Conquering Europe

[oneteaminglasgow]

Well, it's not the third tier but I'm off to North Macedonia and KF Gostivar. They're from Gostivar, which is a town in the bit of Macedonia which is mostly populated by Albanians. Ninth biggest city in Macedonia, although Skopje is much, much bigger than anywhere else.

Anyway, North Macedonian football is completely dominated by two sides - Vardar and Skhendija, who have won every single league title between them throughout the save, as well as the vast majority of the cups. Gostivar, meanwhile, have mostly been a yo-yo side between the top two divisions, with their best period being three seventh place finishes in a row.

This season, however, we're sitting in ninth. in one of the relegation playoff spots. We don't look in any danger of dropping into the automatic relegations spots, which is nice, but the rest of this season will be about trying to make sure we avoid having the take part in the playoff.

[oneteaminglasgow]

Meet the Team - KF Gostivar

4 stars is Good player for most MFL1 sides, 3 is decent player for same

A decent enough group of players up front - the only one who really isn't good enough is Xhafaj. The problem, as you'll see, is that Ercolano and Halili are needed elsewhere on the pitch, leaving me with only really Tasev here. Will need reinforcements.

Right wing is strong, and central attacking midfield is fine as well. I need a new left winger, at least, and some depth here as well. Could be worse though.

Again, it's ok. I have one guy who's good enough and then 2 others who're not too far off being good enough. Will certainly look to improve on this, but it'll be fine for now.

That's not great. I'm fine at right back, but everywhere else needs strengthened.

Meh. Huber is probably fine for the time being, but again I'll need to look for better in the not too distant future.

[oneteaminglasgow]

January 2063

Transfer window is open, so I brought in a couple of very young midfielders from my old club. They were both on the fringes of my Daugavpils side, and both look likely to be in my Latvia team in the not too distant future, so pleased to get them.

Jevgenjis Vientiess is the slightly older and more attacking of the two. A very technically competent player, but he obviously has plenty of work to do on other aspects of his game. His concentration being so poor is especially concerning, but I'll be throwing him in to plenty of games and the full time training should do him good. He wasn't particularly expensive, either wages or transfer fee, so if it all goes wrong I don't mind too much.

Spoiler

Reinis Regza is still only 16 and has all the makings of a very decent ball winning midfielder. He's almost the opposite of Vientiess in that the mental side of his game is very good, even at his young age, but he's not a technically great player and he could do with being better physically as well. That said, he's not far off being good enough in these areas, and at only 16 he's got plenty of time to improve.

Spoiler

An unbeaten first month for my reign, which is nice. Other than Akademija Pandev, we've been playing teams around us in the league, so good that we haven't been losing those games. At the same time, we were 2-0 up in the 85th minute against Sileks, and fucked it up, and we should be beating sides like Vellazerimi.

Still, a positive first month.

Still in ninth place, but we've closed the gap to one point. 

Apparently the season is 44 games long, so we've still got quite a long time to go yet. 

[oneteaminglasgow]

February 2063

One more transfer this month, and it's a loan deal from one of the teams around us in the table. Filip Mitrevski is a centre half, a pretty bang average one but he still makes our team a bit better. We're also not paying any of his wages, so that's nice, and he should be ok at defending with the ball on the ground. Weak in the air though, which is never ideal for a centre half. f**k it.

Spoiler

A much poorer month.

Shkendija and Vardar are the two really big teams in the league, and we competed fairly well but ultimately were never likely to win either game. We should have beaten Metalurg Skopje though.

Shkupi was a very even game, so nil-nil is probably fairly. We'll need to improve though.

Dropped down to six points behind. We still have 12 games to sort it though.

Oh, also I noticed that my old side Malasyia made it to the final of the Asian Cup, despite me thinking that not embarrassing myself at it was as far as they'd go. Admittedly, this happened...

[oneteaminglasgow]

March 2063

The month got off to a flyer, and I don't quite know how, but the rest was what you'd expect from a team fighting relegation. We should have beaten Makedonija, but just couldn't take our chances.

Took a bit of a thrashing from Rabotnicki as well. 

We're running out of time a bit here. Eight games to go, six points to make up.

Latvia

3-1 flattered Finland a bit, and made it look a lot more comprehensive than it was, but at the same time they probably deserved to win.

The game against the Netherlands was incredibly one sided - the fact that my goalkeeper got man of the match despite conceding five tells it's own story.

Oh well, another qualification campaign over right from the beginning.

I'd like to finish ahead of Slovenia, but I think that may be unlikely. I'll settle for managing a win. 

[oneteaminglasgow]

April 2063

FM is brilliant sometimes - I have no fucking idea what's happened, I haven't changed anything but something has just clicked and we've gone on a brilliant run at exactly the right time.

