Big new arrival and departures

Juan Jose Gonzalez - world class regen - signed for 3.4m in transfer auction. He's going to be my playmaker and will provide a huge boost to my rep. Other transfers:

OUT

Cabrera - Regen AMC - £3m. Had to make room for Gonzalez and recouped most of the cost of the Argentinian.

Martin Caceres - DC, Beaulieu FC legend - £1m + Simon Kjaer too good an offer to turn down for a 32 yo.

IN

Tersigni - wonderkid MC - 2.7m PEx - the long term successor to Toledo, he's gonna be a beast.

How much is a player worth?

It’s a question each and every manager in football manager live will ask himself on a near daily basis. Should I bid £33,500 or £35,000 on that defender? He wants £1m for that left winger, but is he worth that? Someone’s just bid £100k for my goalkeeper, should I sell? It’s also been the subject of many a blog post, from Wild Geese’s last effort through to Jakswan’s most recent post. So I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring with a couple of posts with, for what it’s worth, my two cents.

Jakswan recently proposed a system whereby you paid a certain amount based on reputation and age, assuming no resale value. I don’t completely agree with the figures he uses, although I accept that it’s just a rough baseline, and I think it’s an interesting idea. However, I disagree whole-heartedly with any such system for one key reason

Every player is different and should be judged on his own merits.

There are so many things to consider when buying a player, but ultimately you’re trying to weigh up a players’ contribution to your side on the pitch against the financial cost for the club.

A playmaker who can pass is essential, but without pace the impact that the player can have is somewhat limited. Add pace (and the ability to go past people) and you can find your midfielder getting into better positions and creating more chances. But without a decent level of finishing, when in the position to shoot, they’ll often blow the chance. The PPMs (player preferred moves) that players have can have a huge impact too.

So given the choice of two players with similar AF but one with the ability to finish, another without, the first player is clearly worth more money as he’s likely to have a greater impact on your fortunes on the pitch.

This leads me onto another point – AF isn’t a good indicator of effectiveness on the pitch. AF is linked directly to the player’s current capability, with modifiers for potential and age. Effectiveness on the pitch is down to the distribution of current capability. This means your fullback with 10 pace and acceleration is never going to be a world beater, no matter how high his acquisition fee is and isn’t worth splurging the money over.

Finally, the calculations shown assume a player is going to stay at the club from the point he joins until he’s 32. The in-game ‘locks’ mean that this assumption is wide of the mark. Most players spend between 2 and 4 seasons at my club. That means all I care about is that the player isn’t too old to swap/sell at the end of his stay. I don’t really care if a player is 21 or 26 because at the end of the day I’ll have to use a lock to keep him and those are in short supply. Yes a player of equal ability at 21 compared to 26 is more valuable because he’ll be more attractive in 2-3 seasons time, but ultimately, not by the vast differences in price shown.

Starting Strategy for Older Gw - The Future

The future







My squad is strong, with a number of top youths coming through such as Walton, Richardson and Hughes. The stadium is in a good state, with a new corporate box next on the wish list. Morei mpressive is my past rankings when considering I joined in season 6, my lowest ranking being 57 and even touching upon the top 10!!!

I’ve continued down the path of replacing older players with talented youngsters, and even have a youth team, as I move towards a more healthy average age of 25 (rather than 30). Some of my players are approaching their sell-by date, especially Pepe, so further investment will be required shortly.

However, the bulk my stadium payments are finally coming to an end, so I will now have a lot more money to play around with. I’ve already reinvested some cash, namely the money received from the Jandra sale, into my stadium in the form of 3 new blocks of Astilla seats, taking my total capacity to 26,000. I now plan to be on the lookout for a ‘marque’ signing to bring the corporate fans in – this is where the real money in stadiums exists.

My ranking is holding steady, very rarely outside the top 50 and occasionally touching the top 20 – a great achievement for a club 3 seasons old. Performances in all competitions have been steady and I expect to really be able to kick on with signings at the end of the 4th season.


Skills

Often skills are down to personal choice, but I think the skills you choose are important and choosing bad skills (no-one needs Physio 5 until they have nothing better to learn...) can really impact upon your team. So here’s the list of skills I went for, in rough order, and the reasoning.

1. Construction 4 + Foreman 4

I knew I was going to be building a lot of stadiums, so I wanted to save myself money and time. I went for the learning skill first (to level 4), which is debatable as to whether this paid off over the two skills I learnt.

2. Contract Negotiation 4 + Transfer Negotiation 4

In my opinion, these two skills are very, very useful and pay for themselves many, many times over. Having an entire team on 80% of wage demand, instead of 100% of wage demand, can save you £50,000 a day at the top end of the gameworld – which means you can have an extra two household players and stay under the ‘soft cap’ of £250,000 daily wages. Transfer Negotiation greatly helped me stretch my limited funds in wage auctions.

3. Scouting 5 and Judging Potential 4

I’ve almost finished learning Judging Potential 4, which is a key skill in this game in its current form. Being able to tell the potential of young players can really help you in signing younger players. I didn’t go for this straight away, as I always intended to sign older players first, where judging potential is of zero benefit.

4. Coaching

Next up, and for the foreseeable future, is coaching. Having a high level of coaching really helps bring on your kids. As I’ve moved more towards youth and away from senior, this is the next step in securing the long term future of my club.

Starting Strategy for Older Gw - Season 3

Season 3 - Moving towards youth

Transfers

After two seasons of signing experienced high profile players, I’d raised my reputation to 3.5 stars. This was boosted by the sale of Ari and subsequent reinvestment of that money in the slightly older, higher wage but excellent Barreto and the recruitment of solid defender Lima to replace an aging Walter Garcia. I then shifted to looking at excellent youth players who could come through at my side, buying regen midfielder Simon Hughes at wage auction, followed by ace left winger Tim Walton in private transfer and powerful striker Mark Richardson in transfer auction.

This trio of younger players marked a change in my clubs strategy from immediate success to planning for the future, merging youth with the experience to ensure a future for the club.

Towards the end of the third season, I sold Joe Mattock and Petr Jandra. With both of them coming to the end of their contracts, I felt I could cash in and reinvest the money. Mattock had been played out of position at right back, but fetched a cool £600,000, In Tim Walton, I had a ready made replacement for Jandra, and the £600,000 recouped represented a vast profit on the £170,000 paid and a huge reduction in projected wages (as he was due to increase to 15,000 from 5,000!)


Matches and Tactics

Unlike the departed Ari, Barretto possessed great pace, passing and dribbling skills, making him excellent in an attacking midfield position. I therefore shifted to a 4-6-0 formation to make best use of my 3 central attacking players – Barretto, Ernane and Hughes. This meant I was even tighter at the back and made my side notoriously hard to beat, especially with the

The AEFA closed and migrated to the EFA the following season. However, as I had qualified for the premiership the previous season, I was put straight into the EFA premiership. My main aim was to avoid relegation, my hopeful target was a top half finish. In the end, I managed to pull together a decent set of results and qualified for the Silver Cup in my third season in the gameworld – quite an achievement.

Stadium

I took a gamble and paid out a lot of money for a 3-Tier Azindale stand with 2 blocks of Astilla and 3 electronic advertising boards. I could have, and probably should have, gone for another 2-Tier stand, which would have been built quicker, resulting in quicker turnaround of profits. Additionally, I would have been able to afford (and require) another corporate block soon.

The reason I went against this as I was of the opinion that if I went down this route, I’d need to build a 3-Tier stand eventually regardless and my overall expenditure would be much higher for initial increase in income compared to cost.

Due to the long construction time, these improvements wouldn’t finish until the start of season 4.

Summary

- Reduced the average age by switching to purchasing top prospects rather than experienced players, keeping an eye out for relative ‘bargains’.
- Reached and retained 3.5 star team rep.
- Added a new, 3-Tier stand with ample space for future improvements.

Starting Strategy for Older Gw - Season 2

Season 2 – Establishing the Club

Expanding the squad

Wage auctions can be excellent value, or you can end up spending your money on players whose wages are far too high. I had a clear strategy – to sign higher reputation players to increase my clubs reputation. I picked up world famous DC Pepe and solid midfielder Pierre Ducasse in transfer auctions, and added to that Joe Mattock (DL), Eoin Powderley (DL – oops! Bid on both expecting to only get one!), Ernane (MC/AMC), Petr Jandra (MR/ML) and Yaser Yildriz (AMR/ST) through wage auctions. After this I had very little money left, but I had kept my wages relatively low in total (around £110,000), so I was still making a daily profit, despite stadium payments.

These signings really established my club, adding real quality for not that much in wages. The key was to sign players such as Ernane for under half their wage demand in wage auctions, and players such as Pepe for very small fees in transfer auctions, meaning I could punch above my weight in terms of quality on the pitch. It also marked the first time I managed to sign players in their prime. Yildriz, Jandra, Mattock and Powderly meant my first team was no longer almost retired!


Matches & Tactics

GK – Sippel

DL – Powderly
DR – Mattock
DC – Pepe
DC – Garcia

ML – Jandra
MR – Yildriz
MC – Ernane
MC – Ducasse
MC – Kurtulus

ST – Ari

With the signings I’d made, I kept the same formation, but this time around my midfield had far more bite with Jandra, Ernane and Yildriz. Defence was much stronger, too, although I had to play Mattock out of position at right back due to my mistake in signing two left backs!

