Improving Ireland with Sligo Rovers

2019 Season Preview

2019 started with the news that Raffaele Cretaro will retire at the end of next season.

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Despite winning the league we are not in the healthiest financial situation so were given a tight budget to use for transfers. Once again we’ve relied heavily on loans from English clubs.

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Cian Coleman came in from Limerick and Ronan Murray came in from Dundalk on frees. I plan to play Murray as a striker this year.

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Our four loan signings are all youngsters but are some of the better players in the squad. I’m hoping to get a centre back on loan before the window shuts in one week.

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As the fixtures were announced we were predicted to finish 4th but after making those transfers we’re up to third in the pre season preview. We’re 7-1 to win the league when this time last year we were 16-1

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The board only expect a top half finish but it’ll be interesting to see how we fare this season.

Our squad isn’t much better than last season so if one of Shamrock Rovers or Dundalk actually start the season well then it might be difficult to catch them.

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Talking of Dundalk… our first game of the season is at home to the title favourites.​
 
Start of 2019 Season

In our first game of our title defence a last minute winner saw us beat Dundalk 2-1.

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Things were therefore looking rosy but we then lost our next match and our starting left back broke his foot so will be out for at least four months.

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In that match against Cork though, Raffaele Cretaro scored a consolation and became Sligo’s record league goalscorer in the process.

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Overall it’s been an okay-ish start to the season. We’re top but have played more games than anyone else.

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The reason we’re anywhere near the top is because of Mikey Drennan. He’s scored 10 of our 13 league goals!

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Typically, he has picked up an injury too and will be out for around 6 weeks.

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I’m hoping we don’t miss him too much but we’ll need other players to step up in the coming matches.​
 
8 Team Title Race

Since the last post we’ve played 6 games with some very mixed results.

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After going four games without a win I was starting to get worried. In that run we drew 0-0 at home to bottom side Longford and we’re still yet to win away in the league.

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However Mikey Drennan’s return coincided with a much-needed demolition over Bohemian and a nice win in the cup against Drogheda, who are a division below us, which has sort of steadied the ship.

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So we’re currently 5th​ in the table but the league is stupidly close.

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Ireland really has been crazy since I started the save but I’m expecting Shamrock Rovers and Dundalk to eventually pull away and would be content with a third place finish this year.​
 
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Champions League Opponents

After an up and down season, the month of May saw us get back on track with 6 wins in all competitions.

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It means that we are top of the table and, as was expected, Shamrock Rovers and Dundalk are up there too.

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We’re also into the League of Ireland Cup semi-finals, which is nice but I’m not too bothered about the competition.

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A reason for our upturn in form is that we’ve become less reliant on Mikey Drennan and goals are starting to come from other members of our team, which was also the case last season.

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And more good news is that our first choice left back Adam Lewis, who broke his foot two games into the season, has returned to training.

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Because the Irish season runs from February to November we’re currently in the middle of a 3-week summer break in June and during that time we learned who our opponents would be in the not at all complicatedly named Champions League Champions First Qualifying Phase.

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Moldovan champions Sheriff Tiraspol will be our opponents in our first ever match in continental competition. They reached the Europa League group stage last season so look like they’ll be a tough team to get past.

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And judging by the star ratings, their squad looks decent too.

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The Champions League might hinder our chances domestically but I’m not too bothered as I’m excited to see how far we can go.​
 
Champions League 1st Round


Our first of hopefully many regens was signed in the summer window in Shane Dunne.

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He’s 16 years old from Northern Irish club Institute where he was playing in the first team after only recently coming through their youth intake. I found him in Northern Ireland’s under 21s squad and at £10,000 he is an absolute bargain.

He did not go into the team against Sheriff though as I stuck with the players that got us into the competition in the first place. The starting XI in our home leg against Sheriff contained 7 of the regulars that got us into the Champions League last year.

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Champions League – Champions First Qualifying Phase – Sligo Rovers v Sheriff Tiraspol

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A 2-1 win against the team who were favourites is good going but when they went down to 10 men, when we were 2-1 up, we really should’ve extended our lead.

In terms of the save the second leg in Moldova was a huge game, as a win would mean lots more money, which in turn would be used to improve the squad and the club.

So what I didn’t need was for my central midfielder to get sent off after 9 minutes…

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…And then for Sheriff to score 2 goals in 5 minutes.

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Big thanks to David Cawley for getting us knocked out of the Champions League after picking up a red card in under 10 minutes…

…Is what I thought at first…

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But we only went and beat Sheriff 3-2!!!

