Aberdeen Save 2022

[Mr_Grieves]

February


Fixtures

The run of domestic bliss goes on despite a few flat performances along with plenty of games where we had double-figure shots on target before scoring.


SPL

Celtic dropped a few points and we go almost 20 points clear. Almost time to give some youth some more time in the squad as we look toward the 35/36 season


Champions Leauge

K'O Round
Aberdeen 3-1 Porto AGG

The damage was done by the current Scotland strikeforce in the 1st leg in Portugal and we got across the line at home in the 2nd leg


Last 16 Draw
Aberdeen vs Liverpool

A repeat of last year's final. Not looking forward to this with how we've played in Europe this season combined with being home first leg.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

March


Fixture

We drop points in the league for the first time since September and it is one to Celtic again while squad rotation held us to a 2-2 draw with New firm rivals Dundee Utd


SPL

Celtic close the gap to 15 points, Surely that's enough!


Champions League Last 16

1st Leg
Aberdeen 2-0 Liverpool

We overcame a red card to take a solid 2 goal lead to Anfield


2nd Leg
Liverpool 3-0 Aberdeen
Liverpool win 3-2 on Agg

This is comfortably the angriest i have gone to bed after an FM match. Losing the thie by 1 goal is upsetting. Losing with a 93rd-minute goal is sickening. Loosing 3-0 with a 93rd-minute goal after playing almost 70 minutes with 9 men and a further 10 mins with 10 men. You couldn't measure my rage. Players were upset with the early exit too. Imagine if i lost the job after 1 defeat and winning every trophy domestically and less than 12 months after winning the Champions League


Scotland
Euro Qualifiers

Stonking start to Group A vs the two best teams​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

April


Fixtures

Won the title against Ross County and we beat Rangers in our one competitive game to book our place in the Scottish Cup Final where we'll play Hibs who our backups just lost oo.


SPL

Rangers held Celtic to a draw which secured the title. They are the team in the most danger of dropping a spot as St Mirren are only 4 points behind but have played their easiest game.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

May


Fixtures

We rested players through the month as results tailed off.


SPL

Hibs did manage to hold of Rangers for 3rd and thanks to the cup final the top 6 will all be in Europe next season


Scottish Cup Final
Hibs 0-4 Aberdeen

Diaz signs off the season with a hat trick and a domestic treble is secured.


Scotland

Two internationals and we thrashed both our eastern European neighbors

Nathan Patterson broke the national caps record

 

[Mr_Grieves]

End of Season 13


SPL - Winner

For the 10th season in a row Aberdeen and Celtic top the table with the Dons winning their 6th title in 7 years. Celtic in their first season under Matthias Jaissle had their worst points total since the first season of the save. Hibs finished 3rd for the 3rd season in a row to get another shot at the Champions League. The one thing more consistent than Hibs in 3rd is Rangers in 4th. St Mirren returned to the top 6 being up and down over the years and are joined for the first time by Dundee Utd. They beat out regular top 6 side Ross County ahead of Inverness and the biggest disappointment of the season was the Hearts who somehow despite having the golden boot winner only managed to finish 9th spending most of the season in relegation trouble. They pulled clear of Queens Park who only just finished clear of Kilmarnock in the playoffs while Motherwell immediately return to the Championship being replaced with fellow yo-yo team Ayr

Playoffs
Kilmarnock 2-2 St Johnstone
Kilmarnock win on Pens

It went all the way but Kilmarnock retain their spot in the top flight

Managers

The 4 struggling teams all made moves in the season. Hearts got the best results by hiring a 70-year-old former player and manager.


In Europe
Ross County were the stars this season and was the last Scottish team in Europe as they lost the Conference final on penalties
Hibs also had a great European run reaching the Europa League Semi-final losing to giants of Portuguese football Estoril.
Aberdeen the donkey ref let down the nation for coefficient points
Rangers like the Dons went out in the last 16 to a top team but also put up a good fight with PSG
Celtic went out a round earlier in a surprise defeat to Sevilla
Hearts fell at the conference qualifier


Champions League Final
Atletico Madrid 2-4 Liverpool

I wouldn't tolerate Liverpool winning the Champions League and after how they put us out this one is more upsetting than usual.


