Career Taff Attempts The "Alphabet/Nation Lock/TT"

[Taff]

Taff Attempts the "Alphabet/Nation Lock/TT"

Season N

So here we are guys, 132 goals remaining and three new strikers to try and get me there (before I have to skip a letter and tarnish my amazing reputation)

So here is my Chosen Nation to represent Season N

Nigeria

So we take our first trip to Africa and manage (surprisingly to grab three real players)

Here are the stats (admittedly from the 1st of JAN, forgot to get them when they first joined)

Spoiler

A former player of mine returns for one last shot at glory, and his stats are still very impressive for someone of his advanced (footballing) years

Another player whose career is winding down, but Sadiq still looks like a real goal threat

And finally Osimhen (who I have never heard of) but his history checks out and I get to use three real players for the first time in a while

Now along with my three new strikers, I also needed to seriously sort the squad out as most of my players are now into their 30's and in need of backup

Spoiler

Chichzola was the big signing coming in as my new starting LW, Wangler was a waste of £46M as I missed the loan option and he remained at Leverkusen for the whole season (not that he's started the new season amazingly) Galekovic comes in to rotate in the defence and Jungheim and Borrelli are in to transition out my current CM players

Managed to sell 2/3 of my Mexican stars along with Hernandez (LB/LW) who wanted more game time but was being outshone by Frey, so sold him on for a decent £10M, then the usual unwanted grads and older players

So we marched on with yet another season, looking to grab 132 goals (or at least take a big chunk out of it)

Spoiler

Community Shield

A goal fest this year, but another penalty shootout against Chelsea, but this time it goes our way and we once again clinch the Community Shield 

EFL Cup

Chelsea gain their revenge knocking us out of the EFL Cup in the Quarter Finals

League

Won the League with a whopping 8 games to go, and at one point the team seemed to be scoring for fun

the last 8 games didn't go to well with 5W 1D 2L but we still ended the season almost 20 points clear of Chelsea and just missing the 100 mark in goals and points

FA Cup

We destroy Man U in the FA Cup final allowing them 1 single shot

UCL

Not so straight forward this year, drawing 2 of our 6 games, but we progress as group winners and move on to the knockout stages

A 3-0 away win in the opening leg was enough to see us through after losing the home game 0-1 and we progress to the quarter finals

Another tight affair with the first leg ending 2-2 and the second leg a 1-1 draw but we progress thanks to away goals, and we're off to the semi finals

Another very tight affair with a single goal in the first game enough to see us through to the UCL Final

Where we can't take our chances and Liverpool edge us out and we fall at the last hurdle 

So another mixed bag of a season the UCL title evades us once again, but another league title and the FA cup give us something to smile about

Here's the boys stats at the end of the year

Spoiler

Ihenacho still looking impressive at 33, his pace and shooting still in peak 

Sadiq now also 33, but still as impressive as his countrymen 

Osimhen "The Youngster" not as impressive as the others but his pace and shooting still look like they could cause trouble in the lower leagues

Now the important part, did the boys do enough or am I going to have to get another season in

Ihenacho struggled to find his form this year netting just the 29 in 54 appearances

Sadiq was lethal around the 6 yard box, and his aerial prowess proved too much for some defences 

Osimhen netting just the 24 goals for the season, but did provide more assists than the others (ok 1 more than Sadiq and 3 more than Ihenacho but still)

Ihenacho: 29

Sadiq: 39

Osimhen: 24

Total: 92

Goals Scored: 1460

Goals Remaining: 40

                                              Alphabet/TT Table

Nation	Goals
Argentina	117
Belgium	106
Columbia	124
Denmark	105
England	94
France	117
Germany	125
Holland	124
Italy	105
Japan	99
Kosovo	77
Lithuania	84
Mexico	90
Nigeria	92

So Nigeria are the 5th nation in a row to fail to break the 100 mark, but only 40 remaining and that should be easily dealt with by Team P (he says, praying nothing bad happens)

