Chasing Fidel: A Season in the Life of Cuban Football (3way save)

Didn't realise the second game was against Mike so I think you made the right choice :)
 
Matchday 3


Las Tunas vs. Camaguey
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Fresh off a 9-1 midweek win, Lou made zero changes to his starting 11 for the match against Camaguey. Lou did a lot of talking coming into the match and his team picked up where they left off last game as Leo Messi pounced on his own rebound and gave Las Tunas a 1-0 after only 5 minutes. From there, Las Tunas peppered Camaguey goalkeeper Machado with shots, but were unable to find the second goal. The match could have took an awful turn for Lou on 61 minutes, still down only 1-0 Camaguey had a golden opportunity to tie the score but striker Yoisel Salazar had his shot cleared off the goal line by a defender. From that rebound, Las Tunas went down the field and got the second goal as Sergio Aguero squared it for 17 year old Man of the Match Marcelo Castillo who put it home. Castillo added a second 9 minutes later and Las Tunas held on for the 3-0 victory.

Overall, Las Tunas was unimpressive despite dominating possesion and outshooting Camaguey 16-1. Camaguey have looked good this season, winning their opener 2-0 before losing to me 3-2. Lou's tactics were all over the place here, he seems to be going all out for goals but there was no organization and his players didn't work well with each other. There will have to be a lot of improvement for next weekends match against me.

 
After playing 3 games in 7 days, two of Las Tunas players will be out for extended periods of time with injuries picked up during the 3-0 victory over Camaguey. The most significant is Alexis Sanchez, who will miss two week with a bruised thigh. Maybe he should consider pulling his shorts down to a normal level, I have no idea why he does that with his shorts, it looks ridiculous. Anyway, he will miss the big game next week against my side so I'm pretty happy about that.
 
Santiago de Cuba vs. Cienfuegos

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In the first 'Superduper Classico' of the season, Mike and I faced off for the top spot early in the season. This would be the first time for each of us to test our team against another top side. I was extra confident coming into the match as I was able to secure a midweek victory using only Cubans, thereby gaining an full week's rest for my imported stars while Mike's team had all played in midweek and their fitness levels were considerably lower than my side.

The game was tight in the early going with both teams testing each other out. Cienfuegos captain Cristiano Ronaldo dribbled into the box on 22 minutes and was taken down by Santiago captain Sergio Ramos and a penalty was called! (my wife actually yelled down to see if we were okay because she heard the screams! lol)

It seems that the Santiago defenders couldn't handle the speed of my front three and they were at sixes and sevens trying to deal with them.

There was no doubt who would step up to take the penalty.....




The captain placed the ball on the spot, cool as a cucumber, then took his position with an exaggerated exhale and.....




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He missed it!!

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Manuel Neuer stopped the penalty and the crowd of 210 people roared! The missed pen had a huge affect on Ronaldo as he went on to play one of the worst games of his career. Of all the players on the pitch, his 5.9 rating was the lowest.
A few minutes lates, Sergio Ramos put Santiago ahead with a headed goal from a corner, and the teams went into the locker room at halftime with Santiago up 1-0.

Early in the second half, Luis Suarez chewed through the Cienfuegos back four and scored a well placed shot to put his side up 2-0 and the floodgates were opened. Neither teams defense was able to stand up to the pressure as goals started pouring in. Suarez was able to get behind the defense at will and there was nothing I could do to stop the bleeding. With each goal I sunk deeper and deeper into my chair and Lou cheered on in the background, watching with glee as Mike tore me apart.

In the end, it was 7-3, but it felt much worse than the score indicated. I couldn't compete. My tactics were all wrong, I created chances but Mike's guys were carving through my defense all game long.
I did a lot of talking in the buildup to the game and that made it so much worse, I have a full week of dealing with this heavy defeat, but even worse, another 15 games are left in the season and if I lose next game against Lou, the rest of the season will be pointless but I'll still have to play all the games and listen to all the trash talk.

