As the world turns

March was another up and down month. We started things off with a ridiculously strong showing against Valencia; treating our home crowd to a 4-0 victory. Then we played away against AT Madrid and snuck out of there with a 1-0 win. On a two game win streak we had 8 days to rest up and get ready for Sporting at home. Inexplicably, we lost 1-2 by giving up a goal within the final 10 minutes. Next we traveled to Camp Nou and were treated to a 0-3 humbling by Barca. Now facing a two game losing streak we only had four days to prepare for the final game of the month against Sevilla. As luck would have it, we won the game, lol.

With 8 games remaining we are very much on track for the Champions League next season. Valencia is beginning to pull away from us and we are now 7 points adrift of them and 3rd place although we have a game in hand. We have managed to increase our lead slightly over 5th place, however, and we now hold a 5 point lead over Athletic.



In five games, Bueno has notched one goal and one assist from his new role as starting poacher. That isn't exactly what I was hoping for but I'm willing to give him time to adapt to the role and for Jara to adapt to the trequart role. In those same five games, Jara has scored two goals and has yet to get an assist.

I'm doing something similar, planning on taking my managerial career as far and wide as possible.

I can't wait to see how the season finishes for you, some of your results have been quite remarkable.

Good Luck!

We did it! With three consecutive wins to start April we clinched a berth in the Champions League for next season! A thrilling 3-2 win over Athletic was the game that did it, and after the terrific news we promptly blew our next game against Zaragoza who are fighting to avoid relegation. We ended the month on a two game winning streak and look to finish out the season strong.

We only have two games left to play and with a top 4 finish guaranteed I hope we don't relax too much. We are only one point behind 3rd place Valencia and if we can manage to overtake them we will go straight to the group stages instead of having to play our way in through the playoffs.



With a Champions League position secured, I decided to add a new formation to go along with my standard 442. It's a 4231 with a standard back line of two center backs and two fullbacks, two center mids, attacking left/center/right midfielders, and a lone striker up front. The reason I decided to go with this formation is to see if Bueno does better as an AMC instead of a Striker.

You'll surely get third!
Good luck!

Competitions

La Liga



Spanish Cup



Transfers




First Team




Summary

A dream came to life in our first season with Granada. Our preseason hopes materialized into success during the start of the season and we slowly realized that we could accomplish great things this year. After shocking many teams early in the season we continued our winning ways early. We hit a bit of a valley 1/3rd of the way through the campaign but we managed to keep on going. We continued to beat the teams that we should beat and before you know it we were knocking on the door of a top 4 position. We seemed possessed by the thought of playing in the Champions League and even managed to edge Valencia for 3rd place right at the end of the season.

With the promise of playing in football's elite competition next season I hope that we can speed up our building project at Granada. We already have a handful of players transferring to the team and with added talent I think we can continue to develop a winning tradition at Granada. As fantastic as this season was, I think next season's results will be just as important, if not more important.

Hey there, loved your story so far! Amazing work taking Granada into the Champions League in your first year! Looking to learn more about you tactic and let us know how your new 4-2-3-1 comes out! All the best.

So, remember what I said about this season being as important as last season? We don't look like the 3rd placed team from last season although I feel that we improved in terms of talent. This preseason we brought in a ton of top foreign teams and got our asses kicked as a result. We did manage a 1-1 draw to Bayern and a 2-1 win over Inter. We lost the other 4 games, though.

That meant bad morale going into the season, which is always something I keep in the back of my mind. Which also means I usually forget, lol. That was the case this season as we didn't do ourselves any morale favors going into our first game of the season against... Barca. Before I get any further, I decided to scrap that 4231 tactic. I couldn't achieve the same kind of fluid attacking that I wanted, so we're back to the good old 442 that's always served me well.

We lost our game to Barca but the 1-2 showing is obviously a positive. We should start climbing the table soon enough.



We were handed a tough group in the Champions League but you won't hear any complaints from me. We already cashed in 9.8 million from the playoff stages that we didn't have to play in. We get to play against Chelsea, SLB (Franco Jara's parent team), and Anderlecht. The goal will be to try and finish 3rd, ahead of Anderlecht or SLB.



Take note of two key aspects of the roster. First, no more loaned players! We had enough interested players to fill out the roster without bringing on any loans. Going forward this makes me feel much better about our long term stability. You know what else makes me feel good about our long term stability? Some of the potential rankings on the team! My assistant has a mediocre PA score of 11, but my top scout with a 20 PA has high hopes for several players.

