Hello folks, there was a difficult second part of the season ahead of us, but since we played very well in the first half and were right at the top of the Premier League table I was very confident that this would be a successful season for my Chester City. We were also still in the cup competitions, the F.A. Cup, Carling Cup and, of course, the UEFA Champions League. We didn’t win any of these cups before, so all of them were important targets for me. Unfortunately we didn’t make it to the final stages of the F.A. Cup… After knocking out Manchester United on penalties we couldn’t cope with Liverpool‘s strength in the 5th round of the competition. Maybe next year…
After going through the first rounds of the Carling Cup without too many difficulties we had a tough battle to face in the semi finals against our rivals, Arsenal. Fortunately for us we were able to win the first leg, at home, 3-1 so in the second leg we played an intelligent counter attack game and lost it 2-1, but we were through to the final!
Our opponent in the final was Aston Villa, a solid team, but a lot easier to face than Arsenal. We won the game 2-0 and there’s another trophy in our hands, the third one in the club’s history after the Europa League and the European SuperCup! The game was a lot more difficult than I expected though…
As you can see from the screenshot below, our best player was the keeper, Serdar, he made some absolutely miraculous saves to keep a clean sheet and to push the trophy in our hands.
And now, the Premier League… We were 8 points ahead Manchester City and 9 points ahead of Arsenal after the first 19 games of the season, but I was quite sure that Arsenal would be the main contenders because they really have a very strong team and, a very important thing, an absolutely great bench. Manchester City have a good team too, but if they miss a first team player they can have quite big problems. But ultimately it was in our hands, if we would manage to give our best in every match and not lose too many points we couldn’t miss the title. In fact, we didn’t lose any game in the second part of the Premier League season, but we made quite a few draws, some of them unexpected, like the ones with Bolton or Stoke.
The game of the season was the direct battle against Arsenal, at the Deva Stadium. And it was a fabulous game, the most beautiful game I ever played in Football Manager 2009. Arsenal took the lead in the 11th minute with a great goal from Fabregas, and then my Brazilian forward, Choco, showed everybody what he’s made of. We were 3-1 up and then Fabregas scored again… Our midfielders just couldn’t keep him quiet! The first half ended 3-3, and their third goal, scored by Van Persie, was created by… Fabregas. After the break I brought in French midfielder Clement Chantome to keep an eye on Fabregas, and he did that very well. Despite that Arsenal scored again in the 60th minute, they were leading 4-3! Seven minutes later Choco pulled another trick from his bag to complete his hat trick and level the game, 4-4. We dominated the last 20 minutes of the game and right during the last minute Clement Chantome scored from the edge of the area! A fabulous win and the title was almost in our hands! Arsenal were 15 points behind us with 11 games to go!
We won the title 3 games before the end of the season, I still didn’t play the last game, so here’s the table after 37 games, with Chester City as Premier League Champions! We did it!
The board was absolutely ecstatic and the fans love me more than they love their wives, I’m pretty sure about that :)
English regen midfielder Russell Gill was a very important player for us, although I didn’t think that he’ll be a first team regular at the start of the season. He’s 20 years old now and he already played 1 game for the national team. I bought him in 2012 from Stockport for 350.000 euro because my scouts told me that he could be a good player in the future, and they were not wrong. His passing game is absolutely wonderful and he is a very good team player. In 19 games in the Premier League this season he scored 3 goals (mostly from free kicks) and made 7 assists! He’ll be a big star next season, you can count on that!
Another important player for us was the Brazilian attacking midfielder that I bought at the beginning of the season, Willians Santana. He scored 13 goals in the Premier League and made 11 assists, a great performance considering that I used thim in 4 different roles on a regular basis: right winger, left winger, attacking midfielder and central midfielder.
And last but not least, the Champions League. We qualified from the second place in our group, behind Barcelona, and we were drawn against Internazionale Milano in the first knockout round. The first game was played at the Deva Stadium and we dominated from start to finish. Unfortunately we only scored one goal, so we had to defend a narrow 1-0 lead at the Giuseppe Meazza. As we expected, Inter attacked furiously and scored three times, but with the firepower that we have upfront we had to score too… And we did, it finished 3-2 and we qualified on away goals.
In the quarter finals we had to play… Arsenal, our fierce rivals this season. The first leg was away and they were missing a very important player, Fabregas. We took advantage of that and won the game 2-1! In the second leg we managed to defend the lead and drew 1-1. We were through to the semi finals, where we were drawn against a good opponent, Manchester City, but a lot weaker than Arsenal or Internazionale. I was sure that if we would play a solid first leg away we were one step into the final.
We won the first leg 1-0, so the second game at the Deva Stadium was entertainment for our fans, we won it 3-2. We were through to the final, it was a dream that I didn’t even dare to imagine at the start of the season!
And guess who we were going to meet in the final… Barcelona! We played against them in the group stage, we lost at the Nou Camp 2-0 but we won the home game 3-1, so I guess we had our chance! They have a fabulous team, with Messi, Bojan and Givanni Dos Santos upfront and with the brilliant Xavi in midfield. My scout gave me some good news, both their central midfielders were injured, both Xavi and John Obi Mikel. Unfortunately their replacements are called Iniesta and Anderson, so it won’t be a lot easier for us…
As you can see my scout says that they usually play 4-4-2, but from what I remember the always played a 4-3-2-1 against us, with a defensive midfielder, 2 midfielders, Messi on the left wing, Dos Santos on the right and Bojan upfront. This will be the most important game of my career, so I’m going to study the Champions League games that Barcelona played this season to see which are their strengths and to think about how to keep their fabulous players quiet… In the next post I’ll tell you all about the Champions League final, now I have to prepare the game and do my best to win it. See you!
