Hello all. Long time, long see.
How's everyone going with their teams?
Let's see, what's been happening at the Wolves since I last posted? Well, I won IV.4 last season, but lost the qualifier to Div III (my team wasn't really ready to promote, so I half threw the game anyway). This season I unfortunately couldn't match last seasons cup run, getting knocked out in only the fourth round. I went into the match with a couple of injuries, but still deserved to win.
I've been quite active on the transfer list the last week or two, selling my 33yo titanic playmaker and 20yo supernatural defender (both with passable passing), and replacing them with a 26yo mythical playmaker (ouch - the wages - $200k a week :shock: ) with world class set pieces, and a 23yo titanic winger with magnificent playmaking. Both are Oceanian so that certainly helps limit the wages a little. The winger means I can finally move my wingback into the defence full-time (he has magnificent winger and is now almost world class in defence) instead of wasting all that defence by playing him on the wing.
Pedro El-Abaseri, my ex Oceanian-U20 defender (I can't believe he's 22yo already; it seems like only yesterday I pulled him from my youth squad) should hit magical before the end of the season, and is starting to approach the levels needed for the senior national team. I'm hoping he'll be bought in at the end of next season once we get knocked out of the World Cup.
But I also have a new youngster coming through, Joseph Finau, who seems to be the best 18yo defender Oceania have. He will probably (hopefully
) be drafted into the U20 side later this week if all goes to plan. He's actually a little better than Pedro was at the same age, being 2 or 3 weeks ahead in defence and also having secondaries. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have Pedro's ridiculously good form (Pedro has been below passable form only three weeks in his entire 5 and a half season career - and they were directly due to the injury he picked up in his last U20 game).
With five games to go, I'm on top of IV.4 by two points. But my next three games are against 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Thankfully two of those games are at home, and I'm quietly confident I can pick up at least 6 points from those three games. And I then face the two bottom teams in the last two weeks, so with a little luck I should promote to Div III for next season. I don't know whether my team is quite ready, but I want/need the challenge of competing against superior teams.
Hmmm, this post became much bigger than I first set out to write, but it has been quite a while since I last posted here.
Now I expect equally detailed accounts from all of you. ;-)
