophies (cups + league wins), but never quite made it there, but I reckon you're gonna crush that!

As for why I killed my Cork career before it began, a lot of it had to do with the fact that I was looking to do a 1KC and didn't want to compromise the striker and winger quality. None of the options I liked were willing to come and the ones that would come just didn't inspire me. I suspect it would be more fun if I was going for team success.

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Season Fifteen

Because the Irish league is a summer league, these seasons have a weird flow - a big crescendo in the middle, and then a long tail...

Fortunately we tend to have 3 or 4 games before the Champs League starts, so fitness is fine. The team's in good shape now, so we crushed Juve in the semi:

1243630379_Screenshot_20210428-210555_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.4caba71f605f0fccbc7be3b907d3a2ed.jpg

Before sealing back-to-back titles with a comfortable victory over P$G:

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So it was a successful season:

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Although we bizarrely lost to UCD in the League Cup first round, a good FMMed contender with a 21-4 shot-count, but I've had worse...

We struggled at times to score goals, with Tommy Talbot falling apart and young Nordtveit not really pushing on as expected. You can clearly see the drop-off here:

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But we were getting our mojo back by the end, giving Linfield their largest ever thrashing in the All-Ireland Cup:

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Our first CL trophies have seen us just about creep into the top page for league rankings:

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Still a long way to go, and the rest of the Irish league doesn't seem keen - Dundalk were runners-up this season while embarking on this comical European run that did see one success, at least:

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Shamrock only did slightly better in their group stage (which they didn't have to qualify for), but fell apart domestically, finishing 7th and missing out next year...

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And Derry and Sligo lost at the first opportunity in Euro Cup II :(

A quick look at the manager profile now, halfway through the career. €250m+ in the bank plus two Champs League successes is only 14 Transfer Acumen? Ok :)

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Player of the Season

Think we had 60+ games overall - my youth keepers played a couple before i loaned them all out:

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Don't think we've actually looked at Tuchel yet - i was lucky to spot him young, a Neuer regen i suppose... Now the best player in the world...

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I don't he'll hang around till he's 30, but he seems happy enough for now...

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Thanks for reading! 

Edited by Mr Tree
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Another great season mate. 

Tuchel is fantastic! I love keepers like that. You might be able to keep him if you keep winning the UCL.

On 30/04/2021 at 17:33, Mr Tree said:

A quick look at the manager profile now, halfway through the career. €250m+ in the bank plus two Champs League successes is only 14 Transfer Acumen? Ok :)

Yeah, I ended up with 1 in my Beijing save, had £2.6B sitting in the bank, a world class team, won everything we could, went 859 games or so undefeated... But a transfer acumen on 1... It got raised on the SI Games forum and Marc Vaughan was going to look into it, so hopefully it will be improved at some point in future, but this is clearly ridiculous. 

Anyway, going great mate, keep it up!

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Cheers @Scratch, much appreciated! The (little) big change i want is to see matches get automatically postponed if at least 3 players are unavailable due to international duty. It used to be that way (that amount) in real-life in England, not sure now. But for whatever reason (mainly unlikely success), Ireland has a couple of buggy bits with fixtures - they keep organising games for me 2 days before CL group games (that's bearable, my reserves are so strong) - and they keep sticking a game or two for me in the October international break, where now i tend to have hardly anyone available. I had literally just 11 fit players to play Shamrock, and then one got injured! So we lost 1-0, ending a 7-year league unbeaten run as well as my new club record 102 games without defeat. Doesn't really matter ofc, just a bit irritating. 

 

Season Sixteen

I suppose I've just given away that we went back-to-back-to-back :)

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Real Madrid and Barcelona were swept aside (i even played a 16yo CM in Madrid for the lolz), before Juventus again in the semi... it didn't go much better for them:

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And we saw off Bayern in the final:

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Unfortunately, we've lost a European place - we were speculating on how this is calculated with @DIRECTFXearlier in the thread, it's curious that it's changed, and sadly it doesn't really help much for the challenge :( i might have to go through qualifying for the CL, but maybe the holders go directly to the group stage anyway (so I'll just have to keep winning it!). And none of my colleagues will get a guaranteed spot in Euro Cup or Euro Cup II groups, as opposed to recent years :(

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This table also shows the horrible truth that, even with 3 UCL's in a row, i have less than half the points of the top 4...

