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+---- Thread: A Reflection on AS Masques Sacres's Season Halfway Through (/showthread.php?tid=10169)
A Reflection on AS Masques Sacres's Season Halfway Through - Rezo950inat0r2 - 2026-07-11
I believe AS Masques Sacres to be an interesting case in the SSL this season, and it's not only because I'm on it
We are a team that has struggled quite often in the last few seasons, but have been given a proverbial second life due to the S26 draft. We are a team where 6/12 players are rookies, including 3 defencemen, 2 midfielders, and our keeper. The point of all this is to say:
This is likely the worst we'll be for a while
As our players keep earning, there may be a sort of "golden generation" at AS Masques Sacres, and I believe that will turn into a new way people look at the teams in this organization
Now, let's get to the season thus far, as well as some tactical analysis along the way.
Matchday 1:
The first game of the season was a strange one for us, as we were using a rushed tactic that we did 0 testing on. This was 100% my fault as I forgot to send my tactic in, but point being, we had no clue how this game would go. In this game, we face Montreal, a team that has done quite well this season, and currently sits in 2nd place. In this game, we dominated the first half. 2.18xG to 0, and Nico Lam scoring the first goal of the seaoson to make it 1-0. Soon after, Haye equalized, and then Munro and Imeinaktok exchanged goals to finish the game at 2-2. Imeinaktok's equalizer came rather late in this game, leaving us happy to get a draw, but the xG of 2.92-1.06 suggest that game should have been a bit more comfortable for Masques Sacres.
Matchday 2:
This next game had us come in with an adjusted tactic that I had made, and we were playing against Athenai FC, who currently sit in 6th place in the 2nd Minor Division. This tactic ended up working incredibly well, as AS Masques Sacres got their first win of the season in a 7-3 victory over Athenai. This is in large part due to a generational performance by Scat Cat, who got 4 goals and 1 assist in this singular game, putting up one of the best performances we have seen this season. Taarel, Lam and Black also scored, with Black's goal being the first of their career. However, perhaps as an opposite to Matchday 1, this game was not nearly as close as it should have been. The xG in this game was only 2.16-1.60, which perhaps just goes to show how effective Scat Cat truly was at creating opportunities out of nowhere. Another tactical note I made at the end of this game was that the involvement of our fullbacks on offence often created an overloading effect onto the defenders, which left some players unmarked in front of the goal.
Matchday 3:
For the third game of the season, we played against Seoul FC, and we opted to run the same tactic as we previously did against Athenai, and it ended up working very well once again. This game finished in a 5-1 victory for AS Masques Sacres, and frankly, the game never really was in question. By halftime, Masques Sacres was up 3-0, which included 2 goals and an assists from Nico Lam. By the end of the game, Lam also racked up another assist, and finally we had a game's xG reflect the actual result. The xG in this game ended up at 4.14-1.04, with the only real irregularity being an extra goal scored by Scat Cat, an absolute banger from the top of the 18 yard box. Something to note for this game, was that we were absolutely dominated in my testing. By dominated, I mean that I ran 140 simulated games, and the best result I could get was 6/13/1, so perhaps the tactical change that Seoul made before this game did not end up working in their favour.
Matchday 4:
By this point, AS Masques Sacres started on a real win streak. This streak continued with a 4-3 win over Cairo, as we opted to run the same tactic once again. This game was characterized by an incredibly performance from Karlach Cliffgate, who recorded a goal contribution on every single goal scored for the team, which also included a hat trick. We were thrilled to get such a good result over a team we knew were very strong, but once again, the xG suggested that we should have won in a more comfortable fashion. This game ended at 4.12-1.64 xG, and this is the point where you start to wonder if that is just the roll of the dice, or a sign of something more worrying. I believe this was due to the general inexperience of our defence, as 3/4 players are rookies, and therefore have a lower TPE, especially to the strikers which often are the strongest players on a team. Around this point, we also noticed that we were conceding quite a few goals from through balls, and attempted to make some minor tactical tweaks to negate this.
Matchday 5:
This was a big one. We were up against the giants known as CS Rova Mpanjaka, who, at this point, had never dropped a single point, winning every single game. We were comfortably in second, but a chance to win in this game would be monumental for our season. Therefore, we opted to play a more defensive tactic, with some counter attacking. This didn't end up very well, as may be expected against such a strong team, but the game ended at a 3-1 loss, giving us the worst result of the season (so far!) and the first loss of our season.
Matchday 6:
We decided to go back to old faithful for this game, the same 4114 attacking tactic, against Athenai FC. This game ended 1-1, with Athenai scoring a late equalizer. This was a disappointing outcome for our team, and perhaps a sign of what may be to come, but we opted to stick around with the tactic that had gone so well for us thus far. This game proved as a sign that perhaps something was wrong, as we were truly hoping for a win against the team that sat last in the league.
Matchday 7:
Matchday 7 was up against Montreal United, where we played them for the second time in the season. All credit due to the management team in Montreal, but they cooked up a tactic that dismantled ours rather effectively. They used a 424 with offset strikers, meant to overload one side of our defence , particularly the weaker side with newer players. This proved very effective for them, as the ended up winning 4-2, and brought our winning ways to a halt. This result pushed us down into 4th in the standings, and showed us that we can no longer rely on the same things that brought us our previous success, and maybe it's time to change things up.
All in all, I am happy with how this season has gone so far for AS Masques Sacres, as we are undoubtedly punching above our weight in TPE, and can't wait to see hwo the latter half of the season will end up!