I moved to the All Evening FA and was placed in Division 1A, directly below the premiership. Here I faced a mix of teams, some teams who had joined at the same time as me as well as some teams who were entering their 7th season! To my amazement, my team managed to push for promotion, eventually winning the league. Key to the success was the use of Ernane. I gave him very, very attacking instructions and a lot of freedom. He re-payed me by managing a goal every other game and really being the driving force behind all my attacking play.

Stadium

Although the signings of the previous season had left me relatively poor, I continued to add to my stadium, paying it off over 4 to 8 weeks. By paying it off over time, I always made a slight profit and my income steadily increased. By the end of the season, I had mostly filled out the 2-Tier Azindale stand with an equal mix of Disagio and Di Lusso seats. As I was starting to get some demand for corporate fans, I also paid out for a Flauta corporate box, which really boosted my income.

I funded this not through player sales, but by keeping wages low and paying the stadium costs over 4 to 8 weeks. This meant I always made a modest profit to reinvest into players

Summary

- Expanded the squad through a mixture of low-fee transfer auctions and low-wage wage auction purchases.
- Improved the quality throughout the squad with players in their prime.
- Still avoided private transfers – much better value to be had in transfer and wage auctions
- Reached 3 star team rep.
- Filled out my first stand with Di Lusso and Disagio
- Added a Flauta Corporate box.

Starting Strategy for Older GW - Season 1

Season 1 – Getting a foothold

Initial Squad Selection

I opted for an old, experienced team for my initial squad selection, picking a starting 11 on key attributes and filling out the rest of the squad with minimum wage players with tiny acquisition fees. My wages were a lowly £55,000 and I had money in the bank from my initial £500,000.

Your income is relative to your wage for clubs under 3 star reputation as long as your total wages remain under £100,000. This meant that I only made marginally more profit by going for a lower wage squad. However, by keeping my initial wages low, this meant that when I expanded my squad I still remained under the 100k wage limit before I started eating into profits.

Transfers

You can only win matches by scoring, so I quickly spent a large chunk of my remaining cash on Brazilian striker Dinei. I then added to this by signing players such as Walter Garcia (DC), Sercan Kurtulus (MC) and Edson (DR/MR) for very small fees (lower than AF) in transfer auctions. This enabled me to build a competitive squad for only a small amount of money.

Later on I signed a quality goalkeeper, Tobias Sippel, for £600,000 spread over 4 weeks, and I sold Dinei for £250,000 before signing a better, younger replacement in Ari for £350,000.

Tactics & Matches

With my best player a striker, I opted to play 4-4-1-1, with Dinei (and then Ari) upfront and initial squad signing Sergey Krivets as my midfield playmaker sitting just behind. I played defensive football, setting myself up as hard to beat and generally played on the counter.

The difference between gaining 1 point or all 3 points is often a set piece so I had made sure I had a good corner taker (16+), a good free-kick taker (16+) and someone good in the air (Jumping, Heading, Strength all 17+) in my initial squad selection. This combined with the occasional magic from Krivets or Dinei made my side very strong compared to other new joiners.

I joined a New User league set up by the Beta moderators for the influx of new teams. This pitted me against clubs of my own ability only, and I steadfastly refused to play against teams of far greater ability. The result of this was that my world ranking (I reached the top 10 in the world and generally didn’t fall out of the top 50), and FA ranking was impressive. I ended up winning New User League 2 with a couple of games to spare.

Stadium

One of the biggest decisions to make is over when and how to expand your stadium. I opted against improving one of the existing stands, as I felt it was a short-term and short-sighted investment.

One of the biggest money earners in the game are corporate fans, or ‘Corps’. I knew there was no point in catering to corporate fans at this point, because the demand wasn’t there for my club, but I decided to give myself the option by building a stand with corporate provision.

A 2-Tier stand is a good choice to start off with, because you can reap the rewards relatively quickly. A 3-Tier stand takes upwards of 20 days to build and the seats take up to 15 days more, so it can be a season before you reap increased income.

I therefore opted for a 2-Tier Azindale Type 2 stand. It offers a decent number of seating blocks, combined with space for one Corp box and advertising provision. I initially included a few blocks of Disagio seats and 1 block of Di Lusso seats, along with electronic advertising boards, resulted in a modest jump in projected earnings.


Summary

- Experienced initial starting squad, low wage, filled out with very cheap players
- Made sure I bought in a quality striker to bang in the goals
- Expanded the squad in numbers and quality, cheaply, through transfer auctions, rather than the much higher private transfer fees.
- Reached 2 star team rep.
- Started expanding my stadium with future proofing in mind – 2 Tier Azindale stand.

Starting Strategy for Older GW - Intro

When I made the step up to moderator, I was asked to play in the Beta as well. This is so we are up to date with all the coming changes to best inform the members of our respective live worlds as to future changes. Instead of going over my team, I thought it would be more interesting to describe my path to (relative) glory. I joined the gameworld a week into season 6, leaving me a long way behind established members of the gameworld. I realise this is ‘just’ the Beta, but I hope that what I did could act as some sort of ‘road map’ to success for those players who choose to join established worlds.

I don’t pretend that this is the best way of doing things – I made some questionable decisions and I’m sure other people will come up with better options in their own strategies (Jakswan’s guide in particular is an interesting read and his blog in general is worth a look). I also got lucky in some of my signings, but then you need a bit of that luck to succeed. However, I do know that as of writing, I’m sitting 18th in the world rankings, with wages of just 130,000, a productive stadium mostly paid off and some good youngsters coming through, after joining the gameworld 6 seasons late.

I’ll separate out the strategy in a number of posts to make it easier to read. Feel free to post questions or tell me what I should have done.

Beaulieu FC – A (players) history

While I claim to have a fairly good memory, a lot of the history of the club is contained within the pages of this blog over the course of the last year and I doubt I’d be able to add anything new! Instead of regurgitating the information, I thought I’d change the focus and look at the players who have been at the heart and sole of the club. I thought that the best way of doing this would be to present a new Beaulieu FC dream team, 5 seasons on from the first one. ‘Regen’ players are denoted by an asterisk. (http://beaulieufc.blogspot.com/2009/04/beaulieu-fc-dream-team.html)


GK – Maurizo Setaro* - 590 App

Contenders: Denis Gorbachev*, Samir Handanovich, Rogerio Ceni

It was clear that Maurizo Setaro was going to be a superstar when his manager persuaded me to part with £1,000,000 to bring him to Beaulieu FC back in Season 6. Over the next 3 and a half seasons he emerged as one of the world’s best, regularly pulling off amazing saves in order to underline Beaulieu FC’s defensive prowess.


DR – Dani Alves - 1149 App, 143 Goals, 622 Assists

Contenders: Nelson, Matteo Longobardi*, Thiago Viera*

Dani ‘Superman’ Alves was the first household name to grace Beaulieu FC, joining the club in the first season and remained at the Anchor during his best years. A marauding force down the right flank, he was often switched to right wing to make better use of his offensive qualities. An amazing record made him one of the best players in the gameworld, season after season. None of the contenders came close.


DL – Christian Ansaldi - 532 App, 9 Goals, 99 Assists

Contenders: Frederico Balzaretti, Vanderson Canela, Ivan Sima

Left back had always been a bit of a problem position for Beaulieu FC. Of the contenders, but Argentinean brawler Ansaldi has neatly solved that issue for a number of seasons. Either footed, being able to play up and down both wings, Ansaldi has been an invaluable member of the side.


DC – Martin Caceres (Captain) - 2280 apps, 296 Goals, 126 Assists

There were no other contenders for Caceres’ place. The club captain has been with the club since he was 21, emerging as one of the worlds best defenders and winning a host of trophies to become one of the most decorated players in the game. The only player to have remained at Beaulieu FC across all the seasons, he’s now 31 and into the twilight of his career, but still remains as integral a cog to the Beaulieu machine as ever.


DC – Nedum Onouha - 931 app, 43 Goals, 48 Assists

Contenders: Mats Hummels, Henrique, Andreas Kjaer*

One of the first players signed by Beaulieu FC after the initial squad, he stayed with the side for a number of seasons, moving from right back to the centre as he grew in stature. His blistering pace really marked him a notch above most other defenders. Mats Hummels will be desperately disapointed not to have made the cut, with most Beaulieu FC fans including him for the goal that won Beaulieu FC’s first gold cup.


MR – Geovani Capitani* - 1064 App, 98 Goals, 224 Assists

Contenders: Diego Valeri, Felipe Monteiro, Rommano Denneboom.

The sheer fact is that I’ve not had many quality players on the right wing. Sometimes this was due to formation (playing without wingers for a couple of seasons), but more often than not it was due to one of two men holding this position and making it their own. Dani Alves is forced to right back because of one man – Capitani. Signed for a significant sum of money at 19, he was touted as the future of Beaulieu FC and hasn’t disappointed. Now 25, he’s one of the best right wingers in the game.


