FM16 - Rise of the Basque Country

[Abe Sargent]

May

May 5 – Home vs Granada
May 8 – Away vs Juventus, ECC
May 11 - Home vs Sevilla
May 14 – Home vs Juventus, ECC
May 18 – Neutral vs At. Madrid, Copa del Rey Final
May 26 – Home vs Getafe


Granada – They score twice early and we hit twie back with goals by Williams and Griezmann, then they score in extra time, 3-2 half. Wow. Alright. Then OG off a corner, thanks! In the 47th. Another goal by Granada in the 74th. Then the Griezmannn equalizes in the 81st. Then they give us yet another OWN GOAL in the 84th. And then they score back in the 86th. We, confusingly, win 5-4.


We lose at Juve 3-0. Looks like this run is over.

Sevilla – We win 1-0, sole score is a Lopez to Greizmann goal. Lopez was MOM.


Juve? We lose 0-3. Again...

[Abe Sargent]

Copa del rey vs At. Madrid! Maybe we’ll bounce back here and today? Let’s get that victory! Oyarzabal is back from his injury and standing today. They score first in the 16th minute. And then........nothing. I send in Gomez, San Jose, Iturraspe, and try everything...nothing. We finish with 6 shots, 2 on target to their 11 and 3. Boring game they manage to win early.



Inaki Williams wins Spanish Player of the Year. Unai Lopez got 2nd.

Xabi Alonso announces he will retire at the end of his contract with us in 18 months.


Getafe – We win 3-0, and Williams is MOM with a hattrick of fun times.

[Abe Sargent]

LIGA Table:

1. Athletic, 99 points
2. Barca, 82
3. Real Madrid, 81
4. Valencia, 62
5. Granada, 61
6. At. Madrid, 60
7. Malaga, 58
8. Celta, 57
9. Sevilla, 54
10. Real Sociedad, 52
11. Expanyol, 50
12. Real Betis, 48
13. Levante, 46
14. Almeria, 45
15. Getafe, 44
16. Osasuna, 41
17. Cordoba, 37
18. Eibar, 31
19. Villareal, 25
20. Real Oviedo, 18


Well there you are! Our 2nd LIGA title, and move of the top teams are precisely those you would expect. Barcelona recovered their expected pace this year.


Neymar set a new LIGA rating with 8.31 rating, beating Willlliams’ 8.30 last yaer.

Diego Suarez is LIGA Player of the Year and Griezmann came in 2nd.

Williams wins Top Goalscorer and Top Spanish Goalscorer with Oyarzabal 2nd for that award,

Kepa came in 2nd for top Spanish Gk

Santxitz won Manager of the Year.

Four Atheltic players in Liga Team of the Year –

Unai Lopez, Griezmann, Williams, Laporte


Remember at the beginning of the dynasty when I put Laporte, Williams and Lopez on notice as the future of the team? Huh.

[Abe Sargent]

Stats:

Neymar’s 9 MOM was the most, our most was 3rd with William’s and Lopez’s 7 each

At 8.04, Dani Carahal’s ratins was the best. We had 3rd, 4th, and 5th with Griezmann, 7.95, Lopez, 7.91, and Williams, 7.80. Oyarzabal was 11th with 7.60, and Xabi Alsono 13th with 7.55

Williams’s 38 goals led the LIGa, Suarez’s 30 was next, and then Griezmann was 3rd with 28 goals. Oyarzabal was tied for 12th most goals with 15.

Williams 88.77 minutes per goal was the best rate.

Benat’s 57% was 4th best for % of shots on target, and Oyarzabal was 5th with 56%

Alonso had 4 PKs, 2nd most in LIGA

Griezmann’s 20 assists led the LIGA, and Loepz was tied for 2nd most with 16. Oyarzabl was tired for 5th with 12

At 185, Griezzman was 3rd in key passes

At 88%, Alonso led the LIGA is pass completed %.

With an average of 7.11 Lopez led the LIGA in dribbles per game, and the next best was almost 2 full dribbles fewer. Williams was 10th with 4.37

Laporte was 5th in key tackles with 35, 5th nin key headers with 122, and 4th in intereceptions with 466.

GK Kepa conceded the 2nd fewest goals, had the 5th most clean sheets, and dropped to 9th and 7th in saves held and parried.


Good years by everyone!!!

[Abe Sargent]

Fan Awards:

Fans Player of the Season – Unai Lopez

Fans Goal of the Season, Lopez vs Real Betis,

Signing of the Season – Alain Oyarzun

Young Player of the Season – Unai Lopez


Xabi Alonso has to be happy with captaining us to a LIGA title.

In the Champions Cup, Juve beats Milan 3-1

Unai Lopez was selected for the Champions Cup Dream Team as the MR starter.


Whoa. Barca will not be going to the Champions Cup next year after failing to get a license for financial reasons! They must be seriously in debt. That means Messi will miss Champions play three of out the last five years. That’s just off.


Williams wins the European Golden Shoe for best marksman.

[Abe Sargent]

I make offers for two players on the Tercera divison club, Arnedo, for 60k each to be staff of mine, and I made both players staff offers, and they accept.

GK linkup with Herrerin and my youther is completed. Viguera is out. I have Garcia on month to month. I don’t know why, I figured someone would have made him an offer by now.

Garcia:

LIGA:

2015/16 – 34 starts, 2 goals, 9 assists, 7.12 rating, used as Shadow Striker, his best skill set, with Artiz up top

2016/17 – 23 games, 6 goals, 3 assists, 7.47 rating, used as an AMC alongside Artiz and Williams and then Greizmann and Williams after he was brought in and Artiz was out for a few months with injury

2017/18 – 27 games, 11 goals, 7 assists, 7.54 rating, used as AMC alongside Oyarzabal

2018/19 – 24 games, 1 goal, 5 assist, 7.09 rating. Final year with us, used alongside Oyarzabal

Now, this year you can see why I moved to Oyarzabal for most of the year, as my default starter when not injured for a month. Here are Garcia’s ages for those four years, 29, 30, 31, and 32. So now Garcia is 32, he has more then 100 LIGA games for us, and in those, either starting or subbing, he brought in 20 goals and 24 assists, which are not bad numbers. I figure someone would have signed him for free. He’s still good. I don’t want to hand him a backup deal when I need to get starts to Espericueta and Oyarzabal moving forward. But I am sure you can see that we are in a good place with this guy moving forward, right?