Luis Aragones Legacy
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Here goes the tale of the qualifyiers for world cup anno domini 2010 with the great team of Belgium.
Managing Belgium IS LLM I can assure you that supporting this rabble of one legged footballers is constant pain and suffering. I made my selection, the ones who will or not go to the world cup and win it or not.
Got a couple of star players here, Van Buyten a Bayern's defender, he is class and was assigned as captain since the actual captain, Simons is old and not good enough.
No time of trying anything, I've got a game against germany in august and immediatly afterwards estonia at home and a one way ticket to turkey.
My team is definetly Belgian, experience in defense and young players full of potential that they'll waste in some average team. Overall it is a young team lacking technical ability but willing and determinated, I can only expect of them that they'll fight till the end. Witsel is the main star here, a wonderkid in which I place all my ambitions, he is playing right wing.
The group is a nightmare, spain and turkey as favourites and us, estonia, armenia and bosnia are to fight for the left-overs. The Nation wants us at least to finsih second to go to the playoffs, and this means good results against spain or turkey, tricky I belive.
The first friendly and only frindly is against germany, which I just let my assistant take care of with my tactics and the titular team, and surpisingly won 1-0. Not bad, means we've got something in the guts.
Belgium 1-0 Germany
But the true trial, which I am afraid will only bring pain and suffering is about to start.
Estonia, pretty much as predicted cares only to destroy our game, nonetheless we manage to score in the second half
and sit in a narrow lead until extra time when a corner puts the 1-1 in the scoreline.
Belgium 1-1 Estonia
So much for hoping to win all games against weaker teams.
I am very worried at the press conference, four days later we visit Turkey, nothing less.
Surpisingly, I come to half-time with a virgin score in a game where nobody managed to shoot and keepers have no work at all.
The second half is a bit more tough, a couple of shots get near, very near but indeed not near enough.
And as it is common in such games, the defence could only broken by one man, the hero fo the night Alex Witsel.
Starting to run 50 yards from the goal he runs through the turkish defence, passes the keeper and scores a totally unpredicted
away goal. Turkey kept on struggling but our defence was too tough and my destroyer in the middle of the park looked
berzerk (dpoing?). Wesley Sonck stroke the bar and the keeper, and the game ended in what could well have been a 0-2
for us. Witsel the hero has earned his place, if there was ever any doubt.
Turkey 0-1 belgium
After this result, I feel more confident for the next two games, both at home against weak armenia and ''shreck'' spain.
Disaster.
Despite having played literally all the game inside their box and having countless corners the armenian keeper was
the hero of the night and man of the game, 0-0 at home against armenia, really not expected and the lack of success
of my strikers worry me. And I don't think spain will let us many chances. To add a bit of emotion my Witsel got
injured during the second half.
Belgium 0-0 Armenia
The game against spain goes pretty much as predicted, xavi going crazy with precise passing and villa raiding my defence
nevertheless, between luck and villa's failure in the last move I manage to keep a clean sheet until at the end of the first half not regular vandenborre serves a beautiful ball inside the box and young de Sutter scores his first international goal!!!!!!! Well, now spain are going to put Torres on the pitch. I really don't know if we can do this.
The second half looks good to us, and while I am making the subs to add more weight to the midfield fabregas discovers the concept of the perfect pass and villa just has to push the ball in the back of the net. My players go wild, crush a ball to the bar, force casillas to use all his talent, until at last... not. Iniesta picks a ball in the midfield, passes one defender, then the other and deliciously scores, so close to the post... now we're in trouble.
Belgium 1-2 Spain
Now comes a long break before the double game against bosnia, can't organise any frindlies and my assitant has organized one
against luxemburg, I think I'll just leave it to him. We won 1-2 against the 150th team in the world, and again it shows how difficult it is for us to score, might go for three upfront with two feeders instead of my favourite442 with a destroyer and a playmaker, and hoping for the best from my full backs. I am 7 points from leaders spain and 4
from the second place dominated by turkey. If Spain wins both games against them, we could still have a chance.
