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Pippadoc
As time ticked by, I started to think we could actually make it through to the final. Unfortunately, a sloppily given away penalty followed by a good River Plate goal from open play ended our hopes of recording an amazing win. We did keep the game pretty close though and I can't complain too much at losing to a much bigger side.
Unfortunately for us, Orlando Pirates recorded a shocking victory over Arsenal to go through into the finals. We're likely consigned to 4th place now, as we face an incredibly difficult challenge to beat Arsenal in the 3rd Place Playoff.
Pippadoc
Well, we kept it close but it didn't deserve to be. Arsenal were clearly a class above us for the whole match although the late Molina goal was a nice consolation. How Arsenal didn't get to the finals after that match is beyond me, we couldn't really get anything going.
All in all, I'm happy with how the tournament has gone given the teams we'd have played. I'd have liked to have come third before the tournament, but when Arsenal ended up as our opposition it was a very tough ask.
Back to domestic football now, and hopefully a record A-League Points total!
bmg033
Pippadoc
A year after the initial interest Antonio Molina has earned his big move to Europe and the deal went through on the morning of the FFA Cup final. You'd have thought he'd want to play one last game for a chance at one final medal in Australia!
Anyway, I can't complain too much as he's been a great servant for the club and his £2.9 million buyout clause smashed the club record transfer received (previously £550k). I'm going to be keeping an eye on his progress - fingers crossed he'll go on to have a great career although the fact he's been placed in the Marseille reserves is a little worrying for him!
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Thanks for commenting BMG
Yeah we did well I think, although they were all over us for that 64 mins
Pippadoc
We struggled to get on the scoreboard in regular time, but once we got to extra time we exploded with 3 goals in half an hour to earn us our second trophy of the day in the Melbourne Derby. Eduardo Luiz made his first massive contribution with his second half equalizer to get us in to extra-time. Hopefully, it's the first of many huge contributions from the winger.
It would have been nice to win regular time, but we were missing 7 of our regular starting XI. Molina moved to France on game day whilst our GK, DM, both DCs and both MCs are away at either ACON or the Asian Nations Cup.
Pippadoc
Thanks to the Club World Championship and the Asian Nations Cup we've fallen well behind schedule in the A-League. While I catch up to get through the second third of the season, I'll leave you with news of our latest signing.
Glauco has come in on a free to replace Antonio Molina. He can play all three of my attacking positions and that 18 finishing was too enticing to pass up on. He's got bags of potential and will hopefully be great for the club even after I leave!
The typical Champions League group stage draw again for us - one Chinese team, one Japanese team, and one Korean team. I fully expect to progress to the knockout rounds, especially Nagoya Stolz seeming like they should be a weaker than usual Japanese side.
Having said that it would be nice to have got drawn with a really weak side once in a while!
Gendo
Pippadoc
Another excellent round of fixtures for us! We're on course to break the league points record, by quite some way and can afford to drop some points and still set a new record. We've coped well with the loss of Antonio Molina so as Brad Collins has stepped up and scored plenty of goals. Molina's replacement, Glauco, even managed a goal from the bench on his debut to earn us a well deserved 2-1 victory over Sydney.
We've got a very busy end to the regular season as we look to catch on games with the rest of the League whilst also starting our Champions' League campaign.
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Ah, I didn't realise that was Grampus. Maybe it's a tougher group than I thought
Pippadoc
A fantastic final season in the A-League has seen us SMASH the Regular Season points record by a whopping 8 points! Let's see someone beat that anytime soon
For as good as the league was, the Champions League was bad. A really disappointing way to leave Melbourne. I don't really know what happened, we just couldn't get results. Our opposition certainly played well, and our incredibly compressed schedule (due to the Club World Championship and Asian Nations) certainly didn't help. But it's all excuses really - as reigning champions, we should have gotten out of the group stage and this can't be looked at as anything but a huge disappointment.
Dan
Johno
Pippadoc
We played the 6th seed team in our first Final Series' game and we made it look pretty comfortable (although injury time was a bit nervy after they scored in the 88th minute). If we can play like that in the Grand Final then it should be an easy final game in charge for me.
Having said the our opposition should be a much tougher challenge, as we face 2nd seed Wellington Phoenix.
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Cheers guys! It was a very disappointing Champions' League campaign
Pippadoc
A disappointing final game in Melbourne!
We should have had the win before it got to penalties, we had the opportunities but our finishing deserted us at the worst possible moment. It's a shame I couldn't get one final trophy in Melbourne, but it's been a productive few years and most importantly I leave with a Champions League title.
Next I'll round up the squads performance over my final season before I move on.
