Bartje_vM >> sunday march 21 - 02:25

Hello guys,

Season 57 has come to an end, time to reopen a new thread about the upcoming season 58 that kicks off tomorrow. FC Ulhasnagar is aiming for it's 17th title in a row. If the club succeeds in reaching that goal, the historical record champion will have 31 titles out of a total of 58 seasons. Which is insane, but we aren't there yet off course. Interested in what the other great clubs were? Well, FC Etah (the current FC Nagercoil) has been champions 16 times, Bengaluru FC 10 times and last, but not least: FC Amritsar managed to snatch victory overall in season 27!

If I would gamble, I would put all my money on FC Ulhasnagar for a new title once again. When looking at the figures from the last 10 seasons, the other top clubs only had minor chances of even stealing points from Eckhart. In 4 of this 10 last seasons, FC Ulhasnagar did not lose one single point. To give some perspective to the others: since the new long term planning with more chances for own youth academy players the dominant squad always lost 4-7 points of the maximum amount of points reachable. The club is expanding the youth academy to level 4, so he still hungry to obtain more and more.

The domination of FC Ulhasnagar in this Indian league does not mean that things are boring around here. Inazuma XI broke the nice series of being runner-up of Goal Diggers by doing strong purchases in the transfer periods. The manager with the weird symbol as username did so again, but has some work left to do, because the amount of midfielders is quite small. From an objective point of view you can also ask one the question if he should have a look at his training and youth facilities to upgrade.

The other strong clubs are Goal Diggers and Mohun Bagan. In contradiction to Inazuma XI, their squads are full of own youth players who all turn out quite well, because of the high facility levels of the clubs. They don't spend a lot of money in buying new players and it was their choice not to do so this transfer period. Mohun Bagan has bigger training facility and youth academy then Goal Diggers. But overall the two of them having a stadium level 10, which gives place to 120.000 spectators.

The last four clubs with hopes for a good overall result or even continental football are in this personal order: FC Nagercoil (ST8, YA1, YTH10), Bengaluru FC (ST10, TFC10, YTH10), Thundering Pune (ST9 soon, TFC9, YTH8) and FC Amritsar (ST5, TFC 8 soon, YTH7). Yes, I dare to put myself amongst those squads looking at my result from last season and the fact that I have bought in well. I am however aware of the fact that I will need to save more cash in the future when starting to build the big upgrades. Thundering Pune and Bengaluru did not invest much in their squads and clearly are saving up to upgrade facilities, knowing that they will maybe get continental football with little efforts being made, but that is not certain.

I bet my chances on the not being that new kid on the block: tamilan. FC Bhaunagar was his first club and is still in the first division, but with FC Nagercoil tamilan chose one of the biggest historical club in India to manage. Due to lots of coming and going of managers the stadium has dropped to a level 8, but with a training academy level 1 and youth level 10, you still should reach continental football for sure. The club has a solid goalie, a strong midfield, but lacks a second decent striker.

Three clubs weren't mentioned yet in my post. One of them is an active squad, led by the native manager Shiyam Govindh. He is managing my first Indian team, FC Chas. Altough he was last online very recently, not much is going on in the club. No facility upgrades, nog in- our outgoing transfers being made. However, I see him managing to keep the club in first division. FC Chas came to the highest echelons of the country in season 48 and they always managed to stay in on positions 8 to 10.

The two both squads are FC Saharanpur (champions in 2nd division) and FC Lucknow #3. That last had indeed some luck beating FC Delhi, who is newly managed by the Indian guy who names himself Boom. He lost in play-downs, which is a shame really. His last login was a small week ago, so I honestly don't think he will stay around much longer. That opens up perspective for dwapar, the coach of Baahubali FC, who was dropped from first division. He will soon reach nice TFC8 and YTH9 levels, so despite his crappy goalkeepers, I see him coming back next season.

