UNL: Frankfurt match

It's been a while since my last real update. I should be posting older information but I just played a major game for our team. This was a UNL game against our rivals Frankfurt. We have not played in 5 years so this should be an exciting game. Both our teams have changed much in the last few seasons and as Heidelberg has been really struggling in the league, a good result here would be great for morale.

 Well a good result we got. An amazing game for our side, which relied on a great presentation from Omar Al-Mazam, who got a hat-trick. He has played some 10 games so far this season, but had not had any particularly great presentation; however today he showed a lot of promise. It's the first year at Heidelberg. He is only 19 years of age, but was one of our major purchases in recent times. I think it may have been a risky move, but I think this kid will definitely be worth his $5.75M price tag.

In terms of updates of this season so far. We are doing very poorly actually. Last game was our first win, and this is what things look like for us right now.

Our saving grace is the fact that we are doing fairly well in the Euro Cup so far.

Here are some of the other players I would highlight from this season so far.

UNL - Cold March

Long while since I last posted a FM13 post, not because I haven't been playing, but mostly because I have been posting all those CK2 posts. It's crazy when you're into two games at once, it's almost like juggling two girlfriends. Anyway, to bring us up to date here are the fixtures.

As you can see I have been pretty busy, perhaps with fairly poor results for the most part, fortunately for us since the end of February we have been on a good 5 win run, which included a 3x0 win over Clube Paulista and a 3x2 vicory over Celtic Tigers. Now the real action will be my next game.

We made it to the group stage in the Euro Cup, which was my minimum requirement, I'm doing fairly poorly in the league this season, so UN Cup has all of a sudden turned into a bit of a deal. I have been fortunate, putting our team in the semi-final game against the French side La Pichard. The other game will be between two UNL2 sides: Universidad Santiago (Chile) and Reykjavik (Iceland). If we can somehow beat La Pichard, we would have a very tangible chance to win the cup, which would obviously help us financially and in terms of reputation.

Lastly, here are some stats for those who like it:

Club reputation

Club estimated values

The best players in the world

Lastly, there was a bit of drama this last trading season. We purchased a few new players including the Chinese prodigy Zhao Zhengbin (375K) from Shanghai. The Israeli striker Din Gennish (775K). The goalie we got on a free transfer, Ukranian Igor Levchenko. Finally the big purchase, Francisco Javier Martinez was purchased from Olympique Lyonnais for 3.8M. Maybe a mistake, but that remains to be seen. Raphael Bohmann was the cause for my dissapointment however. He took a contract from Geneve FC and I got none of my 1.4M back for this player. So here is a pick of me considering playing Bohmann, but deciding not to play him.

From the games shown above, this one was a fun one. A 2x1 victory over ASS Riga. Highlight was Yannis Tafer from Riga, displaying an 8.6 performance.

UNL - November was an improvement

The month of November was a slight improvement from October... at least we didn't lose any game, but I still feel that this season we have been struggling a bit. It is almost halfway through this season and we find ourselves in 11th place with 22 points (5-7-3), 17 goals for and 13 against.

In terms of players, Juan Graciano Arrua is still our strongest contributer, with an average of 7.72 from 7(1) games, including 8 goals, 2 assists and an impressive 83% passing success. Other players that should be highlighted are Jose Goncalvez, Zelimir Busic, Leo Lacroix and Dannis Gester.

October 2015

The month of October was a challenging one. We had a few very strong opponents and a little bit of bad luck. The Clube Paulista game was a particularly difficult one. We ended up losing the game despite a fairly good group effort from our side. In total we have played this team three times now, adding to 2 defeats and one tie.

 Another important game this month was the cup game against Atletico da Baixa, which was an important morale booster at the end of a difficult run. The other significance of this match is the fact that it was the return of Juan Graciano Arrua since his injury. He managed to score 2 goals in the 4x2 victory over the Portuguese side.

Here are the other games from this month:

Highlight goes to Juan Graciano Arrua, who had a great game (one just mentioned) but has 6 goals in the 5 matches he has played in. A very impressive form for this 18 year old.

A german match...

This next game is actually an exciting one. An all german match, where both teams could potentially jump up a few spots. All three german teams in the UN League have actually proven fairly successfull so far. And for this next game, Heidelberg will be playing our 41221 formation, in an attempt to rest some players before the cup game next week.

