|
September 17th, 2014
North America Amateur Cup Wake Forest Cougars vs So California Seahorses Attendence: 204 Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Arroyo DM: Williams M: Glaser/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Cooper ST: Navarro Full rotation back to the best team we are capable of fielding. Defensive/retain possession. 3': Defender Whiteman for So Cal gets a yellow. 5': They work up to a strong shot from the right, just wide. 11': We watch another very wide shot of theirs, the concern being that it came from Glaser getting dispossessed fairly deep in our own end. 12': Cooper to Shakespeare, he runs into the area, near the baseline, lays it back for Cooper who blasts a shot from the right.. goal! 1-0 14': A very long ball from one of their defenders, a striker runs onto it but he can't control it well, ends up a bit wide out left, and catn' get his shot on target. 34': Glaser sends it up to Rose, near the corner of the penalty area, he runs by his man, crosses to the 6 yard box, Cooper is there, heads it, goal!! 2-0 HALF: We outshoot them 8-4, they haven't put one on target yet. 66': Yellow for their defender Garcia 72': Davidson in for Rose. 75': Yellow for ST Correra for them. 79': Tapia in for Glaser 86': First highlight of the second half, a good sign for us. They earn a corner on a cross, Arroyo heads the first one away for another corner, that one is aimed poorly and we get a goal kick. 91': Gyan saves a cross, turning it behind, corner... cleared away, they earn a throwin. Eventually they manage a weak shot that Gyan easily saves. That's it! Wake Forest 2 : 0 Southern California Man of the Match: Ian Cooper (8.8) Goals: Cooper 2 Assists: Shakespeare (7.5), Rose (7.0) Notables: Arroyo (7.1), Galvis (7.2), Pickering (7.0), Campbell (7.2) Ian Cooper is becoming a superstar here. -- We receive $38,750 for this win! -- I should point out, I think most of these teams really don't care about this tournament. Southern California is on a hot streak in their league, doing quite well in a tier above us, but today we played against guys with average ratings under 6 in a couple cases, guys on their U18 squad. We are very clearly taking advantage of the fact that we have nothing to play for in league, while these other teams are treating this like a very secondary tournament. |
North America Amateur Cup - Semifinal Draw
Wake Forest Cougars will host the California Jaguars, yet another team from the Gold Coast Amateur League. The Jaguars are currently struggling and are in 15th in that league out of 20 teams, just two spots ahead of relegation. In the other semifinal, Match Fit Academy of the Colonial Amateur League will face Regals FC of the All-American Amateur League. Match Fit have a 15-4-5 record in their league and currently lead the league by 3 points. Regals FC are 10-8-5 and in 4th place in their league, fighting hard for a playoff spot. So between relegation and promotion, all four of these teams have tons to play for. Hopefully that helps us out! This match will be on October 1st. |
Ugh... would have liked to see Hilo beat Match Fit.
|
Quote:
I agree. I'm sure my players would have enjoyed a potential trip to Hawaii for the semifinals as well. September 20th, 2014 Wake Forest Cougars (9-4-6, 8th) vs Tupelo Possums (3-4-13, 16th) Attendence: 252 We're 1-6 favorites today against the team that is the reason we aren't playing for playoffs right now. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Coggins/Burke/Garcia/Varela DM: Pena M: Sandoval/Tapia AM: Davidson/Crook ST: Pace Full changes today, except for Gyan. Even with backups, I tell the team I expect them to win. 28': First highlight so far, Davidson just walks by his man to earn a clear cut chance but puts it hilariously wide. HALF: We outshoot them 5-2 and are clearly the better team but have nothing to show for it. 59': Coggins with a long cross, their keeper punches it away, Pace with a shot after the rebound... but he puts it off the crossbar. 93': We get a corner, they head it out, we retain possession and after a couple passes Davidson is in the right side of the area, by his man, he strikes it well... off the post though. Nope, not today. Wake Forest 0 : 0 Tupelo Notables: Tapia (7.0) I wouldn't' care about this if it weren't for wanting revenge for the earlier key loss. Maybe the team just has a general issue performing in situations where they are fully expected to win. |
September 26th, 2014
Wake Forest Cougars (9-5-6, 8th) vs Cleveland Stokers (6-5-9, 13th) Attendence: 253 We drew each other earlier in the year Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Arroyo DM: Williams M: Glaser/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Cooper ST: Navarro 2': They build up slowly after kickoff, eventually with a pass into the right side of the area for Sinisterra, he shoots, Gyan saves, but rebound falls to another one of their strikers and he puts it in. 0-1 4': Navarro a through ball to Shakespeare, looked a sure goal, but the keeper saves it, we get a corner out of it but its cleared. 22': They control possession again for a good while, finally a run down the left, a cross... and a goal, but, offsides, whew. HALF: Roth is coming in for Navarro who has picked up a minor injury. 76': Took long enough! Cooper out wide right, he puts it into the area, Shakespeare runs onto it and volleys it in off a bounce. 1-1 82': Perkins in for Glaser, Tapia in for Williams. That'll do it. Wake Forest 1 : 1 Cleveland Stokers Man of the Match: Make Shakespeare (7.4) Goal: Shakespeare Assist: Cooper (6.7) I tell the team I'm disappointed, but I'm not sure if they can tell that I actually don't give a shit at all what happened here. :D |
October Update
-- Navarro, Perkins, Arroyo train well. DC Garry Garcia, and DC Pickering both struggle with fitness training. -- The board remains very pleased with my leadership. Our fantastic performance in the North American Amateur Cup is the highlight. ST Leon Roth's poor play is the negative. He's hardly played... We made $53,580 last month, thanks to the Amateur Cup. October 1st, 2014 North America Amateur Cup Semifinals Wake Forest Cougars vs California Jaguars Attendence: 213 We still can't bring fans to the stadium for this, even for a semi. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Arroyo DM: Tapia M: Glaser/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Navarro Williams and Rose still seem to be slow to recover after both being out with long-ish term injuries. Neither are fully ready for this one and would definitely have to be subbed if they started. So I'll make them both subs. 5': Throwin in their end, Cooper ends up sending it into the area for Shakespeare, he's brought down... but no penalty. They end up clearing safely. 17': They have a corner that hits the post as it curls in... we clear. 23': We watch them take a shot from 30 yards out that is nowhere close at all. 29': Navarro picks up a minor injury. Unsure if he stays in long term or not. 33': There's a long back and forth over possession in the midfield, finally they win it, a couple passes ahead and they send it to their left midfielder coming towards the goal, he has a clear cut chance... but puts it high. 43': Yellow for Arroyo 46': They earn one corner, we head that behind.. the second one is no danger. HALF: They outshoot us 4-3, and have the only clear cut chance so far. We are dominating in the air and winning most of our tackles too which is good. Overall though its quite even. Pace is in for Navarro. 46': Cooper with a run down the right side right after kickoff.. a cross in, headed by pace, pushed away by the keeper. Davidson is there for the rebound.. and the keeper recovers enough to get his hands on that too. Sad. 58': Free kick for us, we make the keeper dive to stop it, corner.. which is cleared easily. 78': Perkins in for Glaser, Rose in for Davidson. 84': Pace is hurt... not out of the match but really hobbled. 91': Free kick for us, Cooper sends it into the area, Shakespeare heads it.. inches wide. FULL TIME: Pretty dull half really. They lead in shots 9-7, we now have more on target with 4, and really should have scored in the opening minute of the half. Once we didn't, it was pretty slow. The first half of extra time passes with no highlights. And so does the second half. With Pace injured I was content to go to penalties and didn't try to do anything aggressive in extra time. PENALTIES: They shoot first: Bevan: right side, good. 0-1 Shakespeare: right side, good. 1-1 Marshall: left side, good. 1-2 Perkins: right side, good. 2-2 Adams: left side, Gyan dives same way but can't get it. 2-3 Galvis: top right corner, good. 3-3 Rodriguez: right side, good. 3-4 Cooper: right at the keeper, pretty sure the keeper got a hand on it, but it went in anyway. 4-4 Johnson: right side, good. 4-5 Arroyo: right side, good. 5-5 Williams: left side, good. 5-6 Tapia: upper right, good. 6-6 Miller: right side, good. 6-7 Pickering: down the middle, good. 7-7 Dominguez: right side, good. 7-8 Rose: left side, good. 8-8 Is this going to come down to the keepers like the last one? Moctezuma: left side, good. 8-9 Campbell: Middle-left, good. 9-9 Patham: Good right side, 9-10 - This was their keeper Gyan: upper left, good. 10-10 Bevan: right side, good - 10-11 - wait did one of them shoot twice early? WTF? Pace: Left side, good - 11-11 Ok this is just silly. I load up Reddit on my second monitor and wait. After penalties even out at 15-15, their midfielder Williams hits one right at Gyan and he luckily doesn't dive and saves it. Arroyo takes his penalty and scores! Wake Forest 0p (16) : (15) 0 California So we win... 16-15 on penalties. Man of the Match: Mark Shakespeare (7.4) Notables: Arroyo (7.2), Campbell (7.0), Tapia (7.1) In the end they outshoot us 10-9, we put more on target but they get the only clear cut chance, and in the end it doesn't matter, as we watch 16 penalty attempts by each team to decide it. We are going to the finals!! -- We are given $77,500 for winning in the semifinal! We have $240k in the bank, with the vast majority of it coming in prize money. Surely one of the richest amateur teams in history. Injury Update ST Ronnie Navarro is out for 3-4 weeks with a leg injury he picked up today. -- Match Fit Academy beat Regals FC in the other semifinal 1:0 in extra time, so we're going to face them in the final. -- The Final is in Dallas, in FC Dallas Stadium! We have one more league match then 10 days off before the final. It won't be enough to get Navarro in there, sadly. |
Could your board decide to go semi-pro and get you promoted up to Level 6 that way? :D
|
October 4th, 2014
Model City Kings (9-6-6, 8th) vs Wake Forest Cougars(9-6-6, 8th) Attendence: 211 We won the first meeting this year. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Coggins/Burke/Lassiter/Varela DM: Williams M: Glaser/Shakespeare AM: Colangelo/Crook ST: Roth Backups in since we just played 3 days ago. 23': AMR Ryan Crook is hurt and has to leave the match. Sandoval is in in his place, playing out of position because I didn't pay enough attention to subs going into this. 42': They shoot from 20 yards out, its off the post, Gyan dove for it and missed. The ball bounces off the post and hits Gyan in the back and rolls slowly towards the net. Gyan recovers just in time to turn around and pounce on the ball. HALF: They outshoot us 4-2, one shot on target for each. 46': Buildup for us after the kickoff, Colangelo finds Roth about 20 yards out with no one in front of him. The keeper rushes out, and Roth tries to lob over him... his shot just hits the crossbar, so close. 57': Yellow for Coggins 60': Perkins in for Shakespeare 65': Sandoval and Roth with a give and go move on the right side, Roth back to Sandoval who beats the keeper. Hooray for out of position subs! 1-0 75': Pena in for Glaser 78': Pretty awful defending on our part of a weak ball into the left side of the area, we let ST Valeasco get deep with the ball with lots of help, he puts it into the 6 yard box and they get a header in. 1-1 That's it for this one. Model City 1 : 1 Wake Forest Man of the Match: Ashley Sandoval (7.1) Goal: Sandoval Assist: Roth (6.7) Coggins/Lassister/Burke with 6.3/6.4/6.5 ratings, they could have been better. -- backup AML Luca Colangelo was hurt near the end of that one, he's going to miss 2 weeks. Crook has no long term issues. |
Quote:
This is my first time managing an amateur team so I have no idea at all what to expect. Maybe if we win the final and get tons of money? Who knows! |
-- Coggins has to miss another match after his yellow card in the last one. He'll miss the Cup final. He wasn't going to start anyway.
-- We have a U18 match on Oct 6th and a reserve match on Oct 8th. i make my starters available for those since there's no league match until the cup final on the 15th. -- AMR Ian Cooper is hurt in the U18 match, he'll miss about a week. So he might not be able to go in the finals. That would be a pretty big blow if that's the case. October 15th, 2014 North America Amateur Cup Final Match Fit Academy vs Wake Forest Cougars Attendence: 1426 I was hoping for more fans. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Arroyo DM: Williams M: Glaser/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Cooper ST: Pace Cooper isn't 100% fit, but he can start and we'll see how long we can go without having to sub him out. Pace will start in Navarro's place. Jordan Schmid is their big star. Schmid has 7 goals and 5 assists in 6 matches in this Cup so far. We're going to try to close down on him any time he touches the ball. 1': they earn an early corner, taken into the 6 yard box.. headed, off the crossbar and over. 4': We get our first shot, Cooper to Shakespeare for a header, but stopped easily. 13': They build up down the right side for a shot, but its a very off target shot from 20 yards out. 16': Another shot wide from Match Fit. 22': Galvis with an interception to start our offense, Rose does most of the work, with just a pass to Pace at one point, Rose gets it back, gets by his man and into the area, its actually a clear cut chance.. but high. 40': Pace is hurt and forced to leave the match. Randy Adamson tackled him pretty hard, he gets a yellow. Roth is in. 43': Shakespeare hits the crossbar from 25 yards out on a free kick, close. 47': Corner for them, taken to the far side of the 6 yard box... headed, it hits a defender and Gyan scoops it up. That was a clear cut chance for Match Fit. HALF: We'll take it. They are outshooting us 7-4, just 1 on target from both teams, 1 clear cut chance for both. They are in control in the air, a rarity for Wake Forest games, we usually win the majority of our headers. 55': Roth with a terrible free kick from 30 yards out, they clear but we recover, work it back up to Roth where he puts a shot wide. 59': A cross into the 6 yard box from the left corner for MAtch Fit, it falls to their star Schmid and he puts it in from very close range. Boo! 0-1 61': Schmid with a shot from outside the box that hits the crossbar, that was close. 62': We have to attack now. 68': Crook in for Cooper, just too tired. 79': Tapia in for Glaser. 84': They pressure us after a goal kick and steal the ball in midfield, a run by ST Thompson and he shoots.. Gyan with a great diving stop, and we clear. That wsa their 4th clear cut chance. There's just nothing we can do. Wake Forest 0 : 1 Match Fit We weren't expected to win this one, and they were obviously the better team, we only had one decent look and weren't able to finish it. They had lot of chances and made one of them work. DC Galvis put up a 7.0 rating on the back line. A 6.1 from DL Campbell, everyone else was in that 6.5-6.7 range. -- Samir Pace is going to be out for 2 months with the injury he picked up today. We only play one more match so no big deal. |
October 18th, 2014
Wake Forest Cougars (9-7-6, 9th) vs Blacksburg Bears (5-7-10) Attendence: 281 Most teams played a couple days ago, our match was postponed due to the cup final. If we win by 3 or more, we finish 8th. Any other result, we finish 9th. Starting Lineup GK: Garcia D: Rongen/Garcia/Burke/Jackson DM: Pena M: Sandoval/Tapia AM: Salas/Thompson ST: Reynoso I start all of my most little used guys. 35': First highlight of the match, Tapia with a corner, Rongen a clear cut chance from 6 yards out but its blocked and cleared. HALF: Lets get on to something more interesting! 73': Damn nice save by Clark Garcia on a strong shot from 15 yards out by Blacksburg. Two highlights for the entire match. Wake Forest 0 : 0 Blacksburg Man of the Match: Sean Rongen (7.2) Notables: Jackson (7.1), Burke (7.0), Tapia (7.1) Some solid defense today. We finish 9th in the league. I'll do end of season stuff tomorrow. |
I suppose not a bad first season, but I'm sure you wanted more.
|
Quote:
I'm sure some SEC football team has something to say about that ;) Great stuff as usual! The last time I was visiting the dynasty forum regularly, you had your Ipswich one going, so that's some fortunate timing on my part. |
Quote:
Making the finals of the amateur cup helped, but failing to make it into the top split to have a shot at the league playoffs, especially since it involved a bad loss to the worst team in the league in the final week, is definitely the most important result of the season. Quote:
Thanks! |
Before I do anything else, lets get through the league playoffs and see who is going to promote.
Appalachain Premier League Semifinals Hickory Heat 0 (p) : 0 Kentucky Colonels Twin City Patrol 1 : 0 Asheville Attack Appalachain Premier League Finals Hickory Heat 2 : 0 Twin City Patrol Appalachain Premier League Promotion The Fayetteville Liberty win the league with 42 points in 21 matches, they will promote. The Hickory Heat win the playoffs after finishing 4th with 32 points in 21 matches, they will also promote. I'm pretty sure both of these teams will promote into the Atlantic Coast Amateur League. Four teams relegate out of that league, Savannah Braves, North Meck SC, Roosevelt, and Bayamon. I assume we will get two of those teams in our league next year. Tons of coaches are fired, I get asked by the media for each one (or at least each one that comes across my news feed) if I'm interested in the job. In every case I state that I have a contract with Wake Forest and haven't met my goals for this team yet. The board is pleased. November Update -- Brian Williams and Amidu Gyan trained well. Ashley Sandoval and David Campbell did not. -- The board is pleased with my leadership (down from very pleased). Our great locker room atmosphere is a highlight. Our 0-0 draw vs Blacksburg is a negative. We made $92,320 last month. Possibly a sign regarding semi-pro stuff, "The financial outlook of the club is looking relatively stable for the forseeable future" Ownership Update -- Wake Forest Cougars could be taken over by a consortium of businessmen, possibly involving a former player, according to the media. We'll see what happens with that and if it impacts me. |
Final Standings
 |
Team Stats
 Sorted by rating. So when everyone is healthy, Mora, Cooper, Rose and Navarro are my biggest offensive players, so its no surprise that they're up at the top here. Shakespeare spent more of his time in the "supportive" MC position this season, but did take over for Mora in the more attacking MC role when Mora was hurt, which was a lot. Pickering was by far my highest rated defensive player, but he is also 6'8" and is very dangerous on corner kicks, as seen by his 4 goals. Goal Leaders Navarro - 11 Mora - 8 Shakespeare - 6 Davidson - 6 Roth - 5 Cooper - 5 Rose - 4 Pickering - 4 Pace - 3 Crook - 3 Assist Leaders Cooper - 14 Navarro - 11 Shakespeare - 6 Davidson - 6 Mora - 6 Rose - 3 Crook - 3 Man of the Match winners Mora - 6 Navarro - 5 Shakespeare - 4 Rose - 3 Roth - 2 Cooper - 2 Pickering - 2 |
Injury Update
Backup DC Don Burke broke his foot in training and is out 5-6 months. By the time he gets back from injury and goes through reserve matches to get his fitness up it'll probably be July or August, ugh. Appalachain Premier League Leaders Goals 1. Stephen Marshall - Fayeteville - 16 goals 2. Gus Chapman - Huntington - 11 goals 3. Anthony Schmidt - Kentucky - 10 goals 3. Johnny Clark - Blacksburg - 10 goals 5. Alfonso Grisi - Model City - 9 goals ... 14. Ronnie Navarro - Wake Forest - 6 goals 26. Brian Davidson - Wake Forest - 4 goals 26. Jhonatan Mora - Wake Forest - 4 goals Johnny Clark left Wake Forest for Blacksburg in the preseason. I had him penciled in as my #2 or #3 striker at the time. Assists 1. Stephen Marshall - Fayeteville - 8 2. Gary Spicer - Model City - 7 3. Ian Cooper - Wake Forest - 6 3. 5 others tied - 6 ... 9. Jhonatan Mora - 5 9. Ronnie Navarro - 5 Average Rating 1. Stephen Marshall - Fayeteville - 7.47 2. Anthony Schmidt - Kentucky - 7.28 3. Jhonatan Mora - Wake Forest - 7.16 3. Ronnie Navarro - Wake Forest - 7.16 3. Johnny Clark - Blacksburg - 7.16 ... 7. MArk Shakespeare - Wake Forest - 7.09 8. Ian Cooper - Wake Forest - 7.07 27. Brian Davidson - Wake Forest - 6.90 |
Injury Update
ST Samir Pace recovered from injury, went into a U18 match, and got hurt again immediately. He's going to miss 3-4 months. Its now December, so that puts him out until March'ish. End of Season Team Meeting I tell the team to enjoy their break, and to be ready when they come back because we are aiming to promote next season. -- DC Galvis (our captain) has a good response, saying that its a challenge but we can do it. -- MC Shakespeare is cautious and thinks that's an awful ot of pressure. -- I re-iterate that we can absolutely achieve promotion if we play our best. -- Backup MC Sandoval agrees about our expectations being fine. -- Overall, 5 players had a good reaction to my expectations, while 9 had a bad reaction. Notable poor reactions came from Shakespeare, Rose, Gyan, and Mora. The negatives far outweighed the positives here, I'll have to be careful of that in the future. Yearly training summary Backup GK Phil Harrington and DL David Campbell are noted for having the best training performances throughout the year. Pre-Season Start I can bring the players back on 12/29, 1/5, or 1/12. I choose the middle option, 1/5/15, which will give us a 5 week long preseason. Transfer Embargo -- Because of the impending takeover of the team, we're not allowed to bring in any transfers. They're all free anyway! North American Open Cup New England beats Seattle in a thrilling 5-4 match to win the biggest domestic competition in the US. Tax Bill We pay around $75,000 in taxes based on making a profit of $250k. Jersey Sponsorship We sign a 2 year sponsorship deal worth $9,750 per year. Takeover Cancelled The consortium that was looking to take over Wake Forest has backed out. This was over about a 2 week period from the transfer embargo. Our transfer embargo is lifted. Its not quite Christmas, we'll start dealing with all this in early January. Financial Update -- Wake Forest have announced a profit of $250,000 for the last year, "a staggering 78% of their turnover" That was more than I thought I'd be cramming into this post. Its now December 31st and transfer windows are open. Its still a week until we get our players back from vacation, but its about time to start planning for the new season. |
Ugh I was going to try to format player attributes nicely here to review the roster starting the new year, but I lost a bunch of if when OpenOffice crashed on me, so screw it, maybe next year.
