U Kraine Do it: A Build the Nation Save

So my Dorking save is not done by any means but I needed to scratch an itch and I will be playing two saves simulataneously. Ever since Miles announced Dynamic Youth Ratings the idea of a build the nation save has been there in the back of my head. Now I know since then there has been a little furore / debate if you will about whether this feature is really as powerful as it was made out to be. Either way, I dont care and I am going to give this a go and my nation of choice is the Ukraine. In this save, I will take over a Club side in the Ukraine with the view of trying to turn Ukraine into the best side in the world with the best league in the world.


The National Team

The Ukraine National team was formed and accepted into Fifa in 1992 following the break-up of the Soviet Union with their first ever game played on the 29th April 1992 against Hungary, a game in which Hungary won 3-1. Since their formation, Ukraine have competed in 6 Qualifying campaigns for the World Cup as an Independent nation (1998+) and have so far only qualified for the World Cup once in 2006 where they got to the Quarter Finals where they lost to eventual winners Italy 3-0. In the other 5 campaigns, Ukraine made the qualification play-offs 4 times losing all 4 play-off games. In the most recent World Cup qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup, The team failed to make the play-offs.

The European Championships, saw Ukraine miss out on Qualification in their first three attempts (1996, 2000, 2004) with the 2000 qualification campaign seeing another play-off defeat for the Ukrainians. However, Ukraine has made the finals in the last three tournaments. In 2012 they hosted the tournament with Russia but were knocked out at the Group stages. In 2016 they qualified for the first time but again were knocked out in the Group stages with the recent Euro 2020 seeing the side make the quarter finals where England beat them 4-0.

So as you can see a solid country to start off with. A decent sized population and a National side that is ranked relatively high in the World Rankings without ever setting the world alight. As a Country it has produced three Ballon D'or winners in Oleh Blokhin (1975), Igor Belanov (1986) and more recently Andriy Shevchenko (2004). So we know it can produce top talent but there isn't a world beater in the current Ukraine set up. Oleksander Zinchenko is probably the most well known Ukrainian plying his trade with Man City. He is young and versatile and will no doubt be around the set up for awhile. Andriy Yarmolenko also plays in the Premier League for West Ham and although he hasn't been consistent in England, his International record is incredible with 99 caps and 42 goals putting him just 6 goals away from Shevchenko's record haul. At 31 he only has a few years left but he has every chance of becoming the highest scorer earlier. Ruslan Malinovskyi and Roman Yaremchuk and make up the rest of the Ukrainians playing abroad with the rest of the National team all playing in Ukraine - either at Dynamo Kiev or Shakhtar Donetsk.

Club Football

Along with Ukraine's independence in 1992, came a new independent football league for Ukraine with clubs previously playing in the Soviet league system. In the 30 seasons since the formation of the Ukrainian Premier League there have been just 3 winners. Tavriya Simferopol won the first ever title but since then it has been a Dynamo Kiev (16 Titles) and Shakhtar Donetsk (13) Duopoly on the title. In fact since the 1996/7 season only two teams have managed to come 2nd (Dnipro and Metallist Kharkiv).

It is a formidable two and both clubs have been regulars in the Champions League and Europa Leagues often making the latter stages. 17 Ukrainian clubs have competed in European competitions with two sides (You guessed it Dynamo Kiev and Shakhtar Donetsk) winning European competitions. Dynamo Kiev having won the Cup Winners Cup in 1975 and 1986 whilst Shakhtar winning the UEFA Cup more recently in 2009.

With the two big sides we have a solid foundation for picking up co-efficient points and it will be my job to try and get a third club competing regularly in the latter stages of Europe (Spoiler there for those that thought I might be Shakhtar or Dynamo). For now we get two sides in the Champions League, One in the Europa Lesgue and two in the Europa Conference.

In the next update. I will reveal the club I have chosen to take on this challenge

History

Football Club Metalist Kharkiv were founded in 1925 in Ukraine's second largest City Kharkiv in the North East of the country. They worked their way around the Soviet football system eventually making the Soviet Top League in 1960 where they lasted 3 seasons. A tough 20 or so years followed before they eventually got promoted back to the Soviet Top League in 1982 where they remained until the break up of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet era the club won one Soviet Cup in 1988 and once finished 3rd in the Soviet Top League.

With the break-up of the Soviet Union, Metalist were a founder member of the Ukraine of the Ukrainian top flight where they remained for 3 years before relegation to the Persha Liha. It took 4 seasons to get back to the top flight and they remained there for 5 years before getting relegated a 2nd time. They managed to bounce back at the first time of asking and and were back in the Top Division in 2004-5. It was during this season in the 2nd flight that Oleksandr Yaroslavsky tookover the club and put steady investment into the side. With this investment Metalist showed great improvements on the field and between the 2006-07 season and the 2013-14 season the club finished in the top 3 just behind Shakhtar and Dynamo with the 2012-13 seaosn seeing the club actually break the Duopoly up and come 2nd.

