Part 102: Prologue: The gang goes to Europe.

Volume Eight: Youthful Exuberance

Prologue: The gang goes to Europe.
June 9, 2020-August 14, 2020

We spent most of last season playing a 4-4-1-1 once I realized that Scott Shirra is a burgeoning superstar perfectly suited to play in the attacking midfield rather than further back the pitch in a standard midfield role. Take into account that we played best when challenging our opponent rather than attempting to park the bus and our significant improvement over the course of the season, and it's clear that we have good cause to refashion our tactics further.



The 4-4-1-1 returns unchanged, and will remain our bread an butter when we're playing away against stiff opposition and against megabastards generally.



We've added a 4-4-2 Diamond to get a second striker up top, there were games last year where we had trouble making things happen in the box when we had the better of possession. Stuart Mair will be heavily relied upon in this setup, as our Regista he'll be tasked with distributing the ball. He should be very good at that role, he has most of the requisite technical and mental skills and his Decisions, Passing, and Creativity are all very good to great. The one problem are his awful off the ball movement. If that hurts his effectiveness that role will revert being a boring ball winning midfielder or anchor man.



The 4-2-3-1 also reemerges five years after it made me look like a dunce in my second season at Wrexham. We've got much better players now, and the primary use of the tactic will be against opponents who we should be beating. The goal is to have the ball all the time, fight for the ball whenever we don't have it, and to play a wide game to use our superior wingers like Mujkic to force the defense to come out of their shell and open up avenues of attack. This is my preferred formation when my club reaches megabastard status, pretty much the only time it's not in service once I'm a regular Champion's League side is when I'm playing an away game against another megabastard.



Beyond having a last name ripe for wordplay, Pitcock is available for just £2.4m now plus up to £500k in future incentives and would be a strong addition to our centerbacks. Hopefully we get him.



Sadly he chooses to go to Granada over coming to Wales. It's a pity, I very much want to get someone like him onto the club. At 6'4” he'd have been a towering presence in the midst of our defense with his 18 Strength, 17 Jumping Reach, and 18 Heading resulting in aerial domination. We've lacked in that area since I took over the team. It also means that I decline an offer that would have sent Stewart Lewis to Aston Villa for £2m, my sale of Lewis was contingent on Pitcock joining us.



Johansen was really bad last year. My coaches still think he's got great potential, but he won't realize it sitting on our bench. So he's off to Leeds for the season, he'll get a lot of playing time there at a level where he should excel. Hopefully he improves to the point where he's a viable rotation option for us in 2021.



A 19 year old wonderkid? For me? Oh, Football Manager, you knew just what I wanted!

Patrice Morvan
Defensive Midfielder


Morvan isn't quite as good as Stuart Mair, but he's got even greater potential. He's already rated as a wonderkid, and while he was pretty expensive I think over the next few years he'll pair well with Mair and give us excellent depth in our midfield. They're both scrappy ball-winners that have solid vision and the passing skill to get the ball where it's most needed. The big thing he needs to work on currently is becoming more comfortable playing further up the pitch, he's “awkward” when playing in the central midfield rather than further back.



I'm sure it's become apparent to readers that I love the financial side of this game.



The yearly club awards come around, and the Bastard beats out Shirra for the club's player of the year.



I'm not really sure why there are yearly club “best team” announcements, unless you've got a gargantuan squad and rotate your players at appreciable RPM there's going to be more first team players on it than off.



But it's nice to see our current players breaking into the club best eleven, Shirra claimed a starting spot in a year and a half.



Worth it.



Michael Coulson's in America! Too bad he's stuck in Ohio.



The club has the same expectations as I do. At the very least we need a repeat of last year, and preferably European qualification.



We're likely to get more TV money in the end, as higher reputation teams get picked for the game of the week matches more often. A club like Chelsea is on TV all but a few weeks, and over 38 games that adds up to tens of millions of pounds on top of the already lucrative monthly installments.



This bumps our payroll up to 410k/wk, and it's going to go even higher before we're done this offseason. We'll still be the lowest wage team in the league based upon last season's numbers, though.



