craigkillie Posted January 28, 2022 Author Share Posted January 28, 2022 (edited) Champion Match 16 - Lokomotiv Plovdiv (2nd meeting) Suddenly the impossible seemed at least slightly possible. We'd turned around a bigger deficit against Borac in the previous round, all we needed was a goal here. Bergier came into the team for the underwhelming Da Silva. Spoiler Morgan Jones does it again! Spoiler Jefferies an absolute star again - our coaches rate him as average for the level, but he's a consistent rock at the back. The tie was level, all to play for in the second half. Spoiler No goals in 90 minutes, so extra time it was. Spoiler A real kick in the teeth, but there were still 28 minutes to pull it back, particularly with the away goals rule no longer being in place. Spoiler Sadly we couldn't quite do it. A fantastic performance though, which surely had to give us confidence against TNS and especially Bangor. Spoiler This match raised a quite interesting question that my rules hadn't really dealt with, the Plovdiv Poser if you will. The result after 90 minutes was 1-0 to me, so should this count as a win? If we'd lost 2-0 in the first leg, then the game would have stopped at this point and we'd have undoubtedly had the win given that my initial rules said "If a cup tie is played over two legs, it is sufficient to record a win in just one of the legs, even if you are eventually knocked out". Similarly, if this had been the first leg, then we would have won 1-0. So should we be penalised here simply because the game went to extra time? Should the extra-time count as part of the game, or is it almost a separate event? Ultimately though, I think most observers would say that the score in this match was quite obviously 1-1, so I don't think I can really tick them off the list. I'll keep a note of this, but will hopefully beat them up good and proper when we get to Bulgaria (if not before). Spoiler Clubs beaten - 3/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P16 W3 D4 L9 Edited January 28, 2022 by craigkillie 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 2 away fans A win in 90 minutes is a win imo, Go with the bookies. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsimButtHitsASix Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 I argue that all results should be 90 minute scores. You won this game 1-0 after 90 minutes (at the same time if ye drew 1-1 in the Welsh Cup and won on pens that widnae count) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted January 31, 2022 Author Share Posted January 31, 2022 (edited) Champion Match 17 - The New Saints (6th meeting) After a mediocre start to the league season, we had a chance to make a splash at home to TNS. Colwill was a young full-back brought in from my old club Afan Lido - he had been a promising member of the youth intake in that season I was there. Spoiler Just can't get near them, a huge gulf in class. Spoiler A better second half, but that shot map shows just how little I actually threatened. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 3/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P17 W3 D4 L10 Spoiler Genuinely starting to wonder if my best chance of beating them is in the Champions League with some team from another country. Spoiler That led on to September, which was a mixed bag of a month. I don't think we are going to be emulating last season's 2nd place finish. Edited February 1, 2022 by craigkillie 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 1, 2022 Author Share Posted February 1, 2022 Champion Match 18 - Bangor City (5th meeting) The next big game was a trip to Bangor, and surely a chance to tick them off the list once and for all. Spoiler An impressive start. Spoiler Didn't last long though, last season's solid defence was proving more porous this year. Spoiler On the stroke of half-time, what a way to take us into the break. They had scored with their only shot on target, now it was just about restricting their chances in the same way in the second half. Spoiler Or alternatively, we could just concede within a couple of minutes. Spoiler A quick response - even the host of The Chase couldn't keep us out. Third time lucky surely? Spoiler Piss off. "Francesco Serafino" was really starting to get on my nerves, feels like he scores about 2 a game against us. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 3/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P18 W3 D5 L10 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 1, 2022 Author Share Posted February 1, 2022 (edited) Champion Match 19 - The New Saints (7th meeting) Great, these guys again. Spoiler Not even worth talking about. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 3/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P19 W3 D5 L11 Spoiler Moving on, our form was a bit hot and cold, and it was starting to look like the top 6 was out of reach, which had obvious implications in terms of fixtures against TNS and Bangor. Spoiler However, our progress in the cup helped a bit in that respect. Two bites of the cherry against Bangor, and probably a final against TNS if we won the latter. Edited February 1, 2022 by craigkillie 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 1, 2022 Author Share Posted February 1, 2022 Champion Match 20 - Bangor City (6th meeting) The first in our double header against Francesco Serafino FC. Spoiler Guess who? Spoiler A belter of a free-kick in all fairness. Spoiler We were by far the better team and missed a couple of absolute sitters, but couldn't get a goal. It did still give us a bit of hope heading into the cup semi-final in midweek. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 3/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P20 W3 D5 L12 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 1, 2022 Author Share Posted February 1, 2022 (edited) Champion Match 21 - Bangor City (7th meeting) This was the one, a cup semi-final at home against a team we had outplayed a few days earlier. Spoiler Or not. Spoiler Away to vote for Francesco Serafino for Ballon d'Or, the guy must be like Pele. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 3/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P21 W3 D5 L13 Spoiler This defeat left me at a bit of a crossroads. It was only January, but I was guaranteed to be in the bottom six and out of both cups, so I wasn't going to be playing Bangor or TNS again until August, ignoring the slim possibility of me scraping my way into the European final play-off spot and Bangor being involved in those. It felt like time to move on, rather than wasting 7 more months in Wales, and before I even had time to properly look at jobs, this arrived. Edited February 1, 2022 by craigkillie 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Moonster Posted February 3, 2022 Share Posted February 3, 2022 Your first move should be to sign Francesco Serafino. He's clearly the key to this. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CM. Posted February 4, 2022 Share Posted February 4, 2022 I knew the team name was familiar somewhere then clicked that it was this thread 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DG.Roma Posted February 5, 2022 Share Posted February 5, 2022 Just getting caught up. On the Plovdiv Poser, I agree with Miggy and Asim, the bookies would pay out on a 90 minute win, you should take it. I think the bit in your rules that blurs it though is that you would take a pens win in a knockout tie. Assuming it's one leg, that means you're taking the outcome rather than the 90 mins result. If you'd said that a pens or ET win doesnt count because it was drawn after 90 minutes, then you'd have to take this as a 1-0 win. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 5, 2022 Author Share Posted February 5, 2022 On 03/02/2022 at 07:07, The Moonster said: Your first move should be to sign Francesco Serafino. He's clearly the key to this. He is off to the Italian lower leagues sadly. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 5, 2022 Author Share Posted February 5, 2022 (edited) Cabinteely come from a southern suburb of Dublin, and although they appear to be a big name in youth football, their senior club has absolutely no footballing history to speak of. Their Wikipedia page finds it notable that "in 2016 Cabinteely finished in 7th above Athlone Town" in the second tier of Irish football. A couple of months ago they were in the news as a result of a planned merger with Bray Wanderers. As mentioned above, they play in the League of Ireland First Division. In total, Ireland have 11 former champions (Athlone Town, Bohemians, Cork City, Derry City, Drogheda United, Dundalk, Shamrock Rovers, Shelbourne, Sligo Rovers, St Pat's Athletic and Waterford), but nine of those were in the top flight when I arrived, leaving only Athlone and Cork in the second tier. However, Cabinteely also play in three cup competitions - the Leinster Senior Cup, the EA Sports Cup (League Cup) and the FAI Cup, so there could potentially be opportunities to tick some top flight teams off via those. The squad wasn't terrible, but was quite thin and quite young. 17 year-old centre-back Gerry Carr was by far my best player - an Irish youth international and definitely one I'd struggle to hold on to for long. I decide to start with what I had and gradually add to it through the season as I saw where I needed to improve, which is an approach that seemed to work at my two previous clubs. Hollywood was brought in before I arrived but is a youth player. Dobbin is a right-back who is challenging my existing right-back Calvin Douglas (who can also play in midfield) and Fitzpatrick is a young and versatile defender. McGrath, Rasmussen and Gorman are all just back-up options for the front three, Gawne and Lomboto are both excellent forwards who have improved my squad over the season, and Loughran is an experienced utility player. I haven't talked much about my tactics, but I have mostly gone with a fairly standard 