emgergo

Gombak United, S-League, 2016

First whole season with the Bulls.

Fans, board: mid-table. Bookies: 9-1.

As the result of last year's crappy league performance, all the Thai legionnaires decide to jump ship, as well as several other players.

Filling up the foreigners places, I turn to my former team, and sign four squad players.

Scouts find a whopping number of 2 players, both join (a DL and a WB/AML), plus a DR loanee. Pre-season is somewhat frightening, because no matter how good the attacking play is, our aged defense leaks in left, right and centre.

Season kicks off on the same note, as we struggle a bit, and Woodlands kick in the barn door (7 wins out of 7). We find form and pull close, but are never able to overtake. We blow our chances with 6 games to go, when we lose Woodlands 1-0 away, playing 60 minutes in a man advantage.

Woodlands take a 5-point lead, we cut it to two before the last round. They play a day before us and win 4-0, so I send the reserves out to the last match. Runners-up, after a highly entertaining chase.

S-League
Pos.: 2nd
P: 33 W: 23 D: 3 L:7 69-29 72 pts (in the past 9 seasons I would've won the league with this points, bar one )

Cup
Sucked arse. Out in the first round, against non-league opposition (who are Korean-only team) 1-2, 0-0

Asian Confederations' Cup

Won our group with 16 pts, knocked out a team from Jordan in the QF, lost to Happy Valley from Hong Kong in the SF (0-0, 1-2). Of course the away leg clashed with a NT qualifier
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Fans' player, POY and Best Scorer: young Malaysian striker (25 goals)

Best avg.: brilliant winger from Macau (7,57; 5 goals+20 assists)

High: My keeper scoring from a free kick

Low: we gave away 4 points to dead last Tessensohn
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ruddevil

@endtime:
Pers in Persib, Persija, Persipura, Persita, Persema, Persebaya, Persma, Persikabo, and so on, is actually abbreviation of Persatuan Sepakbola. This is similar to English's FC (Football Club) or Italian's AC.

endtime

Hey, thanks. It's always good to learn something about exotic football cultures

scottn72

TG! KUTGW!!

emgergo

Just noticed that my first-choice keeper finished the tutoring of the backup, and passed on the following PPMs:

"Shoots With Power"
"Hits Free Kicks With Power"

Now, maybe it'd be more useful if he actually taught him how to save?

emgergo

An ex-team report:

Persikad

Indonesian Premier League. Won easily 1st phase, battled it out in 2nd phase, won the league on penalties against Gombak to retain the title. Won the Super Cup as well.

It's nice to see that my successor is no messing up things, as it's usual in FM.

emgergo

Gombak United, S-League, 2017

Fans, board: continental competition (= win the league/cup)

Bookies: Evens

Media: 2nd (behind title holders Woodlands)
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Last season convinced me that I seriously need to speed up the defence. So a 19 y/o universal fullback, a Japanese DC/DM, and a Macaese (?) D LC comes. Up front we were good, but as I have 3 over-30 strikers, I sign a 20-year-old U21 international.

Departures list starts with my best player (off to Anderlecht for 1M+25%+friendly, pretty much covering our expenses for the whole year), and 5 released.

Season kicks off and we hit rock bottom, being unable to win in the first 5 games. A 4-1 win (all goals scored by my Malaysian ST) triggers a run of 7 consecutive wins, and we occupy 2nd place after the first third of the season.

As there are no runaway leaders this year, the league is pretty much exciting. With 6 games to go we, Young Lions, Woodlands and Geylang have a mere 4 points gap from 1st to 4th. The latter two exit the race after shock home defeats, and before the last round we have a one-point lead over Young Lions.

The last match is a must-win scenario, and my Malay striker answers the call: he scores the only goal against Woodlands, and we lift the title! \o/

Cup run ends in the semifinal against bogey team Home Utd.

S-League
P: 33 W: 18 D: 10 L:5 55-28 64 pts
Winners

Cup
Out against Home Utd in the SF (1-2, 0-1)

No international cups to suck in this year.

Interestingly, our record has been 8 pts and 14 scored goals less than last year, where we finished 2nd.

Awards:

-POY, Fans' POY, Best Scorer: young Malaysian ST (30 goals)

- Best avg., Signing of the Year: Japanese DC/DM, 7,45

- High: the Malaysian striker's performance

- Low: The lack of goals from the other strikers is worrying

- Stupid managerial decision special prize: I let the ass.man handle contracts of the reserves. He goes ahead, and throws a 6500$/week contract for my ageing Mali DC, who was 10 months out with various injuries. And I wanted to release im anyway.

BTW he only spent a month or so in the reserves to get match fitness

emgergo

The last 10 years in a nutshell:

2007 : Persikad, Indonesian First League, Gr. C: 4th

2008 : Persikad, Indonestian First League, Gr C., 3rd

2009 : Persikad, Indonestian First League, Gr C., 2nd. Promoted \o/

2010 : Persikad, Indonesian Premier League. Winners \o/

2011 : Persikad, Indonesian Premier League. Rinners-up+cupwinners

2012 : Persikad, Indonesian Premier League. Runners-up

2013 : Persikad, Indonesian Premier League. Tied 5th-6th+cupwinners

2014 : Persikad, Indonesian Premier League. 3rd+Asian CL SF

2015 : Persikad, Indonesian Premier League. Champions+cupwinners \o/

2015 : Gombak Utd, S-League (for 2 matches). Cupwinners

2016 , S-League: Gombak Utd, S-League. Runners-up+Asian ACC Cup SF

2017 , S-League: Gombak Utd, S-League. Champions \o/

F1at1ined

Great read, emgergo. I was curious though. How come you played 33 games? I was wondering how you ended up playing an odd number.

emgergo

It's a league of 12, and the teams play each other 3 times.

Odd system.