Chelsea FM15 - very delayed update

Unfortunately I have pretty much stopped doing any kind of posting on all my blogs for a while. Me an my wife had a child a couple years ago and slowly I have stopped doing all kinds of things that I used to do. However, one of the things I have not stopped doing is playing video games including FM. I've played quite a bit of my Chelsea save even so I figured it would still be good to update the blog with where I am right now.

I'm currently on January 1st of 2018 and our Chelsea has been doing very well despite only having won the premier league one year in the 15/16 season. We got 2nd in the 16/17 season but I feel like we are on our way to winning this one as well. I've changed our tactics a little bit this season so I wanted to update you all on that as well. Inspired by Guido (https://strikerless.com/) I wanted to relive my FM live days of playing strikerless. I have not had success with a 4-6-0 since FML but with Chelseas budget and some inspiration/guidance from Guido I have managed to be doing quite well with this formation.

I'm using a 4-6-0 formation which is slightly different from my FML formation in that the deeper 3 midfielders are actually located more centrally while by attacking mids are playing a mode wide formation. I partly did it this way because of the players I already had in my squad using my previous 4-3-2-1 formation. This has been working well and it is a very aggressive formation although I have had some difficulties against some tough oppositions like Juventus and Manchester United. I think the key for this formation working so far was the addition of Pogba who really stepped up the quality of my midfield. Oscar playing as a Trequartista was originally something I considered a compromise but he has been amazing when playing with William to his right. As you can see I also bough Douglas Costa which has been just an outstanding player for my team, playing in any of my front 3 positions and doing great with set pieces. I also purchased the RWB Danilo from FCP for U$38M. In his first season his average rating was 7.21.

My other unusual formation is a 3-2-2-2-1 using 3 center backs while keeping one of them as a stopper. This tactic was something I wanted to try for a couple of reasons, I have a lot of high quality center backs, and Danilo has been amazing as a wing back when he plays that role. Additionally having Ramires, Pogba and Lucas Silva in the midfield means that I feel comfortable putting less players there and still not leaving the middle vulnerable. Lastly this formation has allowed me to continue playing a fairly wide style of football but with long passes. I haven't tried this formation against tough teams yet but once I finish tweaking it I will try it.

Chelsea FM15 - fruitful October

The month of October was another good one for my Chelsea team. We beat Southampton 2x1, followed by an exciting game against Leicester City. This game happened at King Power Stadium and they were actually the stronger team for the most part. They had more possession and twice as many shots. Fortunately for us we played the right cards and converted 5 shots on goal into 3 goals, winning us the game by 3x2.

We also played Swansea and Crystal Palace, both games we easily managed to win. This leaves us in 3rd place tied with Man United in points. Man City is first by only 3 points so things are still shaping up.

Lastly, we had another Champions League game. This time it was against Ajax and the game was in Holland. After a very good performance by our squad, we unfortunately came out of it with a 0x0 draw. This leaves us currently in 3rd place in group G, behind Juventus and Celtic. However, I do not feel very worried since we still have a lost of home games ahead and I am confident we will make it through this round.

October has been rough for injuries. Besides a 5 month injury to Strootman, we also have Ramire, John Terry, Matic, Felipe Luis, Willian and Gimber all injured this month. So I'm happy we're still getting results, I'm just starting to worry that our team is struggling with players getting tired right before we have some difficult games coming up against Man United, Juventus and Liverpool.

Chelsea FM15 - cruising in the EPL

 After some more games, my Chelsea is doing fairly well. We've been cruising in the premier league, although we have not met the hardest opposition so far. We faced Aston Villa, Hull , Everton and the newly promoted Bournemouth... here are some of the match summaries.

Beyond that, in the European stage things have not been as simple. We faced Juventus on our first match in the Champions league and had a very difficult first half. I think we were actually playing too defensively. We started the second period behind by two goals which really pushed us forward, we almost managed to tie the game with quite a few good chances, in the end Hazard's goal wasn't enough. We also played Celtic, which we easily managed to beat.

