Fortuna Sittard - A Fernando Ricksen Story
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After the season finishes I hope the create a tournament for the start of the season bringing all the main clubs Fernando played for over for a small league, Rangers, AZ & Zenit! Hopefully all the clubs will accept and I can have a mini-league, In this save I don't know whether or not I will leave Fortuna however if I choose to do so I will only leave for one of those clubs and also aim to make the national team and turn them into a success! So far I plan to stick with Fortuna as long as possible and make them a huge force in dutch football & this is only the beginning!
Here's a look at how Ricksens Other teams are doing at the start of the year....
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Az were knocked out the Dutch Cup early on however sit pretty in 2nd place in the league behind PSV, It is a close battle between 1st & 5th with 8 points splitting them all, Heres hoping as my affiliate club they do well and can push on to maybe win that league however I do fancy PSV to take it.
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Haven't got the Russian leagues loaded so have done that now, So no league table for them however in europe they were knocked out the Champions League & Now face Partizan in the Europa League First Knockout Round.
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Rangers have been awful so far this season sitting in 4th place, Knocked out the Scottish cup understandably by Celtic however losing twice to Dumbarton in the league cup and Petrofac cup is embarrasing. Kenny McDowall was sacked and Cowdenbeath manager Jimmy Nicholl has taken charge.
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The National team sit comfortably on top of their Euro group on 100% as expected with an easy group, Holland should qualify no bother and get to France in 2016.
The little club dilema.
Obviously we are not a huge club and are only finding our feet which is giving me a headache now as players are approaching to say they want to leave to join certain clubs that are rumoured to want them, Some of them are key players and ones I don't want to lose however I cannot keep unhappy players so anyone who comes to me will be allowed to leave so long as I receive an acceptable offer for them & I am positive I can replace anyone in the squad with my youth or bring someone in. Hopefully no bids come in and these players will remain with us and want to stay when/if we get promoted.
One of my favourite youth players at the club Van Rijswijk has signed for Anderlecht in a 325k deal, The deal is that Van Rijswijk will join Anderlecht at the end of the season, I am gutted I have sold this player as I enjoyed playing him and was determined to have him as my main winger in the top league however the money was too good to refuse and I'm certain I can replace him at the end of the season but I wish him all the best at Anderlecht.
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The league fixtures speak for themselves as we breezed through it losing only 1 game in the new year when the league was already won, 24 games unbeaten we managed to go going from October 3rd until 4th of April!
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Well obviously I have left out 2 fixtures which have been reported down the bottom
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After 32 games played we have secured the league title and promotion to the top division after a fantastic season, With 6 games to go we can use our squad to try out some youth players for the new season however I will continue to play a strong 11 to keep morale high as we face PSV soon (wrote this before games were done and as soon as I won the league)
Pleased with the praise I have been getting from other managers and hopefully I can pull wonders next season coming up against the top teams in Holland in the top division, We have already faced some of the clubs such as Feyenoord & soon PSV obviously being in the same league as them is different from a cup competition but heres hoping we can give a good account of ourselves and stay up next season however I still have this season to complete and I am staying focused.
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First of all I was dealt with the blow of several players being out injured such as Vankan, Tankovic and then we miss our star striker Seku Conneh who is away with the international squad for a stupid friendly so we will need to do without some key players against the best team in Holland.
What has to be the greatest result of my season so far as we manage to knock PSV out the cup, Players such as Depay, Willems, Wijnaldum & Guardado all played and gave our boys a tough task and I'm delighted we showed strength and courage. We took the lead through our stand in striker who I had faith in all along (Van Rijswijk) and then bringing Roshanali off the bench was a great choice as he repayed me with a wonder goal 3 minutes from time! Dengering I felt was harshly sent off however we managed to hold off until penalty's which thankfully we held our nerve including our keeper hitting the 2nd penalty and saving the last!
*Both Centre backs Dengering & Janssen will be suspended for the Final.*
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Fortuna Sittard Vs Sc Heerenveen
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Feyenoord's Home Stadium.