However, trouble was around the corner and in 2012, Yaroslavsky sold the club to Serhiy Kurchenko in December 2012 for a reported $100m. However in 2014 Kurchenko fled Ukraine following the 2014 Ukranian Revolution having reportedly invested another $270m in the team. His whereabouts are still unknown but the with the money drying up the club was left in financial disaster. On the 22nd April 2016 the FFU Committee announced that Metalist would not be able to play in professional competitions due to debts owed to its players totalling over $30m. The club was then disbanded.

Later on in 2016 a number of phoenix clubs formed following the disbandment of the original club. In July 2016, SK Metalist Kharkiv started playing in the Kharkiv Oblast Championship. This club was owned by the same men (Serhiy Kurchenko) under whose watch Metalist Kharkiv was expelled from the professional leagues. In August 2016 a new club called FC Metalist 1925 Kharkiv headed up by Oleksandr Pryzetko applied for the 2016/17 Ukrainian Football Amateur League and from March 2017 the club was playing in the Metalist Stadium the home of the orginial club.

Later on in 2017, the Ukrainian courts confiscated the original club from Kurchenko and placed all of the assets under state property. In total assets of around $220m were seized along with an even bigger debt than expected.

In 2019 a new team based in Kharkiv was founded named Metal Kharkiv. This club was founded by former vice president of Dynamo Kiev and former Sporting Director or Metalist Yevhen Krasnikov and they debuted in the Ukrainian second league in the 2020-21 season. The club won the 2nd league in June 2021 promoting the side to the 2nd tier (Persha Liha). After winning the second league, it was confirmed that this club would be able to be renamed to Metalist and the old logo will be returned to the club along with the brand and its history. A new president was crowned with Oleksandr Yaroslavsky being crowned, the very same Yaroslavsky that was at the helm during the 2005-12 glory years. This is where our story begins and as we take over the facilities look like this


The Club is in good health. We have £7m in the bank and with decent facilities. Playing back at the Metalist stadium which we share with FC Metalist 1925 Kharkiv. The Stadium was redeveloped in 2011 for the 2012 Euros and we have a pretty huge capacity of 40k meaning plenty of room to grow. Training and youth facilities are in good knick meaning we might have the chance to develop some of our own players an with a bit of investment there we could become our own little factory.

The Squad

So the Squad we inherit has some real stars in it. Our wage budget when i joined was maxed out at £40k per week but there was a lot of dead wood in the squad. We managed to move on 5 players for a combined £2.5k in transfer fees as well as loaning one other player out. This opened up around £700 per week on new signings which I will come to later.

In terms of what we inherited there are 7 stand out players. At right back we have on-loan Brazilian Mailton who is physically capable and a real attacking threat. I expect him to be bombing up and down that wing all season for us. In the middle of the park we have the Ukrainian duo V'yacheslav Tankovs'kyi and Eugene Banada. Banada looks to be the ball winner whilst Tankovs'kyi will be the man spreading the ball to our attacking players. They should form a really solid partnership in the heart of the midfield.

The Attack is where we shine through and this is going to be the strenth of this team going forward. Meet Kadeem Harris, Fares Bahlouli, Brayan Riascos and Matheus Peixoto who are superstars at this level. These four could all play in the top flight easily and our the jewel in the crown.

So in short, the team is excellent up top, solid in the centre of midfield but work was needed in the defence. I could work with that. A quick check of the League rules though threw a spanner in the works. Only 3 Foreigners on the field at one time. 5 of our best 6 players are foreign meaning I can't start all of them and the understudies are a big drop off in quality.

Transfers & Pre-season

So with that in mind, it meant we had to go Ukrainian in the transfer market to not make the problem any worse. We had £350k to spend and with some exits we had around £700 Per week to play with. It was time to go bargain hunting. Two new faces have joined in time for the first game of the season. Oleksandr Migunov is a 27 year old attacking left full back. His arrival means i can move the veteran Fedoriv to centre half if I would like whilst also giving us a real attacking outlet that could potentially match Mailton on the other side. He joins on a free having been playing in Russia for the last two years.

Joining him through the door is Nazariy Muravs'kyi who joins on loan from Shakhtar Donetsk. At 6"3 he is a big tall centre half that can hopefully dominate a little at the back and also from set pieces in what is a fairly small defensive line.

On the field we played 4 pre-season friendlies where we comfortably beat out 2nd team 4-0 before playing three top flight sides. We smashed Mariupol 2-0 before earning solid draws against Zorya (1-1) and Chornomorets (2-2) in what were encouraging signs that should we get promoted we would be in a good position to compete in the top flight.


