Starting From The Bottom
A Football Manager Career by danwhite89
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danwhite89
Champions League Qualifiers then, and we started with the usual easy game against a tinpot side.
Bellamy proving his European prowess as usual.
A trickier tie in the Second Qualifying Round, Stromgodset, but again we pulled it off:
I knew Ameobi would do good! Adding to his ever-growing tally of European goals, another one more than Sunderland have managed in any European competition.
Third Qualifying Round and we played Helsingborg again. We wanted revenge after last season...
A late equaliser put us in good nick for the second leg.
And again, Bellamy would see us through! Playoff Stage now. A defeat would mean we'd enter the Europa League Group Stage for sure, but I was keen for the win.
Red Bull Salzburg at home...
We looked dead and buried, but an unreal turnaround means we've sneaked the win! A bit lucky, but I don't care.
Could we do it?
Well.
Three years ahead of our goal, we're in the Champions League proper. Unreal stuff.
Pretty much sorts our finances out for the next ten years if we wanted it to. That windfall is amazing for a tiny club like us!
Bayern will be interesting! Reckon we can get a result of Basel as well.
5000-1 sounds optimistic, to be honest. But I don't care! We're in the CL Group Stage!
George14brfc
Johno
danwhite89
So how would we do in the Champions League?
Bad start. Well, I didn't expect to get out the group at all but this was the game in which we were most likely to earn points, and we lost. Still, at least we scored, so if we do lose all our games we won't be like Maccabi Haifa (losing all games and not scoring).
Okay, 23% possession and losing on shots to 35-2, but I think we did okay. Better than expected, anyways.
Meanwhile in the league...
The European record is 104 wins by Steaua. I'm keen to beat that record.
Gutter seeing as I didn't think we were all that bad. Not sure why Davies took the pen seeing as he's like 8th on my pen taking list and he's awful at them. Sad really, he was excellent ever since he signed for us and he was the only one of the Olden Generation I was going to keep, but this season his form has really taken a battering.
Signed a keeper. Wasn't going to until the summer but this guy was a bit of a steal. Better than anything else I have and Henley is injured anyways.
Another big defeat, but given the circumstances I think I did okay.
AND THEN MY GOD WE WON A GAME
We didn't deserve to, but Draper's last minute winner means we'll take at least three points from this group! Couldn't believe it. £850k for a win will add to the money pot as well!
Well, after the comeback before halftime I really believed, but ultimately class won out. Still, impressed with the way we got back into it and gave them a game.
The Group:
Bottom, conceded the most group stage goals this season, but I don't think I was disgraced.
Interestingly was that my involvement in the competition meant I was also part of the Under 19 tournament, of which you can see the results of here:
The fixtures. Note that we beat Liverpool's Under 21s (even though it's an Under 19 tournament) twice! Ridiculous hammerings off Bayern but we didn't finish bottom!
As usual, the fixtures halfway through and the league table. Cos the fixtures list is quite big, I've stuck them both in this spoiler:
Played Linfield in a friendly as I see them as a European competitor and benchmark. Unfortunately we got hammered. Lost in the League Cup to the side bottom of the league, and I played a pretty strong team, so you can imagine that I'm quite pissed off at how that ended up. Three years since I won that tournament now, though we did get revenge over Druids with a weird 8-1 in which we were 6-0 up after 28 minutes! Shame we couldn't make it 10 but oh well. Two draws as well, at Aber and Airbus who have had good seasons.
Up until the most recent set of fixtures, Aber were only three points behind. Quite nice to have someone closing me down.
Johno
danwhite89
Dan
danwhite89
Losing 1-0, bring on the young one, turns the game around in the last twelve minutes. Big future for Dan Haywood.
FUCK OFF THEN DIDN'T WANT YOU ANYWAY
Won the Welsh Cup for the fourth time in a row against some part timers. Yay....
And we won the league. Scored over 100 goals, finally broke into the 90 point margin, dropping just six points all game. Too easy.
Fixtures:
Some big, big scores in there. Couple of 6-0s, a 5-0, beating Airbus 5-2 away from home to win the league in a game where I was 2-0 down at halftime in, it's all quite easy now. Nice that Ameobi got a goal in his final league game too!
The stats. The main ones from there that we'll be seeing no more of are Wilson, Taylor and Harrison who I'm letting go on a free, while Davies, Ameobi and Bellamy are all set to retire, with Stock and Gabbidon having already retired and joined the staffroom.
Best overachievers, hell yeah!
And after five years, FINALLY got the full eleven.
Not done yet, you guys know how much I love my big posts!
Finances:
Christ. If I kept this up I'll have a bigger transfer budget than Newcastle United!
Finally, Coefficients and Europe:
It's not much, but it's progress.
Like every year, I've not exactly gone up 210 places but I have improved my position! Imagine we broke the top 100 one day...
And the big one:
We've gone up 11 Coefficient places, to 35. Unreal.
danwhite89
However I'm afraid I'm going to put this career on hiatus. Why? Well, it's become a little bit boring. Apart from the months of June-August, where I'm doing transfers and trying to qualify for one of the two tournaments. The rest of the year is just me smashing more cannon fodder like I'm The Mountain, and trying not to embarrass myself in Europe, with the feint hope of picking up a point or two along the way.
I know I've made a lot of progress and to end at a point where I've just earned a massive amount of money, broke into the CL and helped us rise highly in the Coefficients might sound a bit daft but to be honest, I'm burnt out somewhat. I can see the career plateauing because to be honest, there's only so much I can do as TNS manager while the rest of Wales limps along uncompetitively. I mulled over taking Saints to as high as I could then taking over someone else, and I also mulled with the idea of adding a manager and trying to take another team to the top (or second) while retaining TNS, but they may have been seen as cheating, I guess. Either way, the challenge is solid, but I think I've proved that you can make some progression. I reckon I could have broken the top 20 if not top 15 with enough work put into it.
I have about 10 other Career ideas in my head, including continuing with my International Series (of which I've only completed 2/8!) so stay tuned because I'll be back with another file in the not-too-distant future, hopefully. And by all means, keep this on tabs because I may come back to it every now and then. The updates won't be as in depth or frequent but if I'm up to it I might give season-to-season updates.
Tarra. For now.
Johno
Dan
alilane4