Wales!



The club is now valued at £61m, and are the 12th most prestigious club in England. We're very close to having a continental level reputation, which is only one step below the top level of "worldwide" reputation.




This promise means that making the Europa League will allow us to re-sign Mujkic. If we don't make it, we'll probably have to sell him.



If we were a ship, we'd be somewhere at the bottom of the ocean with all these leaks.



Get lost, Rangers. I saw him first.



Wales! Wales! Wales!



Best to give them the rest they need, they'll merely miss our first friendly.



With both Simpson and Harrison out we're going to need a new captain and vice captain. Cirjak would be a solid pick, but he doesn't speak English yet. Boumsong would also be a good choice, but he's here on loan. Bastable is a poor choice, he's got a leadership score of 8. So I'm likely to leave this open until the last minute before deciding who would be least bad at the job.



I don't do any damage to morale at our start of the season meeting. That feels like a victory considering the effects of my previous speech. The club feels like we can make a run at continental qualificatison, and having that self confidence is really important.




Good hustle, Todder. Slapass.

At Celtic, July 2020
Friendly


Celtic reign alone atop the heights of Scottish football. Meanwhile, we have four players either on extended leave or still with their national teams. We're going to see a lot of youth players today.

Starting Formation: 4-4-1-1 Counter
Starting 11: Kovacevic, Cirjak, O'Hanlon, Lewis, Dixon, Djurovic, Mair, Petts, Mujkic (c), Shirra, De Blasio.
Subs: Novotny, Chapman, Alvaro, Ludwig, Parker, Morvan, Bailey, Nieddu, Matko, Thompson, Argenti, Rouissi

Celtic take it to us, establishing a 2-0 shortly after the midpoint of the game. We pick up some over the final half hour, but it's a deserved defeat and not the auspicious start our fans might have been expecting. Still, it's just the preseason and the club is a long way from being fully assembled. I'm not concerned.




Celtic 2-0 Wrexham

A pub in Glasgow

(MATEO MUJKIC, SCOTT SHIRRA, and TONCI CIRJAK are enjoying a drink after the game)

: So you're from around here, mate?

: Och, nae. I'm from up Falkirk way. Much smaller. Much less knife crime.

: Cijenim što ste me pozvali, ali moj engleski je još uvijek nije dobro. Ja ne mogu razumjeti svoje naglaske.



: No worries, Tonks. Football is a universal language. So is beer. We're all good.

: What is this "Tonks"? My name is Tonci. "Tahn-CHI."

: It's a sobriquet! Like we call Mateo here Meteor. A sign of affection and affinity between familiars.

: Ja sam izgubila. Previše velikih rijeci. Proklinjati ovaj jezik.

: It's, ah. Nadimak. I think?



: Ah! Nadimak. No, to ne zvuci kao moje ime?

: Yeah, but it could be worse. Look at poor Shirra here, one still hasn't stuck to him.

: I'm glad some of them haven't, did you see the AmazTube* of that Sky broadcaster calling himself a Shirrasexual?

(Awkward silence as all three shudder)

* In 2017 Amazon continued its long march towards taking over the entire world by launching a highly successful challenger to YouTube. AmazTube hit it big when a Let's Play of Euro Truck Simulator 4 went viral and earned 900,000,000 views

(Apologies from the author for any accidental mangling of Croatian, or if I didn't quite get the Tonci pronunciation right).



Waiting for us when we get back from Scotland is our new striker.

Bram Aarts
Striker


Aarts is a bundle of potential with a penchant for dribbling and quick busts of acceleration. The man who will forever be first on an alphabetical ranking of Wrexham players is not ready for a first team role yet, but he'll get there in time and will already serve as an acceptable backup. The first thing I do with him is tie a parachute to his back and send him sprinting, his speed needs to develop if he's going to be a top quality player.



Huh, I should have told him that I was attaching a parachute to his back. He got injured on the same day he signed. I was considering skimping and only signing one striker, but I can't do that now.



Good effort, Wales. Everyone line up for slapass.



