2015/16 - A change in direction + Champions League Qualifiers!
Onto Pre-Season, and it was very much my plan to bring through the younger players from this point onwards. Being blessed with 7 high potential (4 1/2 star or above) under 18s, 6 of whom came through our own academy, it makes sense to create the next team with them. Our Excellent Junior coaching has meant they are ready for first team football (domestically anyway) straight away. A few stalwarts were released and more will follow in the next few years. Here is the transfer business, where I only signed 2 players and both are simply prospects for the future!
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A head of youth recruitment and many new coaches were brought in to improve the player development - If only we could turn professional but due to the
takeover that will have to wait until next season!
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To go with this new look squad, we changed formation to a 4-5-1 with more short passing and creativity. Due to the massive change in philosophy, it will take some time to get used to this with the Semi-Professional limitations on match preparations but it is best to get accustomed to it as early as possible!
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Here's the
Squad overview:
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Champions League Qualification
There was very little time for pre-season friendlies so we pretty much got stuck straight into qualifying, with an easy draw against some Bosnian side in the 2nd Round. We destroyed them 6-1 on aggregate, a good start!
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Sad news for Northern Irish football as Linfield, Cliftonville and Dundela (a 2nd tier side!) all were beaten within the first 2 rounds of Europa League qualification. It does nothing to our league reputation with UEFA but at least they will get a couple hundred thousand pounds each!
Onto the next round of the big time Champions League with Crusaders, and we were drawn against the Irish club which beat us in the All-Ireland cup easily last season, Dundalk! I was worried by this and couldn't take them lightly for one second... We played the away game first and 2 set pieces saw us steal a very lucky but welcome 2-0 win! With 1 foot in the playoffs, we went with the 4-5-1 Standard in the home match, and were beaten 2-1 but edged through 3-2 on aggregate!
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We've made the playoffs for a second successive season, but can we go one further and make the groups? The difference between winning and losing these 2 games is ?5million - huge, especially to a club in Northern Ireland.
Drawn against
Steau Bucharest, a Romanian side, we went into the away leg...
We played a 4-5-1 Defensive and held out the whole match for a 0-0. We had chances to score a critical away goal but couldn't take them, while Steau crafted a few of their own also. A brave performance, and the home leg would decide our fate.
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2nd leg and we scored the opener, but they fought back and scored the crucial away goal. We chased and chased, throwing everything at them and
hit the post in the 90th minute but just couldn't score! The feeling of
disappointment at only making the Europa League Group stages was immense, despite the
?3million in revenue from this, as it could have been much more. Hopefully it will be third time lucky next season!
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Here's the fixtures so far:
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We were given another impossible group in the
Europa League, being drawn against
Everton,
Lyon and
Genk!
Finances are looking good once again, after raking in the prize money from Europe. I'll upgrade training facilities again, as well as going professional in the summer to ensure our young players reach their potential faster! We should still have some left over for the first time also
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This was a big update so I'll break it up into 2, with the 2nd showing our Group stage and domestic progress in the 2015/16 season!
Stay tuned...
Hopefully you'll be kicking *** in Europe next season as well as on the domestic front!