Depth Chart - Goalkeepers 1. Amidu Gyan - 27 y/o - Best Combo of technical/mental attributes. 2. Phil Harrington - 24 y/o - As good as Gyan technically, weak mentally I have two 17 y/o keepers. Clark Garcia could surpass these guys... eventually. But with training being what it is at this level, not really worth worrying about. Gyan remains the starter here. Defenders - Left Side 1. David Campbell - 22 y/o - Not skilled at all. Coggins should be my best here, but the ratings last year did not bear that out. 2. Danny Coggins - 25 y/o - Best Technically and Mentally by a lot. 3. Sean Rongen - 17 y/o - Rongen is actually better technically than Campbell too Coggins is by far the best by the numbers, but Campbell put up better ratings last year. If Coggins plays well he probably gets all the starts here when he's fit. If no one stands out I may well rotate all three of them though. Defenders - Right Side 1. Steve Arroyo - 17 y/o - By attributes, the best defender on my team. One of the few players with lots of 8's in spots like marking/tackling 2. Bob Varela - 16 y/o - Fine numbers for a backup, but Arroyo clearly looks better. 3. Joe Jackson - 27 y/o - Jackson's attributes are basically the same as Varela, I chose to give the younger guy more playing time last season. Varela has the highest average rating here, but he only played when fully fit and sometimes against weaker opposition to rest Arroyo. Arroyo's attributes are so much better that its impossible to not start him (unlike Campbell vs Coggins at DL) Defenders - Central 1. Joe Pickering - 16 y/o Attribute-wise, he looks like just another schlub, but he's 6'8" and the ratings he put up separated him from the pack last year. 2. Hernando Galvis - 25 y/o - The only DC with super high determination. Also the best leader and thus captain. Elsewhere he's in line with everyone else, so that gives him the bump to start. 3. Garry Garcia - 17 y/o - Best marking at this position. There's a big clump of players here really. 4. Tommy Lassiiter - 28 y/o - Best heading and Tackling, strongest DC, but the lowest composure and determination. 5. Don Burke - 25 y/o - By far the worst technically, minus the fact that he can jump... Looking at attributes, the top 4 guys seem interchangeable mostly, and Burke clearly seems worse. Galvis wins out entirely b/c of determination and leadership. Looking at ratings last year, it goes Pickering >>>>> Galvis/Burke >>> Garcia/Lassiter. Burke is 6'7" so maybe he outplays his ratings b/c of height too. |
Defensive Midfielders
1. Brian Williams - 17 y/o - On paper Williams is better here and its not remotely close. His key technical attribute are all... ok... 6-8 range. No giant holes. 2. Timothy Pena - 24 yu/o - Looks like crap. I wanted to replace him in the preseason last year and couldn't find better. But... in game, their ratings are basically the same. One change i will make this year, last season I just played them both in "Defensive Mid" roles. But my assistant thinks they're both better as "Ball Winning Midfielders" and both have pretty high aggression, one of the key stats for that role. So I will probably change the role for my DM's and see if it lets them make more plays. Central Midfielders 1. Jhonatan Mora - 21 y/o - Ratings don't much stand out, outside of a nice flair rating and a high work rate. Dude got results though. 2. Jose Alejandro Tapia - 24 y/o - best technical midfielder, best positioning and no 2'3 and 3's. 3. Mark Shakespeare - 17 y/o - 2nd best technically behind Tapia, weaker mentally than Mora though. 4. Gary Glaser - 18 y/o - So average everywhere. The guys behind him have major weak spots where Glaser is... ok. 5. Bayard Perkins - 25 y/o - Clearly worse than Glaser, clearly better than Sandoval 6. Ashley Sandoval - 17 y/o - 1 in marking, 2 in tackling, the offensive side of things doesn't do anything to make up for that. So my tactic runs an "attacking" MC, and an "automatic" MC, which for me more often than not is defensive. The attackers by nature stand out and get better ratings. So even though Shakespeare had my best overall ratings, I think the combination of Tapia on defense/Mora offense give me my best team. Glaser/Shakespeare the 2nd tier there. |
Right Attacking Midfielder
1. Ian Cooper - 17 y/o - Maybe the single best player on the team. A '13' technical attribute stands out light years ahead of everyone else, at any position. Solid flair, one of my best off the ball, which like decision making is just a rating that is bad for everyone at this level. Cooper is a star. 2. Ryan Crook - 25 y/o - At most other positions Crook would start. I like him a lot. 3. Bo Thompson - 17 y/o - Physically pretty good, which makes up for his awful technical skill. Left Attacking Midfielder 1. Dylan Rose - 17 y/o - 2nd best "Technical" attribute behind Cooper on the team. Great flair, very good physiclaly, but lacks some crossing and dribbling ability. A '1' off the ball rating has to hurt him too. 2. Brian Davidson - 20 yo - Solid physically but very average elsewhere. 3. Luca Colangelo - 20 y/o - Interchangable with Davidson when it comes to attributes. Rose was hurt a lot so we saw a lot of Davidson. Davidson, perhaps due to off the ball rating, was a much bigger threat to score, but he and Rose both had very solid overall ratings. Colangelo, despite appearing equal to Davidson, never impressed in any way. Strikers 1. Ronnie Navarro - 17 y/o Best dribbling, best flair, best finisher, also put up the best stats by far from this position. 2. Leon Roth - 17 y/o - Best anticipation and off the ball out of the strikers. Not great at all otherwise. 3. Samir Pace - 17 y/o - Attributes say he's my second best striker, a step down from Navarro but not a big one. 4. Pierre Reynoso - 17 y/o - A warm body and not much more. Was signed for injury depth last year. Reynoso started 3 matches and played in 8 more off the bench and never scored for me. Roth/Pace is a bit of a tossup but Roth had a couple monster games where Pace never really did, so my default thinking here is to give Roth the chance to be my #2 guy to see if he holds up over more appearances. Notice they're all 17 years old. We have shit for experience up front. |
So thoughts on the overall roster... I would like to sign better strikers, maybe I can't replace Navarro but I can hopefully make my depth better.
At every other position if I can find what seems like better players I will sign them and insert them into the depth chart. Cooper/Mora/Shakespeare put up great ratings last year and seem relatively safe in their roles compared to other positions. But since we're an amateur team and transfer $$ isn't part of the equation, we will take anyone, anywhere that I think might make the team better. If it seems like a tossup or bringing in someone equal, I will probably tend against it for team cohesion reasons. |
Quote:
I don't know if other readers feel that way, but don't put pressure on yourself to write up more than you need. Of course, who am I to give advice to the writer of one of the more popular dynasty threads here. |
Quote:
Good to know, thanks. At a higher level, when my players can be expected to improve as they train in at least somewhat significant ways, I want that kind of thing for my own benefit as much as for the presentation. But for a team with 1/2 star training facilities and no better than 2* training in any one area, and where many of my depth chart moves come down to whether I want the guy with a 5 in decision making vs the guy with a 2, it can wait :) |
Wake Forest Player of the Year
-- Its all about the goals, as ST Ronnie Navarro is the fans Player of the Year. If I had a vote, I would have voted Cooper first, Mora 2nd, and Navarro 3rd. Wake Forest Best Eleven GK: Amidu Gyan - 37 apps/6.84 rating DR: Bob Varela - 12 apps/6.97 rating DC: Joe Pickering - 23 apps/4 goals/7.12 rating DC: Hernando Galvis - 24 apps/1 goal/6.85 rating DL: David Campbell - 20 apps/7.01 rating DM: Mark Shakespeare - 27 apps/6 goals/7.26 rating MC: Jhonatan Mora - 23 apps/8 goals/7.17 rating MC: Jose Alejandro Tapia - 23 apps/2 goals/6.91 rating AMR: Ian Cooper - 23 apps/5 goals/7.18 rating AML: Brian Davidson - 22 apps/6 goals/7.08 rating ST: Ronnie Navarro - 28 apps/11 goals/7.16 rating Shakespeare at DM is a joke. He can't even play the position. If anything, put Tapia at DM, Shakespeare/Mora at MC, as Tapia actually played DMC a fair bit. League Schedule Announced Jon had mentioned this in the FM14 thread, as have others, there's a continuity issue with teams at least in this bottom tier staying in the same league from year to year. I care more about the climb than I do the history we build here, so its an annoyance, but not a showstopper to me. Examples: Twin City Patrol are now in the Florida Coast Premier League Blacksburg Bears are now in the New England Premier League, so are the Roanoke Magic New Teams in the APL: Cape City - Finished 16th in the Gateway Premier League last year North Meck SC - They belong here. Relegated last year. Peoria Steamers - Finished 9th in the Gateway Premier League last year Savannah Braves - relegated last year, they belong Springfield Lynx - Finished 8th in the Gateway Premier League last year So 3 teams here that shouldn't be, from Missouri and Illinois. Our season opens May 2nd in Springfield. Home opener May 8th vs Huntington. North American Open Cup Groups We're drawn into the group stage that takes place before league play starts. We're in group L against 7 other amateur teams we haven't faced before. Most notably we have a road match on March 28th in Juneau, Alaska, against the Ice Bears. Not exactly the Hawaii trip the team had hoped for last year in the Amateur Cup. Youth Intake We bring in a large number of youth players and will have to decide which ones get contracts. The $70/wk "youth contract" that I was offering these guys in my game that accidentally went semi-pro doesn't exist as an option here, so I assume things are good as far as keeping amateur status. We'll go through these players tomorrow. Am I allowed to play 14 year olds? Because I bet more than a few of these could crack my rotation at a glance. |
Wake Forest Youth Intake
We got a LOT of players in, so I'm only going to mention ones that seem relevant here. I looked very quickly last night and saw lots of ratings scattered about that I thought were competitive with first team players. DL Florian Bergmann - 14 y/o - Good stamina, good pace (11/10, solid for this level). Aggresion, Bravery, Determination, Leadership all very high. Work rate extremly high for this level (14). 6 Tackling is good already for this level. Marking, Anticipation, Positioning are awful. If they go up a few points he could be very good though. DC Asley Varela - 14 y/o - Teamwork 14/Work Rate 17, through the roof! Heading, Marking, Tackling all 7 already. He's only 5'8" and we have seen height be hugely important for our central defenders. If I'm allowed to, i could actually see putting him directly into the senior team rotation. DC Jesus Antonio Guerrero - 14 y/o - Exact opposite of Varela. Pretty crappy skillsy, but aggressive, brave, strong, can jump, and he's 6'7". DM Adalberto Vega - 14 y/o - Poor tearmwork and work rate, which worry me a bit, but solid elsewhere, Marking 7/Tackling 8/Positioning 8, he's very slow though. Pace/Accel both 5's, that worries me a lot. ST Ben Goodwin - 14 y/o - Crap technically, but composure, flair, off ball, and pace are all pretty solid. Enough to keep around at least. Can also play AML. ST Michael Maurer - 14 y/o - cross 5/dribble 8/finish 6, weaknesses would be a lack of pace (5), and a low flair (6) compared to many other strikers we have. Also has terrible natural fitness (4), which could just kill him right away, but his technical skills make him worth a look no matter what. I go ahead and offer all of these guys contracts. I cut a few guys right away, and I will decide on some others before the deadline. |
-- We set up five friendlies.
-- I make a few transfer offers. I find nothing interesting at all at the MC or attacking mid positions. DR where I really like Arroyo I didn't offer anyone, but I made offers at most other positions. I will admit, I made one offer to a guy from the Blacksburg Bears who is at best 50/50 to play for me. But they signed 3 of my players last year, so I just want to try to get the guy. So the Blacksburg guys I went after said no, boo! New Signing DMC Luis Villa - 27 y/o - 6 marking/11 tackling. 5 concentrate/6 decisions/6 positioning. Weak-ish physically, 7 accel/6 sta/5 str. I signed Villa basically because i think very little of my backup DMC Timothy Pena. Villa was a free agent, not something I saw much of last season. He was released by the NC Fusion, a team a couple divisions higher than us. -- We miss out on the guy I wanted the most out of everyone I tried to sign, a DL with great acceleration and good technical skills. Player Departure Nooooooooo. MC Jhonatan Mora signs with the NC Fusion. They're a much bigger team than us, and Mora chooses to make $230/week at a higher tier instead of $0 with us. -- We already have an offer out on another MC. Lets see what happens. Player Departure DR Steve Arroyo signs with the Allen Bandits SC. The Bandits are also many tiers above me and Arroyo will be making $475/week thre. -- The MC I was trying to go after signs elsewhere. -- With Arroyo leaving I make an offer to a DR youth candidate, not a real solution I don't think, but a guy who could offer injury coverage if I can't sign something better. This takes us to January 10th, this offseason is not looking quite as good as our last offseason! |
-- Up to January 17th, and I don't think I'm going to sign a new MC or DR any time soon. Guys that I didn't like so much all of a sudden get much more important spots in the depth chart.
Friendly #1 - January 19th We travel to Raleigh to play the Pioneers, a team a couple tiers above us. I should probably watch these matches to see who stands out, but that's boring, so I don't. I play my starters a half and then give backups a half to get some action. Raleigh Pioneers 0 : 0 Wake Forest Cougars Pretty even match, no ratings stand out. Shakespeare missed a clear cut chance, they missed one as well. Injury Update MC Ashely Sandoval turned an ankle, it was listed as a minor injury during the match, but he's going to miss 6-8 weeks. Bummer. ... days later, DC Garry Garcia hurts an ankle and is out 2-3 weeks. -- That takes us to January 24th, we'll finish up the preseason tomorrow and see if there's any way we can sign anyone new. |
Injury Update
-- Youth ST Michael Maurer broke his leg in a U18 match and is out for 7-8 months. He would have played some this year. :( Friendly #2 - Jan 26th We're playing our reserve squad today, I make sure that everyone not available for the senior team is available for the reserves. Navarro with a goal from just outside the box in the 25th minute. We allow a penalty in the 48th minute and they tie it up. Wake Forest 1 : 1 Wake Forest Reserves Most importantly, we get out of this one with no injuries. -- One of my coaches has been hired away, and my assistant has a bunch of offers, so it looks like I'm going to be replacing two coaches in the next few days. Injury Update - Feb 1st DR Bob Varela has a bruised rib from training and is out 2 weeks. February Update -- MC Glaser trains well. -- The board is pleased with my leadership, squad harmony and our results last year are the main reasons. We lost $4,610 last month. New Signing 14 y/o ST Patrick Ratzburg joins the team. 5 dribbling/6 finishing/6 heading/6 passing all seem nice. 8 off the ball is way better than many, though most of his other mental attributes are low as you'd expect. 8 pace but only 4 acceleration. Its going to take Pace awhile to get into match shape, he's still hurt remember. And Reynoso has still never scored a goal for me, so an extra striker seems like a good thing. Friendly #3 - Feb 3rd We host CASL Elite in this one. We get a goal from our new 14 y/o Striker Ratzburg in the 10th minute. We sub most of our starters out around 60 minutes. That's the only goal, victory! Wake Forest 1 : 0 CASL Elite The worst thing about losing your assistant is that you lose the ability to "filter out unreasonable targets" when trying to find a new damn assistant. Old North Cup Draw This is the small tournament between all the teams in North Carolina. Last year we drew one of the USL teams and it was awful. This is so much better. We get a home match against the Asheville Attack, another team in our division. A winnable match! |
Ok I don't know how to sign an assistant. My last coach made a couple of suggestions before he left, but none of them took the job. I'm trying to filter attributes like "adaptability less than 10" etc to make the list a little smaller to try to find coaches who will talk to me, but not a single one will even consider a contract that I can find.
Is it a thing to just have no coaching staff at this level? |
It does seem many other teams in my division have no coaching staff outside head coach.
|
Friendly #4 - Feb 10th
We're taking a long trip to St Louis for this one. It was available and we'll get some cash for playing on the road, so I figured why not. Cooper gets a goal in the 30th minute, and that's the only goal of the match. St Louis 0 : 1 Wake Forest -- So I offered one of my two physio's the assistant coach job and they took it. Awful, awful assistant, but, if it lets me see guys I have a shot at hiring so I can bring in a better one it fixes everything. Injury Update A few guys who weren't getting enough rotation time were playing for the reserves. Way too many of them got hurt today. DC Galvis is out for 2 weeks DL Coggins is out for 2 weeks. DM Luis Villa is out 9-12 days. Injury Update AMR Bo Thompson is going to miss 4-5 weeks with an injury picked up in training. New Assistant Coach OMG We did it! Shaker Asad has a 14 determination, 13 discipline, only 5 adaptability, his coaching attributes are mostly in the 6-8 range. We'll see if I can find some coaches now too. |
It's harder to get by without an assistant, IMO. Go to the job center and place an advert?