That was how I felt in the immediate aftermath of the game, but since then I've recovered. I watched the replays of the goals and made some much needed changes and I'm confident that Lou will see a much different team when we play.

I think that if I had played Lou this week, the result might have been the same, so in a way it's a good thing that I plyed Mike first. A loss against him is much easier to take. It was a good lesson for me. This heavy defeat will turn out to be a bad thing for Lou. I hope!



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I've dropped to 5th in the table
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The game vs. Las Tunas now becomes an almost must-win game for my confidence.
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Matchday 4

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On the day of the big match between Lou and I, Mike's team, Santiago de Cuba, kicked off the proceedings with a match against La Habana at Cubas largest stadium in Havana.


La Habana vs. Santiago de Cuba

luis_suarez-394988-1.jpg

Luis Suarez fed on La Habana's poor defense
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La Habana actually took the lead just after halftime and it looked like an upset could have been in the making, but it only served to wake the sleeping giants and they hit back right away and then 4 more times after that. It did prove, however, that our super teams aren't invincible, for 47 minutes La Habana outplayed Mike's team.


Mike debuted a 4-4-1-1 and I have to say, it didn't look good, but it got the job done in the end.
 
Cienfuegos vs. Las Tunas

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The biggest grudge match of the season, me vs. Lou. The trash talk went both ways with each of us, with good reason, telling the other that a loss meant that you were the worst team of the three. If I lost then that meant I was beaten by both of them, if he lost then that would mean he was beaten by a team that was humiliated by Mike. Either way you looked at it, it was a must win for both of us.

Lou came out firing, with practically his whole team going forward. I took advantage of his lack of variety in his tactics by stinging him on the counter several times before he was forced to change things up. By then, it was too late as I was up 5-1 before he even blinked. The star of the day was Kingsley Coman with 3 goals.


Lou was predictably closing down Aubameyang, but it was Coman, on the other wing, that did most of the damage, getting behind the defense at will. Lou switched things up and gave me a scare, closing the gap to 6-5 as time ticked towards the end of the game, but Paul Pogba stepped up with a big headed goal in stoppage time to seal the victory.
I cam out with a new tactic as well, a defensive 4-1-4-1 which is more of a 5-5 as the 5 Cubans are instructed to stay back while the 5 imports attack. It worked so well in the first half that I think I could give Mike a go next time we meet.


In other games, Holguin finally got their first win, and Camaguey continued their impressive season with a 3-0 victory. After 4 games this win puts me 2nd, just the 3pts behind Mike. If I can keep the gap at 3 it would set up an all or nothing match against Mike late in the season. All I want is to make it interesting and get to that game within 3pts. I can settle in with a number of games against all-Cuban teams so I can work on my goal difference.

 
Match Days 5,6 and 7

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With 3 matchdays without any derby matches, it was all about goal difference as we all pulled out our most offensive formations. I decided to switch things up again with a 4-4-1-1, in which I switche out Ivan Gimenez for Jordan Santa Cruz, who was the only Cuban on my roster the had been capped by the National team.

We actually had to play these games twice after Lou accidentally (or on purpose?) exited the game without saving it. As a penalty, Mike and I decided that he would have to rest two players of our choice in week 9 against La Habana. Obviously, we chose Aguero and Messi, so those two players will not play that game.

We all won in week 5, although Mike increased his lead in goal difference with a 6 goal victory.


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After 5 games, Mike had averaged a 5 goal winning margin!
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In week 6, I used my new formation for the first time. I took the handcuffs off of Cristiano Ronaldo and let him run free, I pulled Aubameyang behind Ronaldo with Coman up front and it paid dividends as Ronaldo scored 4 times in a 10-0 route. Lou was on his way to matching that, going up 5-0 by halftime in his match, but he was unable to add to his total and the game ended 5-0. Mike was up 7-0 at halftime, but he also slowed in the second half and he won 9-0.
Interestingly, none of us substituted any of our stars in these games, each of us trying to get as many goals as possible

