Hello! New week means new Rabona post! As always, I will be first responding to the Social Media Challenge for Rabona (this time about goalkeepers), followed by some rambling about my progress in Rabona. With a surprisingly good season behind me, I'm definitely excited to write this post - so let's dive in!

My Goalkeepers

The theme of the challenge is "My goalkeeper", but well.. I can't say I have just one! Throughout this season, despite not having a single injury of a goalkeeper, I have fielded 3 different ones. First of all, my first ever goalkeeper, Max Wieczorek, who has been with the team since the very beginning and played a big role in the promotion from League 3 to League 2. That said, as you can see below, his stats simply do not cut it for League 2, so with his contract expiring this season, we will not be extending it. Goodbye, Max, and thank you for your service!

His leave will mean that I will have 3 goalkeepers in the squad, but realistically only two of them will see play - this will depend on the formation I choose to play. Kavinda Lewandowski is a goalkeeper I signed from the Sign page and was there for the majority of the season, being the main goalkeeper for my favourite formation of 4-2-3-1. That said, towards the end of the season, I managed to scout Antonio De Luca - an Italian of similar skill, who became the choice for starting 11 if I decide to play 4-3-3 or 4-4-2, due to his higher skill in those formations. You can see their stats below.

Finally, I have a 3rd goalkeeper - a young and scouted Dutchie, Lorenzo Alberts. I signed him as the 400RBN salary is negligible and he has a high skill for 3-5-2, which gives me some extra flexibility. On top of that, in case of a cascade of injuries, it'll be good to have this extra player as a safety net.

A Pleasant Surprise

That was it for the challenge, now let's talk about something extremely exciting: I ended second in my league! While obviously there is not much tangible rewards for that, as only the winner makes it to League 1, it still makes me happy, as I was expecting a middle-of-the-pack spot at best, considering the OS of my players is fairly low compared to others in my league. Let's start with the final standings:

Of course there was no competition for the top spot. Skorpion was out of reach for the whole season, only in the first half SK Prague was able to keep up - but as you can see, that didn't last. I was around places 6-8 for pretty much the whole first half of the season, but something incredible happened in the second round - my team became absolutely untouchable.

As you can see on the screenshot, that is 27 points in the final 10 games of the season - and the whole score for the second half (15 games) was 12-2-1. That is 38 points, while I only had 23 in the first half. While I'm trying not to get myself too hopeful for the next season, I did keep nearly every player that was a part of this run (even though some of the renewal offers hurt my heart). Not setting high expectations, but stabilization in the top 3, or top 5 at the very least is the goal. Of course, I am looking to try to challenge for the win if the opportunity lends itself!

I found that a large part of this success was in details that are easy to skip over. I began ignoring the OS stat for the most part when choosing my lineup or even signing new players. Instead, I look at individual stats like DEF, PAS, DRI, TP and formations. I also started being flexible with formations - and switching players in them depending on their excellence in the respective strategy. That was something I applied with goalkeepers, as mentioned earlier, but also midfielders and defenders. Sadly, my striker pool isn't deep enough to do so, but it worked regardless.

Most of the season, I played 4-2-3-1, but there were also cases of 4-4-2 to counter that one. Finally, I played a game of 4-5-1 to counter someone I expected to go 4-4-2 in order to counter my own 4-2-3-1. That one worked out well and I bagged a 3-2 win that game.

The Future + Nerd Stats

As I mentioned before, I am not necessarily aiming for a rapid promotion - I am not sure I can even afford a lineup that could stay relevant in League 1. That said, making a space for myself at the top of League 2 and potentially hit promotion as a side effect of that would be a great scenario!

To do that and keep up my winning ways, I extended the contracts of some of my key players. Two of them asked upwards of 15000RBN/game and honestly - I was on the verge. The reason I decided to agree to that is that my Stadium has just upgraded to level 8, meaning I can expect a bit more money to flow in, making me feel less bad about paying high salaries. I also won't lie - I enjoy seeing the green whenever I win!

On top of all this, as the football nerd I am, I decided to keep track of the history of all my players' goals. I made an Excel sheet, in which I update all the goals that have been scored by my players - that way I can see who my best all-time goalscorer is, as well as how much each player has been contributing to the results! Honestly, I just do this for fun, but here is the result. In season 76, my best goal scorer was the new signing, Dylan Oort - he better, considering he is the highest earner of the team! In the all-time standings, Frans Eliasson is still at the top, even if he only plays when the team needs to go 4-4-2. One interesting thing to point out is the great stats of Callum Hawkins - 14 goals, while only being in the team for 1,5 seasons as a midfielder!

Keep in mind that seasons 74 and 75 were in League 3, so it was easier to score, while season 76 was the very successful League 2 season. Hopefully, 77 will be even better!

Closing Words

I finally switched to Rabona V2 and while it is obviously not yet complete and some things have to be done in the old version (such as training and getting to see certain information), it is amazing! It feels really smooth and is pleasant to look at, especially in the night mode. It finally feels like a modern browser game! I am in love even more and I hope you can see this excitement in my posts. It is an awesome game that has the potential to be even better - especially if it gets more players. So what are you waiting for?! Join! You can find my referral link for Rabona (and some other games) below.

Since it's a gaming-related post, here is a bunch of referral links of mine - if you're not playing any of the games I've written about, give them a try! I wouldn't write about bad games.. well, not without saying they're bad anyway. So, here they are:

RABONA - Join the football management game through my referral link to receive enough RBN to not have to worry about finance for the first few seasons!

RISING STAR - Here's the referral link to Rising Star. Start your way to mega stardom now!

SPLINTERLANDS - Splinterlands is the poster child of the HIVE blockchain. Join now through my referral link to get a few cards from me for a headstart!