My friends further showed why we are lower by losing every tie possible again this season... except for Cork, who somehow battled through to the Euro Cup II groups, and then even beat Panathinaikos, before losing 5 in a row...

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"Suddenly" I see that this might get a bit boring... I'll see if i can keep riding this Champs League streak, and then maybe reconsider (see if i can build another Irish team up)... although, now that I've said that, no chance of winning Champs League again, so maybe next year will be decision time already! 

 

Player of the Season

Top performers this season:

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Young Paddy is another quality winger in the mould of Shields and Sweeney, who's slowly been ousted by the talent we have out wide and has now been listed. Stank is next in line - i wanted him to go on loan but he refuses all moves, saying he's too good. He's got a point but I've got loads of good players, dammit... Hart is a tasty 17yo who I'm slowly easing in, looks very decent, but hopefully we'll get to him...

Tuchel won World Player of the Year again:

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And hopefully the future's bright, with our loaned players filling the podium here:

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But this year's star had to be Henry, affectionately known as Christine, who we'll sadly probably have to sell soon because he already had one big sulk over a move, but despite that he performed very well in general, so who knows - we'll see if we can keep him under control. 

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Signed a few years back from F*lham, Christine benefitted from an affiliate loan before breaking through last year:

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Thanks for reading! 

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Although you have lost a CL place, you have moved up 1 place in the table strange how the numbers are allocated the country below you in the table has 2 CL places, well done on another CL win

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Cheers @Paul186- no worries, we're creeping up and i guess the allocations are quite "fluid", as we will see...

 

Season Seventeen

We got a 4th Champions League in a row:

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And even became world champions, after an incredible semi:

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After all that, we were in quite a hole domestically:

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But we have the squad to cope with a hectic schedule, so we set our highest goal difference so far, matching our highest number of goals in the league, and wrapped up the other trophies too:

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Ireland hit the top 10 overall, and got our CL qualification place back:

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But as ever, my friends didn't contribute much, with two teams losing immediately and one advancing past one round:

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Player of the Season 

Top performers:

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Young guns Johansen and (not shown) Kenneally both had around 20 goals despite being away on loan for parts of the season, very pleasing development. 

Don't think we've actually looked at Crowe yet - he's been a dynamite performer from my youth academy. 200+ games now and great contributions so far...

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Quite affordable too ;)

 

Thanks for reading! 

Edited by Mr Tree
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12 hours ago, Mr Tree said:

Cheers @Paul186- no worries, we're creeping up and i guess the allocations are quite "fluid", as we will see...

 

Season Seventeen

We got a 4th Champions League in a row:

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And even became world champions, after an incredible semi:

382022218_Screenshot_20210504-113530_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.1b47d9feeedf3e503c657faee685bc30.jpg

390816070_Screenshot_20210504-114445_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.cb5149bf9b1f08afd44b014a90af7e55.jpg

After all that, we were in quite a hole domestically:

602052868_Screenshot_20210504-114541_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.36f78f2759af0ef15fa9d671b2368e17.jpg

But we have the squad to cope with a hectic schedule, so we set our highest goal difference so far, matching our highest number of goals in the league, and wrapped up the other trophies too:

1629720291_Screenshot_20210505-210344_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.53fce5d011a67dbe3ed9f920402d41d9.jpg

Ireland hit the top 10 overall, and got our CL qualification place back:

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But as ever, my friends didn't contribute much, with two teams losing immediately and one advancing past one round:

642605961_Screenshot_20210504-203825_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.e517904d741bdb35f920f5ab23c93fe3.jpg

 

Player of the Season 

Top performers:

205987298_Screenshot_20210505-210502_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.96e81cef29cd33fc8b65125752a5b120.jpg

Young guns Johansen and (not shown) Kenneally both had around 20 goals despite being away on loan for parts of the season, very pleasing development. 

Don't think we've actually looked at Crowe yet - he's been a dynamite performer from my youth academy. 200+ games now and great contributions so far...

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Quite affordable too ;)

 

Thanks for reading! 

@Mr Tree What a run bro had to catch up been busy but wow Irish dominance.. Seems that quirky Coefficient spots hit you but lucky just short time then you got into Top 10! Just wish there was some explanation why the spots not consistent.  Can’t believe you already got Top 10 after 17 seasons just over half career , it would take me all 30 to get near that.  The grind has gotta feel better than just taking a big club then just buy everyone you want and upgrade all facilities , staff within first 2 years then dominate everything ? Seems to also help with keep your own interest with that grind and to see how players play out a career just gotta have the early patience . 
 

