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(NSC) Success... By Any Means Necessary, Of Course
Creativity? Imagination? Uniqueness? All out the window for this challenge. It's hard to try link this to some type of story, and I suspect two or three stories will focus on this being a bet of some sort, so this is basically a race to 367 points. (And I've sat on this save game way too long so meh. I can think up something much more imaginative next story.)
Oh, and I'm not trying to take down the EU nor am I trying to make it work. I'm Canadian, so I really don't give a flip about it. I guess that would make me a neutral, but I'm not sure. The beautiful game should always take precedence over pouring over the EU constitution mess anyways.
Now, the only catch to this challenge (otherwise I would have taken Scotland instead of England and picked Celtic for guaranteed success) is that I need to start off outside the top division. So with that in mind, I needed to pick a team that's ready for success. A team that has the resources and squad to get promoted right away and play with the big boys. A team that should - hopefully - start the challenge off on the right foot to bag some easy points in the process.
Montpellier Hérault SC fits the bill.
A poster child for mediocraty in France, Montpellier has picked up few honours in their history. They have won the Coupe de France twice; however, the wins came in 1929 and 1990, respectively. Their best Ligue 1 performance was finishing third back in 1988, 7 points back of champions Monaco. Last year's league campaign was absolutely dreadful; 8 wins in 38 games won't keep you up, but it'll certainly allow you to finish with the old wooden spoon and get knocked down to Ligue 2 to boot. One wonders if we'll be able to fill all 30,000 seats of Stade de La Mosson at any point this season.
The team might not be the strongest in the league, but with over 15 million Euros in the bank (and €3.7m available for transfers), there's plenty of room to build a solid team. And how can we lose with Roger Milla himself as one of the scouts?
06-07-2005, 01:19 AM
(NSC) Success... By Any Means Necessary, Of Course Post #2
England (UK) - Premiership and Championship (72) France - Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 (72) Germany - 1. Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga (99) Greece - National A Division and National B Division (22) Holland - Eredivisie (25 + 50 = 75) Italy - Serie A and Serie B (72) Romania - Divizia A (33 x 2 = 66) Spain - Primera Division and Segunda Division (50)
Romania is obviously the double points nation, and Holland is being paired with Poland's 50 points.
06-07-2005, 02:32 AM
(NSC) Success... By Any Means Necessary, Of Course Post #3
There's 6 teams who have a realistic shot at promotion from Ligue 2 this season; ourselves, Guingamp, Sedan, Lorient, Nancy and Le Havre. It's a pretty wide-open field at the top, but we have the resources and contacts that some of those clubs lack. They certainly helped us during preseason.
<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">Player In From Fee---------------------------------------------------------Mohamed Benhamou Paris-SG €160kNenad Jestrovic Anderlecht €275kPetr Vorisek Sparta Prague €675kMartin Petras Sparta Prague €850k</pre>
And since absolutely nobody in France (not even the small CFA teams who have no chance of ever achieving anything in their lifetime) wanted to play us, I had to settle on beating up our farm teams.
July 31: Montpellier 3-0 Montpellier U18's (Godemèche, Bugnet, Lafourcade) August 2: Montpellier 2-0 Montpellier Reserves (Jestrovic, Godemèche)
There's still around 3 weeks left to sign players until the dreaded transfer deadline, but looking at the team, you'd have to say they're an eager bunch. Sure, the top 3 players will probably cause a ton of problems media-wise, and the fans crapped all over the Jestrovic signing right away, but who cares? They'll forget about that as soon as he scores his first hat trick, I'm sure of it.
<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">Inf Name Position Nat Age Value--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mansour Assoumani Gamali SW/D C FRA 21 €95K Fatih Atik AM RC FRA 20 €95K Mohamed Benhamou GK ALG 24 €170K Hervé Bugnet F LC FRA 22 €180K Bruno Carotti D/DM C FRA 31 €475K Julio Colombo D LC FRA 20 €160KInj Nicolas Esceth-N'Zi AM/F RC CIV 27 €200K Nicolas Godemèche D/DM RC FRA 20 €120KFgn Nenad Jestrovic S C SCG 28 €2.8M Alsény Keita D/DM RLC GUI 25 €55K Jérôme Lafourcade S C FRA 21 €55KLoa Jimmy Mainfroi D/DM R FRA 21 €170K Fodé Mansaré AM/F LC GUI 22 €2M Frédéric Mendy D C FRA 30 €190K Sébastien Michalowski D/DM RC FRA 25 €160K Guillaume Moullec D/AM R FRA 24 €600K Martin Petras D/DM RC SVK 24 €1.8MWnt Laurent Pionnier GK FRA 22 €45K Jean-Christophe Rouvière DM C FRA 30 €250K Petr Vorisek DM RC CZE 25 €2.4M</pre>
06-07-2005, 02:34 AM
(NSC) Success... By Any Means Necessary, Of Course Post #4
That's more like it. Mansaré only had one assist but pretty much ran the show here. Châteauroux's lone goal came off a penalty, so it doesn't really count.
