Polonia Warszawa FTW! Manager's Log (Starting 2015/2016)

[Radekal]

Ok, so I've started the game as the Polonia Warszawa manager (Polish Ekstraklasa). Usually I take Legia, but this time I've decided to go with their main rivals because I consider it a greater challenge. This story starts from the 2015/2016 season, as I've only just come up with the idea of setting it up.

A bit of background about the previous 4 seasons:
- Finished 2nd 3 times in a row just behind Lech Poznan EVERY TIME
- Won the Ekstraklasa (finally) in the 4th (2014/2015) season
- Won the FA Cup and Super Cup in the first season
- Won the Super Cup in the 2014/2015 season (after winning the league)

I've got about 14M (pounds) in the bank, largely due to qualifying for the Champions League Group Stage (6M bonus!!!) and I've decided the best way of improving the team is buying reasonably cheap re-gens (up to 1.5-2M)

So here's my new re-gens, tell me what you think in terms of value for money:

View attachment 222379 Left Wing (I play 4-2-1-2-1) for 150K

View attachment 222380 Poacher/Right Wing for 1.2M (but with 19 finishing, and good all-round)

View attachment 222383 DM for FREE!!! And with decent potential... although he's already been sent off twice this season (in about 6-7 games)


View attachment 222384 DC for 275K. Pretty nice.


And what I hope will be the future of Polish football: fully home-grown local lad, Arkadiusz Misiak

View attachment 222385

Ok, that's it for this update. Stay tuned!

 

[Radekal]

Ok, so as I mentioned above, we've qualified for the Champions League Group Stage (for the first time ever!). The match-ups to get there were pretty straight forward, apart from Celtic, who were understandably the favourites to go through:

View attachment 222534 View attachment 222537

We started off against Jetysu...

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Then brushed past Levski Sofia...

I'm very happy with the contribution of Kutsal Demirhan - after scoring 3 goals in 2 European games, it seems he was well worth the price tag!

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To finally come up agaist Celtic. We won 2-0 at home with 2 late goals! It was certainly a hard-fought game, with both sides having players sent off.

On their home turf, Celtic proved much tougher opposition, and were dominating from the start. They managed to score in the first half, so my half-time team talk was basically: "We hold onto the aggregate lead for our lives!"

And... it worked! We're in the Champions League!



As a side note, the developers of FM have done a great job with the programming of Scottish clubs. In real life, Celtic and Dundee have a history of signing Polish players, and in FM 2012 it's no different! Celtic have signed Sandomierski (talented GK, check him out), Jankowski (decent striker), and Patryk Malecki (who's quite a skilled winger). Just goes to show the level of detail and thought put into the game!

 

[RickyLFC]

Nice... Could you post a screen-shot of your squad? I'm curious because I used to play with them too

 

[Radekal]

Here's the squad, but obviously I've replaced a lot of the original players over the seasons:



View attachment 222645


I've kept players like the goalkeeper, Przyrowski, the striker Teodorczyk, CM Lukasz Piatek and a few others as well.


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Here's a little bonus: a 6-0 demolition of Legia at home, with a hat-trick for my new signing Juraj Luptak!!!

 

[Radekal]

Champions League Update

Ok, so here's a little update on our progress in the Champions League.
I thought the group draw wasn't that bad, and certainly could've gone a lot worse. We were drawn in Group A with Real Madrid, Palermo and Red Bull Salzburg, and have so far played 3 games...

View attachment 225202

Started off playing away at Salzburg. I thought we could get something out of this game, and we were indeed the better side in the first half - had it not been for RB's wonderful re-gen keeper, we would've been at least 2-0 up at the break. Unfortunately, they picked themselves up in the 2nd half and managed to score two goals. An own goal from Cesare Bovo gave us hope, but it was too little too late...

View attachment 225203

Now, this was always going to be tough. Real Madrid were obviously favourites, but my lads did very well: we kept possession and got some shots off as well. However, Botia broke the deadlock in the 34th minute and then my experienced centre-back Jodlowiec ended our hopes of a come-back with a woeful own goal from about 25 yards (Przyrowski passed to him from a goal kick and couldn't get back in position to save a well-placed pass from the veteran defender ).


View attachment 225204

But no matter, because we managed to win away against Palermo! We played well, and they couldn't get their shots on target; final score: Palermo 0 Polonia 1 !!!!

That puts us in a great position, as we'll now play 2 home games against RB and Palermo, and so far we're level on points with both of them!


THESE ARE THE GROUP STANDINGS AFTER 3 GAMES PLAYED:

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[iamalad]

this is quality, nice win against palermo!