Trying To Win (with) The Pools - A Hartlepool United Story

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MARCH

UEFA Europa League 1st Round 2nd Leg
Hartlepool United 4 (Sissoko 9, 84, Mahon 31, Sinclair 58)
Ajax 2 (Amrabat 3, Abba 54)
(Hartlepool United win 8-2 on aggregate)

My backups did almost as good as my first team! We will play Dynamo Kiev in the next round who we have already played and beaten twice both this season and last!!!

--

Queens Park Rangers 0
Hartlepool United 1 (de Bruin 79)

--

UEFA Europa League 2nd Round 1st Leg
Dynamo Kiev 0
Hartlepool United 1 (Adryan 32)

Not a bad result at all.

--

Hartlepool United 0
Manchester City 0

With so many games coming up in such a short space of time a point here is a good result. 3 clean sheets in a row!!!

--

FA Cup 5th Round
Hartlepool United 8 (Mahon 1, Connors 29, 33, 59, 73, Igor Augusto 32, Sinclair 65pen, de Bruin 85)
Chelsea 1 (Hazard 70)

OMG!!!!!!!! Schwartz had a goal disallowed too. Cant believe this result.

--

UEFA Europa League 2nd Round 2nd Leg
Hartlepool United 3 (Pedrinho 57, Joao Paulo 77, Connors 89)
Dynamo Kiev 1 (Mehmedi 28)
(Hartlepool United win 4-1 on aggregate)

Bit dodgy for a while but we came through easily enough in the end.

--

FA Cup QF
Barnsley 1 (Constable 70)
Hartlepool United 4 (Joao Paulo 36, 71pen, 75, Schmidt 49)

A League 1 side was never going to beat my backups and youngsters.

--

Hartlepool United 3 (de Bruin 21, Sinclair 26pen, Basic 33)
Cardiff City 2 (Watt 6, Castrillon og73)

Another game where I have to pick and choose who to play. This month has been tough but I have utilised my squad well so far.

--

Hartlepool United 3 (Adryan 7, 29, Chalobah 40)
Arsenal 1 (Vydra 45)

A great win.

--

LINEUPS
OPP
RES
GK
RB
CB
CB
LB
CM
CM
AMR
AML
AMC
ST
SUBS
Ajax4-2KeanWardBaldwinMahonHoldenVergaraPedrinhoFueyoSinclair
Sissoko* 2
BasicCastrillon, Dimosthenous
QPR1-0KeanWardSchwartzChalobahShawSissokoIgor AugustoFueyoSinclairAdryande BruinJoao Paulo
Kiev1-0KeanMarcelinhoSchwartz*ChalobahShawSissokoIgor AugustoFueyoSinclairAdryanConnorsJoao Paulo, Vergara, Ward
Man City0-0Kean
MarcelinhoSchwartzChalobahShawPedrinhoIgor Augusto
Sinclair
KakutaAdryande BruinMahon, Vergara, Fueyo
Chels8-1Kean
WardSchwartzMahonShawSissokoIgor AugustoFueyoSinclairde BruinConnors* 4-
Kiev3-1
Kean
Ward
Baldwin
Mahon
Holden*
Pedrinho
Vergara
Basic
Dimosthenous
Joao Paulo
Connors
Schwartz, McKinney, Kakuta
Barn
4-1
Kean
Mahon
Baldwin
Castrillon
Holden
Schmidt
Vergara
Fueyo
Dimosthenous
Joao Paulo* 3
Basic
Armstrong, Hancox, Tesfaye
Card3-2
Kean
Ward
Baldwin
Castrillon
Holden
Pedrinho
Igor Augusto
Fueyo
Sinclair
de Bruin*
Basic
McKinney, Armstrong
Ars3-1
Kean
Marcelinho
Schwartz
Chalobah
Shaw
Sissoko
Adryan* 2
Fueyo
Kakuta
de Bruin
Connors
Sinclair

--

PLAYER OF THE MONTH
JAN DE BRUIN
View attachment 473082

--

SUMMARY

What a month this was! Obviously the highlight was the 8-1 win over Chelsea but we did well in both the league and in Europe also. Can we win the title? 50-50 methinks.