August 17: Montpellier 2-0 Le Mans (Godemèche, Bugnet)
Att: 5,364 MOM: Nicolas Godemèche (Montpellier)
...Of course, I just had to jinx Mansaré, since he's out for a couple of weeks after pulling a muscle in his back. Bah. Still managed to get by Le Mans fairly easily in front of a spartan crowd though.
August 20: Sedan 2-1 Montpellier (Morisot, Mokaké; Jestrovic)
Att: 11,640 MOM: Nadir Belhadj (Sedan)
And now this time Rouvière has to be taken off after tearing his groin... thankfully he's only gone for a month, I can't really afford to give him some physio right now. (Translation: He can wait until we clinch promotion, thank you very much.) Mokaké hit a gorgeous spiraling shot to put us away for our first loss of the season.
Not exactly a great performance, as Amiens could have tied the game up late with a few good chances. Thankfully, Benhamou stood on his head and gave us the all-important three points.
We saved our biggest win of the month for last, comprehensively outplaying promotion favorites Lorient away from home. No real problems here; just a good team effort that will hopefully carry through into September.
No more transfers this month. The team seems good enough as-is and nobody would bite on the 5 guys I was chasing after, so that'll have to wait.
The Preliminary Round draw for the Coupe de Ligue gives us Sedan away from home. Great. *rolls eyes*
September 7: Montpellier 2-0 Guingamp (Colombo, Jestrovic)
Att: 10,303 MOM: Nicolas Godemèche (Montpellier)
Pretty much a necessary 3 points against some poor opposition. Guingamp put up no resistance at all, so I was a bit disappointed that we didn't cream them by 4 or 5.
This would be "dropping a necessary 3 points against some poor opposition", thank you very much. The defense was terribly sloppy in the first half and we couldn't fully recover from Darbelet's brace.
Two losses in a row... time to sound the alarm bells, I suppose. We played well compared to the Clermont disaster but still ended up dropping another win. Feh.
That's much better. This time we came from behind in the second half, mind you, but it's still a win against a team who was tipped to gain promotion this season. Of course, lying in mid-table after the first quarter of the season isn't exactly a promising sign.
September 24: Montpellier 1-1 Niort (Vorisek; Facciuto)
Att: 5,529 MOM: Petr Vorisek (Montpellier)
Niort have been the surprise of the league so far this season, and they managed to come from behind to collect a point against us. Given their form, I suppose it was an acceptable result... for now.
I'm sure the team was distracted at something during this match but I can't quite put my finger on it. In any event, thankfully we didn't need to score to get the win here.
October 12: Sedan 2-1 Montpellier (Noro, Liri; Bugnet) (Coupe de Ligue Preliminary Round)
Att: 8,958 MOM: Patrick Regnault (Sedan)
Eh, the Coupe de Ligue's overrated anyways. Maybe we can try it again next year when the draw's not so obviously rigged, but you take what you get sometimes.
2, 3, 4 goals... we could have had a lot more than just one in this match, but the boys seem to come from the Italian school; score and then stay in their own zone. At least we won all the possession.
I can't even pronounce our scorer's name but it was his second match back from injury (since he was out ever since I took over the club) so I'm happy to see him prove that he's potentially useful as opposed to worthless. Dijon should be kissing Mouko on the head after his performance in goal.
October 22: Montpellier 0-0 Laval
Att: 6,959 MOM: Petr Vorisek (Montpellier)
We're really having trouble scoring goals; then again, so are relegation strugglers Laval. So in the end I suppose the result was fair. A rather pedestrian match.
October 29: Le Havre 1-1 Montpellier (Jager; Vorisek)
Att: 11,407 MOM: Mohamed Benhamou (Montpellier)
On the other hand, drawing a team that's hot on your heels in the promotion race is a good result, especially when your team had the advantage throughout the game. Only problem is that we couldn't keep that advantage with 15 minutes to go, had a little lapse in concentration... and dropped 2 points. Uh-huh.
