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danwhite89
Anyways, as I did with my Peru story, I have randomised an area of the World (which I had split up into 8 remaining regions) and came out with South East Asia.
From here, I then randomised all of the AFF nations, from this list here (with the exception of Australia, as they hadn't joined the sub-confederation when FM 2014 was released):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASEAN_Football_Federation#Men.27s_National_Team
And the nation that came out the hat were the Philippines.
The Philippines National Football Team have not been particularly successful. As far as the World Cup goes, they hadn't even attempted qualification until 1998, and since then they have still only ever played 13 qualifying games, having decided not to compete for 2006 or 2010. As for the Asian Cup, the nation has competed ever since the first tournament in 1956, but again have failed to qualify. Since 2000, the nation has been condemned to the Asian Challenge Cup due to a lack of competitiveness.
Even there, The Philippines have been unremarkable. Though they reached third place in 2012, they had failed to qualify for the previous two tournaments and finished with just two points in the inaugural tournament in 2006.
The final tournament that mattered is the ASEAN Championship, the South-East Asian football tournament. The Philippines may have reached the semi finals on the two previous occasions, but they had failed to qualify in 2008 and never made it out of the group stage in six successive tournaments prior.
It was going to be a tough call to make anything with this nation. But there were plenty of tournaments for me to dip my fingers into, so let's hope that we are able to give it a go!
Tournaments and Qualifications
2014 Asian Challenge Cup: WINNERS!
2014 South East Asian Championship: WINNERS!
2015 Asian Cup: Group Stage
2016 Asuian Challenge Cup: Runners Up
2016 South East Asian Championship: Group Stage
2018 World Cup Qualifiers: Third Round
danwhite89
At £220 that's less than I'm on a week in real life!
They expect us to reach the final stages of qualification for the World Cup, which was an incredibly tall order anyway, let alone the fact that we've already been knocked out...
Yep.
A nation of 102 million but football is far down the ranks of popoular sport, lagging behind the likes of boxing, basketball and volleyball. As a result, there has been limited success for the nation, and a ranking position of 144 is an example of how little attention football may have received.
My best player, and only one with a value of over £1million.
George14brfc
danwhite89
Not a great start, but in these early days a draw isn't too bad despite my vastly inferior opposition, as I get used to my good players and the formation to suit my team. Phil Younghusband is going to be an important player, I feel.
Unfortunately this is a rubbish result. Bhutan are even worse than Guam! Maybe I'm worse than both...
Thought we'd turned it around but Bhutan then scored a frankly excellent winner to get the win. We dominated the shots tally but didn't take advantage, so we didn't deserve anything really.
Bit of fortune as we picked up our first win with myself at the helm. An own goal and then a dubious winner (allegedly hit Caligdong's han) snatched victory.
We then spanked Tajikistan's neighbours Turkmenistan 5-2! We were 4-0 up at one point ink the first half, and just steamrollered them. Excellent victory and we were putting those early defeats swiftly to bed.
Apparently we're in the Challenge Cup, which gives us scope to qualify for the Asian Cup itself. I'm confident we can qualify from that group.
This was one of those wins where we were always looking over our shoulder, with being 2-0 up to 2-1, then 3-1 up to 3-2. Thankfully, our best player Own Goal contributed to see the game off in what has been by far my best Philippines result, and one of the best results with this file and the Peru file combined.
Like at Lebanon, we had fewer chances but took them. We were turned around in four sloppy minutes, but two goals in four minutes of our own took us to victory and to our fourth win on the spin.
And that was 2013!
4-1-1 for the year, fantastic after an awful start.
Challenge Cup and the South East Asian Cup for 2014, I believe, so plenty to play for!
danwhite89
We kicked 2014 off with a friendly match against Macau, which brought us a standard victory, and five in a row. It wasn't all simple and was 0-0 at halftime, but three goals in five minutes settled the tie:
Forgot about the World Rankings in the previous post so here's where we are now. It's a record high for us (from the game, at least).
We followed it up with a pre-Challenge Cup friendly arrangement as usual, which saw the good, the bad and the ugly with the national side.
The Good:
Comprehensive win over one of the tournament favourites.