Squad Review

Goalkeeper

Luiz Junior keeps Liu Ming at bay at the no1. A few keepers coming back from loans is bad news for both, although less for 34 year old no1 Luiz Junior who has signed an extension to his current deal

Defense

Obispo was the standout defender with Cummings & Falco, especially letting us down. Gelmark has put in a serious claim for the left-back role. Was only brought in as back up but looks like he'll be starting next year. Both right-backs were disappointing but look too good to move on from.

Midfield

My best-performing player wants to leave. Mauricio Leon has decided not to renew with the Dons and will leave this summer. On the left wing, it was time to move on from Deigo Reyes but he's just totally outplayed Bakardzhiev so worries in both wings. The center of the pitch is more settled with Tan & Zahustel settled & Singh & Strum being impressive backups.


Attack

We are utterly loaded up top. Diaz & Bavidge are the stars Petkov spent most of the season on the wing but only 3 goals! MacIver has arrived and is instantly scoring goals which led to me agreeing to sell Palomar


Players for life
Here at Aberdeen, we love one of our own coming through and thriving. There are quite a few current Dons i hope to keep long-term so let's have a look at how the spine of our squad is doing in more depth after our first season.

Luiz Junior - GK
P530 CS242

The club legend ends the season as clear no1 but now has 4 keepers snapping at his heels. Worrying for him but i am very impressed with the two players on loan.

Joaquin Obispo - DC
P262 G32

Probably the best player in the squad. I still have yet to see a statistically better defender play for the Dons if his 50 Argentina caps at 25 don't convince you enough

Bradley Cummings - DC
P237 G11

The pride of Aberdeen continues its development. will he ever make it to be a 5* player?

Owen Munro - DL
P194 G0

The main point here used to be how has he still not scored a goal. This is an issue but the bigger problem is he has been outperformed and replaced for the bigger games by his backup. Munroe is in a privileged position to regain his position back if he can perform well at the start of next season.

Krasimir Bakardzhiev - ML
P295 G34

Felt that after making almost 300 appearances for the club over 8 seasons the Bulgarian winger has earned a place on the wall of fame.

Alfie Bavidge - ATT
P616 G474

The Dons legend just fell short of another 40 goal season but can have no regrets as he was our best player once again. Few more years at his peak as he is now 29.


Rankings

Club Ranking - 5th

We drop a spot with the dominant English side Man City sneaking ahead.


National League - 7th

Portugal had a great season to jump us and see us lose a Champions League place for 2036/37


National Team ranking - 27th
A massive 10-point raise after a reasonable world cup

Awards


Player of the Year
Alfie Bavidge

5th award win

Young Player of the Year
Mauricio Leon

Shame that he couldn't agree on a new deal so unless that changes over the summer we could be losing our most valuable youngster on the cheap

Top Scorer
Shaun Wallace

The Hearts striker had a career season, mostly in the 1st half to just beat Bavidge to the golden boot

Team of the Year

Who won the league again? Only 4 players.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Season 14
Aberdeen 2035

We'll have a further expansion of the stadium which means we'll play our first game at the Kingsford stadium which was built then never played at. We are renting the stadium till ours "The Aberdeen Stadium" is finished in a few months' time.


Squad
For the first time, i was unable to get the team down to 14 players so there will be lots of grumpy squad players featuring for the reserves


Goalkeepers

The future is now. Dussart is ahead of Ajayi in the comparison chart so the plan was to loan Ajayi out while Dussart became the latest challenge to Luiz Junior. Who has just had his testimonial.

Defense

The starting back 4 will remain the same but lots of changes everywhere else. Right back see us dip back into the South American market to Flavio Rios. Chadi Loune was a purchase we didn't really need but with strength in depth & we should be selling at a profit. The star of the bunch should be Jean Niedermann who has 7 caps with Portugal before he was out of his teens.