|
Quote:
That sounds like a much better solution than promoting your physio to assistant so you can get access to the "filter unreasonable targets" option to actually find coaches that I can make offers to. I didn't know the job center thing existed. I'll do that next time! |
February 18th, 2015
Old North Cup Wake Forest Cougars vs Asheville Attack Our first match with any meaning! GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Varela/Jackson DM: Williams MC: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Cooper ST: Navarro A pretty familiar lineup to last year. Joe Jackson gets the start at DR, youth player Ashley Varela gets the start at DC, mainly for fitness reasons. Its going to be a bit confusing, we now have an Ashley Varela at DC and a Bob Varela at DR, if the young kid at DC is decent I'm sure both will be on the field together at points. 12': We hold possession for quite a long time, Shakespeare hits Rose in the area for a clear cut chance but he puts his shot wide. 14': Williams ahead to Rose, Rose with a short run down the left side and a cross into the area, Navarro volleys it in! 1-0 33': They have a corner, its a short lob into the near side of the box, they get a shot off it but its contested well and its off target. HALF: Joe Jackson and Ronnie Navarro both picked up minor injuries in the first half. I'm going to sub Navarro out. Roth is in. We are really dominating this one, just need to avoid allowing a stupid goal. 51': Indirect free kick 35 yards out, Tapia taps it to Shakespeare, into the area for Cooper, he crosses to Roth, Roth with a godawful header that is going to go well wide... but a defender runs into it and redirects it into the net, own goal! 2-0 57': Rose with a run down the left after some midfield possession, a cross to about 8 yards from goal, Roth heads it into the right side of the net! 3-0 64': Campbell wins the ball in defense and we start to push forward, Cooper ends up with a run down the right side, he fires a low cross to the other side of the penalty area, Rose is there and shoots... basically at the keeper's feet, he tries to get down to get it but can't, its in! 4-0 That's it! Little action in the final 25 minutes. Wake Forest 4 : 0 Asheville Man of the Match: Dylan Rose (9.4) Goals: Rose, Navarro (7.1), Roth (7.5) Assists: Rose 2, Cooper 2 (9.1) Notables: Gyan (7.2), Jackson (8.0), Varela (7.9), Pickering (7.8), Campbell (7.8), Williams (7.5), Shakespeare (7.6), Tapia (7.5) Injury Update Ronnie Navarro turned his ankle in the first half today, and he's going to miss 6-7 weeks as a result. Damn! DR Joe Jackson bruised a rib in the first half today, he stayed in, but he's going to miss about 2 weeks. |
Old North Cup Quarterfinal Draw
Eight teams left, one other from our division, one just 1 tier up, the other 5 are well above us. We're going to be going on the road to play the Wilmington Hammerheads from the USL Pro division. They actually promoted up last year into the top USL league, which is the 3rd tier of American soccer. That match won't take place until June 10th. New Coaches 36 y/o Reinaldo Navia signs with us. 8 attacking/8 defending/9 mental/7 technica/7 tactical. 30 y/o Chris Hawkins also joins the coaching staff. 6 attacking/7 defending/6 mental/6 technical. We have warm bodies to fill our training schedules again. We also sign a new physio, Carl Parkins, physiotherapy 5, to replace the guy we temporarily moved to assistant coach to make this all happen. Friendly - Feb 22nd We host DC United, it didn't cost much to get them here so why not. This is only a few days after our last match. I make sure not to start anyone who played in our cup match. Goes as expected. No one gets hurt so its good enough! Wake Forest 0 : 4 DC United Injury Update In a reserve match, DL Sean Rongen got hurt and will miss 6-7 weeks. DR Fausto Diaz is going to miss 4-5 weeks. Both are the #3 options at their positions. -- On the good side of injury news, ST Samir Pace has recovered from the injury he picked up at the end of last season and will start working on his fitness immediately. Friendly - Feb 27th Our last friendly before the North American Open group play starts. We travel to CASL Chelsea. We only have 11 players who aren't match fit right now, so we've done a good job getting everyone ready, hopefully this last match will take care of it for most of them. They get a red card around the 50th minute after a scoreless first half. We take advantage with goals from Pace and Crook. CASL Chelsea 0 : 2 Wake Forest -- That takes us to the end of February. For the next two months we'll be playing North American Open group stage matches. |
March Update
-- Samir Pace trained well, DM Luis Villa trained poorly. -- The board remains pleased with my leadership. Last season's success and the locker room atmosphere are the reasons. We lost $3,300 last month. Player Departure DC Tommy Lassiter leaves us for the Fayeteville Liberty, a team who promoted out of our league last season. Lassiter made 15 starts and came on as a sub 5 times last year, putting up a 6.64 rating. When I signed him I thought he was immediately our best DC, but he did nothing to separate himself from any other player in the rotation. We're left with Pickering, Galvis, and Garry Garcia as fairly known quantities. Don Burke played some last year, he's hurt at the moment though, with Ashley Varela and Jesus Antonio Guerrero who came in as youth pulls. So the depth is there if the youth players can do anything at all. Injury Update Due to match fitness issues I let DL Danny Coggins play in a reserve match and was just going to sit him for our first match. He tears a hamstring and is going to miss 3-4 months. With Coggins and Rongen both hurt we are now down to David Campbell, who started much of last season, and youth pull Florian Bergmann, who does not look like one of our best youth players to be honest. March 7th, 2015 North American Open Cup - Group Stage - Group L Wake Forest Cougars vs Prairie Rapids SC Attendance: 455 GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Jackson DM: Williams M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Cooper ST: Roth Defensive/Retain Possession, somewhat of a standard for us now, even at home. 9': Roth with a ball into the area for Cooper, he is behind his defender and has a clear cut chance, but puts it wide. 15': We build up after a throwin in our own end, Rose with a run down the left, into the area for Roth, he controls it, shoots.. off the crossbar. 16': Williams ahead to Shakespeare, to Roth... another shot wide. We're in full control here, just need the goal. 40': Shakespeare to Roth, about 25 yards out, he lobs it over the defense to a streaking Ian Cooper, good control of the ball, and his shot is perfect! 1-0 HALF: We have 57% of the possession, and a 7-0 edge in shots. We are winning 81% of our headers, they are at 31%. I tell the team to keep it up. 56': We control possession in their half, after a number of passes Shakespeare hits Cooper who places a shot very nicely from just inside the 18 yard box! 2-0 67': Nice long ball from Cooper out of our own half up to Roth, he holds it up, finds Shakespeare who strikes it well, but saved. 71': Rose with a cross to Cooper, he shoots... its on target, keeper pushes it weakly to the side, but just enough for it to hit the post and go free. They clear. 71': Garcia in for Galvis and new young ST Ratzburg in for Roth. 79': Another clear cut chance for Cooper... and another one saved. Our first two corners are headed behind by them, the third is harmless. 85': They have it in our end, there's a cross from the right side... Jackson is there but positioned really poorly so he's a non factor, and their ST Brown puts it in. 2-1 We hang on and don't give up anything else. Wake Forest 2 : 1 Prairie Rapids Man of the Match: Ian Cooper (9.1) Goals: Cooper 2 Assists: Shakespeare (7.3), Roth (7.1) Everyone else is in the high 6's. Cooper is just so good. -- We get $7,600 for the win. |
-- We still have a number of players right on the edge of match fitness. Those that need it I give the ok to play for the U18s and reserves and will just adjust my starting lineup accordingly.
Injury Update 3rd string AMR Bo Thompson had just recovered enough from his last injury to get out on the field for the reserves. He turns his knee and is out another month. March 14th, 2015 North American Open Cup - Group Stage - Group L Hudson Valley United (1-0-0, 2nd) vs Wake Forest Cougars (1-0-0, 3rd) Attendance: 977 GK: Gyan D: Bergmann/Pickering/Varela/Varela DM: Williams M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Roth Three changes to the back line and a change at AML. Both Varela's are in and playing next to each other. 6': Cooper intercepts a poor pass near midfield, he plays a long ball ahead to Roth, Roth holds it and then lobs it into the left side for Davidson, he's got a clear cut chance and he finishes! 1-0 11': Cooper with a corner kick, taken to Williams who tries to shoot on the volley, its on target but weak, saved. 20': Very quick highlight with Shakespeare playing a ball to Cooper, he lays it off for Roth for a clear cut chance, but its put well wide. HALF: We saw one more brief highlight and that was it. We have 10(!!) shots in the first half, to their 3. 64% of the possession, we just look crazy strong here. 55': Roth takes a rough hit and he's not injured, but his fitness went way low. Even though it'll come back up, I go ahead and sub in Ratzburg at the next opportunity. 61': Davidson with a cross to Ratzburg, he's all alone in the area for a bit, but he doesn't control it well and the defense recovers and blocks the shot. 62': After a throw we pass it around outside the area, Bergmann is way forward due to the set piece I assume, he lays it off for Shakespeare, who passes to Davidson, shot and goal! 2-0 80': They earn a corner after a poor pass by DR Varela gives it away in their offensive half, but can't do anything with it. 81': Glaser in for Shakespeare, Garcia in for Pickering. Another good win! Hudson Valley 0 : 2 Wake Forest Man of the Match: Brian Davidson (8.9) Goals: Davidson 2 Assists: Shakespeare (7.8), Roth (6.8) Notables: Bob Varela (7.2), Pickering (7.2), Bergmann (7.2), Tapia (7.0), Cooper (7.2) -- We get $7,600 for the win. |
March 21st, 2015
North American Open Cup - Group Stage - Group L Wake Forest Cougars (2-0-0, 2nd) vs Belleville Squires (2-0-0, 1st) Attendance: 465 -- Belleville won their first match 5-2 for the goal differential lead. We're the only two teams at 6 points. GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Varela DM: Williams M: Glaser/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Crook ST: Ratzburg Campbell and Galvis in on defense, Glaser gets his first start (he was one of the ones struggling with match fitness). Rose/Crook at AM, Cooper gets the day off, while Ratzburg gets his first start up front. Pace is a sub today, his fitness kind of sucks since he just came back from a long term injury which is why Ratzburg is getting so many chances here. 1': We build up on offense, Ratzburg sends it out wide for Rose, he crosses to the far post, Crook heads it.. off the post, clear cut chance right out of the gate, darn. 2': Shakespeare ahead to Rose, who shoots from an awkward angle and puts it wide. Wish he would have tried to get it to Ratzburg or Crook there. 3': A great tackle from Varela stops their offense in its tracks, a ball ahead to Rose and he runs iwth it, we work it around a bit, Shakespeare pulls it out wide to the left, sends a low cross to the 6 yard box, Ratzburg is there and its an easy finish! 1-0 16': A poor pass by them gives Shakespeare the ball, he immediately sends it long, Ratzburg is on it, instead of trying to beat his man he sends it wide for Rose, who can't score. 23': We have a corner, taken to the far post... a defender of theirs is hit by the ball and it bounces in the net. Own goal! 2-0 28': Crook to Ratzburg for a nice headed goal.. but offsides. 43': Crook with a solid shot from the right side of the area, but saved by the keeper. Rose recovers it near the baseline but they tackle well and eventually clear. HALF: Another great half for us. We only control 51% of possession but outshoot them 8-0. 50': Crook to Ratzburg who tries a shot from 20 yards out, wide and high. 53': Ratzburg picks up a minor injury, hopefully no big deal. 58': Complete breakaway for Rose, but he doesn't know what to do. He holds up play 18 yards out instead of charging the keeper. Then he just shoots from there, and its well off target. That was pathetic. 81': A quick strike from them, run down the right, cross, and a goal from ST Borin. 2-1 83': Davidson in for Rose, Pace in for Ratzburg. 89': We have a corner, taken to the far post, there's a penalty as Pickering went up for a header! Shakespeare takes the penalty and drills it. 3-1 We are absolutely on fire! Wake Forest 3 : 1 Belleville Man of the Match: Mark Shakespeare (8.5) Goals: Shakespeare, Ratzburg (7.9) (there was one own goal) Assists: Pickering (7.1), Shakespeare, Ratzburg Notables: Gyan (7.0) Galvis with a 6.6, Rose a 6.4. Rose is better at crossing the ball, but Davidson is a much much bigger scoring threat. -- We again receive $7,600 for the win. |
-- going into a U18 match: "players in the first team needing match fitness: Ronnie Navarro, Samir Pace, Pierre Reynoso" Yeah.. that's 3 of our 5 strikers. Navarro being on the list is good, means he's about recovered from injury. And Pace has an excuse too with his injury problems. Reynoso I just don't like.
-- DC Don Burke resumes training after being out months with an injury. -- I mentioned earlier that I was going to change my DMC role from "Defensive Midfielder" to "Ball Winning Midfielder". I had forgotten to do that, and am doing it now. Both Williams and Villa are better at that role according to my coaches. Injury Update GK Clark Garcia is out for 2 months after an injury in training. Noteworthy because GK Phil Harrington got hurt last week and since I never rotate GK's I didn't bother to slow down to mention it. But now our #2 and #3 GK's are out for some time. So if Gyan goes down we have a serious problem. March 21st, 2015 North American Open Cup - Group Stage - Group L Juneau Ice Bears (0-1-2, 7th) vs Wake Forest Cougars (3-0-0, 1st) Attendance: 465 -- Belleville won their first match 5-2 for the goal differential lead. We're the only two teams at 6 points. GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Garcia/Jackson DM: Villa M: Perkins/Glaser AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Roth Tons of changes today. Actually is Pickering our only player who started last match (aside from Gyan)? Its raining in Alaska today. Its probably cold too. 3': Davidson with a free kick from 25 yards out, just high. 4': Roth has it 35 yards out, gets it ahead to Glaser who lays it back for Roth, Roth sends it right for Cooper, its a clear cut chance, on target, but their keeper with a nice dive to stop it. 30': Roth is hurt and forced to leave the match. Reynoso is match fit and I stuck him as my sub today, so he's in. 31': Cooper with an extremely long free kick, almost from midfield. He launches it into the area, Reynoso gets his head to it, and its a goal! Reynoso with his first goal for Wake Forest. 1-0 38': Davidson to Glaser, he sends it to Cooper who shoots from 18, but its wide left. HALF: We outshoot them 5-2 and control 53% of the possession. We're looking good, but definitely not as dominant as I've seen in other matches. I add the "Exploit the Right Flank" instruction at the half. Especially with 2nd stringers in at the MC roles, lets run everything we can through Cooper... and with Davidson on the left instead of Rose I'm confident in his scoring ability if Cooper sends a few balls his way. 51': Clear cut chance for Juneau after a long ball, Gyan rushes out and gets a hand on it, good save of a clear cut chance. They can't score on the corner. 60': Jackson takes a throwin in their end, its poor and he gives it away, they cross from the left side, a header from Allen, and a goal. 1-1 67': Tapia in for Glaser. 68': Cooper a corner, header from Perkins... wide. 75': Free kick from Tapia from the left side, Reynoso ends up behind everyone to put it in easily... but he's offsides. 88': Sandoval in for Villa. Tapia to DMC, Sandoval MC. That's it. Juneau 1 : 1 Wake Forest Their scorer is man of the match. Goal: Reynoso (7.1) Assist: Cooper (6.7) Notable: Pickering (7.0) Pickering wins 12 headers out of the 13 he went for, including 3 key ones. The rest of the team won 13 headers. -- Reynoso had been on the field for 15 hours in his Wake Forest before scoring today finally. Injury Update -- Roth has a sprained ankle and is out for 2 months. Pace and Navarro need to get their fitness together quick now.  Standings with 4 of 7 matches played. We'd probably advance even if we don't get any more points. |
April Update
-- Burke is noted for training well, Galvis and Pace both poor. -- The board remains very pleased with my leadership. Atmosphere is still the positie. We made $24,190 last month. Even the trip to Alaska didn't seem to hurt the finacnes. -- 3rd string (or 4th, depending on how i use Tapia) DMC Timothy Pena is hurt in a reserve match and out 2-3 weeks. April 4th, 2015 North American Open Cup - Group Stage - Group L Wake Forest Cougars (3-!-0, 1st) vs Brea Orange (0-2-2, 8th) Attendance: 458 -- another match against a bottom team, we've had trouble in the past beating teams we're supposed to beat. GK: Gyan D: Bergmann/Varela/Galvis/Varela DM: Williams M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Cooper ST: Ratzburg Lots of changes again today. Both Varela's in. Pickering rests for the first time this year. 6': They take the first shot in this one, a free kick from 20 yards out, saved easily. 8': Strikers going down left and right. Ratzburg is hurt and has to leave the match. Reynoso is in. 13': They are attacking, Williams with a tackle but we can't clear it away, they win it back, pass up to Diaz, he fires a very strong shot and Gyan has no chance. 0-1 22': Cooper with a free kick from the left side, very depe in their territory, its headed around a few times, we maintain control and send it back to Cooper out side, he passes it in to Ashley Varela (the DC) who scores!! 1-1 27': Cooper with a great long ball for Reynoso, he gets into the area and shoots, but its wide. 31': Long ball ahead, didn't see who passed it. Shakespeare is trying to get to it, but the keeper comes out of hte penalty box to try to clear, but he kicks it into Shakespeare and it bounces into the area. Shakespeare gets to it and puts it into the empty net. 2-1 38': After a long buildup, mostly on the left side, the ball is passed to Cooper outside of the area, he beats his man 1v1 and gets a clear cut chance, but his shot is very poor. HALF: After falling behind early we end up outshooting them 7-2, generating 4 clear cut chances and managing to finish two of them. 47': We generate some offense off the kickoff, but end up with a pretty tough long shot from Shakespeare that's saved. 51': More long possession, another instance where we settle for a longer shot than usual, Reynoso puts one well wide. 64': Some passing around the left side for Brea, there's a pass to Prado in the area, Galvis' positioning is terrible and we give him a great look and he buries it. 2-2 67': Reynoso beats his man 1 on 1 about 25 yards out, runs into the area and fires a shot... saved. 70': Rose earns us a corner as a cross isheaded behind. Cooper with the corner, Shakespeare shoots... off the crossbar. 72': They're able to get a pass into the area and get a decent shot off, but high. 75': Glaser in for Tapia 84': Perkins in for Shakespeare Another draw against weak competition. Wake Forest 2 : 2 Brea One of their scorers is man of the match. Goals: Varela (7.4), Shakesperae (7.7) Assists: Rose (7.2) (one unassisted) Notables: Reynoso (5.8) Really rough game for Reynoso. I have to think we win that with Ratzburg up front. Injury Update ST Patrick Ratzburg turned an ankle and is going to miss two months. Pace and Navarro I believe are both ready to play. We're 5 points ahead of 5th with 2 to play. We'll advance barring a miracle. |
-- Two weeks off between games, I let some players play on the reserves.
April 18th, 2015 North American Open Cup - Group Stage - Group L Mesquite Skeeters SC (1-2-2, 6th) vs Wake Forest Cougars (3-2-0, 1st) Attendance: 977 -- another match against a bottom team, we've had trouble in the past beating teams we're supposed to beat. GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Varela/Pickering/Varela DM: Williams M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Cooper ST: Reynoso 6': The first shot goes to them, but its contested and from long range. 30': Midfielder Latham with a yellow. Reynoso takes a free kick from just outside the penalty area, its off the crossbar. Close! HALF: Pretty crappy half, long shots when we've seen shots at all, neither team has put anything on target yet. I'm bringing Navarro in to play the second half. 48': Brian williams with a minor injury. 76': No highlights for 30 minutes, here Shakespeare gets the ball ahead to Navarro, he chips it to Cooper, a clear cut chance.. but he barely taps the ball, right at the keeper. Weak effort there. 77': Glaser in for Williams, Tapia to DMC. Davidson in for Rose. 81': Glaser with a long ball ahead for NAvarro... a little too far ahead though, the keeper gets to it first. We get the ball after the goal kick though and attack. Navarro ahead to Shakespeare, he shoots from the 18 yard mark, the keeper saves it but can't control it, rebound to Davidson and he put it in! 1-0 86': They earn a corner on a long shot on target. Corner is headed by one fo their guys, but weakly and Gyan picks it up easily. They control the ball in the final couple minutes but an offsides gives us possession without them threatening seriously, and that will do it! Mesquite 0 : 1 Wake Forest Man of the Match: Mark Shakespeare (7.7) Goal: Davidson (7.3) Assist: Shakespeare Notables: Navarro (7.1) Navarro with some solid play in his first game of the season after injury. He had a few key passes. -- We get $7,600 for the win. -- We clinch advancement out of the group stage here. This is the tournament where we made tons of cash last year by advancing a couple rounds further than expected, so maybe we can get lucky and do that again. -- One more group stage match, then league play begins! |
April 25th, 2015
North American Open Cup - Group Stage - Group L Ocala Marlins (3-3-0, 2nd) vs Wake Forest Cougars (4-2-0, 1st) Attendance: 933 -- both of us have clinched advancement. This game is meaningless. GK: Barton D: Bergmann/Burke/Guerrero/Diaz DM: Villa M: Sandoval/Glaser AM: Reynoso/Crook ST: Goodwin Burke, Sandoval, Glaser, and Crook are playing b/c they are still struggling a bit with match fitness. Villa is playing b/c I'm worried that I'm not using him enough and that he'll get pissed. Everyone else is playing so I can get a look at some young players. Barton is a U18 keeper, I never even mention his name b/c why would I ever get down to my 4th keeper, but #2 and #3 are hurt and I want to sit Gyan today. 15': First highlight of the match, they shoot off a free kick miles wide. 31': So we're watching a highlight and one of their midfielders is slowly dribbling the ball about 40 yards from goal, when MC Sandoval just launches himself at the player in a wild, aggressive sliding tackle attempt. Its the first straight red I've seen in this career for either team. I don't sub anyone, I just even out my midfield so we're playing a straight 4-4-1 now. 33': They control the ball in and around the area for a scary long time, but in the end a close range shot is blocked and cleared. HALF: No changes. They outshoot us 4-1, sucks being a man down, it really hurts our chances of seeing one of these new guys make a play. 46': They score, but their guy was hilariously far offsides, its properly called back. 68': Perkins in for Crook, he's out of position at MR, but I'm not putting Cooper out there. We watch one more highlight, Burke and Villa both clear threatening passes out nicely, they force a long shot that Barton saves easily. After that its over. Ocala 0 : 0 Wake Forest A man down with this lineup, I'll take it. They outshot us 9-1 and were clearly better. Man of the Match: Florian Bergmann (7.0) Notable: Diaz (7.0), Glaser (7.0) Youth DC Guerrero had a 6.3 rating, everyone else was 6.7 or 6.8. -- Sandoval is suspended for one match for his red card. I give him a warning and indicate that he clearly deserved it.  Final group standings, we win the group and make it out without a loss! |
North American Open Cup - First Qualifying Round Draw
192 teams in the draw here. We draw a home match against WPB United, a team one tier above us, in the Atlantic Coast Amateur League. That's the division we hope to promote into this season. May Update -- We currently have matches on the 2nd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th of May. If we win in the North American Open Cup that will increase and our week long breaks at the end of the month will disappear. -- Pace, Villa, and Bo Thompson trained well. Don Burke trained poorly. -- The board is pleased with my leadership. The locker room atmosphere is a positive. Our 0-0 draw to Ocala is a negative. WTF. They were in 2nd place in the group, and we had already advanced. Why do you care about this! We made $6,760 last month. May 2nd, 2015 Springfield Lynx vs Wake Forest Cougars Attendance: 269 GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Jackson DM: Williams M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Cooper ST: Navarro Our best lineup. 2': Rose with a ball ahead to Navarro, he controls it.. decently.. and fires from 25 yards out, and its in, wow!! 11': They fire a long free kick into the area, they end up with a shot from 20 yards and its wide. 31': They work the ball into the area and get a great look from close range, Gyan with a very solid save. There's a followup shot but wide. We dodged a bullet there. HALF: They end up outshooting us 4-3, each of us have 1 on target. They control possession, slightly, while we are the better tackling team. Equal in the air right now. No changes, keep it up! 54': They pass very well and work the ball up the left side, eventually getting a shot from the left side of the area, its off the crossbar and over, very close. 68': Another on target look from Springfield, saved by Gyan. 70': Villa in for Williams at DM 71': Campbell intercepts a pass and sends it to Navarro. Navarro holds, Shakespeare makes a run and Navarro hits him, he's all alone, his control is poor though and he ends up pulling up from 20 yards and shooting instead of attacking the keeper. Its wide. 76': A nice move by Rose to pull two defenders to him and blow by them, he tries a cross but misses Navarro, they can't clear it, Cooper ends up with a shot but wide. 87': Glaser and Perkins in for Tapia and Shakespeare 91': A pickering header saves us after a cross by Springfield. We hold out here and start the sesaon off with a win! Springfield 0 : 1 Wake Forest Man of the Match: David Campbell (7.1) Goal: Navarro (7.1) Assist: Rose (7.0) Notable: Pickering (7.0) Campbell with 11 interceptions in defence today, and as a result the most passes out of our defenders, I assume that's what earned him the good rating. -- Sandoval is given 2 more matches of suspension after review of his red card incident. |
-- Backup GK Phil Harrington comes to see me about his playing time. I tell him he's a backup and he can't expect more. He says ok. If he were to get upset I'd probably just release him and add another keeper.