Seems the other teams still not helping you would think between regen Irish players in the league , the league reputation improvement and your loan guys they would be helping more in Europe ? Wonder if it’s like teams stuck in the small league mindset ? Might be worth checking if you get time the other Irish clubs in Europe transfer history . They might still be only buying low cost talent ? Not bigger players you need to progress in Europe? I know you said gonna stay at Shelbourne but tempting for you to just hope to 2-3 other teams real quick and see if can get quick upgrades for finances, staff, facilities add affiliates then see if can get em decent young players on 5 year deals with no release clauses so they stay or sold big money . It seems when World Class reputation and got gold badge you can sign players easier at lower clubs even not have to add release clauses and upgrades should be accepted first ask as your profile is big time . Maybe you could do it as test save but keep this going but the test save see how old club Shelbourne does without you while you improve rest of clubs try to give you idea if it helps in the end or not. Don’t want you to do it in main save if it doesn’t work well . 
 

Anyway great job you are flying thru seasons and doing enough season write ups to keep us informed seems a good balance . Stay interested you are so far in bud . Lots want to see finish 30 seasons 

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Cheers @DIRECTFX, appreciate your interest mate! 

 

Season Eighteen

I'll fly through this cos, i guess the combination of my experience and system, plus the other clubs' total ineptitude in later years, just means I'm streets ahead at the moment 😮

For now, objective 1 is to see how long i can make my Champions League streak with Shels (because, not to kill the suspense but, it is now at 5)...

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Skipper tried to make a game of it, but we were still too strong in the end. 

By the way that came after a total destruction of Barcelona in the semi, check this out:

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Objective 2 will almost certainly be jumping to the next available job in Ireland and seeing what happens. I've created a monster - how long will it take me to overcome? 

Sadly, there just seems to be no hope of the other clubs in Ireland elevating themselves on their own accord...

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(Shamrock's run of red there put Harry Kewell out of a job, bless him)

We're still creeping up, but it's hard to see us getting much further...

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It's still fun and I'm still learning and optimising my squad-building... sold a couple of stalwart strikers this season when they weren't threatening a place in the team even with an injury in front of them... both went ludicrously cheap and should still have a good couple of seasons in the Prem. Moody departed after about 120 in 230ish games, while the legend Decky Hand said goodbye too after 479 games and 334 goals...1452633638_Screenshot_20210508-100124_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.91cc205e044900f23fe1add34a496fe9.jpg

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We didn't get a perfect league season (two draws), but we got our highest goals for and lowest against, with a record +108 GD (i.e. i literally won every game by 3 goals, on average).

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And i had a look at these screens and was happy to see that we had 3 of the 4 best rising stars in the world....

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Of course domestically, that list is insane - i have the top 19 (plenty out on loan), and #20 was released by me after his first season :D

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Sorry, final note before looking at the squad, really not flying through this at all - but a World Cup happened (halfway through my league season, how rude) - France won, with a midfielder sold many years ago popping up with the winner:

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Player of the Season

Plenty of goals:

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Young strikers Hart and Kenneally make my quartet of strikers terrifying :)

But a look at Johansen (aka Haaland) will have to wait, because...

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So yep he's finally "made it" - signed a few years ago, it's been a careful process but now he's dynamite, with poor Crowe and Crull (who were so good for me) being ousted as this guy and Stankovic break through:

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He's not all that impressive, but he has some useful attributes of course...

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Thanks for reading - I'll be back soon to see if we could make it six in a row! 

Edited by Mr Tree
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Well done on another Champions League win. But I agree it will be hard for Ireland to make more progress from here, the gap to the next place is large and only you doing well in Europe.

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If you take another job it’s going to be interesting to see how long it takes you to overtake Shels domestically but also whether Shels can maintain there status as a European powerhouse with the AI a calling the shots.

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And i felt like... tearing it all down and starting from scratch! 

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Season Nineteen

And before i go any further, many thanks to @Paul186and @FuddledFoxfor their support - much appreciated! 

So yeah, with our Champions League streak over, i thought it'll be more interesting from here to jump ship and try to raise another team up. Relegation-threatened UCD were the first option to come up, so i didn't even have to move house :)

We started as we meant to go on, of course:

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Ever the idiot, i don't have a league table from when i took over, but the bottom two (myself and Drogheda) were a bit adrift. And Drog then promptly ended Shels' unbeaten league campaign, of course!!