Timoshenko's last minute winner against Renova was an especially decent moment, and beating newly crowned champions Vardar was great and all - their first domestic away loss all season.

For the first time in my time here, we're in a safe spot. Just a point though, so we really need to work hard to keep it that way.

[oneteaminglasgow]

May 2063

It wasn't quite the highs we hit in April, but I'll take that. A remarkable month for big Igor Tasev though, who doubled his goal tally for the season. 

In any case, we were really just looking for a couple of points to ensure that we stayed up, and we managed seven out of twelve - would that be enough?

Aye, it would.

Somehow we've managed to finish in the top half of the table and sixth place. It's something to build on at least, but the top four in this league are an absolute mile ahead of the rest of us.

[Richey Edwards]

On 15/08/2021 at 21:09, oneteaminglasgow said:

Well, it's not the third tier but I'm off to North Macedonia and KF Gostivar. They're from Gostivar, which is a town in the bit of Macedonia which is mostly populated by Albanians. Ninth biggest city in Macedonia, although Skopje is much, much bigger than anywhere else.

Anyway, North Macedonian football is completely dominated by two sides - Vardar and Skhendija, who have won every single league title between them throughout the save, as well as the vast majority of the cups. Gostivar, meanwhile, have mostly been a yo-yo side between the top two divisions, with their best period being three seventh place finishes in a row.

This season, however, we're sitting in ninth. in one of the relegation playoff spots. We don't look in any danger of dropping into the automatic relegations spots, which is nice, but the rest of this season will be about trying to make sure we avoid having the take part in the playoff.

You look remarkably young for a 68 year old.

[oneteaminglasgow]

June 2063

A double header against Slovenia for my Latvia side.  They were the second lowest ranked side in my group, although still almost 100 places higher than us, so probably my best chance to get some points and we've managed one.

Pretty comprehensively outplayed away, but we were worth the point at home. Got our goal through an early penalty, and then we defended pretty well for the most part to hold on to the draw.

That'll probably be our only point, as we have Turkey twice, the Netherlands at home and Finland away still to go. 

Hoping that I can uncover some better players soon. 

[oneteaminglasgow]

Transfers 2063

Panagiotou and Timoshenko were both around the first team last season, and Timoshenko in particular was a good player but he was refusing to sign a new deal and I thought it was better to get the cash. No losses amongst the rest of that shite.

And now the incoming players.

Guram Devadze is a striker, and the guy who I've spent the majority of my transfer budget on. He's (within the context of Macedonian football) very good though. He's very quick, technically proficient and really has a lot of attributes to be a good striker. If I was being picky, I'd say his finishing isn't good enough and his decision making isn't brilliant either, but he's not bad at either of those and he's young enough to improve. He can also fill in on either wing as well, and has some attributes to do alright there as well. 

Spoiler

Igor Tasev joins permanently after his loan spell last season, and will complement Devadze in my strike force. He won't be my first choice, but he had a good scoring record last season and his movement and finishing is excellent. Definitely a good option off the bench at the very least, and means that I'm not totally fucked if Devadze is injured and/or turns out to be shite.

Spoiler

Dusko Stojkoski is an attacking midfielder and he's a bit like Ryan Edwards (the shite one of Thistle/Hearts fame, not the guy at Dundee United). A very busy player, and not necessarily bad at playing football, but he has no noticeable attributes on the pitch aside from just running around a lot. He should do fine though, and again, he's a very young player so plenty of time for him to learn how to actually play football.

Spoiler

David Stepanyan joins us after leaving the Armenian top flight, and is your bog standard 'defensively solid but offer nothing going forward" left back. He'll be fine though, and is certainly an improvement. Another one who's only 18, and I'm hoping he'll get better.

Spoiler

Dragan Micevski is a left winger, and he's a bit like Daniel James. Very, very quick but some pretty glaring deficiencies in his technical attributes. If being quick is good enough for him to make a difference, then he'll do well, but who knows. A bit of a punt if I'm honest.

Spoiler

Dejan Vasilev is a back up centre half, and he's pretty bang average, but like I say he's a back up so it'll be fine. 

Spoiler

Marjan Noveski will be my starting centre half, and he's a bit better than Vasilev, but not massively. I was hoping to get better than him, as my defence remains fairly problematic, but he's certainly better than I had last season so that's something I suppose.

Spoiler

And finally we have Dejan Jakimovski, a pretty solid goalkeeper. I'm pleased with him, although his positioning is wild. Still, an upgrade on last season.

Spoiler

So that's that. Looking at the squad I have, I would be absolutely astonished if they're capable of mounting anything approaching a title challenge, but they should be solid enough to stay well clear of relegation. Which is all I'm really after at the minute. 