November 5: Montpellier 4-0 Gueugnon (Liébus og, Bugnet, Rouvière, Vorisek)
Att: 6,699 MOM: Petr Vorisek (Montpellier)
Oh, so that's where all those goals went. Sure, one of them wasn't even ours, but there's no shame in beating up on a mid-table team. None at all.
The Coupe de France 7th Round Draw is, like, totally unfair, as we end up being involved in the only Ligue 2 pairing; away to Niort.
November 12: Troyes 3-5 Montpellier (Gomis, Perrone, Assemoassa; Bugnet, Vorisek 2, Jestrovic, Mansaré)
Att: 12,097 MOM: Petr Vorisek (Montpellier)
I'm sure to the average fan, this was a tremendous match. To the manager of the team (...er, me), it was pure luck. No way we should have blown a 3-0 lead at the half and ended up with this scoreline. (In case you're wondering, it went 3-0, then 3-3, then 5-3. Yeah, we nearly blew it. I thought that was obvious.)
I kinda think that we ran out of goals at this time. Still keeps our ten-game unbeaten Ligue 2 streak alive, though. Mansaré had a fun match, getting the Man of the Match award and missing a penalty along the way. *claps*
November 27: Niort 0-3 Montpellier (Vorisek, Bugnet, Carotti) (Coupe de France 7th Round)
Att: 5,799 MOM: Nenad Jestrovic (Montpellier)
And, as I had hoped, we end up beating the odds and triumph over adversity... er... fine, we just saved the goals that we would have scored against Angers to use here. And we advanced in the cup. Happy?
The 8th Round draw is much better... home to non-league Louhans-Cuiseaux.
December 3: Le Mans 1-2 Montpellier (Peyrelade; Jestrovic, Esceth-N'Zi)
Att: 5,333 MOM: Fodé Mansaré (Montpellier)
And to think, we would have had to settle for a point if not for the heroic effort of Esceth-N'Zi, who's name I still can't pronounce but who I can still cheer on thanks to his 93rd minute goal that stole the points for us.
I really don't care about the win, you know? I'm definitely more concerned with the fact that Jestrovic is going to be out - for the REST OF THE SEASON - with a broken leg. He's worth 3.1 million Euros and now he's on the shelf. Just GREAT.
December 18: Montpellier 2-0 Louhans-Cuiseaux (Vorisek 2) (Coupe de France 8th Round)
Att: 4,037 MOM: Peter Vorisek (Montpellier)
Those non-leaguers gave us a tough time through the first hour of the match, but then reality set in and Vorisek's brace was enough to put us through.
9th Round opponents? Lorient away. See, if they were going to give us an away match, they could at least have given us a top Ligue 1 team.
December 22: Montpellier 0-0 Sedan
Att: 10,954 MOM: Patrick Regnault (Sedan)
Sedan always seems to give us problems, and even though we've only played them three times I can safely say this was no exception. At least we came away from the boring game with a draw.
At least I can pronounce Michalowski. Well, I'd like to think I can. But in any event, relegation strugglers Amiens gave us a hard time and got a result that benefits them; of course, thanks to other results on the day, we didn't lose any ground on anyone so it's all good.
January 8: Lorient 1-1 (2-3 pens) Montpellier (Róbson; Vorisek) (Coupe de France 9th Round)
Att: 11,644 MOM: Fodé Mansaré (Montpellier)
By the skin of our teeth. The penalty shootout might have been more entertaining than the match itself; we each hit our first two kicks, then couldn't find the broad side of a barn before Mansaré finally figured out that you're supposed to kick the ball INTO the net. Nice to know.
The draw for the 10th Round is very kind to us at this stage; non-league Racing 92, away.
I guess Lorient didn't learn their lesson on the weekend, so we just had to assert our dominance over them at midweek. I would have preferred this result in the Coupe but you can't turn down a league win.
Another one of those games where we don't score a single goal and yet manage to come away with something. Given how Guingamp was without a manager at this time, I was hoping for something more than a 1-1 draw.
Clermont messed around with us earlier in the season, but with us in first and them being all the way down at the foot of the table... it wasn't going to end the same way this time around. One of those games that a team shouldn't lose, and thankfully we didn't.
Bugnet's goal came in the 90th minute, and if it wasn't for him our impressive unbeaten streak would have come to a crashing halt, and deservedly so. Fatigue seems to be setting in on the club.
No action come the winter transfer deadline; I'm happy with the team and want to save some money should we be in Ligue 1 next season.
(NSC) Success... By Any Means Necessary, Of Course 
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