Here's the boring bits

Spoiler

Fixtures

The 7-0 win over Spurs the highlight of the season

Player Stats

Passlack once again the king of the assists with 27 

End of Season Awards

Sadiq comes runner up in the WPOTY behind Chelseas Ibrahimovic regen Johnsson

Same goes for the ELP POTY

My two new young CM players Borrelli and Jungheim clinch 1st and 2nd in the EPL YPOTY

And once again (seriously guys this is getting embarrassing) MOTY Award for me

So I will have to complete this challenge by skipping a letter but one out of 16 aint bad

Thanks for all the comments and the love this thread has got, I'll update, once goal number 1500 goes in and then complete the next season just to see if I can break the 100 mark again

Cheers Guys

[BatiGoal]

Good to see my Nigerian friends back in action. It's a great season given their age. It's all set for Pakistan to complete the 1500 

[Brenty92]

A 40+ year old Lewandowski on the cards next season? ? Wrap it up in style pal!

[Taff]

Thanks for the support guys, and because you've enjoyed the ride I thought you'd like this

GOAL NUMBER 1500

The ball is intercepted and passed forward to one of my new strikers Villalba 

He lets loose with a powerful shot

And it's in GOAL 1500 is there with a killer strike from Villalba

The fans go crazy the manager is dancing some sort of jig on the sidelines, this means so much to him and Villalba proves what a great striker he has become under the tutelage of Taff Jones

The Keeper never stood a chance

 

So there we have it guys my three new strikers (Villalba, Gonzalez and Mendez) combine for 40 goals by the end of NOV 

 

I'm going to carry on with the season and see where we finish, but very happy with this, as I've said would have prefered not to skip a letter, but thats the roll of the dice

I'll do a final update once the season is over then maybe just a summary post to finish

 

 

[Cockers2505]

Well done @Taff quality challenge and a joy to read and follow, it's like your a Master at this

[Taff]

5 minutes ago, Cockers2505 said:

Well done @Taff quality challenge and a joy to read and follow, it's like your a Master at this

Cheers dude, it's been a fun little ride and the all three aspects of this challenge have been equally fun/stressful to complete but glad it's done

No Idea what to do next

[Brenty92]

Congratulations mate, what a thoroughly enjoyable ride! Looking forward to your next venture!

[Taff]

9 minutes ago, Brenty92 said:

Congratulations mate, what a thoroughly enjoyable ride! Looking forward to your next venture!

Cheers Brenty, no idea what to do next if I'm honest, maybe the Talisman Challenge

[Cockers2505]

@Taff have a look at the Totti, Lampard sort of challenges maybe? or have you any ideas of your own seeming as you have so much experience and insight, I think everyone would look forward to a few Taff challenges, including yourself i'm sure

[Taff]

2 minutes ago, Cockers2505 said:

@Taff have a look at the Totti, Lampard sort of challenges maybe? or have you any ideas of your own seeming as you have so much experience and insight, I think everyone would look forward to a few Taff challenges, including yourself i'm sure

Well there's one of the goal challenges I've yet to do (Turkey/Poland/??) so that might be worth a shout then the talisman one as I like the look of that one

[Brenty92]

1 hour ago, Taff said:

Cheers Brenty, no idea what to do next if I'm honest, maybe the Talisman Challenge

Get your name on the leaderboard you addict ?

[Taff]

Just now, Brenty92 said:

Get your name on the leaderboard you addict ?

Remind me which one is it I've missed

[BatiGoal]

Congrats Taff. Big achievement getting 1500 gls in with a fresh front three every season. Never doubted you for a second

[Real_Random]

Congratulations @Taff. You have done a fantastic job and I can't wait for your next career 

[Ashez]

Congrats Taff! 

[Idol]

Congrats Taff! I take it you don't fancy keeping going through the whole alphabet and see how high you can get?

[Taff]

25 minutes ago, Idol said:

Congrats Taff! I take it you don't fancy keeping going through the whole alphabet and see how high you can get?

