Spa, Belgian Second Division - Season 2
I really thought that I was going to stuggle this season. Surely my bunch of free signings wouldn't have been able to cope with the better quality players in the Second Division.
I did add to the squad and even paid some fees for a few players, but nothing over £1k.
How wrong I was, I was unbeaten in my first 14 or 15 games and when I was top of the league it really looked like I couldn't be knocked off the top spot.
The
table show that I had a good gap between myself and Man Utd's Belgian feeder club Royal Antwerp.
The
squad worked very hard over the course of the season. With not too many bad performances. I also had some decent strength in depth bu at one point I did have 2 keepers out and a couple of central midfielders out injured that had me worried and forced me to sign a couple of free transfers just in case.
The Belgian cup went pretty well.
I knocked out a First Division side in the
6th round on penalties. And repeated the feat in the
7th round
But in the two leg quarter final I was fairly beaten by another
First Division club 2-3 on aggregate. They went on to lose in the final to my parent club Genk.
Stijn Mahieu again was tremendous in my forward line. I was worried he had lsot his goal scoring touch as he failed to score in his first 5 games, luckily he turned it around and got even more goals this season. He also managed to set up quite a few goals for his strike partner.
Brecht Capon signed for £1k from Clube Brugge. I was expecting him to take second fiddle from a supposedly better striker that my parent club sent me. But when that striker got a minor injury early on in the season Capon came in.
He and Mahieu make a great partnership up front and I can't imagine dropping either of them in my first season in the First Division.
He has attracted the attention of other clubs and one of them made an offer of £0 and a friednly, unfortunately I could find a "you must be bloody joking with that ridiculous bid" button when I refused the offer.
Dieter Reynaert also came in for £1k and was brought in to give Gobbels competition for the number 1 shirt. His progress was halted by a broken finger, but when he recovered he did well enough to be first choice.
Jan Boeckx came on a free to add some steel to my midfield. I really lacked a decent defensive midfielder and he amply filled that role.
Jeroen Vanthounout was unlucky to suffer from a broken lower leg. Without that injury he certainly would have featured more this season.
Oran Shabani was my only other major signing for a fee, again £1k. His versatility has been useful and he coule find himself used more next season.
Renaud Baruffi has had an indifferent season. But he's another player who is attracting interest from other clubs and I was almost tempted when one of them offered a deal which all together was £240k. I feel that there's a lot more to come from him yet and I want it to be for Spa.
Medhi Carcela Gonzalez is another player with a lot of potential and I'm sure that he can play even better in the future. He's also my first international when he came on as a sub for the Belgian U19s.
My striker did weel all season, with
Capon and Mahieu being top scorers.
Capon and Gonzalez were the best two young players of the year with
Mahieu and Rombouts matching their achievement for players of the year.
I get the feeling that my teams were good this season and the
team of the year proved it with 8 of my player being there.
The
summary shows that Capon was the signing of the seasona and Mahieu was clearly the best player.
The
snapshot shows that financialy we are secure and it was even better then that when I went onto the next season. We went professional and I think the chairman put some money into the coffers as now the balance is over £6M and he's given me £1M in the transfer kitty and increased the wage budget by at least 4 times. He also wants me to sign some high profile players, the problem is finding some that want to play for Spa.
As well as that the club will increase the capacity of the stadium to over 15000. That will take about 7 months and I'll be ground sharing with a nearby club with 15000 capacity.
They will also improve the facilities as well.
All of that is good, but it is a little off putting. I'm used to playing with a budget and ow the chairman has effectively removed that budget
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