The Bad:
A defeat to the hosts, who were significantly lower than us in the rankings. They had also missed a penalty.
And The Ugly:
Lost our club friendly to a Maldives side. Shocking.
REGARDLESS.
We began with an entertaining draw with Myanmar, against whom our matches were proving to be quite the spectacle. 1-0 up in five minutes, the game had been turned around in a matter of moments (like our friendly in late 2013), before we again turned it around in a few minutes (albeit over halftime). However we were unable to hold on and took the 3-3 draw.
A big win against the group favourites. We were hopeless until halftime when a fortuitous own goal went our way. Second half, we steamrollered them and took a big win.
All that was left was a match against the weakest side. Easy three points?
...Not so. Once again we prove ourselves complacent against apparently inferior opposition.
Still, we qualified for the Semi Finals. Just.
A nervy victory, but ultimately we had the stamina to win. Eide with two fantastic goals from out wide took us to the final, where we would meet Afghanistan.
And we nailed it! 2-0 up and then conceded almost immediately, but we held on for our first major piece of silverware. It means qualification for the 2015 Asian Cup!
Huzzah!
My ultimate goal is to break the Top 100, and I became one step closer to doing that with this tournament win!
Dan
danwhite89
We began our South East Asian Championships with a run of three friendlies.
Our first two games were almost a carbon copy; 2-0 up, pegged back to 2-1 before finishing the tie off. The Taiwan gmae however was yet another example of how we struggle against supposed bad sides.
I think cautious is the word to use. Regardless, we won and it was a good start.
Another good win against lowly opponents. Good to get these wins out the way before we hit the big teams. With a game every two days though, my squad was going to be stretched come the final group games.
Nearly mucked it up but Singapore were group favourites, so it was a big victory to give us one foot in the Semi Final!
And another fantastic victory! This confirmed qualification to the Semi Final and barring a defeat to Thailand by two goals or more, we'd be doing it as group winners.
We needn't have even worried. Phil Younghusband smashed in four goals as we completely romped Thailand, who ended up going out of the tournament! 18 goals scored in those five games was a fantastic return, and happily it would be a couple of weeks before the Semi Finals, giving my players a chance to rest!
danwhite89
So here we are with the knock out stage. We had Vietnam up, in a unique twist which has the Semis and Final as a two-legged home and away format. Unusual for an International tournament like.
A mega away victory set us on our way for a final birth. We dominated from start to finish and nailed the victory.
Buuuuutttt I need to confess something of sorts. As with what has happened with my Peru file, my piece of crap laptop sometimes overheats, particularly when not plugged in (which in itself wrecks the charger, so I'm in a lose/lose situation really). The original game was 7-1 to Vietnam after 75 minutes when the laptop blew. Perhaps it was absorbing some of my own hot-headedness but there we go. I'm going to see it as an abandonment with a rescheduled match haha!
Ground out a draw in the second leg, and I was eager not to let them get too far ahead. We won 7-4 on aggregate (or lost 10-4 if you prefer), to book our place in the final against our old friends, Myanmar.
But first...
Records, records, records.
And, well, you can't really say much about that apart from that I'll be lucky to get 0 points. Le gulp.
Anyway, on with the final.
A nervy first leg at home, but a two goal advantage ought to see us through.
Happily, it did! An early first half goal saw us take the reigns and Younghusband secured a second to see us win the South East Asian Championship for the first time!
Yeah, all that tradition of previously having won nothing >_>
It's all about meeeeeee
Nailed the All-Star team
And dominated the stats. We scored 30 goals in our nine games.
What a year. Two titles (albeit somewhat minor in the grand scheme of things, although the World Cup and the Asian Cup are a million miles away from what we are capable of), and a massive amount of games. We ended up with a record of 15-2-4 (19-3-5 in total) which is mammoth, to be frank. Incredible stuff!
danwhite89
2015 Asian Cup
So, we kicked 2015 off with the Asian Cup, the Philippines' first ever time in the famous tournament, courtesy of the Asian Challenge Cup win last year. We didn't have an easy group, and unfortunately we were introduced to the big boys in a not so favoured way.
