RSL in the WSL Part 17
Almeria Again
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RSL in the WSL Part 17
For the second leg of our FA Cup tie, we have no choice – we simply have to fly.
Google Maps has helpfully informed me that a single round-trip ticket will cost around $1,800, and would require 2 or more stops. That seems a little bit expensive for Western Europe, though it might be because of a combination of the current Christmas season and general economic condition.
There’s no need to worry about the budget, however. DarthFurion has ensured that travel for FA Cup games is compensated. I’m more concerned about our players feeling tired after the layovers.
The pessimist in me worries that Almeria seemed so weak in the first half in our last game because of the same layover effect. Maybe we’re not as good as I thought. Thoughts like this have a tendency to keep you up late at night, and help your hairs turn prematurely grey.
Yes, we know, we’re underdogs, just like usual. Let’s get on with it.
Tactics
Nothing too unusual here. Holm starts again, even though he’s tired and not up to full strength.
Sabangeanu at right back is a brand-new signing, a free agent I happened to come across while making my player search rounds. Oliveira is still recovering from an injury, and I worry about putting the young Papazov in a position to fail. Sabangeanu isn’t match fit by any stretch of the imagination, which means we’ll probably take him off at halftime.
Anyway, this isn’t a perfect squad, but this is the best we can do right now. I think we’ve already done well by pushing this game to a replay. We just might be able to pull something off here.
First Half
Yep, it’s another big game.
It’s a night game this time – we’ll see if that makes any difference.
My heart just about leaped through my chest when Cruz scored about 15 minutes in. We took advantage of horrible Almeria defending and simply put that one away. That’s the way this tactic is supposed to work – it works through our offensive-minded wingers and strong strikers.
Tonin had a near miss around the 27-minute mark, just missing the target. He played well in the first half, though, and I came into halftime expecting even better.
Second Half
But, as usual, we blew it in the second half.
Almeria scored twice off of set pieces – one a free kick and one a corner.
The free kick came in the 54th minute, and was a pretty attractive goal. There were a few suspicions of offsides for a moment, but a replay cleared all that up – it was absolutely clean.
The corner goal, in the 58th minute, made me angry with Schubert – and made me wonder if our second-string goalie doesn’t make that stop.
And that was it. We didn’t put up much of an offensive threat once Holm was out of the game. We lost, 2-0.
And that was the end of our FA Cup run.
Analysis
Yeah, our youthful team came unstuck yet again. Sports Interactive needs to come up with some new default headlines.
I received a media question right after the game, asking if I wasn’t happy that we didn’t get blown out. I know our players don’t have the biggest reputation in the world – but there is simply no way that we were getting blown out in this one. Football Manager’s media reactions can be ridiculous at times.
Our offense simply didn’t exist in the second half – that’s all there is to it.
Sabangeanu played poorly, though I can’t really fault him for it. He was an emergency signing for an emergency need, and we needed him to simply show up. I thought he did well given the circumstances.
And, yeah, Mills has played very poorly as a striker. His “inconsistent” indicator popped up (he was a youth player when I came on, not one of our purchases), and, as a result, he’s going to go down to the youth squad until we sell him. I’ve got no patience to deal with players who are inconsistent and can’t score goals.
Schubert’s 6.8 looks good – until you realize that he had a 7.0 going into the second half.
Aside from that, we had more struggles from Rivera in that central defensive midfielder position. It’s increasingly looking like Cardozo is our best choice, though he makes so many mistakes that I can barely stand to watch him play.
Emircan Akcan, who came in for Holm, is actually a reserve player we brought up due to untimely injuries to our two other backup attacking midfielders. All in all, I’m not really that upset with how he performed – he was kind of a desperate choice for a desperate time.
As I said, our offensive attack simply stalled out in the second half. We need to learn how to play an entire game.
Yeah, this is more artificial controversy that doesn’t really exist. None of our supporters had any business expecting us to beat another Super League 1 side. We played well enough to go to a second leg, and we led for over half of that game. We’re doing fine.