Part 16: Chapter the Second: We are the Washington Generals.

Chapter the Second: We are the Washington Generals
July 1, 2014-August 8, 2014

Time to make some money. If we can win any of our friendlies, I'll be pleased as punch. More likely we're going to get crushed on our way to a payday.



We've got 9 games over the next 5 weeks, which will probably wreck our pitch, but should mean we're aces at our tactics and playing as a cohesive unit when we start the season. We've also scheduled the Wigan friendly for later in August, which should be a nice boost to our balance sheet.



Things have stopped being exciting for underdogs at the World Cup, as the remaining Great Powers win every match in the second round. So much for a Costa Rica World Cup title. At least I can still dream on an African victor.



I've added a third tactic to our arsenal. It's a 4-5-1, designed to take advantage of our current roster as we have a surfeit of defensive midfielders and our wide players handle the attacking midfielder role better than the wide midfielder one.



Farewell, il giocatore. May you find success with the bulls of Torino. The fans don't seem to miss him that much, which surprises me.



Back to focusing on fitness and tactics.

vs Bolton, July 2, 2014
Friendly


I don't care about the result, and to prove it I play a largely youth side in the first half. We have a couple shots on goal, but go down 2-0 by the half and never recover. We swap out the entire squad at halftime, so that players can get their minutes in. The team is disappointed after the game, but realize that this game was all about fitness and not results.

Tackleford City 0-3 Bolton Wanderers



Our pitch condition is perfect. That won't last long.

Boris Ponce, Winger
Free Transfer




Boris Ponce was released by Tottenham Hotspur, and we pounced on him. He's going to play a lot on each wing as part of a rotation with Terry, Holsgrove, McCarron, and Coulson. I'm quite pleased to have grabbed him, he's already one of our better players and should be able to improve significantly. I'll need to be careful, though, as he's only on a one year deal. If he's playing well at midseason I'll need to make sure I offer him a new contract.



The biggest shock here is Brazil going down to their archrival Argentina in a crazy game that saw a hat trick from this world's Sergio Aguero, and Spain falling to England. Wait, Spain fell to England?



This game is obviously broken. I'm not playing again until it's patched.



As time goes on agents will start telling you about their clients who are either out of contract or looking for a transfer from their current team. I never found these that useful, but it doesn't hurt to scout the player and see if they're worth making a bid for.



This is from a potential defensive signing, who I'm passing on because having a defender with an unsporting personality means they're going to give up oodles of penalties and drive me crazy.



Look at that, we almost know what we're doing!



Mansfield comes asking around Sam Edwards. I'm torn here, Edwards was very good last season but he's in his decline phase and he does earn £1k/wk. On the other hand, they're only offering us £5,500 for him. I try to see if Mansfield would give us £10,000 for him, and they refuse.

vs. Bradford, July 9 2014
Friendly


I would have been very happy with this friendly had Bradford not seen fit to mutilate three of my strikers over the course of the game. Two of them will be out for the next fortnight because of injuries sustained in this game. We hold Bradford scoreless, and get a couple of good looks on the counter attack, and over the course of 90 minutes we play a League One team dead even.

Tackleford City 0-0 Bradford

Stuart Hunter, Right Back
Free Transfer




Hunter joins us as another free transfer from Tottenham Hotspur, and as he's only 17 years old is primarily a signing for the future. He'll get some minutes over the course of the year, though, and he might turn out to be quite good in time.



England vs. Belgium for all the marbles in three days time. I know that Belgium is a hot pick for sleeper team of next years world cup, but England? C'mon. Stop breaking my immersion, game.

Ben Knott, Left Back
Free Transfer




Knott joins us from Liverpool to play in rotation with Allison. Whichever of the two end up being better will be our medium term solution at left back. He's affordable, earning £650/wk over his 2 year contract.



Hey, all of England is going to watch us get slaughtered by one of the best teams in the world. We've made the big-time, lads!

Simon Hatton, Striker
Free Transfer




Meet Cyrus Rosetti's replacement. Yes, he's nowhere near as good as Rosetti, but he also costs just 1/40th as much. There's a good chance he'll improve as a player rather than stagnate like Rosetti did last year, between Hatton and Oriogun we should be fine in our advance forward spot whether we're playing a 4-4-2 or a 4-5-1. And with that, my primary shopping is done. We've roughly halved our wage budget from last season, and while we'll outspend our opponents it won't be by nearly as much as last season. Of course, a week after we sign him Hatton goes down with a pulled hamstring, so he'll be on the shelf for about a month.




All England needed to do to win a World Cup was to have me start a Let's Play, apparently. This is the first time in literally a dozen Football Manager World Cups that I have seen England win. Amazing. Truly anything is possible.

