Career ?PinaColada - A Double 1KC Attempt

[mcandrew003]

Great update mate! Flowed really well and a fantastic read. Some very good transfers in there, Rajkovic and Amavi among them. Tactically, you seem secure, although the goals is slightly worrying ( I can't say anything, in my save I only score 39 with Ajax ) but I'm sure with your tactical expertise and a transfer here and there, the lads will smash it! Keep up the good work mate!

[Scratch]

2 minutes ago, mcandrew003 said:

Great update mate! Flowed really well and a fantastic read. Some very good transfers in there, Rajkovic and Amavi among them. Tactically, you seem secure, although the goals isn't slightly worrying ( I can't say anything, in my save I only score 39 with Ajax ) but I'm sure with your tactical expertise and a transfer here and there, the lads will smash it! Keep up the good work mate!

Thanks mate! It was a bit long though wasn't it?  They won't all be that long, but lots happens at the start of a career and I caught it all this time around...

The lack of goals is the big worry, but that will come. With the Armstrong career, Celtic were scoring between 110 and 130 goals in the league at our peak. I'm planning to get there again, but need four or five seasons leveling up the players to get to that point.

That said, I was truly surprised by only getting 47 in the league. In contrast, Armstrong got 53 himself (in all competitions) in my first season with him. But then he was 19 and a ready made goal scorer, but these lads were 16 and 17... 

[mcandrew003]

I didn't mind the length, it was jammed with info, so I quite enjoyed it! 

If my Maths is correct ( it probably isn't ) out of the 2000 goals Your after, you currently have it 2.1% of the goals required. Not the most beautiful number, but I'm confident you will hit + 25 with both of them next year! 

[Brenty92]

I actually really enjoyed the lengthy first update, it was almost necessary ? I'm intrigued as to how you got so much for your players, I always struggle to sell Janko and McGregor for more than 1.5/2 mil lol

[Scratch]

57 minutes ago, mcandrew003 said:

I didn't mind the length, it was jammed with info, so I quite enjoyed it! 

If my Maths is correct ( it probably isn't ) out of the 2000 goals Your after, you currently have it 2.1% of the goals required. Not the most beautiful number, but I'm confident you will hit + 25 with both of them next year! 

Thanks! It took quite a while to put it all together, so glad it's worthwhile. I was actually worried it was too long. I'm sure it is for some people.

I haven't done that particular maths, thankfully. If I had, I'd probably lose all hope! Only 2.1%? This isn't gonna work!

[Ashez]

And I thought I did long updates, damn that was a lot to take in haha. 

Start wise I'm not sure you could ask for much more tbh, both are young and done decently well, in terms of making headway towards a 2k target it does make it ever so daunting though haha. Decent start on the DT challenge though . This is why I usually use 19-20 year olds as I hate playing these dragging seasons waiting for players to develop lol, thankfully they are entertaining to read however ;). 

A 442 or any two up top formations are my least favourite in the game, it's a shape I just don't like or feel happy with. Like my 433 is awesome but dropping one striker back and it falls apart, if I drop two strikers back it works again lol, two strikers is just hard to balance IMO. 

[Scratch]

55 minutes ago, Brenty92 said:

I actually really enjoyed the lengthy first update, it was almost necessary ? I'm intrigued as to how you got so much for your players, I always struggle to sell Janko and McGregor for more than 1.5/2 mil lol

Thanks!

It's a real mystery to me as well. When I did the Armstrong career, I got a lot less for the same players. But that was with an older version of FMM 2017, so maybe they tweaked the transfer fees for Scotland or something. Or maybe it is because I just have Scotland loaded. Who knows! But now I'm getting a lot more, but I'm also paying a lot more. On my first aborted save, I picked up Pinamonti and Colidio for about £5M or £6M combined, whereas this time they were about £14M. 

I should point out that Janko was almost double his list price and it only got so high because of an auction... Gotta love those!

[Scratch]

1 minute ago, Ashez said:

And I thought I did long updates, damn that was a lot to take in haha. 