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They had 37 shots to our 12 but somehow we took it to extra time thanks to a Rhys McCabe wonder goal and somehow we scored twice in extra time to get through to the next round!

Our reward for beating Sheriff, despite playing with 10 men for 111 minutes in the second leg, was a tie against Albanian champions Skenderbeu Korce in the next round.

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I don’t want to tempt fate but that’s arguably an easier game than Sheriff!​
 
Champions League 2nd Qualifying Round

As I said in the last post our Champions League Second Qualifying Round opponents Skenderbeu Korce from Albania were arguably an easier prospect than our first round opponents Sheriff… and I was proved to be right!


Champions League – Champions Second Qualifying Phase –
Sligo Rovers v Skenderbeu Korce


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What a Champions League story this is turning in to! Former Crystal Palace man (and backup midfielder) Owen Garvan scored two free kicks and Sligo legend Raffaele Cretaro came off the bench to score a penalty in pretty much the perfect game in Albania.

And we cruised through the second leg at home.

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The Champions League is easy… We’re only 4 games away from the group stage!

However we came crashing back down to earth after being drawn against PSV Eindhoven in the third qualifying round.

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It’d take a miracle to get through but even if we lose we go into the Europa League 4th​ Qualifying round which would give us 2 games to get into the Europa League Group Stage.

So things are looking fine and dandy in Europe… but the same can’t be said about the league.

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Heavy rotation because of the Champions League means we’ve dropped down to fourth and run the risk of not even qualifying for European competition next season, which would be a disaster.

UCD won’t stop winning and look set for the top two whereas Bohemian are hot on our heels in 5th​. We’ve got a crucial couple of weeks up ahead of us!​
 
Just caught up mate....congrats on winning the league in your first season! Great achievement! I look forward to seeing how you fare against PSV...good luck!!
 
TheNotSoSpecialOne said:
Just caught up mate....congrats on winning the league in your first season! Great achievement! I look forward to seeing how you fare against PSV...good luck!!
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Cheers mate, don't think we'll retain the title this year but am hoping the European run makes up for that!
 
Champions League Third Qualifying Round

Going into the match in Eindhoven, PSV were 1-3 favourites.

Champions League - Champions Third Qualifying Phase - Sligo Rovers v PSV Eindhoven

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To be honest 5-2 is the best we could’ve hoped for, PSV are miles ahead of us. Our best players are on loan from Brighton, Cardiff and Birmingham and they have genuine Champions League quality so the gulf in class is huge.

In between the first and second legs with PSV, we played the League of Ireland cup semi final against Shamrock Rovers.

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So we’re in the final of a competition that I don’t care about!

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Unfortunately there was not another incredible Champions League comeback in the home leg against PSV

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Again I’m not too displeased, as we’ve exceeded all expectations by getting this far already. And the loss was completely forgotten when I saw a couple of messages in my inbox.

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And of course our European run is not over as defeat in the Champions League means we drop down to the Europa League Champions Fourth Qualifying Round.

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Red Star Belgrade stand between us and the Europa League Group Stage. Unsurprisingly they are the favourites to progress.

Yet all of that is insignificant compared to the news that once more we will take part in the Scottish Challenge Cup. Our opponents?

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We’ve only gone and got Berwick! If you know, then you know…​
 
leckuno said:
Can't believe the draw you got. Surely you've got to have mixed emotions about that one. Also a nice amount of prize money that you can hopefully make good use of.
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Yeah couldn't believe we got them in a competitive game... don't really know how they choose the non-Scottish teams for the Challenge Cup but we got to play Berwick so I'm not complaining! And the prize money could prove to be massive going forward as we can attract better players who are after higher wages.
 
Europa League 4th Qualifying Round

The games are coming thick and fast and before our first leg against Red Star we faced Wexford in the first round of the cup.

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The Irish Cup may end up being important for us, as it could be our only route into the Europa League next year!

Talking of which, in the first leg of our 4th​ Qualifying Round match against Red Star we only had one shot on target.

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So we were lucky to only lose 2-1. Like PSV, they are a class above us and there isn’t much we can do. But at 2-1 we were still in it going into the second leg in Belgrade.

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So close but it was not to be. We miss out on the Europa League group stage by a couple of goals but what a European run it’s been in only our second season in charge! It’s done no harm to the coefficients or our bank balance.

However, that European run had distracted us from more important issues like facing Berwick in the Scottish Challenge Cup.

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We lost to them on penalties and they played a blinder by going through despite only having 3 shots.

We’ve also had our youth intake, which once again wasn’t that great.