Luxemburg 1-2 Belgium
That chance slips away when zlatan something manages to score for bosnia, we are now virtually out of the race towards
the world cup. But then happenned soomething the Ring did not intend... a ball was picked up by the most unlikely
creature, kevin mirallas who put our glorious nation back into the game. But the power of the ring could not be undone, bosnia and its 352 overrunned our midfield and I decided to play a 352 myself, risky, but fortune favours the brave. I put Witsel behind the strikers, hoping they could find a way to penetrate the defences, but it wasn't witsel who
had this one chance of undoing the ring, Mirallas again rose to his feet and beat the bosnian keeper!!! And to conclude a glorious night a long ball from the defence was deviated by Mirallas to the 19 year old vossen who did not fail.
The first battle was ours, with tears and sweat but ours, now we had to move inside their land, and finish this once and for all.
Belgium 3-1 Bosnia
I decide to go from the start with the 352 that's been so effective at home, however feeling confident in my team, zlatan something gives a through ball to pjanic who shows his class, first goal in his international career after 10 min.
Great.
But the hammer stroke back, and its fall was hardest. Defour, my playmaker decided to not listen to me and banged two goals
before halftime. Deciding not to give too much to chance, I played my 442 again. Bosnia came back with an all-out tactic,
and only luck and an incredible keeper made us resist on this narrow lead, until in one of the first chances of the second half
Witsel scored a header which let us room to breathe. We had shoot three times to goal, and scored all three of them.
Defour had the chance to score his third, but crushed a ball to the bar and another went too far. Now we were one point above turkey, in the second place but with only away games, including one to Spain and the only home game against Turkey.
Bosnia 1-3 Belgium
A six months break! And of course I can't organize any friendlies beside the one already organised against denmark.
It's not bad news, that gives six months to all my youngsters to improve, and I know they will and they know they must,
because our next game is away from home, in spain who has only let two points slip in six games. I can lose this game and still hope
for the playoffs (first place is out of the question now) but I don't want to leave everything up to 90 minutes against
an angry Turkey, which I doubt will be too keen to let us win.
I leave the frindly against denmark to my assistant, who manages to draw away 1-1. Not that I care, I just hope the team
will be ready for the showdown in Spain and that'll be able to count with everybody.
Denmark 1-1 Belgium
Away to Spain. Guess it was meant to be, I made all my subs in halftime and ended up playing with ten for half an hour.
Nothing much to say, except that Villa, Iniesta, ramos, Capel and Torres were the ones who scored during the game.
We were never given a chance.
Anyway, now there is a game that we need to win, and dire is the need as I start remembering four points lost at home
that leave no place to failure anymore. Away to Erevan, Armenia.
Spain 5-0 Belgium
Apparently it wasn't that obvious for my strikers who missed the unmissable as I considered converting myself to some
pagan ancient ritual to summon spirits when Witsel was injured and his replacement as well after ten minutes. Well, here we are playing all-out 343 and the first goal had to come from an armenian defender, payed previously to score on his own goal. Five minutes later very young Hazard called in as a replacement showed good manners scoring a 25 yard shot.
As soon as the second half started vandenbergh put the 3-0 in the back of the net. A peaceful game that ended with a last goal
from the man of the match, left wing dembele.
Armenia 0-4 Belgium
So everything is to be decided in the two last games, home against Turkey and away to Estonia, I need to win both games
and hope not to be the worst second if I want to qualify for play offs, bad thing when you start not depending on yourself.
Tuncay was the first nail of my coffin as he scored a 30 yards goal in an impossible angle and emre gungor scored the second at the beginning of the second half. Vandenbergh left us with dreams of heroism and epic when he reduced the distance at the 83rd minute, but all was vain ambition.
We got so near yet so far away... no happy ending, we were out.
Belgium 1-2 Turkey
I left the last game to my assistant, who won 0-2 against estonia as I waited for the angry phone call of the board and went to take a ****, not glad to have wasted a whole afternoon playing football manager, while I could have done much more constructive things,
like playing football manager with a good team, or reload the last game, or play my real madrid game. All the things I
could have done in an afternoon... next chapter: the road to the euros.