Getting out of this league is certainly the club's aim and my goal set by the board is to win the league and then mount an instant top half finish when we get promoted. This club means business and from what I have seen so far, I think we can do that. The real challenge will be trying to take on Dynamo and Shakhtar and breaking that Duopoly.


In fact we are such heavy favourites for the league our pre-season odds were 1-48 which I think are the shortest odds I have ever seen. We need to get off to a good start and let's see if this team can really do what I think its capable of

On the Field

Ten games played, Nine in the league, One in the Cup. Ten Victories. 25 Goals scored with just 2 conceded. We have taken 263 shots across the 10 games whilst only giving up 39. It has been a fun start to the save


We have been a joy to manage and a joy to watch. Total utter domination in every single game. We have never looked close to losing, it is just highlight after highlight of us attacking and I can't get enough of it. The stars of the show have been the two Brazilian boys who are both averaging over an 8.00 which is just insane. Mailton at right wing back is just so good with the ball, he is involved in all our goals even if he isn't getting the assists, whilst Matheus Peixoto has scored in every game he has played His 12 goals in 7 games is only being restricted by my desire to keep all of the foreign players happy with game time. Their form has been so good that the Brazilian National team manager Tite came to one of our matches. We are a 2nd Division Ukrainian side!

To be honest it is hard to complain or come up with an area of improvement. We dominate possession (62% average), keep the ball well (91% pass completion) and rack in shot after shot whilst preventing anything coming our way. The only thing I have noticed is we should have scored a lot more! We are underperforming from an xG perspective where we should have scored at least 4 more goals. Now this clearly doesnt matter when you are dominating teams like we are but there will be tougher ties this season and that could be a difference maker between winning and losing. Especially when you look at the table and despite going 100% we are not clear at the top of the table with Kryvbas within 3 points of us and Polyissa also performing well. Two sides we have next month

Transfers

So three new faces joined the club during this time to give us a few more options over the season. The first man through the door was 31 year old Goalkeeper Valerii Yurchuk who joins for £6k from Dnipro-1. My scouts found this man and he fits the sweeper keeper position a little better than Rybka although many of his stats are still a little lower than Rybka. However, he is more rounded for the position and will fight it out with Rybka for the No.1 Spot. To be honest when we concede so few shots it probably doesn't matter who we play.

On transfer deadline day we managed to offload two more reserve players getting their wages off the book but we also managed to loan in two youngsters to add numbers to the squad. 17 Year old Yegor Yarmolyuk joins on loan from Dnipro-1 and will be a back up to the starters but will get plenty of game time as we rotate. The second loanee was Mykhaylo Mudryk who joines from Shakhtar. A right footed left sided winger he provides a homegrown replacement to Riasco which means I have a little more flexibility when it comes to rotating for the unfortunate foreign players Harris and Bahlouli who often have to sit on the bench due to the league rules

Ukraine in Europe Spotlight

As this is a buld a nation save, I want to quickly go through how the Ukrainian sides are doing in Europe. Ukraine has 5 representatives this year

Dynamo Kiev - Champions from last year they went straight in the group stages (I am not entirely sure why as I dont think Ukraine has an automatic spot) They have been paired in a tough group with Man City, Barcelona and Wolfsburg

Shakhtar - Shakhtar were unable to make the Champions League group stages after losing a tough tie against PSV (1-3 on aggregate) in the 3rd Qualifying round. Instead they will feature in the Europa League where they are in a group with Frankfurt, Sociedad and Midtylland

Zorya - Zorya were unable to join Shakhtar in the Europa League group stages after losing their Play-off round tie against Galatasaray (2-1 on Aggregate). They instead will be in the Europa Conference in a group with Celtic, Jablonec, Mura

Vorskla - In the Europa Conference they managed to progress past Shakhter Karagandy of Kazakkhstan (5-3 on aggregate) but they they went out in the 3rd Qualifying roung against Viktoria Plzen of the Czech Republic 5-4 on aggregate

Kolos - A short campaign for Kolos as they lost to Qarabag (Aze) 3-2 in 3rd Qualifying round of the Europa Conference

As it stands with the current results it looks like Ukraine could leapfrog Belgium who are losing from their co-efficients a stellar year 5 years ago. However, with tough group stage draws for all three teams, we might not have a side playing European football after Christmas

On the Field

Just a little update with the main news being this...


Yeah we are pretty unplayable at the moment as we take our start to the season to 16 games played and 16 wins. We did have to work for it a little bit more in a couple of games. The Ukrainian Cup game was against top flight opposition Minaj and we did have to wait until the 66th minute to get our opener but our 2-0 win has set up a 2nd round tie against Vorskla at home. That will be a tougher tie for us for sure as they are one of the best of the rest sides in Ukraine but right now I wouldn't bet against us.

