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Game 9 vs Real Betis – This is the final game of the Cook as DMC experiment. Nagatomo is in for Ragazzi at DR, but I slide Ragazzi to DC for the wounded Ouattara. We have a tired Oliver on the left, and Ibrahim is back from injury, so I give him a start. Vengeance! We push at them hard early, so I move to control. Dong-Hyuk finds Mance for a score in the 20th. Sayed a yellow. At the half, we have 8 shots, 3 on target, to their 2 and 0. Don’t get complacent! They score in the 50th. But the Mance drives, slides the ball to Dong-Hyuk, and he scores in the 52nd. Mance had a dead leg, and I send in Ortega for him. Whenever I send in Ortega, I usually move him to Defensive Forward (his best role) and then his striker partner to an attack role (Dong-Hyuk si a complete forward support, so I give him an attack role now). My next sub is Junca for Sayed. I move some middles around to accommodate. They score on a counter in the 79th. Dang it! Osmar heads out for Diallo. I move to attacking. I want this win! N extra time, Cecchi is driving and lifts the ball to Junca coming up free behind him, who runs into space. Junca does exactly what he’s done for us so many times before, he crosses over Dong-Hyuk, who’s attacking, and Ortega, who’s driving at goal and defending, and finds Ibrahim on the far side, driving. David Ibrahim puts it away at the 90:25 mark. Back to counter! We win 3-2. MOM is Dong-Hyuk. Good win
Mance is out for a few days with the dead leg.
Like I said last year, I got a little lucky with my signings.
Ouattara was signed as my 4th option, on the last day of transfer window, and wound up owning that DC spot, and being my best one after growing hard. Dong-Hyuk was singed a nice youth prospect for depth and training, and yet, had been a great player for me thus far this year.
I got lucky
Nwakari approaches me wanting more regular soccer. I point out our great form at the moment, and tell him he’ll get a chance, and he agrees.
I mean seriously. Right now we’re 4th in the Liga, having only dropped a game to Barcelona away 3-1. In 9 games we have 20 points and a 6-2-1 record. That’s pretty smoking. The top three are the expected Barcelona and the Madrids, but we are sitting at 4, just one point behind Barca, and a full win over 5 and 6 points over #6. You don’t mess with success like this right now
After investing in the training, Nwakali can now switch the ball to the opposite flank. Like Junca did.
Dong-Hyuk named in Team of Week
Game 10 vs Villarreal. Since this is an away game vs one of the “big six (Villarreal, Valenca, Celta, the Madrids, Barca)” we’ll be playing defensively. Against the others I expect more of a counter based orientation. For today’s match, I have placed Oliver back in the ML spot. Osmar outplayed Cook in the DMC role, so he heads back in as well. I gave Cook an easy game (Cadiz) a rough game (Moscow) and a decent game (R. Betis) and Osmar was still doing better. Pick up where you left off! They get two bookings early. Osmar hits a long shots for goal in the 25th. Mance was setting up Sayed for a shot and the ball was tackled and Osmar had a moment to line up the shot with no defenders on him, just the GK on line. Pretty slow from both teams, we have 4 shots, 2 on target, and they have 5 and 1 at the half. Keep it up! We give away a penalty in the box. They score. They follow with another score super fast. It’s like someone woke up the giant. Antother goal in the 65th. I send in Cook for a suck Oliver (5.9). NWakali for Nagatomo who’s underperforming as well (6.20 ).Ibrahim heads in. We injure a foe in extra time. We lose 3-1. Got to do better!
End of October –
Training – Ortega, Jae-Hwan, and Mance impressed
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