Chelsea save - start of season 2

Another season started and I'm setting our goals pretty high this time around. I convinced the board we are going to win the title this time around. With that they opened the wallets for me and I've spent a lot of money in the transfer window... maybe a bit too much even. I'll probably go into my transfers on a later data however.

Right now, we've played 3 matches. Our season opener was against Man City, a game we played well in my opinion, but still failed to get any points. This was also the first game I attempted a new tactic using a 4-6-0 formation with Oscar as a Trequartista playing in the AMC position. It's something new I am trying this season, but I think I pulled the trigger too early and probably should have tested the waters against an easier team first.

Anyway, second game we had the newly promoted Huddersfield, which we managed to beat very comfortably despite playing away. Costa was incredible and I hope this is his new norm, last season he had a few dry spells that really worried me about how much I can rely on him to win games.

My most recent game was against Tottenham at White Hart Lane. This was another tough match for us since last season they beat us when we played away and we fought fiercely for the 3rd position. Fortunately we managed to come out on top of a game where Spurs was certainly controlling. We played again with our 4-3-2-1 formation with the flat narrow midfield, Hazard on the left as an inside forward and Willian on the right as a winger.

FM15 Chelsea save - end of season 1

It was a fairly exciting end of a season for us. After that great knockout round with Dortmund we faced another German side. Bayern Munich was probably one of the toughest draws for us and we had to face them. At our visit to Germany we got beat 3x1 which was a good result based on how much they dominated that game. On the game back in London we managed a 1x1 draw in a game we probably played better than them, but never looked like we were going to beat them by much. While disappointing, I can't say we really had a chance to win that round. This left us with a few games left in the premier league. Our last game was against Spurs where we were in 4th place and they were in 3rd. We were 2 points behind them and a victory would secure us 3 place. If however, Liverpool lost to Hull we had a chance of moving to 2nd place with a greater goal difference assuming we scored a lot of goals against Spurs.

That match was very good for us. We had our full squad and beat them 4x0 with a hat-trick by Diego Costa. Unfortunately Hull tied with Liverpool, leaving us to end the season in 3rd place. This was enough to please the board and to satisfy our goal of qualifying to the Champion's League. Below are some more stats from this season.

An interesting bit from this season was the fact that Mourinho took over Manchester City. City was doing very poorly under Pellegrini and while Mourinho's arrival did improve their standing, they still only managed to get 7th in the end, just missing the Europa Cup position which went to West Brom. Mourinho did get a few awards for his work in the last few months. The FA Cup title this season went to Tottenham with a 2-1 victory over Norwich after their defeat to us.

Now, how about some stats about my players:

Defence

Looking at our center backs, Cahill and Terry dominated in appearances, but were they our best players? Well, when we look at the numbers, in terms of interceptions, Dante, our mid season purchase, did the best, with 10.6 interceptions p/ game. Gary Cahill comes second with 10. These two also lead in tackle rate, with Zouma as the top 3 players in this category. Zouma is definitely a player I intend to develop and use heavily in my squad. Once again, when we look at tackles per game, Dante is on  top with 7.45. So I really hope that despite the money spent on an older player, the board sees how valuable this player was for us.

Midfield

In the midfield we have strong passing performance by the Nigerial Mikel and the Croatian Nemanja Matic. with 88% and 87% respectively. Despite that, their average rate was fairly low. In terms of producing assistances, Fabregas produced 0.39 assists p/ game, followed by Willian and Hazard with 0.33 and 0.32. Here this trend actually equates to high average ratings for these players.

Hazard has the highest rating (7.41) followed by Willian (7.21) and then Oscar (7.07). Oscar's stats would probably be even better had he played most of his games in the wing. He was not an effective CM or ACM this season and this did hurt his stats.

Attack

At the front, we actually see some rather disappointing revelations. While Diego Costa was a fairly strong player for us with 0.75 goals p/ game, added to Remy's 0.7, this is pretty much the best numbers we have. All our other offensive players find themselves under 0.4 goals p/ game. The best average ratings went to Hazard (7.41), Costa (7.22) and Willian (7.21). I must admit, Willian was a much bigger asset this season than I expected. He was a source of consistency in the team, ensuring that he scored whenever the team seemed to need the most. He scored 13 goals.

