End This Losing Streak!
RSL in the WSL Part 21
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Football Manager News
Noted editor Wolf_pd announced the beginning of a full historical divergence mod on the official forums. Wolf_pd is well known for his Iron Curtain mods; the FM20 version is excellent, while the FM22 version is sadly still a work in progress.
RSL in the WSL Part 21
All I’m asking for is a win today. All we need is a win to turn things around. Our bad form, our collapses, our cup failures – it all goes away if we can just manage to pull off a single win today.
It’s been a little while since we’ve had any league action to report on. In case you forgot, here are what the standings look like before we host Pumas:
22nd place isn’t great, though we do have a few games in hand. We can get things turned right around with a win today. Even the smallest victory would catapult us up to mid-table and out of the relegation zone.
Preparation
I made a few changes as I nervously prepared for this match.
The biggest was a change in our corner defense scheme. I did a bit of research and came across this FMBlog post on defensive corner schemes. We’ve been doing a particularly poor job at preventing goals from corners, and so I figured a little change was in order.
The idea here is pretty basic – do whatever we can to get the ball away, and see if we can’t get a player or two streaking down the field for a counter-attack.
Tactics
This is the team we’re putting out there this evening, in front of the lights and our friendly home crowd. This is our chance to pull one back and turn this season into something respectable.
My only worry is N’Kassa, who has yet to prove that he belongs at this level. Other than that, I think this is really about as good as we can expect.
I feel like we’ve been told that we’re “up against it” in every single match this season. The words simply don’t have any meaning anymore. We’re underdogs, and we know it. But it’s time for us to show them what we can do.
First Half
Another evening, another full crowd. A raucous crowd greeted us at Rio Tinto Stadium, and the excitement grew as the match progressed.
Kyle Semple, our young central defender, started it off by giving up a penalty before the game was even 10 minutes old. I suppose it was a “tight call,” but it sure looked like a penalty to me.
I was pretty upset – but that’s when things started to turn around.
Hugo Oliveira, who we met just the other day, came roaring back with a huge goal a few minutes later. You can see here just how important Holm is to our team. His unselfish play and uncanny ability to set up shots really shines in this replay.
Just like that, we were level. The momentum was on our side – and I hoped that we wouldn’t suffer an immediate letdown.
The excitement came back in the 32nd minute. Cardozo scored this awesome strike to put us ahead. Again, check out the passing and unselfish play. N’Kassa did an excellent job of setting this one up.
We went into the half up by a goal. We’ve been in this position before, of course – but I had a feeling that it might be different this time.
Second Half
All those hours (well, minutes) of planning corner routines paid off. Our defender Onouha was pushed in the penalty box to start off the second half, leading to a penalty goal for Ørshal.
Just like that, we were up 3-1. As the time ticked down, I started to ask myself if this was really happening. Are we really capable of winning games at this level? Can we really hold on?
It wasn’t all great, of course. Pumas scored a goal in the 96th minute to save some face. I’m not sure why we were still playing, since we were supposed to “only” have 5 minutes of injury time. That’s Football Manager for you.
All in all, though, it was an excellent win. We’ll take any win at this point.
Boy, it felt nice to get this message.
Analysis
I didn’t even mention Saucedo in my lead-in. In fact, I had no idea who he was. It seems that RSL sold him in real life before the 2020-21 season began. Go figure.
It always feels good to win, doesn’t it? Minor problems look so much smaller when you’ve come away with a victory.
Morales didn’t have a good game, and has been struggling quite a bit lately. In contrast, of course, Oliveira had that huge goal to start it off for us.
Ørsahl came off due to an injury near the end, and will be out for a few weeks. Tonin, who had a quiet game, was also injured near the end, and looks like he’s going to be out for a couple of weeks.
As I said, Morales had a bad game. Sabangeanu came in for the last half hour or so, but didn’t impress much. Everybody else looked very good.
One problem you may have noticed is that we can’t seem to keep Shehu fit for his matches. He’s got a low natural fitness rating, which is frustrating considering how good he is otherwise. I’m not complaining about giving more playing time to Barros, but it sure would be nice to see some of these good players actually play a full match for a change.
We weren’t exactly dominating, but we did play very well. We also didn’t have the same end-game collapse that we’ve been used to. That last goal was kind of a fluke; as we go along, we’ll concede fewer wacky goals like that.
Oliveira was named a substitute for the MLS Team of the Week, which is a good sign. Maybe we’ll start seeing our reputation increase.
Standings
It’s not perfect, but we’re moving in the right direction. If we can pull off another win, I’ll feel a lot more confident in our ability to finish somewhere in the middle of the table.
Honestly, this team isn’t as bad as we looked over the past month or so. I think we’ve got the talent to finish 11th or 12th once all is said and done. I don’t think we’ll catch up to the likes of Tigres; however, I do think we’ll be very competitive next season if we keep this up.
Football Manager Blog Roundup
CoxieFM posted the 22nd chapter of the excellent Kings of København save, which is up to summer 2028 – and came across a really interesting Europa Conference League format.
LutterworthFox posted the first part of an ambitious “build a nation” save in Gibraltar. Building up a single team in Football Manager is frustrating enough; building up a tiny nation is certainly no task for the weak in heart!
Meanwhile, Rock’s End FM published the second chapter of the incredibly well-written “un’estate italiana,” which I highly recommend reading.
Know any good yet neglected Football Manager bloggers? Contact me on Twitter (@DanielEvensen84) and let me know. I’d love to follow them, and would be more than happy to feature them here!