Start wise I'm not sure you could ask for much more tbh, both are young and done decently well, in terms of making headway towards a 2k target it does make it ever so daunting though haha. Decent start on the DT challenge though . This is why I usually use 19-20 year olds as I hate playing these dragging seasons waiting for players to develop lol, thankfully they are entertaining to read however ;). 

A 442 or any two up top formations are my least favourite in the game, it's a shape I just don't like or feel happy with. Like my 433 is awesome but dropping one striker back and it falls apart, if I drop two strikers back it works again lol, two strikers is just hard to balance IMO. 

Thanks! I totally get what you're saying on starting with 19-20 year old instead of kids. The first season was pretty damn frustrating, especially when Pinamonti went a couple of months without a goal! But I'm going to need every last season I can get with this.  I'll take 15 goals when they're 17 and I'll take 12 goals when they're 40 and everything in between, and I might just scrape over the line, LOL.  

I really haven't been able to find a tactic I'm happy with. 3 at the back seems harder with this year's version, as they just attack us down the flanks and that opens us up for goals. So I want 4 at the back. But I really want 3 in central midfield. With just 2, I can't seem to dominate matches... So 4 at the back and 3 in central midfield, then I either go 4 3 1 winger and 2 strikers (but then they go down the other wing) or maybe I need to consider a 4 3 3 (but then I lose Pavon). Tricky...

I haven't tried 3 upfront yet, but I have been thinking about it. I used my 2 5 3 relatively successfully with Armstrong when he got older, and that's the tactic I'm heading for eventually, but I just don't have the players to pull off 2 at the back yet. I was wondering about a 2 2 wingbacks 3 3, but haven't actually given it a go yet (mainly because there's no room for Pavon). But maybe it's time. Or maybe a 4 3 3 (I used that for years until a couple of versions ago).

Man, so many choices! But thanks, I think you've convinced me to experiment with 3 up front. 

[Brenty92]

Strange lol the mysteries of fmm ? Never mind, can't wait for next update!

[Scratch]

1 minute ago, Brenty92 said:

Strange lol the mysteries of fmm ? Never mind, can't wait for next update!

You got that right. The thing is I chose Celtic because I thought I knew exactly what I was getting myself into, only to find that everything is a little different, LOL...

[veerus]

Good start. Have you considered trying both as AF? I know it's not conventional but maybe they'll hold up the ball for each other and as a result score more?

[Scratch]

4 minutes ago, veerus said:

Good start. Have you considered trying both as AF? I know it's not conventional but maybe they'll hold up the ball for each other and as a result score more?

Hmm, interesting thought, thanks! I've always had more goal scoring success with Poachers that I didn't even consider it, but that sounds worth a try. Might give it a go, although right now, I'm planning to make them both Poachers with a DLF or even a DF (or even a TM) in between them.

I'm entering a stage of experimentation here and would love any advice!! Would 2 poachers even work with someone between them? Which of those 3 options would be best? etc! Thanks in advance. 

[Mr.Manager]

Hey man, just caught up. Very much looking forward to seeing how you get on! I think the formation could well be all important here... I do worry that the 4-2-2-2 is putting too much defensive responsibility on your midfielders.

[Taff]

Maybe not the start you wanted but Armstrong took a while if I remember so KIU

[BatiGoal]

Good start mate. The first season is always a "mess" with loads of players leaving and coming into the club, testing formations etc so it's hard to predict a fair number of goals you want your guys to score, never mind such a young duo. As long as there's progression. 

Nice touch on the training. I do the same unless I opt for a pressing/committed tackling type of play (which doesn't seem very effective tho on this EME) and my poor-tackling strikers get booked too often. In that case I leave the def train for strikers as it is.

Those penalties  epic!

[Scratch]

8 hours ago, Mr.Manager said:

Hey man, just caught up. Very much looking forward to seeing how you get on! I think the formation could well be all important here... I do worry that the 4-2-2-2 is putting too much defensive responsibility on your midfielders.

Thanks mate, I'm trying a 2 2 3 3 at the moment and it seems to be working fairly well, although the goals aren't necessarily going to the right people, so further tweaking is necessary.

