Spurious Logic

End of the season

The end of the season went by rather more quickly after the successes of the third quarter. The only way we'll be relegated is if there's a massive collapse in morale or a sudden spate of serious injuries.  Not only do we not collapse but we put together the best set of results for the entire season including a 4-0 win against a struggling team and a 1-0 win against the (then) league leaders.

In short:

At the end of the season we're in 11th! We are officially midtable. (click for full table)

The mid season signings of José and Armiche really turned out well and I think they are why we've finished so strongly. It really does give me hope that I can get to the playoffs at least next season. As for Calderón my early season striker, he was de-registered in January so hasn't played in all that time. And he still managed to get himself injured. So I'm going to offload him over the summer, hopefully bring in someone more robust.

In the last few games I gave one of the youth defenders (Gustavo Santana) a run out and he's looking good. More than capable of playing at this level and I hope he can get a few good runs in the senior team next year.

Given that I feel that we're probably going to stay up, I've start thinking about the longer term future of the club. The real pressing issue is financial. Who exactly do we owe money to and why aren't they collecting on their debt? We're going to be £200K in debt by the end of the season and while I do plan on getting promoted next year, the backers don't know that.

I'm planning on setting up as many prestige friendlies as I can over the summer and haul in the debt that way. But even this isn't guaranteed as each team expects to be paid to play (£70 for smaller teams, up to £10,000 for large foreign clubs) and there are only 3000 seats in the stadium. Not all of which will be filled.

Which brings me to the pitch. There's a clear picture of the of the grounds which the real world "Moratalla" use and it clearly has an artificial pitch with no seating  but in the gameworld it's grass. Have we paid £180K to some dodgy contractor to get them to cover our fine pitch with earth and plant grass?

Maybe it's  really Miguel Polo, the chairman, who loaned us so much money and he will never ask for it back? No matter what, it is an ongoing concern. The only real long term solution is to get bums into seats and buying tickets. This will only come with sustained success and attractive football. I really hope the success is more important than the football.

Another peculiarity but again not at all important, why is the club in the game marked as being founded in 1946, on wikipedia in 1979 and according to the clubs website as 2000? Is this even the same Moratalla? Am I playing with some freak alternative dimension Moratalla who have a different founding date and stadium?

Over the course of the season I've had to engage the press to motivate the players. Usually I'd just pass it off to the assistant manager but when his motivational skills are poor then it's probably best to do it yourself. It's fun for the first few times but after 30+ conferences basically repeating the same lines over, and over and over again it'd be nice to have a template answer.

-Do you like the opposition manager: "Yes he's a very nice man and there's a lot of mutual respect. I'm sure he pets little dogs a lot." My team don't like it when I bait the opposition so I've got to be nice. - What do you think of player X: "I don't like to concentrate on just one player." If you insult the wrong player they can come back an play fantastically. - Do you have any surprises in your line up: "No, everyone knows how we play." The team likes routine. - How are you going to play: "We are going to sit back and grind out a result." The team likes not having high standards set.

Apart from the odd variation that's how 90% of the conferences went. If you do them wrong you are punished, if you do them right you get a slight performance bump. And they all take around a minute to complete. They're a good idea but I'm gonna get a competent Assistant Manager over the summer and he can handle them all.

So now I'm going to look over my roster and try and establish what I need for the next season. I'm thinking that I'm going to be concentrating as much as I can on U19 players as they don't need to be registered and can keep fit in the u19 team. Also any buys will be backup/good prospects as my first team is pretty much settled now. If there are big money offers (i.e. £40,000 and over) for any of my players they will be sold.

OUT: (planned): Raul Absedelam, the physio, the scout lost in argentina, Guerrero, Daniel, Javier Rivero, Antonio Calderón and José Antonio Díaz Ruiz.

IN: backup/youth prospect for-  right back, right winger, left winger, fast striker, target man. The wingers being the priority.