Dhendy91
Fola
Pippadoc
A great season all-round for Melbourne Victory, particularly going forward! Andersen, Barbarouses and Brad Collins scored and created plenty each, whilst January signing Glauco and the departed Antonio Molina both contributed well in their limited game time. Daniel Pettit also stepped up massively in replacing Gian Mendez as the creative focal point of the squad.
The defence was great as well! Although I do feel that Kremenovic deserved a higher rating this season :p
You get an award, You get an award, EVERYONE gets an award!!!
Apart from the Golden Boot, we had a clean-sweep of the awards for the season. It's nice to get one last Manager of the Year award before I move on. Daniel Pettit being rewarded for his fantastic form was great to see, as well as seeing Andersen pick up the Player of the Year award.
I'm delighted to see Djordje Kremenovic finally pick up the Goalkeeper of the year award! He's played well for us consistently, and I think it's longer over-due his ability was rewarded with an award!
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Thanks for the comments guys! Hopefully I'll get back to updating this more frequently :p
redwest159
Pippadoc
A great tenure with Melbourne Victory comes to an end after a fantastic 5 season run. I managed 10 trophies in my time in Australia including the all important Champions League trophy. I'm delighted to manage a 59% win percentage over my run as well as a goal difference of almost +1 goal/game.
I've really enjoyed the challenge of Australia's squad and transfer rules, and the Finals Series is an exciting way to end the season. I'd really recommend it to anyone looking for a fun challenge!
I leave Australia as the greatest manager to manage there. Whilst in Asia I leave as the 8th best manager. I suspect I'll be overtaken in both lists relatively soon, but it's nice to see myself high up in the standings.
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Thanks for commenting, glad you're enjoying it
Pippadoc
After a year of unemployement, I've found the opportunity I was looking for in South Africa!
Like my previous posts I seem to have stumbled on another very promising club. Platinum Stars were the shock winners of the South African Premier Division in 2023 (my last season in Melbourne). Unfortunately, last season they were disappointing finishing 5th in the league whilst failing to make it to the Champions' League group stage. Hopefully, I can manage a quick return to Champions League football and cross Africa off the list pretty quickly.
All in all things are looking good in Africa, but I wish the board didn't want me to sign youngsters for the first team. I'd rather bring youngsters in to develop initially and not have to constantly sign youngsters to become immediate starters.
The club has a few players out on loan at the moment, and one player already agreed to come in for next season.
Serero should be good a squad player for us and his ability to play a variety of positions should prove very useful for us. His is a bit old, so he's certainly someone I'd like to use only as a back-up.
Dan
Pippadoc
In the first team there is definitely a strong basis for the squad returning to the Champions League this season. There's stars in the defence, midfield and upfront. Unfortunately, past those stars there is a drop-off in quality I'd like to improve. I'd really like to improve our Goalkeeping options, it's obviously a key position and I don't really like our current options.
In the Reserves and U19s there's plenty of high potential prospects. I'll look to give some of these players game time, I'm going to have to be here for 2 and a half seasons at a very minimum so developing these players could be very helpful for me.
With some good signings and if some of the prospects developing quickly, I think we could be in strong position to compete for the Champions League in a short period of time.
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Cheers Dan
Pippadoc
Pretty reasonable expectations I think, I was look to challenge for the league title anyway in order to me in a position to qualify for the Champions League again. I'm more interested in winning the cups than the board appears to be! I'd like to get at least one piece of silverware this season to continue my run of winning at least one trophy in every full season I've managed.
Pippadoc
Not the best start to life in Africa ...
I'd have liked to have a good go of this Cup and kick-off my Platinum Stars reign with a win. On the plus-side we kept possession well and if we can become a little more clinical with our finishing we should be in good shape for the coming season. The only worry is that squad is uncomfortable with all the tactics I'm teaching them, even the 4-4-2. I'd really like to get it sorted out, and in retrospective teaching 3 formations straight away may have been the wrong move.
Pippadoc
It was a tough transfer window for me. Lots of players were attracting interest from bigger sides both in South Africa and abroad. Unfortunately with me being a new manager, rejecting transfer requests was leading to the player and the rest of the squad becoming unhappy with me. So some of our best players had to go!
I managed to get away with only lose to of the teams better players. First to leave was Ngoako Pule, our star centre midfielder and creative force. Unfortunately he also moved to Sundowns, one of the stronger teams we'll need to catch back up to in order to return to the Champions League. We also lost our best centre-back, Jabu Mofokeng. On the plus side, he moved to Al-Fateh in Saudi Arabia so we won't be playing against him.