I'm not gutted, to be honest. We gave them a fight, scoring at 2-0 down but hey, it's South bloody Korea. To go down 5-1 and at least score at a critical stage of the game is a fantastic achievement and something we can build on.
Saudi Arabia were next and absolutely hammered us in the first 20. Yet although they had the vast majority of the possession for the rest of the game, we by far had the better chances. Schrock got one back with 16 minutes to play and we had the chances to equalise, but just couldn't take them. Still, a valiant effort by the lads. Unfortunately as you can see in the table, we were out.
Almost a carbon copy of the Saudi game. Another 2-1 defeat, but we had scored again and kept it competitive after a worrying start and we shared the possession stat.
So overall, the Asian Cup was an experience. We were bridging the gap between the Asian Elite and the Asian Undercard (where, unlike in Europe or Africa to an extent there is a MASSIVE gulf), and we've sparred with the big boys. Got knocked down all the time, but we were reasonably competitive and scored in every game. I can take that to heart.
Japan won the cup. South Korea went out in the Quarters.
And the start of the Asian Cup 2019 qualifiers starts already. I can qualify for the 2016 Challenge Cup, win that, and that gives me one of the two Challenge Cup spaces (the other being the 2018 tournament) reserved for the Asian Cup. If that makes any sense....!
SR67
Dan
lemmiwinksrm
danwhite89
Bit of a big update here as I like to limit my updates to three per year, so plenty to go through. As I've started doing, I'll split it into spoiler sections a little bit.
We had our Asian Challenge Cup Qualifiers, to all be played in Guam. First up we had the joint-group favourites, Tajikistan:
An unreal result, especially as we went from 2-0 down to 3-2 up within the first half! Second half we were much stronger, and ran out victors.
Again, we had to come from behind to win and we managed to do it within eight minutes of going behind. Pretty dour game after that, but it's another win.
And we wrapped it up with a frankly terrible game against the hosts Guam! 1-0 up with a header inside 40 seconds, that's about it. Two reds for second yellows, one apiece. Annoyed at our red though as Pacquaio was only booked two minutes earlier!
No competition to be honest.
We had a set of friendlies up next, with each one set to frustrate and annoy me even more.
Guam, Bhutan, Maldives, Taiwan, and now Brunei. Why are we completely incapable of defeating the lowest Asian sides out there?! A terrible result.
Despite the defeat, we managed to climb four places in the rankings.
For reference, here's the latest rankings graph:
Highest position has been 105. I would dearly love to break the top 100 one day! Just got to stop losing to countries smaller than the average Tesco store!
This ain't for like, a year and half, but still nice to get the draw out the way. Frustratingly as with real life, Australia are in the tournament now as the newest South East Asian Confederation member. Means it won't be plain sailing to the trophy as it was last time...
Happily, we'd progressed enough in the rankings to avoid the First Round of the Asian World Cup Qualifying.
Another terrible, terrible friendly result.
World Cup Qualifying Round Up
Despite a Yemen win, East Timor would go through 3-2 on aggregate. A tiny country but the only one I can seem to beat.
We kicked off with a 2-0 home victory. Ideally the score would have been more and with the possession and chances we had it should have been, particularly as we played against 10 men for half of the second half. But it gave us a good chance of making the group stage.
And despite an early scare, we were through 6-2 on aggregate! East Timor really made a go of it and fair play to them, but ultimately we were too strong.
Our group. Not the hardest group I guess, but still an incredibly difficult one for a team of our calibre!
danwhite89
Sadly, it started out badly although I'll maintain that we kept the game competitive. Unfortunately three goals was too much to pull back. This match would set a trend for the rest of the tournament, but at least we scored twice!
It doesn't get much better. 3-1 to Kuwait who were 3-0 up at one point, and I got a red card just to make it even more frustrating. At least I scored.
Took a wee break from qualification to hammer the Northern Mariana Islands, just really a confidence booster amidst these humblings in the World Cup Qualifying.
...
I have to admit, I believed for a moment that we were going to completely turn the game around. Australia then scored on the break but goddamn, I believed, and I have to praise my team for allowing me to believe.
The Asian Challenge Cup group, and unfortunately after missing out in 2014 due to corruption or something, North Korea (who are like 40 places above us in the World Rankings) are back. Apart from that it should be an easy ride to the Semis. Should.
