Gone Travelling

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At home, June would see us tackle 4 league games plus the Cup 4th round tie with Chongqing. The league would see us have tough games with Shenhua and Guangzhou whilst the games with Hangzhou and Quanjian were ones I'd expect to win. 9 points and the next round of the cup would be a good month in my opinion.

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Another month of all green means I'm very happy. The Hangzhou games was actually very tight according to the stats we were just clinical in front of goal. The same can't be said for the next 2 games were we were the better team by a distance but failed to take our chances, in fact in the Quanjian we has 22 shots and only 2 on target, but 2 wins meant 6 points none the less. Guangzhou were put to the sword with ease and then we made in through in the cup with a routine win. I was very pleased with our performance this month and it appeared the league agreed with me as they awarded me Manager of the Month.

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However despite this and the fact we were top of the league, in the hat for the Cup Q-Final and playing Champions League football some of the fans don't seem happy!

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I don't know what more they want from me, as I took over a team in danger of going down and have turned them into a team challenging for trophies both domestically and on the continent, at least Yao Zhuo has my back!
 
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So all the time the league was going on we had also the small issue of Champions League to contend with. We were top of the group after 3 games and with two of our remaining games at home we knew if we could win those we'd be through. First up would be a home game against Hiroshima who would no doubt give a better account of themselves if they could keep 11 men on the pitch. We'd then be off the Korea to play Pohang before looking for revenge when Brisbane Roar rocked up at our place. Not really bothered about results as long as we can get through I'll be happy.

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Shows what I know! Hiroshima kept 11 men on the pitch but still shipped 7! We were unstoppable and by a distance the best performance whilst I've been in charge. 5-1 up at half time and honestly 7 didn't flatter us it could easily have been 10! The Pohang game looks closer than it was. We were 4-1 up going into the last minute before two late goals gave the scoreline a bit of respectability. The Brisbane game though was a tight affair. 0-0 at half time with neither team giving anything away. They started the second half better and took the lead just after the hour mark. That parked a reaction from us and 2 goals in 2 minutes on 73 and 75 had it looking like we would extract revenge for our defeat in Australia. However a 90th minute **** up in defense allowed them to equalise. All this meant this for the group table:

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So we top the group and go through to the next round. To my surprise we are the only Chinese team to make it through, I assumed that Chinese teams would be dominate. When the draw was made it was another Australian team that would stand in our way with Western Sydney Wanderers being the opponents. Another tough draw but I was confident we could beat them over the 2 legs.

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My confidence proved correct as we won 2-0 home and away. The home leg we battered them and 2-0 maybe could have an should have been a few more. That did concern me a little going into the away leg. The 2nd leg was a much more even affair with us having a little more possession whilst they had a few more shots, but we were the team who took the chances and move on into the Quarter Finals, were we will face another Australian team.

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Having already lost to Brisbane and not managed to beat them in the group I have a feeling this could be as far as we go. Having said that I do think we are every bit as good a team as them and with a bit of luck who knows.
 
Just caught up...looks like things are going well in your third season! Nice one....looks like a title could be on the cards!
 
BallyC7 said:
Just caught up...looks like things are going well in your third season! Nice one....looks like a title could be on the cards!
Click to expand...

Things are going well, don't want to count my chickens but it could well be, would love a Champions League as well
 
So just loaded up the save to play on and something really weird has happened. Has anyone ever loaded up a save and found that the names of your players have changed? Stats etc. still the same just the names. In some cases it is just the first name but others have changed completely and my managers name is in brackets.
 
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With the Champions League on the back burner until the end of August we could concentrate all our efforts on the League and domestic cup. July would be a very busy month with 7 league games and the 1st leg of the CFA quarter Final. We would start the month away to title rivals Huaxia Xingfu followed by a home tie with Liaoning. That will take us to the half way point of the season and we should be able to see whos who as far as who is in the race to be Champions. We would continue the month with games that we should win including away in the cup to Hangzhou. The only concern I have is how thick and fast the games come and hopefully we have the squad to cope.

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Defeat to our main title rivals and our first league defeat of the season in a game that we just didn't turn up for and didn't even manage a shot on target. I torn into the team after that performance and demanded that they bounce back in the next game. We were much better against Liaoning however when they pulled it back to 1-1 just after the hour I was worried that all the missed chances were going to come back and haunt us, but 3 goals in the last 15 minutes meant the scoreline reflected the game more.