This month saw us play a whopping 9 games. Considering there was an international break also I felt I rotated my squad perfectly and always had an eye on the game ahead.

We have been drawn against Borussia Dortmund in the Europa League and are the strongest team left in the FA Cup too!

View attachment 473081

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APRIL

UEFA Europa League QF 1st Leg
Hartlepool United 2 (Connors 73, 74)
Borussia Dortmund 0

Hopefully this win should be good enough to see us through to the semis! Bad news is that Marcelinho got injured and is out for the rest of the season.

--

Liverpool 0
Hartlepool United 2 (Connors 16, Sinclair 24pen)

A fantastic victory which really shows our title credentials. Jake Kean got the MOM award which shows that we were under the cosh a bit.

--

UEFA Europa League QF 2nd Leg
Borussia Dortmund 2 (Pohjanpalo 69, Mkhitaryan 72)
Hartlepool United 2 (Igor Augusto 51, Sinclair 82)
(Hartlepool United win 4-2 on aggregate)

Through we got to face Valencia in the semis.

--

Hartlepool United 2 (Fueyo 18, Vergara 80)
Sunderland 2 (Sanogo 11, 58)

Disappointing not to win but I was without a load of players so I will take a point.

--

Ipswich Town 1 (Cook 2)
Hartlepool United 4 (Sissoko 53, Connors 65, Bikey og70, Dimosthenous 73)

Shocking first half and a great second half. This win secures Champions League football for next season.

--

FA Cup SF
Hull City Tigers 2 (Rooney 45, Evans 82)
Hartlepool United 4 (Sinclair 12, de Bruin 32, 40, Dimosthenous 75)

A good win. And whats even better is that we will play a Championship side in the final!

--

UEFA Europa League SF 1st Leg
Hartlepool United 2 (Baldwin 68, Connors 73)
Valencia 0

To think that Jack Baldwin was playing for me in League 2 in my first season and now he is scoring in a European semi is amazing!!!!

--

Hartlepool United 3 (de Bruin 25, 27, Kakuta 64)
Southampton 3 (Lallana 3, Welbeck 48, Collison 87)

NOOOOO!!!!!! Playing this at home I thought we had to win but we threw away 2pts right at the end. We are 1pt clear with 4 games to go.............

--

LINEUPS
OPP
RES
GK
RB
CB
CB
LB
CM
CM
AMR
AML
AMC
ST
SUBS
B. Dor
2-0
Kean
Marcelinho
Schwartz
Chalobah
Shaw
Sissoko
Igor Augusto
Sinclair
Kakuta
Adryan
Connors* 2
Fueyo, Ward
Liv
2-0
Kean*
Ward
Schwartz
Chalobah
Shaw
Sissoko
Igor Augusto
Sinclair
Kakuta
de Bruin
Connors
Fueyo
B. Dor
2-2
Kean
Ward
Schwartz
Chalobah
Shaw
Sissoko
Igor Augusto
Fueyo
Sinclair
Kakuta
Connors
Tucker, Baldwin
Sun
2-2
Kean
Ward
Baldwin
Mahon
Holden
Tucker
Pedrinho
Fueyo
Kakuta
de Bruin
Connors
Joao Paulo, Vergara, Dimosthenous
Ips
4-1
Kean
Ward
Baldwin
Chalobah
Shaw
Sissoko*
Igor Augusto
Dimosthenous
Sinclair
de Bruin
Connors
Holden, Castrillon
Hull
4-2
Kean
Mahon
Baldwin
Chalobah
Holden
Sissoko
Igor Augusto
Dimosthenous
Sinclair
de Bruin* 2
Connors
Fueyo, Donatelli
Val
2-0
Kean
Ward
Baldwin
Chalobah*
Shaw
Pedrinho
Igor Augusto
Fueyo
Dimosthenous
Sissoko
Connors
Basic
South
3-3
Kean
Ward
Baldwin
Chalobah
Shaw
Pedrinho
Tucker
Dimosthenous
Kakuta
de Bruin* 2
Connors
Lamacraft, Castrillon

--

PLAYER OF THE MONTH
JAN DE BRUIN
View attachment 472848

--

SUMMARY

Another crazy month but we were unbeaten so all was good. We are in a great position in the league and have 2 away games against Hull and Villa before finishing off at home to Chelsea and Stoke - going to be a close run thing!!!!!

