Alright so today the Man Game officially ended and we go into the always-exciting off season. I am writing this blog partially as a way of keeping myself occupied and amused while we wait for things to happen, and also as a way of keeping active while I am unable to report races. I aim to have one of these up every weekend with a variety of things, sometimes articles, sometimes just general musings on the game and, when things start to happen, some thoughts and updates on various parts of the game (new managers, etc). If anyone remembers the one that Smowz did a couple of years ago in the off season, I aim to make it similar to that but a bit more frequent. Just like that one I will have one new thread per week because I can see these getting quite long.

Today I have a few articles for you. The table of contents is:

1. Man Game Predictions - A comparison of how each team did compared to how they were tipped to do in the previews.
2. Transfer Season Preview - Part 1 - I start by looking at several of the disbanding teams and the free agents that will be available.
3. Classic Race From History - In this I will be looking back at various races in Man Game history which were particularly interesting or exciting. In this one I will be looking back at the incredible 2008 Tour de Suisse.

Every year we get a few really in-depth previews and it is now typical for some of these to include some sort of guess at what the rankings will look like at the end of each season. So let’s have a look at how people did this year:

Pro Tour

Team	Actual	Smowz	ember
Wikipedia	1	11	3
Pearl Adidas	2	1	1
Koenigsegg	3	3	4
Milka - AVG	4	5	9
Vesuvio - Accumalux	5	2	2
UBS - BMC	6	7	7
Simply Red Bull	7	12	13
Lotto - Cervelo	8	10	12
Pokerstars.com	9	15	11
Aker - MOT	10	16	15
Project 1t4i	11	9	10
Wiggle	12	14	14
Festina - Canal+	13	4	5
Pendleton's	14	13	16
Santander	15	6	6
Team B&O	16	17	18
Team Puma - SAP	17	19	17
Heineken	18	18	19
Team Bacardi	19	8	8
Pro Team Venchi	20	20	20

Pro Continental Tour

Team	Actual	Smowz	roturn
Tinkoff	1	4	8
ING	2	1	3
Vueling	3	5	2
Bouygues	4	8	1
Rothaus	5	10	15
Bpost	6	6	7
Volkswagen	7	2	9
Hollister	8	9	6
Prio	9	14	18
Vespa	10	3	10
Sram	11	17	21
Jaguar	12	11	4
HTC	13	25	11
Metinvest	14	27	16
AirBaltic	15	22	29
Meiji	16	23	24
Swedbank	17	16	19
Oz	18	13	25
Evian	19	18	17
Pivovarna	20	26	23
Alstom	21	20	14
Cisco	22	12	20
Amex	23	24	12
Bintang	24	7	5
UPC	25	29	28
Repsol	26	19	22
CSC	27	15	13
WWE	28	21	27
LukOil	29	28	26
PFG	30	30	30

Continental Tour:

Team	Actual	CountArach	Smowz
Gazelle	1	1	2
Iberia	2	2	1
Kappa	3	4	3
Die Berg	4	3	5
Magna	5	9	10
Allianz	6	5	6
BNCR	7	13	12
Ekspla	8	10	17
PrivatBank	9	12	9
Mobil	10	11	14
Kenya Airways	11	8	7
Vattenfall	12	15	15
MTN	13	18	13
Barcelona	14	7	11
Adira Isq	15	6	4
Risa	16	16	18
Boeing	17	17	8
Cadbury	18	19	21
Sauber	19	20	20
Credexbank	20	14	16
JK Cycling	21	22	22
ANC	22	21	19

The transfer season is always the most interesting and important part of the season for all of the teams in the Man Game. A bad transfer season can be the difference between relegation and survival or promotion and mid-table anonymity. So with all of the importance and build-up at stake, I have decided to write a series of articles for this blog showcasing some of what we can expect in the pre-2014 transfer season. This first article will focus on just some of the disbanding teams and will give an overview of some of the most important riders who will be moving into the Free Agency this year. The teams I will be focusing on are the PT teams and some of the top PCT teams.

The first team that is worth noting is Peal Adidas. As one of the top teams in the division it is obvious that they have a huge number of very powerful riders. The first rider who sticks out is Romain Sicard, who will be one of the most sought-after riders in the off-season without a doubt. When you combine his incredible climbing ability (on both mountains and hills) with his strong ability against the clock, as well as great backup stats, he looks like he could challenge for the TDF top 5 next year or take out a race like the Criterium du Dauphine. Certainly I couldn’t see Festina passing up a chance to bring him into the squad.