[Scratch]

7 hours ago, Taff said:

Maybe not the start you wanted but Armstrong took a while if I remember so KIU

Armstrong actually had 53 goals in the first season, which is a lot more than these guys, but he was older and more experience and ready for it. These guys will get there in a season or two, so I'm not worried at this point...

[Scratch]

7 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Good start mate. The first season is always a "mess" with loads of players leaving and coming into the club, testing formations etc so it's hard to predict a fair number of goals you want your guys to score, never mind such a young duo. As long as there's progression. 

Nice touch on the training. I do the same unless I opt for a pressing/committed tackling type of play (which doesn't seem very effective tho on this EME) and my poor-tackling strikers get booked too often. In that case I leave the def train for strikers as it is.

Those penalties  epic!

Thanks mate! I actually like the first season a lot because I like shaping that mess! Hoping for more goals this season as we get a little more settled and they age up, but all going to plan.

I do actually switch training around occasionally for the defenders: once I'm happy with their defensive attributes, I might switch it around to work on their passing, etc. But normally don't change attackers because I'm not playing the pressing game in FMM 2017 (strikers wear out too quickly).

[Scratch]

For those interested, this is the formation I'm trying out now (with Attacking Direct and Centre, although sometimes with Short instead):

It's basically the 2 5 3 I used in the closing stages of Armstrong's career, except with the Wingers droping back a line to Wingbacks. 

It's working better than the shapes we tried last year and we seem to be scoring more goals, but ... it's not necessarily PinaColada who are scoring.  

I guess they just need some more seasoning... I'll persist with this one for now (10 games into the league season).

[Mr.Manager]

1 hour ago, scratch99 said:

For those interested, this is the formation I'm trying out now (with Attacking Direct and Centre, although sometimes with Short instead):

It's basically the 2 5 3 I used in the closing stages of Armstrong's career, except with the Wingers droping back a line to Wingbacks.

It's working better than the shapes we tried last year and we seem to be scoring more goals, but ... it's not necessarily PinaColada who are scoring.

I guess they just need some more seasoning... I'll persist with this one for now (10 games into the league season).

Thanks for sharing. How is Coludo doing as a DLF? I've never really used it but I had assumed it wasn't the best for goals. Could you push Ciftci back to an AM role and leave just the main two upfront?

[Scratch]

10 hours ago, Mr.Manager said:

Thanks for sharing. How is Coludo doing as a DLF? I've never really used it but I had assumed it wasn't the best for goals. Could you push Ciftci back to an AM role and leave just the main two upfront?

I'm still playing around with the roles, but the DLF P DLF was what I used with Armstrong and the DLFs seemed to be able to score fairly well. I tried P DLF P (with them both as P) but the DLF scored more than they did! I thought he'd be setting things up for them. I also tried Colidio in a AF role, but didn't notice much difference.

Actually I just noticed this - it seems all my forwards get "Shoots From Distance" when they are in the DLF role:

I guess that explains why they score okay from out there (if they are accurate). I guess I will change the third forward to a DF instead of a DLF as I don't really want them taking those shots. 

As for using an AM instead of the third forward: I actually like that idea a lot conceptually (it makes sense!), but I haven't had much luck with that in the past. It is on the list of things to try if this doesn't work out though.

[BatiGoal]

Need to do a bit more testing on EME but from what I've seen so far the CF role is similar to the CM one in midfield in terms of complementation. In my formations CMs basically complement the other role(s) in midfield depending on what's lacking. CF would in that case act mostly as a provider if placed between out and out "goalscorers", Poachers. But tricky part is that only worldclass players make good CFs.

[Ashez]

Starting to hate the fact I can't browse Vibe ATM without getting this stupid song stuck in my head , even had the missus singing it the other day haha. I say all careers need a hook and damn this has a good one! 

Tactics wise one suggestion I have is to try the spare striker as an ADF at FL or R as they can act like wingers sonewhat. Tbh I've not experimented much with it this year but I did a lot last year but not in a system like this. Would also likely need a reshuffling of the MC line though but in theory you could drop the WB on that side back and go a tad more attacking in midfield. Regarding DF's I don't find they do much as they never tackle or intercept the ball and from experience pace is vital for the role, they oddly attract a lot of headers and also score more than you'd think. Played around alot with it last year and my DF was scoring 35-50 goals with ease, it's one the many roles that doesn't work as expected or do what you'd think it would tbh. 

