Up the Lido!
I am proud to say, that after our first season in the Welsh Premier League, that we have NOT been relegated! I know it might be a shocker, and it was an outcome that was certainly in doubt at the mid-way point, but by some miracle of fortune (I think SI patched the game), we pulled off a dramatic turn around for survival. I’ll do my best to keep this as brief as possible, while still giving as many details as I can afford. As such, I’ll be breaking this into a few segments. First up, my secret weapon!
My Manager:
My secret weapon, my ace in the hole, my mastermind! I give you the man who will lead this team to success, a man who you shall all come to (hopefully) know as one of the greatest football minds of all time, I give you:
That’s right…Jeff Goldblum! You’ll come to be quite familiar with him over the coming months, and he’s bound to lead us to great success (after all, he destroyed an alien menace and survived a T-Rex attack not once, but twice).
The Season:
I won’t lie to you, I made some major mistakes at the beginning of the season. I threw all common logic to the wayside, and began haphazardly signing anyone who my scouts gave more than 3 stars. I didn’t check the spider graph, I paid only cursory attention to attributes, and I didn’t concentrate on ensuring I had enough depth. I’m not sure why I did these things, but I’ll attribute it partly to over-enthusiasm for both the save and for finally having FM12 in my hands. Regardless, the early going was ugly:
Fifteen (or is that sixteen?) games in, and things were looking dire. More Adam Resurrected, less Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Clearly something needed to be done, and I buried my head into the scout reports. This time I ignored my scouting reports, and this time I bothered to check the attributes. This time, oh yes, this time would be different. I knew this, because I’d found Him. He who would save us from the seemingly inevitable throes of relegation. I found…Marlon.
A Brazilian with an Italian passport, Marlon was miraculously, incomprehensibly without a club. I snatched him up on a free transfer, and immediately set to work. To say the change was drastic would be the understatement of the century. Words cannot adequately describe the turn around, so I’ll let the fixtures do the talking for me:
His benefit was two-fold. For starters, he shored up our unbelievably porous defense. Behind his leadership, we were finally able to get out of our own half for significant parts of the game, and this gave us more attacking opportunities (seriously, we went from 45% possession to nearly 60%). Secondly, with his height, jumping ability, and skill with the header, he contributed a handful of goals and way more than the two official assists he was credited with.
Of course I’d be remiss if I gave him SOLE credit for the turn around. I did bring in handful of other, less significant (though still important) players, and switched from my haphazard 4-4-2 to the default 4-4-2 tactic that came with the game. And despite winning a majority of our remaining games, we were too late to emerge from the bottom six and found ourselves in the Relegation Group come the league split. Of course there was an upside to playing the 5 worst teams in the league:
The 0-4 loss to Prestatyn aside, I thought we did pretty well! We finished the second half of the season on a very strong note, and as a result, I found this little surprise in my inbox:
As you may recall from introduction to Wales, we have a 5-team playoff for the final Europa league spot, and we’d managed to land ourselves in that playoff! Unfortunately, due to our league position, we’d have to go the long road and that started with a play-in game against Bangor City. This was a team we’d struggled with during the year, and I was quite nervous going into the match. It turns out I had legitimate reason:
If you’ve never seen a grown man losing his mind over a video game, you’re missing out. In one of the more nerve-wracking games I can recall, we but just barely managed to squeeze by Bangor. Unfortunately, this gave us a date with one of our fiercest rivals…Llanelli.
Unbelievable! Absolutely unbelievable! Despite going a man down early in the second half, we managed to hold against all odds and squeak out a win in extra time. How we pulled this off I’ll never know, but if you notice who scored our goal, we can get a pretty good idea. Incomprehensibly, we now found ourselves moving on to the final where we would be facing a very strong Carmarthen squad…
If you look at our first half of the season, you’d think for sure we found ourselves relegated. Instead, we now found ourselves with a place in Europe! Unfortunately it did seem to confuse the game a bit…
Erm, not quite, but we’ll take it. This of course means we have a great deal of work to do during the off seasons, but it’s an inconvenience I’m willing to accept. Sadly the club has decided not to turn professional this season (I tried, trust me), and they’ve lowered my wage bill by nearly a thousand pounds. This probably has something to do with us being about £110k in debt, but I like to think they’re just trying to increase the challenge.