The crucial tie was against Kryvbas who are our closest challengers in the league. We absolutely dominated the game in terms of chances but it took until the 91st minute for us to score our winner with Bogdon Porokh heading in from a corner to keep our 100% start going. It was also the first game that Matheus Peixoto didn't score in. The Polyissa game, I expected to be a lot tougher than it was but in the end it was easy as we smashed four past them. It leaves the table like this


Right now we have to be thinking about an invincible season as promotion looks secured. Really on the Kryvbas game worries me at this stage but even then we did dominate them in terms of xG and shots and as long as we don't get complacent we should be ok.


Let this crazy season continue

On the Field

Look, I am just going to leave this here


Eight more matches played and another eight victories as our dominance carries on. It now means we are 24 games straight in all competitions and with just 9 games to go in the league we are staring down the barrel of not only an undefeated season but also a perfect season! Although we are perfect, remarkably Kryvbas are only 5 points behind us in the league


If I was there manager I would be seriously pissed to realise you have dropped just 5 points and you are two thirds of the way through the season and you are not top of the table. It means if things keep the way they are going, we might still be in a position where we don't win the league despite going perfect for as long as we have. Obviously it has been perfect including three cup games and we got through our toughest tie yet at home to Vorskla who are normally competing for the European spots but are having a tough year of it. We dominated the game 22 shots to 6 but it was just a 1-0 victory with Matheus Peixoto scoring another penalty to put us into the Quarter finals. A Matheus Peixoto that in just 18 appearances has 29 goals and 6 Assists in all competitions which is just under 2 goal contributions per game he plays. Incredible.

In the Quarter Finals we will face Zorya who have been competing in the Europa Conference this year making the group stages. It will be our first game back from the long winter break so we do need to be conscious that we could be a little rusty but the same could be said about them.

Off the field

So with a 3 1/2 month winter window and my stock high, I decided it was time to go and ask for some improvements. We didn't just get one though as we got three improvements to the club's infrastructure. The first one was we got out Junior Coaching increased which should improve the youth intakes current ability.

The board then after a little persuasion agreed to improve our youth recruitment which means we should be able to see youngsters from a wider catchment area which hopefully increases our chances of finding the next star. The third and final improvement was to our scouting range meaning we can now scout across Europe rather than the former Soviet Union.

Three solid improvements there that should allow us to produce and find new top tier talent to take us to the next level.

Ukraine in Europe Spotlight

So from the three sides that were in the Group stages of the various European competitions only Shakhtar were able to progress to the knock-out rounds as they go into the Europa League 1st round where they will play Sporting Lisbon.

As it stands it still looks like Ukraine will be leapfrogging Belgium in the co-efficients from next season.

Great start. For some reason I had imagined that Ukraine had been a lot more competitive in terms of major tournaments so nice to learn something too. Absolutely dominating the league and more impressively beating teams in the top tier. A great sign for the future!

2022-02-09 19:22#286887 TheLFCFan : Great start. For some reason I had imagined that Ukraine had been a lot more competitive in terms of major tournaments so nice to learn something too. Absolutely dominating the league and more impressively beating teams in the top tier. A great sign for the future!

Thanks. Me too. I always thought of Ukraine making all of the tournaments but in reality that have struggled as they always seem to hit the play-offs. They have had some brutal qualification groups over the years and just always come up second best.

The league has been a complete shock to me. We haven't even come close to losing a game as we dominate every game but I think we will adapt well to the top flight. I think Ukraine is really like Scotland with just two teams. The rest all seem to just be there

Transfers

The winter transfer window in the Ukraine is a little longer than most European leagues as it stands at two months. With the domination we are facing in the league, there wasn't a real need to make too many changes but we did add one new player to the fold.

In terms of outgoings, we mutually terminated a reserve player, loaned out our 3rd choice right winger and sold Demchenko for around £9k with him being a backup that would probably not make the grade when we inevitably get promoted.

The real news though comes with our incoming move. We went to Shakhtar for the third time and easily got the biggest name yet. Welcome Heorhii Sudakov who is a 19 year old Ukrainian International and found himself on the sidelines at Shakhtar. We are picking up all of his wages (£5.25k) meaning we had to move a lot of transfer budget over to wage budget. He should rip apart this league and to be honest, we didn't need him but its fun smashing teams and his arrival will just make me smile

On the Field

Just the two games played and we came back from the winter break to take on Zorya in the Kubok Ukraini Quarter final. A tough tie on paper but once again we dominated the game and Brayan Riascos got the double to seal another 2-0 win. We will take on Inhulets in the semi-final where we will likely face Shakhtar in the final should we get through another round.