[Scratch]

5 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Need to do a bit more testing on EME but from what I've seen so far the CF role is similar to the CM one in midfield in terms of complementation. In my formations CMs basically complement the other role(s) in midfield depending on what's lacking. CF would in that case act mostly as a provider if placed between out and out "goalscorers", Poachers. But tricky part is that only worldclass players make good CFs.

Hmm, interesting. Hadn't considered that. I never use CFs because I'm worried they aren't good enough (and also because I don't really understand the role), but if I get a world class partner for them, I'll give it a go. Thanks! 

[Scratch]

5 hours ago, Ashez said:

Starting to hate the fact I can't browse Vibe ATM without getting this stupid song stuck in my head , even had the missus singing it the other day haha. I say all careers need a hook and damn this has a good one! 

Tactics wise one suggestion I have is to try the spare striker as an ADF at FL or R as they can act like wingers sonewhat. Tbh I've not experimented much with it this year but I did a lot last year but not in a system like this. Would also likely need a reshuffling of the MC line though but in theory you could drop the WB on that side back and go a tad more attacking in midfield. Regarding DF's I don't find they do much as they never tackle or intercept the ball and from experience pace is vital for the role, they oddly attract a lot of headers and also score more than you'd think. Played around alot with it last year and my DF was scoring 35-50 goals with ease, it's one the many roles that doesn't work as expected or do what you'd think it would tbh. 

Good, good, the song will be back in the charts in no time at this rate!! My master plan is working. 

Interesting idea about the wide DF. I haven't considered going wide at all, but maybe I should. The last time I went wide (mid Armstrong career), I went with DLFs to keep them back and create more space, but might try DF there as well. Sounds like they score too much though! Although in the first game after I went DF P DLF we scored 7 goals and the DF didn't get any of them. We haven't scored more than 1 or 2 per game since though, so I need change it up again.

[Scratch]

Update - Season 2

 

Season 1 started slowly for our chosen strikers, with Pinamonti missing the target set and Colidio only just meeting it. As season 2 rolls around, the target has increased and there is more pressure for the lads to step up, despite the fact they are still both just kids... How will they respond?

 

Note: Seeing no one told me to keep these shorter, I haven't!

 

Season Targets

 

Players: Last year the target was 25 goals (Colidio scored 27, Pinamonti 15). This year it steps up to 35 goals. That's still low compared to what they need to be scoring in a few years, but they are still young and inconsistent, so we can't expect too much from they yet. 35 goals each feels about right.

 

Team: The team is still in building mode, but we're aiming to win the league and the two domestic cups. We missed the Scottish Cup last year, but we should get it this year! As for the Champions League, we'd be happy just to make it out of the group stages again. It's the key to improving our reputation and building/keeping the team we need, but it will be a few years before we're strong enough to progress much further. We also scored only 47 goals in the League last year. This year we want 80. For comparison we had 103 in Armstrong's second season, so it's not that ambitious.

 

Board: The board still expect "great success in every area" this season, but decided to up the ante and give us £4.2M to achieve it. Watch out Europe, we're coming for your superstars! Clearly, I'm going to have to wheel and deal my way to success.

 

 

Staff

 

As I mentioned last time, we've had trouble getting all Gold staff because I only loaded Scotland and there just aren't many coaches in the game. Our two trouble points were being only able to get a Silver Youth coach and a Bronze Rehabilition Physio. We obviously want both to be Gold.

 

Our Silver Youth coach only has Normal aptitude and after the required time, he took the exam again and failed (again). Given there are only two other Youth coaches in the game, neither of whom are good enough, I decided to take a different tack. If I couldn't find the coach I needed, I'd make more coaches! Enter Xavi:

 

He was only Bronze level when he joined, but that Natural Aptitude meant that he passed the test as soon as he joined, putting him on par with 'the coach that couldn't pass'. After waiting 6 months, he took the test again and passed (again). Now I have the Gold level Youth coach I want and my youngsters are learning from a legend. Winning!