ML – Jeremy Menez - 931 App, 122 Goals, 213 Assists

Contenders: Andres Guardado, Marko Marin, Carlos Eduardo

This is where it starts getting difficult. While in defence I’ve not had a lot of amazing players, in midfield the strength in depth over the history of Beaulieu FC is immense. In the end, I had to go with Menez due to his level of performance and length of service for the club. Signed in Season 4, he spent a full 6 seasons at the club before being replaced by current incumbent of the left wing, Marko Marin. His ‘wide forward’ role neatly complemented that of Capitani’s out and out winger role and he greatly contributed to the most successful period of the clubs history – picking up two Gold Cup winners’ medals.


MC (d) – Marcio Toledo* - 884 App, 90 Goals, 162 Assists

Contenders: Marco Donadel, Danielle Dessena, Michael Johnson

Signed as a 21 year old from one of the gameworlds’ top youth academies for a large sum of money, Toledo emerged into exactly the player I hoped he would become. While other Regen midfielders overtook him in terms of value, his contribution to my club has been superb. His stats are perfectly distributed for his role as a defensively minded midfielder and that enables Toledo to act as the metronome and steel for my side.


AMC – Sergio Aguero - 306 app, 177 Goals, 158 Assists

Contenders: Guilherme, Yoann Gourcuff, Freddy Adu

It pains me greatly to leave the prodigal son of Beaulieu FC on the bench, but I simply couldn’t justify leaving Aguero out of the side. I’ve always had a creative midfielder in my side pulling the strings, and Aguero was simply the best. Finishing, passing, speed, aerial ability, the Argentinian magician is put simply, a complete player. He also scored two of the best goals I’ve ever seen in FM (although neither rated highly on the longshot volley biased star rating system). That they both occurred in the same match against perennial nemesis Monobrow FC made it all the sweeter.


AMC – Moussa Kouakou - 898 App, 406 goals, 463 Assists

Contenders: Julio Baptista, Jorge Martinez, Ismael Aissati

Of my pair of attacking midfielders, I’ve usually had one who is dominant I the air. For nearly 5 seasons, that man has been world-class powerhouse Moussa Kouakou. Julio Baptista ran him close in terms of performance, but Kouakou simply gets better and better with a huge amount of goals, assists and match winning performances. One of the best players in the game in his own right, he does the business when he’s called upon.


ST – Mario Balotelli - 535 app, 651 goals, 184 Assists

Contenders: Pato, Carlos Vela

Not only is he the best player to have ever graced the pitch at Beaulieu FC, the Italian stallion is the best striker in the game in Saunders, bar none. He’s into his third season at the Anchor and is one of the chief reasons for my continued success. A goal machine, his ‘worst’ season of the three yielded ‘just’ 1.2 goals per game. I only listed two competitors as Aguero and Guilherme were listed in the midfield. Both Pato and Vela were immense forces in my side, but at the end of the day, there’s only one Super Mario.


Current Squad

You’ve met the dream team, but here’s the current squad of superstars entertaining the masses at The Anchor:

GK – Denis Gorbachev*

DR – Thiago Viera*
DL – Christian Ansaldi
DC – Martin Caceres
DC – Andreas Kjaer*

MR – Geovanni Capitani*
ML – Fausto Rossi
MC – Marcio Toledo*

AMC – Gregory Cabrera*
AMC – Moussa Kouakou*
ST – Mario Balotelli

Note that the formation is fairly fluid, with Mario often playing as a third AMC, and with the wingers often pushing forward. Against small defences, Kouakou often finds himself at the head of the spear, while a flat midfield is often seen when the prodigous Gregory Cabrera is on the field.

Re-launch of the blog

For a number of reasons, chief among them being my move to being a moderator and taking part in the beta, over the last few months I just didn’t have the time to update this blog. I still don’t really have the time, but I’m going to try and keep it more up to date with the comings and goings at Beaulieu FC.

As the Gameworld nears the end of its 11th season, I thought I’d start the re-launch with a brief history of the club and some of the myriad of world class players to have graced the hallowed turf at The Anchor.

Expect my thoughts on a range of issues, from my team, GW Saunders, game updates and the introduction of my team from the Beta, Langford FC.

Super Mario arrives at The Anchor

I thought he was out of reach, not for sale and never to leave Major Beef, which is why I was surprised to see the one and only Mario Balotelli being touted around the market place. I moved swiftly, and after a short period of negotiation the best striker in the world relocated to The Anchor.

Matt Bunn’s dazzling Beaulieu FC have signed world class Italian striker Mario Balotelli on a 2 season contract after their part exchange bid worth a total of £8,000,000 was accepted by English manager Kylio’s dazzling Major Beef.

Beaulieu FC paid £1,800,000 and world class Mexican winger Carlos Vela, valued at £4,000,000 and world class Brazilian striker Guilherme, valued at £2,200,000 join Major Beef in exchange.

This eclipses the £7,000,000 deal paid to The Wombles to secure Julio Baptista many seasons ago, as Super Mario becomes The Blues’ record signing.

A new outlook for Season 9

Youth has been an important area for my side for a number of seasons. The glorious season of my ‘golden generation’ of U21’s saw my side win all three AEFA U21 trophies – winning the U21 league by a monstrous margin. However, after those brilliant youngsters permanently joined the ranks of my seniors, I always felt it was going to be difficult to ever recapture that level of performance. My kids performed admirably this season, with Coffey, Russo, Alves, Hofstede and Kjaer forming a strong backbone that would have formed part of my youth side for several seasons to come. But after examining the reasons why I couldn’t compete in the league, I did realise one thing – Jannik was spending 50,000 a day more than me on his senior squad, the equivalent of two world class players. I made the decision that it was too difficult to be able to fight on two fronts – senior and youth – and so I opted to move towards a senior only team. This is partially done also for the reason that I want to start playing fewer matches and the youth aspect certainly does result in a high number of matches being played. With that in mind, and needing to refresh the squad, I’ve made a number of deals over the past couple of weeks.

In

Henrique – Rice Crispy FC – £950,000

The world class central defender was very attractive to me. Bought for a fair way under his market value, the Brazilian DC has a high reputation but a much lower wage demand than many other central defenders of his reputation. He’s performed admirably since arriving at The Anchor and has secured a place in the starting lineup.

Sergio Aquero – The Stone Colds – £2,750,000, Coffey, Russo and Alvez

It isn’t often a truly world class striker becomes available, especially not of the handful in the £2m+ AF bracket. Anders of The Stone Colds has decided to change to a youth strategy. After painfully missing out on the signings of Jack Wilshire and world class left winger Christian Vieri, I was determined not to let Aguero out of my grasps. In the end I agreed a deal for £2,750,000 which also saw three of my top youth prospects move the other way. The brilliant Argentinian has started very well and heads one of the most deadly attacking trio’s in the gameworld – Vela, Aguero, Kouakou.

Out

Naldo – Erdinlington Eagles – £250,000

A fee of £250,000 was low for such a world class player, but age was against him as he was about to turn 34. Having lost a yard of pace and with his technical skills on the decline, he was no loner of a high enough quality to remain a starting choice at The Anchor.

Vanderson Canela – Birmingham Southside – £1,800,000

The young DL was a truly world class prospect, but I simply didn’t have the locks that enabled me to keep him. I tried to swap for a number of other DL prospects but to no avail, so in the end Terry secured his services for a cool profit of £1.4m.

Neymar – Edinbugrh FC - £825,000

With Aguero joining, the brilliantly talented and explosively improving Neymar found himself well down the pecking order. Keen to cut costs having taken Aguero’s sizeable wages onto my books, I couldn’t justify the wages I was spending on Neymar to sit on the bench, so off he went to join Barry Watson as a replacement for Benzema.

A number of youth players have also left Beaulieu FC, making room for more improvements in the senior team. More comings and goings are expected over the comings days, so I will try and keep the blog updated and update the team on the right of the page at the end of this season.

A fantastic season

Firstly, apologies for the sparse updates but life and moderating have taken up my time to the extent that I haven’t had the opportunity to write a proper update. So to end the wait…

Season 8 Summary

A very successful season saw my side bring home another truck-load of trophies;

Charity Shield – Winners
Premiership Cup – Winners
All Evening Cup – Winners
Goodwill Cup – Winners
Premiership – Runner Up
Gold Cup - Winners
AEFA U20 - Winners

The Gold Cup triumph was especially sweet. A final against Kyle’s Major Beef was always going to be an exciting affair. The Beef feature quality players in abundance, including Micah Richards and former Anchor-man Nedum Onouha in defence, Anderson and Gonzalez inspiring a quality midfield and the one and only Balotelli upfront. Carlos Vela proved the difference, scoring twice, as my side eased to a 3-1 victory in the biggest game in FML football.

The league was a different matter. With Pato in uninspiring form in the early season (before the swap for Vela), my side were mediocre at best, awful at worst, and the title was lost in the first few games. A 5-1 loss at home to Jannik’s AI with 5 games to play effectively handed his side the title – a gap of 6 points showing how close it was at the end of the season.


Player of the Season

There were several leading contenders for player of the season;

Carlos Vela – Some thought the deal that saw the Mexican magician join Beaulieu FC was a bad one, with Pato irreplaceable. They were wrong. While Vela didn’t score as many goals as Pato, he scored more consistently and he scored against the best sides in the gameworld – something Pato had often failed to achieve. A brilliant player, he secured the Gold Cup for The Anchor for the second time in 3 seasons.