Also in the Pearl line-up is Tiago Machado. While perhaps not as well-rounded as Sicard will be he is certainly one of the best pure climbers in the game and could easily challenge some of the best, particularly in the week-long races. We also saw a lot of interest in Portuguese riders last season, so if that continues then his wage will certainly be extraordinary, particularly if Prio decide to go after him. Perhaps more interesting, however, is the availability of Jan Bakelants, who is easily one of the best puncheurs in the game. He combines a great ability over short climbs with great stamina and also a fantastic ability to accelerate. I could theoretically see his wage getting towards the dreaded 1 million mark because he is the sort of rider who would be capable of providing safety from relegation almost on his own.

Finally we can move to their second-tier riders. Enrico Franzoi still has one good year left in him and would make a great discount cobbled leader for a PT team or a key rider for a PCT squad, where he could certainly challenge for wins. Tanel Kangert is an interesting rider as he looks like he wouldn’t be capable of too many overall wins, but he would provide a constant stream of points wherever you put him. He could make a great leadership option for a smaller PCT squad who are trying to focus on a bit of everything or he could make a superb overall leader at CT level, though with the inflation of wages that usually occurs when buying from the free agency, it is hard to see how a CT team could justify putting all their eggs in one basket. That said, he would certainly be brilliant at that level.

Finally there are a few domestiques who might be popular. It is hard to see someone like Boeing passing up the opportunity to bring Petar Panayotov into their squad at any cost. Jukka Vastaranta is the sort of versatile rider who could easily find a home anywhere and there are a lot of other French domestiques like Jocelin Maillet who will be of interest to many teams who are focussed on continental riders, particularly Evian.

It also takes a lot of squad depth to come even close to promotion in the PCT, particularly in a competitive year like this. Yet Hollister Pro Cycling was one of those teams. They have been a squad who has focussed on depth of climbing talent for a couple of years now and so to see some of their riders available is very interesting. Their overall leader is Robert Kiserlovski who really has a lot to offer to teams. For one thing he will be 28 next season and thus still at an age where he can be trained. He is also still capable of competing at any level, even against the PT riders even without any more training. Finally, his wage is unlikely to be particularly high because he isn’t one of the top talents in the sport. The biggest downside with him is his relatively poor support stats so I wouldn’t be surprised if he spends another season at PCT level.

As said, Hollister have been about depth of scoring rather than a couple of top riders. As such there are a number of riders who are of about the same level who will be released – Vitor Rodrigues, Richard Ochoa Quintero and Yonathon Monsalve. All of them have their unique advantages and disadvantages, with Rodrigues probably being the best of them all things considered. Yet all three could lead at CT level and could also be a consistent scorer for a PCT team. It is hard to see may PT teams being interested in most of them unless they can pick them up for almost no money. It will be interesting to see if a team like Repsol will want to increase the number of Venezuelan climbers in their team, because if so then there are two good options here.

There are a couple of sprinters in the team as well but Allan Davis is going to just be getting worse from here. Still he could make an interesting rider at CT level because he is likely to have much better support stats (particularly hill) than most at that level. Aleksandr Serebriakov is one of those riders who would also thrive in a CT squad but likely wouldn’t be quite good enough for a PCT team unless his hill stat was improved. It is also worth noting that if Oz Cycling felt like further dominating PCT team time trials then Zakkari Dempster is available.

Unlike Hollister, Vespa went for a core of a few strong riders. The first of these is Domenico Pozzovivo, who would make a great leader for any PT team looking to perform in the Giro. If Wiggle have the money you would think they would have to be interested. He could be a great leader for a PT or a PCT team who is willing to splash the money on him. It seems like there will be a number of big climbing leaders in the free agency this season so it is possible that someone of about Pozzovivo’s level could go a little bit cheaper than usual.

Francesco Ginanni has had a great season at PCT level and he could certainly stay there another season but it would be interesting to see how he does in PT races. He certainly looks capable of performing well against those sorts of riders but he is unlikely to win too many races outside of Italy against the greater competition. Still if someone is looking for a leader for a race like Tirreno-Adriatico then this is the sort of man you would be after. Not only that but he is still available for training if anyone can afford it, though with his fairly high average it is unlikely.

