Edited post: put in picture of Teamsheet at the start of Season 3 on top of this post.
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Things are going really well for the boys at "Hardhaus" this season, after last years rescueoperation by manager xxxxxx (lets call him Shankly ). The team was struggling at 8th place after 14 matches when Shankly took over, but he brought the team up to a respectable 2nd spot. Winner last year was pretty much always going to be our main Rivals, managed by my reallife friend. He already had a lead of 12-15 pts when i was hired, and a full scout team, so chances of catching up with him were less than zero really..
The team was obviously not participating in the CL, and was already out of the cup in the preliminaries.
All in all the board were very satisfied with Shankly's work, and the fact he secured CL-spot in his first season was particularly pleasing.
Pre-season we did some (token)shopping, so the team is now a nice mix of scouts and high quality youngsters (mostly 28/29 quality) with a nice mix of SA's.
Hardhaus Facts:
Home Ground: Hardhaus Stadium. Currently holds 31.000 spectators, but expansions are planned...
Fanclub: «Gamlehjemmet»
Kit: Home – Liverpool Home Jersey, Away – Liverpool Away Jersey
Main Rivals: "Man Utd"
Other Rivals: "Queen Vic FC" & "NAV Fotball"
Season 1:
Cup out in preliminaries
CL n/a
League Finished in 2nd spot
Hardhaus Squad for Season 2:
Pos: # Name Age SA
Gk 25 Pepe Reina 24 1 on 1 stopper
DL (DML) 3 Monahad Hacham 18
(DL) DC 5 Daniel Agger 24 Penalty kick (....)
(DC) DR 2 Phil Neal 19
DMC 24 Jordan Henderson 22 Playmaker
MC 14 Xabi Alonso 19 Freekick Specialist
MC 8 Steven Gerrard 26 Dribler
AML(ML) 10 John Barnes 22 Dribler
AMR(MR) 31 Raheem Sterling 24 Corner Specialist
ST 11 Bill Shankly 23 Penalty Specialist
ST 7 Luis Suarez 22 Corner Specialist
GK 1 Bruce Grobbelaar 18
DC DR 6 Alan Hansen 18
DL DC 17 Paul Stoica 18 Defensive Wall
DC DMC 18 Shintaro Toume 18
MC 12 Frantisek Marosi 19
AML AMC AMR 15 Philippe Coutinho 23 Shadow Striker
ST 9 Robbie Fowler 24 1 on 1 Scorer
DR 16 Benito Krul 21
DL DC 13 Tony Matos 21
As of today's date, we have played 12 league matches and are sitting on top of our league, although only by 1 small pt. 3rd place team is only 1pt behind that too so pretty close. There are a few more teams in our league that has bought themselves decent squads, so competition for first place can be somewhat hard i guess. We should be pretty safe in top4 though, so next years CL is almost a certainty already.
So far in the season our top goalscorer is Bill Shankly, with a total of 22 goals. 2nd on the list is our MC (!) X.Alonso with 16 (i think 8-10 atleast has been from direct freekicks).
Best assist has been Bill Shankly again, with 15. 2nd on this list is R.Sterling with 13 and L.Suarez with 12.
Most of the players has been with us the whole season, but Hacham, Stoica, Toume and Marosi has been aquired at later stages and has all come into the team and impressed manager Shankly.
In the CL we got into a pretty weak group, with even 1 manager who seemed to be awol for all 6 games. Nothing much to say, 6 straight wins and we're into the final 16. There are as i can see 3 teams that stands out in our CL this year (teams that have average quality 8-10 above all others), and unfortunately we will meet one of them in the quarterfinal and the other in the semi if we get that far. :S
On the bright side – final should be a walkover if we can just get there