Invincible?
Part 12 | Yanbian FC | 延边足球俱乐部 | 연변축구 | FM23 Hardcore Mode
No Contest
Well, we did it again. We demolished the Taiyuan Institute of Technology, winning 8-0.
We managed to bring the score up to 7-0 before the end of the first half. I started to worry in the second half, though, as our goal scoring suddenly stopped. Liu Yue finally finished off his hat trick in the 91st minute, however, and we put them away for good.
Taiyuan managed 8 shots, which is more than I would like to give up. Hou Yu was equal to the task, though he did seem a little bit wobbly at times. We really ought to prevent the ball from even reaching him. I guess I shouldn’t complain due to our dominance; however, we are going to need a defensive upgrade before we start facing fiercer competition.
Liu Yue was easily the man of the match, and picked up a player of the week award as well. I always wonder whenever any players from any other teams win player of the week, by the way. Our boys are so good that they simply shouldn’t be playing at this level.
It won’t come as any surprise to you that our attacking is far above and beyond everybody else in the league. The defending has also been superb, aside from those two fluke goals against Jiangsu, of course. We are simply a good team, and we continue to put out quality results.
I am concerned about Kim Yong-Il, though. He had a very quiet game, scoring an early goal and largely disappearing afterwards. My gut tells me that Huang Bowen should be starting more frequently up front. We just need Mr. Huang to stop freaking out about the fact that there are other strikers on the team.
Invincible?
That makes 10 wins in a row, by the way. We’ve won three matches this season by 8-0 margins, one by 7-0, one by 10-0, three more by 4-0, and one by a 2-0 margin. Only Jiangsu managed to score two goals against us, and both were flukes against a 15-year-old goalkeeper who seems to be clinically depressed. I’d say that’s a pretty good run of form.
The board doesn’t seem to agree.
I’m not sure if the problem is the quality of the opposition or the fact that we’re not scoring 30 goals a match. Whatever the reason is, Chairman Guo always seems to have something to criticize.
For example, the 2-0 win against Beijing University, who are second in the league and the only team that mounts any sort of challenge to us, led to quite a bit of criticism from him. He told me that we should have won by a bigger margin against a team that is supposedly inferior. I’m not sure what more we can do other than win — but, then again, when you have that kind of money I guess you’re not easily impressed.
Chairman Guo also didn’t think much of our earlier 4-0 win against Shaanxi, and gave us “B-” grades for the 8-0 demolishing of both Taiyuan and Jingchuang-Xian. And that 10-0 domination on the road against Qinghai? That got a straight “B.”
And don’t even get me started on how upset he is that we’re not signing Haaland, Mbappe, and the rest. There’s simply no reasoning with Chairman Guo on that issue. If he doesn’t have the best, he won’t be happy, and that’s that.
North Korean Flair
We’ve got another DPRK international to introduce you to.
His name is Pak Myong-Song (박명송), and he’s a 28-year-old fullback who is one of the mainstays of the squad.
Pak defies all stereotypes about North Korea as being a “hermit country.” He’s 6’0”, tall and lanky, in excellent shape, and has 23 caps to his name. He’s absolutely solid, with an excellent, determined personality, and is a natural leader on a squad full of leaders.
He hails from Pyongyang, which means that there are certainly political connections in his past. It doesn’t seem to affect his persona much, though. He gets along just fine with our other Koreans, including the other DPRK nationals, the South Koreans, and our young Chinese-Korean players.
Statistically speaking, Pak is league ahead of every other defender in our league. That’s no surprise, of course — just about everybody that we have is yards ahead of the competition.
We also picked him up for a song - under 200,000 RMB. You can find quite a few good players if you’re not above scouting the DPRK national team.
He’ll be around for a little while. I’m not sure if we’ll hold on to him once we finally make the Champions League in a few years, but we’ll see what happens.
Charlotte doesn’t care much for Mr. Pak, by the way. She’s too focused on finding Lee Jin-Yong’s hospital.
Jiangsu Nantong
We’re hosting Jiangsu Nantong next.
Like Jiangsu FC, this is a club headquartered in the city of Nanjing. They’ve played better than expected so far, and are in 6th place.
Having said all that, we should win this one easily. Lee Jin-Yong won’t play, of course. Aside from him, we should be up to full strength.