I was tempted but fancy something fresh now to be honest, plus the higher I go the more letters I have to skip Q, X, Y and Z are all not options but I suppose I could keep the save and come back to it with R, S, T, U, V and W only another 6 seasons, maybe that could be done

Cheers for all the comments guys, I have finished Season P so I'll get that up plus a summery of the challenge when ever I get a minute

[Taff]

Taff Attempts the "Alphabet/Nation Lock/TT"

Season P

So here we are guys, as most of you have seen the challenge has been completed and we scored the magic 1500th goal in late NOV, thanks to one of my new strikers, but here's the full season update, as it didn't seem fair to these boys for helping me get the challenge complete and then not get their update

So Season P here we go

So I wanted very badly to use Portugal for this portion but they had no one who looked decent enough (apart from Ronaldos regen who I couldn't buy for £150M plus £30M CD, why the game limits your spend if you have the money you should be able to use it) but there was nobody else worth trying so I went elsewhere to the depths of South America...

Paraguay

And I found these three little regems (see what I did there I'm hilarious, unless you ask my wife)

Spoiler

Juan Gonzalez, a tidy looking CF with good shooting, technique and pace

Fabian Mendez who looks like the weakest of the three, but I'm hoping I can build him up a bit

Edgar Villalba with greens in most of the right areas (would like a bit more pace and stamina) but a real threat

 Also went and brought in some new blood for the team

Spoiler

Breugelmans and Choi came in the January window as after the 1500th goal was in I felt like going nuts and using my blitz tactic bringing in two new IF's (but we soon changed to a more conventional tactic) Marsella came in to sure up my midfield, Bungert (who played a grand total of 0 games) came in as a backup RB/RW, and Mercado was a strange one, my backup striker who didn't want a new contract and was released only to be instantly resigned with a new (worse) contract 

Diawara was my only sale, but £6.25M for a 33 year old CM is decent business (and you can see Mercado going out) then players like Sherifi and Muriqi were finally out of contract and stopped sucking up transfer funds in the reserves

So with a new front three we set out to destroy the competition

Spoiler

Community Shield

We started strong with two of my new strikers helping us on our way to a nice 3-0 win over United and claim yet another Community Shield

EFL Cup

Man United once again are beaten out of a cup final, but a much closer game this time, but the EFL Cup is ours once again

League

(Oh Bloody hell I forgot the table, but we claim our 15th league title in 16 seasons)

FA Cup

United gain their revenge after a smashing 8 goal game, we fail to score a single penalty and are knocked out of the FA cup in the sixth round

UCL

A better group stage this year winning 5 out of 6 and quite convincingly

We manage to secure a 2-2 draw in the first leg thanks to a 92nd minute equaliser, then go on to thrash Fiorentina 3-0 in the second leg to progress to the quarter finals 5-2 on aggregate

We face Bayern once again in the quarter finals and do a little better this time, netting 3 over two games and moving on to the semi finals 

We face group mates Gelsenkirchen and thanks to a 4-0 win away we are into the final despite a boring 0-0 draw in the second leg

And a smashing final against Chelsea sees us run out 4-2 winners in a 6 goal thriller, and Man City are UCL champions once again  

 So apart from the FA Cup another great year, 

Here's how the boys stats look at the end of a long season

Spoiler

Gonzalez shows some improvement 

Mendez as well looking better

Now don't let the stats fool you, he's just come back from a long injury, but he's been the star all season (and not just for netting that magical 1500th goal

Now could these boys finally break the 100 mark thats been missing for some time now

Gonzalez end the year with a very decent 33 in 55 games

Mendez did indeed prove to be the weak link and netted only 24 goals for the season

Villalba netted 37 in 48, but could have been more if not for the month + he missed through injury

Spoiler

Gonzalez: 33

Mendez: 24

Villalba: 37

Total: 92

Goals Scored: 1552

Goals Remaining: -52

                                                Alphabet/TT Table

Nation	Goals
Argentina	117
Belgium	106
Columbia	124
Denmark	105
England	94
France	117
Germany	125
Holland	124
Italy	105
Japan	99
Kosovo	77
Lithuania	84
Mexico	90
Nigeria	92
Paraguay	92

So another team unable to break the 100 mark, but they did net the challenge winning goal so can't complain too much

Here's the boring bits

Spoiler

Fixtures

For the second season in a row we record a 7-0 win over Spurs, who must just hate me

Player Stats

Passlack finally dethroned as the king of assists with my new AM Wangler clinching the crown

Season Awards

Villalba comes runner up in the WPOTY

But he does win the EPL POTY for all his hard work

And just another MOTY award for me

 

So there it is, thanks to everyone who commented and followed and everything, glad this little idea of mine got some love and I thank you all very much

Stay tuned for a challenge summery update coming soon 

[mcandrew003]

Huge congrats Taff, this has been one of my favourite careers to follow. Really looking forward to your next adventure. Congrats!

