2013 Peely's Golden Oldies World Cruise

[Peely]

Peely Goes on a World Cruise (with some very old footballers)

I thought I'd have a crack at my own challenge, partly because a series of very short careers will be a nice change after 16 seasons with Pedro and partly because it doesn't look like anyone else is going to give it a go (apologies to Magpiemadman if you're still doing it).

If you're not familiar with the challenge you can read about it here. In essence, the aim of the challenge is to take the oldest striker available in each league and give him a season to remember. You score points for various team and player achievments and the aim is to get as high a score as possible.

I decided to start in Belgium, purely because I've never managed there before. The player will be the mighty Jochen Janssen:

Pretty impressive, I'm sure you'll agree.

I'll be doing one update per league and should have the first one ready for you tomorrow.

[MerlionMaple96]

Can't wait to read your work again! Good luck!

[Ashez]

Good luck

[DC097]

All the best!

[Peely]

Thanks everyone. The first season is finished, So I just need to find the time to do an update. Friends over for dinner tonight, so it might have to be tomorrow.

[Lewiitom]

Good luck mate can't wait for the update!

[Peely]

Season 1 - Belgian beginnings

My managerial odyssey of OAPs began in Belgium with Jochen Janssen. By the standards of this challenge, Jochen is relatively young at only 36 and his stats aren't too disatrous, so I was cautiously optimistic that he could turn in a decent performance.

I wanted to give Jochen the best chance possible, so I black-mailed the board of Anderlecht into giving me the manager's job. They were easy targets; some of the things they've done would have made the Marquis de Sade blush. Those poor guinea pigs.

Getting hold of Jochen was no problem: £20,000 was enough to secure his services for the season. He hadn't been playing much first team football recently, so it took a while to get him back to match fitness, but once he was used to doing a bit of work again he managed very nicely.

The first piece of silverware came early in the year with a victory in the Belgian Super Cup, which sadly doesn't count towards the score for this challenge. Jochen did manage to score, though, so the match wasn't entirely unproductive.

We qualified for the group stage of the Champion's Cup, but ended up in the group of death, along with Bayern, Porto and Ajax. Things were looky pretty grim after two matches, with a close loss to Bayern and a thrashing from Porto, but after that things started to look up:

The second round saw us facing Zenit, who offered little resistance. The Quarter final brought another two matches against Bayern; I wasn't overly confident, since we had only managed a draw and a loss against them in the group stages, but my plucky lads played like demons and we secured our place in the semis, where we faced another tough test in the form of Man City.

The first leg ended in a disappointing 2:0 defeat, but the second leg was at home and I thought we were still in with a chance. Sadly, despite a brilliant performance, the dark magic of away goals dumped us out of the competition. There would be no European glory for Jochen.

There were plenty of other opportunities for Jochen to score some points however. Click on the spoiler for a detailed breakdown:

30 Domestic goals - 30 points

7 Domestic assists - 7 points

1 Continental Goal - 2 points

2 Continental assists - 4 points

2 Player of the Month awards - 20 points

1 domestic cup - 20 points

League champions - 20 Points

Grand total - 103 points

That felt like a pretty decent start to the challenge. While he wasn't massively prolific, Jochen did very well for his age and managed to stay almost injury-free. I feel like I've given him a season to tell his grandchildren about, which means that my work in Belgium is done. Here's how Jochen looked at the end of the season:

It's time to step into my time travelling Vauxhall Vectra and return to the summer of 2012. The destination was selected by the scientific method of closing my eyes and stabbing finger at the league selection screen. The result?

Which meant that I'd be "fixing it" for David Rainey:

It seems a bit silly to use Rainey, since he's already won pretty much everything going in Northern Irish football, but rules are rules.

Hope you've enjoyed the first stage of my cruise. Comments are always great.