That meant that at the half way point the table looked like this:

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Top of the table by 6 points at the half way point. I'm happy so far and if we can keep the performance levels up for the remainder of the season we could be heading for a trophy or two.

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The rest of the month was pretty much faultless as far as performances went, with us dominating every game. The only blot on our copybook was the 0-0 draw with Changchun and I still don't know how we didn't win as we created chance after chance. Still we have managed to stay top and even put a little bit more daylight between us and the chasing pack, so I guess I should be happy.
 
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August was set to be another busy month with 4 league games and at least one cup game but with a 4-0 lead going into the 2nd leg I'm pretty confident we will go through and therefore have a 2nd cup game this month. With a couple of very tough games in the middle of the month against Shanggang and Jiangsu and Champions League kicking back in this could be the month that shapes the rest of the season.

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An all green month and I'm very happy. We are stretching out on front in the league and looking good in the cup for a place in the final. We are just playing so well at the minute and with the exception of the Jiangsu game we never looked like we were going to lose even in the couple of games that we went behind I was confident we would win. The Jiangsu game though we got lucky and didn't play that well, though winning without playing well is the sign of Champions or so they say!
 
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With our domestic form showing no signs of dipping I was hoping that we could carry it into the Champions League games. I was concerned that we had failed to beat Brisbane during the group stage and thought it could be the end of the road but given our form of late I had renewed confidence. I was happy that at least we had the 2nd leg at home.

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A good come from behind win in the away leg was enough to see us through to the semi final. The first leg was fairly even and when the score in the 69th minute I did think we were going to slip to defeat, however an 83rd minute equaliser and an injury time winner sent us into the 2nd leg full of confidence. When we took a 2-0 lead by half time in the second leg the tie was over, and we took our foot of the gas allowing them back into the game and to eventually equalise in the 90th minute, however it was too little too lte and we progressed to the semi final where wewould take on Korean side Seoul.
 
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September would see us take on 3 of the bottom 4 and the 2nd leg of the cup semi-final against 1st division Beikong, which with a 4-0 lead was practically a dead rubber. If everything went to plan by the end of the month we would be Champions League semi finalist, CFA Cup Finalist and League Champions.

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And go to plan it certainly did. Performances were amazing even when we rotated the team and the goals definitely flowed. We were just so good in every game and I could see us losing any of the games. We actually won the league after the Hangzhou game and we have already broken a couple of team records for points and wins in a league season with a further 4 league games to go. I'm now beginning to seriously consider the possibility of doing the treble.

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An unbeaten month also meant a few prizes for the team:

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Mahmoud (one of the players whose name inexplicable changed) scooped Player of the Month. He has been one of the teams best players and we really missed him when he was injured.

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I got another manager of the month award, I'm going to have to find somewhere new to put these as the loo is getting a bit cramped.

Naturally the board were pleased with winning the title:

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We now have 4 league games left which don't really mean much and I'm tempted to play some of the squad players in those so we have fresh legs for the Cup Final which is over 2 legs and of course the Semis of the Champions League. I really hope I can maintain the teams concentration levels so we can push on all 2 remaining fronts.
 
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Our final 4 games of the league season meant nothing as we already had the title in the bag, and I'm glad as games against 2nd, 4th, 7th & 8th meant it was no easy run in. Despite this everybody was being rested whether they needed it or not. I was still expecting a minimum of 6 points though.

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2 wins and 2 draws mean I'm happy enough especially given that we didn't play our strongest 11 at any point. It also means that we finish the season having lost only once all year which I'm very pleased with. The games themselves can be split into two. The first two we dominated and deserved to win both games, the second 2 we were not at the races and could easily have lost both and had no complaints.

All of this left the final league table like this:

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21 points clear in the end and we ran away with the title a really strong 2nd half of the season were we only drew 3 games meant that no one got near us. Given how well we had performed in the league it'll come as no surprise that we also picked up a few other gongs:

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We also dominated the team of the year:

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And of course no season would be complete without:

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Another manager of the year award for yours truly!

It wasn't just a title winning season it was a record breaking season with most wins, points and goals in a Super League season:

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So one trophy down the question is did we manage to pick up the other 2?
 
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With the league out of the way we moved to the Champions league. First up we had the semi finals against South Korean side Seoul. We have the away leg first and was keen that we would still be in with a chance of progression. If we were still in the tie by the time we got them back to our gaff I was confident we could win the question would be whether it would be enough.