Midfield

Only one change to the starters on the right on the midfield Petkov will go against Urko Goni for the starting spot after arriving for free from Athletic Bilbao. Justo Ros is far from Diego Reyes but will be the backup for the season.

Strikers

Here's where we suffered our most surprising loss with Diaz leaving for Bayern Munich. I kept asking for £150m which was my go-to request to get rid of bids for my star players. Only on this day, Bayern came back with an offer for £137m and in all good conscience could not turn it down with so many players waiting in the wings despite being of a lesser level and such ridiculous money. Kalantari will get first crack with Bavidge with MacIver being the long-term goal.



Transfer Window

SPL

A bad summer for the Dons and Celtic on the clear out front.


Aberdeen

In

​

Out

Palomar up front was 3rd choice so to get so much money for his services. It was matched with the sale of Leon who like Portilo & Diego Reyes was out of contract and not willing to sign a new deal. Two final sales were Zietsch who never got off the loan Merrigo round and the keeper i had such high hopes for Liu Ming who was about to slip to 4th in line i decided to cash in on him he has just turned 22 years old.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

August


Fixtures

We made a terrible start to the league. Our 2 wins were both not secured till we grabbed a stoppage-time winner then when we were finally held to draw it was against St Mirren who spent half an hour with 10 men that we couldn't break down.


SPL

Champions League Draw

Tough draw this year​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

September


Stop the presses. Its taken 7 years and over 200 games in a team that scored about 150 goals a season in all competitions

Owen Munro has scored a goal.


Fixtures

All round success after a very bumpy start the new strikeforce is flying with 12 goals in the 5 games. The real test comes next with a trip to Parkhead.


SPL

Celtic are flying with 7 wins from 7 and it's already looking like a 2 horse race at the top.


Champions League

A very respectable start with a draw against the favorites


Scotland

Only goal difference to overcome to secure our spot at Euro 36​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

October


Fixtures

Back-to-back months with a perfect record. The big one was a 2-0 win at Parkhead to overtake Celtic at the top of the table


SPL

Celtic were held to a draw at Hibs giving us a 3 point cushion.


Champions League

We took the lead and I thought that would be us on the way to a victory, not to be as Madrid leveled and held on.

Then came our most tragic champions league result in the save. We were totally FM'd against the bottom side in the whole champions league phase, till they beat us.



Scotland
Our perfect record continues securing the top spot in the group with a goal from the 16-year-old MacIver winning the game.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

November


Fixtures

Only 3 games with Dundee Utd featuring in two thrilling games with a close-fought cup semi-final and then one of the more thrilling comebacks

Dundee Utd were 3 goals ahead and we just managed to save a point at the death.

SPL

Celtic win 1, lose 1 and draw 1, and are overtaken by Rangers. Sure this was a 2 horse race a month ago.



Champions League

Two big wins against one of the best and one of the worst teams in the competition.


Scotland

The group won with 8 wins from 8 and for the first time, i can ever remember 8 clean sheets in a row. Amazing effort from the boys.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

December


Scottish League Cup Final

1st trophy of the season is in the bag. Petkov returns from a lengthy layoff on fire with a hatrick here setting up the win.


Fixtures

A major shock at Ross County brings us back down to earth right in time to face our biggest rivals Celtic who we swept aside to begin a winning run to end the year


SPL

Despite having a very good start to the season we are only 5 points clear of Celtic who have Rangers breathing down their neck.



Champions League

Only 1 game but a huge win in Inter has us on the back of the top 8 and a great chance of getting a bye.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

January


Fixtures

We return from the winter break winning our first two games with ease before a draw with Celtic at Parkhead ending a great run we were on against them but no lost points to Celtic in the title race


SPL

We are 7 points clear with a game in hand of Celtic who still have Rangers right on their tails. The rest of the top 6 have a reason gap back to Hearts who are closer to bottom-placed Inverness


Champions League

We win both champions league games to sneak into the top 8 bye

Transfer Window

SPL

Celtic spent well where we didn't. 33-year-old Yeremy Pino one of the main targets at the start of the game and a former Dons youth player Luiz Ruiz. Rangers did like us make 2 big sales but made no improvements.