Week 7 was my week again as I, for the second week in a row, won by the largest margin, 8-0 away to Ciego da Avila. The goals were among 5 of my players as my new tactic seems to be working against the all-Cuban sides. For the first time this season, Mike seemed to have trouble in his game, winning only 4-1 against Camaguey, who are still my pick to finish tops among the Cuban sides. For Lou and his Las Tunas side, he got 6 goals from Sergio Aguero in a 7-0 victory leading into his big game against Mike in week 8.
As much as I hate it, I'm gonna need Lou to help me out a little but and take some points from Mike here next game. Mike's goal difference is getting to be so much that me beating him in the return match will not be enough as he will most certainly have the tie breaker against me. For Lou to have a chance in this league, he'll have to beat Mike and then sweep us both in the 2nd round of matches as it looks more and more like none of us will drop anymore points to the all-Cuban sides. Those 2 points dropped by Lou in the first matchday are looming large now as he is behind the 8-ball and needs to win out in order to have a chance of finishing top!


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Sergioe Aguero has scored 18 goals in 7 matches!
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very nice story! Is this only a 1 season thing or are more seasons planned?
 
bashuijsmans said:
very nice story! Is this only a 1 season thing or are more seasons planned?
Click to expand...

Thank you! Just the one season. We never thought we could do a multi season save with the three of us because we didn't think we would have the time to get through it but we haven't had any trouble with that so we are planning a more traditional 3way save after this, just haven't decided on the terms yet.
 
Matchday 8

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The last big derby of the 1st round of matches featured Mike and Lou going at it. Lou desperately needed a victory to save his season as he had dropped points in week 1 and then lost against me, so a loss here would almost put his season to bed. On the other side, Mike could pretty much wrap things up with a victory and leave Lou and I battling for 2nd place. Now that our players are all up to match fitness, the possibility of dropping points to one of the Cuban sides is very low, so it all comes down to this game and the 3 remaining derby matches in the second half of the season.

My match vs. Guantanamo was first and it should have been easy, but it was anything but that. I have to admit I was distracted for the first part of the game and by the time I looked back at the screen 11 minutes had gone by and I was down 1-0. I wasn't terribly worried about it, I had given up goals before but I've been scoring by the bucket load. It didn't matter to me if I won 10-0 or 10-1. The trouble started soon after when a Guantanamo player broke free on goal and he was hacked down my my defender, Kelbir Ortiz, who was given a straight red card. I was nervous for a few minutes but I did wind up scoring some goals and was up 3-1 at halftime on the way to a 5-2 victory. I'll need bigger wins in order to stay in the hunt but I'll take the 3 pts after the way the match started.


The main event came next and it was quite a surprise. First off, Mike's defensive star Sergio Ramos was suspended due to accumulation of yellows, so Mike made the mistake of playing a very defensive 4-5-1 and Lou was all over him. At halftime it was 2-0 for Las Tunas and they had outshot Santiago 17-0 (shots on target). When Mike fell behind 3-0 he finally made some changes and they did pay off but it turned out to be too little, too late, as Lou surprised everyone with a 4-2 victory that would have and should have been a lot worse if not for Man of the Match, Manuel Neuer. You know you had a bad game when your keeper gives up 4 goals and still wins Man of the Match!

All this means that the three of us are separated by 2 points, with 10 games to play. Provided there are no shocks and we take all the points in our games against the Cuban sides, it will come down to the 3 big games in the second half. Even Lou can control his own fate. By winning his remaining 10 matches (so, basically beating me and Mike) he would take the top spot. The win by Lou really helped keep things interesting, which is nice seeing how our last few competitions have gone.



The last round of matches in the first half of the season. It will be all about getting big wins as the goal difference battle is tight once again.


Even though we all have basically the same schedule, I'm happiest with mine as I have the next 3 matches against Cuban sides and then play Mike and Lou back-to-back, after that I finish with 5 straight 'easy' matches, so I'll pretty much play the end of the season with no pressure and Mike and Lou play their match later in the season.