Below these two there aren’t too many interesting riders in the team. Jacapo Guaranieri is technically a Pearl rider who of course are also disbanding. He could really be a GT stage winner next season so certainly will attract a lot of interest. Dario Cataldo would be good at any level, either as a lieutenant for a PT or PCT team or a top rider for a CT squad, where he would quite likely be capable of blowing the competition away.

The final squad that I will be looking at now is Team Bintang who, as Smowz has been pointing out all season, really should have done better with the squad they had. Jose Alarcon is an absolute legend and often considered an instant path to promotion (Both IKEA and Aker had him) – he is capable of beating almost anyone at PCT level and can really take out a few stage races if his races are planned correctly and if he is given good backup. However, it is surely time that he gets a shot at PT leadership. Sure, he has some big disadvantages and he wouldn’t be dominant, but someone needs to take a gamble!

Magno Nazaret is a similar sort of one-dimensional rider, even if he isn’t quite as good. If someone wants to take a similar gamble to the one taken on Arroyo this season in the CT then he might be a good rider for that. Mikayil Krasnoperov is yet another rider who is similar to these two though he lacks the sort of backup stats that the others have. However, he is still likely to attract a high price because Metinvest and PrivatBank are undoubtedly going to give it all to bring him in.

There are a number of great climbing domestiques who will no doubt act as backup elsewhere or could even lead in a CT squad. There are so many that it is just worth listing them – Saul Raisin, Fabio Montenegro, Victor Hugo Orozco, Fredy Piamonte and Sergio Ghisalberti. No doubt a team like Repsol would be interested in more South Americans (and certainly these availabilites open up all sorts of optionsfor a new South American team who might just be joining the game). In fact the last of these, Ghisalberti, deserves another mention because he is much more of a balanced rider than the others and he could certainly fit in well as an all-round domestique even at PT level.

Next time around I will look at the rest of the PCT squads who are disbanding and I will look over the best of the riders from CT teams.

One of the best parts of the Man Game is the constant feeling that you are part of something with a very long history. The game has been around since 2007 and in that time a lot of interesting and exciting races have occurred. In this segment I will be reviewing classic races from the history of the Man Game. Each one of them will be interesting for one reason or another, and I’ll try to keep them exciting. If anyone has any requests for races to review just PM me and I’ll see what I can do.

The race I have chosen today is the 2008 Tour de Suisse and hopefully you will see why as I report it. I can’t find any race profile for you but the basic outline was this:
Flat
Long Individual Time Trial
Mountaintop finish
Flat
Mountain stage (finish after a short descent from a HC climb)
Mountaintop finish
Mountaintop finish
Mountain stage (there is a flat after the final climb which goes to the finish)
8km Team Time Trial

Obviously this course was just designed for absolute carnage. 5 large mountain stages, each of them with multiple climbs and three of them finishing on the final climb was going to guarantee fireworks. There were of course several big climbing names there. The favourites were:
Damiano Cunego – Cunego had just recently won the 2008 Giro by almost 10 minutes and was the biggest threat here.
Riccardo Ricco – Ricco was second place in that Giro. Ricco was second on most of the climbing stages behind Cunego and had even managed to beat him in one of those mountain stages.
Denis Menchov – Menchov had won the 2008 Tour de Romandie, including the queen mountain stage, so he had already shown that he was in good form and capable of winning this sort of race.
Jani Brajkovic – Brajkovic was 3rd at Tirreno-Adriatico, 5th at Pais Vasco (with a stage win) and 6th at Romandie so clearly had quality. Was this a chance to step up to the big boys?
Vladimir Karpets – Probably the best time trialist of all of these riders on paper, he had won the ITT at Pais Vasco, finishing the race in 6th, and he was also 7th at Romandie.
Cyril Dessel – 6th at Paris-Nice and 8th at Pais Vasco spoke well of his climbing ability, but could he hold on to the other top names?

There were of course other names but these seemed to be the main favourites. Anyway, the race started with a flat stage in France. There weren’t many sprinters here so it was mostly a list of second-tier riders who were stage favourites. Cavendish was the biggest favourite amongst the sprinters but he found himself beaten by Eisel at an intermediate sprint 25km before the finish line. He made amends for this, however, by winning the stage and taking the leader’s jersey.



Cavendish was not going to hold on to this jersey for very long, however, as it was straight into the first key GC stage – the time trial. This was the big chance for some of the lesser names to make up some time and they did just that – Karpets was 2nd on the stage and Brajkovic was 4th. This meant that they gained just over 2 minutes on Cunego, who came in 31st. Menchov was 1 minute down on them and Ricco put in a shocking time, sitting more than 3 minutes back on GC. Savoldelli put in a great time and took the leader’s jersey, 12 seconds ahead of Karpets.

