craigkillie Posted February 12, 2022 Author Share Posted February 12, 2022 (edited) Champion Match 29 - Dundalk (1st meeting) Dundalk are one of Ireland's oldest and most successful clubs - they have won 14 league titles in real life, most recently in 2019, and also reached the Europa League group stage in 2019/20. They would go on to win the league at the end of this in-game season too, so the odds were stacked against me in this cup quarter-final. They had made a number of changes to their side, but still had a much better quality XI than I did. Spoiler What a start! We've got McGlynn... Spoiler Sadly it wouldn't last long. Yet another set piece goal. Spoiler More than a match for them in the first hour (I forgot to do a screenshot at half-time). I had to make the decision to take my underperforming captain Marco Chindea off for Jordan Payne, who is a bit more of a poacher. Spoiler Literally his first touch of the ball and it's in the net. Surely we couldn't pap out the champions elect on their own patch? Spoiler Two goals in three minutes - it was ours to throw away now. Spoiler Dreamland! Spoiler A quite sensational result, and thoroughly deserved given our dominance of the game. They had lots of shots, but they were mainly long range pot shots. What's more, we were into the semi-finals of the cup. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 6/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P29 W6 D6 L17 Spoiler A win and a defeat in the league meant we were officially out of the running for the play-offs. Next up in the league was Cork City. Spoiler In between those two games, we played the cup semi-final against Galway United, who were just ahead of us in our own league. Edited February 12, 2022 by craigkillie 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 12, 2022 Author Share Posted February 12, 2022 Champion Match 30 - Cork City (3rd meeting) Before the cup final we had the chance to pick up the scalp of Cork City, who we had lost 1-0 and 2-0 to earlier in the season. They were still in the title race while we had nothing to play for league-wise, so it was going to be a tough challenge. Martin Payne was a new youth product who was immediately better than any of my other midfielders. Spoiler Another flying start, and it was a goal for Payne inside 10 minutes of his debut. Spoiler Ah, just before half-time and the chance to get them back into the dressing room to utter some generic phrase. Spoiler There's that guy Wynne again - so not only were we not ahead at HT, we weren't even level. Spoiler Spoiler A big chance from the spot wasted. Spoiler But a goal from our other Payne got us back in with a shout of the win. Spoiler Sadly it wasn't to be, though we did at least f**k up their title hopes so that's one thing. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 6/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P30 W6 D7 L17 Spoiler We finished off our league season with a defeat to Athlone. Now for the cup final. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 12, 2022 Author Share Posted February 12, 2022 (edited) Champion Match 31 - Shamrock Rovers (2nd meeting) The biggest game in Cabinteely's history as we head to the Aviva to take on Shamrock Rovers. We had suffered penalty heartache against them in the Leinster Senior Cup earlier in the season, but there was a bigger prize than revenge on offer here. Spoiler I keep bemoaning our failures at set pieces as though it's something I have no control over, but despite various tweaks I just keep conceding from them. Spoiler We had chances in the first half, but not really any good ones. Spoiler Unfortunately we couldn't find anything in the second half. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 6/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P31 W6 D7 L18 Spoiler That brought us to the end of another season. Cork lost in the play-offs, so they were still in the second tier with us, but the rest of the teams we had still to beat were in the top flight. We did have the three cups, but it could be a long season without many champions to beat. Therefore I decided to have a look around for other jobs, either in the top flight or in countries I hadn't been to. I'd stick with Cabinteely in the meantime though. Spoiler Meanwhile, I was able to dip my toes into international football for the first time. I guess if anyone was going to appoint the guy off the back of a good season in the Welsh top flight and good cup run in Ireland, it would be a national team that thinks Fernandy Mendy is an international quality player. We didn't actually have a competitive game for about 9 months, but when we did we were in an OK position in World Cup qualifying, and had former African champions Tunisia in our group. Edited February 12, 2022 by craigkillie 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oneteaminglasgow Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 See for the international champions, is it only competitive fixtures you're counting or if you beat one in a friendly would that count? Just with there being far fewer matches. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 12, 2022 Author Share Posted February 12, 2022 3 hours ago, oneteaminglasgow said: See for the international champions, is it only competitive fixtures you're counting or if you beat one in a friendly would that count? Just with there being far fewer matches. I'm still only counting competitive matches because I think friendlies would be a cop out. If I can take a decent team to a couple of major tournaments, especially World Cups, I think I could wipe a few out. It's probably going to be a 50-100 year career anyway, if not longer, so I should have time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djchapsticks Posted February 15, 2022 Share Posted February 15, 2022 This is a total rollercoaster of a save and you've not even left the British Isles 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 16, 2022 Author Share Posted February 16, 2022 10 hours ago, djchapsticks said: This is a total rollercoaster of a save and you've not even left the British Isles A little spoiler for you, a departure from the British Isles is imminent. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 27, 2022 Author Share Posted February 27, 2022 (edited) Welcome to Latvia! Hopefully I'll do something notable here so they can shut the f**k up about that Welsh League Cup defeat to Conwy. Daugavpils were founded in 2009, and since then have been something of a yo-yo club, bouncing between the top two tiers of Latvian football. Their best ever finish was 6th place in the top flight in 2015. There is absolutely nothing notable about them on their Wikipedia page and I haven't bothered researching any further. Latvia only has three former champions who are still on the go. Skonto Riga won the first 14 titles post-independence, but went bust in 2016, so we don't have to worry about them. Ventspils won six titles between 2006 and 2014, but withdrew from the league in 2021 following a bribery scandal, so again were not in the game to beat. That left us with FK Liepaja, Riga FC and Spartaks Jurmala. Note that RFS won the league in 2021, but that was after the game started so they are not on my list. There are 10 teams in the league and we each play each other four times, so that gave us plenty of chances to take the scalps we wanted. The squad was OK all things considered, but I brought in a bit of depth, mainly in terms of young guys. This included a raid on my old club Cabinteely for a Danish striker from the youth team, and two Guinea-Bissau U21 wingers. All of these were squad players though. The only major first team players were Uruguayan keeper Garcia, who we paid a small fee for on deadline day on a bit of a punt - he has provded to be very good. Alpens is a decent right-winger who can play up front, and Fjodorovs is a good striker who ended up playing most weeks in a 4-4-2. Patrikejevs is a holding midfielder who immediately became a first team regular. A mixed bag to start the season. We were aiming to avoid relegation so every win would be precious. Edited February 27, 2022 by craigkillie 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 27, 2022 Author Share Posted February 27, 2022 Champion Match 32 - Spartaks Jurmala (1st meeting) Spartaks Jurmala were champions of Latvia in 2016 and 2017, but had been mid-table finishers since then. On paper they were a better side than us, and had a 100% record in the league heading into this match. Spoiler A very dull first half. No shots on target from either side, and we didn't even have a shot at all. My advice to get stuck in clearly worked with the four yellow cards. Spoiler A good result in isolation, but obviously not what we were looking for. Not even a shot on target, we'd have to work on that. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 6/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P32 W6 D8 L18 Spoiler We picked up a good win in our next match, and next up was a big one against Riga, the best team in the country. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 27, 2022 Author Share Posted February 27, 2022 Champion Match 33 - Riga FC (1st meeting) Riga FC were only founded in 2014 after a merger of two lower league clubs, but they have quickly established themselves as one of the leading clubs in Latvia and won the title in 2018, 2019 and 2020. They were the favourites to do so again and therefore I expected them to be the hardest of the three teams to beat. Spoiler I think we can file this under "not a good start". Spoiler And they doubled their lead on the stroke of half-time Spoiler Slightly disappointing because I had more or less matched them through the first half, but they were much more clinical than us. Spoiler Rounded off with a late third to make it look very comfortable for them. Spoiler As you can see, we actually had a lot of decent chances but couldn't take them. That was something we'd need to work on. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 6/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P33 W6 D8 L19 Spoiler We followed that with another defeat, which led us on to the next big match against Liepaja. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 28, 2022 Author Share Posted February 28, 2022 Champion Match 34 - FK Liepaja (1st meeting) FK Liepaja appeared in 2014 as a phoenix club to replace two-time champions Metalurgs Liepaja who had suffered financial problems in the early 2010s. They immediately won the top flight in 2015, but have not done so again since and are generally a mid-table side. They should in theory be the easiest of the three champions to beat. Spoiler What a start, my star central midfielder pops up late at the back post. Spoiler Didn't last long. Spoiler Right on HT again, fitness might be an issue here. Spoiler As you can see, I'm taking a pounding, the goal was my only shot. Spoiler And that's it. Spoiler I pulled one back later on, and did generally create a few more chances, but ultimately I was well beaten. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 6/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P34 W6 D8 L20 Spoiler No time to waste though, next up was another match against Spartaks Jurmala. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 28, 2022 Author Share Posted February 28, 2022 Champion Match 35 - Spartaks Jurmala (2nd meeting) Our last meeting with Spartaks finished in a 0-0 draw, this time we were at home so surely we were in with a chance of toppling them? Spoiler Or we could just fold like a cheap suit instead. Spoiler A piss poor performance so far, we'd need to get better quickly. Spoiler Sadly not. Set piece woes seem to follow me around. Am I out of touch with set piece defending? No, it's the four teams worth of players that are wrong. Spoiler Second half performance was better, but still not good enough. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 6/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P35 W6 D8 L21 Spoiler That result was the last straw in terms of my 4-3-3 formation, I decided to go to a 4-4-2 since I had two decent strikers and not so much quality out wide. Initially, it paid off with a decent draw and two good wins, but then we suffered a bit of a setback with back-to-back defeats. Next up, two matches against former champions. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted February 28, 2022 Author Share Posted February 28, 2022 Champion Match 36 - FC Riga (2nd meeting) We were well beaten in our home match against the reigning champions, so an away match was always going to be tricky. Spoiler Hold on! That wasn't supposed to happen. Spoiler A really good first half performance, defending well and ahead on xG as well. Could we hold out? Spoiler Riding our luck a bit here! Spoiler But we also came close to sealing it from another set piece. Would we regret that? Spoiler No we would not! What a result, and what a performance from Garcia, who paid back his transfer fee with a massive performance. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 7/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P36 W7 D8 L21 Spoiler One out of three done in Latvia already - next up was a home game against Liepaja, could we make it a double? 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted March 1, 2022 Author Share Posted March 1, 2022 (edited) Champion Match 37 - FK Liepaja (2nd meeting) Next up was a home match against Liepaja. They were by far the better team in the last meeting, but we were at home this time and were coming in to the game on decent form. Scottish football observers will notice the presence of former Hearts and Hibs full-back Faycal Rherras in my opponents' side. Spoiler Outplayed in the first half, but my opponents didn't really create anything of note. Could we go on and nick a goal in the second half? Spoiler GOAL! He might have hit the bar from a free-kick last time out, but he made no mistake this time! 15 minutes to see it out. Spoiler A brilliant second half performance and we got what we deserved out of it. Another one bites the dust. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 8/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P37 W8 D8 L21 Spoiler Only one left to go in Latvia, and still two matches to play against them. Maybe we could get the whole country done inside a single season. Spoiler This was followed by a fairly disappointing run of results through the summer. We still had a bit of a buffer to the relegation places at the bottom, but certainly wouldn't be troubling the top half. Still, that was to be expected with a team whose only target was to avoid relegation. Next up, Spartaks again. Edited March 1, 2022 by craigkillie 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted March 1, 2022 Author Share Posted March 1, 2022 Champion Match 38 - Spartaks Jurmala (3rd meeting) Could it be third time lucky against Spartaks? We'd drawn 0-0 away in the first meeting then lost 2-0 at home. Now we had another chance in front of our own fans. Spoiler My screenshots don't seem to have worked properly for this one, but it was not looking good at half-time. Just a dreadful performance all round. Spoiler We found a goal in the second half, but it was nowhere near good enough. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 8/540 National teams beaten - 0/66 Results - P38 W8 D8 L22 Spoiler The poor form continued after that. Fortunately our two draws in October were enough to secure safety, but we had barely won a game in the second half of the season. All that was left was a final day trip to Spartaks, who were still in the race for second place behind Riga. Spoiler But in amongst that, there was also a World Cup to try to qualify for... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted March 1, 2022 Author Share Posted March 1, 2022 Guinea-Bissau update My reign at Guinea-Bissau had started in November 2024, but we didn't have a competitive match until the following September. We kicked off with a few friendlies. The two home results weren't the best, but that win in Israel was particularly promising. Our squad had a weird mix of players at all sorts of levels, and also seemed to have absolutely loads of players who either played combinations of D/M/AM (RL)/ST or DM M/AM(C). There were quite a few players with dual nationality, mainly with Portgual, but I couldn't convince any of them to come and play for me. Even the 28 year-olds playing in the Portuguese second tier seemed somehow convinced that they were suddenly going to get a call-up from Portugal one day. Our September double header featured away matches in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe. I forgot to take a screenshot at this point. With two games played, the table looked as follows: Guinea-Bissau - 4 Tunisia - 4 Burkina Faso - 3 Zimbabwe - 0 Spoiler Hugely disappointing. We had played well in Burkina but narrowly lost out, and then we chucked away a 2-0 lead in the space of a minute in Zimbabwe. That left the table as: Burkina Faso - 7 Tunisia - 6 Guinea-Bissau - 5 Zimbabwe - 2 Our last two matches were at home to the top two. Two wins would guarantee us a place in the World Cup, anything less than that probably wouldn't be enough since we'd have to rely on Zimbabwe doing us a favour. Spoiler A really nice win in a fairly dull game. One down... Spoiler Tunisia won against Zimbabwe as expected, so it came the final match for us. It was almost all or nothing - win and we'd be off to the World Cup. I say almost, because even if we didn't win there would be a chance we'd finish 2nd if Burkina Faso slipped up against Zimbabwe. Here's the second place table. The top three runners-up would also qualify and the fourth best would take part in the intercontinental play-offs. It's very unlikely we'd get there with a defeat, but we might have a chance with a draw if Burkina don't overtake us in our own group. Spoiler HWFG 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted March 1, 2022 Author Share Posted March 1, 2022 Champion Match 39 - Tunisia (1st meeting) Tunisia have consistently been one of the best African nations, qualifying for five World Cups and becoming the first African nation to win a game in one back in 1978. With that in mind, it is perhaps surprising that they have only won the African Nations Cup once, back in 2004. But once is enough for us, so this was our first chance to take an international scalp. Obviously there is a lot more at stake than that too, with Guinea-Bissau eyeing up their first ever World Cup appearance. Spoiler A promising first half. I was worried they'd be much better than me, but the match has been very even and we've had the better of the chances. We just need to find a goal from somewhere. Spoiler Burkina Faso were comfortably beating Zimbabwe in the other game, so it really was all or nothing. With a draw or a loss I'd be 3rd place and out, with a win I'd be going to North America in 2026. That draw against Zimbabwe is even more fucking annoying now. Spoiler Still creating chances, but their keeper is in inspired form. I'm also very confused about where the 20,000 fans are in this sold out stadium. Spoiler The clock ticks into stoppage time. Only 3 minutes added on. Spoiler MY GOODNESS, WE'VE DONE IT. BUILD THE STATUE OF MAMA BALDE IMMEDIATELY. Spoiler Hatem Trabelsi, Marc Gicquel, Hannibal, Amina Annabi, Tertullian, anyone else with a vague connection to Tunisia, you boys took a hell of a beating. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 8/540 Club results - P38 W8 D8 L22 National teams beaten - 1/66 National team results - P1 W1 D0 L0 Spoiler Hopefully this is enough to make people forget that defeat to Conwy. Spoiler Not the easiest, not the hardest. We've also got a former World Cup winner to take down in the shape of Uruguay. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigkillie Posted March 1, 2022 Author Share Posted March 1, 2022 Champion Match 40 - Spartaks Jurmala (4th meeting) All that was left of 2025 was the final match of the season away to Spartaks Jurmala. We had a draw and two defeats against them in the previous meetings - if we could get the job done here we could leave Latvia behind. Otherwise we'd be kicking around for at least another season. Spoiler A decent enough first half, well in the game here and just need to try to sneak a goal in the second half. Spoiler And we have indeed stolen something! 30 minutes to get the job done and get out of Latvia. Spoiler Ah man. Their winger Kerbache is one of the best players in the league, and sadly we left him to waltz through our defence. Spoiler There's late drama at Slokas Stadions, but which side has grabbed a winner? Spoiler We chucked everything at the win and sadly got hit on the break. Spoiler A decent enough showing but you couldn't really grudge them the win on the balance of play. Spoiler Clubs beaten - 8/540 Club results - P39 W8 D8 L23 National teams beaten - 1/66 National team results - P1 W1 D0 L0 Spoiler Only 8 wins in the season, but crucially two of them came against former champions. Hopefully we could tick off Spartaks early next season and move on to somewhere else. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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