May 6th, 2015 North American Open Cup - First Qualifying Round Wake Forest Cougars vs WPB United Attendance: 459 GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Burke/Varela DM: Villa M: Tapia/Glaser AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Pace About half the team I run out for a 2nd match in a row, the other half gets the day off. 5': Free kick about 40 yards out, we take it short and pass it around, Glaser sends it down the right side, Cooper has to race a defender for it, he gets there first and crosses to the far post, where Davidson taps it in! 1-0 16': Very poor defending allows a simple pass ahead to a striker and a clear cut chance, that they finish. There were like 7 defenders back and only the two offensive players. 1-1 17': Cooper scores a goal but offsides apparently. 33': Glaser to Cooper who just misses a shot from the right side of th area. 39': defender Toussant with a yellow for them. Villa takes the free kick from 20 yards out, its just over. HALF: We outshoot them 4-3, each team has 1 on target, 1 clear cut chance and 1 goal. 67': We earn a corner after a Cooper cross, they clear it but we control the ball, but can't do anything with it. 72': Perkins and Shakespeare in for Glaser and Tapia. 80': Lets try to avoid extra time here, we come out of our defensive mindset a bit. 80': Shakespeare with a free kick from 25 yards out. Its over the wall and into the upper left corner of the net! Wow! Uhh, back to defensive guys. 2-1 86': Davidson with the ball after a poor goal kick by them, he makes a run down the left side, crosses into the area, Pace gets his head to it, goal! 3-1 90': Cooper with a free kick near the left corner of the penalty area, 20 yards out. He crosses into the box, Shakespeare controls it with his chest and fires it in! 4-1 Those last 10 minutes were pretty unexpected! Wake Forest 4 : 1 WPB United Man of the Match: Brian Davidson (9.0) Goals: Shakespeare 2 (8.5), Davidson, Pace (7.7) Assists: Cooper 2 (8.5), Davidson Notables: Gyan (7.0), Varela (7.3), Burke (7.0), Pickering (7.1), Campbell (7.1), Villa (7.2) -- We receive $15,210 for the victory. |
North American Open Cup - Second Qualifying Round Draw
We get another home match, this one against the Khalsa Sporting Club, looks like they're in British Columbia. They're in the Gold Coast Division 2, which is tier 6, two above us. We beat a team in this tier last year, but it won't be easy. j Khalsa is the worst team in their division 9 matches in, so maybe that will help us. May 9th, 2015 Wake Forest Cougars (1-0-0, 7th) vs Huntington Hammers (1-0-0, 4th) Attendance: 262 -- We've never lost to Huntington, we played them twice in the regular season and in the Amateur Cup last year. We have a 7-1 goal edge in those matches. GK: Gyan D: Bergmann/Varela/Galvis/Jackson DM: Williams M: Perkins/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Crook ST: Navarro Wholesale changes today. 16': Shakespeare with a corner, far post, Galvis heads it.. off the post, wow close. 26': Crook with a free kick from 30 yards out, its not bad, but a bit wide. 30': A yellow from their player Powers. 37': We win it in midfield after a goal kick, Shakespeare sends it ahead to Rose, he cuts inside, fires a shot from a fairly tough angle, but places it well into the right side of the net! 1-0 HALF: We are completely in control here. 9 shots to 3, 64% of the possession, we will hopefully add to the lead and secure this one. 48': Shakespeare with a free kick from 25 yards, its a very good kick, their keeper dives to stop it. We get a corner but can't do anything with it. 57': We attack up the middle, Perkins to Shakespeare to Navarro, he holds it up though and the sends it left. Rose goes very deep, sends a low cross through the 6 yard box, and Shakespeare is there to finish! 2-0 74': We try a lob into the area, but a defender of theirs is first to it.. but his control of the ball is awful, Navarro takes it away, attacks, has a clear cut chance... but saved. 75': Villa in for Tapia, Reynoso in for Rose. 88': garcia in for Galvis. 91': They blast a shot off the post from a pretty dangerous spot in the left side of the area. That's it! Wake Forest 2 : 0 Huntington Man of the Match: Mark Shakespeare (8.8) Goals: Shakespeare, Rose (8.2) Assists: Shakespeare, Rose Notables: Jackson (7.4), Bergmann (7.3), Navarro (7.0) Our fullbacks were heavily involved in the passing today, leading to their nice ratings. A solid 2-0 start to the league season. |
-- We've now gone 12 matches without a loss going back into last season, that's a record for us.
-- Leon Roth has begun full training again after his ankle injury May 12th, 2015 Cleveland Stokers (1-1-0, 3rd) vs Wake Forest Cougars (2-0-0, 2nd) Attendance: 271 Only us and Peoria are 2-0-0, everyone else has a loss or draw. We played Cleveland twice last year and drew both times. GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Jackson DM: Villa MC: Tapia/Glaser AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Pace After this match we have one more league match, then our NA Open match. Most of these guys are the ones I want to start in the NA Open match, so i play them now, rest them next game, play them for the open. Exceptions are Williams, Shakespeare, and Navarro, they are just too tired to go today and follow that format. ST Diego Sinisterra is a name I remember from last year. He's got 4 goals in 6 matches this year so far. I give the order to close down on him quickly any time he touches it. He actually isn't incompetent with his left foot so I don't worry about the show onto foot instruction. 4': We watch Glaser, Jackson and Cooper pass the ball back and forth for about 30 seconds before Cooper tries a shot, which is blocekd by a defender. 30': Davidson intercepts a poor pass in our offensive side of midfield, ahead to Pace, to Glaser, he puts it into the right side of the area for Cooper, and this time Cooper finishes it! 1-0 33': Galvis with a key header to win a cross attempt from a defender. Sinisterra ends up with a tough shot afterwards, wide. HALF: We control 64% of the possession, outshoot them 4-2, our goal is the only shot on target so far. We're actually losing out in the air, but maybe that's because we control so much of play that Pickering hasn't been needed to stop attacks in defense much. 50': Davidson with a lob ahead to Pace, he's behind the defense.. a defender, catches up and tackles him... yellow for the defender. Tapia tries to shoot on the free kick but misses bad. I was hoping for a red there. 57': One of those totally random flukey long passes that goes at the keeper instead of to the target for Cleveland... except here Gyan just craps himself and lets it go by him for a goal. Ugh. 1-1 75': Reynoso in for Davidson at AML. Perkins in for Glaser. 77': Long free kick for us, Cooper sends it into the area from 50 yards out or so, it hits Perkins (or did he try to head it, can't tell), falls free in the area, and Reynoso is first to it and puts it in 2-1 85': Pace gets free of his defender 25 yards out, makes a run to the edge of the box, shoots... way high. 89': DR Jackson picks up a minor injury. 91': Garcia in for Galvis. 94': Pickering is hurt and forced to leave the match... 4 minutes into extra time, when only 3 minutes were called for. Asshole ref! Cleveland 1 : 2 Wake Forest Man of the Match: Ian Cooper (8.3) Goals: Cooper, Reynoso (7.3) Assists: Cooper, Glaser (7.6) No one else above a 7. Galvis actually as low as 6.5. Injury Update DR Joe Jackson is going to miss 2 weeks with a thigh bruise. Luckily Pickering has no long term injury. Peoria remain perfect in league play, so we're still second. |
-- We've now gone 12 matches without a loss going back into last season, that's a record for us.
-- Leon Roth has begun full training again after his ankle injury May 15th, 2015 Cleveland Stokers (1-1-0, 3rd) vs Wake Forest Cougars (2-0-0, 2nd) Attendance: 271 Only us and Peoria are 2-0-0, everyone else has a loss or draw. We played Cleveland twice last year and drew both times. GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Jackson DM: Villa MC: Tapia/Glaser AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Pace After this match we have one more league match, then our NA Open match. Most of these guys are the ones I want to start in the NA Open match, so i play them now, rest them next game, play them for the open. Exceptions are Williams, Shakespeare, and Navarro, they are just too tired to go today and follow that format. ST Diego Sinisterra is a name I remember from last year. He's got 4 goals in 6 matches this year so far. I give the order to close down on him quickly any time he touches it. He actually isn't incompetent with his left foot so I don't worry about the show onto foot instruction. 4': We watch Glaser, Jackson and Cooper pass the ball back and forth for about 30 seconds before Cooper tries a shot, which is blocekd by a defender. 30': Davidson intercepts a poor pass in our offensive side of midfield, ahead to Pace, to Glaser, he puts it into the right side of the area for Cooper, and this time Cooper finishes it! 1-0 33': Galvis with a key header to win a cross attempt from a defender. Sinisterra ends up with a tough shot afterwards, wide. HALF: We control 64% of the possession, outshoot them 4-2, our goal is the only shot on target so far. We're actually losing out in the air, but maybe that's because we control so much of play that Pickering hasn't been needed to stop attacks in defense much. 50': Davidson with a lob ahead to Pace, he's behind the defense.. a defender, catches up and tackles him... yellow for the defender. Tapia tries to shoot on the free kick but misses bad. I was hoping for a red there. 57': One of those totally random flukey long passes that goes at the keeper instead of to the target for Cleveland... except here Gyan just craps himself and lets it go by him for a goal. Ugh. 1-1 75': Reynoso in for Davidson at AML. Perkins in for Glaser. 77': Long free kick for us, Cooper sends it into the area from 50 yards out or so, it hits Perkins (or did he try to head it, can't tell), falls free in the area, and Reynoso is first to it and puts it in 2-1 85': Pace gets free of his defender 25 yards out, makes a run to the edge of the box, shoots... way high. 89': DR Jackson picks up a minor injury. 91': Garcia in for Galvis. 94': Pickering is hurt and forced to leave the match... 4 minutes into extra time, when only 3 minutes were called for. Asshole ref! Cleveland 1 : 2 Wake Forest Man of the Match: Ian Cooper (8.3) Goals: Cooper, Reynoso (7.3) Assists: Cooper, Glaser (7.6) No one else above a 7. Galvis actually as low as 6.5. Injury Update DR Joe Jackson is going to miss 2 weeks with a thigh bruise. Luckily Pickering has no long term injury. Peoria remain perfect in league play, so we're still second. |
May 20th, 2015
North American Open Cup Second Qualifying Round Wake Forest Cougars vs Khalsa Sporting Club Attendance: 470 GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Varela DM: Villa MC: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Navarro 5': Navarro with an early yellow card. 15': Davidson to Navarro, to Cooper, his cross is turned behind for a corner. We can't do anything on the corner though. 24': They have a free kick, just high. 27': Cooper with a run down the right, cross to near post, Navarro controls it, holds it amoment and shoots, its a clear cut chance, but blocked. First corner Pickering gets a shot off, but blocked. Second corner Galvis with a clear cut chance from the far post... weakly headed right at the keeper. 46': Villa with a long ball ahead to Davidson, he controls it well 25 yards out, to the middle for Shakespeare, a through ball into the area, Cooper is on it, shoots, and its by the keeper! 1-0 HALF: Great job getting a goal to end the half. We out-shoot them 6-2, with 3 clear cut chances, we actually could have hoped to be further ahead here. 64% of the possession too. We're losing in the air, that's the only area. 50': We watch a number of awful passes to trade possession back and forth. Finally Davidson with a nice long run down the left side, a cross... keeper punches it away. Shakespeare heads it back in, but Navarro is offsides. 57': DM Villa gets a yellow. 61': A couple quick long passes from Khalsa get them a decent look from the left side of the area, but its way off target. 66': Cooper to Shakespeare to Navarro, he beats his man 1v1 and is into the area, clear cut chance #4 for us, but the keeper gets a hand to it. We get a corner, but no luck. 74': First clear cut chance for them, a very long ball from a defender, Galvis just takes a bad angle to it and the attacker gets to it, but Gyan makes a nice diving stop. 75': We turn it around after their attack, Shakespeare with a ball ahead from about 40 yards out, Navarro gets behind the defense and is first to it. He has yet another clear cut chance and this one he finishes! 2-0 80': they get one back pretty quick, a nice cross from their right midfielder, a volly from the penalty spot for ST Janicky. 2-1 80': Pace in for Davidson, Perkins in for Shakespeare 86': Perkins ahead to Navarro for a goal, but offsides. It was close, but pretty definitive. 91': oh wow. They ahve a corner, Pickering heads it away, it bounces once around 30 yards out, midfielder Marie strikes it on a half volley after the bounce, and it is perfectly put into the top right corner. That was pretty damn impressive. 2-2 FULL TIME: That was a really tough break. I tell the team they're playing well and we can still win. Glaser is in for Tapia. 92': Perkins to Cooper after a throwin for a rocket of a shot from 15 yards awayu, our 5th clear cut chance, but the keeper gets in front of it. EXTRA TIME HALF: We watched them take a free kick, only other highlight. 121': Pace tries a cross that earns us a corner, but the corner was taken too close and right at the keeper. That's it, and we go to penalties. Penalties have been a pretty ridiculous thing and that's apparently a common theme in FM14, so we're not going to describe every shot here. Lets just see who wins the random thing that is a shootout. -- Khalsa's 4th penalty kick goes wide. Its the first penalty I've ever seen straight up miss the target, as opposed to being stopped by the keeper. We hit all of ours. Wake Forest (5) 2p : 2 (4) Khalsa Giving up a 2 goal lead is pretty scary, but we advance and that's all that matters! Man of the Match: Mark Shakespeare (8.4) Goals: Cooper (7.3), Navarro (7.2) Assists: Shakespeare 2 Galvis with a 6.4, Pickering 6.6, everyone else 6.8-6.9. We really were the much better team for 90 minutes today. -- We receive $30,420 for the win today. |
North American Open Cup - Third Qualifying Round Draw
Some teams are added this round and there's 136 teams left. We really, really luck out here. We draw the Fredericton Fury, and we're at home again. Fredericton are in the St Lawrence Soccer League, another Amateur league in the same tier as us. This is a huge match, as this next game is worth $110,000 or so for a win. -- Our match with Fredericton is on the 27th, and we've got another league match in between. We're going to end up playing 9 matches in the 30 days of May. May 23rd, 2015 Nashville Soul (0-0-4, 16th) vs Wake Forest Cougars (3-0-1, 3rd) Attendance: 198 -- We played them twice last year and won both times. This is the only team left in the APL without a win, and they don't even have a point. GK: Gyan D: Bergmann/Varela/Garcia/Diaz DM: Vega M: Perkins/Sandoval AM: Rose/Crook ST: Pace Obviously we have to replace everyone today. DM Adalberto Vega gets his first appearance in the senior squad. I up us from defensive to standard mindset against such a poor opponent. 1': Their ST Griffiths gets a yellow card 16 seconds into the match. 25': First highlight is a corner that we don't do anything with. 34': Pace with a cross in from the right for Crook, he has a volly from the penalty spot, a clear cut chance, but awful and wide. 37': They get their first look, a dangerous shot from a streaking right midfielder, but he puts it wide. HALF: We shoot 4 times, they shoot 1. All off target. Pretty ugly half. Lets attack, guys. 49': Varela a yellow for a foul literally inches outside the penalty area. They take the free kick and it hits the right post and bounces in. 0-1 70': Pace with a weak shot saved by the keeper. First highlight in awhile. 74': A shot from 20 yards out from midfielder North its placed perfectly and into the top corner of the goal. 0-2 74': Wilkins in for Sandoval, Reynoso in for Pace. 80': They get a clear cut chance after a cross finds its mark in the 6 yard box, but Gyan stops it. 85': Another breakaway for Nashville and clear cut chance, saved. and we clear out the corner. We played really terribly in the second half. Nashville 2 : 0 Wake Forest I tell the team they sucked, even if it wasn't the first team, ugly. 6.2 from Diaz, 6.3 from Rose and Pace. That drops us to 6th. |
-- Coggins and Jackson both resume full training. Roth is about ready to go too. A run like this would be a lot easier with those guys on the field instead of some of these 14 year olds and guys who just don't seem to produce.
May 27th, 2015 North American Open Cup - Third Qualifying Round Draw Wake Forest Cougars vs Fredericton Fury Attendance: 457 GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Varela DM: Williams M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Navarro Back to a lineup I'm confidant can do good things. 5': They have a set piece deep in the right corner, a cross into the area, and a shot is blocked and Gyan picks up the loose ball. 12': Navarro has it 35 yards out to start the highlight, he sends it left for Davidson, a cross.. Navarro with a solid header, keeper has to dive to stop it. There's a rebound and Cooper is first to it and he buries it! 1-0 28': Following a lot of buildup down the right side, there is a strong cross and very strong shot by their striker, Gyan dives left and pushes it away. 39': Williams with a yellow. HALF: Its quite even really, 5 shots for them, 3 for us, possession is 53/47 in our favor. I bring Villa in for Williams at the half as its pointed out that Williams is making an awful lot of mistakes today. 68': First highight of the half is a free kick from Tapia, Galvis heads it weakly forward, Navarro heads it in but he had made a run on the free kick and was offsides behind the defense. 75': One of their midfielders had picked up a yellow earlier that I didn't note... he just got a second one and we're up a man! 81': Three highlights in a row of long/poor shots from Fredericton. 82': Glaser in for Shakespeare, Varela in for Galvis. 85': I tell the team to make shorter passes, drop deeper, and play at a lower tempo. 87': Gyan comes out after a long ball ahead and he fumbles it... it falls to one of their strikers who puts it into the now empty net. 1-1 87': Take away all those orders I just gave, and attack. 89': Glaser ahead to Navarro, he finds Tapia in the area, a shot from 15 yards out, and its a goal!!! 2-1 That'll do it! Wake Forest 2 : 1 Fredericton I'm so happy we got to end that in 90 minutes. Man of the Match: Jose Alejandro Tapia (7.6) Goals: Tapia, Cooper (7.2) Assists: Navarro (7.5) Pickering struggled again with a 6.4 rating. -- We receive $114,000 for the victory. This is the round we lost in last year. That one match will guarentee us a massive, massive profit on the year. How that relates to speeding up semi-pro status I don't know, but it seems important. |
Good run so far.
Just wanted to thank you for alerting me to the Level 8 USA file. I started a save with the Honolulu Islanders over the weekend and I am enjoying every minute of it. In fact, it's taking me all my power not to start my own dynasty thread here. I just don't have the time to make it detailed like yours and the others here. If I did do it, it would be quite barebones. But I'm having fun nonetheless. |
-- That win leaves us with a balance of $455,043 in the bank.
