Subject: »Champions Cup

I don't actually like posting much about the Champions Cup due to the inherent advantages different countries have over one another, but it also gives people a good chance to cheer on one of our own for a week or two.

First round of the Champions Cup is tomorrow.
Thankfully I have found myself in the top half of the draw for one week.

For the first week, I take on the League and Cup winner from al-Jazā’ir, who is also al-Jazā’ir U21 Coach.
Whilst I am certainly the favourite, I don't expect a walkover given their obvious interest in the game and building of al-Jazā’ir

They generally rate in the mid 50's (kind of similar strength to our U21 team)

Fingers crossed everything goes smoothly and we move on to the 2nd round

Just as an FYI (and I couldn't be bothered delving more in to it), to get two teams in to the Champions League (assuming we have different winners for Cup and League), this current season, the number fell somewhere between 38 and 47 National Team ranking (with top 30 guaranteed to have two teams in if they have different winners).

Definitely a good goal for our NT coach

Was I the only one that had to google where al-Jazā’i is ?!? I've never heard it referred to by that name.

I've definitely had to do that in the past.

But I have had to do that with some common countries in the past too. Sokker has been good for learning country names by how the locals call them

Agreed. I was aware of this one though from earlier experiences in sokker but I would have also known it from the flag as well.

Jesus lost my number 1 striker for 27days.
Just after I sold a striker of course

Auch, it will be a miracle if either of us survives next round. Dont get fooled by the 73 he made in first round, he won the tournament twice with such ratings (your next opponent), and my next opponent played 83,5 in first round (i thought 82+ was a thing of the past)

Yeah with my main striker out, I can't see me putting up much of a fight, but thats ok, I don't see much point of the Champions Cup in the current state of the game

And I just saw I lost my other striker in the friendly match.

So starting off the season without a striker, one on a very long term injury, the other on a mid term injury.

It’s tidy income for the short time it lasts.

Completely forgot about the CC match today until 12 minutes before it started.

Attempted to quickly make a tactic but didn't have a chance to go through looking for deficits and was working on conditional orders when the match started

Not having my strikers really hurt, having to buy in a fairly poor, old one and using a MID as a striker

Under different circumstances, definitely a winnable match

Time to focus on trying to win a few of the difficult matches in A-League without strikers

It's that time of year again, where the difference between most small countries and most large countries is shown just how much of a disadvantage we are at.

First up though, we are so close to getting that 2nd team in the Champions Cup. Ireland were the last nation to get the second team in, at rank 46 (we are rank 51).
There were two teams between us and Ireland that missed out (ie had different winners in the cup and league), so if we can push just a little more, we will get that opportunity. I think it will come naturally as well as we are the 45th biggest country right now, so that theoretically is where our baseline should be at for both NT if we do the same as other countries and have an equal amount of luck.
Given we have so many committed to the NT cause, I think our ranking should be even higher.


Now on to the match ahead.
I have an exciting one to start with. I have been seeded in the top half (the loss to agbell at the end of the season likely made no difference at the next bracket of teams was about 150pts ahead of where I was pre-loss).

First up I am playing Golden W☆rriors. They are a Viet Nam team who came 4th in their league, won the Viet Nam cup and have ratings in the low 70s.
Given the rating difference, they are more definitely favourites.

What makes me excited for this match is if the devs actually ever tried to make the game better for small countries, should they may a continental cup, it's likely Oceania and Asia would be grouped together, meaning these are the exact teams we would be playing. Given they also have 125 users (10 leagues worth of users) they also have the advantage of being a big nation and getting all the benefits associated with that.

It will be a tough fight, hopefully the boys can go on to win it, or at least, not get destroyed

We may not even get a second place in the CC. Depends how they restructure the new international comp that’s coming. We’ll all likely have some form of international cup but it will be various levels. Whether we get places in the top cup will be interesting.

Depends if we have to wait another full season before they announce how it will work.

"Depends if we have to wait another full season before they announce how it will work."

Probably more like Depends if we have to wait another full year before they announce how it will work.
or Depends if we have to wait another full decade before they announce how it will work.

To be honest, it really doesn't excite me much because in the cup format, you don't develop rivalries, and no doubt it will be messed up so will either have very one sided pools in each cup or an almost impossible way to move between said pools. It will also at best, only have a minimal affect on how sponsorship/fans are calculated, so doesn't really add anything.

My 2c anyway

I’m not expecting much either. Expect it will just be knockout cup style formats we have now.

Jesus, what a nerve-wrecking match.
An absolute goal-fest and despite being on top all game in the field, they seemed to just score off what felt like every chance they got. Whereas I was having so many 1 on 1s, and whilst I had a decent conversion rate of them, it still wasn't as good.
2 goals up at 75' and I still wasn't comfortable. 78' minute they score. Then they are offside, my defenders runs way behind the defensive line (something that has been happening all match due to the position of their players, which is actually tactically smart), my defender taking the kick, kicks it straight in to the otherwise offside defender and it bounces towards the goal. Now I have the defender who took the kick, standing still, vs the two attackers and my defeners way up the pitch. I was thinking, no way can I get knocked out like this, such an overlook on how the ME is coded.

Finally got up 2 goals again in the 83' minute and I was just praying to not give them any shots.

Anyway, got a 72.2 rating somehow, beating out their 70.5

On to round 2 after a match that was much harder than I was expecting in the first round