Hello,
the season started with an unexpected turnout of the elections and the win of a chinese manager, who was in charge for less than a week, but still managed to effectively screw the season. I feel responsible for not addressing the elections more vocaly, therefore many people forgot about them, which resulted in poor-enough numbers on my side. I still thank all who remembered, or might vote for me, if they remembered
The support of the new manager plummeted quite quickly, and I was yesterday asked by EGM if I would like to take over the NT. Although the current state of the NT is disastrous, this is a short term (1 season) state, while the long-term looks good. So I am interested in managing the NT further, also beyond the current mandate. Maybe such incidents will also make community more alive, which will further boost the potential of the NT. Again, I invite all swedish managers to discord, where there is more activity than on the forums: https://discord.gg/DdKJMudw8
Anyhow, the damage for this season is as it is:
-Prior to the election I contacted maybe 1/3 of players' owners. I will now contact the rest, especially the owners of HoF (and one AtG) draftees. Of course I cannot scout them now, since we would loose all ent. I hope this won't interfere too much in the overall development of swedish players. If someone is in doubt how to train further, please contact me. I will scout all players after the EC, so in 6 weeks time.
-The roster of the team was left as it was a week ago, when I called some young players to the NT for scouting. Luckily, most of the best players (but not all) are still within the 18 man roster. If I dismiss any unnecessary players, we loose ent, so I will call new players very, very sparingly, only the ones we will really need.
-Yesterdays game against Israel was unnecessarily played with normal attitude, with only 8 players (default lineup with some players missing or injured), which resulted in unnecessary ent waste, and a high loss due to some players not having substitutes and getting exhausted. This means our hopes for achieving anything remarkable in this year's tournament are gone, since this was the game where TIE made most sense, and then we might try to do something against our next three opponents. Now, I guess we can only hope, that we achieve the bare minimum, wins over the last three opponents, and a 3-4 score.
Although this season won't be fun and glory, I look forward to managing Sweden NT again!