Afan Lido: Preparing for Season 2, and a European adventure

Howdy all, and thanks for checking in on our preseason activity, along with our first foray into Europe. When last we left off, we’d just finished a rather miraculous (and all together unexpected) come back from the relegation zone to finish in 7th and win the Europa spot playoffs. Unfortunately we didn’t gain much in terms of reputation, and I decided to focus on consolidating and strengthening the squad for a potential run at the Welsh title. The budget wasn’t great (they actually cut my wage budget by a few hundred pounds), and there was no transfer kitty to speak of, so we’d once again be searching high and low for quality free transfers.

It wasn’t an easy search, and my scouts were no help at all, but I managed to track down a few quality lads to bring into the squad:

I had two quality midfielders already, but we’d definitely been hurting for depth and I’m planning on some experimentation this year, so Marcelo was a huge find. He’ll allow me to setup a healthy 3-man rotation in the midfield, for which I’m sure my incumbents will be glad of (everyone needs a game off from time to time).

Gilvan will be playing alongside Marlon, and hopefully the pair of them will create an unstoppable Brazilian defensive wall! His acquisition makes the highly disappointing (at least this year) Ryan Carolan surplus to requirements.

Brought this guy in to compete for the starting keeper spot. Goalkeeping wasn’t a huge pitfall for us last year, but I don’t want my incumbent getting too comfortable with his job security.

This was a pure «depth building» transfer. Similar to the situation I’ve created in the midfield, I wanted to bring him on board and create a 3-man DC rotation.

The next two guys I brought in at some point during last year, and just haven’t bothered to post up their profiles yet. They’re both strikers, and one of them helped save our season:

Along with Marlon, he was our savior. He netted 18 times in 20-something appearances, and really helped turn our offense into something potent. He also tallied up somewhere in the neighborhood of 11 or 12 assists, mostly to Matthew Reece.

I used Rodrigo mostly off the bench last season, but he was also slowed down by an ankle injury. Baring a collapse from one of my starting strikers, I’ll probably continue to use him in this role with the occasional start. He scored  4 or 5 goals last season, with about as many assists.

That wraps it up for new signings, and everyone else will be carrying over (aside from a few sales). Unfortunately this year won’t be nearly as relaxed, and I’m afraid I may have given the board some unreasonable expectations:

I guess they didn’t realize we lucked our way into the Europa last year, and now they’re demanding! As I mentioned earlier, they’ve even given me less money to do the job. Thankfully, I think our team is strong enough to compete domestically, and we *should* be able to pull this off. No, I take that back, we NEED to pull this off for one reason, and one reason alone :

Wales is slowly sliding down the coefficients, and we desperately need to start making SOME kind of splash on the European scene. Thankfully, we had just such an opportunity this season! We were given a draw against Siauliai of Lithuania in the Europa League First Qualifying Round (remember that «first» part, it’ll be important in a few moments). We’d be hosting them to kick off the two-legged affair, and after scouting their team, I was confident we could get the result we needed:

Of course I’ve been wrong before…

Considering this was our first game since returning from the off season (that’s right, we had exactly ZERO time to schedule preparation friendlies), I thought we at least put up a respectable fight. I won’t deny that I’m not disappointed though, and looking at the two teams, I still believe we have the stronger squad. Thankfully, advancement wasn’t completely out of our reach, and all we needed was a cheeky two goal win at their place to advance. I pumped the squad up for the second leg, and told them to get out there and kick some Lithuanian butt!

Ah…okay then…

Comprehensively beaten in both legs, this fixture goes to show just how far we have to climb. We were completely dominated at the lowest level of European competition, and really goes to show the monstrosity of our task. There will be nothing easy about this task, and it might require even more perseverance than I’d originally anticipated. Still, I’m determined to make a statement in the Welsh league this year, and we’ll rally from this disappointing defeat (86.5k richer less in debt, I might add).

Wish us luck, we’re going to need it!