So it’s been a good number of weeks(over a month) since my last update as work and Christmas have meant both FM time and the time to write about it have been in short supply. As i write now I have almost finished my 3rd Season with Caracas and Venezuela and as some of you may have read it’s been a bit bumpy. Now for those that follow my posts on twitter it’s been a frustrating start to 2016 on FM and a number of problems had started to develop that I struggled to correct. I want to look at that part in a bit more detail in a separate post but first off I want to provide you with a review of Season 2.
Season 2 Review
Having won the double in my first season in charge expectations were high and if I’m honest it felt like we’d grown as a team and that everyone was now bought into the Mendoza way.
We had the added challenge this year of competing in the Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana(this is sadly broken on my game so won’t be posting about it) was going to bring it’s own challenges as we would have to better utilise our squad to cope with the busy schedule the competitions would bring.
I think for the most part we coped very well with both the fans and my expectations and dominated the league in the first 6 months with no one really able to touch us. New signings Pena, Valoyes and Jimenez were superb, the latter finding an excellent understanding with Andreutti in the engine room, which really propelled the team forward. Orozco continued his fine form from last season and his dribbling terrorised defences both at home and on the continent. I was also pleased to see the emergence of Jefre Vargas at right back and both him and Quijada performed well enough to warrant a call up to the national side. Leo Gioda and Leo Gracian both overcame their injury problems and established themselves as key cogs in the Caracas machine.
The good form in the league also flowed over to the Copa Libertadores, and in a group that contained River Plate, River Plate (URU) and Union Espanola, we managed to finish second in the group. The highlight came at home to River Plate where we dominated from start to finish and ran out 3-0 winners.
I can’t not mention the away leg either where we managed to hold them to a 0-0 draw despite not having any of our international players.
This saw us drawn against Monterrey in the 2nd round and although a tough opposition I thought with the way we were playing we had a chance. The boys didn’t let me down in the first leg and we came away with a 2-1 win despite Gioda being sent off after only 8 minutes. Just a solid performance away from home and we’d be in the quarter finals…
Monterrey 5-0 Caracas…4 goals from deep crosses and a penalty and our Libertadores dreams were in pieces. I mean we’d done well to get that far but I couldn’t help but feel a bit annoyed about the whole thing. We’d not had any problems with deep crosses the whole time i’d been in charge but then after a 5-4 win over Mineros with similar problems I realised that something had obviously changed after that patch that required a tweaking of my tactics.
It would then seem that it wasn’t just deep crosses that had suddenly become a problem but also finishing seemed to rapidly get worse, especially against the poor teams in the league. Now some of this could be down to the tweaks that were made to the match engine which improved defending but also the boost in reputation following my Libertadores performance will have meant the majority of side in Venezuela will have been even less inclined to take risks against my side.
Either way we had a problem and I had to fix it. I implemented tweaks to the roles and instructions here and there as I looked to find the kind of form we showed pre-Monterrey. We continued to get results but more so in part to a decent set piece routine and the odd moment of brilliance from Orozco or Pena. I knew though that eventually it would catch up with us.
We finished the regular season 33 points clear of Zamora in 2nd place but in reality our performances had dropped off. Surely though with that kind of gap we’d find our best form for the playoffs…
We started with a Quarter final against 8th place Aragua which over the two legs turned out to be a reasonably easy tie. Great! Maybe we’d switched into 5th gear again like we did in last year’s playoffs…
The Semi Final brought us up against arch rivals Mineros de Guayana in what always promised to be a feisty affair with plenty of goals and controversy. The first leg in Guayana saw us go in at half time 2-0 up and cruising. Maybe we’d overcome our struggles against them? Unfortunately we switched off both at the back and up front and made things a lot tighter for the 2nd leg than I would have hoped.
Never fear though we were playing in Caracas and surely we’d be able to be strong enough to book our place in the final…
No away goals rule in Venezuela so it went the bloody distance didn’t it? I was fuming. Time and time again we failed to finish our chances only for Mineros to score from their first attack of the game in the 68th minute. Just when it looked like it was going to penalties substitute Zamir Valoyes dribbled past 3 defenders and finished from the edge of the area to send us through. Despite the moment of magic I refused to celebrate. I was not a very happy Mendoza and there were some very strong words in the dressing room after that game. I expect a lot of my teams and they had let me down and could have undone a season of hard work had it not been for a moment of brilliance.
So we went into the final clash with Zamora, who’d finished second in the league but had been beaten comprehensively by my 2nd team just a month before. We completely outplayed them in the first leg but…
…yep you guess it our finishing was terrible once more. I thought that the penalty might give us the luck we needed to push on but again a team managed to score from their first attack against us.
I couldn’t even speak to the team after the match I was so angry. Valoyes, despite his semi final heroics, was far too inconsistent and had pissed me off for the last time. He was placed on the transfer list instantly. Yamil Romero who’d been excellent in our first season had seemingly started to believe a bit too much of his own hype and had become a consistent disappointment. He would be returning to Boca Juniors at the end of his loan spell.
