Part 2! For those of you that missed part one of my dramatic Pentagon Challenge adventure, you can go here. Quick recap though - started with PSPS Pekanbaru in the Indonesian Second Division, immediately won promotion. Decided Samsul Pellu was my son and I would love him like my father never did me. Recap over.
So year 2 was really about making sure I didn't get relegated. There was no Champions League place anymore, the league being too crap so they were stripped of it. So I wasn't too fussed about winning the league, or the cup. Just wanted to make sure I stayed in the league full stop. So, I went about making a couple of signings. Being in the Indonesian League One, I'm now allowed to sign a total of 4 foreign players. I immediately abused this privilege.
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Xiang Hantian and Lyu Haidong came in as my Two major signings. They brought a bit of sorely needed quality, a bit of experience and ability, and best of all were very cheap. They slotted right in. The other thing I did was to renew the contracts of absolutely everyone in the squad. They were only allowed one year deals previously, but now I could offer whopping great big TWO YEAR deals. So I made sure everyone I wanted was tied down for the next few years. So, the team.
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As you can see, fairly similar to the first season. A similar style, trying not to over complicate things. I tweaked a couple of things during the season, mainly attacking from the wide areas but that was in response to a couple of signings I made later on in the year. For now though this is what we rolled with, and after a successful pre-season (which included a lovely 8-0 win) we were ready to take a crack at the first division.
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So I didn't include the goalscorers last time - fixed! And what a start to the season. Immediately absolutely flying. Irwandoyo and Pellu were off to a cracking start in front of goal, with 7 between them in the first 3 games. Not changing anything was entirely vindicated, considering the start. With 10 points after four games we were third, delightful considering we'd just been promoted. Our strikers were firing, everything was going well.
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May wasn't as successful. We dropped off a little bit, only winning twice in the month. A quality late winner from Adrianas in the Badak game coupled with our early run out of the gates against Kalteng meant we did bag some solid points from the month but a couple of disappointing results meant we struggled to maintain the pace at the top. The other concerning thing was the amount of penalties we were conceding - the goal we conceded against Barito was our third penalty conceded of the season. So my only option was to stop asking the lads to get stuck in, which would inevitably mean we'd concede a few more chances and have to rely on the quality of the keeper, as their ability to tackle like humans was limited.
I've stuck the next few months together, as the fixture list got a little weird. We were playing two or three games a month, which made no sense to me, so I've grouped them all together a bit.
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Nearly unbeaten in three months but it wasn't to be, PSIM taking us apart late in August. But some really great results during this spell, particularly the 2-0 against Madura and the 2-1 at the end of August against PSS. Both of those teams were competing near the top of the league, we were sitting in fifth by the end of this spell so getting those points against the higher teams was huge. I did start to think at this point that a title challenge could be on, and in our first season that'd be ridiculous. We did also concede another penalty, our fourth, in the draw against Tira-Persikabo. I dislike keeping this little penalty tally but it's annoying how many we concede and I can only assume it's down to the quality of the players than anything else. They are extremely bad.
The other thing you'll hopefully notice is a new name there - Osvaldo Haay. I signed him as an attacking right winger, alongside another fella, Rafinha, in the August transfer window.
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These were absolutely massive signings. So much better than what I had previously, and Lyu Haidong on the left just hadn't cut the mustard since I'd signed him. I'm a ruthless man, and I have no time for garbage performances, so he was out and Rafinha was in. a little on the older side but 13 pace and 11 dribbling? You can't turn that down. Haay as well on the other side could actually cross a ball, which was huge. His assists at the end of the season didn't exactly reflect that, mind, considering he ended with a grand total of 1. But he was an improvement on Mumpo, in terms of ability, and chipped in with a few goals as well. Mumpo was still around as an impact player anyway, which provided us with two fairly strong options on the right hand side, which is equally important considering the frequency with which players rack up yellow cards and get suspended in this league.
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September was a long, long month. Made even longer by the fact that the Indonesian Cup becomes two legged ties in the third round. By the time I got to the fourth round I sort of decided I wanted to win it, but it added a few too many fixtures to the list, and I got knocked out anyway. It was probably a good thing I did, as the title race was beginning to hot up. We were flying in the league, into third, a couple of points behind the leaders, Arema. We drew with them in a very very drab 0-0 this month, and every time they dropped points we seemed to lose our heads a bit and fail to capitalise, the first time being the 1-1 with Borneo. We could have moved within 2 points of Arema but blew it, stuck at 4 behind. Also a fun little highlight, the 6-3 against Barito where both strikers scored hat-tricks, I quite enjoyed that. Also also, 5 penalties - Ritonga saved one!