North American Open Cup - First Round Draw 128 teams remain, so its a straight 7 round tournament from here. MLS and NASL and USL teams are all in play. We're stuck on the road here, against IMG Bradenton Academies. They're in Atlantic Coast Division 2. That's where we aim to be if we promote two years in a row. We did beat a team from that tier last round, so given all the top flight teams this is still a really good draw, but this is going to be a crazy tough matchup. We'll play them on June 10th. There is actually a break in June for some reason, we would have had a full month off according to the schedule if it weren't for the open cup and the Old North Cup. Maybe the Amateur Cup starts in June too. Its still a brutal schedule until after that match on the 10th. May 30th, 2015 Wake Forest Cougars (3-0-2, 6th) vs Peoria Steamers (4-0-1, 3rd) Attendance: 229 -- Peoria are only 3rd b/c other teams have more matches played. They were first with everyone on equal ground GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Burke/Varela/Jackson DM: Villa M: Glaser/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Cooper ST: Roth Burke starts over Pickering b/c Pickering has had a couple weaker matches. Roth is back from injury. Cooper and Shakespeare are simply fit enough to play and are consistetly better than other options. Both of Peoria's strikers in their 4-4-2 have been scoring quite a bit. This could be tough. 4': They have a corner kick, kicked to the edge of the penalty box, headed forward, and then headed in. Ugh. 0-1 8': We earn a corner off a cooper cross, corner is cleared. 22': Shakespeare loses the ball to a tackle in midfield, they pass it ahead quickly and get a shot off, but its off target. 25': Up to a standard mindset from our defensive one. 37': Throwin in their end, after a couple passes Shakespeare gets it into the area for Roth, he makes a cut to the goal, and he's tackled, penalty! Shakespeare takes it and scores. 1-1 46': Another throwin in the offensive end, on the right side, we work it around a bit and rotate to the left side, Rose with a run and a cross, Shakespeare is there and puts it in with his left foot! 2-1 HALF: Quite the comeback. They outshoot us 4-3, every on target shot has been a goal. We dominated possession throughout the half but it wasn't until we pulled out of our defensive shell that we generated anything at all. 49': Campbell clears a ball to Galser near midfield, a ball ahead to Roth, he's about 35 yards out and makes a great run on his own, but he tries a cute chip shot when the keeper didn't really leave his line yet. Easy save. 62': Rose tries a cross, they head it out, but we retain possession, passed back ahead to Rose again, he sprints into the area and is tackled. Penalty #2! Shakespeare is gonna take this one too and he has a hat trick. 3-1 69': Perkins in for Glaser, Crook in for Cooper. 74': Shakespeare starts the offense with an interception, ahead to Crook, to Roth, and back to a breaking Shakespeare, from about 30 yards out he lobs it over to the left side for Rose, Rose shoots and its in! 4-1 81': Jackson decides that Peoria deserves to score from the penalty spot too, a bad tackle in the area, and they do convert the penalty. 4-2 83': Horrible play by Peoria, a throwin in their own defensive end, they throw it towards the penalty area, and Roth intercepts the throwin, shoots and scores. 5-2 That's it! Wake Forest 5 : 2 Peoria Man of the Match: Mark Shakespeare (9.6) Goals: Shakespeare 3, Rose (8.4), Roth (8.7) Assists: Rose 2, Roth, Shakespeare Notables: Villa (7.2) 6.8/6.9 ratings from all of the defense. A good win to break our 2 game losing streak in league play.  6 out of the 15 games before the split complete, and we sit in 6th. We've already played, and beaten, three teams above us. That should be good news in theory, but the reality is that we seem to struggle like hell against some of the worst teams. |
Quote:
Awesome! I'm glad you're enjoying it. |
June Update
-- Campbell/Coggins/DC Ashley Varela all train well. Pace/Burke/Villa all struggle. -- The board is very pleased with my leadership, locker room atmosphere still the #1 reason, and our 0-2 loss to bottom feeders Nashville is the negative. We made a ridiculous $166,000 last month. June 2nd, 2015 Owensboro Cookers (4-1-1, 3rd) vs Wake Forest Cougars (4-0-2, 6th) Attendance: 278 We only played them once last year, we beat them. GK: Gyan D: Bergmann/Pickering/Galvis/Varela DM: Williams MC: Tapia/Sandoval AM: Davidson/Crook ST: Navarro 100% turnover here outside of the GK. 9': Pickering gets a yellow. 21': Their ST Cuevas gets a yellow. 23': Williams a yellow. He'll get suspended a game for that. 33': We see our first highlight, a free kick saved. 40': Navarro gets a yellow for diving. 42': Bob Varela picks up a minor injury. HALF: Uh yeah. So 4 yellows, one highlight, and we're in the locker room. I bring Perkins in for Sandoval. That attacking MC spot seems pretty crucial and I'm hoping Perkins has a better chance to make something happen there. 49': We hold possession for a long while, Varela tries to lob it forward to Navarro, Navarro actually misses it.. or lets it go? and Davidson making a run in from the left gets to it, fires a shot, but it hits the post. 55': Great play by Davidson to make a run into the area and evade the defense. Instead of shooting though he lays it off for Perkins, shot is blocked. We earn a corner but they clear. 60': defender Beckham with a yellow for them. 68': They get a goal from 20 yards out on a nice shot by ST Briceno. We had been dominating the half too. 76': Davidson intercepts a pass in our defensive half to win possession, we slowly but surely build up down the left side, lots of short passes. Finally, Perkins passes to Navarro, he's just outside the area and fairly far left of center, he cuts by his man and gets a pretty solid look, and buries it! 1-1 87': Pace in for Navarro, Glaser in for Tapia 93': One last free kick before its over, Davidson fires a poor cross through the area though, no danger. We'll take a road draw here. Owensboro 1 : 1 Wake Forest Their goal scorer is man of the match. Goal: Navarro (7.1) Assist: Perkins (6.8) Notable: Williams (7.0) Galvis and Pickering both with 6.4 ratings in the back. -- We move up 1 spot to 5th with the point we got today. Injury Update DR Bob Varela pulls a hamstring and is out 5-6 weeks. Youth pull fausto Diaz will back up Jackson now. -- Brian Williams and Ronnie Navarro both picked up their 2nd yellow today, both will miss our next match. Luckily its in 3 days and they both would have rested anyway. |
North America Amateur Cup Qualifying Round Draw
160 teams in this round. We continue a trend started last year by drawing a home match against a team from California. We'll play the Long Beach Internationals. They're in our tier. We'll play on the 24th of June, which still keeps the 2nd half of june reasonable looking as far as the schedule goes with a full month off of league play. June 5th, 2015 Wake Forest Cougars (4-1-2, 6th) vs Jackson Red Shirts (1-3-3, 13th) Attendance: 229 We've played them twice, going 1-1. We're heavy 2:5 favorites, so I'm worried. GK: Gyan D: Bergmann/Pickering/Garcia/Diaz DM: Villa MC: Sandoval/Glaser AM: Rose/Crook ST: Ratzburg We play our NA Open cup match in 5 days, so I want Shakespeare and Cooper fully fit for that. I go with Patrick Ratzburg up front, our young signing who is just back to fitness after a long injury. Standard mindset from the start. 16': Ratzburg to Crook for our first highlight, Crook is way off though. 31': We win a goal kick and its passed to Ratzburg about 35 yards out, he lobs it ahead to Sandoval, he's behind the defense and has a clear cut chance... and just puts it wide. I relaly don't like Sandoval. 38': Rose with a long run by himself into the penalty area, looks like he was looking for a cross but then found a way to cut by his man, he gets a clear cut chance from the left side, but its right at the keeper. 42': Bergmann is hurt and forced to leave the match immediately. Burke comes in for him. He can play DL acceptably, though he's definitely better in the middle. HALF: We outshoot them 5-0, control possession, get 2 clear cut chances... and its scoreless at the half. 49': Free kick near midfield, we take it short and work our offense, Sandoval ahead to Glaser, he puts a ball into the area for Ratzburg, its a little awkward as he has to go right and shoot back to his left, but he does it well and makes the shot! 1-0 68': Rose with a corner, Crook blasts a shot, but right at the keeper. 78': Throwin deep in the offensive end, Ratzburg passes to the end line to Crook, he puts a perfect pass on the ground to the penalty spot, Glaser blasts it, clear cut chance, no way you can miss this.. but its right at the keeper. 79': Perkins in for Glaser, Reynoso in for Rose. 83': Lets defend this one out. We hang on to win this one! Wake Forest 1 : 0 Jackson Man of the Match: Patrick Ratzburg (7.4) Goal: Ratzburg Assist: Glaser (7.0) Everyone else is 6.6-6.9. Not a great job against a much weaker opponent, but get the 3 points and I am not going to complain much. We're up to 3rd with that win, but still only 4 points ahead of 8th. There's a long way to go to wrap up a spot in the top half (er, top 7/16th?) of the split. Enough of league talk though, we don't play a league match for a month. Its Cup time. |
-- Rumors begin again about a consortium possibly taking over Wake Forest.
June 10th, 2015 North American Open Cup - First Round IMG Bradenton Academy vs Wake Forest Cougars Attendance: 599 GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Jackson DM: Williams MC: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Navarro 19': First highlight of the match, they take a free kick and miss a shot badly. 21': Williams loses the ball in midfield, there is one long ball ahead for ST Gonzalez, he gets behind the defense, gets a clear cut chance and finishes cleanly. 0-1 24': We have a throwin in their end, we have like 5 men in the box for what seems like forever, lots of short passing, finally Tapia finds Campbell on a run down the middle unmarked, he shoots and its good! 1-1 28': Davidson ahead to Shakespeare, a defender comes in and slide tackles it away, but it goes backwards towards their goal, right to Navarro, who gets to the ball and finishes strong! 2-1 40': Navarro receives a pass 25 yards out, ahead to Cooper, he's tackled in the area... but no foul. HALF: They shoot 5 times to our 4, its all pretty damn even. 3 clear cut chances, 3 goals. We are better in the air, 69% of our headers won to just 47% for them. That' the only distinguishing factor right now. 46': They launch a shot from 25 yards, way high. 64': Solid defending, we win lots of headers to keep them from building an attack and eventualy intercept a pass nicely to clear. No threat. 68': Davidson with a nice ball into the area for Shakespeare, he controls it off his chest but not well enough to shoot, its tackled away, Davidson runs up to the loose ball and shoots, but wide. 83': Burke in for Galvis. 86': Navarro picks up a minor injury. 90': Glaser in for Tapia 92': We allow a long run by their left midfielder into the penalty area, but instead of holding it up and trying a cross he shoots from a really awkward angle, and misses. 93': Just a minute or so left, we allow a corner, but Campbell makes the clearance. That's it! We're Rich! IMG Bradenton 1 : 2 Wake Forest Their goalscorer is man of the match. Goals: Campbell (7.4), Navarro (7.1) Assists: Tapia (6.9), Davidson (7.2) Joe Jackson with a 6.4, everyone else in the high 6's. -- We receive a crazy $228,000 for this victory. More than doubles our profits on the year so far. Injury Update Navarro hurt his toe and will miss 9-12 days. He'll miss the Old North Cup match, not a big concern. Here's our first goal, I'm real pleased with our patience and passing. |
North American Open Cup - Second Round
64 teams left. The odds start to get pretty decent at this point that we play an MLS team. We get about as good a draw as we could hope for really. We host the St Louis Lions, a team from the USL Pro West. That's the 4th tier here, so that's waaaay above us. (MLS > NASL > USL > USL 2) USL 2 is USL East and USL West. -- Unfortunately, this match is on the 17th, which causes our Old North Cup match to be re-arranged, and this is going to be our next match, which means Navarro will miss it. Old North Cup - Semifinal Draw If we were to somehow beat Wilmington in our next match, we'd play the winner of North Meck SC and the Carolina Railhawks in the semis. We'd get it at home. The RailHawks promoted out of USL up to the NASL last year and are actually 8th there right now, so they are right on the edge of making the playoffs with a chance to enter MLS. Injury Update Youth DC Jesus Antonio Guerrero tore an ACL and is out for 10-12 months. He very briefly hit the bottom of our depth chart when we had a couple injuries, but its unlikely he would play for us, probably ever, given our lack of ability to develop players. -- A few days later, Pierre Reynoso got food poisoning, he's out a week. June 17th, 2015 North American Open Cup - Second Round Wake Forest Cougars vs St Louis Lions Attendance: 473 St Louis are 1:10 favorites. Oh crap I forgot, this was the st Louis team we played a friendly against earlier this year. We won that match. WE GOT THIS GUYS. GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Jackson DM: Williams MC: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Cooper ST: Roth Rose is in over Davidson, Roth for the injured Navarro. I tell the team to play a slower match, and for the defense to play a little deeper than normal. 27': First highlight of the match, Gyan saves a free kick. 33': Keller for St Louis with a yellow. 40': Long shot from St Louis, wide. HALF: Boring, but good for us I think. They shoot 3 times to our 2, neither of ours were worthy of highlights at all. 47': Yellow for midfielder Cruz for St Louis, that was after Rose made really nice 1v1 tackle to win the ball for us. 48': Cooper is tackled by their midfielder Keller, that's a yellow, his second, he's gone! We have a man advantage. 60': Cooper with a stunningly nice long ball from well behind midfield for Roth, Roth into the area, keeper comes out... Roth with a clear cut chance... hits the crossbar. 75': Yellow for Campbell 76': Yellow for Williams, that'll be another match missed. FULL TIME: I'll take it, I'll take it. Each team with 4 shots, we have the only clear cut chance of the match. Glaser in for Tapia. 96': Throwin for us near midfield, Shakespeare sends it to the left for Rose, he's got some space, he makes a run and sends a cross to Roth. Roth runs to the left side of the 6 yard box while controlling it, fires a shot, the keeper dives for it and saves it, it falls right back to Roth though, he shoots and puts it in!!!!!!!! 1-0 101': Cooper with an interception in midfield, he makes a long run all on his own, deep to the corner, crosses, its headed away, Shakespeare gets to it and shoots from 20 yards out... hits the crossbar and over. 102': Davidson in for Rose, Burke in for Pickering. 104': Another one of those mis-hit crosses that goes right at the keeper, Gyan tries to punch it away, but it goes straight up basically, comes down and we have like 4 players there, I gues they fall over each other in an effort to clear, and it goes in, credited as an own goal for Gyan. SOOOOOOOOOOOO sad. 1-1 105': We move foward after kickoff, building up possession, Shakespeare puts a through ball ahead to Cooper, he's got a great look, but the keeper dives and saves. Its a corner. They clear. EXTRA TIME HT: That own goal, oh god. We're a man up, do we attack or just play for penalties? I don't know! I make no changes. 109': They get a cross to the 6 yard box, the very left edge though, tight angle, we block a shot behind for a corner. Gyan gets a save on the corner. 114': Galvis yellow. 118': Cooper with a corner, its to Burke at the near post, he's basically unmarked, clear cut chance... right at the keeper. And that's it. FULL TIME: We are going to penalties. Both teams make their first 5 penalties. After 8-8, Gyan steps up for us, he makes our 9th kick. Their next man steps up, kicks it low and to the right. Gyan dives the right way, SAVES IT. WE'RE EVEN MORE RICH HOLY SHITBALLS. Wake Forest (9) 1p : 1 (8) St Louis One of their defenders is man of the match. Goal: Roth (7.2) Notables: Pickering (7.0), Shakespeare (7.0), Cooper (7.0) -- We receive $456,000 for this win. We now have $1 million in the bank. Roth's goal, surely an ESPN Top Play in a world where people care about 8 levels of soccer in the US. This is actually not unprecedented. Last year the Hickory Heat from the bottom division upset a top team to advance an extra couple rounds. |
Ah, how I wish I had your 9GB computer to render such 3D graphics...
Damn, you're raking in a lot of cheddar! That mod really pumped up the prize money in the Open Cup, didn't it? |
Quote:
Heh yeah. I have no idea how this will end up impacting our climb up the ladder. I'm not really looking to be the only semi-pro team in a full league of amateur teams, but once I reach a level where most other teams are starting to make the switch, it'll be nice to be able to do so easily ourselves. |
DC Ashley Varela comes to talk to me about his playing time. I dunno if a 14 year old should really be saying shit, but he is someone that came in good enough that I wanted to play him some, and i haven't. I'll make sure to work him into the rotation.
North American Open Cup - Third Round Draw 32 teams left. We're going to be going on the road to Dallas to play FC Dallas. I think there's a chance our run might end here. North America Amateur Cup - First Round Draw If we win our qualifying round match against Long Beach, we'll play our second match against Limestone City. June 20th, 2015 Old North Cup - Second Round Wilmington Hammerheads vs Wake Forest Cougars Attendance: 2163 Wilmington are much, much bigger favorites than St Louis was. They are 1:33 to win, we are 50:1... GK: Gyan D: Bergmann/Burke/Varela/Diaz DM: Villa M: Perkins/Glaser AM: Davidson/Crook ST: Ratzburg Shuffling things up on 3 days rest. I think everyone but Gyan was changed today. I add instructions to drop the defense deeper and play slower. 1': Free kick from 25 yards out for them, Gyan gets the save. 2': We try to clear twice but cannot, finally they put a shot wide, 3 shots for them already. 11': They hit a free kick off the post and we clear, its a good counterattack... except their players are so much faster they easily make up the distance before we can do anything threatening. 20': Our first shot comes on a free kick by Varela. Its not close. 33': Throwin for them, they easily get it into the area, but we do nicely to block the shot. An offsides gives it back to us eventually. HALF: They have only out-shot us 7-1, it may get much worse in the second half. They have only put 1 shot on target so far though. 47': And there it is, easy goal for Wilmington after some crisp passing. 0-1 54': A second goal on an easy cross and strong volley from 18 yards out. 0-2 57': A 3rd on a rebound goal after a first shot hit the post. 0-3 60': Pace in for Ratzburg. 88': Really pretty goal, a low driving ball came into the area from about 40 yards out and their left midfielder blasted it in off a bounce, that looked fairly difficult. 0-4 That'll do it. Wilmington 4 : 0 Wake Forest 5.6 from Varela, 5.6 from bergmann, and 5.8 from Villa. Its ok though, this one was just going to go bad. |
Injury Update
Youth MC Mike Wilkins is hurt in a U18 match and is going to miss 3 months.  Its taken awhile. June 24th, 2015 North America Amateur Cup - Qualifying Round Wake Forest vs Long Beach Internationals Attendance: 200 GK: Gyan D: Bergmann/Burke/Varela/Diaz DM: Villa M: Perkins/Glaser AM: Davidson/Crook ST: Ratzburg -- Uh, oops. I was looking at the wrong screen and accidentally accepted the same lineup that I ran 4 days ago against Wilmington. To be fair, I was looking at my match schedule to see if I was going to care about this match at all. With the money we've made, I am going to prioritize the league over this cup. Most of our team is still reasonably fit. Glaser and Cruz are going to have issues though. 23': First highlight shows one of them shooting well wide. Their color is white on an awful bright yellow so I can't see shit as far as the announcing. 37': Glaser with a pass attempt but its blocked and goes towards our goal, one of their strikers gets behind our defense and has a 1 on 1 with Gyan, the shot is on target, but Gyan does a great job to tip it wide. HALF: That's all the highlights we see here. 64': A number of passes around the area for us, Davidson is able to get a pass to Glaser about 10 yards out, Glaser shoots and scores! 1-0 69': They get a great clear cut chance after an attacker burns Diaz badly to get space in the penalty area, and they even things up. 1-1 70': Crook with a minor injury. 73': Pace in for Crook, Sandoval in for Glaser. 76': Terrifying sequence where they have a corner, they get I believe 3 shots off in a super crowded 6 yard box, its like a bunch of 6 year olds just crowding around the ball trying to kick it. Finally Gyan falls on it. 82': Varela is hurt and forced to leave the match. Garry Garcia comes in for him. 90': We've been defending an awful lot here in quick highlights over the last 15 minutes. Here they lob a ball in from the right, our defenders get way out of position and a ball falls to their striker and he gets a clear cut chance and puts it in. 1-2 94': Pace gets two crosses into the area but they are just poor and cleared easily. Wake Forest 1 : 2 Long Beach Really shitty performance here today, though I can't get too upset since I screwed up the lineups, and I wasn't going to try all that hard in this tournament anyway, but still, so bad. Goal: Glaser (7.3) Assist: Davidson (6.7) Injury Update -- Ashley Varela is out for 2 weeks. -- AMR Ryan Crook is out for 6-7 weeks. Cooper will now play absolutely every match he can. Our backups are Bo Thompson who has proven to be pretty awful, and youth pull Jeff Gallardo. Samir Pace can play AMR too and I could see going Navarro/Roth/Ratzburg at ST to let Pace play a little AMR. I'll try Gallardo but if he sucks Pace will take over as backup. |
-- The USA wins the Gold Cup, beating Costa Rica 1:0, Fabian Johnson scored a goal in the 25th minute. Costa Rica beat Mexico and the US beat El Salvador in the semifinals.