Moussa Kouakou – The emergence of this youngster into a world class forward had gone unnoticed by some. A season of taking corners has artificially boosted his ratings, but never-the-less the Ivorian powerhouse has emerged into a really top drawer player.

Guilherme – Some questioned the re-signing of Guilherme, both over the price and the fact that Beaulieu FC already had 3 quality strikers. Guilherme slotted in at AMC and showed the world what they were missing. An average rating of above 7.5, a goal to games ratio of 0.50 and a huge number of assists and MOTM – all of this when not involved in corners, free-kicks or being a playmaker! A driving force behind Beaulieu FC’s success.

In the end, there could be only one winner, with club legend Guilherme sneaking ahead of Carlos Vela by virtue of his history with the club.

Promoted

I've been promoted from AEFA Org to Mod after 7 hard seasons. The only reason I'm posting this is to say I expect to update the blog a little less from now on, but I will continue to keep it up to date with the fate of Beaulieu FC.

Huge transfer news at Beaulieu FC

In the biggest deal since the return of Guilherme and to the shock of all fans at the Anchor, club legend Pato has departed the club. Pato was replaced with world class forward Carlos Vela, with £500,000 moving into Beaulieu FC’s war-chest in lieu of the extra wages being given to the Mexican (£11,000 a day). Screenshots will be added at a later date.

World-class Mexican forward Carlos Vela is a slightly better player – a little quicker than Pato, although slower to get up to top speed, he’s a better finisher, a mesmeric dribbler and has far greater mental attributes. Most importantly, he’s far more versatile – naturally talented as a left winger, an attacking midfielder or as a striker. With all 4 strikers at the club (Vela, Guilherme, Kouakou and Neymar) able to play AMC or ST, this means far more tactical flexibility when it comes to matches.

Some pundits have pointed towards Beaulieu’s mixed results as the reasoning behind the change upfront (and a likely change in tactics). While Pato, as ever, has been impressive – a goal ratio of 1.3 is stunningly high – the team just haven’t gelled properly. Goals from midfield have largely dried up and the defence is looking weaker than ever despite being, on paper, the strongest it’s been for a while. League form says it all – 1 win from the opening 4 games. With a number of players contracts up at the end of the season, further changes are expected at The Anchor in the coming weeks.

In other news

All competitions apart from The Premiership have been going well. 3 wins from 3 in the Gold Cup leave Beaulieu FC in a good position while qualification looks likely from difficult groups in the Goodwill Cup and Prem Cup. The club also finds itself n the 2nd round of the All Evening Cup after a powerful performance over two legs versus Jondal IL. The Charity Shield has also seen the best performance of a mildly disappointing start to the season in a 7-1 demolition of Premiership side Herrestorp. Meanwhile, the youth side is a shadow of the golden generation of last season but is still holding its own. Russo is yet to find his feet as the leading striker, but he still has another 2 seasons at youth level so I expect good things from the young Italian.

The Team

I've updated the links on the left to show the team for season 8. All the plyers are 1 year older, as I took the screenshots a day or two before season 8 started last night, but there have been no real changes in ability of the players since then. On the bench I have sede, Neymar, Shea, Donadel, Kjaer and many more, making this perhaps the deepest team I've ever had.

Comings and goings at The Anchor

Out

Pardo - £400,000

When I signed Pardo, I stupidly signed him to only a 1 season contract. With my locks fairly tight, I knew I couldn’t afford to keep him, despite paying £400,000 for him at the start of the season. The young Spaniard had progressed well, ensuring I managed to get what I paid for him as he moved to Cottingley FC, Paul handing back some of the huge wad of cash I’d paid for Guilherme.

Bellomo - £600,000

William Bellomo had been in my youth team for many years. He’d seen the bad times, when my youth side was truly terrible, but he was also part of my all-conquering U21 side from last season. However, for the second time in 2 seasons, he was unhappy and considering leaving his the club at the end of his contract. Rather than risking losing him yet again, I chose to sell him for £600,000 and 15% of any future sale.

Hummels - £1,800,000

Mats Hummels had been a steady fixture at the heart of Beaulieu FC’s defence during the most successful period in the club’s history. It was the towering German who climbed highest at the near post to secure the biggest trophy in club football – the Gold Cup – for The Blues, ensuring his place as a fan’s favourite. Unfortunately, his contract was up at the end of the season and I simply couldn’t justify using a lock on him. An offer of £1,800,000 – significantly above market value at a time when a great number of players are available, both in wage auctions and as free agents, was simply too much to turn down.

Mark McIntosh - £400,000

The young goalkeeper had been with my side for two seasons, but over the course of the last few weeks he’d really kicked on and become a quality player. Unfortunately for the young Englishman, he was never going to be first team while Setaro is around. An offer of £400,000 saw him join Dan the Man’s Stoner Island.

Angulo (loan)

Ibon Angulo has been another ever-present member of my youth side over the last few seasons, and he’s begun to flourish into a quality midfielder. To further aide his development, I’ve loaned him out to fellow AEFA side Stoner Island, where he’s getting senior football and performing well. Fellow academy graduate Marc Matthieu is likely to follow in Angulo’s footsteps and spend a season in the championship next year.



In

Note: Prices below include the extra 10% paid for transfer auctions & private transfers or the 10 x wage fee incurred in wage auctions.

Kjaer - £450,000



With Bellomo and Pardo both turning 22 (and both leaving the club!), I needed to start to replace my youth defence. At 18, Kjaer has brilliant physical stats and a good base distribution of stats, so I’m hopeful he’ll progress into a quality young player. He acquitted himself very well in his senior debut, even managing an assist, so I’m hoping for big things from him.


Shea - £175,000



The versatile American is a former 5 star potential prospect who never really developed into a world class player. I needed backup down the left wing, and with Shea able to play LB, ML and MC and on a low wage, he was a perfect fit. Looking at his career history, it was clear he’d never really been given a fair run in a first team, with most of his appearances being as a substitute. I’m hoping given first team football and a good record, he’ll start to develop into the player he once promised to be.


Neymar - £400,000



This is the second time the little Brazilian has been at Beaulieu FC. He joined the club as part of the ill-fated deal involving Guardado, but was then unfortunately thrown to the dogs when released from his contract. DRM snatched him up and promptly left him on the bench for 4 seasons and his development into quite possibly one of the best strikers in the gameworld went off the rails. Finally, he’s found his way back to Beaulieu FC. Some people will consider it far too late for Neymar to emerge into a world class force to be reckoned with, but I’m hoping to prove people wrong and give Neymar the platform to shine he’s been lacking since the age of 19. Two-footed, with a fair bit of pace and finishing ability, he’s played extremely well so far, with 12 goals and 11 assists from AMC in just 21 games.


Naldo - £825,000



I only sold Hummels knowing that Naldo was available. At 32, Naldo is at the peak of his career, but, while time definitely isn’t on his side, he’s an improvement at centre-back. Utterly dominant in the air, he’s renowned for scoring at set pieces and a bargain considering I’ve got around £700,000 (after wages) spare after the Hummels sale to play around with to look for a young replacement in the coming season.

A season of success for Beaulieu FC

The 7th season in Saunders proved to be the most glorious in Beaulieu FC’s history, with the club lifting no fewer than 7 official trophies and finishing runner up in another 3.

Premiership – 1st
All Evening Cup – Winners
Premiership Cup – Winners
Charity Shield – Winners
Goodwill Cup – Runners up
Gold Cup – Semi-finals
Super Cup – Runners up
Gameworld Cup – 2nd Round

AEFA U21s – 1st
AEFA U20s - 5th
AEFA U19s - 7th
AEFA U18s – 2nd
AEFA Youth Cup – Winners
AEFA U21 KO – Winners
World Youth Cup – Quarter-finals

Team of the Season

GK – Setaro
DR – Longobardi
DL – Candela
DC – Hummels
DC – Caceres
MR – Capitani
ML – Menez
MC – Donadel
AMC – Guilherme
AMC – Kouakou
ST – Pato

Player of the season

Guilherme - the prodigal son returned and played a vital part in this seasons success.

Clean sweep of the U21's!!!

Beaulieu FC managed the tripple crown of the AEFA U21 tournaments..

English manager Matt 'Chat Helper' Bunn's dazzling Beaulieu FC have won the seventeen-club AEFA U21's with four matches still to play.



English manager Matt 'Chat Helper' Bunn's reigning champions Beaulieu FC have won the fifteen-club AEFA U21 KO Cup after their 3-2 win over Italian manager Alessandro Gabelli's reigning champions NewWorld in the Final.



English manager Matt 'Chat Helper' Bunn's reigning champions Beaulieu FC have won the sixteen-club AEFA Youth Cup after their 2-1 win over capable English manager Daz Pigott's reigning champions City Hornets in the Final.

Golden oldies out, Toledo in as Beaulieu FC lose in WYC

Transfers

Two Beaulieu FC stalwarts have departed the club over the last week, after I’d decided now would be the time to let them go. Jorge Martinez had been with the club around a month and had been a very popular figure among the fans. He regularly popped up with goals and assists with a legendary ability in the air. The signing of Moussa Kouakou pushed him to the bench and, at 31, time was definitely against him. An offer of £1.2m – comfortably above his market value – saw the Uruguayan monster leave the anchor for Clueless Crew FC.

