#2 Rookie Season

[anjro]

Career PT1
https://forum.simulationsoccer.com/showt...#pid101760

Owen Goal was added to Port Royal.  However, his first match would be MD4 at home against Adowa Accra FC where Port Royal lost 0-2.  His next game was not much better.  It was away at Victora Falls where they would lose 1-7.  One of Owen Goal’s best games was probably the following game at home against PS Jakarta where Port Royal would go on to win 7-2.  He scored 2 goals and had opportunities to get a hat trick but could not capitalize.  MD7 was another poor outing by Port Royal, they would lose 0-4 against Istanbul FK.  Fortunately, in the next game against Stockholm IK, Owen Goal would get his first and only player of the match award of the season despite not scoring any goals in a win.  The next match was a boring 0-0 defensive battle away against Sydney City.  They would return home and beat Atletico 3-0.  They would then go onto lose their next 3 matches. Port Royal would finish the season against Istanbul FK and would win 3-2 with Goal getting the last goal for Port Royal to get the lead to 3-0.  Istanbul went on a run late in the match but it was a little too late.

In 8 appearances, Owen’s average rating was 7.04, good for 50th in the league.  Owen had the 7th highest xG at 4.54, but was 4th lowest in the league at -2.54 xG overperformance.  There were so many missed opportunities.  This mirrored the Port Royal season.  They would finish with 5 wins, 1 draw, and 8 losses.  A season which had so much promise with so many solid prospects including the first 3 picks of the season 26 SSL draft, for such a lackluster result.

Looking ahead, Owen Goal was drafted by Uniao Sao Paulo / AS Paris in the 2nd round, 14th overall.  As part of joining the team, he got shorter and changed his position from ST to RAM.

[PidgeyDestined]

Career PT1
https://forum.simulationsoccer.com/showt...#pid102930

Saphira laid around in her Nest and thought back to her past season with the Jakarta squad. Although she had joined the struggling team in the middle of the season, the players seemed to play very cohesively, they just lacked a strong defensive presence. Saphira knew that was her specialty, and that Jakarta couldn't have found a better Defender. After she had joined the team, the went on a winning streak, and found themselves playing for the Cup in their last Academy game. In that final game against Atletico, Saphira had a breakout game, scoring 2 goals on headers from corner kicks as Jakarta would go on and win 6-1 giving them a 3-point lead of Victoria Falls for the Academy Championship.

Saphira was proud of her accomplishments, and even more proud of her team, but she knew she needed better competition if she were to achieve her main goal of becoming the best Defender in the entire sport of soccer.

Enter the next step of her Career.

Saphira waited outside of the draft halls, her body was too big to fit inside so they busted out a wall so that she could fit her large head inside to see and hear all that was going on during the draft presentation. She had had amazing conversations with a lot of the SSL teams before this and had no clue where she would fit in amongst her Season 26 peers. After all, there were no precedence to a Dragon being drafted into the SSL. She knew she had the talent to be a first round pick for somebody, but she didn't know if anyone wanted to take the chance on all the drafting a Dragon brings along with it. Just look at what they had to do to the draft hall just for her to be able to attend!

Three picks in she heard the first Defender get their name called. "With the third pick in the draft, A.C. Romana and Inter London select.... Jimothy Erikson". Saphira knew the name well. She and Jimothy were known as the top two Defenders in the Academy last season. Saphira accidentally blew smoke out of her nostrils when she heard the pick being called. She didn't think anything bad of Erikson, in fact she admired his game for being such a puny human defender, but she knew that at the end of the day, she was going to go down as the greatest defender in the SSL and she wouldn't let Jimothy or any other defender get in her way of achieving that goal.

She started to doze off, then she heard "...Dragons" and it woke her back up completely. It turned out to be S Sei being selected by the Shanghai Dragons with pick 5 in the draft.

"Some kind of Dragons they are, not even picking me, the greatest dragon the sport of soccer has ever seen? Pshh."

Her rant got cut short though as she heard the commissioner talking again at the mic. "with the 6th pick in the Season 26 draft, the Xelaju Cosmico FC and AF Masques Sacres select.... Saphira Brightscales, CD from PS Jakarta."

Saphira let out a load howl of accomplishment, and the entire draft hall ducked under their tables in fear.

"Xelaju?" Saphira thought to herself, "This is PERFECT!" Xelaju had been one of the teams that seemed most interested in her as a player, not just as a dragon defender. They had laid out big plans for her to swap from CD to LD in their scouting conversations, and Saphira had been keen on the idea, as her left foot had been her strongest. This also gave her opportunity to play up a little and prove that the 3 goals she scored in the Academy were not just due to lesser competition, but still hold true to her word on becoming the greatest defender in the SSL.

A representative from Xelaju walked up to her and greeted her, "Saphira! So glad to finally meet you in person! You're a whole lot bigger than I expected, and I expected HUGE! I know this is a little quick, but we need to fly you out to the Ivory Coast to get acclimated with your new team as quick as possible."

Saphira laughed again, almost singing the hair completely off of the Xelaju reps, head. "Fly me? Who are you joking? I'll fly myself, and I'll beat the whole team there by a day!"

And thus began Saphira's journey into the top league in the sport, starting from AF Masques Sacres where she will hone her game, and realize her dreams of becoming the greatest defender in the sport of soccer.

[xyan]

Career Pt1: https://forum.simulationsoccer.com/showt...#pid100076

As part of the media release of the biographies of each of the players that were drafted into the SSL, the league asked that players participate in the addition of pages to the wiki run by World of Sports online entertainment website.

This was a challenge for Sei, as he had never learned pure finger dexterity, let alone how to type and on a plane for that matter. His teammates traveling with him from Sydney helped him out.

"Unrealized Potential". The truth was glaring at him from the screen of the laptop, but he already had it in the back of his mind. He couldn't show his full self on the field due to the situation of a losing team clash, match after match. That wasn't all, though; he hasn't gotten good enough yet either. Josh Harper talked Sei into reality, leading him through the submission with facts that can't be denied.

Sei never stopped fighting the battle, even when in a blow out, or when Sei was exhausted. 193.2 km ran; only 0.5 behind the top person, and some of the matches he played in a role wandering the field less than other tactics. A lesser player would have walked, when Sei pushed himself to run.
Most of his productive chances in the box came earlier in the season, but Sei totaled 4 goals from 11 of 20 shots on target (totaling 2.89 XG, which is very clinical goal scoring).
He only had 1 assist, which is less exciting of a stat for his midfielder role than his goals, but other statistics proved much more positive in the passing topic. 574 completed passes of 671, for a total of 85.54% success rate, was a busy workload and pretty good work considering his tendency to look for risky killer passes. The passing work led to 14 key passes and 5 chances created at the goal.
His defensive work combined with the passing and attacking stats let the reality sink in that he was following his playing philosophy: working to control midfield and influence all parts of the game. He led the league in successful presses, at 63 out of 173. Added to this were 21 interceptions and 5 shots blocked, both in the higher batch of the players reported in the statistics.

All of this led to a pretty solid understanding that Sei played well, and played as a complete player. Had the season gone differently for Sydney, Sei could have even had a breakout and found more success.

That season is behind him now, and the SSL Minors with Magyar is the focus. Another stair to climb, on his way to being the best. Wolfe will be there again and again as an opponent, so he will have to be surpassed again. The sport is not a staircase, its a game of hopscotch played on a tightrope formed between effort and success.