Another World Cup Qualifying defeat thanks to an early capitulation.
It left us the inability to qualify for the World Cup. I wasn't too disheartened though.
This, however, disheartened me. I'd always somewhat been in the matches but Australia just rolled us over. 5-1 was a lucky escape!
The raw facts. 6-0-10 for the year which is a record low. 25-3-15 in total, so at least I'm still in the positives!
George14brfc
Dan
danwhite89
So, 2016 started and we had a Challenge Cup and a South East Asian Cup to look forward to again.
First off, a show of our next starlet. 8 games, 5 goals. He's going to be the star of the team, trust me.
Our final qualifying game, and I'm quite gutted that we failed to pick up a point, coming so close. 1-0 up, taking it back to 2-2 in the 81st minute, but ultimately losing out. The stats didn't lie though. 3-22 to Kuwait regarding shots and 33-66% in possession. Meh.
In spite of this, we were apparently making progress, which is true I guess. We'd never made it this far as a nation, and we can only keep progressing further!
Beat Gibraltar, just to see if we weren't the most awful team of all time.
Pre-Challenge Cup stats. Clearly the greatest team of all time >_>
The Pre-Season friendlies:
Sao Tome were hard. They quickly went 2-0 up, but we were able to control it until after halftime, when we were able to turn the game around. First time we've been able to try to turn a game around and actually do it!
Then a disappointing draw against Sri Lankan side Java Lane.
danwhite89
Challenge Cup time again! Unfortunately we aren't the favourites despite being holders as North Korea are back in the fold for this year's edition. And they're also in our group, as I've mentioned.
We got off to an absolute flier with a thumping victory against the side we regularly paste, Turkmenistan. Schrock on form for once!
Another win, another goal from Schrock. We maybe should have made this more emphatic than it was, but we're through to the Semi Finals so I don't really care too much.
50 games!
Unfortunately, that 50th game was against North Korea and with the schedule being rather relentless for this tournament (the three group games in five days), I had little choice but to put a reserve side out for this one. We lost poorly.
A nervy win over Tajikistan in the Semis. We didn't deserve to go through at all, to be honest. But we sneaked it in extra time. Hooray! We're in the final again!
Against
North Korea
Well we faired better, but North Korea was just far too strong. They were something like 40 places ahead of us in the World Rankings so I think second place is fair.
Although a lot of people didn't.
Bullshit. The lot of them.
And at least we won something!
danwhite89
A group I'm cautiously optimistic about.
We then had our Summer fixtures to contend with, which were a bit disappointing:
The result against Bahrain was great but we drew twice against weaker nations and a bad defeat to Oman. I think amongst everything else, I need to start playing more home games!
We had one friendly before the year's South East Asian Cup.
Just to see if we remembered how to win.
So, tournament time once again! With Australia being part of the sub-confederation now it was unlikely that we would retain our trophy, but a good run would always be welcome.
Cautious start against a side that could always threaten us. We graciously took the point despite being in control for most of the game.
Unfortunately, we had a poor game here. A nightmare start turned into an awful first half. Luckily we showed bouncebackability to come up with the late, late equaliser. Still, two points dropped as I see us as much stronger than Malaysia. To make matters worse, Phil Younghusband got a three week injury after this one!
An important win to take us top of the group.
Unfortunately we suffered another loss of points to a side we just beat days before the tournament opening! Once again we conceded first and although we equalised with an hour of football to go, Laos were able to hold on. In the 88th minute I believe Pontillas missed an easy chance and we knew it wasn't our result.
It put us in a horrible position with a win needed against hosts Vietnam to have any chance of making it out of the group.
Could we do it?
No.
We were out. Laos, incredibly, won the group!
Of course Australia were going to win the tournament.
The year's fixtures. 7-7-5 isn't terrible but not the best year we've had either. 32-10-20 overall.
danwhite89
Can't say it was the biggest surprise ever.
What can you say. I didn't do too badly, I don't think.
It wraps up this career and in a way I'm happy, as I was beginning to burn out a little bit. Definitely going to do a club career next time round, need a change of scenery!
Thanks for reading.