It would be nice if we were to go into the season on the same number of points (Well, Mike and I anyway. Lou pretty much eliminated himself from that possibility by drawing with a Cuban team), that way the last game of the season would be about who wins by the biggest margin. Realisitcally, I think the league will be decided by the 2nd last matchday, when Mike and Lou play.

Well, one thing is for sure, after a fast start by Mike it looked like he would run away with the league, but he's been pulled back to Earth and now the title race is definitely on!
 
Cahoon said:
Thank you! Just the one season. We never thought we could do a multi season save with the three of us because we didn't think we would have the time to get through it but we haven't had any trouble with that so we are planning a more traditional 3way save after this, just haven't decided on the terms yet.
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great to hear this! the competitive part between you three makes it special!
 
bashuijsmans said:
great to hear this! the competitive part between you three makes it special!
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Yeah, it's great fun! There's a fourth brother who can't particpate because he has no time but he really wished he could!
 
Cahoon said:
Yeah, it's great fun! There's a fourth brother who can't particpate because he has no time but he really wished he could!
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4 makes it even more awesome hahah. Take a small competition like Scotlands second division or something and battle for domination of the country
 
bashuijsmans said:
4 makes it even more awesome hahah. Take a small competition like Scotlands second division or something and battle for domination of the country
Click to expand...

i would love something like that, I wish we could, but he barely has time to come over at all. I have 1 baby and I find it hard to squeeze in fm, he has twins! Lol

We've come up with a good idea for our save, we're hammering out the details now but it looks like the winner of this one will pick the league, and the rules are being negotiated.

we had some controversy in the latest rounds of games here, I'll post in a few hours, so the rules are important. Some of us don't always play nice!
 
Matchday 9
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Well, matchday 9 had no shortage of controversy and the season took a huge turn. It started with my match against Sancti Spiritus, who gave me no trouble at all.


Cristiano Ronaldo scored 6 of the 7 goals in a 7-0 win to take my team to the halfway point in the season with an 8-1 record, the only loss coming against Mike. It also put me 3 pts clear at the top of the table for the time being. It also put my goal difference at +36, one better than Mike.



Next up was Mike's game against Isla da Juventud. A win by any margin would put Mike back on top of the table and that's what he got. It wasn't easy though, the 2-0 win put Mike in 1st place, even on pts but 1 goal better.

The drama started during Lou's match vs. La Habana. Now, La Habana has a very strong team. I thought Camaguey would be the toughest all-Cuban team, but it's turned out to be La Habana. For this reason, Mike and I decided that Lou's punishment for his earlier infraction would be in this game.
What happened was, Lou had exited the game without saving it after one of our matchdays, so the games were lost. Was it on purpose? Who knows, but what we do know is that when the games were replayed the goal difference was more in his favour the second time. We didn't want to replay the games again, it takes too long. What we decided was that, for one game, Lou would have to sit two players of our choosing. We chose Messi and Aguero, and we chose this game against La Habana.

After the game started, we realized that Lou had started both of those players. Because it was the third game of the day, it could not be restarted without Mike and I having to replay our games. So, Lou was made to substitute the players immediately, which he attempted to do. Before the play was stopped for the subs to come on, Messi set up Sanchez for the games first goal!

After some discussion, we decided to let that go. One goal wouldn't make a huge difference and he'd have to play the rest of the game with only one sub left. The deciding factor was that it was unlikely that Lou would finish even on pts with either of us because of his dropped points.

From there, La Habana tied the game on an own goal, and then Lou's player, Alfredo Cruz was injured and he was forced to use his last substitute after only 26 minutes. Things went from bad to worse just before halftime as Yaudel Lahera scored to give La Habana the 2-1 lead. Already Lou was crying about his unfortunate circumstances but it would only get worse as Yaudel scored another goal shortly after halftime.