 

Of course, this approach isn't perfect. When you offer an existing player a coaching role you can't predict what Specialism or Aptitude they will have. I 'wasted' a few players before I found one that fit. For example, my first choice was Steven Gerrard, but he had a different Specialism so I had to sack him straight away. Now he is gone from the game as both a player and coach. Such a waste! Still, getting Xavi was a win.

 

Sadly, I couldn't use this approach to sort out my Physio problems. I spent a good chunk of time going through every single player over 30 who wasn't at a club, and offering them a coaching role to see if they said they'd be interested in a Physio position instead. None were. At the end of the season, we are still stuck with a Bronze Rehabilition Physio. Looks like we'll just have to wait until one of the top clubs' physios are happy to join us.

 

 

Transfers

 

Here are our transfers this season (even more than last season, especially on the way in).

 

Out:

Spoiler

 

Notes: 

• The biggest transfers were Bitton and Cabral who were our main men in central midfield last year. They were good, but not great, and we had some upgrades coming in that department.
• Joining them was Olsson who was a promising young midfielder, but whom would have been on the fringes. I would have kept him, but £12.5M looked like a good deal for him.
• We also sold Smallwood and Gago, after picking them up on free transfers. If the board won't give me money, I'll make some myself.
• We got rid of a bunch of youngsters that had been on loan, but who have no future at the club. 

 

In:

Spoiler

Notes:

• We bought quite a few central midfielders. Propper and Grenier are ready to go player who will go right into contention for a starting place. Maia is a highly rated youngster who will challenge for a place. 
• Dudu was brought to be a wide attacking midfielder. He's a very good player, but doesn't cost the earth.
• We had a bunch of free agents join us, although the only one who really played much was Stephens and even lost his place halfway through the year as youngsters started to come through.
• The rest are promising youngsters who we've bought (more on them below)

 

 

 

This season saw a change of approach. We didn't have much of a budget and it feels like everyone is over-inflated. The players I need, to turn us into a top team, all seem to cost too much. Even stepping stone players are mostly out of our reach. I guess that was the same in the Armstrong career too, but I'm more impatient this time around. I can see where we need to be.

 

Anyway, that lead me to rethink things and to focus on investing in promising young players that will grow into the players I want. That's also something I did with Armstrong, but I'm going more aggressive with it now, because a) I don't have much choice and b) I know it will work.

 

Here is an example of the type of player I targeted:

Spoiler

 

 

Mere is young, with "Potential to improve a lot in future" and within my budget (the players I bought were between £22K and £2.9M). He also "Thrives in big matches", which I place a lot of emphasis on, "Takes pride in his performances" and has no particular cons.

 

I bought about 10 players in this category. I did it using the hard slog. I browsed through teams in various parts of the world, sorting their squads by age. I used the search facility to find young players abroad (very low signal to noise ratio in Scotland) with a cheap price. That gave me hundreds of youngsters, all of which I checked out. If they looked half promising, my scouts had a look at them. If they came came up with lots of potential and a reasonable buying price and no cons, then I snapped them up.

 

It was hard work, but it will pay off. In a year or two, some of those 10 players will be super stars. A couple are already showing signs of this. Of course some of them will bomb out and many will be in the middle somewhere, but I'm confident most will at least be decent enough to fetch a good price if they don't make the team.

 

I guess some of these will be regens (although Dec says regens don't exist anymore, it's all evogens now, and they can land on any existing player up to 26, so who knows!). I know people have mixed opinions on regens, but I'm comfortable with it. After all, I didn't set out to find regens, I just set out to find the best youngsters in the world. Which is what any football manager should do...

 

 

Injuries

 

This wasn't a great match for us, despite our semi final win - first Pinamonti gets sent off, then Colidio gets injured:

 

It was only for 2 weeks, so could have been worse.

 

Pinamonti had a lucky escape when the Physio noticed a potential injury before it got worse. 

 

But his luck ran out in February, when he picked up an injury that kept him out for 2 months.

 

 

Development

 

So how are our lads coming along? Here's what they looked like at the end of the year:

 

 

 

Colidio is exactly the same as the end of last season (except for 1 extra point of Leadership), as you can see in the Progress report (and weirdly, his 2 week injury doesn't appear either).

