In last week's post Chepiga's men failed, once again, at the penultimate hurdle. Stranding FC Stroitel Pripyat in Ukraine's third tier for a third season. Could it be third time lucky for Ruslan? That would be nice, but Chepiga doesn't believe in any of that nonsense. You get from life what you take, plain and simple.
Once again I've split the season into Trimesters as we play the other nine teams, three times.
Trimester One
A good start to the season with only one defeat across the first set of nine games. Scoring goals remained a problem with only eight scored. Thankfully we are looking solid at the back with only five conceded. Chepiga did move to a 4-4-1-1 and this seemed to do the trick, 16 points from 9 games saw FC Pripyat sit 2nd in the Druha Liha Group A, a position that would, at least, secure a play off if it could be maintained. Olexandr Porod'ko was, once again, leading the scoring charts. Ruslan had already warned two mysterious foreign visitors off the young striker and with Porod'ko refusing to sign a new contract he was certain it was only a matter of time before he left.
Trimester Two
Onto our second set of nine games, and what a nine games it was. Pripyat dominated every game, went undefeated, scored 14 goals and conceded only 4. There was an extended winter break owing to the winter world cup in Qatar. This couldn't have worked out better for Chepiga who had managed to secure time away from Pripyat so he could fly to Qatar and take care of some business of a 'personal' nature. By the end of March, Pripyat had gone 16 games undefeated and sat proudly on top of the league. In what turned out to be a very stupid move I took a screenshot of the following news item.
In doing so I broke one of #mythmikes golden rules. I have re-posted the rule in question, directly from the latest issue of Latte Quarterly, so you don't make the same mistake as me.
Don’t be tempted to take to social media to crow about an unbeaten run until it is over. Acknowledging this run in any way will cause complacency within the players and they will down tools for the next few games. Only following the first defeat can you then look back on what a run it was and bask in the praise of your peers.
Still, 23 points from 9 games kept us top of the tree after two thirds of the season.
Trimester Three
Unsurprisingly, I lost the very next game against lowly Nyva Vinnytsya as I incurred the wrath of the FM Gods.
We did bounce back winning the next four games fairly easily leaving us on the brink of promotion if we could win our next game against Dinaz. Our players had become more familiar with the new formation and it was starting to show. Recruitment throughout the season had also been good, a boost in reputation certainly has helped in that regard although we do struggle to pay anyone more than £150/week or 5,100 Ukrainian hryvnia if you prefer. Anyway, all of this left us on the brink of the title.
So could we do it I hear you ask?
Of course we could!
For the second game running we scored four goals as Dinaz struggled with our high press. Twenty year old Mykhalo Bondar scoring a wonderful hattrick with the reliable Porod'ko adding the fourth, crowning us champions and with it promotion to the Persha Liha at the third attempt.
So far in this save I haven't really gotten excited by any of my players, let's face it most of them have been terrible. But this season that changed with the acquisition of two potential stars. A deep-lying playmaker, 23 year old Eugene Lyanytskyi, who we picked up for free from the lower leagues in Ukraine, and a young, 20 year old striker, cum right winger, Mykhaylo Bondar, who was available on a free after being released by amateur side Kovel-Volyn.
Now I appreciate he may look like dross to many of you, but at this level of football with next to no money, this guy is a diamond for me. Taking an approach to scouting similar to that of Black Sea FM, I honed in on only a couple of very key attributes. In this case I wanted a playmaker with vision and passing. That is it, anything else was a bonus. Lyanytskyi came up on my search, and I was pleased to also see a high rating for decisions, amongst some other high attributes for midfielders, like aggression, determination, and first touch. Signing him made a real difference to our play going forward as can be seen below. Through balls like this have been non-existent so far in my save.
Seven assists from 23 starts, with 78% pass completion and 94% tackles won, which was an added bonus - delightful. Unsurprisingly Eugene was voted our player of the year.
Mykhaylo Bondar joined us around halfway through the season and his goals really helped us maintain our march on the title. I signed him as a longer term replacement for Porod'ko but he soon found himself a place on the right wing, scoring six goals in his last ten games.
Great physicals, coupled with high teamwork and work rate really stand out at this level. Add to that a good first touch and finishing, and you've actually a fairly decent forward. Bondar really announced himself to the Pripyat faithful, of which there are now around 2000, by scoring a hattrick against Dinaz in the aforementioned 4-1 win that secured the Druha Liha title.
End of Season
The board gave Chepiga an A- for the season, which begs the question what would be required for an A+. In any case, Chepiga has a job for another season.
I'm really pleased with how the season went, the change to the 4-4-1-1 really seemed to make a difference and we were able to control games much better. I will see how it gets on next season before writing about it.
At the outset of the save I earmarked promotion to the Persha Liha as the mark of success, we are now only one promotion away from achieving our main target. This may still take a while, in the meantime it is my hope we can make some money to allow us to develop the club more and reverse our alarming downward financial trend.
In closing, I hope you are all doing well. These are strange times we are living in, that is without a shadow of a doubt. I, like most of you, have been basically housebound for almost two weeks, working from home, and looking after the boys. It is important that we all look after, not only our physical health, but our mental health as well. Please don't be afraid to reach out if you are struggling. As a society we need to learn to look out for each other better, perhaps that is the one good thing that can come out of this mess. #stayindoors #readtheblogs
If you have some time on your hands in lockdown then you can catch up on my FM20 save 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!