The FA Cup should be ours as we will play Burnley in the final and we have 1 foot in the Europa League final.

Finally I have been busy setting up some transfers for next season - really excited about my new signings which I am sure will take us up a level.

View attachment 472846

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MAY

UEFA Europa League SF 2nd Leg
Valencia 3 (Dell'Aquila 6, Subotic 75, Lucas Leiva 84)
Hartlepool United 2 (Kakuta 11, Igor Augusto 69)
(Hartlepool United win 4-3 on aggregate)

Our 2nd successive Europa League final is secured and we will face Spartak Moscow after they defeated Spurs.

--

Hull City Tigers 2 (Rooney 62, 72)
Hartlepool United 3 (Connors 6, Kakuta 58, de Bruin 76)

1 game down 3 to go. Rooney could be in the Championship next season!!!

--

Aston Villa 1 (Biton 24)
Hartlepool United 2 (de Bruin 50, Basic 75)

1 win away from the title!!!!!! Apparently my half-time team talk made all the difference.

--

FA Cup Final
Hartlepool United 2 (James 15, Basic 79)
Burnley 0

Last year James scored a hat-trick in the cup final and he came back into the side to make the difference here. We retain the FA Cup!!

FYI - Burnley's manager is Pools club legend Neale Cooper - if we ever get a new stadium it could be named after him rather than me lol

--

UEFA Europa League Final
Hartlepool United 3 (James 7pen, Connors 37, 119)
Spartak Moscow 2 (Dembele 27, Bruno 55)
AET

Two Europa League titles in a row!!!!

Luke James popped up with another goal in a final and Jake Connors did the rest. I made a few sentimental subs again by putting on Holden and Baldwin - after all they have been with me all the way!!!!!!

--

Hartlepool United 1 (Dimosthenous 24)
Chelsea 0

CHAMPIONS!!!!!!

We win the title!!!!!!!!!!!! I remember saying to Sam91 that I thought I could do it within 8-10 seasons but I have done it in the 6th season amazingly. And we are going to get stronger next season............

--

Hartlepool United 2 (Sinclair 10pen, Kakuta 74)
Stoke City 0

A decent way to end the season.

--

LINEUPS
OPP
RES
GK
RB
CB
CB
LB
CM
CM
AMR
AML
AMC
ST
SUBS
Val
2-3
Kean
Ward
Baldwin
Chalobah
Holden
Pedrinho*
Igor Augusto
James
Kakuta
Sissoko
Connors
Castrillon, Fueyo, Tucker
Hull
3-2
Kean
Ward
Schwartz
Baldwin
Shaw
Sissoko
Igor Augusto
Fueyo
Kakuta
de Bruin
Connors
Basic, Joao Paulo
Villa
2-1
Kean
Mahon
Schwartz
Chalobah*
Holden
Adryan
Pedrinho
James
Kakuta
de Bruin
Basic
Vergara
Burn
2-0
Kean
Ward
Schwartz
Chalobah
Shaw
Sissoko
Igor Augusto
James
Sinclair
de Bruin
Connors
Basic, Holden, Baldwin
Spar
3-2
Kean
Ward
Schwartz
Chalobah
Shaw
Sissoko
Igor Augusto
James
Kakuta
Adryan
Connors* 2
Sinclair, Baldwin, Holden
Chel
1-0
Kean
Mahon
Schwartz
Baldwin
Shaw
Pedrinho
Tucker
Dimosthenous
Sinclair
de Bruin
Basic
Vergara, McKinney
Stoke
2-0
Kean
Symons
Donatelli*
Castrillon
Holden
Pedrinho
Vergara
James
Sinclair
Kakuta
Connors
Basic, McKinney, Dimosthenous

--

PLAYER OF THE MONTH
GAEL KAKUTA
View attachment 472819

--

SUMMARY

One month and 3 trophies!!!! The 2 cup finals were relatively simple but we were the favourites for both finals so it was no surprise that we won them both. The league was less of a certainty but we won our last 4 games to take the title by 4pts.