I had to scramble with signings to fix an ever-farcical AI squad that i inherited (e.g. six keepers, five of whom had 0.5-star potential) - i obviously tried to loan as many Shels players as i could get away with, which ended up at about 6 i think. And fortunately there are plentiful free transfer options so i could keep going even after the deadline. 

We started playing well but still had our struggles, and i got a bit worried as a defeat to Shels dropped us to the bottom with 4 games left.

But we won our last 4 to escape comfortably in the end:

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We made a cup final too, but ran into the juggernaut there:

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Gartland is a winger who i actually released early from Shels - doing a decent job for me now. 

The league team of the year demonstrated all the game's biases...

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Shels survived in Europe without me, for now:

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But our friends carried on doing very little:

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To be fair, both Sligo and Shamrock got past one round at least:

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I've done some work in Celje (Slovenia), nice place... anyway...

Can i get back into the mix with UCD before Shelbourne fall apart...

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And here's the end of season wrap-up:

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(that Leinster Cup must've happened before i arrived)

 

Player of the Season

Different ball-game now :D

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You can see the influence of my Shelbourne loans, plus a couple of foreign frees... but our Fortunes changed as Tommie improved, thankfully, so he gets the nod:

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Thanks for reading! 

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Just been catching up on this, amazing work with Shelbourne in the last couple of years! Onto a new challenge, I wonder what impact it will have on the league standings, I guess it depends how quickly you get UCD to be a juggernaut. How are the budgets looking now the league's reputation has improved a bit?

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Shame about the streak ending, but I think you moving will help you get the league status up higher as Shelburne will continue to do well in Europe for a few more seasons, it takes a while for the AI to destroy the squad you've created.

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Great work mate, very impressive work with Shelbourne, hope they don't plummet now you've left. Good luck with UCD, should be an interesting challenge to build them up at this point of the save. 

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Many thanks for the comments, everyone! @StuartM, @Rich, @Paul186, @Scratchand @broodje kip, much appreciated! 

@geordiekrispyyou'd be surprised - i checked out Shels squad halfway through the season (so about a year after i left), almost everyone had a little exclamation mark!! I clicked on a few but they mostly just said "thinks the manager has lost the dressing room" or "dislikes the negative atmosphere" - i couldn't (be bothered to) locate the root cause. They've already sold a few, but they've bought a couple of wonderkids too... And they lost in the Champs League Last 16, to Dortmund :( No 7th final in a row, then...

@Albionic here's an overview:

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So Shels' success hasn't really made much difference to the island, I'd say, although to be fair I've been throwing around 1k per week contracts which probably aren't the norm in real life... i can't remember how it was when i started with Shels, but yeah I've been able to pick up decent freebies and loans, all good... Also worth noting that my facilities are Excellent-Excellent, which is very handy - not sure if UCD start with that or if I'm just lucky here...

The above screenshot was before my first substantial sale - i sold three guys for about €1m in total during the course of the season, so now i have some funds for upgrades and higher wage budget, plus a little transfer flexibility. 

 

Season Twenty

We started like this:

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...which helped us to overcome this:

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...and with a 12-game unbeaten run to finish the season, we coasted to second place and a spot in the Champs League qualifiers:

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Shelbourne sealed the title with a late equaliser at my place with 4 games to go, but it was never really a race (after my summer wobble). Very happy with how we held on to 2nd place though! 

 

Maybe i shouldn't have been so quick to write off my Irish friends in Europe, though... (or maybe i should've been much quicker really, but go with it)... They all did semi-respectably...

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Ok Shels continued to fall back, but that was predictable, and at least they still have a spot in the Europa League....

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Not great but at least some fun... and we even had a third team playing till December...

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Looks like a fun group, too - not far from getting through!

Even the losers weren't bad:

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(Sorry, didn't realise i chopped off the bottom there) - Got through two rounds, so that's positive! 

Shamrock were the only real let-down, but they had a tough tie and they suck so...

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We appear to have tumbled down the table, but the points totals are very close:

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It'll be interesting to see how this year's exploits affect next year's rankings - especially as any seedings etc might directly impact me! 

