The True Football Manager

by Games

The True Football Manager

JPT and some fortune in promotion to Championship

Posted: 27 Mar 2011 12:50 AM PDT

Good news, dear readers! Boston United won JPT and promote into Championship! Party

Though I would like to start with the 7th episode of NTM's video story where he shows us the latest news including January transfers. One of his signings is Juan Albin. Just watch the video to know about other Napoli transfers in winter:

All other published episodes of NTM's story can be found by tag – video story.

Boston United in penalty thriller

The final table looks in the following way:

Remember I was complaining about injuries of 2 my main central defenders Maras and Webster? Their absence influenced really much – just look at the matches of March. 3 losses and 2 draws in row! As a result Boston United lost chances to get the 2nd position and promote into Championship directly. My team finished the season at the 5th position having even some problems during the last fixtures. The best difference of scored and conceded goals allowed to overtake Southend and Barnsley in the end.

Playoff semi final against Leyton Orient was pretty easy. I had a good history of the past meetings with Leyton Orient consisting of 2 victories with the same 2:0 score. So I was quite sure in our success in this round, and my feelings didn't deceive me.

League 1 Playoff Final

Boston United had positive past meetings history against Plymouth that awaited us in the most decisive match of the season at Wembley:

- 3:0 win at home

- 0:0 in the away match

So I was looking forward to beat Plymouth this time…

As you see it was great and dramatic fight for Championship promotion.

Boston Utd started the game with Counter attacking strategy in the first half. It was the failed attempt to win carefully. "Failed" because Plymouth scored a goal just right before the half's end and made me thinking of another strategy in a locker room.

The 2nd half was started with Control strategy joined with Get ball Forward + Work ball into box touchline shouts. And it was really efficient approach. Roy O'Donovan made a marvellous hat-trick in such a confident way that I started to celebrate our promotion Applause But it was too early… Hypnotized

Plymouth scored at the 67th minute. Then my attackers failed pair of clear cut chances… After all I tried to set Contain strategy for game freezing and keeping the score but wasn't in time. The score became 3:3.

Watch all 6 goals on the video:

Boston had some good chances during the extra time but didn't manage to profit of them. Then the penalty thriller started. Well, you understand my feelings taking a look into the screen shot below:

Roy O'Donovan, hat-trick hero, missed his striker launching a ball to a stand. But fortunately two last Plymouth penalty takers made similar mistakes! Party

It was unexpected and unbelievable promotion…

By the way, don't forget Boston United has been promoting to higher leagues every year since the very start of the game.

JPT victory

It wasn't a big problem to win in the JPT final. Although Boston was not considered a favourite in the encounter against Millwall:

Of course, it was the first and historic final for my club. I felt I had to win in it.

I want to repeat: it was not a complicated match as for me, even though it went to an extra time. But we had a perceptible advantage through all the match. So it was a problem of attackers who couldn't seize on all opportunities they had. Thanks to Balde!

After all these successes I was named a Manager of the Year in League 1! Cool

Boston United players

I don't want to talk much about my players now. Feeling a little bit exhausted after that dramatic playoff final Whew There will be a separate post containing Boston squad analysis.

Just want to say that MVP of the season is Roy O'Donovan. And I am disappointed by performances of Chorley, Goree, Short, Neita, Rigters, Mooney. All these players will certainly leave the team