While the next team arrives for the last friendly, it's time to go ask for more of these nice loans. Very fast, I fill the holes in my squad with players on loan and hit the maximum 4 allowed by the organization.
I finally settle for a defensive midfielder that frees my creative defensive midfielder guy to go a little forward, play as a pure midfielder, but still have a lot of destroying power. This means that, although on paper I am playing 4-4-2, in reality, I am playing 4-1-3-2, almost a diamond...
I also have a new right midfielder that seems to be decent, nothing amazing, but clearly better than the drunkard I had before.
With all these new arrivals, the two new goal keepers and the tactics setup, I do not have time to think about the calendar that's coming up.
I am also growing confident, way too confident.
And the mistakes start to appear...
The last friendly is played at home against a bad team called Hermes. I want to try tactics, see my players move the ball and basically adjust the positions.
The match starts fine, I dominate and score 2 goals in the first 30 mins. My balanced central tactic works fine, as well as my balanced right. I look at my stats to see if they can fool an enemy coach into reacting to my tactics and it seems they do...
After 35 mins and after having tried balanced tactics attacking through the centre and through the right, I switch to left. This is my strong side, so I expect to see results.
During half time I tell the players I'm happy and to keep up the nice work, I expect to win 4-0, given how bad Hermes is...
However, Hermes has also changed and gone 5-4-1, trying to occupy as wide an area as possible in the sea of grass that is my home field.So my attacks come but do not score, I make good moves but I am unlucky. The match ends 2-0 and no damage has been taken, some tactics work, others need adjustment and the enemy had to basically give up the match to stay only 2 goals behind.
And then I start to make mistakes. Too much bombast and pride are my sins, I fail to see that this match is irrelevant and I wanted more goals.
So when the match is over, instead of congratulating them for an easy victory, I tell my players that I'm disappointed.
Instantly, morale plummets.
Two players start to question their decisions to play for Queen's Park.
The team's captain does not understand why I give them support at half time and am unhappy at the end after having won.
In the blink of an eye, I lose half of what had been gained in the previous epic struggles.
Right before the competition begins.
A Queen's pride sure is expensive.
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