Meanwhile in the league, we won 4-0 as expected to keep our 100% record going. No shock there but the most shocking news was Kryvbas lost a game meaning the title is moving even closer to Kharkiv.


Youth Intake

In more interesting news, our youth intake looks to have delivered three players with some potential to possibly form part of the squad over the next 3-5 years. The weakest of the bunch is probably goalkeeper Aleksandr Museav who needs quite a bit of work. There are some good starting stats particularly in the physical side of his game, and in the technical side they are not a million miles away. However, his first touch of 1 is terrifying but right now he will do as a 3rd / 4th choice.

Sergiy Chernysh is in a better position right now. A more defensive left back, I am going to see if we can try and improve the attacking side of his game as we often play with wing backs but he has good mentals and a decent personality which should lead to some fast development. Handy as a 3rd choice option at left back if we are desperate.

The final new face is probably the best of the bunch. Vladyslav Doroshenko is an attacking midfielder that could legitamately play in this 2nd division for one of the smaller sides. Another strong player mentally, he has good technical skills with the real weakness being his strength and size. Hopefully he can grow a little bit and therefore improve that strength but I wouldn't be opposed to putting him on for a few mins in some of these last league games especially as we look set on a title.


So hopefully we will have promotion and a league title wrapped up in April and possibly a date in the Kubok Ukrainy final!

Persha Liha

So look, no shocks here. We won the league and we had 6 games to go when we secured the league. It was possibly the easiest league victory ever in my history of FM which is going back 20 odd years. It was a victory and a much deserved promotion. We were clearly too strong for this league and in the end it became more about going invincible then winning the league.


The Invincible season was completed and in fact it was the perfect season as we won every single game on the way to our title. Winning the league by 16 points and conceding just 6 goals in the process whilst bagging over 3 goals a game at the same time. Concentration certainly wained at the end of the season and we were in a couple of tighter games where we nicked victories by just a goal but the main mission was accomplised.

Kubok Ukrainy

Now the Kubok run was a little unexpected. Yes the board wanted quarter finals but we were now in the semi-finals and we had to play Inhulets of the top tier. A side just outside of the relegation places and one on paper at least was very winnable. Home advantage also in our favour.

We put out a strong side and two goals in 3 minutes sealed us the game as the main man Peixoto scored before Frenchman Bahlouli scored his first of the season to seal another 2-0 win and send us to the cup final. There we had Shakhtar the current league leaders in the top flight. A daunting task not made easier by the fact three of our first teamers were here on loan from Shakhtar and therefore ineligible to play and with Mailton being suspended we were without 4 of our first choice 11.

We stuck to the same system that has served us well just bringing our lines down a bit to make sure we didn't allow Shakhtar to get behind us.The games stats looked like this at 90 minutes


As you can see we gave them a match. We out xG'd them, had more shots, hit the woodwork and really put up a fight. A solid game and that is why I can say with complete confidence we absolutely deserved the 2-0 win that followed. Yes that is right, we won the National cup from the 2nd tier beating arguably the best Ukrainian side in the final and we deserved it. It was the first time since the 2009/10 season that neither Shakhtar or Dinamo Kiev won the Cup. For 12 years they have dominated this trophy and we now became only the 6th Ukrainian side ever to take home the cup. It was two late goals as Peixoto (who else) scored an 89th minute penalty before young 18 year old Yarmolyuk raced through the middle and scored his first goal for the club to seal the victory in the 94th minute.


The perfect season was complete perfection. 36 matches in all competitions, 36 victories, 102 goals scored and just 6 conceded. We didn't concede a single goal in our 6 game cup run and we beat 5 top flight sides on our way to the trophy. It also means we will be in the Europa League Play-off's next season which I believe means i am guaranteed Group stage football in my first season in the top flight. Season 2 and I can already help build this nation

Look back and Look Forward


What a season and I can't remember having so many players average over a 7.00. We have a good if slightly lopsided squad which is certainly something to address in the summer but this team has not let me down. Matheus Peixoto delivered all season. 40 Goals and 9 assists in just 30 games. He was not only our top scorer but also our joint top provider all season. He has great strength and aerial ability but also could play others in. He is rightfully attracting interest from larger European clubs and we could have a battle on our hands. I certainly wouldn't want to sell but if we got bids in the region of £6m+ then I could be tempted to cash in.

Brayan Riascos and Mykhaylo Mudryk have to take some of the praise for helping Peixoto get to that tally. Riascos is technically poor but he is big, fast and strong (A budget Adama Traore) but he was so good at stretching the play and getting on the end of crosses. 15 goals and 7 assists is not a bad output for someone who is arguably one directional. Mudryk on the other side proved to be a great loan signing with craft and guile. 7 goals and 9 assists is solid work and securing his services for next season wouldn't be a bad shout.