Managing Belgium IS LLM I can assure you that supporting this rabble of one legged footballers is constant pain and suffering. I made my selection, the ones who will or not go to the world cup and win it or not.
Got a couple of star players here, Van Buyten a Bayern's defender, he is class and was assigned as captain since the actual captain, Simons is old and not good enough.
No time of trying anything, I've got a game against germany in august and immediatly afterwards estonia at home and a one way ticket to turkey.
My team is definetly Belgian, experience in defense and young players full of potential that they'll waste in some average team. Overall it is a young team lacking technical ability but willing and determinated, I can only expect of them that they'll fight till the end. Witsel is the main star here, a wonderkid in which I place all my ambitions, he is playing right wing.
The group is a nightmare, spain and turkey as favourites and us, estonia, armenia and bosnia are to fight for the left-overs. The Nation wants us at least to finsih second to go to the playoffs, and this means good results against spain or turkey, tricky I belive.
The first friendly and only frindly is against germany, which I just let my assistant take care of with my tactics and the titular team, and surpisingly won 1-0. Not bad, means we've got something in the guts.
Belgium 1-0 Germany
But the true trial, which I am afraid will only bring pain and suffering is about to start.
Estonia, pretty much as predicted cares only to destroy our game, nonetheless we manage to score in the second half
and sit in a narrow lead until extra time when a corner puts the 1-1 in the scoreline.
Belgium 1-1 Estonia
So much for hoping to win all games against weaker teams.
I am very worried at the press conference, four days later we visit Turkey, nothing less.
Surpisingly, I come to half-time with a virgin score in a game where nobody managed to shoot and keepers have no work at all.
The second half is a bit more tough, a couple of shots get near, very near but indeed not near enough.
And as it is common in such games, the defence could only broken by one man, the hero fo the night Alex Witsel.
Starting to run 50 yards from the goal he runs through the turkish defence, passes the keeper and scores a totally unpredicted
away goal. Turkey kept on struggling but our defence was too tough and my destroyer in the middle of the park looked
berzerk (dpoing?). Wesley Sonck stroke the bar and the keeper, and the game ended in what could well have been a 0-2
for us. Witsel the hero has earned his place, if there was ever any doubt.
Turkey 0-1 belgium
After this result, I feel more confident for the next two games, both at home against weak armenia and ''shreck'' spain.
Disaster.
Despite having played literally all the game inside their box and having countless corners the armenian keeper was
the hero of the night and man of the game, 0-0 at home against armenia, really not expected and the lack of success
of my strikers worry me. And I don't think spain will let us many chances. To add a bit of emotion my Witsel got
injured during the second half.
Belgium 0-0 Armenia
The game against spain goes pretty much as predicted, xavi going crazy with precise passing and villa raiding my defence
nevertheless, between luck and villa's failure in the last move I manage to keep a clean sheet until at the end of the first half not regular vandenborre serves a beautiful ball inside the box and young de Sutter scores his first international goal!!!!!!! Well, now spain are going to put Torres on the pitch. I really don't know if we can do this.
The second half looks good to us, and while I am making the subs to add more weight to the midfield fabregas discovers the concept of the perfect pass and villa just has to push the ball in the back of the net. My players go wild, crush a ball to the bar, force casillas to use all his talent, until at last... not. Iniesta picks a ball in the midfield, passes one defender, then the other and deliciously scores, so close to the post... now we're in trouble.
Belgium 1-2 Spain
Now comes a long break before the double game against bosnia, can't organise any frindlies and my assitant has organized one
against luxemburg, I think I'll just leave it to him. We won 1-2 against the 150th team in the world, and again it shows how difficult it is for us to score, might go for three upfront with two feeders instead of my favourite442 with a destroyer and a playmaker, and hoping for the best from my full backs. I am 7 points from leaders spain and 4
from the second place dominated by turkey. If Spain wins both games against them, we could still have a chance.