[oneteaminglasgow]

August 2063

Aye, pretty much the sort of thing I'd expect from us. We were drawing against Makedonija too, and then we went down to 9 men so obviously that hampered us somewhat.  A good point against Skhendija though, as they're a good side.

As always, it's too early to read anything into that but there's the table as it stands.

[oneteaminglasgow]

September 2063

A mixed month, we're very inconsistent but we're picking up points so that's the main thing. Beating Vardar was great, given they were 2-0 up (albeit they had 10 men for most of the second half), but losing to Renova despite them having 10 men wasn't so great.

Oh well, not a bad month by any stretch of the imagination.

Aye, that's pretty much where I'd expect our season to end up.

Latvia

Two good results, even more impressive given my centre half pairing were 19 and 15 years old. That said, it's a disgraceful result for Turkey and Luxembourg are a similar level to us, so I would expect to compete with them.

Another point, and we have three games to go where I don't expect any more.

[oneteaminglasgow]

Was just having a look at the qualifying groups, and it appears Scotland's is an absolute nonsense. Liechtenstein beat both Switzerland and Ukraine away, Scotland have only conceded one goal while winning all their games. The only realistic thing is Gibraltar getting hammered in every game, conceding at least three each time.

[oneteaminglasgow]

October 2063

I think I've misjudged the strength of my team when I said that we'd be solid enough to avoid relegation but not much else. On this evidence, we look a very, very good side even if Guram Devadze does drag us through some games single handedly. I'm not sure we're quite good enough to win the league, particularly defensively, but we're in with a decent shot at the european places at least.

Highlight was the Rabotnicki game, where we dished out a bit of a doing to the league leaders. Took a lead in the first half, and just let them have the ball without threatening while picking them off on the break. Delightful.

We're approaching the half way point of the season - which is still ridiculously long - and we sit fourth and just five points off top. A remarkable effort as far as I'm concerned.

Latvia

A brilliant point against Finland. A complete backs the wall job, but they weren't good enough to take the few half chances they made. We defended well though.

The Netherlands game was pretty similar, only they're a very good side so obviously took their chances. No complaints.

One game left - Turkey away.

Overall, I think we've had a fairly decent qualification campaign, by Latvian standards, and I don't think we're too far off being a vaguely competent side.

[oneteaminglasgow]

November 2063

A pretty straightforward month where we faced all of the bottom three in the league, and a fourth tier side in the cup. You can only beat what's in front of you though, and we've done that without much fuss.

We're sitting second as things stand, but I would expect that once games in hand have been played that'll be fourth. Vardar in particular I would expect to be miles ahead once they've played the same amount of games as the rest of us.

That said, we're seven points clear of fifth, so definitely in the race for european places. Top three are guaranteed, while fourth is dependent on the cup winner.

Latvia

Our qualification campaign finished with a doing from Turkey, clearly annoyed that we drew with them previously. They're a good side though, and our draw was an incredible result for us - 4-0 is more like it.

A friendly against our Baltic neighbours followed, and we should have won it but will have to settle for the draw. They're pretty similarly ranked to us, 5 places above us, so an even-ish game was always to be expected.

No surprises really, three points is about as well as I could expect to do. I'm very hopeful that next time round, we can grab a win.

[oneteaminglasgow]

We're less than half way through the season, and Devadze has already equalled the record for most goals scored in a single league campaign in Macedonia.

What a boy

[oneteaminglasgow]

December 2063

Absolutely everything is going right for us at the minute. 

We thumped Vardar, and the rest of the month was us playing ok, but not brilliantly, and still scoring plenty of goals and winning. Which I'm taking as a very good sign basically.

We're now top of the table, for the time being, but should Vardar win their games in hand then they'll be two points ahead.

It's still going very well this season. 

[oneteaminglasgow]

January 2064

The winning run came to an end, but another unbeaten month and Devadze continues to be a completely outrageous player for us with back to back hattricks.

Still top of the table, and Vardar now have no games in hand, although it's only on goal difference at the minute.

16 games left, and we're definitely in the title race.

[oneteaminglasgow]

It's only February, and we're a disgraceful bunch of hammerthrowers.

Glorious. 

[oneteaminglasgow]

February 2064

Another unbeaten month, which makes it four without loss now. We rescued a point against Vardar by scoring with our only chance of the game. Performance there was a bit worrying as we were very poor, but we didn't lose and it keeps us very much in the race. We scored loads of goals though, so that's good.

We're also into the semi final of the cup, so that's nice.

As above, scoring all those goals has seen our goal difference advantage grow, which looks like it'll be vital if this keeps up.

We have one more game against Vardar to go, which looks like it'll be the decider in the title race. Still 12 games to go in these ludicrously long seasons.