[Obika]

If you do France you'll get the big D-Becks

Nice job with Jochen

[Peely]

Ah yes, but it has to be a striker and a native of the country, so I'll be doing Jacques Remy in France. The only slight bending of the rules is in Brazil, where Rivaldo is the chosen one, despite being a midfielder. Since he can play up front, I felt that he was close enough to the criteria when I set up the challenge

[Ashez]

Great season

[MerlionMaple96]

Nice Going!

[DC097]

Interesting challenge, really looking forward to the next update!

[Peely]

Thanks everyone. Busy times at work mean that the updates may be a little further apart, but I'll get there in the end.

[Obika]

Oh I see

Ah well - be successful

[Peely]

My Northern Irish adventure is complete, I just need to find the time to do an update. Working late tonight, so probably won't be until tomorrow evening (by which time I'll probably have finished the next country, too).

[Peely]

Season 2 - Northern Ireland

My next stop in my time-twisting travels was the northern part of the Emerald Isle with the aim of giving veteran player, David Rainey, one last season of glory.

Despite my apparent lack of managerial experience, Linfield were more than happy to give me a job and, after a bit of budget juggling, I had the £6,000 I needed to secure the services of Rainey:

 

 

I was expecting great things, since he's actually reasonable quality for the league.

The first challenge was to navigate the club through the qualifying stages of the Champions' Cup. My European adventures were probably the highlight of the season, but I don't want to clog this post up too much, so if you're interested in seeing how they went, pop the spoiler open.

 

The first stage was easy peasy and gave Rainey a chance to notch up some valuable continental goals.

 

 

My first serious challenge was in the third qualifying stage against the relatively mighty (compared to Linfield, anyway) Helsingborg. It was devilishly close, but the brave lads won through.

 

 

The playoff saw us face the even mightier Partizan. The first leg was a tense nil:nil draw and I hoped that home advantage would be enough to get us through the second leg:

 

Boom!

 

We were into the group stages and the board was overjoyed:

 

A hefty sum for the Northern Irish Premier League. It's just a shame nobody wants to play there

 

As luck would have it, I was drawn in a group with three of the minnows of European football, Galatasary, Porto and... Barcelona. Oh joys, another group of death. I resigned myself to six painful thrashings.

 

The first match was at home against Galatasaray:

 

Whoopee! At least I won't be going out without a point to my name.

 

Barcelona was next. This really was going to be painful:

 

A brave performance. This is meant to be about giving David Rainey the career of his life, but I think Peter Thompson will be telling his grandchildren the story of the time he scored against Barcelona at the Camp Nou.

 

I came very close to beating Porto, but at least it was another point.

 

Rainey gets a goal against Barca, too.

 

Inevitable, but to score 8 goals in a group like that was quite an achievment.

There are plenty of cups available to win in Northern Ireland, but unfortunately Rainey missed the first final that I got to, due to injury. Under the rules of the challenge, if he doesn't play in the final, he doesn't get the points. So what did he do:

42 Domestic goals - 42 points
6 Domestic assists - 6 points
8 Continental Goal - 16 points
1 Continental assists - 2 points

 

2 Player of the Month awards - 20 points

1 Runner-up - 5 points

 

2 domestic cup - 40 points

League champions - 20 Points

 

 

Player of the year - 30 points

Grand total - 181 points

Mr Rainey showed just what a star he is, with the help of an excellent team. I can't help but think that it's a terribly weak league when a club can get second place with 58 points. Here's how Rainey looked at the end:

Before firing up my time machine I used a random number generator to select my next destination. It turned out that I wasn't going quite as far back in time for the next season:



So I'd be working with Nathan Day (it seems he's to obscure for there to be a picture of him online).

Impressive, no? No.

My progress so far:

 

Belgium - Jochen Janssen - 103 points

Northern Ireland - David Rainey - 181 points

 

Total - 284 points

 

I'd love to read any comments you have, or words of encouragement to get me through the rather odd, but unexciting A-League.

[Obika]

I've always struggled to actually be interested by the A-League... On the bright side you'll be able to compete in the continental competition (dependant on club).

