retired_milla0225

Wednesday 3rd August Transfer ban lifted

In reality I have been told how to get round the transfer bug. Put all you players into the first team squad, i.e. leave none in the U20’s. If you do that the code will work out how many players you have got correctly

retired_suzannechua

KUTGW!

retired_milla0225

Friday 5th August Ain’t that the truth

Just as soon as the news came through I was on the fax machine making an offer for a player one of my scouts, Matthew Brey, had spotted during his scouting mission in Asia. The lad was Kim Chi-Woo a South Korean Left-sided full back and wing back. Only 21 years old he is a flair player with lots of good stats. He cost us £20,000 from Incheon in South Korea. That’s most of the transfer budget, but then I’m not proposing to buy any more players. His work permit came through this afternoon and he joins in time for Saturday’s game. His signing brings us up to the full 24 players in the squad

retired_milla0225

Saturday 6th August At home to Queensland Roar

Silly name for a club if you ask me, but there you go. Our final group game in the A-league Cup was at home to the Queensland Roar. We go into the game unchanged again, the temptation to throw the new lad straight in resisted. We dominated the first half but simply couldn’t find a way through. 0-0 at the half. I responded by putting Aleksidze on in place of Thompson. I thought it was worth the go to try and change things about a bit. Into the second half and how I rued the fact we couldn’t score in the first 45 when Queensland scored in the 52 minute. Long ball down the right channel, forward cut in and shot home form a narrow angle. We tried hard to get back into the game I brought Danze on for Ferrante and though we made chances we didn’t take any of them and we ended up losing. It meant we finished 2nd in the group.

Final Score Melbourne Victory 0-1 Queensland Roar
Place in mini-group : 2nd
That’ll teach me to laugh at the team names

retired_milla0225

Saturday 13th August: A-League Cup Semi –Final Away at Newcastle

I made one change to the side that lost to Queensland with the experienced Kevin Muscat dropping out in favour of Piorkowski. I might have made more changes but I figured that this wasn’t going to be an easy game so those with the match practice would get the nod. We had the better of the first half but a combination of good goalkeeping and poor finishing kept us out. 0-0 at half time. I told the boys that I thought that one goal would win this game. I made no changes, trusting the boys to keep the pressure up, a breakthrough would surely come. But it didn’t the second half was more of the same, though Newcastle were a little more in the game this half. But it remained goalless at full time. For extra time I brought on Aleksidze for the strangely subdued Vieri. Seven minutes into extra time we got our just reward with Ferrante swinging the ball out wide, left to Aleksidze who beat his man, took the ball to the byline and crossed, perfectly, onto the head of the on-rushing Kitzbichler, six yards out for the opening goal. This spurred Newcastle into life and they were level before the end of the first extra time period, forcing their way through the heart of our defence and scoring with a low drive from the edge of the box. No score in the second period and the match went to penalties. The first five penalties were all scored, 3-2 to Newcastle then Archie Thompson steps up and blasts the ball high and hard and miles wide of the goal. Still 3-2 to the Jets. Fortunately the next kicker hit it straight at Galekovic and we’re still in it. Aleksidze restores parity with the next kick. The Jets keeper then missed from the spot leaving it to Kitzbichler to score the winning kick, except his tame shot was saved. Still 3-3 and sudden death. The Jets miss again, but this time Steve Pantelidis makes no mistake and we are through to the final 4-3 on penalties.

Final Score Newcastle Jets 0-0 Melbourne Victory (1-1 AET, 3-4 on Penalties)
A rip roaring cup tie with everything in it. That should warm the fans up for the new season

retired_milla0225

Too hasty perhaps ?

The sight of Steve Pantelidis tucking away the winning penalty with absolutely no sogn of visible nerves made me stop and think. Had I been too hasty in my original assessment of him ? I thought I probably had. He was proving to be a very useful player to have around.

It also made me stop and think about something else. What did I really know about this management lark ? Obviously grading players merely on the basis of watching them in training is beyond me, so what other management traits am I lacking in ? the list could be endless !

It wasn't a pleasant thought. I grabbed a stubbie of VB from the fridge and fired up the laptop. Quite what I though I was going to find on the internet that would help me I don't know, but I trawled through any number of sites. Later on I found I could watch a game on down at the local sports ground with a bit more a critical eye.

So maybe, slowly, I was beginning to get somewhere.

retired_milla0225

Wednesday 17th August A-League Cup Final against Queensland Roar

The final was against the team that had beaten us in the group stage, Queensland. I was forced into a couple of changes as Kitzbichler and Aleksidze were away on international duty. The promising Lia comes in on the right and Allsopp warms the spot on the bench. We had rejected an offer for Lia from Perth Glory earlier in the week, he has too much of a future for us to give him away. But here was the chance for him to start to prove himself.

We got off to a stunning start, marching straight down the pitch from the kick off, Tadrosse playing in Vieri who slipped the ball to Thompson who slotted the ball under the body of the advancing keeper. 22 seconds gone and we’re 1-0 up. Just how you’d like to start a cup final really. The Roar, well, roared back at us and put us under a great deal of pressure. However we withstood this onslaught with a certain amount of ease and doubled our lead on 23 minutes with a very simple goal. A Lia corner from the right was headed home at the near post by an unchallenged Ferrante, 2-0. It was three on the half hour as the increasingly dominant Lia took the ball down the right , crossed the ball, had it returned by a defender’s clearance, tried again, had it returned again and eventually hung a cross into the box that young right back Piorkowski ran onto and thundered into the net from close range. We got a little sloppy after that and had to rely on a timely intervention by Claeys to prevent a certain goal in the dying moments of the half, but three-nil at the break it was.

We quite clearly had one hand on the cup already but I wasn’t going to say that to the boys. Instead I told them that three-nil up or not I didn’t expect them to take it easy in the second half. And to my pride that’s exactly what we did. We closed them out in the second period, limiting them to a couple of long range efforts that came nowhere near to troubling Galekovic. Thompson had a couple of chances to extend the lead but missed when well placed on two occasions. It didn’t matter one bit as we ran out convincing three-nil winners. Tadrosse was the sponsors man of the match, though it could have been any one from four or five good candidates. We played very well as I team and in the dressing room I told the lads it was a fantastic result and that they should go out and enjoy it.

This last missive may have been a mistake as the board’s congratulatory statement concluded that we shouldn’t celebrate too much but instead we should concentrate on the challenge of the league proper, only a week and a half away.

It wasn’t all brickbats though Channel 7 news interviewed a couple of local fans who whooped and hollered and confidently stated that they had always said that hiring an unknown English manager was a really good idea and that Bruce Parker was going to take Melbourne Victory all the way to the A-League title itself.

In the international matches Rati Aleksidze scored in Georgia’s 3-1 win over Kazakshtan

retired_jgirl87

Good start to the cup games - KUTGW :thup:

It's a small world here in Australia - I used to play football with Vince Lia's uncle when I lived in Melbourne a few years back. Also at a BBQ last December I met Daniel Piorkowski's father - he's the cousin of a friend of mine and he was in Sydney to watch his son play for the Melbourne Victory against Sydney FC.

retired_milla0225

Cheers Spav,

and you can tell Daniel Piorkowski's father, next time you see him, that in my very real world of FM he's keeping Kevin Muscat out of the side !

retired_edmari1

Going well mate, although i'm a Sydney Fc fan myself, that is despite the fact that Adelaide keeper Daniel Beltrame is my cousin. Oh well.

Good luck mate. Great to see people enjoying our new league hear down under.