I will give a more in depth review of the season in my next post tomorrow.

View attachment 472815

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images

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Amazing treble, well done! Who would have thought it, Hartlepool... Premier League and 2 time Europa League champions...
 

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END OF SEASON POST

This season was spectacular to say the least. We won the league for the first time, the Community Shield for the first time and both the FA Cup and Europa League for the 2nd time. We didnt disgrace ourselves in the Champions League and almost beat Barcelona to win the Super Cup too.

My young side performed brilliantly once again. Chalobah and Schwartz were amazing at the back while Marcelinho and Shaw are 2 of the best full backs going. Sissoko and Igor Augusto held things together in midfield while Sinclair, Kakuta, de Bruin and Adryan supplied both goals and assists for Basic and Connors.

We won the league by being the top scorers yet our leading marksman in the league only had 10 goals. The goals were shared evenly throughout the team and I had 7 players who scored 7 goals or more in the league.

--

FIRST TEAM SQUAD
View attachment 472758View attachment 472757

--

PLAYER OF THE SEASON
NATHANIEL CHALOBAH
View attachment 472756

--

U21 PLAYER OF THE SEASON
JOSKO BASIC
View attachment 472754

--

AWARDS
Manager of the Year
Players Young Player of the Year - N.Chalobah
Players Team of the Year - N.Chalobah (Adryan)

--

OTHER NEWS
I reject a job offer from Man City......
....who lost to Bayern Munich in the Champions League final
Youth facilities to be upgraded
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Congrats mate!!! Really well done, Chalobah looks like he done immense for you. On my Chelsea Youth save I think he came second in the World Player of the Year in 2015 so I'm sure he'll become the best centre back in the world for you very very soon!!

Champions League next!!
 
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PRE-SEASON

I have the nagging feeling that I havent done enough this summer as I didnt spend a penny - all my transfers costing money were agreed to sign months ago so I was ahead of the game in that respect. I still have £30m to spend and it just feels wrong sitting there doing nothing lol.

Now I have an admission to make - I did a bit of a cheat lol - at the end of last season when I posted the updates I saved the game and my next news item was the exciting news of a new stadium called the Cooper Stadium after former manager Neale Cooper and not me!!!!! So in a rage I reloaded it to see what would happen the next time and nothing did! I even asked the board for a new stadium and they said no lol

Anywho without further ado I will introduce you to my new players............

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PLAYERS IN

I decided to add 2 more Americans to the squad and agreed them to come in March. Dustin Newsome and Phillip Foose came in from Sporting Lisbon (£11.5) and AZ Alkmaar (£8.75m). I could have signed Newsome a few years back for £2m but I didnt take it up lol.
View attachment 472536View attachment 472535

I signed 4 players on free transfers for the first team squad and 3 were wonderkids!!!!! Ruben, who I had on loan 2 seasons back, came in from Real Madrid, Theo Walcott from Man City, Andrea Malara from Juventus and Sanjin Mijatovic from Rijeka.
View attachment 472540View attachment 472539View attachment 472538View attachment 472537

Finally I spent £1.1m on a wonderkid Brazilian defender, £875K on a 15y/o Italian and a Brazilian striker on loan.
View attachment 472534View attachment 472533View attachment 472532

--

PLAYERS OUT

Scott Sinclair was the main departure. He left for Liverpool for £14.25m which of course was all profit. Youngsters Brady, Davis and Love were sold for a total of £400K. Kieran Gibbs and Dominik Huber were both loaned out for £1m each while I also loaned out several other players most notably Fueyo and Castrillon.

