So I've just started Season 2 of my CM mode with Los Rojiblancos hoping to eventually bring the other half of Madrid some much needed joy and consistency.
First season we missed out on CL and finished 5th which got me a Euro league spot. This year, the expectations are again to get into CL but get this, reach the FINAL of Europa league. A bit of a steep expectation for a cup tournament and one that might I add actually includes a lot of good teams such as Arsenal and a few other 'big' ones who narrowly missed out on CL last year.
I can't complain too much about my group though. I'm paired up with Genk, FC Koln and FC Servette (The weakest Swiss team) whom I'm guessing probably won the Swiss Cup to get there. Nice little diversity there and none of the teams are to be taken lightly but at the same time not at my team's level so if we don't make mistakes, we should go through fairly easily.
TRANSFERS for Season 2
The big changes over summer were departure of star defender, Diego Godin for $22M to Newcastle (His value was $13M and I thought it was a very good offer) and that money plus my transfer budget was spent on our superstar defender, the young, talented and already great but will get even better Mats Hummels whom I broke the bank for and paid $40M and $200K wage to get here and show him the ambition of this Atletico side I'm building.
Gabi left to be yet another Spaniard who joins Liverpool as I no longer needed him with a lot of my CM players like Raul Garcia and Ruben Micael, Koke and Fran Merida who all had been previously loaned out coming back and all being if not as good then younger and with room to get better.
Got rid of some deadwood I hadn't been able to in first season in terms of Nigerian striker Samson Olaleye and young Spanish CB Pulido while loaning out young Koke and Ivan Sanchez along with my two new 16 year olds who I'd promoted from youth team out for loan for another year as they are all Atletico products and might well have a future at this club.
Diego and Pizzi both left the club upon finishing their loan as neither impressed in the opening season and so I decided not to sign them.
Instead, came in Sebastian Larsson from Sunderland for $14M and a hefty $100K wage to bring his 'Crossing' and FK specialties to my team and provide some deadly crosses which is something I was previously missing as my wingers were more the fast/goal scoring type like Reyes/Hulk.
Nigel De Jong had found himself transfer-listed at Man City and at 27 years of age, vast amount of experience and one of the world's best DMFs arguably, I didn't hesitate! $13M to bring him to my midfield to give Enoh some competition and really help out that defense!
Finally, I wanted a different alternative route to attack. Usually I've relied on fast quick nifty 3-man forward line of Reyes - Adrian - Hulk with Falcao competing with Adrian to get his first team place back, but against teams who have a short CB or guys who are big but not very good in the air, I wanted a target man. Someone to help me change my style of play if I needed to bring a fresh approach.
And so in came, Marko Janko. The Austrian strker of FC Twente who was the Golden Boot winner of all of Europe a few years ago scoring something like 36 league goals when he was in Austria with Red Salzburg I think. He's 29 years old. 6""5 tall. 200 pounds and has "Aerial Threat", "Strength", "Poacher" and "Complete Forward" special stars. He's 75 OVR and extremely slow (Speed in 30's) but he will provide exactly what I was looking for in terms of something very different and provide some real competition for Falcao and Adrian who will now need to impress even more.
Having completely gotten rid of the deadwood now by the transfer window of 2nd season, having loaned out some promising youngsers and brought in 4 important players who all have 'special stars' and mroe importantly ones my team was lacking before such as the "Tackling" and "Tactician" ones which both Nigel De Jong and Hummels have or the "Crossing" of Seb Larsson or the finishing strength and aerial power of a true target man, I now am really happy with my squad!
I've got 25 players in it overall which has plenty of depth in it and with 3 competitions to play in and an injury frequence of 99 and 84 for Severity which is what my settings are, fatigue, form and morale, I think all 25 will have to be used and need to provide if we are to be successful in some way. I'm excited about it because my squad really has different 'weapons' to it now and not just players who can provide cover for each other and be substitutes but players who can come off the bench and provide something completely different than the man in the same position they just replaced if strategy needs to be altered.
So I've already found myself subbing in Seb Larsson for Reyes and Janko for the much quicker Adrian/Falcao at times during 2nd half and changed custom settings to high crossing and low passing creation to notice very nice change where Seb Larsson is now providing deadly crosses and Janko is getting on the end of them!