The other notable departure saw Frederico Balzaretti leave the club for AEFA Premiership rivals, Soeren’s Milenator Roar. Balzaretti had saw his position taken by the solid performances of wonderkid Vanderson Canela and at 32 was well past his prime in a Beaulieu FC shirt. Soeren desperately needed some experience in his defence, and a deal was swiftly struck that saw the veteran Italian move in exchange for £220,000.

Coming into the first team as a long term player for the centre of midfield is 21 year old star in the making Marcio Toledo. Groomed from one of the top youth academies in the gameworld, the youngster has everything: he’s a brilliant passer of the ball, he’s got a wicked shot on him, he’s quick, strong and good in the air and he’s not afraid to get stuck in. Since joining the club he’s played very well in the centre of a 4-5-1 alongside Donadel and Guilherme, the highlight so far a rasping drive in a 3-1 victory against perennial under-achievers Loftus Road FC. He’s also been dominant in the U21 side as my kids are battling for success on 4 fronts – the U18s, the U21s, the U21 KO Cup and the Youth Cup.



Defeat in the WYC

Even the presence of Toledo couldn’t get my side into the semi-finals of the World Youth Cup. In the quarter finals, we were pitted against West End Academy Specialists – the clue is in the name, they’re a top youth side. That the match was even, that my side only lost 2-1 and that they made it to the last 8 in the world gives a great indication as to just how far my youth side has progressed this season.

The prodigal son returns...

English manager Matt 'Chat Helper' Bunn's dazzling Beaulieu FC have signed world class Brazilian striker Guilherme on a 2 season contract after their part exchange bid worth a total of £3,610,000 was accepted by English manager Paul Stephens's dazzling Cottingley FC.

Spending money has never been so difficult…

After a series of cost-cutting moves, cutting expenditure by 90k a day and selling players, Beaulieu FC are fairly well off financially. Spending that money, as has been promised to the Beaulieu FC faithful, has been almost impossible. This has come from two problems – the premium people put on their own star players and the huge wages that youth players are going for. Having worked so hard to cut down my wages, I have no intention of spending 15-20k on a 16 year old. As this is what all good, young players are going for in wage auctions, I’ve been exploring other avenues of adding to the playing staff. This leads to the second problem – the premium people put on their star players.

It’s not that players are unavailable – I’ve already seen two world class players in their prime who are available for less than market value. The problem is that I have world class players in virtually every position and that any prospective signing has to be an upgrade on the current occupant of that role. This limits the prospective number of eligible players dramatically, especially given the number of players locked into inactive teams, such as Kaka, Rooney and Torres. I tried hard to get Martin Galvan, Adail Viera and John Fleck, all to no avail as the managers decided that the players simply weren’t for sale. After an entire weekend of trying to do deals, I’m closing in on a number of players – hopefully I’ll have news of a deal tonight.

The season so far…

Having said that, Beaulieu FC have made a mockery of having a ‘depleted’ squad. Despite seeing the departures of Wellington (£1.25m), Dani Alves (swap deal for Kouakou), Kipre (400k), Marlon James (200k) and Stamenkovic (140k), the squad is perhaps in its best shape for some time. I’m storming ahead in the league and I’m still in all competitions (except the gameworld cup – damn Pandev!), while I’ve been in the top 5 in the gameworld for months now, slipping one place to 3rd overnight. I’m also doing very well in youth competitions, with my youth ranking rising to a record 5th overall.

Is this the comeback of the season?

In the Gold Cup Last 16 I was drawn against the talented FC Tushinev – at the time ranked 3rd in the world with Beaulieu FC ranked 2nd. The first leg, away, was a fairly even affair, with Tushinev edging proceedings. But Tushinev’s proficiency at corners came to the fore as he scored an incredible 4 corner goals – all from different players – to take a seemingly unassailable 4-0 lead back to The Anchor. What proceeded was the greatest comeback my side have ever managed. Shortly after halftime, Pato scored his 3rd and Beaulieu’s 5th to put my side into the lead on aggregate, and we didn’t stop there. In the 85th minute Marco Donadel slammed home a rebound from just inside the area to take the final score to Beaulieu FC 8 – 0 Tushinev FC, 8 – 4 on aggregate.

Wellington departs...

Since I had Kouakou (only 1 goal in 9 appearances, but 7 assists show he's now running the show) there was no room for Brazillian midfielder Wellington. I think he's peaked at 24, and although he's very good, I was hoping for him to develop into a slightly more potent midfielder.

I struck a deal with Neil Baldwin's Workshop Wednesday (back in the Prem after a season in the championship) which saw the midfield maestro swap sides for £1.25m spread over 4 weeks. This sees Beaulieu Fc's coffers swell to their largest since pre-stadium days, with rumours of a big signing iminent, Beaulieu FC boss Matt Bunn has been keeping quiet.

A legend departs as Beaulieu start the season in style

Transfer News

A week into the season and there has been plenty going on at Beaulieu FC. The biggest news is the departure of a fan favourite and one of the longest serving members of Beaulieu FC. Legendary Brazilian full-back Dani Alves left the club for Alex Leeman’s formerly inactive, newly invigorated Eagle Warriors. The deal saw the legendary Brazilian and £400,000 move to Eagles to secure the signing of prized wonderkid Kouakou. This deal freshens up the squad and dramatically improves the finances at The Anchor, which where looking somewhat depleted after the recent heavy investment in the youth team. The deal brings into question the futures of several players, most notably young Brazilian Wellington, with whom Kouakou is expected to fight for a starting place in season 7. It is widely thought that Beaulieu FC would consider offers for the world class midfielder given his likely place on the bench.






Dani Alves: 1149 Apps, 622 Assists, 143 Goals


The season so far…

The senior team has been going very strongly over the start of the season. 9 wins from 9 games in the league have opened up a gap at the top after this early stage. Qualifying from the group stages of the AEFA Charity Shield, Gold Cup, Premiership Cup and the Goodwill Cup looks likely, with Beaulieu FC undefeated in senior competitions (at least, over two legs) so far this season. Time will tell how the loss of Dani Alves will impact on the results, with tough fixtures against Monobrow City and Noerrebro Park Rangers this evening.

The previous investment in the youth team has paid dividends. The kids have performed admirably in all levels of competition they’re entered into (U21, U20, U19, U18s) in official competitions, but the standout performance so far has been in the U21 Championship friendly competition. Featuring a host of top youth sides, Beaulieu FC are sitting second, only behind West End Academy Specialists – a dominant youth side. The U21 side has been heavily invested in over the last two seasons, and it looks like it may pay dividends with the emergence of a few players who look genuinely capable of moving into the Beaulieu FC first team side in years to come.

The success at both levels has been reflected in Beaulieu FC’s ranking, reaching the top of the senior rankings again, and seeing youth rankings peak at 14 and sitting comfortably in the top 25 over the past few weeks.

Player Progression..

I’m not going to say I think I’ve cracked player progression, because that would jinx my youth team. What I will say is that after 6 seasons I finally have a good understanding of the mechanisms thanks to recent posts by the development team. There have been a couple of recent article on The Fiery Baptist (which were themselves partly gleamed from forum posts by the developers) that talk through player development nicely. If you want to go read all the ins and outs, then look for the link on the right hand side of my blog. To summarise:

-Attributes are displayed as 1-20, but are actually stored and used in the range 1-10,000. This means your players may well be improving, just not enough to go over one of the boundaries in order to trigger a change on the attributes page.

-CA points are relative to position – a striker uses up a lot of CA points to improve finishing, a midfielder less, and a defender virtually nothing.


-Playing in multiple positions costs CA points. On top of this, each position has different weightings – if your defender can also play striker, it’s going to cost him points to learn finishing.

-Physical improvements cost the most CA points.


-Being two-footed is a huge bonus, but also costs CA points.

-The level of football a player isn’t the real driver – the average rating they are achieving is. A player achieving 7.5 in youth is going to progress better than a similar player achieving 6.5 in senior. However, if a player can play well ‘above his level’ then this will cause a bigger improvement.

Having taken all of this (and more) on board I’ve changed a few things about how I play my youth. I’ve stopped playing my kids as substitutes towards the end of matches and started ensuring that most of them are getting decent enough ratings by playing at least half of a match. I’m also giving the kids who are good enough games in senior friendly competitions. This works two ways – those who are good enough get good ratings and let me know they can be relied on. Those who don’t go back to the youth leagues or out on loan for some more experience. Actually taking care with what I’ve been doing with my youth has resulted in 4 coaching reports in 2 days – 4 more than I’ve got in the previous month. I’ve managed to find a couple of people who are keen to take my players into their first teams on loan, and Julien Kipre is already reaping the benefits with a reputation increase combined with a few shiny new stat points. Others such as Serato, Canela and Longobardi are progressing quickly and in the right areas, while even some of my kids are starting to go green, so to speak.

Talking of kids, I have a mixed record when it comes to purchasing very young kids – Marlon James is looking like he’ll be a dud, while the only player to really come through has been Matthieu Marc – I think I’ve found a gem in 16 year old Australian midfielder Coffey. For his age, he has great attributes including explosive pace and great finishing, as well as being two-footed. So far he has 4 goals and 3 assist in 9 games, but 7 of those were from the bench for my U21 side. I’m hoping he may be the first true wonderkid to come through my academy – only time will tell.

