[NoSkillz]

Mon. August 2, 2021

Preseason Friendly
Dover vs. Espanyol
Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover, UK

Espanyol requested this game and offered me a pretty penny to host so I cancelled a match I had against non-league Cambridge City to take the cash. Espanyol are a perennial mid-table side in Spanish Liga BBVA. They were Europa League runners up in 2007 but haven't finished higher than 3rd in the league at any point in their history according to their overview. They are a similar sized team so it should be a pretty even matchup - hopefully our home advantage will give us an edge.

I want to ensure morale isn't an issue going into the season so I'm going to run with a full strength lineup today and likely against Rangers next week too. I'm going to go with a flat 4-4-2 in this one.

Dover: 4-4-2 Control
GK - I. Wilke
D - R. Gaucho, C. Contreras, P. Tjiuoro, S. Loucif
M - A. Bamba, A. Rocca, N. Cairney, G. Bolis
S - G. Gesios, Z. Bardi

Dover 3 - 1 Espanyol
Goals - Arsene Bamba (7.8), Shanon Andrea (7.3), Paul Moses (7.5)
Assists - Salim Loucif (7.9), Andrea Rocca (7.8), Shaun Spall (6.9)
Man of the Match - Salim Loucif
Other Dover Notables - Paulus Tjiuoro (7.0), Gianluca Bolis (7.0), Neil Cairney (7.0)
Attendance - 7,505

Giorgos Gesios was taken down on a horror tackle inside the first five minutes and needed to be taken off, giving Paul Moses another chance to shine. He was much more quiet today against better opposition but still scored our insurance goal in the last ten minutes. One of their players got a red card 10 minutes into the second half when the game was still scoreless and that helped us on our way. We were in control the whole match though, holding 57% of possession and outshooting them 26-8 (10-4 on target). Pretty solid performance. Nice to see Shanon Andrea get on the scoresheet, although the goal was a bit fluky.

-- And in news I simply did not need, our top scorer Giorgos Gesios suffered fractured ribs on that challenge and will miss the next four weeks. That means he won't be playing in our Champions League debut. Well shit…Gesios had injury issues during his first year with us but largely was healthy during last year's breakout. Thankfully, we have plenty of depth, with new signings Andrea, Moses and Wayne Rooney.



Contract Extensions

-- I had to do some budget tweaking but it was necessary to get a key player locked up to a long term contract, as his deal was coming due in less than 12 months and there is no way I could tolerate losing him to a Bosman signing. I'm pleased to announce that Andrea Rocca signs an extended deal that will keep him in a Dover kit until June 2025! This worked out well - I was looking at re-upping him about a month ago and his agent wanted £50,000 per week at that time. Now, the agent started the negotiations at £34,000 and after upping his signing bonus a bit, I was able to get the weekly wage down to £20K per week, still a nice raise from the £11K he was making before. Rocca has been the "straw that stirs the drink" ever since he came on board with us and I'm pleased to keep him around longterm.

-- I also sign contract extensions with AMC/MR Aitor Zubizarreta and DL Jozef Varga. Both are depth players but I was able to sign them for small raises while retaining them as assets, a small price to pay.

-- Lastly, I extend U18 DC prospect Mohamed Lamine Yilmaz for another four years at a bargain price. He's a 3.5 star prospect and will have home grown status by next season.

-- Porto withdraw their bid for Claudio Conteras, as expected and now he wants a new deal. I say no way, he says he's pissed, I tell him he's being unprofessional and then he steps back and apologizes. Whew!



International Duty

-- Ten players are called up for international duty: Gregoire Lambert from our U18 club (France U19), Carlo Cerbone (Italy U19), Renato Gaucho (Brazil U20), Claudio Contreras and Carlos Guzman (Argentina U20), Kostas Kalfas (Greece), Youssouf Sylla and Arsene Bamba (Ivory Coast), Salim Loucif (Algeria) and Zoltan Bardi (Hungary). It's notable that Kalfas and Bamba are still awaiting their first senior level caps so that's worth watching.



Champions League - Best Placed Playoff Draw

-- OK HERE WE GO!!!

-- There are ten teams in this draw and we are unseeded. Looking at the coefficients, we are the lowest ranked team in this group but I guess that's to be expected since it's our first ever foray into Continental play whereas these teams have built up coefficient scores over years. Here are the teams, along with their current coefficient score:

AS Monaco FC (France) - 125.17
Sevilla (Spain) - 111.28
CSKA Moscow (Russia) - 82.33
Porto (Portugal) - 82.01
Leverkusen (Germany) - 60.77
Olympiakos (Greece) - 59.44
Napoli (Italy) - 53.46
Bursaspor (Turkey) - 52.33
AZ (Holland) - 49.33
Dover - 34.18

Well, I guess there aren't any cupcakes there, even among the unseeded teams like ourselves but we are drawn against AS Monaco FC, who happen to have the sixth highest coefficient among all teams in this year's Champions League, behind only Atletico Madrid, Man United, Man City, FC Bayern and Barcelona (Real Madrid finished fifth in the LIGA last year and are in the Europa League instead). AS Monaco are valued at £93 million and are coming off a 3rd place finish in last year's Ligue 1. They were runners up in the Champions League in 2004 and last won their league in 2012.

-- The first leg will be hosted by AS Monaco on Tuesday August 17th and the second leg will be at Crabble Athletic Ground on Wednesday August 25th.

-- Our Premier League match against Reading is rescheduled to a Sunday due to a Reading Europa League match.



Next Up

-- We host Rangers from Scotland in our final preseason friendly.