4 star players:
Allan Nyom - Right fullback. Signed permanently from Udinese after his loan stint last year.
Vadim Demidov - Centerback. Signed from Real Sociedad for 6m last season.
Chris McCann - Center midfielder. Signed from Burnley for 5.75m last season.

4.5 star players:
Gabriel Torje - Right midfielder. Signed from Udinese for 8.5m and Hassan Yebda last season.
Lorenzo Crisetig - Center midfielder. Signed on a free last season from Inter.

5 star players:
Nathan Redmond - Left midfielder. Signed from Birmingham this season for 8m.
Anass Achahbar - Striker. Signed from Feyenoord this season for 3.5m.

Real nice story. Been following it for the last few days. Somewhat inspiring me to write one.

you scored so many goals! well done. will take a long building project to overtake that barcelona steamroller though 123 goals?!

Just looked at how many goals you scored it was an impressive amount but the amount you conceded is a very worrying stat also. So my question is what have you looked at to stop this problem?

# marz3y95 : Just looked at how many goals you scored it was an impressive amount but the amount you conceded is a very worrying stat also. So my question is what have you looked at to stop this problem?

Naturally, we have looked into the transfer market to improve our defense. We also looked to fight fire with fire by bringing in some key offensive players that were surprisingly available. Looking at last season's matches, only Barca managed to beat us by more than two goals; twice beating us by a 3 goal differential. I felt pretty comfortable with having the third best goal differential last season at +41.

That said, we were in the middle of the pack in terms of how many goals we scored. So while it was nice to have a scoring touch that led us to many wins, I definitely don't want to rely on winning shootouts involving 5 goals or more every time.

So after bringing in a well-rounded midfielder in Chris McCann, we continued to look for defensive players. McCann fits the mold of player that I like in the middle of the pitch - one who isn't a liability defensively but can still contribute when we're on the attack. We brought on Allan Nyom permanently to man the right fullback slot and also fits that two-way mold. Vadim Demidov is the type of enforcer that I would've happily spent more on. He solidifies the heart of our back line.

Lorenzo Crisetig is more of a long term project but the 19 year old international should develop as a fine defensive pairing for McCann at center mid. The same can be said about Joseph Tshabalala. The South African regen will hopefully develop into a defensive presence at center mid as well. Developing these two players is another story entirely, but I feel good that we have at least part of the puzzle solved - we have them signed to the team.

September brought promises of things to come this season. We were dominant in league play, putting that season opening loss to Barca long into the past with 5 wins out of 5. We won our matches with a cumulative score of 13-3 and the only close game was a 1-0 nailbiter against newly promoted Hercules. Our hot streak has us in third place with only AT Madrid and Barca ahead of us; both of which have yet to lose a game.



I forgot one big pain about bringing a team into the Champions League that hasn't been overly successful in the past - the roster restrictions! Since I've just begun building up Granada there is no way we are currently equipped to handle the requirements of having players that have trained at the team for at least 3 years. As a result, I have to omit 4 roster spots. That means we're going into the tournament shorthanded when we're already short on talent.

Our first game was a near upset of Chelsea. They beat us 2-0 but we were only down a goal at the half and we were playing our style of football. We ended up with a slight edge in possession (55/45), only took one fewer shot, but we didn't put a single one of our 9 shots on target. Nerves, perhaps? Our next game is likely our most winnable one when we host Anderlecht.



Back in his familiar position up front, Bueno is causing headaches to opposing defenses. He's tied with two others for the team lead in goals scored (2) and his 6 assists is only one less than the rest of the team has combined. We need to figure out a suitable poaching partner for him.

October was a much more balanced month than September, and it seemed like every big win had it's matching big draw or loss. We had our first game in which we were dominated. Real Madrid came to visit and were superior in every facet of the game and we were lucky to only lose 2-5. We had a good opportunity wasted against Sevilla in the following game. They're a midtable team that we should really be beating, but we could only manage a draw. Thankfully we managed to notch a win against Espanyol to keep morale from dropping further.

9 games into the season, there isn't too much separation in the league standings yet. We currently occupy 4th place, 4 points behind 3rd place Villareal and ahead of 5th place AT Madrid on goals scored. Next month will have some major impact on our positioning as we will play Villareal in between games that I would expect to win (Osasuna, Deportivo).



As predicted, we got our first Champions League win at the expense of Anderlecht. We were up 2-0 at the half, took a 3-0 lead minutes after the restart, and then cruised to a 4-2 victory. We quickly came back down to earth against SLB, however. We showed zero attacking ability in that game, managing only six shots with none on target. Maybe we can get a bit of revenge this month when SLB visits. Chelsea also comes calling but I'd be happy with a good showing of effort for our fans in that game.