Diego Costa finished with 28 goals in total, while our second best scorer was Hazard with 17.

United Nations League - Season 22/23

This season was another great success. We've managed to once again take the UNL title. This is the third year in a row, and despite our great point count, we still had to wait for the very last game to be able to claim the title. In the last day of the season Heidelberg was only a single point ahead of Minato and we needed to at least do as well as them in order to lift the trophy. Well we did it after beating the Russian side, Kremlin by 1x0. The game wasn't necessarily a close one, but still very exciting. Check out the goal at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx8XaCLhLvQ

 We also managed to win the UN Cup as well which was a great achievement for us, to win both of these on the same season. (check the final @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoDMCKqCPeQ&feature=youtu.be ). It would have been even greater if we had won the Champions League, however, that wasn't in the card. We made it all the way to the semi-final, only to lose by 5x0 on aggregated to Machester City. We did qualify past the group stage despite having Real Madrid, Spartak Moscow and Sparta Prague in our group. We then beat Olympique Lyonnais (3x2), Inter (3x1). Even though our Heidelberg squad is strong enough to do well internationally, we still don't have a team quite at the caliber of some of the richest clubs of the world.

In terms of players, my top picks are our steady captain Antonio Jose. This 23 year old Brazillian centre back played 54 games this season, which is insane and managed an average of 7.60... He's certainly part of the reason we did so well. While Gustavo Orsi had a terrible last few months, he still managed to score 19 goals in 38 games and had an average of 7.44. Tihomir Maric, our vice-captain also did very well, scoring 21 goals in 39 games and had an average of 7.35 overall. A few other favorites of mine were the right winger Kitazawa, who had a wonderful early season which was halted by an injury in which he never really recovered completely. He still had 9 goals and 7.27 average after 30 games. The DM Robson Geraldo was another great player this season, this 20 year old Brazillian had an average of 7.27. Robertinho, our AML also had a great early season but an injury later on did slow him down unfortunately.

Below are some more stats for this season.

 

UNL: Conclusion of the 21/22 season

After such a successful campaign on out 9th season, season 10 was not quite as impressive. However, we did still get the Uniter Nations League trophy. It is our second title in a row, and this season Minato really came close to taking it towards the end. They were a mere 2 points behind with 2 games left in the season and we were to face each other. A tie would have been enough to lift the trophy, but we managed a 1x0 win at home in front of a full Midazolam Stadium with a goal by Chan Jook-Ki in the 82nd minute after he replaced Orsi. I think this game exemplifies exactly how the team was this season. We had a really strong starting 11 for the most part, but whenever we were missing a player someone from the bench would come in and make the difference.

Beyond the UNL, we also managed to win the Club World Championship, which is the cup where winners from the Champion's League face off with winners from the Copa Libertadores. As a South American I've always enjoyed this tournament but I know this sentiment is not shared everywhere in the world. Anyway, we beat the Brazillian side from Rio, Flamengo. On December 19th (2021), we won 3x1 at BMO Field in Toronto. Flamengo scored an own goal at 10 minutes and after that we exploited their vulnerabilities for the rest of the match. Ortega and Luppi were our other goal scorers, and we even missed a penalty (Al-Mazam) towards the end of the match. Flamengo managed a goal by their 24 year old striker Cesar.

In the Champion's League we did not do as well this time around, and we actually only finished in 4th place in group B (1. Bayern Munich [11pts], 2. Fenerbahce [9pts], 3. Jablonec [7pts], 4. Heidelberg [7pts]). The Champion's League final ended up being between Barcelona and Manchester City. City took the cup with a goal by Jovetic.

We also won the WU Badge against Minato after a 1x1 draw in a penalty shoot out. Exciting game. We did however do very poorly in the UN Cup this year. We won in the first round against R&R by 4x1, only to lose in the second round to the Irish team Celtic Tigers in a penalty shootout after a 1x1 tie. The cup final involved Minato (won vs Celtic Tigers in semi by 2x1 on extra time) and Inter Zagreb (won vs Amsterdam by 1x0 on extra time). The final finished with a victory by Minato by 2x0 with goals by the popular Justin Gant and the 21 year old Norwegian midfielder Jens Johan Hovde.