 

His coach report shows that he has "Potential to improve a lot in the future", but how far into the future do we have to wait? I'm not expecting him to reach full potential overnight, but a whole year with no progression at all seems sort of worrying.

 

Pinamonti on the other hand is progressing nicely (except for his Pace which is stuck on 13). You can see how the injuries have affected him this year, but he bounced back from them before a dip near the end of the year:

 

He also "Potential to improve a lot in the future" and his problems shooting from distance seem to have disappeared.

 

Even though Colidio has pretty good Stamina, he's struggling to play so many games, presumably because of his young age. What really worried though me is that he turned up as Slightly Tired for the very first game of the season! What had he been doing in the off-season? I thought it better not to ask...

 

He also was tired for a long period in February to April and needed to be rested every so often. Pinamonti handled things much better, only getting Slightly tired at the very end of the season, but that may be because he had time off with injury. 

 

Pinamonti did come in for some criticism from the supporters for not playing well enough, which I think is harsh for a young lad.

 

He showed them what for in the next game with the first two goals in a 7-0 win over Basel, which shut them up...

 

After harassing the board, we finally maxed out the Training and Youth Facilities. That will allow us to get the most out of our two lads and their teammates. 

 

 

Tactics

 

Last season we struggled to score goals and I asked for help with tactics in the off season. We started the season with a 2 2 3 3 formation, with Attacking, Direct or Short, Centre.

 

This got us scoring more goals than we had been, but still not enough and unfortunately it wasn't always the right people scoring goals:

 

Pinamonti and Colidio were getting chances, just not taking them. I think (or is that hope?) that once they mature a little, the goals will start flowing. 

 

We experimented a lot with the roles (P DLF P, DLF P DLF, DF P DLF, you name it), but didn't find any one thing that worked best.

 

Eventually we moved to a 2 2 3 1 2 which we used for the second half of the season (note the AM is CM rather than AP so he doesn't score too many goals himself, not sure if that's sensible or not):

 

Once again, that worked okay and got us winning, but still didn't get enough goals for the two lads. So this is still a work in progress.

 

Note that whenever one of the lads is injured or tired, we revert to the 4 3 2 1 that I used for Armstrong and seems reasonably solid, but once again, they aren't scoring many goals.

 

Spare a thought for poor Pavon and Dudu. When we abandoned wide attacking midfielders, we left them out of the team while they retrained as Strikers (to be the third forward). Then once they'd completed that, we got rid of the third forward and left them out of the team while they retrained as central attacking midfielders. What's next, they are wondering...

 

 

Results

 

Our form this year was better than last year, but still not the domination that I was expecting by now. Once again, we didn't meet the team target of winning all domestic competitions, but we went one better... 

 

In the League we went 25-12-1, which was only slightly better than last year and far short of where I want to be. This time around we scored 65 goals, an improvement of the 47 from last time, but still short of the target I set of 80. Still, I have to hope that we're ramping up towards a big season next year. 

 

We won the Betfred Cup, but only after it went to penalties against Aberdeen (second year in a row we beat them for this cup). 

 

In the Scottish Cup, we needed penalties to beat Abderdeen in the Semi Final (second cup this year where we dumped them out on penalties) and then we lost the final 3-2 to Dundee Utd. They were 3-0 up in the first 30 minutes and not even our super sub Griffiths could get us back in it. Two years in a row now where we've failed to win this. It's definitely shaping up as my boogie competition.

 

In the Champions League, we once again made it through the playoffs to the group stage. There, we went 4-2-0 to comfortably win the group, doing much better than I'd thought we'd do:

 

We beat Wolfsburg 5-2 on aggregate in the First Knockout Round, followed by a 4-3 win over Man City. The first leg against City was representative of the season: Our youngsters had trouble scoring, but Griffiths came on as a sub to score 2 late goals and and put us in a strong position for the second leg:

 

We beat Arsenal 3-0 in the Semi Final to find ourselves unexpectedly in the final! Once again it was Griffith's goals that got us through.

