Malmo FF - A Swedish Adventure

Wow! Great job qualifying for the knock out stages! Lets hope you can cause a few upsets there also!!
 
Yeti01 said:
Wow! Great job qualifying for the knock out stages! Lets hope you can cause a few upsets there also!!
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Thanks, that would be awesome, but even if we don't then I'm still delighted with our progress!
 
Just wow! Didn't expect you to advance through the group stage! Awesome achievement mate :)
 
Immediately after this match, Eriksson asks to join Anderlecht. As much as I wanted to say “I don’t see Anderlecht in the knockout rounds of the Champions League, do I?”, I settled for claiming he wouldn’t get enough first team football there, and he bought it. This is how Anderlecht’s Champions League campaign looks:


The election has arrived, but no result yet…



Liverpool beat Manchester United 3-1!!! :D Chelsea are 4 points clear with a game in hand however.


Rakip agrees to join Trabzonspor for 250k. I just wish he’d accepted the 500k deal before!
 
The current chairman gains a second term after winning the election. When asked by the media, naturally, I say how delighted I am.



Olsen signs a new deal at the club, as his old one had just a year to run. He’s performed brilliantly this season, and thoroughly deserves it. He will certainly be my first choice next season, and perhaps beyond.
The main threat to Olsen’s jersey is young Sixten Mohlin, who also signs a new long term contract. The talented young keeper can only get better, and is a major part of my long term plans for the club.


So young Petkovic hasn’t played a game yet, but for whatever reason, his ambition has grown due to off the field events. Hopefully this helps his development, although he may want to leave as soon as a big overseas club shows interest.

 
Champions League Group Stage - Game 6 - Real Madrid (Home)


This match is effectively a dead rubber. We don’t stand a realistic chance of winning here, and I think we’d need to win 3-0 to take top spot off Madrid - not going to happen!

Unbelievably however, Guillermo Molins opened the scoring in the 10th minute! Forsberg played him in with a gorgeous pass, and he finished past Casillas, who got a hand to it but couldn’t keep it out!

Just two minutes later, we raced upfield, and Eriksson tried his luck from outside the box, but Casillas held it with a diving save.

In the 14th minute Modric brought down Molins just outside the box. Ricardinho stepped up and from 25 yards out, bent his shot around the wall and found the bottom left corner! I could not believe what was happening!

The rest of the half played out with both teams taking shots from range, and neither created any clear cut chances.

In the 63rd minute, Coentrão hacked down Molins just outside the area, a little closer than the last effort - 20 yards out. Ricardinho had another go, and this time shot over the wall and found the top right corner!! Can this really be happening?

Madrid continued to look frustrated, and I didn’t make my first substitution until the 86th minute, because I didn't want to upset the balance, when Gustafson replaced the tiring Molins, and Thern moved to right wing. A well deserved standing ovation for Guillermo Molins, who not only scored the opener, but won the two free kicks which Ricardinho scored off!

In the 87th minute, Eriksson was fouled out wide on the right, and Ricardinho stood over the ball again. He swung in a cross, and would you believe it, Filip Helander rose above the lot and beat Casillas with his header.

Neri and Rosenberg came on for Forsberg and Eriksson for the 2 or 3 minutes of injury time. Madrid had a good chance in the 93rd, their best one of the game, but James shot wide from his free kick attempt.

I don’t even know what to say. I'm as stunned as any of you are. I’d like to point out that I write these match summaries as I play the game - an event happens, I pause and type about it. The pre match introduction I wrote was written before the game started, and after each goal I was still thinking “surely they’re going to wake up, and I’ll end up having to write about throwing away a 2 goal lead or something”. This is unquestionably the best performance all season, in the last fixture of the year, against the reigning European champions. I feel like I must have cheated somehow, but maybe the Spaniards were complacent, and didn’t like travelling to Sweden at the start of winter. Who knows, but this is probably the best result I’ve ever achieved on any save ever - I can’t remember a better one off the top of my head, and I doubt there has been one (winning the FA Cup with a championship side?). We have taken top spot from Madrid and will most likely face an easier draw for the second round - and we can approach it with confidence, as we have shown here that on our day, we can beat anyone! My under 19’s also beat the Madrid youth side 4-1!


POM: Ricardinho (9.5, 2G, 1A)
 
Tactical Analysis of the Madrid Game

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So after the game I thought back over it. After that performance, surely it stands to reason that we stand a chance against most other big European clubs, and we could make a deep run into the Champions League in this, our first season! The result came with a starting 11 consisting entirely of players already at the club, which makes me think that they may be slightly overrated, as there is no way that this could happen in real life. These are my thoughts on the tactics, what really happened during the game, and whether we can really make a push in Europe this season (beginning of next season).