June 30th, 2015 North America Open Cup - Third Round FC Dallas vs Wake Forest Attendance: 14805 -- nice sized crowd that has come to see us get destroyed today! -- I guess 50-1 is the worst odds one can get? Same odds we had to beat Wilmington recently. GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Jackson DM: Williams M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Cooper ST: Navarro 3': They take a corner to the near post, Campbell is there, in fact, he's all alone there, no Dallas players at all. But he heads it the wrong way, into his own goal. Nerves? 0-1 8': One Dallas shot off the post, a nice save on the rebound. Corner for them. Taken to Bianchi who heads it in. 0-2 44': Some nifty, quick passing around our defensive end by Dallas, leading to a nice strong shot from Erick 20 yards out for a goal. 0-3 HALF: The dream is over. They have 9 shots to our 0. 56': A rebound goal for McInerney... actually I dunno that looked like another Campbell own goal. Thank god it wasn't counted that way, poor guy. 0-4 56': Roth, Pace and Sandoval in for Navarro, Cooper, and Shakespeare. The three guys on the field I would miss the most if they got hurt. 70': Pace with an interception on our side of midfield, he's allowed to make a long run down the right side, places a cross, Roth with a volley... saved.. Our first on target shot! Second shot total today. 75': They win a header on a goal kick, its headed well ahead of the defense, ST Avila is so much faster than anyone on our team, he easily gets to it ahead of everyone else and puts it by Gyan with ease. 0-5 85': Brian Williams is hurt and forced to leave the match. Lets hope its not serious. FC Dallas 5 : 0 Wake Forest They outshot us 16-3, basically exactly what you'd expect from a match like this. Jackson, Pickering and Campbell were all under 6, Pickering 5.4/Campbell 5.5. Rose 5.9, everyone else low 6's. Injury Update Disaster, the one thing we would want to avoid here today. DMC Brian Williams is going to miss 3-4 months with a torn hamstring. -- We're now out of every cup. We have 7 matches before the league split, all of them will be in July. More on that in a moment though. |
July Update
-- Gyan trains well, Coggins and Burke poorly. -- We play on July 3rd, 10th, 17th, 21st, 24th, 28th, and 31st. All league matcthes, 4 at home, 3 on the road. We currently sit in 3rd place but with only 4 points between us and 8th. -- The board is pleased with my leadership. Our positive atmosphere is the good, our 2-0 loss to Nashville in league play is the bad. The board ask for my patience while dealing with speculation regarding the sale of the club. We are financially secure and made $846,000 profit last month. -- DR Bob Varela resumes full training after being hurt for a month. July 3rd, 2015 Wake Forest Cougars (5-1-2, 3rd) vs Asheville Attack (3-0-5, 12th) Attendance: 247 -- About 14,000 less people are watching this match compared to our last one. -- Asheville is a bad team, but hopefully not so bad that we are screwed here :P GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Burke/Garcia/Jackson DM: Villa M: Glaser/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Roth Counting Gyan, we are able to start 5 of our top 11 today, and guys like Davidson and Roth fill in nicely enough that I like this lineup. 10': They have a goal kick and take it short, slowly working up the field, once they pass midfield there's a quick ball ahead though and they attack, getting their ST ahead of our defense, Burke comes in with a sliding tackle attempt, he doesn't win the ball but he delays the shot, when its finally taken Gyan makes a very nice stop. 21': Throwin for us at midfield, we passit around the left side for a bit, Shakespeare lobs it ahead to Roth, the keeper rushs out as Roth is by himself, he shoots from 18 yards and puts it into the right side of the net. 1-0 24': Roth to Cooper for a pretty decent shot from the right side, saved though. We get a shot off the corner too but saved. 42': Their left forward gets by Jackson, but Jackson keeps a decent bit of pressure on him, forcing a tough shot that goes wide. HALF: Its really even here. 4 shots each, 3 on target for us, 2 for them. 53/47 possession. We're way behind in the air, which is fairly rare for us. 70': First highlight of the half, they have to work to get the ball out of their own end after a save, but once they do they get their attack going, passing up the middle from a MC up to striker Watts. He's in a big hole in our defense that seems to be there for no reason, no movement, no runs anywhere... just left alone. And he gets a clear cut chance by gyan. 1-1 77': Perkins in for Glaser, Pace in for Roth. 80': After a lot of passing deep in our end, they manage a cross in from the left and Watts gets his second goal. 1-2 80': Attack, and stop holding onto the ball for longer than necessary. 91': They get a goal that seals it in the final minute, another cross from the left and a strong volley to end it. 1-3 Wake Forest 1 : 3 Asheville I guess Asheville isn't a good enough team for us to win against after all. Goal: Roth (7.0) Assist: Shakespeare (7.0) Garry Garcia with a 5.8 rating in defense was really bad. I tell the team they were bad and must be better next time out and it seemed to motivate them. |
-- Ashley Varela resumes full training.
-- Transfers not allowed while buyout of our team is finalized. -- We've lost 4 matches in a row. Two of them were against Wilmington and Dallas, which shouldn't really count, but its had a pretty notable impact on our team moral. Most everyone is "okay", where we were used to seeing most people have a pretty positive feeling for a long time. July 10th, 2015 Model City Kings (4-1-4, 7th) vs Wake Forest Cougars (5-1-3, 5rd) Attendance: 184 -- Every match is huge with the split on the line, but this is especially important. -- We've played these guys twice and drawn both times. -- Model City are listed as even money favorites today. GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Galvis/Jackson DM: Villa M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Cooper ST: Navarro -- Model City has a monster of a striker in Alfonso Grisi, overall he's played 18 matches and scored 10 goals. In league play 4 starts and 3 goals. We have to shut him down. Close down and make him use his left foot. -- Defend, retain possession. 5': They try a cross, Pickering heads it away, but they recover, a couple pases later they get it to Grisi, he's well covered, but makes a turn in the area and gets a good shot off, goal. 0-1 28': We control the ball for some time, but can't find an opening. Finally Navarro finds Cooper, he makes the extra pass to Rose for a clear cut chance.. but saved. They clear the corner, we recover but can't do anything. 39': They have a throwin deep in their own defensive end. Its taken but the player its thrown to isn't paying attention, Navarro gets to it first and quickly has a clear cut chance... that he puts way over. HALF: I'm very worried that we're getting stuck in a rut at a terrible time here. The match is pretty even, 3 shots each, but two of ours were clear cut chances and they have the only goal. They are passing slightly better, tackling way better and are winning significantly in the air. 46': This is the second time they botch a throwin in their own end. Navarro with another good look, but they block it. Corner goes nowhere. 69': First highlight in 25 minutes, they get a short cross in from the right, Grisi with a volley from 8 yards out, goal. 0-2 69': I already had the instruction queued up to switch to standard play from defensive. 83': Ugh, attack. They're killing the clock. 84': Great play from Navarro to Cooper, lays it back to Shakespeare, lob forward to Navarro, that's behind the defense and Navarro is all alone.. but a shitty first touch prevents the easy goal. He pulls it wide right and we get a corner out of it, but can't do anything with it. Just terrible. Model City 2 : 0 Wake Forest Shakespeare with a 7.1 today, no one was below 6, though Galvis ended at 6.1 Our morale is tanking a bit, we need a win bad. Just looking at the highlights it looked like Navarro really, really had a poor match and should have had at least one goal, and possibly as many as three. We drop to 6th, and are just 1 point clear of 9th now, its a big pack and whoever wins a few matches goes through. We are hurting ourselves a lot. |
-- Before the trade embargo went up, I had made an offer to a defender two tiers up that I really like. He accepted the offer, the transfer was cancelled, and two days later the sale of our team falls apart, and the embargo was lifted. I make him another offer and hope that he still wants to play here.
New Signing 22 y/o DC Steve Forrest joins us from CASL Chelsea, two tiers above us. He'd only played 4 matches for the first team all season so he wasn't happy. From my perspective, a guy who can ever crack the roster two tiers above us sounds like a good thing! 7 heading/6 marking/10 tackling. All fine for this level. 9 composure/4 concentration/7 decisions/3 determination/6 positioning. 13 jumping/10 strength. So that determination is bad, but the composure and decision making are things that rarely exist here. So I *hope* he works out. Its been really difficult for me to judge who will work out and who won't, especially at DC, but I'm hopeful. -- Because he hasn't been playing, Forrest is nowhere near match fit. We'll make sure he gets reserves time. A couple of our lesser used players are starting to have some fitness issues too. -- The Charlotte Eagles beat the Wilmington Hammerheads in the final of the Old North Cup. They are the #2 and #3 teams in the state for sure. The #1 team in the state, defending Old North Cup champs Carolina RailHawks, were upset by Wilmington in the semifinals. July 17th, 2015 Tupelo Possums (4-3-3, 8th) vs Wake Forest Cougars (5-1-4, 6th) Attendance: 282 -- I would have really liked to have been at home for this one to try to turn this streak around. This does mean 3 of our last 4 are at home at least. -- We've played these guys twice, lost once, tied once. -- We famously lost to Tupelo in the next to last match of the first split last season, a team who at the time had 1 win in 13 matches played. This effectively knocked us out of the top half of the league. GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Burke/Jackson DM: Tapia M: Sandoval/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Roth I make some changes here despite everyone being fresh. Roth up front, Davidson over Rose, Tapia to DMC, and Burke in at DC for Galvis. 9': Glaser picks up an injury early on and is forced to leave the match. Perkins is in. 10': Cooper earns us a corner with a good free kick. Corner taken near post to Pickering. He gets a shto off, saved, second corner. We can't get a shot off this one but retain possession and back things up.. no luck. 19': Davidson with a long free kick from the left sideline, Roth is able to get his head to it, but its wide. 24': Shakespeare with a great ball ahead for Davidson, clear cut chance.. saved. 35': They have a free kick from 25 yards out... taken beautifully, top left corner of the net. We are 100% outplaying these guys, that was their first shot. 0-1 42': We clear a ball out of our end and counter, Davidson with a nice long run, a ball ahead to Shakespeare, he gets a shot off from 18 yards out... hits the bar and goes over. HALF: We are so much better than these guys. We control possession, shots, passing, tackling, heading, is all in our favor fairly heavily. We just can't find a goal. I try to keep the team upbeat by telling them they're playing well, that was a mistake, whole team is de-motivated. Oops. I hope I didn't just lose it for us. Some individual talks help. 60': We lose the ball while attacking and they counter hard, a couple passes leads to a clear cut chance, but its over. 67': Campbell yellow. 71': Rose in for Davidson. 74': Rose with a poor cross, too bad since we have two guys in the 6 yard box. We get a corner out of it but that coulda been better. Corner goes nowhere. 79': Burke clears a ball off the line on a corner and we get a good counterattack going. Rose ends up with a clean look in the area, a clear cut chance, but right at the keeper. 81': Cooper with a corner into the 6 yard box, Pickering is there, heads it, goal! 1-1 81': We keep attacking, Maybe greedy, I want a win. 90': Rose with an awful shot from way too far out left when he coudl have held up play and gotten help. 92': Some decent passing, Roth ends up inding Shakespeare in the area, its a good look, but saved. We get the point. Tupalo 1 : 1 Wake Forest Goal: Pickering (7.3) Assist: Cooper (6.9) Everyone else is 6.7-6.9. I tell the team they were unlucky, and I mean it. We end up outshooting them 11-4, and are just superior in every way. Even attacking hard and taking off the retain possession order for the entire second half, we won possession 56-44. Their only goal comes on a long free kick that never ever goes in. We maintain 6th with that draw. Still just 1 point clear of 9th. Injury Update Gary Glaser is out for 4-5 weeks with a groin strain. Not good! -- David Campbell is going to miss our next match after picking up the yellow today.  There are the standings with 4 left to play. Remember that 7th place is the cutoff. The biggest thing in our favor I think is that 3 of our last 4 are at home. We definitely ought to make it here, but we'll see. Counting the cup matches this is 6 in a row without a win. |
EDIT: Game crashed, so my last game is thrown out.
|
-- So if anyone saw the last update before it was edited, we got *stomped* by Danville, 4-1. But the game crashed before the next save point. So we get another chance here.
July 21st, 2015 Wake Forest Cougars (5-2-4, 6th) vs Danville Villains (4-4-3, 8th) Attendence: 231 -- We played Danville twice last year and split, 1 win apiece. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Bergmann/Pickering/Varela/Diaz DM: Villa M: Perkins/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Gallardo ST: Navarro Youth pull Gallardo gets his first start at AMR, with Crook hurt. Standard mindset, no instructions at the start. 1': Rose with a run down the left right off the kickoff, his cross attempt is cleared though. 19': Danville shoots on a free kick, wide. HALF: What the heck was that. There was one highlight in the final 25 minutes, some passing leading to an offsides by Navarro... We have two off target shots, they have one. That's it. 47': We have a throwin in their end, Bergmann throws it to the other team though... they build up fairly quickly, there's a cross in from the left, ST Chappell is there and he puts it in. 0-1 52': We watch Navarro score but he is clearly offsides. 55': Rose is forced to leave the match with an injury. Davidson is in. I'm also subbing Navarro out and Ratzburg is in. 57': Davidson with a cross in to Ratzburg, he's in a decent position but lots of defenders around, he gets tripped up and the ball goes free, shakespeare is first to it but his shot is blocked. 59': We build up down the right side, Ratzburg to Shakespeare, right back to Raztburg and that's a clear cut chance... but he hits the right post. 70': Bergmann with a yellow. He'll miss the next match. 71': We're generating some shots at least. Gallardo got a fairly decent look here, but saved. 76': Wide open look after a long ball for Stokes from Danville, he just misses from 18. 78': We pass it straight up the middle, Ratzburg lobs a ball down the left side for Davidson, he crosses, Shakespeare has a great look from about 8 yards out... and he hits the keeper with it. Gallardo tries to followup on the rebound but its blocked. Corner. The corner is poorly taken. 79': Tapia in for Perkins. We will try to attack harder. 92': We give up a last minute goal. Same result in the second try. I guess that's only fair. 0-2 Wake Forest 0 : 2 Danville Perkins 6.8, Gyan and Shakespeare 6.7. Everyone else is in the 6.2-6.3 range. Just awful play all around. Injury Update AML Rose is out 2-3 months with a broken rib. So this actually turns out worse than the last one. We only have a few games to turn this around and get into the top split, otherwise we have shit to play for again this year. |
July 24th, 2015
Wake Forest Cougars (5-2-5, 8th) vs Kentucky Colonels (7-1-4, 3rd) Attendence: 198 We played Kentucky once last year and lost. We're in 8th with 3 matches left before the split, gotta win now. Starting Lineup GK: Harrington D: Campbell/Galvis/Burke/Varela DM: Vega M: Tapia/Perkins AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Roth So I have a few players at "fairly good" morale still. Harrington DR Varela, Galvis, Vega, Cooper. All of these guys start. Some guys at Good morals are too tired from resreve matches. Trying to give the team a boost anyway I can here. 3': Free kick for us about 35 yards out, taken short to Vega, he runs to the right side of the field, lobs a cross in, it bounces at the penalty spot, Davidson heads it off the bounce, keeper gets a hand to it but can't stop it, goal! When was the last time we had a lead? 1-0 31': They have a free kick from 25 yards out fairly wide right, Dennison curls it towards goal, Harrington dives.. and can't stop it. 1-1 37': We get a goal from Perkins on a set play, a free kick out right... but offsides apparently. That was pretty close, not obvious at all. 43': Free kick for them, another shot, hits the crossbar and goes over. HALF: Not a lot of highlights after the early goal. They take 2 shots, we only have 1 all half. 53': Free kick in our end taken by Harrington, he kicks it long, Roth controls it, passes ahead to Davidson, he gets a shot from 20 yards out, its saved and turned back for a corner, which we take real poorly. 66': An easy goal for Kentucky. ST has it up high, passes to left midfielder cutting inside, our defender doesn't run with him and he's wide open. Its Dennison, the same guy that scored on the free kick. 1-2 66': Ratzburg in for Roth, Shakespeare in for Perkins. 70': We'll open up the offense a bit. 76': Yellow for their mid Glazer. 78': It looks like they're about to get an easy shot but Burke makes a real nice sliding tackle to win possession about 20 yards out, some nice passes get the ball upfield, Davidson to Ratzburg, back out wide to Davidson, he makes a run and crosses... poor cross past the goal, but Cooper controls the ball in the box near the end line. He's tackled... penalty!! Shakespeare takes the penalty... good!!!! 2-2 78': Counterattacking mindset here, lets defend and we'll go for a break if we can. 90': Cooper intercepts a pass in midfield, passes ahead to Ratzburg, he lobs a ball to the penalty box, Davidson controls it, shoots from about 15 yards... goal!!! I did not expect that at all. 3-2 92': Davidson earns us a corner with a cross attempt... Davidson takes the corner, to the far end of the 6 yard box, Burke goes up for it with two defenders, Burke wins the header and drives it into the net!! 4-2 Wake Forest 4 : 2 Kentucky Thank god. Lets hope we didn't break out of our slump too late. Man of the Match: Brian Davidson (9.3) Goals: Davidson 2, Burke (7.5), Shakespeare (6.9) Assists: Davidson, Vega (7.7), Cooper (7.5), Ratzburg (6.9) Notables: Tapia (7.0)  With 2 matches to play before the split, we sit in 7th place, just 2 points ahead of 8th. Our last two matches are both against teams below us in the standings. |
July 28th, 2015
North Meck SC (5-2-6, 10th) vs Wake Forest Cougars (6-2-5, 7th) Attendence: 180 This is our first meeting. Despite their poor record, they are somehow 1:6 favorites today. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Coggins/Galvis/Pickering/Jackson DM: Pena M: Sandoval/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Navarro Most players morale is back up to Fairly Good or better now. I pick Pena over Villa at DM b/c Villa is still just "okay" morale, I want green everywhere. Also note Danny Coggins at DL. Due to injuries all year, this is Coggins first match of the season for me. 11': Sandoval wins a header for us off a goal kick to get possession going, Davidson passes to Sandoval, back to Davidson in the corner of the area.. he's tackled.. penalty!! Sandoval takes the penalty and drains it! 1-0 21': They score on a header off a corner, ugh! 1-1 37': We watch them on offense, Shakespeare blocks a long shot nicely and later intercepts a pass, good D. 40': Strong shot from the right side of the area for North Meck, Gyan is there to save it. HALF: After that goal we didn't see a single offensive highlight. They outshoot us 4-2, but overall stats are quite even. No changes at the half. 46': We start with the ball and advance, getting a corner off a cross from Davidson, corner goes nowhere though. 55': Pena and Sandoval have both picked up minor injuries in the last 10 minutes. 65': Tapia in for Sandoval, Vega in for Pena. 75': Tapia with a free kick wide left about 30 yard osut, a cross into the box, Davidson is there, onsides, volley... keeper dives and stops it, the ball back to Davidson, he puts it in!! 2-1 79': They take a corner, this one Gyan grabs. 80': We intercept a pass in defense and move foward, Navarro ahead to Shakespeare, lays it back to Cooper in the area, we have a lot of men forward, Cooper to Shakespeare for the shot... saved. 92': They take a tough shot from the right side of the area and its high and wide. Two in a row! North Meck SC 1 : 2 Wake Forest Man of the Match: Brian Davidson (8.4) Goals: Davidson, Sandoval (6.8) Assist: Davidson 6.5-6.7 ratings everywhere else.  We should get through now, but its not a guarantee yet. If we lose, and Model City wins or draws, Danville and Owensboro both win, we could finish 8th. |
July 31st, 2015
Wake Forest Cougars (7-2-5, 5th) vs Savannah Braves (5-2-7, 10th) Attendence: 263 This is our first meeting. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Varela/Burke/Jackson DM: Villa M: Tapia/Perkins AM: Colangelo/Gallardo ST: Ratzburg Its not a great lineup, fitness is an issue, this is our 3rd match in 10 days and we ran a lot of key players out twice in a row to get that last win over North Meck. 2': They kick off but give the ball away pretty early. Long ball from Gyan, Gallardo to Ratzburg, back to Gallardo, he blows by his man and gets into the area and shoots, not an easy shot. Its tipped wide for a corner, which goes nowhere. 16': They have it in the area, Burke blocks a shot though and clears it to Gallardo, he passes immediately to Ratzburg who makes a run, he goes right and frees up a little space, shoots from 18 yards out... it hits the crossbar and bounces in!! 1-0 23': Gallardo is hurt and must leave the match immediately. Ugh, he had already made a couple nice plays. Cooper is in. 45': Villa to Ratzburg, we've been on offense awhile and there are a lot of people forward, Ratzburg lays it off for Perkins, its a clear cut chance from about 12 yards out, but its wide. HALF: Solid half. Each team only has 3 shots but we're ok with that with the lead, and 61% of the possession. 70': First highlight of the half, After Jackson intercepts a pass to get the offense going we take our time, eventually Cooper finds Perkins in the area for his second clear cut chance, and he puts it wide. 77': Sandoval in for Tapia. 91': Vega in for Villa. Timewasting really. Three in a row! Wake Forest 1 : 0 Savannah Man of the Match: Patrick Ratzburg (8.3) Goal: Ratzburg Assist: Gallardo (6.8) Notables: Jackson (7.0)  And there's the split. So we play 6 more matches this season, once against all of the other top 7 teams. The worst we can finish is 7th. Huntington and Peoria seem to be notably better than everyone else, but we could get hot and win the league still, or if we can get into the playoffs then anything can happen. The schedule gets a lot more relaxing from here... there are multiple two week breaks between matches that we will have to manage by getting first team players into reserve and U18 matches to try to keep them fit. |
-- Between July 31st and August 14th (our next league match) we only play one U18 match, no reserve matches. Not sure if its smart or not, or if it helps or not, but we switch to High Intensity Fitness training for one week.
