Hello and welcome to the next part of my save! In this part, we will cover the teams first preseason as well as the first half of our league campaign in the French National (third tier).
Catch up on the previous parts here.
Final Tinkering
Before we embarked on preseason I decided to implement a second tactic as our existing wing play 4-4-2 is more of a counter-attacking option (the tactic creator menu is fantastic). This time I went for a 4-2-3-1 vertical tiki-taka philosophy to (hopefully) dominate possession against the weaker teams I would be up against. This would also play much more to the strengths of our wide attacking men such as Marin who is currently a little out of place in a 4-4-2.
As well as being made captain Kenny Miller requested the number 9 shirt and I didn’t dare refuse him while Benedettini requested the number 69 shirt…….a request I was never going to turn down. Fully embracing his unorthodox side I also made him my designated free kick taker as he is actually pretty respectable at free kicks. This doesn’t say a lot for the rest of my free-kick takers but the thought of my Sammarinese goalie scoring for us is too enticing to miss out on.
I also finally fleshed out my coaching team for the season, I wasn’t limiting myself with nationalities here but it would be nice if I could have a coach from each nation at some point in the future. The only coach of note here would be Edgar Davids who is in charge of U19 coaching.
Pre Season
Our friendlies were a mixed bag of games against lower league opposition from neighbouring countries as well as a tough test against Ligue 2 opponents Nancy Lorraine.
After a bit of a patchy start where we struggled to beat an amateur Belgian side and then lost to a German amateur side, we finally began to settle into the season with a stunning win against Nancy. Our counter attacking 4-4-2 was really starting to click and could become an effective tool against better sides this season.
The only downside of this match was an injury to Joveljic causing him to miss the opening few games of the season. This would put the responsibility to lead the line on veteran striker Kenny Miller for the near future which was reflected in the odds for top goal scorer this season.
Incidentally, our top scorer in pre-season was Saku Ylatupa with three goals and our first ever goal was scored by Kenny Miller.
With preseason out of the way I was ready for our first competitive match so we can finally get the challenge underway for real!
French National
With pre-season odds predicting a 6th place finish for us I was confident of being able to have a positive first season despite massive language barriers in amongst the squad. Our hopes were dented a little before the first game as Marin picked up a torn thigh muscle in training which would see him out until the beginning of November. Hopefully, this wouldn’t affect his development too much so early in his career as he was incredibly promising at only 17 years old.
Our season opener was against QRM so this would be a huge test of our credentials this season. I decided to keep with the 4-2-3-1 formation that worked well during our last two friendlies.
Despite starting positively and pinning QRM back into their own half for the opening 20 minutes we never really created any significant chances and soon we paid the price. In a devastating ten minute spell towards the end of the first half, we conceded three goals and never looked like recovering.
We played a little better in the second half but the game was beyond us and we eventually lost 3-0 so our fans would have to wait to witness our first ever goal and points. Fortunately, these both came in the very next match as we secured a point with a pulsating 3-3 draw against FC Chambly, we just couldn’t hang on for the final 20 minutes to get the win.
This result galvanised the team and we started to go on an impressive run in the league. We started by picking up our first win with a 2-0 against Marignane and this set the tone for the next few months as we tended to keep games very tight and winning by a single goal. The only major blip in this time was a serious injury to Walker who strained his Achilles tendon and would be out until January. This left us seriously short in midfield and resulted in me having to call up a youth team player for the first time.
With the injuries starting to pile up I decided to tweak my formation slightly to a 4-1-4-1 employing a vertical tiki-taka philosophy to try and control games more. Without Walker’s physicality in the centre of the park, we would have to control the ball more rather than relying on powerful running from box to box.
Despite the midfield being weakened somewhat we only dropped 4 points between the 24th of August and 6th of November, keeping 10 clean sheets in 13 games. The new formation was working especially at shutting the opposition down, a total contrast to the opening two games of the season.
One memorable match during this run was the 1-0 win against Rodez. With the game heading for a 0-0, we won a free kick in the 91st minute about 30 yards out from goal. Benedettini, our Sammarinese GK stepped up and curled it into the net to win the three points. Scenes!!!
This great run of form tailed perfectly into our next match, a top of the table clash against Bourg en Bresse 01.
Our upturn in form saw us sneak into the top spot in the league despite drawing our previous game and having an inferior goal difference. Before the season Bourge were 1/5 favourites to get promotion this season so its fair to say it wasn’t a shock to see them having a great start. It was likely that they would continue to be strong as the season wore on.
I gambled on sticking with my 4-1-4-1 in the hope that we could deny them the ball and frustrate them. Despite a slow start where Bourg had a few half chances we slowly worked our way into the game controlling more and more possession.
We took the lead on 16 minutes as our striker Joveljic broke down the middle and slotted a great 1 on 1 chance into the bottom corner! Frustration in the Bourg camp grew and grew as we controlled possession and they finished the game with 7 yellow cards and red. Crucially, however, they couldn’t breach our defence and went down to a 1-0 defeat. Probably the biggest match in our short history so far and we came out on top to give us a four-point lead in the league. To reinforce how disciplined a performance this was our young RB Eleftheriou picked up his first man of the match award!
Financial Worries
After this game, a number of events unfolded in the squad. First of all backup striker Dadasov damaged his cruciate ligaments in training to see him out for as long as 12 months, a huge blow as he is only 19 and has huge potential. In addition to this Frick, Mata, Idrizi and Candas all complained that they wanted more first-team football. With the squad performing so well this simply wasn’t going to happen so I happily promised to them that they would be sold ASAP.
This was crucial to help the team survive as we were haemorrhaging money, listing approximately £300k p/month. These player sales would go some way to reduce our debt along with the wage bill where we currently had a budget of £31k p/w but we were currently spending a huge £74k p/w. Promotion in this first season would be vital or we would need to seriously retool my squad or we would be guaranteed to go bankrupt. To throw a further spanner in the works I had 4 contracts expiring at the end of my current season and then every other player would be expiring at the end of the 2019/20 season. This could be game over by the end of next season if things went badly as the rules of this save won’t really allow for a total team rebuild in one season.
Pushing these worries to one side for now, we continued on in the league where I was delighted to finally start introducing Marin back into the first team after a lengthy absence. It would be tempting to rush him back as he is one of our better players but I really didn’t want a recurrence of his torn thigh muscle.
The last few games before the winter break saw us pick up two more wins and clean sheets to leave us in an extremely comfortable position at the top of the league as Bourg’s form had dropped off dramatically after losing to us a few weeks ago.
French Cup
Our first game in the French cup saw us up against AS Algrange, a lower league team from France. Using this opportunity to play a few fringe players we ran out easy 4-0 winners to see us qualify for the 6th round.
Looking at the competition screen the French Cup is fairly insane as it has eleven proper rounds before getting to the Quarter Finals and even includes all teams from French overseason territories such as Mayotte and New Caledonia. It’s fair to say this is a very large competition!
Our run came to an end against Lyon in the 7th round as we lost 2-0 in extra time. We would miss the extra income form the cup but it was good for freeing up the fixture list somewhat.
With the winter break and the January transfer window looming I think this is a good time to end this part. I’ll be back with the second half of the season and the progress of both my own challenge and Newgen’s achievement hunter challenge next week!
Thanks for reading.
StratMan Gaming 