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Unfortunately we let in a goal and lost the game. It is a small blow, but nothing we can't overcome with a cup game win on Sep 23, 2015 against Glasgow Claymores.

So after that last big win this was our next few big days...

We beat Geneve on a 1x0 game (Ruan goal) and tied with ASS Riga on a 2x2 game (Takayasu and Busic goals).

Lastly, we played an incredible match against HSV. The game started with an early goal from Ivo Ilicevic for HSV. That was matched at 25 minutes by Tom De Mul, on his game back for us. Artjoms Rudnevs scored the next two goals for HSV, where Goncalves scored our 2nd and at 81 minutes, Resit Kucukkaya managed to squeeze an equalizer, allowing us to bring the tempo of the game right down. It was a great fun game, where there were several occasions I had no belief we would make it through. It was a spectacular effort by some of our players, including the central defender Jose Goncalves, and the superstar midfielder Gester.

EURO Cup success !

What great progress! We managed to achieve something I had little hope of doing. We tied a  contested leg 1 game. We started it with a lead, which we eventually lost. This first game did however give me a sense that we had a chance of moving to the next round.

Following this, we played a league game against Kyiv, which despite our victory, proved challenging, ending with a late goal by Busic. It was hard work, but this was our first league win this season and actually our first league goal as well.

Finally, a major game we need a result. Partizan started the game with the advantage that a goaless game would favor them. We went in with our traditional 4-4-2 formation instead of the 4132 I had used in the previous game. This allowed us a good early goal from Defederico. Partizan managed to tie the game halfway. Both teams ended up scoring again, and despite our lack of dominace during this match, we managed to hold a draw which gave us the away goal advantage, enough to reward us with the 1.8M prize, and the spot on the next round of the EURO Cup.

UNL - S04 Tactics for upcoming big game

Game 2 was against London United. It was a tough game to be sure, and the 0x0 result was not the worst outcome for us. We applied our standard 4-4-2 tactic that we used against Lombardia.

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Our next game however, will be an important one. We will be playing Partizan in our very first EURO Cup game. We were probably given a reasonable opponent for our first round, which could help get us comfortable in this new competition. For this upcoming game I intend to use the same 4-4-2 formation, with a few changes to our roster. I will be using Defederico as my Advanced Forward/Poacher postition. He may be the extra push we need to get our first real goal this season.
Along him, I am introducing Chappuis in the midfield. I'm hoping he will add some more defensive power to our side. Due to injury I also have a reserve quality defence, where Panoilias is playing the main role, with Hermannsson doing some of the covering. In the back wings we have Hrvoje Cale and Xavier Arellano, which are part of our rotation.
We may swap formations mid game depending on the situation. I fully intend to win this first game, so if I need an offensive boost, this could be the answer.
 

UNL: 15/16 season begins - The third year of our campaign

 After a reasonably positive pre season, we started this 15/16 season with a game against AC Lombardia. This is an Italian side that has been in the main league since its inception, attaining 11th place in season 1, 4th place in season 2 and a large drop to 13th place last season.

I decided to play our 4-4-2 tactic since I still feel that it offers the safest game for us, and I really wanted to make a good start this season. I feel I need that good start in order to maintain a good position while playing some of the other cup games this season.

 Now, just for good measure I thought I would show some of our players, including two new additions this season Sebastian Eguren and Oscar Ortega. Eguren, was a very cheap aquisition due to his age, however I felt that we could benefit from such an experienced player. Ortega is exactly the opposite situation. He is a strong player with an even stronger future ahead of him.

FM12: good playoff start in 2013

Well, well, well... The end of this season didn't go as smoothly as I predicted. For some reason we ended up losing a lot of easy games towards the last few fixtures, but we still managed 5th place, which was just enough to make it to the playoffs. Unfortunately, that led us to the top team, Luton, which has been a bit of a pain to deal with before, was our first challenged for the second promotion spot. Last season, if you remember, they were the ones that eliminated us.

Well this season was different. After a cagy first game draw 2x2, we went to play away with Luton for the final. We changed to a 4-5-1 for this game and after 90 minutes we were still tied 1x1. I thought we would have to hold and prey for a penalty shoot-out. Hatch had other plans, and he scored a very opportunistic goal in the first period of OT, which put us in a very comfortable position. We just had to hold on to the score after that point. It was a really great game, and we are now off to the final.