Aberdeen

Only players leaving this January even after agreeing to club record fees to buy players were rejected by the players.

Jordan Gibson has not developed on his 2 loans and he at 8th best MC and 5th best Santiago Recalde was sold for a utterly ridiculous fee.

GK Luiz Junior - 2024-2036
P539 Clean Sheets 247 Ave rating 7.08

After 12 seasons and over 500 games with Aberdeen, Luiz Junior was not happy sharing the no1 job with Carl Dussart he had asked for more 1st team action and despite getting it he was still not happy with this. I spent a 2nd window trying to loan out Ajayi but with no bites, we had an offer from the Brazilian side Flamingo the player interaction said he would be disappointed if we rejected the offer so after sizing up the situation i have taken the risk to move on the legendary club keeper who ended up playing 4 more games than fellow keeping legend Jim Leighton for the club.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

February


Fixtures

It was either a dominant win or a hapless draw but thankfully we weren't the only big side dropping points


SPL

Neither of the Old Firm could take advantage and were 14 points clear​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

March


Fixtures

Wins in the league & cup and the old firm are both out before the semi-finals again!


SPL

Little change in the gap at the top. The title should be locked up by the next update.


Champions League

Last 16

1st Leg
Arsenal 1-0 Aberdeen

We thrashed them but just couldn't score

2nd Leg
Aberdeen 5-0 Arsenal
Aberdeen win 5-1 on Agg

We were probably worthy of 5 goals over the two legs. One of our most impressive wins.

QF Draw
Bayern vs Aberdeen

Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals. This has gone badly 3 times before at this exact stage but its been 5 seasons since Bayern knocked us out, They have also been busy selling since that point.


Scotland

Two very encouraging results especially in Paris but France had a very rotated team​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

April


Fixtures

3 wins in the league wrapped up another title just as other competitions are ramping up. Our toughest match of the month was the Scottish Cup Semi-final where we needed to score late to force extra time where our superior fitness overcame Hibs


SPL

The league has split and despite the title race ending before the split there is lots to play for The old firm is fighting for the 2nd Champions League spot and the battle for the drop is even closer


Champions League Q/F

1st Leg

Is this the most boring 1st leg we've ever seen?

2nd Leg
Aberdeen 3-0 Bayern on Agg

The Dons dominated Bayern back home gaining some revenge for all those eliminations


Semi-Final Draw

We get the Premier League-dominating team to beat if we are going to return to the final.



Scotland Euro 2036 draw

Very happy with this draw. Haaland playing his final games before he retires.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

May


Fixtures

We regularly rested players. Hibs were the only side to face anything like a full-force Aberdeen team.


SPL

Our highest points total ever and a dominant end to a dominant season only denied an unbeaten season by that one slip-up at Ross County in December Caley is relegated. Had they found a winning goal in their game on the final day they would have survived to the playoffs


Champions League Semi-Final

1st Leg
Man City 2-2 Aberdeen

Would have taken this result at kick-off but after going 2 goals up in the first 13 minutes and a 92nd-minute equalizer gives Man City a better chance at fortress Kingsford

2nd Leg
Aberdeen 0-0 Man City
Aberdeen win 4-1 on Pens

120 minutes with no goals i a huge flip from the end-to-end classic the 1st leg was. The one thing i wanted to avoid was penalties. Man City have Haaland in his last season and we have 1 penalty taker over 10. The result is therefore a mystery but i'll take it non the less. Liverpool awaits in the final.



Scottish Cup Final
Dundee Utd 0-4 Aberdeen

Treble secured as our new firm rivals chose violence in their biggest game of the season with 2 red cards not long after halftime.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Champions League Final 2036


From the Millenium Stadium

Liverpool vs Aberdeen

The 2034 winners play the 2035 winners with Liverpool being in their 3rd final in a row and 4th in 5 seasons. As for Aberdeen after being a bit light the year after winning the champions league we reviewed our whole squad and came back with our deepest squad if not quite as good as we were in 2034 for the first 11.