In that case you shouldn't have agreed to the friendly, you dunces.

At Marseille, July 11, 2020
Friendly


Marseilles finished 4th last season in Ligue Un, ending a stretch of three straight years qualifying for the Champion's League. I still only care about match fitness, so this is as much a chance to sneak off to the Riviera as anything else. We're favored for the match, but with 6 first team players missing I'll be surprised if we win.

Starting Formation: 4-4-1-1 Counter
Starting 11: Kovacevich, Cirjak, Boumsong, Lewis, Mejasic, Djurovic, Mair, Nieddu, Thompson, Shirra, De Blasio.
Subs: Novotny, Chapman, Alvaro, Parker, O'Hanlon, Morvan, Dixon, Bailey, Rutter, Jeffries, Argenti, Rouissi.

Lewis and Cirjak both pick up cautions in the first ten minutes, and I'm forced to remove my orders for tough play. Things still work out right, Djurovic puts us ahead afterwards. Scott Shirra continues to make Shirrasexuals out of everyone by scoring a second goal. Marseilles quickly cut our lead to one, but there it remains for the rest of the game.

Man of the Match: Dejan Djurovic




Marseille 1-2 Wrexham

A Cafe in Provence

(KAIS ROUISSI and CYRIL BOUMSONG enjoy a Gauloises and coffee. Their conversation is, naturally, in French)

: The manager is holding you back, you deserve to play over the Italians in friendlies like this.

: I am not concerned. When he feels the time is right he will surely call upon me. I have my whole career before me. And anyways we are all but motes in God's eye so what does it mattes whether I start preseason games?



: I guess that's the difference between you and I. When an English club came calling at age 15, I chose Manchester United and you chose that sheep fold in Wales.



: I like it, building my own sod hut was a unique experience. And the rain and gloom that seeps through the holes in the hut suits me.

: (Wryly) Ah, I see you've been reading the books I gave you.

: Sartre just GETS me, y'know?



Now I'm definitely not going to be able to sell him.



Roma replaces PSV on our pre-season dance card, they're paying us nearly a quarter million to come visit.



Wales can hold their head up high. They fell to the eventual European Champions, mighty Denmark. It seems like once a generation Denmark wins the tournament, they also won in 1992.



It's a barren market when it comes to left backs. I really shouldn't have sold Durand before finding a replacement him, but I didn't expect being forced to sidegrade in quality at much higher cost. So I'm certainly not selling Mejasic.



Ugh. I just completed this deal and I already don't like it one bit, but it was the least awful option available. All the players I wanted were South Americans and Africans who wouldn't have been able to get a work permit because England hates immigrants taking their footballing jobs.

Allan Richards
Left Back


It's still better than signing Youssouf last year, but it pains me that I'm now spending over £20,000 a week more for a roughly equal player to Durand. The pain sharpens when I remember that I sold Durand for £1.3m, and then had to pay £2.2m in transfer and agent fees for Richards. And he's now our oldest player by four years. Let us not speak of this again.



No. Our budget is too tight for me to be giving Mejasic a contract extension. He, Lewis, and Todd are our only bargain basement priced players at the moment, and he's the lowest paid senior team player at just £2,000/wk.



Australia call up the Bastard and Meteor at a time that actually makes sense for once, they'll both add "Olympian" to their resume.



Win for the love you bear me. If you won't win for me, win for the supporters. If you won't win for them, win for pride. If you won't win for pride, win for the money. If none of that works for you, you're not very easy to motivate.

At Stuttgart, July 18, 2020
Friendly


Our first trip to Germany has us playing Stuttgart, who over the last decade have largely been a midtable squad. At full strength I would back us to win, but with seven senior team players out due to injury or international obligations I'm not sure if we'll be able to claim the day. Doesn't matter, we're still getting paid.

Starting Formation: 4-4-1-1 Counter
Starting 11: Kovacevic, Cirjak, Boumsong, Lewis, Richards, Djurovic, Mair, Bailey (c), Argenti, Shirra, De Blasio.
Subs: Novotny, Mejasic, O'Hanlon, Chapman, Alvaro, Morvan, Dixon, Nieddu, Simoes, Jeffries, Rutter, Rouissi.