Prono:

1. FC Ulhasnagar

2. Mohun Bagan

3. Goal Diggers

4. Inazuma XI

5. FC Nagercoil

6. FC Bengaluru

7. FC Amritsar

8. Thundering Pune

9. FC Chas

10. FC Lucknow #3

11. FC Bhaunagar

12. FC Saharanpur

Please feel free to share your opinions, goals and frustrations here! :-)

Good seasons to you all!

tAmi!_an >> sunday march 21 - 04:12

Nice :) anyway 5 th place for me is a bit high I have poor squad depth. Some of my first team players are my u21 I don't want to spend much on players I'm saving money for stadium upgrades so just bought some average u21 to fill in for my u21 games anyway good luck to you all :) 

Arko >> sunday march 21 - 07:05

Honestly,I do not feel I will finish 2nd...Maybe 3rd or 4th because I sold some of my senior players to gain some money...

Eckhart >> sunday march 21 - 18:52

thanks for the great writing Bart!

Anyway the aim is indeed to go for the title again, develop my youthacademy and players and try to get some continental results even though i feel i still don't got the competitive team for it yet.

Last season for my 2 30+ defender and no idea how the future of my geriatic goalie will be..but we will see! Got some exciting talents that are going to get trained up so looking forward for the season as always!

dwapar >> monday march 22 - 18:38, Edited monday march 22 - 18:41

Excellent Writeup Bart.

I hope more and more active managers will take up Indian clubs .

Currently I am concentrating on build my team slowly and sync it with improving facilities .I am not spending money to buy players so I rely on homegrown players .

Keju >> wednesday march 24 - 15:17, Edited wednesday march 24 - 15:48

@ Bartje_vM

Excellent article!

Im sure plenty of indian newspapers are looking to sign you uP ;)

Cant wait for you to interview me

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Well, for the past 3 season i havent been active and despite having money for a stad upgrade i havent had the attendence.Hopefull to start it this season.

That being said , I have some extra cash that could raise me up in the stadings.( by like 1 probably)

Keju >> thursday march 25 - 06:40

The cup draws are out!

Bengaluru FC draws Mohan Bagun.looks like its us out in the second round after going to the finals last season (A miracle really, The assisstant did a really good job).

Team updates (BFC):

1. realised i dont have an u21 GK
2. signed a defender midfielder and U21 gk
3. Few youngsters loaned out

Goals for this season:

1. finish at least in 6th place
2. rotate u21 players
3. hopefully produce an u21 goalkeeper
4. Give all senior Gk's some game time
5. Sell players in midseason window who are no longer a part of the long term plan

Anant >> thursday march 25 - 09:58

Nice but you will see that i will finish second or atleast third this season also. And now i have stared saving up cause sometime in the next season i will be upgrading my stadium. My fanbase will reach high enough for me to do so, until then i will just upgrade the museum and save up my cash.

tAmi!_an >> monday march 29 - 17:36

A hard fought win against Inazuma XI.  4-3 final score ( my player got red card )

Keju >> tuesday march 30 - 11:59

Hard luck. Anyways a very close game

Bartje_vM >> wednesday march 31 - 14:23

I have to make a new selection for the NT, I will not make any changes on the squad as it is now. The youngsters are growing and we even have our first midfielder with a black star. We didn't qualify, but I am happy for the journey I made, I learned more about the game too. I am also content not to end with 0 points, thanks to the draw against the Maledives. 

The future looks good with strond upcoming youngsters from FC Ulhasnagar and I hope the strongest team can provide other YA-kids too in the future. Including my club one day too.

I have an easy match this evening, but then a heave schedule with all the best clubs in India. So every point is a won point for me the next few days.

BTW: thanks for the compliments :-)

tAmi!_an >> wednesday march 31 - 14:33

tough thursday coming up for me u21 cup match against FC  Ulhasnagar

and cup match against FC Amristar ... lets hope i get lucky :)

Keju >> thursday april 1 - 07:16

Somehow made it through to the semis of u21 cup and drew a league game where my player got a red card. Cant ask for more really

Bartje_vM >> thursday april 1 - 08:04

Very unlucky loss in the cup against tamilan. Looking at the stats, I deserved more. But that's because they had to play 10 vs 11 for a l9ng time.

tAmi!_an >> thursday april 1 - 11:57

Yup it was a close match ... One goal saved the day