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We’ve had a crazy few months, playing twice and sometimes 3 times a week and incredibly only 2 of our past 11 games have been in the league!

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We therefore have some games in hand in the league and currently sit fourth in the table.

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I refuse to believe the title is out of reach but I can’t believe UCD are still up there! They were only promoted last season but look certain for a place in Europe at least next year.

Our next league match funnily enough is versus UCD in what is a must win game for us if we want to keep our title hopes alive.​
 
Do you start your saves with any experience or coaching badges mate?
 
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TheNotSoSpecialOne said:
Do you start your saves with any experience or coaching badges mate?
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Yeah I started this save with a continental A licence and past playing experience as a professional at national level and then just made all the relevant attributes as high as possible (e.g. goalkeeper coaching stats as 2s and 3s and then attacking, technical, tactical etc stats as 15+)

Not sure if it makes things easier or not but it definitely helps with the coaching quality. The way I play the game is more about developing the club I'm at rather than developing me as a manager so I prefer to do it this way.
 
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Hampus Silverholt said:
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Yeah I started this save with a continental A licence and past playing experience as a professional at national level and then just made all the relevant attributes as high as possible (e.g. goalkeeper coaching stats as 2s and 3s and then attacking, technical, tactical etc stats as 15+)

Not sure if it makes things easier or not but it definitely helps with the coaching quality. The way I play the game is more about developing the club I'm at rather than developing me as a manager so I prefer to do it this way.
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Yea it makes sense....I've just started my Finland save and done recommended badge and experience for that league
 
Hall of Fame Already

It’s sort of gone under the radar that we’ve reached the final of the EA Sports/League of Ireland Cup earlier in the season with our second string side.

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Goals from 37-year-old 5th​ choice striker Raffaele Cretaro and Man Utd loanee Dylan Levitt ensured we won our second piece of silverware as Sligo manager.

It also meant I’ve entered the Hall of Fame in Ireland already… that wasn’t that difficult!

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Meanwhile the league is getting very interesting, despite playing every 3 or 4 days we’ve won 5 in a row including our crucial match against UCD.

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It means we’re 7 points off the top with 2 games in hand and 6 more games left to play in total.

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And we play Shamrock Rovers next in what could be a title decider. At the moment you’d have to say they’re favourites but if we win then it’ll be in our hands.

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We’ve also got a cup semi final on the horizon but I’m confident we’ll get a top 3 finish that guarantees us European football next year so will prioritise the league.​
 
End of 2019 season

In our must win, title deciding match against Shamrock Rovers we absolutely dominated them from start to finish… yet threw away a 2-0 lead!

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We could not have done anymore and had over 30 shots compared to their 7.

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However in our next game we comfortably beat St Pats in the Irish Cup semi final.

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And of course we will play Shamrock Rovers in the final

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We continued our winning streak in our next game, defeating Derry 4-1. The win was made more significant by the fact that Shamrock Rovers could only draw at home to Cork, so we were only 5 points behind them.

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But looking the other way, Dundalk were just 3 points behind us and we played them away next!

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And they pretty much ended our title hopes after beating us 2-0.

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The title was confirmed for Shamrock Rovers when we drew 1-1 with Waterford in our penultimate league match but by then I was concentrating on winning the cup.

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And it allowed us to give Raffaele Cretaro a send off in our last league match of the season against Longford.

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He didn’t score but Dundalk losing meant that we finished the season in second.

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All that was left of a long and crazy season was the cup final against Shamrock Rovers.

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But unfortunately it was not to be, an extra time winner from regen Eoin Sheridan meant our season ended on a downer.

We played 55 games in all competitions in 2019, I think we ran out of steam towards the end of the year!​
 
That was one **** of a season with so many games. Unlucky not to finish with more than the 1 trophy, but hopefully bringing in a couple of class additions and maybe some good back up players for depth could see you smash it next year.
 
Two seasons...two trophies. Can't complain at that mate...good work!
 
dporter8999 said:
That was one **** of a season with so many games. Unlucky not to finish with more than the 1 trophy, but hopefully bringing in a couple of class additions and maybe some good back up players for depth could see you smash it next year.
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It suddenly gets mad in July with all the European games, we're going to have to get used to that throughout the save. Hopefully I can find the players to strengthen the squad for next year!

TheNotSoSpecialOne said:
Two seasons...two trophies. Can't complain at that mate...good work!
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Exactly! I would've taken that along with a run to the Europa League 4th Qualifying Round within 2 years so can't complain
 
So what stage of the Europa League do you enter next season now? Think the squad is strong enough to get you to the group stage yet?
 
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