Some potentially sad news is that both Xavier Arellano and Javi Garcia have announced that they will be retiring. The American full back Arellan played 7 seasons with us and went on a loan last season to FC Berliner. He was still a great backup player for us but with the addition of Blanco to our team we should be in good shape for next season. The Spanish DM (35yo) Javi Garcia will probably be a more problematic loss. He came to Heidelberg in 2017 from Man City and has been a consistent starter this season despite his age. He's a solid defensive player and has been averaging above 7.1 every season since he joined us. He played 31 games in 21/22 and will certainly need to be replaced by a competent player.

In terms of player stats and awards in the UNL, our #9 Gustavo Orsi placed 4th in goals scored with 21, after Zhao Wendong (24 goals, CHN, Accra), Emil Lyng (24 goals, DEN, FC Berliner) and Justin Gant (23 goals, CAN, Minato). In terms of average rating, Antonio Jose was 4th with 7.65 and Orsi was 7th with 7.6. Great performance by our team really.

The player of the year award went to the Canadian Justin Gant from Minato, followed by our own Kitazawa and 3rd place went to Gustavo Orsi. It is quite an achievement to get 2 players in this, it is too bad we didn't get the #1 spot though. Once again Philip Hulme took the goalie of the Season award with a 7.07 performance this year. He had 15 clean sheets in 34 games. He was followed by the popular Argentinian goalie Ayala and the Hungarian Gyula Nagy, both with 16 clean sheets. In the defense, Antonio Jose took the #1 spot followed by the English player from Kalevipoeg Ricky Amass and the veteran from Minato Timm Klose who had a 7.94 average rating this season after 36 games. Not sure why he didn't get #1. Perhaps it's because he has won this award 3 times (2017, 2019, 2021) already in the past, which makes sense since he seems to win every other year. In the midfield Lars Jensen took #1 for Accra, followed by Iain Gibbs from British Columbia and Nwosu from KVC Antwerpen. Up front the young German Hendrik Nattermann took #1 with 21 goals in 33 matches, followed by Zhao Wendong from Accra and Tapoko from Praha.

UNL: end of season 20/21

This was officially our best season yet. We managed to win every competition we were involved in which includes the UN League, the UN Cup and the Champions League. It was just an outstanding year for Heidelberg. A very consistent year as you can see from our fixtures, we pretty much dominated most games and with the help of some of our long term players we've achiever much more than was expected. We finished in first with 76 points, followed by Minato with 69 pts and third place went to La Pichard with 65. I feel that I can comfortably say that at this point these 3 teams are the cream of the crop in the United Nations League. While this is our first trophy, Minato has won it 4 times now (2014, 2015, 2019, 2020). They have been an impressive side over the history of the UNL.

La Pichard has had an impressive run as well, even though they only have 1 title (2017) they have placed 2nd twice and 3rd once. Beyond that, the UN Cup runner ups, Kalevipoeg, have also won once in 2018, and the other 2 german clubs have won it once each as well (FC Berliner in 2016, 84 Munchen in 2013)

In terms of notable players during this season, the player of the year award went to Espen Moe (Minato, Norway), with Piotr Pontus (Accra, Poland) in second and Rob Tol (Accra, Holland) in third. All players under 22 years of age. The top goalscorer this season was Will Baxter, the Englishman from Kalevipoeg with 27 goals and an average rating of 7.50. Todd Thomas (AC Lombardia, Australia) was tied with Aurel Lengyel (La Pichard, Romania) for second with 21 goals each and an average rating of 7.43 and 7.34 respectively. Lastly, the top goalie of the season was Philip Hulme from Heidelberg with an avg rating of 7.05, quite a feat for our 20 year old American goalie. 2nd place went to Osigwe, which is our old goalie, quite exciting to see 2 Heidelberg players get those awards.

UNL: Conclusion of the 19/20 season

Another superb season for Heidelberg, we've managed to finish at the best position so far in the UNL and on top of that we made it to the semi final of the Champion's League and were the runners up for the UN Cup. I don't think there is a doubt that this was our best year yet.

