Hello all, and welcome to the first real update to our new Ukrainian story featuring the (not so) mighty Helios Kharkiv! I’ve been absolutely delighted with the outpouring of support for this story, and it really makes this an incredibly enjoyable hobby. There is no way for me to adequately thank you using the written word, and so I’ll rely on a photo to do it for me:
A gold star for the lot of you!
Alrighty, so let’s get straight down to business. We inherited a rather weak and thoroughly underfunded Helios side, along with some rather lofty expectations from our miserly board. I was forced to rely on free transfers, and actually had to put the entirety of my transfer budget towards wages in order to have any chance of bringing in a quality player or three. While our resulting transfers have put me over budget, their importance to the team cannot be overstated.
Pretty balanced as far as transfer windows go — dead wood/overpaid «stars» on the outs, and a group of grizzled veterans on the way in. I’ve opted for experience in this first batch of signings (it had absolutely nothing to do with there being no half-way decent young Ukrainians available, nothing whatsoever), and I’m counting on their veteran status to help shore up this squad.
Victor Dotsenko is easily the best player I was able to bring on board, and he’s currently defying all laws of nature by IMPROVING at the age of 34. I’ve never seen any players (of any age) stats improve like his, and if I wasn’t witnessing it, I probably wouldn’t believe it to be true. He, along with Anatoliyovch are my biggest signings. Other key players include Ruslan Zarubin, Yuriy Fomenko, and Sergiy Borzenko. My assistant now seems much more optimistic about our chances:
Woot, now that’s more like it! Unfortunately I noticed another minor problem with our current setup…
Erk! As you can probably imagine, we’ve subsequently been having a few fitness issues as the season starts to kick into gear. Twelve games in and with no substantial improvement in our endurance, I’d decided I’d had enough — it was time for a *drum roll* Board Confrontation!
Wow…that has literally never worked for me before…awesome! I haven’t actually managed to find a decent fitness coach yet, but I was just so excited by getting a positive response that I needed to take a screenshot! BUT! It’s now time for the important bits — how are we doing in the league!?
Bam:
In my humble opinion, there is one of two possible catalysts for this performance: a) I’m some sort of tactical genius, or b) This league is really, really bad. Since we can safely rule out any perspicacity on my part, we’re left with the assumption that the Ukrainian First Division is simply a terrible football league.
As a result of our unexpected form, we find ourselves doing rather well on the table:
Unless I’m very much mistaken, I do believe that’s a promotion place we find ourselves in! Unfortunately there are two caveats that need to go with this table: 1) For the first 10 or so games, excepting Chornomorets (we drew them), we played teams solely from the bottom half of the table, 2) I have 4 starters that are now injured. Subsequently, I don’t really think we’ll be earning promotion this year, and I’m honestly pretty okay with that.
Everything I’ve seen so far suggests to me the gulf of talent between the First Division and Premier League is of fairly epic proportions. I’m nearly 100% certain that an earned promotion would see us almost immediately sent back down to the First Division (hereby known as the Persha Liga, which sounds infinitely cooler). I’d like to spend another year down here consolidating and improving our finances before making our push toward greatness (we need a striker like whoa, nearly a third of our goals are from PKs or dead ball situations!).
In conclusion there is no conclusion, and unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to record an awesome video for you (once our house is ready, I’ll be able to record much more reliably again). I do however, have a super epic, awesome picture for you:
Thanks for reading everyone, as always I’d love to hear your questions, comments, concerns, and inane ramblings (kidding)! :)
vaibhavc
25 июня, 2011 at 16:05
Hey Stromson
Your images crack me up all the time! Anyways, great performance in the league (or bad performance because you don’t want to get promoted). Sucks that there is no video, but we will see one soon enough.
Stromson
26 июня, 2011 at 02:41
Thanks Vaibhav, I’m glad you’re liking them. Sorry about the video, they should become a bit more regular here in a couple of weeks!
Darren Smith
25 июня, 2011 at 16:37
Brilliant start Jon and don’t belittle yourself. It doesn’t matter how bad the league standard is, you also have one of the worst teams in Ukraine history :) So to do what you’ve done is very impressive and I hope to god I haven’t jinxed the season now. Anyway, great new signings and I think they’re doing the bizzo!!