[BatiGoal]

When going gets Taff the Taff gets going. Someone had to say it great achievement! Congrats!

[RipRip]

Very entertaining throughout the whole journey! Congrats on the completion!

[Ashez]

Regems?! REGEMS?!?! Hmm I almost didn't comment due to that! . For such a simple pun I don't recall ever hearing it before haha. 

Solid "end" to the career mate, I really enjoyed following this save, it's been the first in a while to really catch my imagination! I'll let you into a secret and say it inspired me to get playing again :). 

Cant wait to see what you bring to the table next  

[Taff]

6 hours ago, mcandrew003 said:

Huge congrats Taff, this has been one of my favourite careers to follow. Really looking forward to your next adventure. Congrats!

Cheers dude, it's nice to know ones work is enjoyed by the community

3 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

When going gets Taff the Taff gets going. Someone had to say it great achievement! Congrats!

That song is going to be stuck in my head all day now so cheers BG

2 hours ago, RipRip said:

Very entertaining throughout the whole journey! Congrats on the completion!

Thanks Rip, really enjoyed it and to be honest I'm so stuck for Idea's right now I might carry on as there is only 6-7 more letters i can do, but not sure how well received it would be maybe I should just leave this one where it is, but the Alphabet idea is a good one and quite versatile so could implement it in another way

16 minutes ago, Ashez said:

Regems?! REGEMS?!?! Hmm I almost didn't comment due to that! . For such a simple pun I don't recall ever hearing it before haha. 

Solid "end" to the career mate, I really enjoyed following this save, it's been the first in a while to really catch my imagination! I'll let you into a secret and say it inspired me to get playing again :). 

Cant wait to see what you bring to the table next  

"Regems" I thought you'd like that Ash, cheers for all the nice comments you've given me about this post and if it's true that it's inspired you to get back to playing then that is a true honour sir

[Taff]

Taff Attempts the "Alphabet/Nation Lock/TT" Challenge

Challenge Summery

So the challenge is now over but I thought I'd give a nice summery for you guys, just include some info about best/worst teams strikers, most expensive buy, ultimate challenge team ect, so lets get cracking

Alphabet/TT Table (with striker cost)

So we now now that the Germans were the highest scoring trio with a total of 125 for the season just beating out both Columbia and Holland by 1 goal, but which trio cost the most and which were a steal

Nation	Goals	Players	Cost
Argentina	117	Aguero, Dybala, Pratto	£80M
Belgium	106	Lukaku, Origi, Batshuayi	£170M
Columbia	124	Rodriguez, Cordoba, Borja	£129M
Denmark	105	Dolberg, Poulsen, Jorgensen	£66.75M
England	94	Kane, Welbeck, Rashford	£170M
France	117	Martial, Griezmann, Dembele	£240M
Germany	125	Werner, Gotze, Volland	£96.25
Holland	124	Depay, Cillessen, Buitnik	£275M
Italy	105	Berardi, Belotti, Petagna	£92M
Japan	99	Muto, Honda, Asano	£10.1M
Kosovo	77	Muriqi, Avdijaj, Sherifi	£22.3M
Lithuania	84	Butkus, Jasaitis, Medelinskas	£15M
Mexico	90	Perez, Govea, Guerrero	£100M
Nigeria	92	Ihenacho, Sadiq, Oshimen	£38.5M
Paraguay	92	Gonzalez, Villalba, Mendez	£59M