The Spanish Cup has also kicked off and we were fortunate to take an away goal lead against a hard-working Gimnastic side. Our 4th round opponent took an early lead on us and we were wasteful on offense for the majority of the day. Alberto Abengozar's brace rescued us, however, and we need to settle in if we are to even come close to the semifinal run that we managed last season. Hopefully playing in front of our home fans next month will help provide some additional motivation.



I still haven't found a suitable poacher to pair up front with Bueno, so I decided to move Bueno to that position instead. He is the most accomplished finisher on the team, but as you can see by his assist total he is also adept at setting up his teammates. For now we will play Abengozar at the trequart role while Achbar continues to develop and Toti continues to get more comfortable playing at striker.

November was far more successful than I had initially projected. We took care of business against the two teams I thought we would beat - Osasuna and Deportivo. Away against Villareal, we produced a bit of late game magic. We took a 2-1 lead at the half and held strong all the way until the end. Then disaster struck as we missed an easy mark and allowed Cani to level the game 2 minutes into injury time. Then with the game all but over, we had one final corner kick at the 95th minute. Wouldn't you know it? Vadim Demidov got free of his defender and headed home the game winner!

Our little winning streak has us up to 3rd place on the league table. We're behind Barca on goal differential and lead Villareal by 1 point with a game in hand. Next month we have 4 games on tap and the biggest one looks to be when we take a trip to play AT Madrid.



Our second go around against SLB was far more enjoyable than the first. Scoring got off to an early start and we played with energy that we were sorely lacking in our first encounter on the road. We settled for a 2-2 draw. Chelsea, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with our upstart side. They had us buried 4-0 at the half. We scored early in the second half to at least avoid the clean sheet. Then we scored another a few minutes later. Then we scored another and all of a sudden the game was within reach! We ran out of gas, however, and Chelsea hung on for a 4-3 victory that eliminated us from advancing to the knockout stages. I take pride in surviving five games of group play before we were mathematically eliminated. Not bad for a first time showing!



Gimnastic paid a visit for the second leg of our matchup in the Spanish Cup. After barely sneaking past them in the first leg I didn't know what to expect. As it turns out, I don't think Gimnastic knew what to expect either. They came out lethargic and we put them to the sword early and often. We scored 5 minutes into the game, but Gimnastic answered 10 minutes later. We answered 1 minute after that, then the demolition was on. When the dust settled we were on the winning end of a 7-1 final score. Our prize for advancing in such convinging fashion? The football gods drew us with Barca for the fifth round.



I think the Bueno/Abengonzar duo is starting to click a bit. In four appearances since last month, Abengozar has 5 goals and 6 assists. In six appearances since last month, Bueno has 8 goals and 3 assists.

We close the page on 2012 with a mediocre month. We started with a solid 3-0 away win against bottom feeders Valladolid. Then it was off to play Malaga, a game that we had in the palm of our hands until we conceded a late (89') goal to surrender a draw. Our third consecutive away match pitted us against AT Madrid. They had us down 2-0 and it looked like our 7 game unbeaten streak would be coming to a close. But in the dying minutes, Bueno drew a penalty that he converted to bring us within a shout. It wasn't meant to be, however, and we couldn't find a miracle goal to extend our run.

We slipped one spot down in the league rankings, with Villareal ahead of us by 2 points. We still have a game in hand against them, however. We are 1 point ahead of AT Madrid and we also have a game in hand against them. I like where we stand at roughly the halfway point in the season but we can't afford to take any games for granted. Madrid and Barca are beginning to run away at the top of the table and our main priority is to finish 3rd.



The group stage of the Champions League is now complete and our final game didn't go as we had hoped. We had already defeated Anderlecht once and I was hoping to beat them again to feel better about our overall performance in the tournament. We ended up losing 3-2 on another late goal, spoiling a Bueno brace.



We head off now to EUROPA League play where we join in the first knockout round. We match up against Napoli and will travel to face them in February.




There is nothing new to report yet in the Spanish Cup. We will host Barca on 2 January and then travel to Camp Nou the following week.



Bueno picked up a thigh strain late December and is still a few days away from full recovery. We have been fortunate to have been on a bit of scheduling break, but he is almost certain to miss the first lego of our Spanish Cup game vs Barca. Anass Achahbar steps into his shoes after our trainers have been raving about his recent development and the need for some first team football.