It's an even match, and neither side can take advantage of the other. At various points each side looked certain to score, but in the end neither did. We can be happy with this performance, we're missing some of our best players and five youth team players took the field for this match yet we still notched a well fought draw.

Man of the Match: Cyril Boumsong




Stuttgart 0-0 Wrexham

A Beer Garden in Stuttgart

(JUSTIN BAILEY and COACH are sitting at a table, engaged in conversation)

: And so the penguin says, "He's not an eggplant, he's retarded!"

(BAILEY spits beer across the table drawing dirty looks from the nearby patrons and both crack up laughing. After a short while their giggles subside)

: (wistfully) Ah... Billy would have loved that joke.

: (apprehensively) Yeah. You know...

: I understand. I always dreamed of playing in the Premier League when I was a kid. I didn't think I'd actually do it. And I know Stu and Billy and Coulson all loved their time at the club. But...

: I miss them too.

: It's never going to be the same, is it? I remember when Meteor first joined us, he was so much better than everyone else it was amazing that he was on our team. Now I watch kids like Shirra and that new guy Morvan and they might turn out to be even better than him.

: You're right. I wish that things were different, but they aren't.

: What's going to happen when my contract is up after this season? I've spent all my adult life pursuing football at Wrexham, and never given a thought as to what comes next.



: Have you ever considered piracy?

: What?

: Coaching. I meant coaching.



It's time we started snapping up young players and loaning them out in the hope that they become great and we can then use them. Signing a ton of great youth talent and then loaning it out to clubs until they become useful for you is a classic megabastard tactic. It can bite you in the ass sometimes, as Chelsea showed in real life this year.

Chelsea loaned out excellent young Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku, and then spent all season needing a reliable striker while Lukaku racked up 13 goals for Everton in a year where Everton still have an outside chance at a Champion's league berth. Worse, Chelsea loaned out brilliant young Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois to Atletico Madrid because they have brilliant old goalkeeper Peter Cech. Then they had to face Courtois in the Champion's League semi-final. They lost. If they had kept Lukaku and Courtois it's possible everyone would be talking about how Chelsea might do the double this year. Also, Belgium's got a whole golden generation thing going on right now.

Marc Jansen
Centerback


He's a long way from ready for primetime, but he's got world class potential and only costs £10,500 a week. If he develops while on loan over the next 2-3 years we'll be able to use him then.



We've got two loaners from megabastards now, this one a wonderkid striker from PSG.

Josue Di Martino
Striker


Di Martino isn't a patch on Bastable, but he's a legitimate Premier League talent. We'll only have him for a year, so he's not worth wasting much time describing. Our shopping is almost done, I'd like to add another centerback and then we should be finished.

vs. Swansea, July 25, 2020
The Mini-Cwp, Semi-Final


Hey, it's a friendly that I actually want to win. Friendly Cups are essentially four team micro tournaments that are put together for various reasons. In our case it's the pocket sized version of the Cwp. The games are held back to back, so significant rotation is needed to avoid running out of players, this is especially true for a comparatively thin squad such as ours.

Starting Formation: 4-4-2 Diamond
Starting 11: Kovacevic, Cirjak, Todd, Lewis, Mejasic, Mair, Matko, Djurovic, Shirra, De Blasio, Argenti.
Subs: Novotny, Richards, Chapman, Boumsong, Petts Morvan, Bailey, Parker, Nieddu, Harley, Jerffries, Rouissi.

We don't allow Swansea a shot until the clock reads 76 minutes elapsed, but all of our own chances went begging. This is what happens when your star striker is away at the Olympics, his main backup is also at the Olympics, and the third string striker is on the shelf with a herniated disk. It takes a shootout before we can be assured our spot in the Mini-Cwp final.

Man of the Match: Dinko Mejasic.