 

Player of the Season

Squad overview:

1381898921_Screenshot_20210519-091250_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.15d60dccdfa37205ccc17b7cfc01d55c.jpg

Got another 6 or 7 loans from Shelbourne, obviously a useful farm that i can exploit for now but I'll try to get self-sufficient, plus it leaves me hugely weakened when i play them :D

White was one, two hat-tricks in first three games, but fk me, the kid couldn't stay fit. 18 games during the whole season is crazy. 

Atkinson and Fletcher were midseason frees who did well... but yeah, the main man this year has to be the kid i released from Shelbourne at 18, Luke Gartland:

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Made his Ireland debut this season  proud moment for the club...

Btw we got SEVEN members of the Team of the Year:

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Counting Devaney, Levingston and White, who were all on season loans with us...

Thank you for reading! 

 

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Great job mate, good to see the other teams at least trying this time around! 

Must have been a bit of a culture shock taking over a club that's a little behind on the financial side of things. 

23 hours ago, Mr Tree said:

Got another 6 or 7 loans from Shelbourne, obviously a useful farm that i can exploit for now but I'll try to get self-sufficient, plus it leaves me hugely weakened when i play them

I've always enjoyed the inverse of that when I'm the one doing the loaning out! When all their good players are mine, it doesn't leave much for them to put on the park against me. :D  But yeah, must no be so great to be on the other side of that.

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Many thanks @Paul186, always appreciated. Thanks too to @Scratch - the finance wasn't too bad, i had similar scenarios in the previous career, but yeah i did have a couple of days off summoning up the energy to deal with it before jumping back in! 

 

Season Twenty One

A bit of a mad season, not quite sure where to start...

How about some good news from my ex, who at least went on to win the Europa League:

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They sacked my replacement and recruited Scott Parker to take over, so it's war now...

Which made my first trophy all the sweeter:

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And we even added another, after hanging on in extra time with 10 men:

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More importantly, we embarked upon our maiden Champions League campaign... and it went astonishingly well 😮

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Followed by:

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And then this to complete qualification:

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(maintaining the record of scoring 5 in every home match)

A tough draw against the holders came out:

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Two familiar names there, with Giroud and Christine being ex-Shelbourne players. 

Liverpool smashed all-comers but i won my other two home games and drew in Czechia to leave myself in a strong position before a horrendous last match...

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I didn't understand the rules/situation, so went all guns blazing in injury time, and then nearly snapped my phone... before seeing that actually, it was all good :)

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The board were happy, presumably? No!

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This would be after signing a kid for a free and flipping him for €2.5m inside six months, plus signing a shit-hot keeper, left-back and centre-mid at the deadline. No pleasing some people!!

As you can see, we were competing for the title... and really, we could and maybe should have had them... drew two of my last three, threw everything forward but couldn't get a winner, ah well, maybe next year...

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Not bothered really, we're building and Shels should be miles ahead. Europe is what really matters for the challenge, and with my qualification, Ireland will have two in the Champs League Last 16 for the first time ever 😮

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My reward is Borussia Dortmund next...

Meanwhile our colleagues went back to being totally useless:

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16-1 over the course of 10 days, fun for Sligo :D

So we slipped a bit last year, down to 14th overall now:

1540133338_Screenshot_20210523-152111_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.78645ddb223d869940a2e94ec56ce563.jpg

But hopefully some good points to come this year, with Shels adding the Super Cup too:

332460850_Screenshot_20210523-153219_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.39612717b7a3ef722fd322820881ecb4.jpg

 

Player of the Season

Got White back and managed to keep him mostly fit, so he formed a great 70-goal partnership with Atkinson:

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Don't wanna give awards to loans, so Atto gets the nod:

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I guess being in the Champions League is boosting valuations nicely, which should help me to sell one or two and fund building the next stage :)

Not bad for a free transfer 18 months ago, anyway...

Thanks for reading! 

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Um, wow....

234241217_Screenshot_20210524-215627_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.98b440e819a15a7a30c55208d18774aa.jpg

After the amazing first leg, going 3-0 (8-4) up only to be pegged back by two first-half injury-time goals, before three goals in the last 15 minutes left us tied at 9-9 after 180 minutes. Then falling behind in extra time, only to somehow get the winner on away goals and hold on for the remainder. 

Shelbourne knocked out Man City, meaning the last 8 featured two sides from Madrid, two sides from Deutschland and two teams from Dublin 😮

We got a tie with P$G, literally... 2-2 in both games. But then we bagged an extra-time winner and suddenly, we were in the semis!