[Peely]

Yes, I looked into that. The team in the Asian Champion's Cup this year is Adelaide, but at the start of the game they're in the second leg of a round, 3:1 down to Al Ahly (three away goals) so nigh on impossible to proceed past that stage. I decided to give it a miss and just went with a relatively strong team instead, since Adelaide actually seems quite weak.

[Ashez]

Fantastic season KIU

[Peely]

Thanks very much

[panjalakuruchi]

Fantastic peely really interesting to follow through. U using ur own peely 4213?

[MerlionMaple96]

Great season for Rainey. Good luck for Australia...

[Peely]

Fantastic peely really interesting to follow through. U using ur own peely 4213?

Thanks. Yes, I'm using my 4-2-1-3.

Thanks MM. Australia's going pretty well so far, although Day decided to start the season with a lengthy injury. I don't think it's going to be a high scoring one.

[DC097]

Another great update! Might start such a career myself

[Peely]

Season 3 - Australia

I arrived in sunny Brisbane just in time for the start of the A League season and it took no more than a few bribes of beer and shrimps to secure my place as manager of the delightfully named Brisbane Roar FC.

 

Securing the services of Nathan Day, the man with no picture or player history, was easy: he was a free agent and desperate to sign for any club that showed an interest. Here's how he looked when he walked onto the training ground on his first day:

 

 

Not exactly great, but neither is the league.

He started the season is style:

 

Dear oh dear.

 

Day was clearly a believer in starting as you mean to go on:

 

 

 

I suppose that's what you get when you hire an old banger.

 

So what did he manage to achieve in the brief periods between injuries? To be honest he was held back by the league, which has no domestic cups and is out of sync with the continental competition. This meant that I either had to start with Adelaide FC and try to overturn a 3:1 home defeat in the second leg of the second round of the Asian Champions' Cup, or start at Brisbane and only get to play in the group stages at the back end of the season. As you've already seen, I chose the latter. Hit the spoiler for Day's score:

 

 

21 Domestic goals - 21 points
5 Domestic assists - 5 points
4 Continental Goal - 8 points

 

League champions - 20 Points

Grand total - 54 points

A poor showing in terms of points, but the best strike rate so far, so I'm not overly disappointed in Day's performance. Here's how the old man looked after his injury blighted season:

I've seen worse.

 

I said goodbye to Oz and punched a random destination into the time machine. When I emerged from the tear in space and time I found myself somewhere that looked strangely familiar:

 

Back to the Emerald Isle, which meant that Eamonn Sheridan would be my plaything for the season. I have no idea what he looks like in real life, but here are his stats in-game:

 

 

My progress so far:

 

Belgium - Jochen Janssen - 103 points

Northern Ireland - David Rainey - 181 points

Australia - Nathan Day - 54 points

 

Total - 338 points

 

Comments would be great. Ireland is pretty much done already, so I should be quicker on the next update

 

[Obika]

An update has arrived! He looks awful! I wonder why he's on the game or who he is. Noce job, not too bad.

[MerlionMaple96]

Amazing read as usual Peely. The humor is quality too!

[Archie Graveluth]

This one season challenge is quite tempting actually. Do you feel you're in need of competition?

 

I could even pick the countries in the same order you did, so we'd be able to compare.

[Peely]

Thanks Tobinho and MM.

 

This one season challenge is quite tempting actually. Do you feel you're in need of competition?

 

I could even pick the countries in the same order you did, so we'd be able to compare.

 

Competition is always good

 

I do like the variety that you get with challenges like this - every season is a completely fresh start. It's also allowed me to manage in three leagues I've never played in before.

[Archie Graveluth]

I will do this. It can be refreshing to do a season of this while I play other careers. So, are you sure the players you mention in the challenge topic are the oldest ones in each country? I'm guessing you're using the 4.2 database and that there are no differences between iOS and Android, right?

 

I'm just considering if, for a comparison purpose, if I should pick the same team you did or if I should pick any team I'd like. Your thoughts?