Wrexham 0(p)-0 Swansea

vs. Cardiff, July 26, 2020
The Mini-Cwp, Final


No rest for the wicked, Cardiff thumped TNS three-nil to reach the final as well. Both sides are going to be pretty tired, I won't be pushing the tempo in this match.

Starting Formation: 4-4-1-1 Standard
Starting 11: Novotny, Cirjak, Boumsong, Lewis, Richards, Nieddu, Morvan, Petts, Harley, Bailey (c), Kruger.
Subs: Kovacevic, Parker, Todd, Roberts, Newman, Djurovic, Waters, Alvaro, Simoes, Rutter, Jeffries, Rouissi

Cardiff take their chances and we continue to be punchless, having now gone three full games without a goal. More troubling than the result is an injury to Tonci Cirjak that forces him off just after an hour. We cannot afford a serious injury at that position, we simply don't have an adequate replacement.




Wrexham 0-3 Cardiff



At least this happened during the preseason, but our budget is getting tight. I'll be looking for a short term loan to get us through the two months we'll be without Cirjak.



This is comparatively OK news, we have plenty of midfielders who can take up the slack while Petts is missing. Depth is vital to having a strong club, and right now we aren't nearly as deep as I'd like to be.



Our last purchase is completed. And by last I mean last, there's less than 100k left in the transfer budget now. I'm still working on a loan for a right back, but otherwise we're done dealing.

Wojciech Feruga
Centerback


Woj is a very solid centerback, and still has room for improvement, though as is so often the case with our defenders he's not a dominant aerial presence. We now have three and a half centerbacks that I feel comfortable starting, whereas when last season began we had just one and a half. The half is because Todd is so inconsistent, some days he's brilliant and others he's discovering new ways to misplay the position.



I'm unsure how I went from Untouchable to merely Secure. Nothing's changed over the last two months in terms of our stature or club success. If I had to guess it's due to haranguing the board into buying our ground. On a better note, our jersey sales are up three times what they were just last year. We're starting to get bandwagon fans. And if you think football hipsters love Wrexham now, just wait until I unveil our WM formation. To get that joke you have to know that the WM is an obsolete formation developed almost 100 years ago. As I said, football hipsters will love us.

At Roma, August 1, 2020
Friendly


Our final continental stop of the preseason has us playing Roma. We're still missing six players from the squad due to injury and international obligations, but Bastable and Mujkic are traveling back as this game takes place. Of course they're both exhausted after playing over a year of nonstop soccer, so I'm going to have to immediately send them on a two week vacation.

Starting Formation: 4-4-1-1 Counter
Starting 11: Kovacevic, Richards, Boumsong (c), Lewis, Mejasic, Matko, Morvan, Mair, Djurovic, Shirra, De Blasio.
Subs: Novotny, O'Hanlon, Todd, Alvaro, Newman, Parker, Bailey, Nieddu, Harley, Jefferies, Rouissi, Argenti.

Roma looks like a team that nearly won Serie A last year. After the first 20 minutes they take over the game, and it's only Kovacevic's herculean efforts that prevents a lopsided score line. We did not play well, and once again we could not score a goal. I have to assume this will get better when I'm no longer forced to run out youth strikers, we have the guy who won the Golden Boot last year for cryin' out loud, but it's starting to concern me.

Man of the Match: Vid Kovacevic




Roma 1-0 Wrexham

The Vatican

(A HOODED FIGURE meets with CARDINAL VINCENT NICHOLS in the shadow of St. Peter's Basillica late at night.)

: You know that I am right. I spent years working with the man. It's not a joke to him, he really believes it.

: But to put oneself up as a God-King, the idolatry of it! Still, he's not a member of the flock, what can we do but to pray that the Lord shows him the error of his pride?

: He might not be Catholic, but his beloved grandmother is and deeply so. Threatening to excommunicate her could get him to reconsider.

(A MAN, aged but sprightly despite his years, ambles towards the figures. They are too deep in their conversation to notice.)

: You might want to reconsider having this conversation at the Vatican, considering what I overheard you saying.

: This is none of your concern, old man!

: I'm not sure I agree with that.