Not to be one to defeated i told myself that it was maybe just one of those games…again. Surely we’d finish things off in the home leg…
…I said on the deep lying podcast that this game was the closest I’ve come to packing in the save for good. Again Zamora scored from their first attack, again we failed to finish chance after chance until we were gifted a penalty on the brink of half time which veteran Leo Gracian duly dispatched. We came out second half and continued to knock on Zamora’s door but we were like a man after 10 pints and a few jaeger bombs trying to put his key in the door without waking his wife up. Eventually Nico Marquez got on the end of a cross and force the ball over the line to spark wild celebrations in the Mendoza front room. 20 minutes to keep doing what we were doing and we’d be champions…
…then in the 86th minute Zamora had their 2nd attack of the game and well you guessed it…bloody scored.
We were now never going to get a 3rd in the last 5 mins so like the Mineros game we went to extra time. Though as if the game couldn’t have pissed me off enough, Jeff Vargas then got sent off in the 105 minute and Andreutti went off injured in 112 minute. We were down to 9 men and staring at the unthinkable, a potential Final defeat. Zamora sensing that we were wounded badly decided to actually play some football and had 3 shots in the last 8 minutes, more than they’d had in 200 minutes of football previously.
Thankfully for the Caracas faithful we managed to keep them out. The game went to penalties…
18 year old goalkeeper Wuilker Farinez the hero as he saved 3 of Zamora’s penalties.
We’d won and the save was saved…by the bloody gloves of my prodigy goalkeeper. I shouldn’t have to rely on the youngest player in the squad to save the bacon of my under performing “experienced” players.
I needed a few days off before the cup final to avoid transfer listing half the squad and let my blood pressure come back down to a normal level.
So Cup Final day arrived as we looked to secure our second domestic double in a row. Now arch enemy Mineros de Guayana were our opponents and we lined up to clash once more.
Our build up play continued to be excellent and we soon took the lead through now eligible Romulo Otero. We were soon 2 up when he struck once more after finishing an excellent move. 26 mins and we were cruising…
We continued to knock on Mineros door but couldn’t find a 3rd. We went in at half time 2-0 up and I naturally told the team to not get complacent and their performance levels drop. We picked up where we left off in the 2nd half but just couldn’t find that 3rd goal to seal it. Then Mineros had an attack…cross from deep…goal. 2-1. Balls.
I composed myself and just said to myself keep doing what we’re doing as we’d dominated them for 75 minutes. Despite the score we looked comfortable and Mineros didn’t look like getting forward. The clock turn 90 and there would be 3 minutes of added time. Surely we’d hold on?
Then a pass back to the goalkeeper went out for a corner…in the ball went and well you guessed it…Gioda put into his own net and and out of nowhere the game was going to extra time. All i’ll say is you didn’t want to be a Caracas player in the dressing room at that point.
I sent the lads out in the knowledge that if they didn’t come back with the cup they’d be finding employment elsewhere next season. We huffed and we puffed but the little Mineros piggies sat tight in their brick house, Miguel Aponte stopping everything we threw at them. They even ventured out to take advantage of our tired legs but Baroja kept them out.
Though just as it looked like it would be penalties again, academy graduate Eduardo Gonzalez, playing his last game for the club, beat Luis Parra down the right hand side and swung a deep cross into the box. Aponte and Chancellor for the first time in the match made a mistake, neither managing to intercept the cross. At the back post though was 18 year Daniel Saggiomo to poke home only his 2nd goal for the club and save the careers of some of his team mates.
I mean from a neutrals point of view it was a classic cup final but from a manager’s point of view it was a nightmare. We’d done it the hard way but we’d at least done it and for all my criticism it does give me some hope that my younger players know when to step up. Every cloud and all that…
Mendoza’s Final Thoughts on Season 2
It wasn’t quite the end to the season I was hoping for after our great start and performance in the Libertadores. It very much felt like we’d taken a step back rather than forward despite me having seemingly strengthened the squad.
Now I’ve touched upon our main issue and that has been both our finishing and sometimes lack of concentration that has let teams back into games. It is something that I was scratching my head over and eventually required me to bring in some outside help to suss out what I/the team was doing wrong. Who better than Cleon to listen to my tales of woe and cast his well trained eye over some of our matches?
I’ll not go into too much detail what he said as I want to save that for a later post however the one thing Cleon pointed out straight away was that a lot of how the opposition plays against you is based upon reputation. The bigger the difference between the two the more defensive the opposition will be. When I take this into account we have over performed in the first season and a half which would have seen our reputation rise, especially after getting out of the group stage in the Libertadores. The trouble with this is that our quality of player and coach has maybe not yet risen as high as our reputation and thus we are trying to break down stubborn defensive walls that require a better hammer/breaker(if you don’t know what a breaker is then google Hilti Breakers and watch the promotional video…a proper man toy).
Either that or we need to adjust approach somewhat to entice the opposition out of their defensive shell. Questions that will all be evaluated when I look at the problem in a bit more detail, share Cleon’s views on my performances and tactics and look at what both he suggested and I have implemented to take Caracas FC to the next level. There will also be a separate post on the national teams exploits in their attempt to qualify for the World Cup.
That’s all for now and thanks again for reading and hopefully you won’t have to wait as long next time for an update.
Diego
Pass the bloody ball! 