I released William Ford.

--

SUMMARY

I am fairly happy with my squad. My keeper is decent enough, my back four wont be changed for years (I even turned down the chance to sign Zouma for £20m), I am happy with my midfield and forwards. Maybe a world class winger might be required but other than that I cant see much else happening.

Foose will be backup CB, Newsome first choice CM while all the rest will be backups but getting plenty of games due to the shear amount of cup games we tend to play.

--

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KRIS STUART APPOINTED ITALY MANAGER

So I leave Croatia (havent learnt the language) as there was a host of good jobs that became available after the World Cup which was won by Belgium after they beat France.

I decided to apply for several jobs and decided to go for the first offer. England and Portugal rejected me and I got offered the chance to manage Belgium, France, Spain and Scotland but Italy approched me first so off I went.

I immediately appointed Tassotti as my assistant and Buffon as my goalkeeper coach.

Now its time to learn Italian!!!!
​
 
That is crazy i have had the exact same player in my game generate. Do not have proof but stats are so similair its silly. Same position, nationality and same regen skin! Crazy!!!
 
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AUGUST

FA Community Shield
Tottenham Hotspur 2 (Barrett 37, 81)
Hartlepool United 1 (de Bruin 29)

We were pathetic here and should have lost by 6 or 7. Not impressed.

--

Hartlepool United 4 (de Bruin 9, 73, Connors 43, Chalobah 86)
Norwich City 2 (Wood 39, Mlinaric 90)

A decent enough start to the season I suppose.

--

UEFA Super Cup
Hartlepool United 1 (Connors 35)
Bayern Munich 2 (Benteke 59, Javi Martinez 79)

Connors scored to put us 2up but it was disallowed which pretty much changed the course of the game.

--

LINEUPS
OPP
RES
GK
RB
CB
CB
LB
CM
CM
AMR
AML
AMC
ST
SUBS
Spurs1-2KeanMarcelinhoSchwartzChalobahShaw
NewsomeIgor AugustoJamesKakutade Bruin
ConnorsWalcott, Adryan
Nor4-2
Kean
Marcelinho
Schwartz
Chalobah
Shaw
Newsome
Adryan
James
Kakuta
de Bruin* 2
Connors
Mahon, Walcott, Malara
Bayern1-2
Kean
Marcelinho
Schwartz
Chalobah
Shaw
Newsome
Igor Augusto
James
Kakuta
de Bruin
Connors
Foose, Pedrinho, Malara

--

PLAYER OF THE MONTH
JAN DE BRUIN
View attachment 472497

--

SUMMARY

I am pretty angry not to win at least one of the Super Cups but I shouldnt be too greedy I suppose. At least we started the league campaign with a win.

In the Champions League we will play Juventus, Saint-Etienne and Dinamo Bucharest so we should qualify from that group.

As for the transfer window I was left largely frustrated. I agreed to sign Muniain for £26m but he got injured and is out for 8 months so that deal was off. I couldnt afford the wages to get Bernard or Hazard and I found a great regen playing for Lyon but was quoted £65m!!!!!!

I did however bring in a decent striker for £20K though and sent him off to Oostende to get a work permit.........
View attachment 472496

Leaving the club was Joel Ward to Norwich for a loan fee of £1.7m.

Here are the other Premeirship transfers.
View attachment 472494View attachment 472493View attachment 472492

--

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ITALY

Friendly

Italy 4 (Bellusci 6, Gabbiadini 45, Dell'Aquila 57, El Shaarawy 60)
Chile 3 (Rubio 63, 64, Munoz 75)
​
 
brooksey84 said:
That is crazy i have had the exact same player in my game generate. Do not have proof but stats are so similair its silly. Same position, nationality and same regen skin! Crazy!!!
Click to expand...

Who?
 
Do you reckon you can post the current save up, would love to play it :)
 
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