Hello! Welcome to the review of the remainder of the 2023/4 season where significant moves in preseason have paid off and we are currently sitting 5th in the league after 2 months of the season!
At this point, we were presented with the first real crisis of the season as my two main strikers were both missing for a league game against Ameins. Dadasov was injured for 4 weeks with a groin pull and Joveljic was suspended for a game after picking up a fair few bookings this left me with a couple of fringe players to choose from as well as promising young prospect Koffi who I ultimately chose to make his full debut. This proved to be just about the right choice.
Holy shit, what an impact he had! The fastest ever goal in our short history set the tone for the game as we hammered Ameins for 90 minutes with them getting a consolation goal just before half time. The scoreline could have been even more one-sided had Koffi been more effective in front of goal as he hit the woodwork an astounding 3 times. Still, a brace and man of the match on his full debut is acceptable I’ll give him that!
Things weren’t exactly rosy at the other end of the pitch for us either as Geiger, who had so far adapted masterfully to life in the first team rocked the dressing room with a transfer request only months into his role in the first team. A player of his calibre was destined for great things I just had to find a way to keep him happy.
Fortunately, this didn’t unsettle things on the pitch too much as we continued our very strong start to the season as we edged into the Champions League places heading into November. Then we really hit our stride. In an astounding run of form we won 14 consecutive games in all competitions, the best winning run in our history! We hammered the lower sides in the table as well as nicking a last minute winner against Marseilles.
Joveljic was supreme during this run leading the goalscoring charts with 13 goals in only 21 games so far and he was well on course for his best ever season with us which included a hat-trick in yet another classic game against Lyon! We were sitting very pretty in 2nd place having something of a cushion over Monaco (but still miles behind PSG).
Brace yourself……this isn’t even the most entertaining game this season but I shall come to that soon enough.
Coupe de la Ligue
This winning run leads perfectly into our second ever cup semi-final which was, once again versus perennial winners PSG. Our progress to get to the semi was impressive as we came through a tough draw with relative ease as we comfortably beat Lille, Marseilles and St Ettienne only to be rewarded with the toughest draw of all!
If you haven’t looked closely at the screenshot above here is the result of that semi-final again for you. Ok, it was our second defeat in a cup semi but on the other hand….. What. A. Game.
Five minutes in it looked like this would be a standard game against PSG as they hammered us straight from kick-off and opened the scoring on only five minutes. For once, we actually made a game of things.
On ten minutes we had our first shot of the game and the first goal as Joveljic equalised and this set the pattern for much of the game. PSG totally controlled things and made their dominance pay repeatedly and yet somehow we managed to counter-attack occasionally and only failed to score with just one of our shots on target. It was an astounding attacking display from us which still didn’t lead to victory.
With practically the last kick of the game, we nearly pulled off the unthinkable as Koffi hit the post with a header from a corner but then the final whistle blew to end what must go down as one of the greatest games in the history of the competition!
After this thrill ride in one cup competition this left us with two goals to aim for: second place in the league and a run at the French Cup! In the league we maintained our fantastic form as Koffi and Joveljic continued to bang goals in eventually leading us to an amazing 2nd placed finish.
All in all this represented a huge step up for us. Not only had we managed a historic runners up spot in the league (we’ll ignore the 21 point gap to PSG) but after flirting with the Europa League places last year we were now going to be playing in Europe for the first time! What a season. Our defence improved massively as Geiger thrived in his first season at this level and our forwards were only narrowly outscored by PSG by a solitary goal as we comfortably finished in the Champions League places.
But what about the French Cup? I hear you ask. Well…..
French Cup
A favourable draw saw us beat Lyon in a cup yet again before facing Troyes in the semi final. We promptly whooped them 5-1 to progress to the final where we would yet again be facing our arch nemesis PS……….hit!
Surely we would never get a better opportunity to win a cup at this stage of the game. Not only did we benefit from a favourable draw but Nantes had managed the toughest job of them all by knocking PSG out of a competition! However, this wouldn’t be a walk in the park. In 6 previous meetings with Nantes we had only managed one win and two draws. History Beckoned. We just had to grab it!
The final took place at the Stade de France where we took a respectable 22000 fans, the most Europa fans ever to attend a game. The match started brightly when Nantes took the lead on only 18 minutes as Piris opened the scoring. We needed to step up quickly.
Fortunately youngster Mur stepped up in the cup once again. Picking the ball up on half way he beat three players before cutting in an equalising from 25 yards! What a goal on a massive occasion for the club, he could become quite a player. Game on! Then the game took a boring turn as nothing happened. In fact nothing kept on happening all the way through extra time until we reached penalties. Seriously, aside from the two goals there were minimal highlights as it looked like both teams kind of froze on the big occasion. How disappointing.
In contrast to the game the penalty shootout was of high quality as both sides scored 5 out of 5 penalties. We were onto sudden death! Lafosse did the business for Nantes to put all the pressure onto us and up stepped Zach Muscat, the Maltese CB who had made over 200 appearances for us so far and was the first club legend in our history. This giant of a player stepped up and then blazed his penalty into the crowd.
Nantes had won. I was gutted.
Despite no silverware for the team, individually we did pick up a few impressive trophies. Morina impressively won the leagues best foreign player while we had 4 players in the team of the season (3 of them our youth players!) and to top it all off Joveljic won the golden boot! What a season these players had and it was touching to see Joveljic develop from bottom to top along with the club.
Just to top it off Joveljic was the best goal scorer in Europe (with only 23 goals) an award I don’t think I’ve ever won before. Damn!
In the end of season awards there weren’t any real surprises apart from perhaps Joveljic now winning player of the season!
Youth Prospects
A quick summery of my youth intake this season which was, in a word fantastic.
Three 5* regens in one intake was phenomenal! Thouvenin in particular could be something special and Sarpong could be a physically dominant player. Exciting stuff.
Achievement Hunter challenge
Despite a successful season I didn’t manage to pick up any more achievements here 😦
F.C Europa Challenge
Similar to the achievement hunter challenge here. A little progress made but nothing significant to report back. Hopefully a busy transfer window will finally get me over the line in completing something note worthy here.
Thanks again for reading this teams journey! Hopefully next season I can post some interesting achievements gained and maybe, just maybe I can finally complete a major part of my own challenge.
Alex
StratMan Gaming 
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