Stromson
26 июня, 2011 at 21:01
We really are terrible. Out of curiosity I made a second save and checked three different clubs in the Persha Liga (predicted to finish 1st, 8th, and dead last), and they all had a wage budget of at LEAST 3500 pounds (the #1 team has nearly 13,000!). Hopefully our season isn’t jinxed, and we’ll forge on following our comfortable break!
Laxeyman
25 июня, 2011 at 16:38
Hey Stromo, love the images :) You’re doing really well too, and you’re team are now much stronger. I agree with you that it would probably be best to stay in the Persha Liga for one more season, so I guess you’ve gotta hope that you lose a few games ;)
That’s one hell of a winter break, you get the whole of December, January and February off, right? Anyway, good luck (of sorts)!
Stromson
26 июня, 2011 at 21:06
Thanks Laxey, I’m glad you’re enjoying the new format! I’m really hoping we’ll be able to drop down the table (backwards much?) in the next few weeks to secure ourselves a second season of Persha play. And yes, we get three full months off for the winter break, which is pretty much awesome. :)
Sibo
25 июня, 2011 at 17:05
Pics were hilarious Jon! You have done some great work with Helios and have definitely done a great feat to bring them up to second, I assume lots of confidence building friendlies in warmer climes over the winter break?
Well done and keep it up, I can hear Shahktar and Dynamo quivering in their boots now! :D
Stromson
26 июня, 2011 at 21:23
You’ve hit the nail on the head! I was planning to give them all of December off before picking things back up in January and embarking on a tour of the Southern Hemisphere. :)
Kevin
25 июня, 2011 at 17:25
Hi Stromson
Great start for you and I’ll vote for tactical genius as the reason for your curent leage position. By the way what will you do all winter? :)
Stromson
26 июня, 2011 at 21:28
I appreciate your vote of confidence, though I’m still not convinced I had much to do with it. ;-) I figured we’d take a month or so off before setting sail for waters warmer, but I assume everyone just sits around and drinks all winter (not much else to do really).
Johnny Karp
25 июня, 2011 at 20:00
Good job Stromson, I think that you will get promoted this season as the league seems to be pretty weak and you might also be a tactical genius for all I know :) Enjoy the winter break!
Stromson
26 июня, 2011 at 21:31
Thanks Johnny, and while promotion would be amazing, I worry we’d be simply flattened in the Premier league.
Ana Garcia
25 июня, 2011 at 21:50
Very good start indeed! I knew this was a wise move! :)
During your winter break you can just arrange loads of money spinning frendlies in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa etc..
Thats what I did in South Korea during the break to help the finances a little bit.
But smart idea in wanting to stay in this league and consolidate, no sense in getting a promotion only to be relegated immediatly.
Good luck!! :)
Stromson
26 июня, 2011 at 21:34
Thanks Ana, I’ve been pleased with how well things are working out! You’ve got the right idea about the friendlies, and I’ll definitely be looking to do something similar here.
CsAtlantis
26 июня, 2011 at 02:09
Ana has the right idea, you can warm up during the winter break by moving to warmer climates, I am sure your players will appreciate it, take it slowly, you might not get promoted this season but getting into a higher position should give you more money, which you sorely need
Stromson
26 июня, 2011 at 21:37
Exactly! If we don’t get promoted this year (which I kind of hope we don’t), we should still easily finish in the top 5 or 6, and I’m hoping that gives the board enough breathing room to amp up our wage and transfer budgets for next season (at the very least the wage).
Sears
26 июня, 2011 at 15:23
Well done Jon, great start and really enjoyed the read!
May I ask… what’s that cool central tactic your using, your own or is it available by download?
Stromson
26 июня, 2011 at 21:39
Thanks Sears! The tactic is based on one called «LT LLM 4-1-2-1-2» found on FM-Base. I’ve taken that and modified it a fair bit, so I guess you could call it both? :-p I have a strong preference for this formation in the lower leagues, primarily due to the lack of wingers with anywhere near enough talent to fulfill their roles. The 4-1-2-1-2 keeps things simple and straight forward, just what we need!