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What a month! 6 clean sheets in a row, dating back to the PSIM second leg in September, 5 wins out of 6, up until the dizzying heights of second and within a point of Arema. Just some ridiculous performances. Ritonga was on fire, pulling in a whopping 7.5 rating against PSM, almost unheard of for a goalkeeper. And just the mentality as well, two absolutely huge late winners, Pujianto especially - I threw him to the wayside a bit and when called on he delivered in spectacular fashion. With 7 games left in the league we were in there, keeping pace with Arema who absolutely refused to lose. On to November.
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The Madura defeat was, quite frankly, a disaster. Arema pushed four points ahead, meaning we needed a bit of a miracle. We kept the pace with two 3-0 wins but the title was looking a little bleak. I did, however, have to play them once more. And they drew the week before we played them, while we ran out 2-0 victors over Babel United, the team promoted alongside us last season.
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Our next opponent was Arema. Two points ahead of us, they'd looked strong all season. If we won this we'd be a point ahead, top of the league, in with a chance of winning the title the first time of asking. An absolutely enormous game.
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I genuinely couldn't believe it. I lost my head when Hantian missed the penalty. I curled up into a little foetal ball and pulled my hoodie over my head. I wished this hoodie were a time hoodie. And then, from a goal kick, Purwanto's ball out wide to Mumpo (playing purely because Haay had taken on too many yellows), who drove it low across the box for Irwandoyo to slide into the bottom corner left me speechless. I lost my head a bit, but in a good way this time. Jurgen Klopp called his Liverpool team "mentality giants" but they couldn't even win the pissing league - my lot just went top with a 94th minute winner with 1 game to go. Eat your heart out.
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We had one game left, away to PSS. We had a team meeting, I spent time praising every player, I offered Irwandoyo twice his wage in a my total headloss. I did anything I could to improve the morale, to keep them going. We had to win that game. Arema were at home to Bali United, sat in 10th, so I fully expected them to win. We needed those 3 points, desperately. The biggest game of these players' lives. It was huge. It was huger than huge. It was colossal. Like planet-size. I believed in them. I expressed my belief in them in the team talk. I sent them out there, knowing they'd put in a good performance. These boys were TRUE mentality giants. They would win. I just knew it.
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Fuck off.
Absolutely devastating. I sat at my screen for like two minutes doing nothing after the final whistle. I didn't even do the team talk in the end I just hit spacebar. and then I looked at the results from the other game.
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Arema drew. Which put us on equal points. And equal goal difference. It came down to head-to-head. Irwandoyo's 94th minute goal had actually won the league.
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The most incredible achievement by the absolute oddest set of lads. Irwandoyo ended the season with 21 goals, Pellu didn't. Pellu dropped off completely and kept missing one-on-ones so often I decided he was no longer my son and I hated him. Ritonga's clean sheet heroics in the last few months, the defence stepping up. Rafinha coming up and racking up 4 goals and 5 assists was huge. But what a season. We didn't qualify for the Champions League, but instead the Confederation Cup. We needed to go through a qualifying round to reach the group stage proper. I wasn't at all bothered by the competition, it wasn't what I wanted, but I did want to see if winning it meant I got automatic qualification to the Champions League.
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Just to rub salt in the wounds, Indonesia were given their Champions League place back immediately. So next season, whoever won it would go straight in. So we needed back-to-back title wins. I felt confident enough that we could do it. There were some players I wanted rid of, due to age or ability, and I set about replacing them, but that'll come in year 3. But I had no reason to think we couldn't do it.
Spoilers - I have actually already played year 3. It's an absolutely mental season. Lots happens. Like, LOTS.
Just as an aside - know somebody asked to know who was winning the CL in the other continents. Amazingly Atleti won the European CL. Flamengo won the Copa Libertadores, Tigres won the North American CL, Tout Puissant Mazembe won the African version and in my continent, Al-Ittihad from Saudi Arabia won it. For what it's worth you cannot be manager of Mazembe or Ittihad in the game. So that's fun.
Feedback again welcomed - I did want to make this one big image at one point but I got so carried away with year 3 I didn't manage to do it. I'd love to hear from you guys again on any other features you want to see, so please let me know. And thanks for the response to the last part, love you all xoxo
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