Preseason Cup Final
We're at a cup final already?
Preseason Cup Final
We’ve only played 3 matches, and we’ve already won a cup.
What a strange save this has been.
There’s no financial reward, by the way. We didn’t earn any money from this tournament. Not that it matters, since we can’t really spend money anyway. It’s all about reputation and prestige, I suppose.
It really wasn’t much of a match. Aldana was the only player who could score for us again — well, until we got to the extremely late part of this game, that is. Jim Rocha managed to stick in our third goal, putting us up 3-1 with less than 15 minutes remaining.
I mean, it’s always good to win, though this one feels almost like cheating. Our defense played horribly, and most of our players didn’t bother showing up. We just lumped the ball forward for Aldana and hoped that we didn’t give up too many goals.
We actually went down to 10 men after an injury in the 78th minute, a time in which we had already used all of our substitutions. But we still won, somehow.
More Introductions
There are two more players to introduce you to.
First up is Evan Boden, an attacking central midfielder who is listed as our most influential player, but who doesn’t quite have the leadership qualities to be captain.
Boden is 26 yers old, hails from Provo (the home of BYU), and is apparently quite important to the squad. I don’t like his lack of enthusiasm for big matches, of course: all our matches are big. I think he’ll be fine, though.
He’s good, I suppose. I’d sell him in most saves, but nobody will buy him here, and I can’t find a suitable replacement.
And next is Daryl Daley, an attacking right winger from St. Petersburg, Florida, who made his way to Provo, Utah for some unknown reason.
Daley is 28 years old and the senior member of our squad. I know, I know, these are treated as “professional” teams, but the idea of Daley being an undergraduate student for 10+ years makes me chuckle.
The most interesting part of this save is that I’m going to be forced to give game time to these guys who lack determination and who hate big matches. We’re going to see first-hand just what this is like. I’m kind of scared.
Non Conference Matches
Okay, this is where it starts to really get weird.
Before the regular season starts, we have 7 “non-conference” matches.
As is the case in American college football, what this means is that we have 7 games that are scheduled for us against a random assortment of teams. Some are at our level, some are at a level above, others are at a level below.
These games do count in the standings for some purposes, but not for other purposes. It’s really strange, and I honestly don’t understand it myself.
I’m also not convinced that the habit that big college football programs have of scheduling non-conference patsies to pad their resumes is necessarily the sort of thing we want to emulate in a Football Manager environment. Still, we might as well go along with it. What could go wrong?
Anyway, we’re going out to the southeast to play at Florida Atlantic for our next match.
I think we’ll win this one easily.