Meet the team...

So with season 7 kicking off on Friday evening, I thought I’d go through the team that’s set to grace The Anchor in Beaulieu FC’s attempts to regain the AEFA Premiership crown. You can now find the team, with links to screenshots of their profiles, on the right hand side of this blog. I’m going to try and keep it updated with moderately recent screenshots as time goes by, so you can all see how (badly) my players are progressing! As you can see, there aren’t many changes to the team that finished last season, the only significant addition being Setaro between the sticks. The bench is full of young, talented players including Longobardi (AF500k, RB), Canela (AF500k, LB), Ibon Angulo (AF275k, MC) and Bellomo (AF180k, DC) – all either current or former members of the youth team. All in all, I think the team is looking strong for the next season, although lacking in depth in some positions.

Beaulieu FC make the news!

.. the Saunders news!

We're featured as top story in the first edition of the Saunders Star on the FML main page (http://www.footballmanagerlive.com/news/?newsid=3205) for our victory in the gold cup! hummels moment imortalised in FML history!

In other news, I've tried and failed to make any new signings of note, and the teams form is ropey, but looking up before the season starts. :)

Is this a return to inflation?

Not long ago, I lauded the gameworld as coming to life due to the influx of new managers and, most importantly, new cash. Put simply, I was wrong. In the last week, a number of high profile auctions have taken place, including the incredibly talented Beaulieu FC acquisition Jorge Martinez, world class defenders Kolo Toure and Nicholas Burdiso, and German goal machine Mario Gomez. So, what’s the thing that links every one of these players? In a free market, they’ve gone for under their acquisition fees, every one of them. Given the title of this post, you may think I’m having a laugh, with market value toppling in many cases to the same value as acquisition fee – ridiculous given the amount of money you pay for signing on fees now. But even with this, inflation is most definitely present in one form in the gameworld. I always use the off-season to replenish my youth teams. This season it’s been supremely difficult due to the huge inflation that has been apparent in the wages being paid for youth superstars. This has been heightened by former managers returning to the gameworld, offering up huge wages for youngsters as they turn to a complete youth policy, but it’s a cascading effect. As more managers pay more for wages, other managers must pay way above the odds to secure young potential superstars. The most recent example was moderator and fellow AEFA manager JMP of Loftus Road AFC bidding 15,000 to take one of Neil Baldwin’s young protégés. You may say this isn’t excessive – the youngster already has an AF of £275,000 and is most probably a 5 star potential player. But when you consider he’s had almost no progression since he was 17 and is about to turn 20, it underlines how desperate normally prudent managers are to secure any youngster with that 5-star millstone around their neck.

In other news…

The youth team for next season is slowly taking shape. Although still lacking in a few key areas, it’s looking good, with the defence particularly strong at the moment. I’ve still got cash to spend, especially with a large chunk of the Dessena transfer fee due to be paid, so I’m working on bringing in one or two more before the start of the season. I’m looking to try and field an U19, U20 and U21 team for the second season in a row. Former youth team stalwart Julien Kipre has gone out on loan to further his development. Although very high potential, he’s got bogged down over the last season or so and hasn’t really kicked on. However, signs are promising with plenty of games and plenty of goals for his new side and the glimmering hope offered by the appearance of a scattering of new green arrows. Similarly, Miljan Stamenkovic has joined his reserve team comrade in going out on loan to Terry Bennets’ Birmingham Southside, where he’ll hopefully get enough games to further his own progression.

Two wonderkids join Beaulieu FC

After the excitement of the last season, I knew I had to freshen up the squad to challenge for honours this season. I looked long and hard to find the best players for Beaulieu FC. In the end I managed to secure the signing of two prized genuine wonderkids, with one player shown the door.




Vanderson Canela was the best young DL available. I don't often make buys at wage auction as I hate paying over the odds for wages. In the end, I couldn't resist and just about managed to secure him to Beaulieu FC with a very large contract offer. his ability to take freekicks, given the lack of set piece specialists at The Anchor, makes him even more valuable in my eyes. With Balzaretti about to turn 33, Canela is the long term future of Beaulieu FC's left back posistion.




Helton had played well, but he'd given away vital goals at the worst occasions. I had never planned to lock him, so I needed to find a replacement. I asked around and managed to strike a deal for Maurizo Setaro. At a price of £1m, he wasn't cheap, but he's truly world class, on low wages and I think he'll prove to be a brilliant investment over the next few seasons. With his signing, Helton was shown the door for £100,000, recouping a little of the fee paid for his successor.

6th Season – A review

I was going to post an update on how things were going, but given that it was almost the end of the season, I decided to wait and post a retrospective summary. Here’s what happened to my side in the sixth season…


All Evening Premiership

It was a mixed year in the premiership, with my worst starting form of any campaign to date. The big triple deal mid-season didn’t help things, with the destabilisation of the team coinciding with some more poor results. Miraculously, none of the other sides pulled away. The biggest challenges came from Alun’s Monobrow City and Hr’s Noerrebro Pak Rangers. I had a shocking start to the season, drawing 5 of my first 9 games, before turning things around. A tight 1-0 loss to Monobrow left my side ahead only on my very impressive goal difference with just 5 games to play. Winning against Bohemians, Eagles and Carpathia left me with two tough games to play – away to Bannons XI and Huntstown Villa. Win both, and I’d win the league by virtue of my goal difference, drop any points and it was out of my hands. I duly dispatched Bannons, but came acropper against Huntstown Villa drawing 2-2. The lads had their fingers crossed, but then had their hearts broken when Barry Campbell scored in the 95th minute to hand Monobrow the win and the title.


Charity Shield

The charity shield was only introduced this season, with the inaugural members being myself, Huntstown Villa (as runner up in the League), AFC Carpathia (as winner of the All Evening Cup) and Ultimate Irons (as winner of the Non-Prem Cup). The initial league stage saw two clear contenders emerge as nothing could separate Beaulieu from one of our bogey teams, Huntstown Villa. Both sides emerged from the group stages with 4 wins and 2 draws (both 2-2, against each other) to ensure the final was contested between two sides of the highest quality.

A tough match saw Beaulieu come out on top, mostly due to Huntstowns’ inability to hit the target (10 shots, none on target). The Italian duo of Dessena and Donadel secured Beaulieu FC’s first trophy of the season.

Prem Cup

Group Stage

Once again I finished as the strongest qualifier from the group stage with 7 wins and 1 draw in a group featuring top opposistion Noerrebro Park Rangers and Bohemians FC.
The only place I dropped points was away to Noerrebro. I struggled to create much at all yet, despite being man marked by two defenders throughout the match, Pato proved the man to salvage a point by smashing the ball into the top corner from the edge of the area. Noerrebro are nothing if almost impossible to break down.

Quarter Finals vs Monobrow City

My prize for being the best qualifier across all groups was the toughest possible draw in getting Monobrow City in the quarter finals. Next season I might throw a game or two to get better draw. A goal apiece from Pato and Wellington secured a 2-0 victory at The Anchor in a game Beaulieu FC didn’t look like losing. The return leg was a different matter, however, as Monobrow took a 2-0 lead going into the 80th minute. DanI Alves and Capitani scored late goals to secure Beaulieu’s progress to the semi finals.

Semi Finals vs Eagle Warriors

Eagle Warriors were the main competitors over the last 2 seasons, picking up the Prem Cup and the Premiership in Season 4. Having been inactive for the last month or so, his team has waned but is still potent with Leandro Lima, Jo and Ashley Young. But my team made a mockery of close pre-match predictions as they reached to a 4-0 halftime lead, only to concede two sloppy goals to Jo in the second half to hand Eagles a way back into the match. Jo then scored again in the second leg, before my side managed to find an equaliser to ease the nerves a little. Ashley Young then fired home a belter from 30 yards to make the dying seconds nervous, but my side clung on to secure a place in the final for the second season in a row.

Final vs Noerrebro Park Rangers

The final saw me play Hr’s Noerrebro Park Rangers, never an easy game. Within 10 minutes I was staring down the barrel of defeat as Wagner curled home a free-kick to underline Hr’s early dominance. I made a quick decision to completely change my game plan to try and negate some of his strengths, to great success. Jorge Martinez was a long-time target for Noerrebro before Beaulieu FC snuck in at the last minute, and he underlined why he was so coveted with a goal and an assist as Beaulieu FC pulled into a 3-1 lead. I maintained my dominance without adding to the score until the 70th minute, when Hr changed up his tactics and got back on top. A Robert Huth header in the 89th minute was little more than a consolation as Beaulieu FC retained the Premiership Cup as the 6th official trophy for the side.


All Evening Cup

1st Round vs Jondal IL

Due to a quick of the numbers entering the tournament this season, my tie against Jondal IL was the only 1st round tie, making my route to the final longer than any other side in the federation. Jondal IL had their best player James Vaughn injured, making a tough task even tougher. It wasn’t to be for Jondal as his side went down 5-0 across the two legs.

2nd Round vs Copenhagen Wonderboys

The second round saw a tough draw against premiership side Copenhagen Wonderboys. Jannick’s side is full of class, headed by Rosina, Walter and Diego. A lucky away win saw my side take a 2-0 lead back to The Anchor thanks to Gourcuff and Pato. Pato scored his second of the tie to secure a 3-2 home win and a 5-2 aggregate win.