-- ST Samir Pace is upset about his lack of first team soccer and has a chat with me about it. I tell him I'm going to give him a first team shot. I don't really want to dump ST depth, but, at the same time, Navarro/Roth/Ratzburg have all earned their playing time, Pace never has. I have AMR injuries like crazy, I'll probably give him a start there. August Update -- DC Garcia, GK Harrington and DL Campbell all train poorly. -- The board is very pleased with my leadership. That's an improvement from just "pleased" for awhile. Team atmosphere is the highlight, our 1-3 loss to Asheville is the one they picked out of all our bad losses in July before we turned it around. We made $5,960 profit last month. Injury Update -- AMR Ryan Crook just started full training again, and he's hurt himself again, out 2 months. -- On August 7th I change our training back to Team Cohesion/Average (instead of high fitness). August 14th, 2015 Wake Forest Cougars (8-2-5, 4th) vs Cleveland Stokers (7-2-6, 7th)) Attendence: 275 We've played Cleveland 3 times, 1 win, 2 draws. We beat them 2:1 on the road earlier this year. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Forrest/Jackson DM: Villa M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Navarro Starting our new DC Forrest is the only thing in here that could be considered interesting I think. Cleveland's best player is ST Diego Sinisterra. We will close down on him. 29': First highlight of the match, Shakespeare shoots a free kick over everything. 34': Shakespeare with an interception, after a couple passes Shakespeare with a through ball to Navarro, he's ahead of the defense, pulls up at the 18 yard mark, its a clear cut chance.. but wide. 46': Jackson with an interception to start this play off, Cooper to Shakespeare... a lob ahead for Navarro, its just like the last highlight, Navarro a clear cut chance, shoots from the edge of the box, and its saved. HALF: We're playing better, but need to get that goal. 5 shots to 1, they are dominating possession though, 58/42 edge there, and they're actually passing and tackling better too. Just not generating any chances. 57': Cooper is hurt and must leave the match. Crap. Gallardo is in. 60': Davidson with a yellow. 60': They have a free kick from 40 yards out, its taken into the box but headed out by Campbell. Davidson picks up the ball after the header in our own half, and he takes off, to the middle of hte field, beats one man, keeps going... to the edge of the box, a shot is blocked, but it doesn't ricochet far, Davidson gets to the loose ball, shoots, goal!!! 1-0 82': Sandoval in for Tapia, Vega in for Villa. 83': They win a ball and counter hard, a lob to ST Delgado and he's got a clear cut chance from 18 yards out, Gyan rushes out... and he stops the shot! It falls to the right side of the area, but our defense is back now, they get a pass back into the middle, Pickering with a tackle... they recover... pickering I think with another tackle (two defenders there, could be the other one), and we clear. WHEW. 86': Davidson with a free kick from 20, its high. 91': We earn a corner as davidson makes a long run into the box and has it tackled away. Watching the highlight I had to laugh... Davidson started his run about 40 yards out, Navarro was there the entire time... and offsides THE ENTIRE TIME. So Davidson couldn't pass, he had to run into the area and do it all himself. Corner goes nowhere. We hold off the last couple minutes! Wake Forest 1 : 0 Cleveland Man of the Match: Joe Pickering (8.3) Goal: Davidson (7.3) Assist: Campbell (6.8) Notables: Forrest (7.1), Shakespeare (7.1) I'm thrilled to see our defense put up good numbers, Pickering has struggled so much this year, today he is 9/9 on headers, including 4 key headers, with a cray 14 interceptions. Our new DC Steve Forrest had 8 interceptions and 4 key headers too, both were great. That probably explains how we had such a possession deficit early when it looked like we were in control. I tell pickering I'm extremely happy with his play. |
Injury Update
ST Ratzburg is hurt in a U18 match and will miss 4-5 weeks. This isn't a huge deal since our schedule load has lightened so much and we need less depth the rest of the way. August 21st, 2015 Model City Kings (8-1-7, 6th) vs Wake Forest Cougars (9-2-5, 4th) Attendence: 216 We're in a 3 way tie for 2nd right now, but have the worst goal differential. We're 1-1-1 against these guys in our history. We lost 2:0 this year. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Forrest/Jackson DM: Villa M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Roth Roth starts for Navarro, only change. Their best player is Alfonso Grisi, he wrecked us in our last meeting. We are lucky today I think. He's a ST/AML/ML, and he's being played at ML today. I hope he's less dangerous there. ST Martin French is a threat too though. They have some good players. 11': they have a corner, Tapia clears it out. 24': Davidson shoots on a free kick and earns us a corner. He takes the free kick to the near post, low, Pickering with the volley, goal!! 1-0 33': We earn one corner, they turn it behind, next one taken by Cooper, Pickering gets his head to it... but wide. Close. 43': They change play from right to left, Grisi with a run into the area, we make him pull it back out wide.. .he crosses to French, header is saved, but there's a rebound and French puts this one in. 1-1 Close half. They outshoot us 5-3, they're better in all statistical areas but not by a lot, and they have 54% of the possession. We just had all the early highlights I guess. 65': Roth picks up a minor injury. 72': They have a long goal kick, Grisi is there, passes ahead to French, but his shot is well high. 72': Navarro in for Roth, Burke in for Forrest. 81': We win a ball on a goal kick, ahead to Navarro quickly, he makes a run to the 18 yard mark and shoots.. wide. We'll take a road draw I think. Model City 1 : 1 Wake Forest Man of the Match: Joe Pickering (7.4) Goal: Pickering Assist: Davidson (6.8) Injury Update I shouldn't have said anything about Ratzburg's injury being no big deal. ST Roth is now out 6-7 weeks with an ankle injury he picked up today. -- We are listed in 3rd after this draw, but other teams are still in the Amateur Cup so we've got an extra match played on some of these teams. We are 4 points clear of 6th, the first spot that would miss the playoffs. |
Injury Update
Season over? ST Navarro is out 5 weeks with a broken cheekbone. DL Bergmann is out 4-5 weeks with a training injury. DR Fausto Diaz is out 4-5 weeks with an injury picked up in our U18 match. DC Garry Garcia is out 4-5 weeks with an injury picked up in the same U18 match. Navarro's has huge implications here. Our top three ST's are now hurt. Its not like last year where there is zero depth. We still have Pace and Reynoso, and we have youth pull Ben Goodwin, though his match fitness is in the tank. August 28th, 2015 Wake Forest Cougars (9-3-5, 3rd) vs Kentucky Colonels (9-2-5, 4th) Attendence: 273 We're 1-0-1 lifetime against Kentucky. We beat them very recently 4-2, that game kicked off our little resurgance in league play here. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Forrest/Jackson DM: Villa M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Pace Pace in at ST. 24': Long highlight here, starts with them winning a ball, they build up possession for some time, but finally, Jackson wins it for us with a sliding tackle, Forrest launches the clearance over everyone, Cooper runs it down and has it in the right corner for us, he finds a cross, Shakespeare heads it... deflected, Davidson is there, and scores! 1-0 HALF: That was the only highlight of the half. We have 2 shots, they have none. 46': We rush forward after kickoff, Cooper with a cross, but they head it out. Shakespeare recovers, but loses possession. 51': After some midfield possession, Shakespeare sends it ahead to Pace, he ends up shooting from 20 yards out, wide. 52': Davidson with a nice run down the left... cross, Cooper with the header, just wide. 53': Villa sends it ahead to Davidson, he's down near the end line in the area after a cut, he passes in front of the goal, Shakespeare has it, but his shot is blocked. It doesn't get much easier than that, that need to be a goal every single time. 55': Furious action here, they have a shot from the left side of the area that Gyan dives for and tips behind for a corner. We clear the corner. 62': Jackson with a long pass to Pace, he makes a run into the area, shoots from a pretty tough angle, and its saved. 65': Reynoso in for Pace. 65': They earn a corner on a long cross, ST Schmidt gets his head on it, but Gyan saves. 80': Sandoval in for Tapia. 82': We control possession in the middle for awhile, Shakespeare sends it ahead finally for Cooper, he runs down the right, passes back into the middle, Shaksepeare with a strong shot, but saved. 85': Long free kick for Shakespeare, into the area, headed by Reynoso, just over though. 89': Drop back to Contain for the ending here. 92': We're passing it around for awhile, wasting time mainly, davidson ends up sending it ahead to Reynoso though and he gets by one man and is all alone at the penalty spot... and his shot is saved. That is another shot that needs to be a goal 90% of the time or more. That'll do it! Wake Forest 1 : 0 Kentucky Man of the Match: Brian Davidson (7.5) Goals: Davidson Assists: Shakespeare (7.4) Notables: Jackson (7.2), Campbell (7.1)  After that we sit in 2nd place, actually tied for first but losing in goal differental. But we have extra matches on everyone right now. We only play two matches in September, so we'll see what the teams around us do. We only have 3 matches left to play total. We are very, very likely to make the playoffs now. |
September Update
-- ST Pace trains well. -- The board remains very pleased. Locker Room Atmosphere FTW. 0-2 loss to Danville is bad. We lost $3,740 last month. Injury Update Backup MC Ashley Sandoval is hurt in a U18 match trying to keep his fitness up, he's out for 4-5 weeks. September 11th, 2015 Peoria Steamers (10-2-5, 3rd) vs Wake Forest Cougars (10-3-5, 2nd) Attendence: 336 We beat them earlier this year. We are inexplicably 1-3 favorites on the road against a team who would pass us in the standings if we lose. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Forrest/Jackson DM: Villa M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Pace No lineup changes today. Peoria's Jake Wilson has 10 league goals in 14 matches, we're going to try to force him onto his right foot (he's left footed), and close down on him. 2': they get the first shot of the match, its way wide though. 13': Corner for us, Cooper sends it near post, Pickering wins the header but its high. 19': Cooper with a run down the right and a cross to Pace, they taclke it away from Pace immediately, ball falls to Shakespeare, his shot is high. 26': They get a strong pass ahead to ST smith, he pulls the ball out wide right, crosses, Wilson is there and heads it in. 0-1 HALF: We control possession pretty well, and overall its a fairly even match, 4 shots to 3, other stats pretty close, but they've got the goal. I bring Reynoso in for Pace at the half. 52': They send a ball into the left side of the area after a throwin, Wilson gets a clear cut chance... but misses. Whew. 69': Cooper earns us a corner as a shot is blocked. He takes it, it looks to me like the keeper gets his hands on it but can't control it, and Pickering is there to head the loose ball in! 1-1 84': We give the ball away in midfield, they show two quick passes and its on the foot of Wilson, he's at the 18 yard mark has a clear cut chance, we have a defender close to him but not pressuring enouhg, he buries the shot. 1-2 84': Gallardo in for Davidson, Perkins in for Tapia. 90': Gallardo earns us a corner with a cross, Cooper takes it, Pickering heads it... no good. Too high. 92': Gyan with a long kick after a pass back from a defender, it falls to Shakespeare, he pushes forward quickly, only seconds to go likely, he shoots from 20 yards out, and misses badly. That's the game. Peoria 2 : 1 Wake Forest Goal: Pickering (7.6) Assist: Cooper (6.8)  We sit in 4th after the loss, we've still got one more match played than everyone though. |
Go Wake
|
-- We have lots of guys coming off injury, Brian Williams and Dylan Rose now, but the odds that they'll be fit before the end of the year seems low. Navarro is back too and hasn't been out quite as long.
-- Never mind, Rose is hurt in his first reserve match back. He's done. September 25th, 2015 Wake Forest Cougars (10-3-6, 5th) vs Huntington Hammers (10-3-5, 3rd) Attendence: 243 We dominate these guys, 4-0-0 lifetime, including a 2:0 win earlier this year. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Forrest/Jackson DM: Villa M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Reynoso Navarro is on the bench today and will come in if there are any issues (he may come in anyway). I don't think he can go 90 though. 10': We have a throwin on offense, its passed ahead to Reynoso on the left side, passed to Davidson in the area, he shoots, but wide. 11': They move the ball around and end up with a lob to a striker, he shoots from 20 yards, but over. 25': Cooper with a minor injury. 29': Tapia with a free kick from 20 yards, shoots, high. HALF: They out-shoot us 5-3, but neither team has a single shot on target yet. We are dominating in the air (85% headers won to 40%). I bring Navarro in at the half. 53': Cooper crosses and we earn a corner off it. Davidson takes the corner, but they clear. 62': Cooper with a corner... short to Pickering but he pulls it back instead of shooting, Tapia has a shot blocked after a couple passes, that's it there. 83': Cooper with another corner, this to the far post, Forrest is there, and he heads it in! 1-0 83': Vega in for Villa, Gallardo in for Cooper. That's it! Wake Forest 1 : 0 Huntington Man of the Match: Ian Cooper (7.2) Goals: Forrest (7.2) Assist: Cooper Everyone else is 6.8-6.9 here. Everyone else that played today that was above us in the standings either lost or tied. That leaves the standings like this:  Peoria still controls their own destiny. And since Cleveland picked up a win in 6th place today technically we could still fail to make the playoffs, but yeah, we're gonna make the playoffs... at least. |
Quote:
:banana: :banana: (I have no idea, I didn't see a thumbs up smiley, so bananas it is). |
October Update
-- DL Coggins, DC Varela, AM Gallardo train well. Roth/Williams/Crook, all coming off injury, train pooly. -- The board remains very plesed, atmosphere good, ST Roth's play bad. Leave the injured guy alone! 2 goals in 5 league starts, 4 goals total in 11 games, he's been fine, given that we aren't exactly a high scoring team. We lost $5100 last month. September 25th, 2015 Danville Villains (9-6-4, 5th) vs Wake Forest Cougars (11-3-6, 1st) Attendence: 301 We're 1-0-2 against these guys lifetime. We lost 0-2 at home to them during our bad slump earlier this year. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Pickering/Forrest/Jackson DM: Villa M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Cooper ST: Navarro Their star is Michael Chappell, 8 goals in 16 league matchess (13 goals in 29 total). 12': They attack down the right side, a short cross in from the right, stopped, crossed through the 6 yard box, Chappell heads it in. 0-1 19': Shakespeare with a cross in to Navarro, he passes back to Cooper, shoots.. saved. 35': Cooper picks up a minor injury. HALF: We fly to the half after that. We jump up to a standard mindset and take away the retain possession order to try to get more chances in the second half. Gallardo comes in for Cooper, no need to risk further injury. 54': Davidson with a corner, Pickering heads it... off the post, damn! 58': They shoot off a free kick, saved by Gyan. 61': They cross a ball in from the right, poor cross right at Pickering, but he mishits it trying to clear, it basically bounces off his lower leg and redirects into the goal. 0-2 65': Navarro has a shot blocked, corner. Corner is cleared. 65': We'll look to attack. 75': Vega in for Villa. 92': Gallardo to Navarro, he shoots from the right side and its not really close. That's it. Danville 2 : 0 Wake Forest The early goal and then the Pickering own goal, pretty rough one. Pickering with a 6.2. A cleveland win makes this scary for us. We have 36 points, in 3rd place. Kentucky has 34 points in 4th. Cleveland 33 points in 5th. Huntington 33 points in 6th. Only top 5 make the playoffs. Kentucky, Cleveland and Huntington don't play each other in the last match, so its possible all three could win and leave us out of the playoffs. |
Injury Update
Ian Cooper was hurt in our last match and is going to miss 4-5 weeks. If we make the playoffs, he won't be there. October 16th - League Play I decide to spectate Kentucky vs Peoria. Kentucky is at home, but Peoria is #1 right now. Cleveland is also at home, but against #2 Danville. Huntington is on the road vs Model City. 19': Model City goes up 1:0 on Huntington. The other two are still scoreless. We'd finish 3rd if it ended like this. HALF: Things are unchanged. We're in 3rd. 48': Danville scores a goal on Cleveland. Both Cleveland and Huntington would have to overcome 1-0 deficits in the next 40 minutes now. 52': Cleveland gets the tying goal pretty darn quick there. They're 1:1 with Danville. 54': Huntington ties it up against Model City 56': Cleveland takes a 2-1 lead on Danville. Uhh... now Cleveland is ahead of us. We would still need to see Huntington and Kentucky both turn ties into wins. 67': Crazy game in Cleveland. Danville just scored to tie it back up at 2. So all three games I care about are now tied. Since all three need specific winners, that is pretty ok. 74': Model City scores on Huntington, we should be safe now. 75': Danville goes up 3:2 on Cleveland. 80': Cleveland ties it up against Danville, 3-3, crazy. Perfect. All three results had to go against us for us to miss the playoffs. Instead, all three went in our favor. Wake Forest are in the Playoffs! -- We receive $21,700 for finishing 3rd in the league.  Final standings. Appalachian Premier League Playoff Draw I forgot there was a draw here, not 2v5 and 3v4. That's how it works out anyway, we're playing Kentucky. Looks like its at a neutral field. We've played Kentucky twice this year, winning both times. |
October 24th, 2015
APL Playoff Semifinals Kentucky Colonels (4th) vs Wake Forest Cougars (3rd) Attendence: 500 -- 500 is a sellout here. This is in Kingsport, Tennessee. Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Coggins/Pickering/Forrest/Jackson DM: Villa M: Tapia/Shakespeare AM: Davidson/Gallardo ST: Navarro Coggins gets the start at DL today, fitness reasons mostly. Gallardo starts at AMR for the injured Cooper. 4': Not the start we wanted. MR Frimpong with a free kick from 20 yards out, into the upper right corner of the net. 0-1 30': They work the ball around the right side for awhile, passing it back out a bit, then its sent into the left side of the area for ST Hill, he's got a clear look, and scores. 0-2 30': We'll attack. 43': Shakespeare with an interception, ahead to Navarro, he tries to shoot from 25 yards out and mishits it or soemthing. Its like 15 yards wide. 44': Gallardo with a good looking shot, keeper stops it. They clear the corner. 45': Jackson with a yellow. 46': They have a free kick, they try to send it into the area, Shakespeare clears, long to NAvarro, he lobs it ahead to Gallardo who makes a good run.. but shoots well wide. HALF: We look pretty bad here. We'll try to pressure and attack a lot here, but it seems like a tough one to overcome. 49': Tapia with some good defense near midfield, he steals the ball, passes ahead to DAvidson, immediately into the area for Navarro, Navarro scores!! We're back in it! 1-2 65': Vega in for Villa at DMC. 71': We earn a corner on a cross by Jackson. Their keeper punches it out though. 74': They have a goal kick, we win the ball in midfield, up to Tapia, he heads it forward to Davidson, a through ball for Navarro, and he has a great look and puts it in!!! 2-2 74': Roth in for Navarro, Dylan Rose comes in out of position at AMR for Gallardo. Both Navarro and Gallardo are real tired. 74': We drop back to a standard mindset. 81': We have a free kick on the right edge of the box about 12 yards out. Tapia takes it, shoots from there, and its in!! That was no accidental cross that went towards the goal, that was a shot, straight up. COMEBACK COMPLETE! 3-2 81': Time to Defend. That's it, we hold them off!!!! Kentucky 2 : 3 Wake Forest Man of the Match: Ronnie Navarro (8.8) Goals: Navarro 2, Tapia (8.3) Assists: Davidson (8.3), Roth (6.8) Everyone else in the 6.5-6.7 range. That is a hell of a comeback right there. We get great news from the other final as well, as Cleveland and Danville play another ridiculous game (they played in the final game of the regular season to a 3-3 draw). Cleveland wins this one 5-4 with goals in the 79th and 84th minutes coming back from a 4-3 deficit. Danville has crushed us every time we've met them. But we've beaten Cleveland both times we played them. -- Jose Alejandro Tapia credits my halftime talk for inspiring the comeback. I believe my words were "suck less" or something like that. |
-- Joe Jackson's yellow will keep him out of the playoff finals. This one is on short rest so the lineup might be real interesting.
October 27th, 2015 APL Playoff Finals Cleveland Stokers (5th) vs Wake Forest Cougars (3rd) Attendence: 1412 -- The finals are in West Virginia, in Charleston. Decent crowd! Starting Lineup GK: Gyan D: Campbell/Burke/Forrest/Varela DM: Williams M: Glaser/Shakespeare AM: Rose/Crook ST: Roth Williams, Glaser, and Crook all make their first appearances in some time due to injuries. Rose will start at AML, might end up splitting time with Davidson. Standard mindset today against a team I feel like we ought to beat more often than not. 2': Burke blocks a pass pretty deep in our own end and just launches the damn thing down field... from about 85 yards away I'd guess, the ball sails into the top of the net. In the air, no bounces. That was pretty flukey, at best. But I will take it! 1-0 13': Their strikers play a nice give and go to get a clear cut chance from the left side of the area, but its wide. 14': lets change to counterattacking here. 17': Free kick for them, shot wide. 29': Roth with a poor shot from 25 yards out way wide. He wasn't under any pressure, I'd rather see him wait for something better. 34': They send a ball down the right side, its crossed from the end line, Delgado heads it, Gyan makes a great save, but there's a rebound, which Delgado puts in. 1-1 HALF: They are outshooting us 7-4, have a slight possession lead 54/46. We're tackling and heading better, they are passing slightly better. Its a close one. 51': A long kick from their keeper, one header sends it into the area and they have a striker right thre 1v1 against Gyan, Gyan comes out.. and stops the shot! 55': Gyan saves another long shot. 61': Davidson is in for Rose. 63': Gyan with a long free kick out of our defense, Roth picks it up behind the defense... instead of shooting, he lays it off for Shakespeare, who misses wide. This time Roth had the better look I think. 82': Pickering in for a very tired Burke. FULL TIME: No more highlights, we will go to extra time. I bring Ratzburg in for an exhausted Roth and that's all our changes for the match. 93': Glaser with a nice chip ahead to Shakespeare, but his shot is saved easily. 99': We have it in midfield, a short pass ahead to Ratzburg, he turns by his man and makes a run, still a long ways from goal, a pass to Glaser, a strong shot from 20 yards... just wide. EXTRA TIME HALFTIME: 15 more minutes. 108': Davidson takes a long free kick (from nearly midfield) and drives it low towards the penalty area. Shakespeare controls it very well given the pace on the ball, turns, shoots, and scores!!!! 2-1 108': We will defend. 112': Also, retain possession, shorter passing, slower tempo. 121': Campbell with a nice tackle and clearance as they try to build up for one last shot. GAME OVER!!!! Cleveland 1 : 2 Wake Forest Man of the Match: Mark Shakespeare (7.4) Goals: Shakespeare, Burke (7.4) Assists: Davidson (6.8) Notables: Varela (7.0), Forrest (7.0), Campbell (7.3), Glaser (7.0) Some very solid ratings there, the defense was good! I expected higher rating for Gyan given the saves I saw him make, but he sat at a 6.7. Wake Forest Promoted!!!! -- The fans are overjoyed, of course. -- Management has "always expected that I would deliver, and is pleased to not be let down" ... ok then. -- We will play in the Atlantic Coast Amateur league in tier 7 next year. We'll finish up end of season stuff tomorrow. |
Nice job!