Luxemburg 1-2 Belgium
That chance slips away when zlatan something manages to score for bosnia, we are now virtually out of the race towards
the world cup. But then happenned soomething the Ring did not intend... a ball was picked up by the most unlikely
creature, kevin mirallas who put our glorious nation back into the game. But the power of the ring could not be undone, bosnia and its 352 overrunned our midfield and I decided to play a 352 myself, risky, but fortune favours the brave. I put Witsel behind the strikers, hoping they could find a way to penetrate the defences, but it wasn't witsel who
had this one chance of undoing the ring, Mirallas again rose to his feet and beat the bosnian keeper!!! And to conclude a glorious night a long ball from the defence was deviated by Mirallas to the 19 year old vossen who did not fail.
The first battle was ours, with tears and sweat but ours, now we had to move inside their land, and finish this once and for all.
Belgium 3-1 Bosnia
I decide to go from the start with the 352 that's been so effective at home, however feeling confident in my team, zlatan something gives a through ball to pjanic who shows his class, first goal in his international career after 10 min.
Great.
But the hammer stroke back, and its fall was hardest. Defour, my playmaker decided to not listen to me and banged two goals
before halftime. Deciding not to give too much to chance, I played my 442 again. Bosnia came back with an all-out tactic,
and only luck and an incredible keeper made us resist on this narrow lead, until in one of the first chances of the second half
Witsel scored a header which let us room to breathe. We had shoot three times to goal, and scored all three of them.
Defour had the chance to score his third, but crushed a ball to the bar and another went too far. Now we were one point above turkey, in the second place but with only away games, including one to Spain and the only home game against Turkey.
Bosnia 1-3 Belgium
A six months break! And of course I can't organize any friendlies beside the one already organised against denmark.
It's not bad news, that gives six months to all my youngsters to improve, and I know they will and they know they must,
because our next game is away from home, in spain who has only let two points slip in six games. I can lose this game and still hope
for the playoffs (first place is out of the question now) but I don't want to leave everything up to 90 minutes against
an angry Turkey, which I doubt will be too keen to let us win.
I leave the frindly against denmark to my assistant, who manages to draw away 1-1. Not that I care, I just hope the team
will be ready for the showdown in Spain and that'll be able to count with everybody.
Denmark 1-1 Belgium
Away to Spain. Guess it was meant to be, I made all my subs in halftime and ended up playing with ten for half an hour.
Nothing much to say, except that Villa, Iniesta, ramos, Capel and Torres were the ones who scored during the game.
We were never given a chance.
Anyway, now there is a game that we need to win, and dire is the need as I start remembering four points lost at home
that leave no place to failure anymore. Away to Erevan, Armenia.
Spain 5-0 Belgium
Apparently it wasn't that obvious for my strikers who missed the unmissable as I considered converting myself to some
pagan ancient ritual to summon spirits when Witsel was injured and his replacement as well after ten minutes. Well, here we are playing all-out 343 and the first goal had to come from an armenian defender, payed previously to score on his own goal. Five minutes later very young Hazard called in as a replacement showed good manners scoring a 25 yard shot.
As soon as the second half started vandenbergh put the 3-0 in the back of the net. A peaceful game that ended with a last goal
from the man of the match, left wing dembele.
Armenia 0-4 Belgium
So everything is to be decided in the two last games, home against Turkey and away to Estonia, I need to win both games
and hope not to be the worst second if I want to qualify for play offs, bad thing when you start not depending on yourself.
Tuncay was the first nail of my coffin as he scored a 30 yards goal in an impossible angle and emre gungor scored the second at the beginning of the second half. Vandenbergh left us with dreams of heroism and epic when he reduced the distance at the 83rd minute, but all was vain ambition.
We got so near yet so far away... no happy ending, we were out.
Belgium 1-2 Turkey
I left the last game to my assistant, who won 0-2 against estonia as I waited for the angry phone call of the board and went to take a ****, not glad to have wasted a whole afternoon playing football manager, while I could have done much more constructive things,
like playing football manager with a good team, or reload the last game, or play my real madrid game. All the things I
could have done in an afternoon... next chapter: the road to the euros.
who was your euro group?