Then we get to the defence. 6 goals conceded in 36 games. We never conceded more than once so thats 30 clean sheets. Brazilian Mailton is hands down our best defender in term of star ratings but he was also able to cause problems at the other end hence the 7 assists. Another player on loan that we will need to try and secure. The final player I want to call out is Nazariy Muravs'kyi who just aerially dominated at both ends. He too is on loan so will need to be secured for another season.

There were so many other players to mention such as Sudakov the winter window signing that bagged 8 goal contributions in just 7 games. Injuries prevented him really flying but he is another one who loan deal needs to be looked at. Either way our best 11 all averaged over a 7.00


So looking forward what do we do? Well the board want mid table next season and then top half the year after. Very reasonable request and based on what we did this year, I think we can challenge for top half straight away. We have a good squad and if i can bring back the 4 loan boys (Mailton, Sudakov, Mudryk, Muravs'kyi) then I think we have a really good 7 starters in the team. It means there are 4 positions we probably need new starters for with some young back ups coming in to help provide more depth.

A lot of our back-ups from last year have their contracts up and so I will set them to release to free up some more budget. Budget wise we have £7m to spend with another £21k per week available for wages on top of what we are currently spending. Certainly enough to get 4 good players in with a handful of younger cheaper players filling out the squad. We can at least start to look for foreign players with the FavBet Liha allowing 7 foreign players in the starting 11 so that will help widen the net.


Especially as we got the board to allow us to scout worldwide and give us one extra scout to find some gems. It now feels like the save is going to get going and I can't wait

Ukraine in the wider world

So in terms of Ukrainian clubs in Europe, Shakhtar were our only post Christmas representatives and they fell at the first round of the Europa League losing to Sporting Lisbon. It meant this season was the worst season for 6 years for Coefficients and in the end we actually dropped 1 coefficient place to 13th in the league. So although we leapfrogged Belgium, Switzerland and Croatia were able to go above us. The top flight though did go to 11th in the reputation stakes from 12th so technically some improvement there.

Meanwhile the National side did manage to qualify for the 2022 World Cup getting through the dreaded play-offs and they sit 23rd in the world rankings (up 2). Hopefully they can have a decent showing in Qatar but if they don't then I may just step in as National Team manager too

A ridiculous season there! Winning every league game is one thing but to also win the cup and beat a number of teams in the tier above convincingly is very impressive. I'd think top half would certainly be the goal seeing as you have already proven to be able to beat the best team in the country. Excited by Doroshenko, he looks to have some great mentals at 15 and with some development could become a very talented player.

Absolutely wonderful job so far! Shouldn't take you too long before you establish Metalist as one of the "big" clubs in Ukraine.

2022-02-11 14:37#286903 TheLFCFan : A ridiculous season there! Winning every league game is one thing but to also win the cup and beat a number of teams in the tier above convincingly is very impressive. I'd think top half would certainly be the goal seeing as you have already proven to be able to beat the best team in the country. Excited by Doroshenko, he looks to have some great mentals at 15 and with some development could become a very talented player.

Yeah it was a crazy good season where I seem to have just nailed everything tactically whilst all of the signings added something to the team. Budget wise we were the biggest club by a long way and in fact our budget puts us in the top 3 or 4 in Ukraine (Massively behind Shakhtar and Dinamo) but I actually think we can re-establish ourselves as Team No.3 in just a year or two with the right signings

2022-02-15 00:59#286955 mrtepig : Absolutely wonderful job so far! Shouldn't take you too long before you establish Metalist as one of the "big" clubs in Ukraine.

Thanks. I think being the best of the rest will come very quickly. Probably a season or two and then the real challenge happens of cracking the top 2. Based on finances, I think Dinamo are the most catchable in 3-4 years with Shakhtar spending around 10x more than we do on wages

Transfers

After a perfect season it was time to build further on the squad to make sure we could compete at this new level. Confidence was high, the board wanted mid-table, I was targeting top half and the media prediction was 5th which shows that we should be competing for a European spot once again.

So let's start with the outs. There were quite a few of them. 10 Players were released, many of which were out on loan last year or back up's to the first team.The biggest name's were Ruslan Fomin, Vitaliy Fedoriv, Anton Postupalenko and Sergey Lyulka. On top of that 4 other players were sold on free transfers, again none of them made the first team last year.