: Your Holiness!

: Cardinal Nichols, would you walk with me? I think you'd be interested in hearing about when I was a member of the San Lorenzo supporters trust...



(The two men of God walk into the distance together)

: Curses.



I feel like we're encountering more injuries than usual. Maybe I'm tempting fate by addressing everyone in the royal we?



The League Cup draw favors us, the Brewers are still in League One. We should ride roughshod over them.



Yep, definitely feeling like we're getting chomped hard by the injury bug.

vs. Liverpool, August 8, 2020
Friendly


This is the last friendly before the season starts. We play Liverpool again, at the Racecourse Ground, in just one week, so I don't want to give them too much of a hint as to how we're likely to play. That shouldn't be hard, seeing as a whopping ten players are unavailable due to injury, rest, and international duty.

Starting Formation: 4-4-1-1 Counter
Starting 11: Novotny, Richards, Boumsong, Todd, Mejasic, Djurovic, Mair, Bailey, Thompson, Nieddu, Argenti.
Subs: Kovacevic, Feruga, O'Hanlon, Ludwig, Alvaro, Timmins, Dixon, Waters, Simoes, Jeffries, Rouissi, De Blasio.

Our youth striker du jour, today Piero Argenti, once again misses some easy chances. We still score first thanks to Chris Todd deciding that he's going to play well today. The game turns out to be an exciting one, as goals are traded back and forth. Wrexham are the victor, though, a nice result considering how that literally half our team wasn't available for selection.




Wrexham 3-2 Liverpool



As much trepidation I feel over appointing a loan player captain, Boumsong is clearly the best player for the job. Mujkic only has a Leadership of 12, and removing him from the captaincy once we have a better candidate could be tricky considering his tenure. Boumsong will eventually move on, but after all the recent turnover he's now 13th in overall seniority on the club making him high enough in seniority to get the respect of his teammates.



The last arrival is another Paris Saint-Germaine loaner.

Diego Dos Santos
Right Back


He's on loan through the full year, so if Cirjak goes down again I won't be frantic for a replacement. He and Aard are, after our good luck charm Bailey and Thompson, the least impressive players on the club, but they're still very good at a very young age.



Jimmy Two Saints is not immediately available to us, he's at the Olympics winning a silver medal. He arrives at the club five days before the start of the season. Meteor and the Bastard were also at the games, but couldn't drag Team Oz to a single win in a group that saw them play Germany and Argentina.



The day after we tick up to three healthy fullbacks, Richards goes down. It's three days before our first league match, so this seems like a fitting place to stop.



You gave me a budget, and I spent it. Overspent it, actually. We're down to 98,000 in the transfer pool. Wages are 6k a week over budget thanks to needing a new right back just before the start of the season. But the club is markedly better now, at least on paper, than it was at the end of last season. We should be able to make a real splash in the league this season and show everyone that we weren't a fluke. If the new players gel quickly we might even be able to shock the world again.

The yearly contest is upon us again, this time we're going to embarrass ourselves by making predictions on how the league and cups will shake out. Winner is whoever's closest in predicting the order of the top four, the bottom three, the winner of the Champion's League, the winner of the FA Cup, and the winner of the Capital One Cup. Below are the bookies odds on the league.



SAMPLE ENTRY:
Top 4: Man U, Chelsea, Man City, Wrexham.
Bottom 3: Norwich, Watford, Bristol City.
Champion's League: Real Madrid
FA Cup: Wrexham
League Cup: Wrexham

(Note: this is a wildly optimistic prediction for Wrexham)

Remember, the top four and bottom three are in order of finish, so in the above sample I'm expecting Manchester United to win the league and Bristol City to finish dead last. If you're not sure about Champion's League teams I'd suggest the previous update where you can see the quarterfinalists from last year and the tables from the other big leagues. Only four teams have won the Champion's League during this LP. Barcelona has won three times, Atletico twice, PSG and Man U once each.

Entries will be open until Chapter the Second (two updates from now) is posted or Monday, May 5th at 5pm EST, whichever comes later.