itchycoo - Comments

Thanks a lot, Dan, Zan and To_Madeira for following. One more week of holiday, then I will start playing again.

Fantastic! League champions three years in a row (I think). Good luck next season.

My first couple of months in Belarus have been quite all right. After the first 21 games Khimiki was in 12:th position, after my 9 matches we landed a respectable 8:th place with only 8 points to the top.





Now I will leave my computer for the entire holiday, and will rebuild this Khimiki squad next year.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everybody!

I joined Khimiki in September 2016, now I am in November with two matches left to play. No cup until 2017 here either. It might have something to do with Belarus starting the season in the spring and ending in December.

Thanks zan!
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I have landed safe and sound in Belarus, and directly I saw a job opening – Granit. But when I saw that it was a semi-professional club, I hesitated, there was some professional clubs where managers seemed too be on the verge of getting sacked, so I turned them down. My next target was Pinsk. They sacked their manager after I declared my interest in the job, I applied for the job, but they never returned my call…
A week later things happened fast. Another manager with a status of “very insecure” – I declared interest, he got sacked, I applied, I got the job!
I am now the manager of:





Looking at Dan’s and Shedender’s careers, Khimiki looks like a top team, if it wasn’t for the fact that almost half the team are out injured, I would be totally thrilled. Now I’m just thrilled…

Pinsk is still without manager.

Cheers! I did actually load Belarus at new year, as I was hoping on moving there during summer/early autumn. And by September 2016, I've already got myself a new job! I will write about it tomorrow, hopefully.

Thanks Dan and BOWC, 8.5 M is about 8.49 M more than I had with Lustenau. So it wasn't very hard with this team. Thanks for reading and commenting, guys!
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As the league was nearing its end it was all about four teams. With 4 matches to go we all had 60 points (+/- 1), and things looked like they would slip out of my hands as we not only lost at home against Sturm Graz, we also got our goalkeeper and two starting central defenders injured for the rest of the season. But my old friend, Swedish veteran keeper Eddie Gustafsson, 39, played the last games of his career with total confidence. And as the other teams stumble, we did not.







In Eddie’s final match, where he was named captain, he lifted the ÖFB Cup trophy after an overtime goal by Salbitzer.

Austria is completed; I will now hunt Dan and Shedender in the Belarusian leagues.

Auf Wiedersehen Österreich! - Добры дзень Беларусі!

Cheers, Dan, this sure is a great opportunity. I can hardly get a better team in Austria.
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I took over die Rote Bullen with a couple of days left in the transfer window, and with quite a lot of money. I paid a lot for two young guys: Sean Watson, an American striker and Leonardo Pereira a Paraguayan right-winger, both will prove to be money well invested.



As you can see I started my Red Bull career by beating my former club, a questionable penalty saved my day. Only one loss so far, and I’m really happy about the way we play.
In his 12 matches Pereira has produced 11 assists and one goal, giving him an average rating of 7.52, and Watson has scored 10 goals in 13 appearances (AR 7.55).



In the January window I will try to find a similar player to Pereira to the left flank, and maybe I will buy Teufl from my former team Lustenau to bolster the back line. If I don’t win the league with this team, I don’t know what to do…

Tough start, but I'm sure you can turn it around in the autumn.

My second season in the Bundesliga with Lustenau started quite mediocre, 2 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss if I recall correctly. But way below mediocre was the way Red Bull Salzburg started – only 2 points after 5 games. Combined with their 6:th place in the league last year, the board had seen enough, the manager had to go.

Thanks guys for the encouragement!
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April started of well enough, but then we were hit bad by injuries. In the match against Austria Wien and RBS we had 5 first team players injured including the goalkeeper and my best goal scorer Hajduk. Agains Rapid Wien we didn’t have enough players to fill the bench. We recalled Yusuf Özüyer from loan and he score almost a hat trick (the own goal was his) in the last match to secure a place in Europe.



So while Shedender and Dan enjoying life in the beautiful Belarus, I have to endure yet another year in Austria…

Great job, now good luck in Belarus!

Amazing achievment in doing the double! Good luck with the job hunt.

Even better

It looks like you're on the way to Belgium (or what ever's next...)!