4-3-3 after trying and failing with a 3-5-2 at Cefn Druids. The season started pretty well with some good results in both the league and the Leinster Senior Cup. Next up, a Leinster Cup tie against Shamrock Rovers... Edited February 5, 2022 by craigkillie 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 5, 2022 Author Share Posted February 5, 2022 Champion Match 22 - Shamrock Rovers (1st meeting) Shamrock Rovers are the most successful club in the history of the League of Ireland, having won the title a total of 19 times. They were reigning champions in 2020 when the game started, and won it in game in 2021 and 2022 too, before finishing as runners-up in 2023. This was not an easy task to start my campaign of terror in Ireland. You can see that they'd made changes for the game, but they still had guys like Carl McHugh who will be known to fans in Scotland. Spoiler A decent start, we had more of the ball and matched them for chances. Spoiler Scenes! Spoiler Shite. So close. Extra time it is. They really took charge of the game once it went 1-0. Spoiler And that will be that. Spoiler Or maybe not... On to penalties. This is where the inverse of the Plovdiv Poser comes into play - the whole reason I specified wins on penalties as being wins is that they are in the exact spirit of what I'm trying to do - papping a big gun out of the cup would definitely count as a big result, even if it was on pens. But could we do it? Spoiler No. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 3/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P22 W3 D6 L13 Spoiler We followed it up with a win and a loss. Next up, Athlone in the league. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 6, 2022 Author Share Posted February 6, 2022 Champion Match 23 - Athlone Town (1st meeting) Athlone Town are the oldest team in the League of Ireland, having been founded in 1887. They have had relatively most success in their 135 year history, winning two league titles in 1980/81 and 1982/83 plus one FAI Cup and three League Cups. They have mostly been second tier fodder this century, and they have to be a realistic target as my first team to beat in Ireland. This was my first of three champion games in a week - we had Waterford in the cup in midweek and Cork the following weekend in the league. Note that I forgot to take my usual pre-match screenshot, so here's one from right after kick-off instead. Spoiler This is probably not the best start we could have had. Spoiler And it didn't get any better. Spoiler But wait! Spoiler They had more of the half as you'd expect with the extra player, but we were right in this. Spoiler Ah man. In normal circumstances we might have held out for a draw, but given the nature of the challenge I had to push for the win and ended up exposed. Spoiler Spoiler Clubs beaten - 3/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P23 W3 D6 L14 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 6, 2022 Author Share Posted February 6, 2022 Champion Match 24 - Waterford (1st meeting) Waterford were the dominant force in Irish football in the late 60s and early 70s, winning six league titles between 1965/66 and 1972/73. They have been a bit of a yo-yo club in recent years, but had spent a few years in the top flight when this game started (they actually got relegated in real life in 2021). Their most notable achievement in recent years was losing to Stenhousemuir in the Challenge Cup in 2019. Nonetheless, they were a top flight club, and were going to be favourites for this cup tie. Spoiler We were getting battered, but holding on for dear life. Hopefully we could make it count in the second half send the single Waterford fan back home with his tail between his legs. Spoiler It's not looking good. A defensive error from our left-back Abulu let the goalscorer creep in at the back post. Spoiler No shots on target and only one shot from (just) inside the box in the whole game. Worrying stuff, even against a top flight team. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 3/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P24 W3 D6 L15 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 6, 2022 Author Share Posted February 6, 2022 Champion Match 25 - Cork City (1st meeting) Cork City are a relatively new club, formed in 1984, and they were one of the first teams in Irish to become professional. They won league titles in 1992/93 and 2005 before entering a period of financial difficulty. The club was wound up in 2010, but a new fan-owned club joined the second tier, and would subsequently buy back the rights to the Cork City name. They gained promotion to the top flight in 2011, and won the league title in 2017, but were then relegated three years later which is where they remain in the game. They are a slightly better team than us on the face of it, but there's definitely a chance here. Spoiler Spoiler Another insipid performance, with Carr yet again being the only thing keeping it respectable. Spoiler A slightly better second half performance, but still no clear cut chances. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 3/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P25 W3 D6 L16 Spoiler My performances in these champion games was becoming a bit of a worry - it was a long time since I had beaten a champion. The win over Barry Town was in September 2022, and we were now in April 2024. It perhaps shouldn't be too surprising, since by definition I'm taking charge of wee diddy teams and generally trying to beat teams better than me, but with the exception of a couple of games against Bangor and of course the Plovdiv game, it hadn't even been close. I do feel Cabinteely have a bit of potential, so hopefully I'll start to do the business with them soon. Spoiler In the meantime, a real mixed bag of results left us just outside the playoff places, but the league was so tightly bunched that the title wasn't out of reach either. Next up, a double header of champions matches against Athlone and Cork. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 6, 2022 Author Share Posted February 6, 2022 (edited) Champion Match 26 - Athlone Town (2nd meeting) Here we go again, another shot at Athlone, this time at home. They were five points ahead of us in the table, but had lost two of their previous three heading into this meeting. New signings Fitzpatrick and Gawne came in for their first starts for the club after signing at the start of the month. Spoiler He's only GAWNE and scored on his first start! Spoiler A really strong, dominant performance in spite of their attempts to kick us off the pitch. Now let's just see it out. Spoiler Would there be another goal in the game? Spoiler No! They threw a couple of toothbrushes at us rather than the kitchen sink, and we were able to tick off another champion as well as securing a huge victory in the battle for the playoffs. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 4/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P26 W4 D6 L16 Spoiler Howard has finally gone international by beating champions from Wales AND Ireland. Only 536 more to go. Edited February 6, 2022 by craigkillie 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 12, 2022 Author Share Posted February 12, 2022 Champion Match 27 - Cork City (2nd meeting) Next up was a second chance at taking down Cork City. We had suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat at home earlier in the season, so it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility we could go and do them on their own patch. Spoiler A dull first half, only one shot on target from us, and it was a 0.01 xG effort. A lack of firepower has been a bit of an issue in general. Spoiler We concede a lot of goals from set pieces. Spoiler No Wynne for us today. Spoiler Spoiler Clubs beaten - 4/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P27 W4 D6 L17 Spoiler That led into a poor run of form in the league, making the promotion play-offs increasingly unlikely. I did sneak through against non-league opposition in the cup though, setting up a match against top flight Drogheda United. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 12, 2022 Author Share Posted February 12, 2022 Champion Match 28 - Drogheda United (1st meeting) Drogheda United are over a century old, but only joined the League of Ireland in the 1970s after a merger with Drogheda FC. The club had little success until turning professional in the early 2000s, which led to three cup successes plus their one and only league title in 2007. They started the game in the top flight, and that was where they remained when I faced them in the last 16 of the cup at the wonderfully named "Head in the Game Park". Clearly they would be huge favourites. Spoiler I'm going to be honest, this isn't quite the start I was hoping for. Another set piece too. Spoiler Hello there! Spoiler And a shocking tackle sees them down to 10. Now we've got an hour with a man advantage. Spoiler An absolute implosion from them here. Now we're under pressure to avoid becoming another St Mirren or Hearts and losing to 9 men. Spoiler They held out until full-time, but we had an extra 30 minutes with a two-man advantage. Surely we couldn't f**k this up? Spoiler Uh oh, only 15 minutes until penalties... Spoiler ...or 15 minutes until exactly one very important penalty! Spoiler We made hard work of it, but ultimately it's job done. This is the reverse of the Plovdiv poser - this time extra time came to our benefit. I think counting this one and not the Plovdiv one is the right way to go - clearly this was a big success even if it took us an extra half hour to get there. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 5/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P28 W5 D6 L17 Spoiler A couple of league games out of the way as we stumble towards a mid-table finish, but next up was a cup quarter-final against Dundalk. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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