Liverpool 2-0 Aberdeen

A very close game as you would expect from a final. This match felt a lot like the Liverpool vs Tottenham final where Liverpool scored early and then nothing happened. We didn't show up till well into the 2nd half but as we went for it Liverpool scored their 2nd and the game was over with the dream of the quad moving onto the next season.​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

End of Season 14


SPL - Winner

Aberdeen wins the league by 25 points. It was far closer around Christmas but both old firm sides fall short as the year went on and Rangers especially played their way out of the 2nd Champions League spot. Ross County was a safe 4th and into the conference with Hibs who beat off St Mirren. Inverness Caley ended their amazing 5 season run of finishing 8th in every season by landing in the bottom spot and getting relegated. Motherwell continues their run of being a yo-yo team returning next season to probably be relegated again.


Playoffs
Kilmarnock 3-0 Dunfermline

Kilmarnock survive through the playoffs for the second season in a row

Managers

Shorn Fernandez is removed from his 3rd SPL job while Inverness's change from Martin Rennie was the final nail in the coffin. John Robertson retires after 1 good SPL season and 1 bad

In Europe
Celtic went out in the knockout round but no shame in losing to Real Madrid
Rangers got to the Europa League last 16 and lost disappointingly to Freiburg
Hibs dropped out of the Champions League at the qualifier stage but got through to the last 16 of the Europa League
St Mirren & Dundee Utd went out in the Europa Qualifiers


Champions League Final
Liverpool 2-0 Aberdeen

Squad Review

Goalkeeper

We've gone from having a 34-year-old and no long-term keeper to having two keepers under 21 that are both good enough to be the club's no1. Ajay's rating can't be ignored.

Defense

The defense really stepped up this season with everyone performing, except right back De Falco who i was ready to annotate as a long-term right back after the transfer window last season but that's 2 poor seasons in a row. Will be reviewed in the summer.

Midfield

Armaan Singh has forced his way into the first x1 Easily outperforming Zahustel and Tugay Tan who may be reviewing his future with the club. Goni on the right win has been a spectacular pick up on a free while Bakardzhiev was solid if not spectacular.

Attack

Bavidge led the strikeforce again but was outplayed by both Kalantari & Petrov whose season was scuppered with niggling injuries. Meanwhile, Andy MacIver is showing all the signs of deserving more and starts giving Nuyts & Fernandez little to no chance to play/


Players for life

Joaquin Obispo - DC
P307 G40

Dropped to a 4* player but is still easily the star of our backline

Bradley Cummings - DC
P284 G14

A better season for the homegrown CB

Owen Munro - DL
P238 G1

He has FINALLY scored a goal. That's all we asked. His performances did step up and he quickly became our go-to DL

Krasimir Bakardzhiev - ML
P328 G35

The Bulgarian seems to have taken this spot for granted and had a few subpar seasons since he earned a place on the list.

Alfie Bavidge - ATT
P664 G508

Clears 500 goals for Aberdeen just in time for turning 30. Might not be enough time for him to double that.


Rankings

Club Ranking - 5th

A clear top 5 has emerged. Watford is now the clear 3rd force in English football. Amazing


National League - 6th

We'll be back with 3 Champions League spots for 37/28 with France falling hard.


National Team ranking - 18th

With Euro's points to hopefully add to this, we are already in the world's top 20


Awards


Player of the Year
Alfie Bavidge

6th award win and 3rd in a row

Young Player of the Year
Arian Kalantari

The annual who will leave Aberdeen award. That list is tragic. Not one made it 24 months after winning the award to being sold and most didn't make it through the summer.

Top Scorer
Alfie Bavidge

A record 7th golden boot overtaking Rangers Robert Hamilton from the late 19th, early 20th century

Team of the Year

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Euro 2036


From England

Scotland Squad

2 players have cleared 100 caps and 6 more have over 50 in a very settled squad that qualified strongly going unbeaten without conceding a goal.