Now it was time for the first summit finish. Lots of the favourites needed to make back time on some of the others and this was the perfect opportunity. The final climb was a 17.5km long monster which came after a rough day in the saddle:



Almost as soon as the bunch hit the final climb Ricco was on the attack – he had a lot of time to make up! Most of the other favourites tried to follow after him but they couldn’t manage it. The groups behind him thinned out considerably, with Savoldelli in the yellow jersey dropped. Brajkovic too was struggling early in the climb and fell off the pace. Ricco held his lead most of the way up the climb and with only 2km to go there were only 6 riders left in the group behind him:
Cunego
Menchov
Perez Cuapio
Dessel
Piepoli
Sella

Karpets, Medina and Suaza were not far behind these riders. With 1km to go Ricco had a slender lead over the 6 chasers:



Menchov sprinted really well and almost caught him but on the line Ricco was able to just stay ahead and he took the stage win. All of the chasing group except for Sella got the same time, pulling back most of what they had lost in the ITT. Karpets was only 1’33� back, however. What this meant was that Menchov took the leader’s jersey, 19� ahead of Karpets. Dessel was 54� back, Cunego 1’07� back and Ricco 1’39� back.

The next stage looked like a very slightly rolling flat stage with no major complications. That was an illusion, however, as echelons formed about half way through the stage and resulted in some riders being dropped. Included in these dropped groups was Karpets!



His team couldn’t close the gap and somehow, even with all of the wind, the break managed to take out the stage. Sacchi took the stage win 21� ahead of the bunch. Or at least part of the bunch because 22 riders managed to break ahead in the high winds and gain 1’02� on the rest. In this group? Damiano Cunego.

Not only that but to complicate matters, there was a huge crash!



This crash meant that in fact Karpets’ group managed to catch up in the final couple of kilometres and were given the same time as the bulk of the riders here. The bad news for some teams was that there were a number of abandonments, including Julich and Posthuma – two key riders who were supposed to be supporting Cunego in the TTT. Ricco also went down in the crash. Some other outsiders like Piepoli go down as well.

The next stage was two straight HC mountains, one straight after the other. The second one was a brutal 56km slog with constantly changing gradients and then a quick descent to the finish line. No one really applied the pressure until some way into the second climb where a big split occurred in the bunch with a number of riders including Brajkovic dropped. Only 21 were left in the front group, including most of the biggest favourites... This was closed down, however.

The next split occurred when Cunego himself came to the front of the bunch and really put the hammer down:



Dessel was the only favourite who could follow his pace, with a number of others also hanging onto the wheels desperately. Dessel came forward to help Cunego and the two of them managed to pull out an advantage on everyone else. Only at this point did Menchov think it was a good idea to chase after, with some of the other favourites also making moves. Menchov clawed his way up to the two front riders as a second group formed behind them including riders like Ricco, Karpets, Brajkovic and Sella.

Cunego decided that this was the key moment in the race and so he attacked away from Menchov and Dessel, dropping them both and going solo:



Cunego went over the top 25� ahead of the other two chasers and, thanks to his descending skills, he managed to extend that gap to 50� as he took the stage. Menchov took second ahead of Dessel. The other favourites group was another minute behind these two. Because of this stage Cunego took the race lead, 53� ahead of Menchov and 1’51� ahead of Dessel. Karpets was 4th 2’26� back. This made Cunego the 4th race leader in 5 days.

There was no respite as the following day brought 6 categorised climbs and another summit finish. Rather cheekily, Sella and Vila managed to break away early. They were 10th and 11th at the start of the day and once they got a 2 minute advantage the pack gave chase, utterly destroying itself in the process. The bunch caught them and in the process Ricco, Karpets and Brajkovic were dropped. The pace slowed at this point and they were able to get back.

The race got to the penultimate climb and once again things kicked off. A small elite group of climbers including Moreau and Piepoli attacked away and were joined by Gianpaolo Caruso. There is a lot of fighting amongst the favourites at this point with Menchov, Cunego and Dessel all putting in attacks and it is only the Frenchman who can make it stick. Over the top of the climb he has an advantage over a small elite group of favourites.