RB Leipzig conquered Shels and alas, they took me out too - not for the lack of trying! 

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We're actually having a rough domestic season, unable to get White back on loan or replace him well, plus a few injuries... been playing a 16yo up-front more than i really should... So i don't feel I've quite established UCD as a continental power yet... but that was a good start! 

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Cheers @Mr B- alas, no repeat this year...

 

Season Twenty Two

Honestly, I'm still reeling here...

The Competition Rules say that there is a Championship playoff if the top two finish with the same "record". So I'm unclear if I'd have won overall or just forced a playoff...

But i was 2-0 up on the last day, got pegged back to 2-2, then missed a penalty :(

Shelbourne drew, so this is how it ended up:

941662712_Screenshot_20210528-091025_FM21Mobile.thumb.jpg.aeff404f5772c167ae83d0f66cc4447e.jpg

 

AND THEN...

I beat Real Madrid at home, giving me the better head-to-head record. Then i beat Salzburg comfortably on the last round of matches. 

But Real went out and tonked Napoli, forcing a three-way tie where i missed out! 

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I stared in disbelief for a while... but hey, it's only a game, and we're doing very nicely anyway. Think the squad developed well this year, so maybe we can have a nice run at the Europa League next season. 

I was disappointed that 2 Irish teams in the previous Champs League quarter-finals didn't lead to more points:

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...but we're 10pts clear there of Serbia and Greece in 15th and 16th, whereas we're only 2.5pts behind 10th-placed Ukraine. 9th has been the highest i reached so far - maybe 8th is possible if i can leave UCD nicely and get a third club on the rise...

 

Shelbourne dealt with a tough CL group, so it looks like we can count on them to deliver points for a while yet...

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Dundalk battled past Sturm Graz with two draws to reach the Euro Cup groups, but they didn't get any further:

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(I'll play Rostov in the Europa League last 16)

Bohemians got through a couple of rounds too:

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Shamrock went out immediately though on away goals, part of a disastrous season where they got relegated too 😮

Shels won 6 trophies overall - wasn't my year in the cups:

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Player of the Season

Only a couple of Shelbourne players on loan this year, plus strikers from Liverpool and Chelsea:

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Gartland broke his leg, out for 8 months 😮

Can't give awards to loanees, and besides, young Swedish winger Mellberg broke through emphatically this season:

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Thanks for reading :)

Edited by Mr Tree
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Unlucky Tree, hopefully a Europa League win will help Ireland rating, just make sure your keeper can take penalties as well as save them.

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Thanks @Paul186, as always - unfortunately had a bad start to S23, but a good end! 

 

Season Twenty Three

I was knocked out by Rostov immediately in the Europa League, 4-1 up in the home leg, conceded two late and then lost 1-0 in Russia. Didn't screenshot anything. Bah.

Sold Mellberg too for €35m, so comfortable now financially. 

It took us a while to get going, and our defence had some issues as i blooded a young gun - we shipped 15 goals in our two visits to Shelbourne this year 😮

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Yep, that's a defensive midfielder that i signed but apparently his signing was an "aberration" at the time, scoring a double hat-trick - nice! 

Fortunately the recency bias helped me, with my two late goals earning me a Team Rating of 7.0 :D

And Shels were far from a juggernaut elsewhere, allowing me to seal UCD's first title with a game to spare:

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I survived a brute of a group to advance in the Champs League too:

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Shelbourne advanced too:

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And the others did little, as ever:

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(Athlone ended up getting relegated too... and Shamrock didn't bounce straight back, in fact finishing just a point or two ahead of their B team in the first division :D )

The points from last year fell our way though, as we went flying back up to 10th:

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Season overview - I seemed to draw Shelbourne in the early rounds of every cup this season, but maybe that worked out well overall :)

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Player of the Season

Squad overview, led by my sub keeper :D

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Gartland came back well from his broken leg, Reilly stepped up to replace Mellberg on the other wing. Atkinson (our skipper) missed a fair bit with injury. Howlett (18yo striker) did NOT score 27, bug i can't be bothered with, but he is developing well anyway. O'Keefe and Cotter are two I've managed to pick up off Shelbourne after loans, with Cotter particularly inspirational, so he gets the top prize:

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So I'll probably try this Champions League run with UCD and then move on to another Irish club - UCD's base might not be so solid, but I've not got much time left now...

Thanks for reading! 

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