We had a very strong season, which mainly featured a good start, where we essentially dominated in the first half of the season during 2019. I feel that Heidelberg began to struggle towards the end mainly due to the number of games we had to play and I believe the team take over that happened around April had a negative impact on the team. It was unfortunate since we may have been able to pull 1st place if it wasn't for that. Instead Minato once again grabbed the 1st prize with 81 points, quite a strong performance. Although this is not the best in UNL's history, in the 14/15 season Minato finished with 87 points and during the 17/18 season Kalavipoeg from Estonia finished first with 81 points. We were in second place with only 66 points, closely followed by Londinium FCwith 65 points. Much like Heidelberg, Londiunium have been improving over the years moving from bottom of the table during

the first 4 seasons to 11th place in 17/18, 6th in 18/19 and now in 3rd place after the 19/20 season. This is definitely a team we will need to keep an eye on for upcoming seasons.

In terms of individual players, one of our highlights is our young striker Zhao who finished the UNL seaosn with 24 goals, 2nd best after the Egyptian Islam Farouk from Londinium FC. Fabian Eiling from Norway (Bygdoy) snatched 3rd place. Zhao was also 2nd in Player of the Year following Farouk and ahead of the Brazillian winger from Londinium, Fernando Cesar. All 3 players are between 21 and 22 years of age, so we can expect that the UNL is only about to get more competitive and full of talent.

UNL: Conclusion of the 17/18 campaign

After a bit of a small blogging hiatus, here is an update on my current FM13 save. I just finished season 6 with Heidelberg (2017/2018) and despite some struggles along the way I think we are establishing ourselves as a real challenge in the UN League. In the previous season we ended up not doing as well as I would like, but this time we managed to end in 6th place after spending months stuck in 7th. Although I secretly hoped for a better position, I admit the competition was fierce, and we also focused a lot in our international efforts, in particular the EURO Cup, which we managed to get to the semi final, only to lose to Liverpool by 3x2 in aggregate. Not a bad performance, which brought in some money and respect from the board. Next season I would definitely want to make it to the top 4 if I can, but that is to be seen.

I think overall I finally got the squad to find its weapon, a 41221 formation, with a fairly attacking mentality. We had a strong period when Arrua was really causing some damage to the opposition with his goals. This young player really was an asset to the team up until he asked to be traded. I was pretty upset about the prospect of losing one of my best current players and one of the players I had invested a lot into for future seasons. The one positive is the fact I managed to get over 11M for him which should help me get some new talent in the following season.

Once Arrua was out, our new Chinese youngster, Zhao Zhengbin, was given a lot more responsibility, and I have to say he delivered wonderfully despite his young age and inexperience. I have great hopes for him and unless he asks to be traded I feel he will eventually be one of our historical players, part of the team that raises the UNL trophy, or so I hope.

There were a few players I would like to highlight from this season. Starting with our top player this season, Zelimir Busic. Once again this great player managed to shine despite not looking terribly impressive when you look at his stats. Somehow he seems to always manage to deliver good performances, getting him a record number of player of the match titles, an extremely high average rating and a place in the top 3 defenders of the league this season. All of this from a seemingly mediocre 27 year old that gets paid less than 6K per week. Just shows that stats will only tell you part of the story.

Jose Goncalves once again deserves attention. This is our reliable and experienced center back, often playing with Busic. While Busic is the man in the air, Goncalves is the one I tend to rely on for most defensive needs.

Zdenek Svoboda, our right winger has also shown to be a valiable player to our club. I will say he is not as consistent as the two center backs, but when he plays well he can have a major impact on our performance. He boasts great speed and a strong crossing ability. He is still young and I have high hopes for this player in the next couple of seasons, when I expect him to really shine.

I've already mentiond Zhengbin, but he really is right now my most exciting player. This is because he is only 19 years old and he has already taken our starting target man position. While Arrua will be missed, Zhengbin really suits the lone striker role I have in my tactics better. He has great overall attributes, but his strength and aerial ability really make him a great player to have up front. This will certainly not be the last time I mention him here.

Lastly, here are some more stats I've collected from this last season... If I have the will I will analyze and post a few more number on later posts.

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.