Last time out Chepiga masterminded an unlikely promotion for FC Pripyat using a tactical framework similar to that of Ukrainian legend Valeriy Lobanovskiy. This post will provide a round up of season two, along with some extraordinary news coming from the academy.
Chepiga had never been much of a father to his two Sons. He told himself this was due to his work, but in his quiet moments alone, in his radioactive apartment, he knew this was nothing more than a convenient excuse. Family life didn't suit Chepiga, he was too important to live the simple life of so many of his comrades. He dedicated his life to serve the motherland however she saw fit, no matter the mission, Chepiga would act as required with no thought for the needs or feelings of those close to him.
Now faced with his own mortality, he questioned what it was all for. After all the deaths, all the screams in the night, what had he actually achieved. Nothing. It was time to put himself and his family first. His wife was long gone but his boys still came to see him once a month. Perhaps he could save his relationship with them. As ever with Chepiga, how he chose to do this wasn't exactly, conventional.
Valentin Letvin called Chepiga into his office. "we have an exciting batch of young players coming through the academy, our plans are working. Whisper it quietly, but I think we could have a golden generation on our hands."
Chepiga held up his hand and placed his finger to his lip requesting silence, "My son, Sasha, is to join the first team."
"Ruslan, your son isn't in the academy, and last I saw wasn't much of a football player." Letvin was confused.
"The boy plays; I have spoken." retorted Chepiga.
"I don't take orders from you Chepiga, in case you have forgotten you aren't in charge anymore, nobody even knows where you really are."
"Listen comrade!" Chepiga's demeanour changed, his voice becoming sinister.
"Do you think I am held captive here, do you think I would allow myself to be anywhere I didn't want to be? I assure you comrade, I am exactly where I intend to be. I am the Rook in this game, you my friend, you aren't even on the table." Chepiga was ranting such that he spat a little in Letvin's face.
Chepiga continued, "I can still get messages to my men, and once they find out their general lives, we shall see where their loyalty lies. The boy plays."
It's fair to say that Sasha is not a reflection of daddy. Jovial, with more flair than bravery, coupled with the strength of an FM_Grasshopper, Chepiga is going to have a hard time fitting his son into the side. But, it was time to right the wrongs of the last sixteen years, Chepiga would not fail his son again.
After our surprise promotion via the playoffs last season, the board asked that we fight bravely against relegation. With little to no money, I expected this to be a tough challenge. Certainly recruiting players of the requisite standard would be nigh on impossible. I decided to reward our top performers from last season with full time contracts, about six players all told, and set about finding some diamonds in the rough to fill the gaps. By the end of the transfer window I was happy we had 8-10 decent players, but any injuries or suspensions would hit us hard. For reference, right back Arthur Globa is rated as our best player by my assistant manager.
The Druha Liha Group A consists of just ten teams, the Group winners are promoted to the Persha Liha, Ukraine's second tier, while the team finishing second enters a promotion/relegation playoff. Strangely we play the other teams three times, giving a 27 game season. I have broken the update into thirds, a trimester if you will (one for the FM_daddies), so it is easy to see how we fare against each side in the division.
First Trimester (Nausea, Headaches, Heartburn)
We started life pretty well in the Druha Liha Group A. Only one defeat across July and August but only two wins, in a busy start to the season that saw us in action six times in August alone. I felt we were holding our own against much better sides using our counter attacking tactic I discussed in the last post. Veres-Rivne, Prykarpattya IF, and Agrobusinness are all amongst the top rated teams in the division so two points from three games was acceptable.
Second Trimester (Glowing, blooming...)
Our second trimester started immaculately, six wins and two draws, left us riding high in 2nd position in the league, and thoughts of consecutive promotions were at the forefront of Chepiga's mind. We then entered the long winter break, during which we downloaded the public beta. Our first game using the new match engine ended in a 1-0 defeat away to Agrobusiness. No disgrace or worries in that.
Third Trimester (Tired, Irritable, Fed up)
Into our final set of nine games, the eagle eyed amongst you will notice that there are only six games listed. That is because our slight dip in form, two wins, two draws and two defeats meant that with three games to go we sat fifth in the league, five points from the playoffs. But, with the final three games against Veres-Rivne (3rd), Prykarpatty-IF (2nd), and Agrobusiness (4th), things were still, very much, in our own hands.
Three games to go.
First up was Veres-Rivne who we had drawn twice with already this season.
A glorious fluke cross-cum-shot from right winger Fedosenko won the game for Pripyat in the last minute of injury time.
We were still five points behind Prykarpattya IF, whom we played next while Dinaz took on Veres-Rivne. In short we had to beat Prykarpattya IF to keep our promotion dreams alive.
A 2-1 defeat means we have another season in the Druha Liha to look forward to and to be honest I was content enough with that as this stage of our development. We were outclassed in this game and I feel we/Chepiga would not survive in the Persha Liga.
We finished the season off in classy fashion thumping Agrobusiness 3-0 in a game we dominated from start to finish.
So FC Pripyat finish a very credible 4th in our debut season in the Druha Liha. Prykarpatty-IF ended up winning the division and Dinaz were also promoted via the playoffs. I feel we are well placed for a promotion push next season, perhaps Sasha Chepiga could be key in this, or not...
Final Table Season 2.
You may have noticed the name of Olexandr Porod'ko scoring two goals in our final three games. The 22 year old was named as the fans player of the year in season two and it is easy to see why. Eight goals from twenty league starts saw him top the goal scoring charts at the club and his four player of the match awards set a new record for FC Pripyat. His contract expires in the summer and we have a battle on to keep him with interest coming across the whole of Ukraine and as far a field as Argentina! He has five star potential but in the lower Ukraine leagues I'm unsure how good that actually is.
Club Progression
One of the main challenges of this save is taking a club with virtually no staff, no players or any real infrastructure and developing them as best that I can. Money troubles mean I have made no head-way in improving facilities just yet. I have tracked some other parameters that allow me to see some progression. They say a picture says a 1,000 words, so to save me writing them and you reading them I have provided a little info-graphic below that I will keep updated as we move through the save. As you can see, growth has been slow so far. Wages doubled due to us turning professional and we are currently loosing about 70k per year, which can not continue indefinitely. I may add to this if we ever are in a position to invest money into the club, but for now that seems a little way off.
If you have made it this far thanks very much for reading. If you haven’t a clue what is going on you can read earlier posts here.
You can find me on twitter here and I will also be providing sporadic updates about the save and various other things on my slack channel #fmeadster.
Over and out
FMEadster!