For actual money we sold Olexandr Rybka for £20k to Vorskla after he got upset that Yurchuk was signed last season and with him being 35 and clearly not happy about being the back up he was moved on. The other man to leave for money was Gorbunov who went for a measly £1k to Inhulets but with our new signings he was not going to feature much this year. We also added Karpaty as a feeder club who are now in the 2nd tier which will give me an option for loaning out future youngsters

So incomings were going to be crucial for our success. The first piece of business was to get the 4 key loan signings from last season back for a 2nd year. Mudryk and Muravs'kyi both rejoined for the same terms from Shakhtar (i.e we pay no money). They also surprisingly agreed for Sudakov to stay for another year and we will carry on paying all of his wages as per last year but we will also have to pay £48k per month for him to be here. Finally Mailton, the Brazilian refused to enter permanent talks of joining but was happy to stay here on loan. Last year were were paying £2.5k of his wages, this year we are paying £8k. So although we are spending more money than I would have liked on these last two, it was more important we didn't lose these players.

So onto the new faces. Denys Tvardovskyi was the first man in through the door. He was released by Shakhtar and will come in as the new back up this season. Nice and young and Ukrainian he is someone who could turn into a starter with some training. Volodymyr Kostevych was the next through the door from Dinamo Kiev. £215k he is a more rounded version of Migunov, Not quite as strong in the attacking sense but much stronger defensively and he will be the starter at left back

Mykyta Burda was released from Dinamo Kiev and we snapped him up. A solid centre back who could also cover at left back, he has lots of experience and will come in as a ball playing defender. Next to him we have bought in Austrian David Gugganig from Wolfsberger to be another aerial powehouse to compete with Muravs'kyi in the defence.

Volodymyr Brazhko adds to our list of on-loan players joining from Dinamo Kiev. We looked at him last year and decided against it, because he wanted to play in a position we didn't have. This year he seemed to not be bothered and as we are paying nothing towards his wages he wil be a good squad player for us and will allow us to move our AMC to DMC in games. The bigger name midfielder we signed was Seneglese Sidy Sarr who is a man mountain at 6"5 and will be the midfield enforcer this year as we look to strike a dominance in the midfield.

That was all we did before the season started and we were still short of players. As we have gone through the first month of games we added two new players. Our biggest signing of the window has been Nazariy Rusyn who joins for £1.2m from Dinamo Kiev to be the back up striker to Peixoto. The final signing is definitely one of the future and he will join our newly created 2nd side as Dutchman Lloyd Boomaars was signed unscouted as a future prospect at the heart of the defence.


No real star players signed as of yet but squad wise we are certainly stronger with much better rotation options. Right back is still a problem area as we don't have a back up option to Mailton and that is where we are going to spend most of August looking.

On the field


So look we didn't win a game. In fact we haven't won 3 games this season as we have tried to adapt to the top flight. Admittedly, an opening game of the season against Shakhtar is a baptism of fire at the best of times. When you take into account our 3 on loan Shakhtar signings were not allowed to play, we had 5 players injured and had to play 15 year old Musaev in goal as he made a debut. It was a rag tag side with many of our new signings not fit enough to play. Gugganig did manage to score on his debut. Kostevych got himself sent off and Musaev even saved a penalty to save a point for us. I couldn't be prouder even though it ended our run of 36 wins.

We were still struggling against Metallist Kharkiv but dominated posession. Even more annoying as we beat them 8-0 in a friendly. We did though bounce back and we got our first win of the season against Lviv beating them 2-0 to help get us back to winning ways.

We then lost our first ever competitive match as we played the Super Kubok against Shakhtar and despire Sarr scoring his first goal for the club we were pinned back and eventually fell to a 3-1 defeat.


An Ok start which was certainly affected by me being too slow in starting our transfers but now that we have a solid squad (bar a back up right back) we should hopefully get the dynamics and match fitness back and therefore start picking up the points.

Our Europa League play-off will see us take on the winner of Ferencvaros and Kobenhavn for a place in the group stages.

Transfers

Our primary aim in August was to seal a back up right back to cover Mailton and we once again went to the well of Shakhtar Donetsk as we picked up Igor Kyryukhantsev for £30k. He is merely a stop gap option for the season but nevertheless he gives us at least a 2nd player who can play right back.

On transfer deadline day we added two more players for our first team squad. First in was Matheus Bueno from Gil Vilcente who was picked up for just £58k. To me he is a bargain and will be a good squad player in the AMC spot and will pick up starts against the smaller sides and in the cup. He should also have some resell value where we could easily pick up 10x what we paid. Just a tidy unflashy signing. Finally we added another loan player as this time we went to Dinamo Kiev and loaned in Vikentiy Voloshyn for the season. He is young and Ukrainian and is better than our previous back up right winger Tanchyk so improves the overall depth of the squad without improving the first team.

We also added three new faces to the 2nd team as we signed Antonio Cioffi, Anas Nanah and Michel Ludwig on free transfers after they were released by their previous clubs. Nanah has since gone out on loan to an 2nd tier side for the season whilst Cioffi and Ludwig will play for the 2nd side tihs season and we can see if they live up to their potential.