So a few surprises here, with Japan being the lowest cost three in the challenge (even lower than Kosovo and Lithuania) the Argentine numbers are a bit squiff because Aguero was already at the club so that could jump up by £100M easy.  Holland were the most expensive, but they proved their worth by coming joint 2nd behind a surprisingly cheap (by comparison Germany team)

We managed a decent % of teams beating the 100 mark with 8 out of the 15 (Japan were only 1 away) but Argentina, Columbia, France, Germany and Holland all showing their class netting above the 115 mark, but then they are a step above the rest, but England have to be the biggest disappointment of the whole challenge netting just 94 (only 2 more than Nigeria and Paraguay 

Individual Scorers

So the highest individual score goes to (My fav player of FMM 17) Timo Werner netting an impressive 65 goals for the season, beating out the likes of Martial, Dybala, Kane and Lukaku.

Timo Werner we salute you

Here's my top 10 individual scorers

Rank	Player	Goals	Nation
1st	Werner	65	Germany
2nd	Lukaku	52	Belgium
3rd	Dybala	51	Argentina
3rd	Dembele	51	France
5th	Borja	47	Columbia
6th	Buitink	44	Holland
7th	Depay	43	Holland
7th	Poulsen	43	Denmark
9th	Avdijaj	42	Kosovo
10th	Butkus	41	Lithuania

So there are my top 10 and if anyone is interested there was  three way tie for 11th with Kane (England), Honda (Japan) and Sadiq (Nigeria) all on 39

The lowest scorer of the season goes to Kosovo's Sherifi netting a whopping 40 less than Werner netting just the 15 for the season

Besart Sherifi (or whoever's Regen you are) we do not salute you

 

Individual Costs

So how about who were the most expensive/Cheap players

The single most expensive striker was Anthony Martial who cost me a whopping £150M from Man U, and after all that money he didn't prove to much of an asset netting only 31 goals for the season, not the best return when you consider my highest scorer Werner cost me less than £20M from Udinese 

The least expensive striker proves the old adage that you get what you pay for.  Sherifi (yeah him again) cost a total of £60K, and I got my moneys worth out of him

When it comes to selling players Dybala was my highest sale netting a cool £108M for his move to Real Madrid and making me £43M profit, after buying him for only £65M from Juventus

The lowest I got was £7.5M from Everton for Avdijaj who cost me £18M from Arsenal losing me £10.5M, although at least I sold him, there is a very long list of players I never managed to move on including Griezmann, Depay then all 3 of my Japanese players, my other 2 from Kosovo, 1 Lithuanian, 1 Mexican and all three Nigerian players, so in the grand scheme of things £7.5M is a good deal

My most expensive overall purchase throughout the challenge was the £150M + P/ex for Renato Sanches from Chelsea, but hell he's a cracking midfielder 

Challenge Dream Starting XI

I thought I'd just share my first choice starting 11 for the overall challenge

There were some tough choices here, players like Passlack, Alli, Horn and Upamecano all played extremely well for me, but these 11 were the top choices all around and i think that front three would give anyone nightmares 

 

So there's my little roundup guys, hope you enjoyed it and once again thanks to everyone who followed the thread and gave your support and I really hope to see more people giving this a go

 

 

[AndersJ]

Congrats on your career my friends, an amazing piece of work !!! 

Not surprised by Cordoba and Werner, maybe you should try them with your favourite tm at some point ⚽️⚽️⚽️

[Taff]

Could be an idea for my next save dude

[BatiGoal]

Loved the round-up. I'm often too lazy to write one myself but it's a great way to conclude a career with interesting bits of info and some additional stats. Great job and hope your next stop is just as good.

 

[Ashez]

Wonderful send off mate! You've grown so much this year on the site and that's one of the best and most unique send offs I've ever seen, hats off to you! You must have really loved the save to put in that extra effort and it's appreciated! I often consider detailed send offs like that but usually by the end I cant wait to move on haha. 

[mcandrew003]

What a great way to end! Well done Taff, on a great career and a great send-off, it was nice to compare the prices to the scoring rates and see who your best performers were. Great work!

[Real_Random]

Great ending to a great career. The detail you have is immense and it's really interest to see a comprehensive breakdown of the career.