3rd Round vs Milenator Roar

After a tough draw against the Wonderboys, Milenator Roar was another difficult prospect for Beaulieu FC. Despite only residing in the championship, Soroen’s German outfit are a tour de force, with a number of really good players underpinned by Kalinic upfront and David Luiz in defence. A tough first leg should have seen a 2-0 win, but with Milenator reduced to 10 men, he pulled one back to give himself a fighting chance in the tie. Pato scored early in the return leg and another 2-1 victory ensued to hand me the tie 4-2 on aggregate.

Last 16 vs Monobrow City

The Blues got the toughest draw possible in having to face Premiership challengers Monobrow City, but two goals from Pato, one in each leg, saw Beaulieu win 2 – 1 on aggregate to progress to the quarter finals. This was no mean feat given the quality of Alun’s side, with his defence being the most stingy in the league and his current world ranking of 5 highlighting his exceptional form.

Quarter Finals vs Nottingham Majorie

Here I faced Nottingham Majorie. Despite being a newcomer to the Premier league this season, Andy has firmly entrenched himself in mid-table and looks set to secure his place in the premiership for a while yet. With the majestic, world-class striker Marcelo Moreno upfront in a potent 4-3-3 formation, his side is one to be reckoned with. It was close, but my side came out on top over the two legs mainly due to Mr Pato.

Semi Finals vs. Camberwick Green

I was given a favourable draw against Camberwick Green. Home of some quality, world-class players it was never going to be easy, but given their mid-championship status my side was the clear favourite. A dominant 5-2 win at home, with goals from Wellington, Pato, Martinez (2) and Donadel, decided the match. 2-0 up away, I took off Pato, Wellington and Menez and the score drifted to 2-2 at the death, resulting in a 7-4 aggregate victory.

Final vs Noerrebro Park Rangers

Yet again the final saw two of the heavyweights of the AEFA meet, as Beaulieu FC met Noerrebro Park Rangers in the final of the All Evening Cup. Both sides put out their strongest teams, signifying just how important this trophy is. Having learnt my lesson from the Premiership Cup final win earlier in the week, I started out with nullifying tactics which resulted in a game notable for its complete lack of chances. It was going to take someone or something special to break the deadlock, and Pato duly delivered with a breakaway goal, slotting home the ball after rounding the ‘keeper. The match was tight until a moment of magic sealed the match. Balzaretti sprayed the ball down the left wing for Menez to pick up, before the French wizard cut inside and weaved his way past two defenders. With the ball on his right foot, he smacked an unstoppable strike which rebounded off of the right hand post, back across goal into the opposite side netting. Moments later, Giovani Capitani broke down the right, outpacing the defence before neatly finishing between the ‘keepers legs. A great 3-0 win secured the All Evening Cup for the first time for Beaulieu FC.


Gold Cup

Group Stage

I’m often favourites for groups given my world ranking and team, but compared to previous seasons, this was hard but not impossible. Drawn against Cottingley FC, Eagle Warriors and GTG FC, I expected my side to go through. A draw against Eagle Warriors in a match we dominated was followed by the match away to Cottingley. Former Beaulieu legend Guilherme scored twice as my side los 3-2 to put qualification in doubt. Two solid wins in the last 2 matches saw my side progress as winners of the group for the third season in a row with a respectable total of 13.

Last 16 vs Camel FC

The Last 16 match was against Thierry’s world class Camel FC and home of one Lionel Messi, alongside other top draw players as Jovetic. His team was severely weakened given the number of players he had loaned out this season, including Nasri and Zapata, but his side still represented a real challenge. I was therefore extremely surprised to see my side race 4-0 up before halftime, Pato dominating the Camel’s backline. After half time, MEssi pulled one back before Pato got his 4th of the match to make it 5-1. Inexplicably, my side then fell apart, with Messi completing his brace and Jovetic snatching 2 more. Dessena managed to score once more, but a 6-4 win with 4 away goals for the Camels was not the result I’d hoped for when 4-0 up. Going into the second leg, I knew I realistically just had to avoid defeat by more than 2 goals. With 10 minutes to play I was sitting comfortably at 1-1, 7-5 on aggregate. Then things went wrong, yet again. Two goals in as many minutes put the Camels 3 – 1 up on the night and progressing on away goals – the bane of my side in cup competitions. I thought that was that, but in the 93rd minute Pato stepped up and slammed home the winner to send me through to the Quarter Finals.

Quarter Finals vs Flux Capacitor

Here I met Thomas Mullens’ Flux Capacitor. Ravaged by injuries, I was bullish of my chances, but was soon brought crashing to earth as Rosicky found the top corner to take the lead for Flux. My side dominated the rest of the match, carving out chance after chance, but we simply couldn’t find the back of the net. When Pato then missed a penalty, I knew I was going to be facing a battle at the return leg in the Anchor, especially without any away goals. The return leg carried on in much the same way, with the exception that Flux’s attacking pivot, Rochi, had picked up an injury and missed this match. Wellington put my side ahead, but another wonder goal from Rosicky looked to have sent my side packing. Once more the Brazillian magician Pato stepped up, with 2 goals in 5 minutes to secure our place in the Semi-Finals for the first time in Beaulieu’s history.

Semi Finals vs Los Benditos

You don’t get easy draws in the Gold Cup, and the semi finals saw me take on the best side in the gameworld – Los Benditos – featuring Giuseppe Rossi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Thiago Silva. The first leg saw an imperious performance from Beaulieu FC, creating chance after chance and racing to a 2-0 lead through the outstanding new signing Jorge Martinez. The tie swung back towards Ronaldo & Co as Rossi fired home from close range to grab a precious away goal. The second leg saw my side defend brilliantly as they withstood wave after wave of attack to emerge with an incredible 0-0 draw and progress to the final of the Gold Cup for the first time.


Final vs FC Azazel

The final saw me take on AK’s FC Azazel. A quality side made the final partially on the back of on loan stars Samir Nasri and Christian Zapater. With those two stars returning to their parent club, things swayed back into my favour, but with players of the calibre of De Jong and Agbonlahor, anything could happen. The game started with a cagey opening, with both sides not wanting to give anything away. Beaulieu FC carved out a couple of early chances, Pato guilty of wasteful finishing. To the horror of Beaulieu FC fans, Azazel took the lead as none other than Scott ‘Ronaldhino’ Carson curled home a freekick from a wide angle to hand the XEFA side the lead going into the break. Things were looking bleak until Pato latched onto a bad pass from Garay to fire Beaulieu FC back into the match. There were chances at both ends, with Beaulieu FC generally on top, but as normal time ended and extra time ticked down, the dreaded penalties looked likely. I’d made many tactical changes throughout the match, but I took one last gamble, taking off the shattered Wellington and replacing him with Longobardi, switching to 4-4-2 and pushing Dani Alves to right wing. I told the lads to give Dani the ball at every opportunity and in the dieing minutes another of his blockbuster runs resulted in a corner. Dani Alves whipped in the cross and Hummels rose tallest at the near post to score, securing the biggest trophy in club football for Beaulieu FC and ensuring his place in Beaulieu FC folklore.


Gameworld Cup

2nd Round vs Villain Victorians

The Villains got off to the best possible start as Dessena inadvertently found his own net instead of behind the goal. Beaulieu FC quickly found their stride as Pato rounded the keeper and poked home the equaliser on 15 minutes. The Blues where then stiffled in their attempts to grab a winner, as bad finishing results in a whopping 15 shots off of target. It took Pato, again, to pop up and score the winner in the 84th minute.

3rd Round vs Juventude

A toughter match saw Beaulieu FC travel to Juventude, powered by some quality players and in the top 100 rankings. A tough match saw Beaulieu FC emerge with a 2-1 victory courtesy of goals from the prolific Pato and captain Caceres.

4th Round vs Noerrebro Park Rangers

Yet another meeting against Hr’s side was yet another very tough draw - a top 10 side at this stage is never good. Hr’s side edged the match, but my side showed a greater cutting edge and grabbed their chances to emerge with a tough 3 - 2 victory. Pato, twice, and Menez made sure of the victory, meaning I’d personally put Hr out of three cup competitions - sorry mate!

Last 32 vs AFC Tromp

Tromp are a good side, but not of the level of Noerrebro, so I was expecting an easier ride. My side raced into a 3-0 lead through Pato, Wellington and Dessena. With the game seemingly won, the lads took their foot off the pedal and relaxed. Beaulieu FC almost paid for it, as Tromp scored in the 82nd and 88th minute to leave a furious and nerve-wracked Beaulieu manager checking his watch every two seconds until full time was blown.

Last 16 vs The Big Pink

A very tough match away to The Big Pink, featuring Oscar, Baxter, Vela and Fazio was always going to prove a challenge. I started the match with Longobardi at RB and Dani Alves at RW, but after 20 minutes (and a booking) I decided Longobardi was going to get mullered, so moved Dani Alves back to nullify the threat and put on Capitani. It proved to be the master stroke. Dani Alves’ influence in defence turned the match in my favour and Capitani scored a blinder as my side rolled out 1-0 winners.

