Season 28 – SC Kriens – Swiss Challenge League
Relegated but not out, although most of the ‘stars’ of the squad couldn’t really decide how they felt. For many of them they felt OK as we started well, but even though we never fell outside the top 4, as the season went on many decided they wanted Super League soccer again.
The scouts excelled themselves though, and I was able to bring in great replacements who were mostly Greek, oddly.
Media predicted us 4th, but only Wil stayed with us and it was between us two for the title. They drew too many games (the ‘TGD’ syndrome) and we were champions!
A fun season since we were much better than half the league and slightly better than the rest. Back to the Super League with a ground expansion too (only 1250seats, to 3750).
Players in: 5 for $3.1m
Players out: 14 for $26.5m
League Position – 1st from 18 – Champions!
P34 W23 D5 L6 +40
Season 29 – SC Kriens – Swiss Super League
Last season’s championship marked the first time Kriens had won anything. Now we had to move on.
The media had us down for 9th and another playoff, but I said that I thought the team that won the Challenge League would be better than that.
For the first quarter of games we played great, and led the league. The second 9 marked a slight downturn and Aarau overtook us on the 18th game right before the long winter break with a 4-3 victory.
It prompted me to look at our defense, and luckily the scouts found some excellent DCs in Bulgaria that fitted the bill. The second half started with the opposition deciding that the best way to beat us was to kick our STs into submission.
Main (Albanian) ST went out for the season, French ST may be back for the last game or so. But with a very mean defence we kept piling up the points and found goals from many places.
We took top spot back straight away and were then never headed as we claimed the title away at Basel, ending up 5points clear of Young Boys. A great season, and could have been easier/better with a full season of STs.
Overall I think the future is bright. We have some young stars here now, and a few youths coming through to complement them.
A better GK and DR are coming in the close season and we should be quite handy in Europe, if I can get through the contract renegotiations unscathed. The ground’s expanded again, to 5625, and our facilities are top-notch.
Players in: 6 for $2.3m
Players out: 5 for $50k (no realistic offers this year)
League Position – 1st from 10 – Champions!
P36 W20 D7 L9 +18 1/10.
It was odd spending more than we took in, but as I said there were no serious offers. My Greek ML could have left for $10m but signed a new contract with us instead, and apart from that when I told teams a reasonable price for the players they were asking about, they withdrew their offers.
I think some will go this summer, but hopefully most will stay for the European opportunity. My budget was $62m. Overall this save I’ve spent $17m (most being $4.8m on one player), and received $140m.
The U19s won their league for the 7th year in a row, the reserves just lost out on winning 4th in a row when I had to borrow their GK for the last game.
As for youths coming through, my backup GK, DC, DL and third-in-line ST (actually played 21games and scored 8goals) are all from the academy. They probably will stay as backups for now (unless the players in front of them leave), and there’s a few others that have played occasional games.
It seems that the academy is just a few years behind where the first team is – give it a few years though and I’ll be looking for much more from it.
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