Lou tried to push all his players forward in a desperate attempt to get some goals but to no avail, as La Habana held on for the shock 3-1 win!
This put Lou 5 pts back with 9 games to play. This meant that, theoretically, he could win his remaining 9 matches and still finish 2nd. He would need one of us, or both, to lose to a Cuban team for him to have a chance. Upon realization of this, Lou threw a hissy fit and demanded to have the matchday replayed. This request was denied and, after Lou had some time to stop being a baby, we resumed the save.
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In other news...
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Only 14 of the imported players were called to the senior squad.
Kingsley Coman was called to the Under 20's, unbelievably.

There were some casualties during the international break
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Neymar should only miss 1 game, Aguero might miss a couple
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Cahoon said:
i would love something like that, I wish we could, but he barely has time to come over at all. I have 1 baby and I find it hard to squeeze in fm, he has twins! Lol

We've come up with a good idea for our save, we're hammering out the details now but it looks like the winner of this one will pick the league, and the rules are being negotiated.

we had some controversy in the latest rounds of games here, I'll post in a few hours, so the rules are important. Some of us don't always play nice!
Click to expand...

Rules are very important I see in the latest update LOL. I'm looking forward towards your next idea!
 
Matchdays 10, 11 and 12
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After the crazy week 9, things settled back down and returned to normal with the three of us recording comfortable wins against Cuban teams.
With Mike and I tied at the top of the table, it was building up to our week 12 matchup, which looked like it would be for all the marbles. And, once again, there were midweek games but this time I chose not to rest any players for the midweek game. After what happened with Lou, in two games now, I took no chances. Afterall, I figured, it didn't help me last time.


As it turned out,. it didn't help me this time either. I didn't go down without a fight as I took a 2-0 lead and was feeling pretty good after goals by Cristiano Ronaldo. But Mike's team, Santiago de Cuba, were just too much for me. He made a number of mid-game adjustments and stormed back with 6 goals and won comfortably 6-3.

Luis Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo exchanged hat tricks in the game, and the two of them have seperated themselves at the top of the scoring charts.

As far as the table, it's looking bleak after the loss to Mike. I'm 3 points behind and 12 goals behind in goal difference, so I need to beat Lou in my next game, and then win all my remaining games, AND have Lou beat Mike in their game in the second last game of the season. If all that goes according to plan, I still need to make up 12 goals on Mike, who is just scoring for fun at this point.
The next matches will take place this weekend, it's been so going but we only have 6 matches remaining, so hopefully we can finish the season in the next two weeks!
 
Apologies for the long delay in posting, I've had a catastrophic mishap with my computer and have lost everything except for a few screenshots that I had uploaded previously.

we had completed our season but I will have to post from memory as my saves have all been wiped. It's been a few weeks since it happened but I can provide enough detail to close out the thread, I think.

So, as it was, I was 3 points behind Mike with a goal disadvantage of 12, so my focus was to remain 3 pts adrift while closing the goal gap to something a little more respectable as Mike still had Lou to play in the second last game of the season while I only had Cuban team to play.

My only hope o winning the league was for Lou to beat Mike by a significant score while I won my games by a late margin.

This was all complicated by the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo mysteriously turned up injured an out for 7 months. I received no email notifications on this matter, he was just injured. I was, and remain, a little suspicious of this as I've never had a player injured without some sort of update, especially a player as important as Ronaldo.

Anyhow, by the time the Mike-Lou game came around I was still 3pts behind Mike but the goal difference was 14. So, while it was not impossible, it was highly unlikely that I could catch Mike. I needed a huge win, which I had been getting, combined with a big win for Lou over Mike. Even a 3 goal win would make me happy as it was not beyond the realm of possibility that I would win 10-0.

It didn't matter about my score as it turne out. Mike won comfortably over Lou 7-2, and then finished out the season with another victory to win the league by 3 pts over my team.

in all, Mike won 17 of 18, the only loss coming against Lou in their first meeting. I came second, winning 16, with losses against Mike in both encounters. Lou finished a distant 3rd.

Again, sorry for the lack of screenshots or details. We will try for another competition but will have to wait a while for that.

Cheers
 
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