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| We were so close... |
...but sadly Knights' attempt to win the Ultimate League this season was a failure. Not to say that the last game of the season wasn't what we needed to do because the 2-0 win over Kyotiez Killerz was exactly the result we needed. The problem came from the fact that in order for that to be enough, Bayern had to slip up and either draw or lose to Lusitanian Warriors... and since Tiago didn't have anything to play for he played all his youngsters as part of his lineup which made it a pretty easy job for Bayern to get the win they needed to assure themselves of the league title.
Ultimately the damage was done earlier in the season, while Knights did one part of trying to win the title by beating Bayern twice, they failed to do the other part right and struggled against certain opponents. They failed to beat Sporting Pissabon which was a major blot on their copybook as every other team bar Rockerbocker and Aardvark Owls managed this feat. The home draw against Lusitanian Warriors and the home defeat to House of Stark were major contributing factors to this. Besides that though it hasn't been a bad season, 30 points at UL level is a very respectable points tally especially when you consider that House of Stark won the title last season with 28 points. But on this occasion, it wasn't enough as there was a team which managed to be incredibly consistent in winning to the point where they were able to beat everyone but us while the manager's old bug bears of struggles against certain opponents came back to bite him.
Things were going so well at one point although in hindsight, losing Pim van der Kruis to injury in the home game against Sporting Pissabon which eventually cost us the lead in that game was a key moment, as was failing to anticipate Lusitanian Warriors' playmaker in the home game. And that ended up being the problem. Our home form was simply not as good as our away form this season, we only managed three wins at the Supermassive Black Hole all season and although three others of those games were draws, that simply wasn't good enough for a title chasing side especially when you consider that our opponents won 5 of their 7 home games. An amazing away record was what kept us in contention in the end.
It was a sad day too for other reasons. For many players in this squad, today's match against Kyotiez Killerz was their final game. Aperson announced before the start of today's match that this would be the last season of the team in it's current form. Half the team will be sold on and half will remain behind to help mentor the next generation. While the need for a rebuild will be questioned, it would appear that Aperson has actually thought this one through a bit more than might be realised. - First of all it won't be a complete rebuild as half the team will stay behind, about 5 first team players will be sold to fund new purchases. Not everyone will stay behind at once.
- By rebuilding now the chances are our players will be worth a multi million fee. We will need this if the manager's plan is to come to fruition.
- The manager wants to build a team entirely out of 16/4s but with funds limited his choices and the demand for such a skill path high it will be impossible to build an entire 16/4 team in just one season. Fortunately we don't believe that rebuilding from the top flight will get you back in time with exactly the same set of youths, so the plan is to buy a 16/4 in every position. The rest of the youngsters will be 16/3s and 17/4s
- Every time a 16/3 or 17/4 double jumps, sell them and use that money to buy a 16/4. For the free kick taker, two youngsters will need to double jump to be able to afford a 16/4 free kick taker.
- Remaining oldies may be sold at a later date if things don't quite work out to plan and we need more funds to help the team along.
The obvious flaws in this plan are that our most valuable oldies may choose to end their careers at the club. We are prepared for that possibility though and if that happens, oldies that originally were going to stay at the club will be sold instead. There is also the danger that there won't be any 16/4s available at the time when we need them and we may end up becoming a conveyor belt team as a result, but ultimately the construction of a new team is a bonus, should X11 end up surviving that long. If it does, then we have a very strong new team that should be better than the previous one, if not, oh well.
Several seasons ago the manager's objective was to take this club all the way to the Ultimate League top flight. Knights have achieved that and then some, winning the Ultimate League cup in the process, reaching the quarter finals of the XCL and finishing 2nd in the Ultimate League. We have achieved far more than any starting club has any right to in the span of 17 seasons with a squad that shows we were working with a very limited spending budget upon construction and while today will be disappointing, the overall project was a success.
But another chapter awaits. Now as an established club a higher standard of squad is to be expected. But if this is all we will achieve, then we've still done pretty well for ourselves. Even the manager will probably look back on what could have been in seasons' to come.
New powerful teams are coming into the Ultimate League in the coming seasons and we are getting old, the next generation of uber teams has arrived and our time in the sun has come and gone. It's only fair to hand over the torch to whoever takes over Cellar Door as well as Jesus if he wins his play-off on Wednesday.
It'll be weird to see some of these players playing for other teams given how long they've played for Knights, but some of them may get picked up by other top flight teams in other leagues so they could still end up being league champions. Unfortunately not with Knights...
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