We also loaned out 4th choice centre half Sarapiy for the season as well. So there is the summer busines and in reality we have put a lot of work into our backline with three new starters there but the rest of the faces are really there for squad depth and potential assets that we can sell in the future.

On the field

Now if July was a month where we were just feeling our way back into it, August was the month we hit full gear. Powered by Colombian winger Brayan Riascos we went out and won all 4 of our league games with an aggregate score of 14-4. Considering we played in that period Vorskla, Kolos and Zorya, all three sides that played European football this season or last it gives me great hope that we will be able to cement ourselves as the 3rd best team in Ukraine as early as this season. The class difference was unreal.The fourth victory was against Veres who were promoted to this division as champions the year before us. It leaves the table like this


Early days but we are straight into 2nd with Shakhtar struggling a little to get into full gear. Dinamo Kiev have been perfect but as it stands I still haven't lost a league match on this save. I couldn't do any more if i tried and it will be interesting to see what happens in our match against Dinamo in September.

Especially as we will have a Europa League group game just two days before it having easly beaten Ferencvaros in the play-off. We smashed them 5-0 at home allowing me to play a reserve side in the reverse fixture which we did lose 3-2 but still it was a very comfortable 7-3 aggregate scoreline. We were obviously seeded 4th for the Europa League and were given the tough group ot Atletico Madrid, Monaco and APOEL and at this point the games against APOEL are crucial for us to secure a 3rd place finish and therefore for us to move to the Europa Conference.


Ukraine in Europe

Shakhtar – Lost 3-2 to Red Star in CL Playoff. Moved to Europa League where they have Rangers, Molde and Nice
Dynamo Kiev – Beat Omonia (6-3) and Fenerbache (4-3) and FC Midtjylland (2-0) before getting CL Group stage – Real Madrid, Atalanta, LASK
Metallist – Beat Ferencvaros 7-3 in EL Playoff. Group of Atletico Madrid, Monaco, APOEL
Dnipro-1 – Beat Torpedo-BelAz Zhodino (3-1), Neftci Baku (3-2) but then lost to Legia Warsaw (3-2) in Playoffs
Desna Chernihiv – Lost 4-1 to Twente in 3rd Qualifying Round

So once again we are relying on 3 sides in the group stages to help boost the co-efficients. This year though we have two in the Europa League compared to just the one last year so we are in a slightly better positon. We do need a good run or two between the three of us though as it looks like we could drop down 1 or 2 places if we are not careful. That was especially not helped by Shakhtar losing unexpectantly to Red Star so a strong Europa League showing is a must from them.

On the field

Perfection once again in the league as we have taken to the top flight with stupendous ease winning all three games in September. The month started against Kryvbas the team we were promoted alongside last season and the one team that came close to stopping our perfect season. This time around, we had clearly created a gap between the two sides as we won the match comfortably 3-0 thanks to a Peixoto brace and Riascos scoring once again.

The next game was the biggie though as we entertained league leaders Dinamo Kiev who were having their own 100% start to the season. It wasn't helped by the fact that we had to play our Europa League game just two days prior and with a reserve side we managed to hold out the Kiev side and then in a final mad 10 minutes we managed to miss a penalty, before Brayan Riascos once again became a hero and secured a 1-0 win over the leaders to close the gap to 1 point.

League wise, we rounded off the month with a tough tight 2-1 win over Rukh with Kadeem Harris this time the hero scoring both goals to take our undefeated league form to 40 games across both seasons. It also means we have now won the last 8 in the league and are firmly in the title hunt as things stand


Meanwhile our Europa League group kicked off and it didn't get off to the best start as we went away to Atletico Madrid. It certainly doesnt help conceding two penalties and despite our best efforts we were well beaten 4-1 in a rude awakening for us. However, in the next two games we bought our league form to the table as we beat Monaco and APOEL 2-0 in both games.to put us in a good position at the half way stage of the group campaigns.


If we can get a win over APOEL in the return fixture we should be assured of European football post the World Cup and if we can avoid defeat against Monaco then it very well might be in the Europa league rather than the Europa Conference.

Off the field

Financially we are looking healthy with £20m in the bank and so with some of that money I got the board to improve our youth facilities as we continue to overhaul the facilities to give us the best possible chance of building our own future stars


Ukraine in Europe

All of the Ukrainian teams are faring fairly well at the half way stage of their prospective groups giving Ukraine a great chance of having three sides in the knock-out rounds.

Shakhtar – Holding their own in a very winnable Europa League gtoup, the Ukrainians will need to improve a bit in the final group games if they are to win their group as they were predicted


Dynamo Kiev – Currently sitting in 3rd in their group campaign having beaten bottom side Atalanta and also picking up an impressive draw against Real Madrid, Kiev should at least be playing Europa League football next season