Madrid were certainly not at their best, but Olsen did make a handful of good saves.
We had one clear cut chance - the one Molins opened the scoring off, and no half chances, whilst Madrid had none of either.
We scored 3 set piece goals - two direct free kicks from the outstanding Ricardinho, and the other one a header from another Ricardinho free kick. We really didn’t create an awful lot I suppose.

I changed team instructions immediately after our first goal so we would sit back and try to keep hold of the ball - with the exceptions of the “Higher Tempo”, “Run at defence” and “Shoot on sight” instructions.
My logic was that I didn’t want to be patiently passing around Madrid’s area because firstly, we weren’t likely to penetrate, and secondly, they could easily counterattack. So whilst we were responsible with the ball in our own half, once we got up the other end, we just went for goal.
This didn’t really work at the attacking end, but I believe it contributed to our good defensive effort - Madrid didn’t create any real opportunities, as we denied them the space to run into with the ball, and tried to look after it down our own end.

Another contributing factor I feel was the foul count.
We scored from 3 free kicks, as Madrid committed 19 fouls, as opposed to our 9. Our tackle success rate was excellent, and far superior to the Spaniards’.
We were much more careful, and frustrated them into taking long shots. This can be seen in the CCC and Half Chance tallies, and that 11 of their 21 shots were classed as long.
I also think that by the last goal, the Madrid players were probably uninterested, and my players wanted it more - hence Helander winning the header, when the match stats show that Madrid were more dominant in the air all game.

So the tactics worked, but in truth I feel it’s a flash in the pan, and I am not convinced we will pull off too many more of these big upsets. We got the opening goal using our regular tactic - something we definitely cannot count on against high class opposition. Our remaining three goals were all set pieces, and as good as Ricardinho is, I can’t expect him to be netting free kicks every game. I think we were fortunate to come up against a poor Madrid side, shocked them early, and they were forced to chase the game, which made life easier for us. I think, therefore, that if we draw a strong opponent in the next round, then our European adventure for the season will end there. It will still have been a remarkable success, however, and this result shows me that we are much closer than I expected at such an early stage of my Swedish Adventure.

 
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Wowzas... Just Wowzas!! That's as impressive of a result as ive ever seen!! Hopefully with a few big performances like that the CL dream may continue!! Looking forward to next season too to see how the signings pan out, Looking forward to the Korean fella!
 
JamesScott2908 said:
Wowzas... Just Wowzas!! That's as impressive of a result as ive ever seen!! Hopefully with a few big performances like that the CL dream may continue!! Looking forward to next season too to see how the signings pan out, Looking forward to the Korean fella!
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I'm still in disbelief over 24 hours later hahaha
I'm not convinced we'll repeat the trick, at least not this season
The young Korean is actually insane! Going to be world class, I only hope it's with us and he doesn't have his head turned by the larger clubs too quickly
 
PatrickLFC said:
I'm still in disbelief over 24 hours later hahaha
I'm not convinced we'll repeat the trick, at least not this season
The young Korean is actually insane! Going to be world class, I only hope it's with us and he doesn't have his head turned by the larger clubs too quickly
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Fingers crossed! Even so, If he develops as we hope could be a big money spinner, How many goals did he get last season?
 
JamesScott2908 said:
Fingers crossed! Even so, If he develops as we hope could be a big money spinner, How many goals did he get last season?
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True, he could be worth a big fee :) he's a regen who appeared mid season so no idea. But since that hat trick in his international debut, he's gone on to play at the Asian Cup, and his record for South Korea is 12 goals in 9 games I'm pretty sure, so I'm very optimistic!
 
Transfer News...

Forsberg also wants to join Anderlecht! Foolish bloke, luckily he was also convinced to stay for first team football.


Far more worryingly, star man Ricardinho wants to return to his homeland and join Flamengo. He might be 30 now, but I have no intention of letting him leave yet! The same argument convinced him to remain here, although I would love an option to point out how well the club is doing and question why would they want to leave this project? Absurd!


I’ve just realised I was wrong about Luka Jovic. I forgot that the Swedish season began 6 months earlier in 2014, and therefore, he will not be joining for another year! Such as shame, but Eriksson, Rosenberg and Kim Byung-Hyun should be good enough for another season at least!
 
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