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The away leg we probably edged and could easily have come away with a win but we got caught on the break on a couple of occasions and lost. But 2 away goals and only a one goal deficit meant that we went into the 2nd leg with confidence. And it proved to be well placed. We destroyed them in the 2nd leg and were 2-0 by half time. We added a third in injury time and restricted them to 1 shot on target. We had made it to the final were we would play Qatari side Al-Duhail again over two legs.
 
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We heading into the final but this time we would be at home first meaning we would need to put in a good performance to ensure we had a chance going into the away leg, a clean sheet would be essential. Just a few days before the first leg I got the news that 11 yes that right 11 of my players had been called up by China at different levels and would miss the first leg. (Now I know its just a game but surely it can be coded so this sort of thing doesn't happen. I mean I can't imagine Barca Vs Bayern with half their squads missing due to International call ups.) Anyway Qatar were also playing so perhaps they would be missing a few player too.

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A really pleasing performance and a good win despite being missing a number of first team players, maybe all that rotation at the end of the league has served us well. As you can see we bossed the game and they only managed two shots the entire match. I was now more confident going into the away leg especially as we would have a full squad to choose from.

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A much more even game though I would say we shaded it. Ir was pretty stop start with plenty of fouls and a number of yellow cards for each team, but a dull 0-0 with very few chances made me a very happy man as the AFC Champions League trophy was heading back to Shandong with us. We also qualified for the World Club Championships, something I hadn't even thought about and it was in a couple of weeks, my Christmas break would have to wait a little longer.

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Congrats on the double mate! Great achievement! Surely much bigger opportunities outside of China await you now?
 
As well as winner the Champions League we picked up a few other bits and pieces:

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We did have a couple of big wins but I didn't think we had scored that many and certainly didn't expect to break any records.

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I was surprised by this as well. Dudu is a good player, one of our best but I hadn't realised he had played so well in the Champions League.

We also had a few in the Dream Team as you would expect:

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So the final piece of the jigsaw would be the CFA Cup Final, which as with everything in this part of the world would be over 2 legs. Again we would start with the home leg first before travelling to Changchun 4 days later. We had a win and a draw against them in the league so we could be confident going into the final.

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Another devastating home performance means we have pretty much both hands on the cup. I was really pleased with the whole performance but especially the defensive display meaning that they didn't even manage a shot. Going into the second leg I was sure that they could beat us by 5 goals.

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A much more even game and goals galore, meant that the second leg was a very entertaining game, though a no point was I concerned we would lose on aggregate though I did think we were going to lose this game until Dudu hit a late equaliser. 8-4 over the 2 legs and a Treble for the club we were on a real high.

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Given the amount of goals we had scored it wasn't really a surprise that we broken the goal-scoring record here as well and of course because we had broken that record we also had the tournaments top scorer.

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Not to be outdone I picked up a little trinket myself:

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I didn't even know this was a thing and surely the best manager in the cup is always the manager who wins the cup? Anyway another trophy for the downstairs loo.
 
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The lads still hadn't had a chance to celebrate the Treble and they were going to have to wait a little longer as no sooner had we won the CFA Cup than we were on a plane to Tunisia for the Club World Cup or at least some of them were as 4 of our best Chinese players were off playing for China during the World Club Cup, Of course they were because were else would they be? We would join at the Quarter Final stage and had been drawn against New Zealand side Auckland City. I was confident we could get to the Semis though at this stage we would get either the South American or European Champions and even I don't think we can get past either of them. So Semis is as far as we will go in my opinion.

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So as predicted we got past Auckland though only in extra time in a closely fought game. Next up were Brazilian side COR (not sure who this actually is I thought Corinthians but colours don't match) and they were just too good for us and won comfortably in the end. That left us with a 3rd place playoff with New York Redbulls. A very tight game with vert tired players produced no goals and little in terms of entertainment. 0-0 meant penalties and we ran out 3-1 winners, meaning we are the 3rd best team in the world right? That's what I'm going to tell people anyway.

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With Christmas approaching the squad broke up for the end of season break and I headed back to Belfast. Whilst I was on the flight home I started to think about what I had achieved and what I wanted to do next. Should I stay and see out my contract and try to defend our titles, or should I look for pastures new, maybe closer to home?
 
HarvL777 said:
Congrats on the double mate! Great achievement! Surely much bigger opportunities outside of China await you now?
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Maybe. I have started looking at the job centre to see whats out there but not sure I want to resign, so might end up in China for a while yet.
 
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