The minimum expectation is to get out of the group very achievable considering our draw. SFA expects the same

Match 1
Scotland 2-1 Serbia

Serbia was the better team and we scored with our only shot on target of the 1st half. Popovic got two yellow cards in 4 minutes to swing the game in our favor. Far from a convincing performance but a win usually means we only need 1 point from the next 2 games to go through


Match 2
Norway 2-4 Scotland

I have no idea what's happening with our backline but we needed Ewing to put on a 2nd half masterclass after twice going behind. It all went right in the end and we have secured the top spot with a game to spare


Match 3
Scotland 3-1 Austria

The backup team was just as devastating as the best 11. All 23 players have now had minutes



Slovenia is one of the easier draws for the knockout phase

Last 16
Slovenia 1-3 Scotland

The Slovenianas made it a far tougher afternoon than i expected. The game was far from safe until after Bavidge made it 3-1 in stoppage time. We are also the last British team left after Denmark caused the biggest shock of the competition so far.


The games get real now with Spain in the next round

Quarter Final
Spain 4-0 Scotland

I can't explain why the players were all knackered. 3 starters were not even fit enough to play. Spain on the other hand was all green. Feel robbed. Wait we lost 4-0. Probably a bit more than a lack of fitness.
Any ideas on how to avoid this in international games? Mystery to me as the players had the 3rd group game off yet were still knackered a week later with only the last 16 games in between.


That wasn't the end of the bad news. I'll be bothering him every window. Even worse is he's the 7th oldest player in the squad

Final
Portugal 1-2 Germany

Wow, a 95th-minute winner for the Germans with the striker Achatz scoring incredibly his first two international goals for Germany. The first nation to win 4 Euros ending England 8 year hold on the trophy and making Germany the first nation in the save to hold the Euro's & the world cup at the same time.




​

 

[Mr_Grieves]

Season 15
Aberdeen 2036

1 SPL game away from an undefeated season then a defeat in a champions league final defeat was sad the end of a great season. Changes were made against my will this summer with a new board taking over and wanting is to spend the whole £500m budget. Not on my watch.


Squad

Unlike last season we did get the squad down to the magic 25 players but it is very unbalanced. I couldn't give away any of the 3 strikers i wanted to but lost one i wanted to keep while the other was getting offers almost every week.


Goalkeepers

Dussart won the no1 job last season but Ajayi scored a far better Ave rating so i will be rotating them more this season while i decide which one will be the long-term no1

Defense

We see a very big name missing from the defense. Joaquin Obispo who had been the better part of our center-backs for the last 7 seasons was sold when Liverpool hit his £150m buyout clause. Of all the teams in the world, he could have gone to! Niedermann being a well-developed player with 5* potential walks into his spot while the rest of the back 4 is unchanged and only our 4th choice CB is new to the team on free.

Midfield

The middle of the park was a bit overfilled last season so 1 first team player had to go. I would have preferred to have sold Tan for £47m but he turned down Herta Berlin so Petr Zahustel leaves for Barcelona for a few million more.

No immediate change to the starting midfield from last season however Jean Roudaut was bought for a club record £60m to try to keep the owners at peace. I will only spend like this for a best-in-the-world lever player or someone with 5* potential. He may take Bakardzhievs spot in the starting squad if he impresses


Strikers

We have 6 players that can play up front when i am usually not wanting more than 4/ Cochev and Fernandez was supposed to be loaned out but neither of them had a single offer. Petrov will now be the starting striker with Bavidge while MacIver will be the no1 back up for both. Hard sledding ahead for the other 3 although Ewing is used to his lack of games.

Bavadge got his testimonial at last, even though he wasn't back from the Euros

Transfer Window

SPL

Celtic make 2 huge sales from their first 11. How will the replacements work out?


Aberdeen

In

2 Youths

Out

We've talked about Obispo & Zahustel already but another huge loss was Arian Kalantari who was the 3rd forward we could guarantee would score goals but with nobody else leaving and a huge offer in from Madrid i had to accept. Justo Ros did really well in his only season but i didnt see long-term gold so he was sold to be replaced by Roudaut. The sale i already regret is Bejamin Strum who was never reaching his 5* potential but was into the last 12 months of his contract so took what little money i could. Watch his next move be for £50m+