Tell |
Congrats! Hopefully level 7 has a structure more conducive to rapidly promoting.
|
Wacky playoffs. Congrats on moving up!
|
 Team stats, sorted by rating. Thoughts: Shakespeare benefited from being our penalty taker, allowing him to lead the team in goals and assists. Brian Davidson is pretty impressive as our #2 rated player, given that in our first season I initially had him as the #3 AML in our depth chart. There are a few guys not listed just b/c I couldn't get them to fit on the screenshot and didn't bother cropping a longer one together. Youth pulls DL Florian Bergmann, AMRL Jeff Gallardo and DR Fausto Diaz all played enough for their ratings to matter and were at the bottom of the list with 6.5x average ratings. Gallardo was mainly a sub, the other two started in rotation so their poor ratings are definitely just poor. Since we suck at training, that means they'll probably never make it. Backup DC Garry Garcia also stands out with 5 starts, 5 backup appearances, and a 6.45 average rating. Backup AMR Ryan Crook also got 10 starts and is near the bottom here with a 6.60 rating and not a single assist. He looked a lot better than that last year, that's a real disappointment. |
Team Leaders
Goals MC Shakespeare - 10 AML Davidson - 9 ST Navarro - 7 AMR Cooper - 5 ST Roth - 4 ST Ratzburg - 3 AML Rose - 3 DC Pickering - 3 Assists MC Shakespeare - 10 AMR Cooper - 10 AML Davidson - 9 AML Rose - 7 ST Roth - 4 Man of the Match Winners MC Shakespeare - 6 AML Davidson - 5 AMR Cooper - 5 ST Ratzburg - 2 DC Pickering - 2 |
Appalachain Premier League Leaders
Goals 1. Gus Chapman - Huntington - 14 2. Jake Wilson - Peoria - 13 2. Michael Chappell - Danville - 13 4. Jack Williams - Cape City - 11 5. 6 tied - 10 ... 21. Mark Shakespeare - Wake Forest - 6 27. Brian Davidson - Wake Forest - 5 32. Ronnie Navarro - Wake Forest - 4 Assists 1. Diego Sinisterra - Cleveland - 8 1. Mike Smith - Peoria - 8 1. Aldair Cuevas - Owensboro - 8 4. Jake Wilson - Peoria - 7 5. Many Tied - 6 ... 5. Brian Davidson - Wake Forest - 6 12. Ian Cooper - Wake Forest - 5 21. Dylan Rose - Wake Forest - 4 Average Rating 1. Jake Wilson - Peoria - 7.62 2. Andrew Reid - Nashville - 7.36 3. Gus Chapman - Huntington - 7.34 4. Alfonso Grisi - Model City - 7.31 5. Ian Jackson - Jackson - 7.23 ... 8. Mark Shakespeare - Wake Forest - 7.18 11. Brian Davidson - Wake Forest - 7.15 45. Jose Alejandro Tapia - Wake Forest - 6.85 50. Joe Pickering - Wake Forest - 6.82 54. Ian Cooper - Wake Forest - 6.81 |
-- Talks of team ownership changing come up again. We'll see what happens. That puts an embargo on signing players in place for now.
-- We're basically just going to fly through the next two months now to get into January. We do play a bunch of U18 and Reserve Matches, so expect injuries! November Update -- Brian Williams and Dylan Rose train well. Ryan Crook does not. -- The board is very plesed with my leadership. Atmosphere is the big positive, Poor play by AML Dylan Rose is the negative. He's one of my top 6 or 7 players, but he was hurt a bunch. Whatever. We made $18,620 last month. -- World Cup Qualifying stuff starts for the 2018 World Cup. The US is drawn into a group with Mexico, so that should be exciting. The other two teams are Guatemala and Curacao though so both should get through. New Ownership -- Local businessman Dick Garcia has completed his takeover of Wake Forest Cougars. -- He thanks me for being patient during the takeover. Transfer embargo lifted. This is on November 28th. December Update -- Crook trains well. End of Season Team Meeting -- I tell the team that I think if we add some pieces next year we can get a mid-table finish. The team freaks out a bit. I fucked this up last year too and most of the team was disappointed in my hopes for the team. Bunch of unambitious bastards. -- Preseason will start January 4th. -- Chicago beats Seattle 1:0 to win the North American Open Cup. Philadelphia and Real Salt Lake lost in the semifinals. -- We'll spend most of December turning down job interviews. |
Player Departure
-- Backup GK Phil Harrington gets released. I forgot that I mentioned that I'd let him go during the next transfer period the last time he complained about playing time. I just let him go to avoid risking him getting upset or something. Player Acquisition 29 y/o ST/AMR/AMC Carlos Alberto Arredondo will be leaving the Richmond Strikers to join us next season. Crossing 4/Dribbling 6/Finishing 6/Heading 4. Anticipation 4/Composure 4/Flair 10/Off Ball 5/Work Rate 12. Pace 7. Worst case scenario this guy joins and I release a guy like Reynoso. But he also shows great teamwork (17) and good natural fitness so I'm hopefully that means he can fit in. He was also playing pretty well at the next level up for a team already (6.75 rating with 4 goals mainly used as AMC I think), which is a plus. That takes us to December 17th. |
Will the board start letting you pay people? Seems to me that in the past versions going to professional required having all players on a contract.
Not sure with the whole amateur thing, though. Tell |
-- We pay $325,000 in taxes, based on making $1.12 million throughout the year.
-- We offest that by signing a new jersey sponsorship deal worth $9,750/yr! -- We announce a profit of $1.1 million on the year. -- I make a couple other offers but get no bites. With that, we hit December 30th, when the Transfer Windows open. I do a "save as" to set aside a copy of my game, again based on the fact that I "accidentally" turned my team into semi-pro somehow. -- On Dec 30th, our new ST/AMR Arredondo joins the team. I look through my scouting list pretty thoroughly, hoping to find a couple of the star players from last season that might be interested in joining us, but the first few guys I go after are all from far away and not interested in travelling so far for an amateur team. -- Starting on Dec 31, offers start coming in for my players from other teams, lets hope that promoting up will keep a few of the better ones around. MLS Review Playoff Teams: New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Toronto FC, Montreal Impact, Chivas USA Los Angeles beat New York in the finals to win the league. Relegated Teams: Vancouver, Fort Lauderdale I didn't note this in our first year... New York Cosmos and DC United were relegated out in the first season, Orlando City and Fort Lauderdale Strikers were promoted up. This year, FC Edmonton and DC United will replace Vancouver and Fort Lauderdale. Fans Player of the Year -- Mark Shakespeare wins the award this year. Wake Forest Best Eleven GK: Gyan DL: Campbell DC: Burke DC: Pickering DR: Jackson DMC: Shakespeare (ugh) MC: Tapia MC: Glaser AML: Davidson AMR: Cooper ST: Roth Wake Forest All Time Best Eleven The starting team here remains unchanged. It is: GK: Amidu Gyan - 74 apps/6.79 rating DL: David Campbell - 46 apps/1 goal/6.87 rating DC: Hernando Galvis - 39 apps/1 goal/6.76 rating DC: Joe Pickering - 51 apps/7 goals/6.96 rating DR: Steve Arroyo - 29 apps/6.88 rating DMC: Mark Shakespeare - 56 apps/16 goals/7.29 rating MC: Jhonatan Mora - 23 apps/8 goals/7.17 rating MC: Gary Glaser - 37 apps/2 goals/6.90 rating AML: Brian Davidson - 46 apps/15 goals/7.15 rating AMR: Ian Cooper - 50 apps/10 goals/7.11 rating ST: Ronnie Navarro - 45 apps/18 goals/7.08 rating Joe Jackson was added to the backups to this team. Others are: GK Harrington, DC Garcia, AML Rose, MC Tapia, ST Roth, DR Jackson, ST Pace. -- The giant Youth Intake occurs, and we'll be looking to see if any of them can crack the roster. This will actually give us the problem of having too many players for the first time, so we'll need to go through this carefully and will probably cut some guys. Most will be names you've only seen in roster reviews. |
Quote:
I haven't requested it. This league I'm moving into is 100% amateur teams. The next level up is when we'll start to see semi-pro teams I think. I'm not planning on asking the board to become semi-pro until I move up one more level. If they tell me I should start paying guys because we have so much money I will. I have no idea what to expect though. |
-- I ask the board for more coaches, I'd really like a goalkeeping coach or a fitness coach, I'm not sure I could get one to come here, in tier 8 I couldn't. But the board isn't interested in allowing any more coaches of any kind, so that's it for that idea for now.
Youth Intake 16 new players join the team as youth players. I'm keeping a bunch of them, but only two seem worth writing about. Colin Cole - ST/AMC/MC - Crossing 5/Dribbling 7/Finishing 8/Heading 6. Flair 11/Off Ball 8/Work Rate 9. Pace 7. With a Bravery of 17, my coach says he's best as a target man. This guy looks good. Adam Fisher - AMR/ST/MR - Pace 8/Accel 11/Agi 8/Balance 10. Crossing 6/Dribble 3/Technique 4. Decision 3/Flair 6/Off Ball 6. I'm comparing him to Ryan Crook, Crook is way better dribbling and first touch, much more determined. Fisher is faster and has great teamwork and work rate. We'll see. Crook was bad last year so I'm willing to give someone a chance to take the backup job. Arturo Flores - DL - Some pace, 10 pace/7 accel, good overall fitness. Marking 7/Tackling 6/Positioning 5... really he doesn't look great, but worth mentioning b/c last year's DL youth pull Florian Bergmann got on the field for awhile and was godawful, way worse than my other youth pulls that saw some time. So I'm cutting Bergmann, and will play Flores if Campbell/Coggins get hurt. The rest have one or two decent attribute but would have to show me they play better than I expect them to based on ratings to ever see the field on the senior team. If that happens we can talk about them then. |
Pre-season Team Meeting
My only options are "how do you guys feel?", "we can actually finish top half!" and "we can challenge for promotion!" ... my actual goals are to avoid relegation. Is that the same as a "mid-table finish"? 20 team league, 4 teams relegate. 15th would be just fine with me. -- DC Galvis says we're on track to do well and meet the mid-table expectations. DC Pickering says he thinks we should aim higher. -- I respond and say my expectations are what they are, not raising them. I get 8 good and 8 bad reactions from that. -- ST Roth comes back and says he thinks "mid-table" is too high. I tell him I'm disappointed with that reaction, and most of the team is unhappy with that. I suck at these things. Pre-Season Coaches Meeting -- My coaches keep recommending salaried players to me. Come on guys. We're an amateur team. -- My head of youth development tells me that MC Mike Wilkins and ST/AML Ben Goodwin are the most exciting U18 players we have. Wilkins will probably get some playing time, especially if I'm not able to sign any new guys. Goodwin probably deserves a chance but I have way too many strikers unless i'm switching to a 4-4-2. Speaking of that, I haven't used a 5-4-1 a single time since I got here. So I do go ahead and make our 3rd formation to train a 4-4-2 instead of 5-4-1. In my first season we had almost no strikers so a 1 striker formation was almost mandatory. A switch to a straight 4-4-2 would be real hard since our best players are wingers who don't do well at ML/MR. But we should at least know the formation. |
Atlantic Coast Amateur League
So lets set this up. There are 20 teams in the league. The majority of them are in Florida or Puerto Rico, so the team will be logging a lot more miles this year than last. Because there are more teams here, the season starts earlier. Also, we don't participate in the group stage of the North American Open Cup. So there are a couple early round cup matches and then straight into league play. With 20 teams, there is a proper split at the halfway mark. So after we play everyone once, the top 10 break off into their own group, as do the bottom 10. 1st place Auto Promotes. 2nd-5th have a playoff to decide a second promotion spot. In the bottom split, four teams relegate back down. We will continue to play in the Old North Cup, and our first match will be February 17th. We will now play in the Atlantic Coast Cup, which looks to be a small regional tournament. 56 teams in a qualifying round, then 32 teams in round 1. It looks like this is scheduled to start March 16th. Later on, during the season we will also play in the North American Open Cup and the [/u]North America Amateur Cup[/u]. Our first league match is scheduled for March 18th, we'll be travelling to Puerto Rico to play Atleticos Rio Piedras. -- I set up our fitness training to start getting the guys ready. -- I also set up all our pre-sesaon friendlies. -- With that, we need to review our roster and figure out a depth chart. This actually matters a little more this year, with a couple years of youth intake we have like 59 guys on the roster, when only 45 can be registered for competition. We'll also have to make sure we have guys in the reserves and U18's actually getting playing time. |
Nice work on the promotion! I wonder if the million is what's needed to financially move to semi-pro status
|
Depth Chart - Goalkeepers
1. Amidu Gyan - 28 y/o - 6.75 average rating as my starter the last two years. His reflexes are not great, but he is better than every other keeper we have in every other attribute. 2. Clark Garcia - 18 y/o - Has only played one match for me. If I could develop players he'd be able to develop into something better tha Gyan. But I can't do that. 3. Kenny Curfman - 14 y/o - Better than Garcia in some attributes, worse in others. But clearly better than our #4. 4. James Barton - 18 y/o - Dead weight. We did have two GK's hurt last year for a short while. Might as well carry four. Gyan clearly starts, if he were to get hurt it would be a complete tossup between Garcia and Curfman. Market Prospects - None currently. I could *maybe* upgrade my backup. All players my scout likes are age 18 and under. Kids with better reflexes than Gyan but not much else. Defenders - Left Side 1. David Campbell - 23 y/o - 6.79 avg rating in 27 matches. Weak technically, but faster than my other options. 2. Danny Coggins - 26 y/o - 6.68 avg rating in 12 matches. Was hurt almost all of last year. 3. Sean Rongen - 18 y/o - I need to play Rongen some this year. My assistant rates him as my best at this position, and his attributes are decent. I've never given him a chance. 4. Arturo Flores - 14 y/o - A youth pull. My assistant actually likes him too. Possibly being judged differently than Rongen/Coggins due to age? Campbell has been solid enough here for me. Rongen will get his chance this year, I promise! Market Prospects - I make an offer to a DL from Fayeteville that my scout likes. He doesn't necessarily look better than Coggins on paper, but I want to get in on the action, and Fayeteville is a division opponent who has offered contracts to lots of my players. Defenders - Right Side 1. Joe Jackson - 28 y/o - 6.78 rating in 17 games. 2. Bob Varela - 18 y/o - 6.75 rating in 11 games. 3. Fausto Diaz - 15 y/o - 6.47 rating in 4 games. Jackson and Varela look real similar. Its easy to rotate them basically. Diaz was a youth pull, worst positioning and worst physical ability of the bunch. Market Prospects - Some ok looking guys are out there, but I don't have any reason to think any of them would be better than Jackson and Varela, and both have played well enough for me. Defenders - Central 1. Joe Pickering - 17 y/o - 6.83 rating in 30 league games, 4 goals. 2. Steve Forrest - 23 y/o - 6.81 rating in 8 league matches. Also showed he can play in higher leagues, 6.8 rating in the tier above us two years ago. 3. Don Burke - 26 y/o - 6.77 rating in 17 matches. 4. Hernando Galvis - 26 y/o - 6.64 in 15 matches. 5. Ashley Varela - 15 y/o - 6.53 in 6 matches. 6. Jesus Antonio Guerrero - 15 y/o - Hurt last year and didn't play, but tall which I've liked. Youth Pulls Scott Kelly and John Johnson are here too. Kelly, Johnson and Varela... none of them look great. I may or may not sign them. For now, I put the top 4 guys on the senior team, Varela/Guerrero on the Reserves, and the youth guys on the U18 team. So I'm happy with my top 3 guys, the 4th is older and a good leader, after that its a ton of unproven guys who may not ever get a real chance to prove themselves. Varela did play last year and failed to impress. Market Prospects - There are a lot of DC's availble, but a common problem I'm seeing is that none of them strike me as guys I really want and would cut a young kid for clearly. Many of them have gotten significant playing time for other teams at my level and have not done well. |
Defensive Midfielders
1. Brian Williams - 18 y/o - 6.80 in 11 league matches. Williams has always been my best on paper, but have never stood out really. Hurt a lot last year. 2. Timothy Pena - - 6.79 rating in 14 matches. I never liked Pena but he does have high determination and he's performed ok. 3. Adalberto Vega - 15 y/o - 6.86 rating in 8 matches. Was a youth pull last year, played very well when asked to. Mostly off the bench. Physically/Technically ok, very low bravery and teamwork, both needed for the ball winning midfielder I like to use at DMC. 4. Alan Bartlett - 14 y/o - Youth pull, technically he's fine, bravery of 2, elsewhere he mostly holds up though. Curious to see how he does on the U18's. I signed Luis Villa last year to replace Pena. He played 16 matches with a 6.69 average rating. The prior year for the NC Fusion he played 27 matches with a 6.29 rating in the ACPL (that's Atlantic Coast Premier League, where I am now). I'm just accpeting at this point that Tim Pena is an acceptable backup. I cut Villa. Market Prospects - None at this time. Central Midfielder 1. Mark Shakespeare - 18 y/o - Team MVP last year. 2. Jose Alejandro Tapia - 25 y/o - Very consistent performer in the more defensive of MC roles. 6.8 rating in 32 matches. 3. Gary Glaser - 19 y/o - 6.84 rating in 20 matches. Doesn't stand out, but seems to hold his own. Ratings are poor compared to some guys below, so others may get a chance to prove themselves. 4. Bayard Perkins - 26 y/o - 6.77 rating in 22 matches. Ratings not special but has proven acceptable off the bench. 5. Ashley Sandoval - 18 y/o - 6.83 rating in 17 matches. Sandoval's ratings continue to look like the worst here. If Wilkins or Castro can play will get cut. 6. Mike Wilkins - 14 y/o - Only played two matches off the bench last year, scored in one. Ratings look very solid for a young kid and probably deserves more time than he got. 7. Eder Castro - 14 y/o - 10 pace, 12 first touch and 6 passing and 6 positioning gives him a chance. He has some 1's and 2's in the ratings though that make me think its very unlikely he'll succeed here. Expect to never hear his name again. Shakespeare/Tapia have starting spots locked in. Glaser will see a ton of time. The other four will sort themselves out. Market Prospects - Lots of players, none that strike me as guys that look good enough to take away chances from guys I've already got. Attacking Midfielder - Left Side 1. Brian Davidson - 21 y/o - Rose looks better but Davidson has delivered for 2 years now. 7.04 rating in 27 league matches. 2. Dylan Rose - 18 y/o - 6.94 rating in 18 matches. Hurt with a bit of frequency. There really isn't a lot more to talk about here. I still have a backup in Luca Colangelo, and last year's youth pull in Jeff Gallardo. Neither will ever get a start over a healthy and fit Davidson and Rose. Market Prospects - Not really. Attacking Midfielder - Right Side 1. Ian Cooper - 18 y/o - 6.92 rating in 27 league matches. Others get a bit higher ratings but Cooper may still be my best player overall. 2. Adam Fisher - 14 y/o - I mentioned Fisher when I reviewed youth pulls. My backup AMR, Ryan Crook, did not perform last year at all. Fisher looks solid enough, and is going to be given some playing time up front to see what he can do. 3. Ryan Crook - 26 y/o - 6.65 rating in 19 matches. 6 starts last year without a goal or assist in league play, 4 more in cup play. Market Prospects - There is one Blacksburg player who put up decent ratings for them last year, a 14 year old with decent'ish ratings. I go ahead and make an offer and can just stick him in the U18's if Fisher works out or Crook plays better. |
| All times are GMT -5. The time now is 03:56 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin Version 3.6.0
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.