Heerenveens road to the final was easy compared to Fortuna's as they knocked out Drachten 2-0 before facing Feyenord AV of the lower leagues 2-1, Achilles'29 were up next as they managed another 2-1 victory before facing FC Eindhoven in the quarter final winning 3-1 on that occassion. Excelsior was the toughest task they had and the only team in the same division they had to face and managed to overcome that task on penalties however were also down to 9 men.
Heerenveen finished 7th in the top league and will be looking to add silverware to their season which has been standard for them finishing as expected.
Fortuna Sittard had a difficult path to get to the final taking on some huge teams, The easiest task was in the 2nd round as we beat Excelsior M 2-1, Our first top division clash came against Willem who we managed to hammer 4-2 going on a lot more. FC Twente were also easily brushed aside as we cruised to a 2-0 victory in front of our own fans. Feyenoord was our hardest task as far and we managed to defend well holding them off and snatching a 1-0 victory to set up a match against PSV which was the match of the season overcoming the Dutch champions on penalties.
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Fortuna Team: Kaya, Turan, Vets, Luckassen, Kis, Zelalem, Briels, Rijswijk, Gulpen, Haps, Conneh (c)
Heerenveen Team: Nordfeldt, Van Anholt, Otigba, Van Aken, Barbosa, Bukis, Thern, Thorsby, Larsson, te Vrede, Duinen
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Half Time
Fortuna 0 - 1 Heerenveen
Mike van Duinen (15)
A fairly even match in the first half however Heerenveen were more clinical with the only chance they had on target. Hopefully we can improve our performance and get some more chances at goal.
Full Time
Fortuna 0 - 1 Heerenveen
Mike van Duinen scored the only goal of the game and was the hero for sc Heerenveenas we failed at the final hurdle, Overall they were the slightly better team and our long hard season showed. I'm very proud of how well we played throughout and held our own against the top clubs in the league which can give us hope next season! Gutted we lost in the final especially to a team lower than several we beaten but sometimes thats the nature of the beast and we can still be very proud of our performance as realistically we shouldn't have been in the final! Next season we will try again.
*Just realised that If I had won the cup I would have been in europe next season which makes it more gutting we never won it however we will keep chasing the dream*
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So the curtains have closed on the season and we finished top by a huge way, We broke the record points & goals scored in the league with 95 Points to our name & 109 goals which gaves us a massive 83+ goal difference, We were expected to finish around 10th and were 150-1 to win the league so there you have it! We lost 3 games the whole season and one of them was near the end of the season when we rested our players.
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Well as we all knew would happen Seku Conneh was top goalscorer by a mile scoring 34 goals, the next closest was 17! The best average rating in the league was from Lars Gulpan who had an outsanding season pitching in with 12 assists and an AVG of 8.09.
Top of the leaderboard for assists was Jelle van Rijswijk with 18 who also pitched in with 8 goals and will be sorely missed when he joins Anderlecht! We avoided the red and yellow card stats which is a good achievement as we were well disciplined most of the time.
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Psv managed to win the top league comfortably in the end with Ajax 2nd, AZ finished 5th and play in a playoff spot for a place in europe.
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AZ finished 5th as expected in the league and played in a euro playoff for a spot in the competition next season, They done us a huge favour sending several players on loan who performed extremely well for us. Worried our affiliation might be cut due to us now being in the same league as them. AZ lost out in the euro playoffs to FC Groningen.
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Already said had no league info this season however in Europe they got to the Europa 2nd round before being knocked out by Krasondar
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Rangers had a poor season finishing 2nd to Hearts in the league which they were expected to win, New manager Jimmy Nicholl has helped them perform a little better and will be hoping to have a better season from the start however a terrible loss to Hibs in the Playoffs means Rangers will spend another year in the Championship.
Friendly Tournament Arranged
MND Cup
I had planned to do this tournament and have Zenit, Rangers & AZ all play at it however Zenit & Rangers both refused (disgrace) due to club stature and travel. AZ, Feyenoord & Groningen have kindly accepted to play in the tournament for pre-season and hopefully in the future I can have all of Ricksen's teams playing in it.