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.