As we get to the final climb Menchov puts in an attack and manages to get away from the elite favourites group. He set off in pursuit of Dessel while Cunego was in a group of 6 just behind him. Cunego realised he needed to attack and he did so, but Menchov had caught Dessel by this point and they had an advantage with only a handful of kilometres to go:



They don’t really work well to extend their advantage but they did hold on to a 41� gap over the Italian rider, severely reducing their deficit. Dessel managed to take a fantastic stage win while Menchov took second. This meant that Cunego still had the race lead, now only 8� ahead of Menchov. Dessel was third, 58� behind.

The peloton was willing to grant the next stage to the break, allowing them over 20 minutes. Nevertheless five of the best climbers in the race attacked away to try to challenge each other – Cunego, Menchov, Dessel, Ricco and Perez Cuapio (who was 4th on the previous stage):



Christophe Brandt took the stage win ahead of them, with Facci in second place, but the third place bonus seconds were still available. Crucially, Menchov sprints away from the other four riders and he takes them... as well as another 8� from the gap back to the rest of the favourites! This meant that he was now 8� ahead on GC, back in the yellow jersey, with only 2 stages remaining!



The second last stage finished with a long climb and then a fairly long section of flat to the finish line. The favourites all marked each other closely here, with Menchov securing himself the mountain jersey by winning the final climb. The pace ensured that only a handful of riders could come into the finish line together and all of the major favourites were there. Cunego sprinted for the stage win... and he took it! Ricco took second and Dessel third, meaning that Cunego was now the GC leader by only 12�.



This meant that the race went down to the final 8km TTT. It is worth remembering that Cunego’s Gazetta dello Sport team had already lost two of the best time trialists in the race to injury and so were reduced to 6 men. They went before Menchov’s Carlsberg team and in fact set a best time of 10’14�, meaning that Carlsberg needed 10’02� to win it. Indeed Carlsberg won teh stage but was their time good enough?!



No! They finished in 10’04�, still winning the stage but crucially losing the overall by only 2 seconds! So here were the results for each stage, the overall, and each of the jerseys:

Stage	1st	2nd	3rd
1	Mark Cavendish	Eric Baumann	Bernhard Eisel
2 - ITT	Paolo Savoldelli	Vladimir Karpets	Bobby Julich
3	Riccardo Ricco	Denis Menchov	Cyril Dessel
4	Fabio Sacchi	Aleksandr Kolobnev	László Bodrogi
5	Damiano Cunego	Denis Menchov	Cyril Dessel
6	Cyril Dessel	Denis Menchov	Damiano Cunego
7	Christophe Brandt	Mauro Facci	Denis Menchov
8	Damiano Cunego	Riccardo Ricco	Cyril Dessel
9 - TTT	Carlsberg	Accumalux	Discovery Channel
GC	Rider	Team	Time
1	Damiano Cunego	La Gazetta Dello Sport	36h09'49
2	Denis Menchov	Carlsberg	+2
3	Cyril Dessel	Team Flogas	+1'24
4	Julio Alberto Perez Cuapio	Ferrari - Guerciotti	+5'15
5	Riccardo Ricco	Magenta Trefoil	+5'44
6	Vladimir Karpets	Virgin Media	+6'43
7	Leonardo Piepoli	Cycling24 - Honda	+6'49
8	Janez Brajkovic	France Televisions	+8'20
9	Emanuele Sella	Telefonica	+9'21
10	Beñat Intxausti	Accumalux	+11'39
Points	Rider	Team	Points
1	Denis Menchov	Carlsberg	94
2	Damiano Cunego	La Gazetta Dello Sport	85
3	Cyril Dessel	Team Flogas	77
KOM	Rider	Team	Points
1	Denis Menchov	Carlsberg	202
2	Leonardo Piepoli	Cycling24 - Honda	193
3	Cyril Dessel	Team Flogas	193
Youth	Rider	Team	Time
1	Riccardo Ricco	Magenta Trefoil	36h15'33
2	Janez Brajkovic	France Televisions	+2'36
3	Beñat Intxausti	Accumalux	+5'55
Team	Team	Time
1	France Televisions	109h04'44
2	Cycling24 - Honda	+1'36
3	Virgin Media	+3'27

In my eyes this was one of the best week-long stage races you are likely to encounter. It had everything – attacks, suspense, great mountain stages, echelons on one of the flat stages, surprise performances, etc.

Like I said if you have any suggestions for races (preferably from before this season), PM me and let me know and I’ll think about doing this sort of write-up. I already have one or two that I’ve been thinking about doing.