Hovani Vezi comes in as a direct replacement for Mofokeng. He's pretty decent so far, and consistent first-team football should turn him into an excellent player pretty quickly. Hopefully I can build the reputation of the club quickly and keep him around for years to come!
Victor Appiah doesn't fill a particular position of need, but he's too fantastic a player to pass up on! I've got incredibly high hopes for this guy, although I suspect I'll struggle to keep him around for very long.
In midfield, I'm planning to make-do with what I have for now. There's plenty of promising players I can hopefully bring through and the options available weren't particularly inspiring.
I'm still on the hunt for a Goalkeeper. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find anyone before the season starts. I'm looking to get a deal in place for one in time for the January transfer window, unless one of the current options surprises me.
Pippadoc
So I'm a bit ahead of the updates and unfortunately forgot to take a few screenshots, so in the next couple of updates I'm going to quickly run through the 2024/2025.
The first half of the got off to a mixed start. With the squad learning new tactics and me unable to decide on which of the three formations to go with we were pretty inconsistent. Once I settled on a 4-4-2 (and the players got more comfortable with it) the results picked up. However, the improvements also coincided with having a run of games against 4 of the bottom 5 teams to end the run of games.
Another Cup, another first round exit.
On the plus side we played well in the match, and arguably should have won the tie. But when it went to penalties it was over, I'm not sure I've ever won a penalty shoot-out on FM15
Finally, I've found my Goalkeeper!
Kadouk is an excellent player, hopefully I can keep him around for a while (or at least make a nice big profit on him). Although, given the interest in my other star players, I think I'll be lucky to keep for more than 2 or 3 seasons.
Pippadoc
So, in turns out the manager I replaced did a good enough job to get us into the Confederation Cup for 2025 (the equivalent of the Europa League). This should be fun, and given it isn't the Champions League it'll be a nice pressure-free chance to pick up a continental trophy.
It's an odd tournament format, there are a series of knockout rounds before the group stage begins with only 8 teams remaining. The top two teams in each group of 4 then play out the semi-finals and finals. Bizarre!
It was an easy enough start to the campaign as we breezed past some awful teams. ENPPI, from Egypt, proved a much sterner test for us, whils Kano Pillars shocked us in the first round we ultimately ran out comfortable winners and secured our place in the group stage.
We've been drawn against Club Africain (Tunisia), Young Africans (Tanzania), and Asante Kotoko (Ghana). Club Africain shuold prove a tough opposition, Tunisian sides, alongside South African sides, have been dominating the African continental competitons since the game has begun. Currently 5 of 11 Champions League winners have come from Tunisia, with another 4 coming from South Africa.
Given the strength of the other two teams, I think we should be able to qualify from the group and meet the boards minimum aim of reaching the Semi Finals of the competition. We play 3 games this season, before playing the other 3 just before the South African Premier League starts next season.
redwest159
Pippadoc
Ultimately, not the Premier League campaign I was hoping for. We finished in the same position as last year, although we did score 9 more points than last year and were a mere 2 points from 3rd position. Our form near the end of the season was particularly promising and if we can strengthen well over the same and survive without our star right-back Lebo Nkosi (moving to Orlando Pirates on a free transfer) I think we've got a shot at really challenging next year.
Our third crack at a domestic cup and we actually made it past the first round! Unfortunately we made it no further. Luckily the board aren't bothered how we do in them, but I would have liked to have picked up a trophy this season. In fact it marks my first full season in this career where I've failed to pick up at least one trophy!
A great start to the Champions League group stages! As expected Club Africain provided a very tough challenge and we were lucky to win 4-3, they probably deserved a point. Also, as expected the other teams were relatively simple to get past and we on track to comfortably move on to the Semi Finals and top the group in the process.
A well deserved award for Appiah, easily the best player on the team and already one of the best players in the league as well. Holding on to him might be tricky this summer, but at least we'll rake in a massive profit when we do have to sell up!
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Yep! Not a comfortable tie at all
Cheers mate
Dan
Pippadoc
Time for an update on Antonio Molina, the star Peruvian striker from my time at Melbourne Victory.
After 3 years of stagnation in Lyon, Molina is off to his next club - Stade de Reims, also in Ligue One.
Whilst Molina began his stay in Lyon with a debut goal, he went on to play a disappointing 12 games during his three stay. In those games he managed 3 goals before being sold for less than 50% of the £2.9 million Lyon gave me for him. Hopefully, he'll get some real opportunities and have a chance to regain his position in the Peru squad.
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Yeah, it was disappointing season. But now I've seen how much we improved in terms of points, I'm feeling pretty good about our chances next year. I do need to sort out the Cup form though, two first round exits isn't good enough!