Martin Grainger, Centerback
Free Transfer




Grainger is exceedingly raw, and he's only 5'4”, which makes him miniscule for a centerback, but he has the potential to be a Premier League player. He's going to get some playing time this year. If he develops we have a great talent locked down until 2019 and if he's a bust we're only spending £150/wk on him. I do love the idea of a 5'4” player with a 16 heading skill. It's a pity he won't ever be able to reach the ball.

vs. Derby, July 15, 2014
Friendly


We play well against a Championship club, and on a different night the score line might have been reversed. If we keep this up we'll be in good shape to start the season. I'm going to cancel a couple of our remaining friendlies, we're in OK money shape and I don't want the squad to get down about losing to higher division squads when they should really be pleased at how they're competing against those teams.

Tackleford City 1-2 Derby



Another reason to reduce the number of friendlies, our pitch has already gone from Perfect to Very Good in the course of three games and will be in horrible shape by the time the season begins.



At the start of each season you get to determine the bonus pool. This is the amount that will be shared amongst the players based upon their performance in the league and cup competitions. If you set it low you save money, but some players will be less motivated by the lack of financial incentive. If you set it high some players will be more motivated but you have to spend more if you do well. We've got a current balance of £3.4m and we can afford £350k in bonus payments, especially since to pay out the full amount we'd need to win the league, win the non-league trophy, and do very well in the FA cup.



We're listed as having the second best odds to win the league, but Wycombe are correctly favorites. Wycombe was a League One team just 3 years ago, and they still have a lot of talent for a team at this level. Many of their players are unhappy due to the relegations, however, which could lead them to perform poorly despite having better talent than every other team. You can deal with one or two unhappy players on a squad, but when half of your starting lineup is sulking you might be on a sinking ship.

vs. Arsenal, July 18, 2014
Friendly


Arsenal finished 3rd in the Premier League last season, and made it to the quarterfinals of the Champion's League. They're one of the top dozen clubs in the world. And they're in our house for a pre-season tune-up. We'll play our best lineup but if we only lose by three I'll be amazed. We have our largest crowd ever, we should have home field advantage, and none of it matters. That record crowd watches us get obliterated. We're down 6-0 after 45 minutes, and it could easily be worse. I'm starting to think the income from this match isn't worth the morale hit. Things only continue to get worse in the second half, and the only good thing I have to say is that we at least got a few decent chances of our own.

Tackleford City 0-10 Arsenal



At least the team reacts well when I tell them that the match was all about preparation and the score doesn't matter.



Last year we played with a standard 105m by 65m pitch. This year we're going to widen it, in an effort to give our wingers more room to work with, and shorten it, to prevent opposition players from sneaking behind our line. At 90m by 85m it's almost rectangular, and we should be able to take advantage of that shape given our comparative advantages on the wings. Once we get up another level we won't be able to change our field size so drastically from the norm, as we'll be bound by the rules of the Football League. So let's play with it while we can.



The British people are going to get to know our team as the patsies for big clubs. Any publicity is good publicity, I suppose.

vs. Morecambe, July 25, 2014
Friendly


We're going from a match against team at the apex of the game to playing one that's expected to finish below us in the league. This should be a good chance to remove the sour taste from our mouths after the Arsenal debacle. We finally get to play our control strategy, but while we have plenty of possession we still lose when we can't turn that possession into goals. At this point I don't expect to get a single win from our remaining preseason matches, our last three being against Premier League sides.

Tackleford City 1-2 Morecambe



Hey, we finally get to give out jersey numbers. We're clearly in a classier league this year.

Simon O'Donnell, Box to Box Midfielder
Free Transfer




I feel that we're a bit lacking in the central midfield, and O'Donnell was available after recently being released by Manchester City, so I pick him up. He'll be a backup for now, but he's just 17 and can cover both the offensive and defensive midfield roles. Our wage budget is now up to £38,500/wk, which should be low enough that we stay in the black during the season. It's also only 60% of what we were spending last year.

vs. Tottenham, July 30, 2014
Friendly


Can I just get the money and not have to play these games?

Tackleford City 0-5 Tottenham Hotspur

vs. Everton, August 2, 2014
Friendly


We scored a goal. They scored nine.

Tackleford City 1-9 Everton

vs. Liverpool, August 5, 2014
Friendly


OK, let's get this over with.

Tackleford City 0-3 Liverpool



I feel guilty making the team play that gauntlet. But it's not like we set the world on fire in our pre-season last year, at least we're losing 5-0 to Tottenham now instead of Fleetwood. The player's morale isn't broken, which means we should be able to start the season on the right foot.



More importantly, we've got plenty of money now. At £4 million our balance sheet is three or four times the size of our immediate competition. That's up from £500,000 after we lost our sugar daddy, and is from our sales of Duchamps and Rosetti, season ticket sales, and our pre-season friendlies. Not shabby, not shabby at all.