For the curious, the final table looks like this:
And that wraps up our first season of what I’m sure will be many! We have a long road ahead of us yet, but a miracle comeback is certainly a good omen. The next post will be the Season 2 introduction, and I’ll try to actually include the majority of our transfer activity this time. Oh! I nearly forgot (yeah, I don’t edit this, I just write as it comes)…here is our final first team roster at season’s end (you should see a few familiar names in that list):
Okay, that’s it for real this time. See you guys next time!
Ryan
28 октября, 2011 at 01:53
Hi, Excellent end to the season, one or two more signings next season may hopefully see you lift the welsh premier league :)
Stromson
28 октября, 2011 at 12:37
Thanks Ryan, with any luck we’ll be up there!
David Wiggins
28 октября, 2011 at 02:55
well done on such an amazing turnaround! Must give you plenty of hope for next season and beyond!
Stromson
28 октября, 2011 at 12:38
Hope AND fear to be honest, as I have a feeling I’ve just given the board unreasonable expectations for the years to come…
nielsneutron
28 октября, 2011 at 05:59
I can see for one thing, that I have a lot less time to play, a suckier computer, or too many leagues. I must admit that I have had the most success with defensive strategies and push for goals in the last half hour.
Great game and remember to post the game mistake to SI.
Stromson
28 октября, 2011 at 12:39
I got the game at least a day or two before you, and I was home from work on Wednesday with a stomach bug, so yeah, I’ve managed to get a pretty healthy dose of playing time in. :-P
Calin
28 октября, 2011 at 08:02
Very nice season, congrats on getting promoted! It will be indeed a major challenge now with an even lower wage budget but since your goal this season is to stay up (and probably fix those finances), I am sure it can be done! Good luck!
Stromson
28 октября, 2011 at 12:40
Was already in the top flight, but thanks for the good wishes! ;-)
Johnny Karp
28 октября, 2011 at 08:56
Long live Marlon! :) What a comeback, amazing! Well done Jeff! :)
Stromson
28 октября, 2011 at 12:48
Haha, thanks. ;-)
vaibhavc
28 октября, 2011 at 09:28
Well done Stromson, that was an excellent turnaround from being in the relegation zone to Euro Cup. I have never seen one player make such an impact for me, that is weird. But Marlon must have done amazing.
Stromson
28 октября, 2011 at 12:52
To be honest, it wasn’t JUST Marlon that caused the turn around. He certainly had a huge impact, but I brought several other players in around the same time, not the least of which was Javlon Campbell (who went on to score 18 goals for us this season). He paired extremely well with Matthew Reece, who himself went on to score 11 goals. I’ll post up profiles for both of those players once I finish the preseason.
paine
28 октября, 2011 at 11:04
I think Jeff Goldblum was a safe choice, I wonder why no other clubs thought about him when looking for a manager…….he clearly taught your players…to fly!
Stromson
28 октября, 2011 at 12:53
He applied to the usual suspects like Chelsea, Barcelona, and Inter but they all turned him away. Something about no football experience? I can’t be sure…regardless, their loss is our gain!
Laxeyman
28 октября, 2011 at 11:42
Fantastic turn around Stromo! What a player Marlon is! You did incredibly well to make it into Europe after the dreadful start, so well done :) Looking forward to seeing how you get on in Europe next season!
Stromson
28 октября, 2011 at 12:55
He’s pretty darn talented for this level, and hopefully he’ll spare us from TOTAL embarrassment in the Europa league. :-P
TheZiggy
28 октября, 2011 at 12:42
What a turn around in form. Amazing the difference the arrival of Marlon made. Just goes to prove that good defending allows the whole team to perform much better. Good luck with the Europa Cup and the league next season.
Stromson
28 октября, 2011 at 12:57
I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. I thought for sure we were doomed to relegation, and this challenge would come to a swift and undramatic conclusion. Thankfully that isn’t the case, and hopefully we can build on this.
Kevin
28 октября, 2011 at 13:07
Hey Stromson
Well done my American cousin!! That was absolutely brilliant and what a terrific find in Marlon and I love Jeff Goldbrum as your Assistant Manager :)
I never expected your story to end with a place in Europe!
Sears
29 октября, 2011 at 14:01
Marlon must be a club legend already :D Superb season pal, congrats!!