Quarter Final vs LKS Dolphin Lodz

A match to highlight the flaws with the game, in some regards. I ended up 2 - 1 winners. I battered the Dolphins on occassions, but simply couldn’t find a way through - expect for corners. All the goals came from centerbacks (Caceres and Hummels for Beaulieu), making a mockery of the beautiful attacking play I’d produced at some points. Never-the-less, a win is a win, and I progressed to the last four.

Semi Final vs Inter Melamb

The semi-final saw me draw world number 2 and perennial SFA champions Thomas Reeves’ Inter Melamb. Tom’s side is world class, with Zlatan and Thiago Luis upfront, and a midfield comprising Sneijder, Silva and Mark Noble adds real firepower. Needless to say – this was going to be a tough match. I took the lead through … and continued to dominate the early play. As time ticked by Tom got more and more cavalier in his tactics, forcing my side on the back foot. Things looked bad as, in short succession, Thiago Luis conjured an equaliser before Pato was carried off the field clutching his ankle (scans showed no further sign of damage). This forced me to push Jorge Martinez to striker and bringing on star youngster Ibon Angulo as the game went to extra time. What a stroke of luck that the Spanish playmaker came on the pitch, as he powered home twice from close range to hand me a hard fought 3 – 1 victory and a place in the GWC final.

Final vs Los Benditos

Finals are rarely great football matches. This was no exception. Bendito resigned Aaron right before the match and it proved to be a master stroke. The Spaniard (formerly of Beaulieu FC - if you remember the incident with the released players…) was instrumental in scoring twice. Donadel had a nightmare match, as did Martinez, while Pato missed a glorious chance. In the end Pato found the back of the net in the 90th minute, but it was nothing more than a consolation as Beaulieu FC lost 2-1 in the final to end an epic season.

Two stars are shown the door at The Anchor

The title is a tad misleading, but at the same time it’s completely correct. Since the signing of Jorge Martinez, I’d been forced to play Dessena wide right with Dani Alves at right back to accommodate all of the world class players at my disposal. This resulted in both Matteo Longobardi and Giovani Capitani sitting on the bench – not an ideal situation by any stretch of the imagination. The signing of Martinez had also stretched the club financially and with improvements needed elsewhere in the coming weeks, I couldn’t afford for that to continue.

I therefore made the decision to sell Daniel Dessena. Although he’d been very good in his season and a half at Beaulieu FC, he’d not been out of this world. Dan Cashmore, owner of former Beaulieu FC players Gourcuff, Baptista and Radoi, made an offer I couldn’t refuse of 1.2m cash (500k upfront and 800k spread over 8 weeks) and world class defensive midfielder Stelvio (AF 650k MV 925k). Within an hour I’d found a buyer for Stelvio at £750k for a quick sale and the coffers at Beaulieu FC were swelled by some £2m, with Capitani taking up his previous role at right flank.

The competitions are progressing well and there will be a quite huge update come end of season on all that has happened in what could be either a year of heartbreak or a watershed season for Beaulieu FC.

Beaulieu FC Dream Team

I’ve been reading The Independent’s excellent recent series of articles on various clubs’ Dream Teams. I decided it’d be fun to create a Beaulieu FC dream team given that the game has been running for some time now. As I’ve played numerous formations over the previous seasons, I’ve picked one that includes most of the best players while remaining balanced. Given the number of quality players who have come and gone at The Anchor, this proved difficult, especially in the midfield.


GK – Rogerio Ceni

490 Games, 5 Goals, 0 Assists
Seasons 1 - 3

The Anchor hasn’t seen many world class ‘keepers grace the space between the sticks as I try to keep wages for this position as low as possible. Rogerio Ceni was the exception, with a high reputation and high wages to match. Having been bought for next to nothing, he performed admirably a string of fine performances over the course of two seasons. Rogerio Ceni holds off competition from Helton and Handanovic simply due to the length of his stay and the quality of his performances during that time.


DR – Nelson

334 Games, 10 Goals, 29 Assists
Seasons 3-5

The Portuguese defender was perhaps under-rated during his stay at Beaulieu FC. A truly world-class player, with explosive pace and great stats for defending and going forward, he’s a worth addition to the dream team. In truth, a lack of other real options down the right hand side ensures his place, with Longobardi far too young and not having enough impact to be considered.


DL - Balzaretti

326 Games, 1 Goal, 11 Assists
Seasons 4-6

Frederio Balzaretti is another player who deserves his place by merit, but gets it through lack of options. Pernia was a set piece wizard, but his defending left a lot to be desired while other options like Villagra and Zambrano simply weren’t of a high enough quality to consider. Never-the-less, Balzaretti adds sheer quality at left back, with enough skill to go forward and enough pace and defensive know-how to stop all but the best right wingers.


DC – Caceres

1192 Games, 186 Goals, 75 Assists
Seasons 1-6

Martin Caceres is about to complete his 6th season at Beaulieu FC and is the club’s all time appearance record holder. This alone would be enough to tell you he’d be in this list, but the fact is this – he’s one of the best defenders that exist and would walk into pretty much any side in the gameworld. ‘Nuff said.


DC – Onuoha

931 Games, 49 Goals, 48 Assists
Seasons 1-4

Nedum Onouha was another long time player at The Anchor, gracing the pitch at center back and right back for 3 and a half seasons. Blessed with unbelievable pace, over the seasons he added aerial ability and incredible strength to become a beastly defender. His time at The Anchor was only cut short due to the quality of the offer that came in for him. Time will tell whether the impressive Hummels can oust Onouha as Caceres’ partner, but as it stands, Onouha has the edge.


MR - Dani Alves

1061 Games, 139 Goals, 584 Assists
Seasons 1-6

Superman, Dani Alves, wasn’t included at right back so he could feature higher up the pitch where he is more influential. The goals have dried up for Dani over the last couple of seasons, but he’s been just as influential in the assist stakes – he’s averaged better than an assist every other game for the last 6 seasons. There was no real competition for this role, with Diego Valeri, Felipe Monteiro and Rommano Denneboom simply not of a high enough quality. The only real contender is young prodigy Giovanni Capitani. He’s already forced Dani Alves into the right back role on frequent occasions this season, and given time, he could well force himself into this dream team.


ML – Menez

309 Games, 51 Goals, 89 Assists
Seasons 4-6

The toughest choice so far in this list was the position of left wing. Over the course of 6 seasons, I’ve had 4 truly world class players sit in this position – Andres Guardado, Jeremy Menez, Carlos Eduardo and Ismael Aissatti. Carlos Eduardo was in and out of the anchor faster than the roadrunner given his poor performances, while Aissatti was never as comfortable on the wing as he was in the centre, and so misses out in this position. That left Menez and Guardado, and at the end, I decided that both in length of stay and quality of performances, Menez just about edged it. Guardado will have to make do knowing he scored the best goal in Beaulieu FC’s history – a chip over a defender followed by a sublime volley from 30 yards.


MC(d) – Donadel

61 games, 8 Goals, 10 Assists
Season 6

Throughout the history of Beaulieu FC I’ve always had (at least) one defensively minded centre midfielder. The list of players in this position is impressive, including Gobbi, Zapater, Guana, Johnson, Gourcuff, Dessena and most recently, Donadel. Ultimately, I opted for the perhaps controversial choice of Marco Donadel. A truly world class midfielder, I chose the Italian as he’s a real work horse in midfield, with great tackling, ensuring at least one member of the midfield is capable of tracking back. His rounded skillset and defensive nature put him just ahead of the other candidates in my eyes, who were lacking quality (Gobbi, Guana), too defensive (Zapater) or too attacking (Johnson, Gourcuff, Dessena). Whilst Gourcuff, Dessena and arguably Johnson are better players, his defensive qualities combined with brilliant passing combine to bring the best out of the players around him.


AMC - Julio Baptista

580 Games, 328 Goals, 231 Assists
Seasons 2-6

There was never a doubt that club record signing Julio Baptista would be part of any Beaulieu FC dream team. Almost a unique player in the game, The Beast average a goal every other game and an assist almost as often in a long spell at Beaulieu FC. Only a combination of old father time and the need for locks lead to his departure, he’ll be sorely missed by the Beaulieu FC faithful and rightly revered as one of the best players to grace The Anchor.


AMC – Guilherme

866 Games, 608 Goals, 229 Assists
Seasons 1-5

The other AMC position was hotly contested, with a number of world class players eyeing up a place in the dream team. Leandro Lima, Ismael Aissatti, Yoann Gourcuff, Danielle Dessena, Wellington and Pienaar, to name but a few, where all players who would demand a place in most people teams. Ultimately, though, I opted for a player who played upfront for most of his career at The Anchor – Guilherme. Although not his favourite position, he played in the withdrawn role very rarely, I think Guilherme would have thrived alongside Baptista. With great pace, good finishing and long shots, good passing and very apt preferred moves, the club legend Guilherme makes this spot his own.


ST - Pato

262 Games, 320 Goals, 67 Assists
Seasons 5-6

Keeping club-legend Guilherme off the front spot is no ordinary feat, but then Pato is no ordinary player. Over two seasons he’s averaged better than a goal a game upfront and his place is richly deserved. Blistering pace, great finishing and the ability to be in the right place at the right time make Pato one of the best strikers in the game. Diego Milito, Chamakh et al didn’t even come close to ousting The Duck at the spearhead of my samba attacking triumvirate.