Bulls are coming

[mysthios63]

It’s been a while since I wrote my last serious FM career. I used to write this type of content really often. Last year, there were attempts to write new careers, but because of the lack of time, it took a short time.

Why HNK Gorica?

There’s no need to write much about it. I would like to refer you to another text where I wrote a recommendation why you should play a career with Gorica.
HNK Gorica – Club Recommendation

Immediately after joining among the best Croatian clubs, HNK Gorica established itself as a stable first league team. They did not, as is the case with most new first-leaguers, have experienced the fight to stay, but have already ended up as the best Croatian club outside the Big Four.

In addition, leaders have high ambitions.

Club Vision

Management has set the goal of securing a spot in the middle of the table of the First HNL and placement in the quarterfinals of the Croatian Cup. That shouldn’t be a problem. The top four clubs (Dinamo, Hajduk, Rijeka and Osijek) do not seem to be reachable yet, but I expect a fight for fifth place with Lokomotiva. This will be important due to the fact that the fifth place provides qualifications for the Europa League.

Despite the fact that signing a young players isn’t a primary goal, management has indicated that they prefers to have a large number of young players on the team.

Personal targets

Short-term

• retaining the ‘best of the rest’ status, ie. being the best placed club not counting the top four Croatian clubs
• retaining the club’s best players
• improving the quality of coaching staff
• setting up a scouting department (in FM, Gorica doesn’t have a single scout)

Long-term

• building the best club in Croatia and the region*
• establishing a top scouting department in the countries of the region * which would allow us to become a focal point for all young talents from these countries
• regularly winning the Croatian Championship and playing in the group stage of European competitions

* countries of the region: Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Bulgaria and Hungary

Career-ending goal

• winning one of the European titles (Champions League, Europa League or European Conference League)*

* meeting the end goal would mean the end of career


Follows the career on social media
For the end of this intro I would like to invite you to follow the career on our social media channels. Here on the website you will be able to see all the important things that will happen, but if you want to see more detail stuff, follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I would also like to mention that I will post the most insider info on Instagram.

 

[mysthios63]

The first half of the season is behind us. At least in calendar. Looking at the number of games we played, we went over half. Of the 36 we have to play overall in the HT Prva HNL season, 21 are behind us. Analyzing each match individually, the conclusion would be that we could’ve done better. But if someone had offered us to be undefeated after 21 games, I would’ve accepted it without hesitation.

Transfers



Before the start of the season, when planning the transfer window, the main task was to bring in a new right-back. The main choice was ex Hajduk player Fran Tudor but he signed for Osijek so I had to start to look for alternatives. And the alternative was found. In Čelik from Zenica. Eldar Sivac signed for €185k + bonues (up to €300k in total). The 20-years-old Bosnian is a good investement for the future and he also fits in my vision of buying players from the region. The creative central midfielder was marked as another critical position so I brought in another player that fit the criteria I mentioned earlier. From Slovenian club Domžale we signed 18-years-old Tamar Svetlin. For the end, we loaned Lokomotiva midfielder Marko Tolić as a backup option.

Matija Špičić, Martin Maloča and Justin Mathieu left the club because they hasn’t been in my plans for the upcoming season. We used that money to buy new players.


Results

During the 2019/20 season HNK Gorica are competing in two competitions – HT Prva HNL and Croatian Cup. I won’t analyze pre-season matches because I do not pay too much attention to that part.

HT Prva HNL

Before the start of the season I expected Dinamo, Hajduk, Rijeka and Osijek to be untouchable. While it is always possible for one of them to have a bad season, winning the fifth place would be a goal accomplishment (in case the clubs I mentioned earlier end up in the top four positions).


We are on the track to exceed our expectations. After 17 round, completely unexpected, we were at the top of the table. We only stayed there for one round, eventually falling to third place, but only two points behind the leader.


The most important thing to mention – after 21 matches we are still without a single defeat. The defence plays very well and we only conceded 14 goals. Our goalkeeper Kristijan Kahlina collected 9 clean sheets which is, along with Malenica and Prskalo, the best result in the league. The problem is realization. We only scored 29 goals, 1.38 per game in average, which isn’t good enough and it’s one of the causes of many draws. The best goalscorers are Lukasz Zwolinski (9) and Kristijan Lovrić (8) who are also the only players to have played all 21 games. Lovric is also the best assistant with seven assists.

Croatian Cup

Before the start of the season, the management set us a goal to play at least in the quarterfinals of the Croatian Cup. That goal has been met, and for something extra we will compete in the second part of the season.


We started in the cup from the second round, where we celebrated 3:0 in Belišće to win Rudeš in the third round at home stadium. In the quarter-finals we will face Dinamo B*.

* in this career i use my beta version of cro-update (Croatian Lower leagues update) where one of the famous bugs is that B teams play in the cup


Club Vision & Personal Targets


I won’t write much about Club Vision because everything is visible on the picture above. What I will be writing about are my Personal Targets (see intro post) that I set for myself when starting my career.

From short-term goals, I have managed to retain the best players and are currently making good progress in maintaining the ‘best of the rest’ status. I have a problem with the staff because of the small budget for that part of the team. Because of this, only one scout and one coach were brought. I’ve set myself two seasons to meet my short-term goals, so there’s still time to fix it.