Taking Southampton North!

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kolas79 said:
If you have a look in my save you will what Zivkovic can do ha ha ! Be carefull though to renewing his contract every year since he is very ambitious ! I did not do that and I lost him for free !!
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I did see that, I'll certainly have to be very careful there
 
Some great signings there, do you have heavy intensity fitness training or something?!
 

The European Championships were full of surprises, and I was delighted to see Andrija Zivkovic lead Serbia to the title, winning player of the tournament and scoring the only goal in the final. I was even more delighted that Sweden also made it all the way to the final, though it does mean Erik Hamren is probably untouchable for a while.


Transfer News...

I was tracking Pjaca all of last season, and whilst I wasn’t originally going to make a move for him this window, Tottenham forced my hand by submitting a bid of their own, and with them already having signed Viktor Fischer, I didn’t want them stockpiling too many brilliant wingers to go with Son and Lamela. 8.5m is a bargain, and it’s a deal which will probably see another talented winger we have, Josh Sims, depart on loan as competition for places will be too high. You might argue I have a big enough squad, but if the injury curse strikes again, I want to be prepared!

And guess who isn’t leaving? Nice try Valencia!
 

Transfer News...

I have a story to tell. With the departures of Gardos and Yoshida, and Caulker’s loan due to expire at the end of May, I was left with Van Dijk and Fonte, both of whom had been shaky at times last season, as my only senior centre backs.

I activated Caulker’s 8m option but talks broke down, and the loan expired before his agent would speak to me again, and suddenly they were asking for closer to 15m, so that was that.

Luan and Palombo were both able to cover, but I decided I needed another player fighting for first choice status, and with Fonte having first claim to the RCB slot, I decided to find a left footed centre back.

My top target became Matija Nastasic, and eventually I had a bid worth around 36m in total accepted. It was then that I discovered that Juan Jesus and Kevin Wimmer were available for 12m and 6.5m respectively. I cancelled the Nastasic deal and opted for Jesus - as many have done, over the years :P - and had an agreement in place.

He then failed to gain a work permit.


So that deal was on the scrapheap, and my interest in Wimmer had cooled. I went back for Nastasic, but he had signed a new contract with Schalke in the meantime.

The search continued.

I finally decided on Lazio’s Stefan Radu, who was perhaps slightly more comfortable at left back, but will do the job for now, despite turning 30 in a few months. The deal was done. A long term centre back option may be a priority next summer, but for now, I am content.

 
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Sweden Under 23’s Update: ​

Can I start by saying that the scheduling is ridiculous for this. We have 3 friendlies within a week, and the Olympics start 4 days after the last of those, with group games 3 days apart as well. That’s 6 games in a little over two weeks with an already tired squad!
Our friendly against Argentina U/23’s was a complete mismatch, as they boasted the likes of Messi, Icardi, Ocampos, De Paul, Kranevitter and Rulli. And yet we were the more threatening team for most of the match, losing 2-1 after a couple of long range wonder strikes found our net late on. Good effort from the boys.

After two early goals against South Africa, we went into cruise control for the rest of the match to try to avoid any injuries. We saw out an easy 2-1 win. Lakay, who I have been scouting, scored a sick volley for South Africa.

We were underdogs against South Korea but they didn’t have a sniff all day whilst we ran out comfortable winners. If we’d been more clinical we could have scored a few more. Unfortunately we lost two players to injury, including one of our stars, Larsson, and are not allowed to replace them. Our exhausted squad is down to just 16 players.
 
Yeti01 said:
Good luck at the Olympics mate!
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Thanks, tough to see us getting too far though, Brazil have Neymar & co, Argentina have Messi & co, Germany have Muller, Reus & co, and they're not the only ones!
 
Reckon you'll get past Dynamo mate, they're tough but I'll back ya! ;)
 
Saw you were coaching sweden in the olympics too?
Lindelöf became a beast on my recent save, very good defender and soild back up CDM and defensive RB
wahlquist can be good too hes got a good random potential
Filip dagerstål as well worht checking out, Thomas Ishwerwood In bayern II

some future possibly good swedish CBs
 
Lippo255 said:
Reckon you'll get past Dynamo mate, they're tough but I'll back ya! ;)
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I hope so, I'll be disappointed if we don't, we should be stronger on paper

Nnicod55 said:
Isn't Dynamo already sold their best players?
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Not all of them but I know Yarmolenko is gone, to Real Madrid on a Bosman. He wouldn't talk to me back in January :(

kolas79 said:
Best of lucky with Dynamo !
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Thank you :)

kallemannen said:
Saw you were coaching sweden in the olympics too?
Lindelöf became a beast on my recent save, very good defender and soild back up CDM and defensive RB
wahlquist can be good too hes got a good random potential
Filip dagerstål as well worht checking out, Thomas Ishwerwood In bayern II

some future possibly good swedish CBs
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Thanks for the tip mate, I will have a look at those guys for sure! There were some in my squad that looked pretty decent, I think Christian (?) Larsson was a bit of a livewire until he got injured in the last friendly. I already have my eye on Wahlqvist, if interest in Cedric becomes concrete I may make a move but for now I'd just be overcrowding my already too large squad :P
 

Olympics Group Stage - Game 1 - Brazil U/23's


Every player on the Brazil bench is arguably stronger than every player in my tired starting 11. Good luck boys!

Neymar opened the scoring within two minutes. His shot was saved but his followup wasn’t.

Same thing happened three minutes later as he dribbled past four or five guys, saw his shot parried, and then blasted home the rebound.

Schalke’s new record signing Gabriel Barbosa made it three with a close range finish from Oscar’s through ball in stoppage time.

He then ran through our defence 5 minutes into the second period to make it 4-0.

Neymar’s brilliant run in the 57th ended in a superb save to deny him his hat trick.

Engvall, Augustinsson and Ekdal were all replaced in the 59th minute, by Eliasson, Lundqvist and Lindelöf respectively.

We were thoroughly beaten, but really, how could anything else be expected. There is a huge gulf in quality between the two sides, so I’m not angry at the team or anything like that. A shame we couldn’t keep the score down a little, but each of the goals were just too good.


POM: Neymar (Brazil - 9.3, 2G, 1A)

Best Sweden Players: Simon Gustafson and Emil Forsberg (6.9, 0G, 0A)
 
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