Good start, it is the 2013-14 season you will win this league!

Didn’t manage to find anyone good enough who wanted to join our team, so we’ll have to do with the squad we have. But we didn’t seem to need anyone as we started the new year by demolishing Sturm Graz, 3-0 at home.



Then we lost 1-0 to Austria Wien away, and it was not much to say about that. But then came the ridiculous match agaist Red Bull Saltzburg. They had 1-0 and we were pushing for the equalizer, and then this happens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld-qveOMZxQ

What! A goal from a throw in! Is that allowed?

After three games without us finding the net, we scored 9 in the coming three matches, earning us 6 points that keeps us in 4:th position, now 12 points after leaders Austria Wien.

A lot of good results here. Rapid Wien looks hard to catch - but an European spot should be up for grabs.

Dan & zan, I am quite worried to be honest, but still so far the season is going over expectations as we are expected 9:th.
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Hajduk keeps on scoring, but the defence is looking very shaky. And I’m not too happy with my goalkeepers either.

Going into the winter break we still hold the 4:th place in the league, something I have to be pleased about of course. However I feel that we might be falling apart anytime, just a few more bad results and we’re down to 8:th.

Impressive!

Looking great! Hopefully you can keep it up and avoid injuries on your key players. Markoutz is on fire!

Thanks zan!
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After our fabulous start when we had lady Luck on our side, she turned our back on us when we entered October. Seven games without a win, and only two points in the league. We went out from the cup after an over time goal against minors Bregenz.

The media started talking about me not wanting to change tactics, but I thought that the way we played made me a tactical mastermind in the beginning of the season. We’ll stick to the plan.

And then our fortunes turned again – a corner kick in the 92:nd minute was headed by Teufl, and hit Roth in the back to give us a win against Wiener Neustadt. We followed that up by beating league leaders Rapid Wien away, where Hajduk scored after 5 goalless matches (including a missed penalty vs. Sturm Graz).

Thanks, Dan. I just want to take as many poits as possible now, I have such a small squad so a couple of injuries/bans/international call ups at a bad time could se us drop fast. Where's your updates?

Dan, it seems that that is the year for winning - let's how we do in the top league!
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What a start in the Bundesliga!



Berthold Teufl keeps on impressing, he missed one game due to a lighter injury and then we conceded 3 against Rapid Wien. In his 7 matches he’s got an average rating of 7.96, with three PoM awards.

Another player that haven’t had any problems taking the step up to a higher stage is Igor Hajduk. He was injured in the beginning of the season, he came on as a substitute against Red Bull Saltzburg and scored a hat-trick. Then he scored one of the goals against Rapid Wien and the winner against Admira Wacker.

Thanks Dan and t-mase for the support!





36-year-old captain Jürgen Patocka lifted the Erste Liga trophy in his last career game, having decided to retire after the season.



After scoring two late own goals to tie the important Derby, Altach never recovered and only took two points from the following five games. They were actually quite terrible after the winter break, only managed to win three matches. We secured the league title in the Lustenau derby against FC Lustenau 1907 in a 2-1 win at home with three games to go.

Star players:
Berthold Teufl: The defender played all 36 games this season and was solid as a rock.
Igor Hajduk: 18 goals. Thanks Igor.
Sacha Boller: The German midfielder can be used all over the midfield. Mostly he’s been playing as a left-winger. He produced 6 goals and 8 assists, most of them in the last quarter of the season. He claimed third price in VdF Fussballer des Jahre (Footballer of the year).

Now let’s see what we can do against the big boys. There will be no major transfer activities as we don’t have any money… If opportunity knocks, I might try to move to a bigger club.

Well done! Congrats.

Going for a more attacking mentality but with a more defensive tactic did the trick. By moving my AMC down as a DMC we won more ball, both in our own half and higher up on the pitch. The attacking midfielder never really found a position for his self anyway.



That's not an amazing run of results, but in this league where everybody can beat anybody, it's good enough!



30 games played – 6 to go, and the next match is the Ländle Derby against Altach!

A strong finish to the season. Hopefully you can make searious push for the title next season. Good luck!

Good start. The draw vs Austria Wien is impressing!

Great month! Now let's just finish this season the same way.