 

Surely Bayern would destroy our unexpected dream run in the Final? Or would Griffiths be able to pull another miracle win out of his sleeve? Neither as the case turns out! It was Colidio who scored the only goal and fulfilled our wildest dreams!

 

I'm pinching myself that we won the Champions League in only the second season. In the Armstrong save it took 6 seasons... Looks like I have learned something about this management game after all.

 

My reputation went from Regional to Continental overnight and I'm now ranked 7th in the world. That should help with attracting players (I hope!). Now, if only I had the money to buy them. Although given we have loads of promising youngsters and we just won the Champions League, maybe I don't need to buy them after all.

 

 

Awards

 

We dominated the domestic awards again:

• Colidio won Player of the Year for the second year running, with Griffiths runner up.
• Pinamonti won Young Player of the Year, with Coric runner up.
• I won Manager of the Year again.

 

 

League Reputation

 

As I've mentioned a few times, we're trying to improve the Reputation of the Scottish league, which should improve the club's reputation as well and help us attract and keep the world's top players (including Pinamonti and Colidio).

 

We started season 1 with Scotland 23rd in the Co-efficients rankings and 19th in Reputation. By the start of season 2, we had increased that to 18th and 16th respectively. By the end of season 2, we had increased this to 13th and 15th.

 

So we're doing well! Of course the downside of that is we've lost those sweet, sweet, qualifying games for Champions League - 5 games against mediocre opposition. Sigh... But it was bound to happen sooner or later.

 

 

Team

Here is our best team:

Spoiler

 

 

Goals

Here is how Pinamonti's season panned out. Lots of gaps and not enough goals.

Spoiler

 

Once again Colidio performed better than Pinamonti, but he also had way too many gaps between the goals.

Spoiler

 

 

 

The only hat-trick went to Colidio in the win over Wolfsburg:

 

Pinamonti only got 18 goals from 54 games. A slight improvement over last season, but way too low. He now has a total of 33 goals, but he's well short of the target of 60 (at this stage).

 

Colidio ended up with 27 goals from 56 games. The same amount of goals as last year, but it took more games! That gives him a total of 54 goals, which is only just behind the target of 60, but I was expecting better.

 

You can now clearly see on the chart just how far Pinamonti is below the target. 

 

 

Looking Ahead

 

In some ways it's all coming together: the team is improving, we've won the Champions League already and we've got a bunch of potential superstars in the making. But in the one way that actually counts, we're struggling. We need to pick up the number of goals for our two strikers next year, especially for Pinamonti who risks slipping further and further behind.

 

The target next season is 40 goals each, but of course they need to go beyond that if they want to catchup. To be honest, I'd be happy if enough if they just reach 40 and leave the catching up until later - but if they don't reach 40, they are going to slide into territory it will be hard to come back from.

 

Right, I'm off to devise their off season training personally. If they're tired at the start of the season it will be because they been training, not because they've been partying!

 

[veerus]

Nice idea promoting a coach until you got the one you wanted. If your guys are struggling with being tired, you could always use the Armstrong formation and alternate games. Probably not ideal but may keep their spirits up until they grow up. 

Dont forget to try the double AF combo too. 

I am also surprised you're investing in 2-3 PA guys. On my El Ejido save, the bare minimum for me to consider a kid is 3.5 PA and only if he's cheap. 

[BatiGoal]

It's tough getting two strikers to score big. Someone else here had a hard time getting two to score as well, can't remember who.

There's a formation I haven't seen many use here that worked very well for my Torino save back in FMH15: 4-2-4 can't remember the exact roles I used and now thinking about it I'm curious to know if it would work today. Hope you get something cooking.

[Mr.Manager]

Great read as always Scratch. They are still so young, it's easy to forget that they're both still 10 years away from their peak... Once you've cracked the tactic, everything will fall into place.

[mcandrew003]

Another great update bud, jammed with detail! Well done on that Champions League win, incredible achievement. The lads are progressing nicely, I'm confident you can pull out a killer tactic sooner or later. If you need a tactic, I've got a one striker tactic that works wonders for me, maybe you can adapt it? Give me a bell if you need it, well done mate!

@BatiGoal Is that a nod to my Double Dembele 1,500 goals save from ages ago?