It was inevitable but what else can I say than that PCM18 is just a joke of a game.
I paid 1.6 million for this pathetic excuse of a stage racer. At least the rest of the team is delivering currently so that helps a little.

Hirt being active is nice. Hirt faiing to get good results is not great at all.

Prado taking the stage win is superb. Prado taking the win in that way is crazy.

Very good stage from Kritskiy GC-wise; taking time on Tenorio and Gesink and again a very solid report, I really like the flow of it.

Too little too late unfortunately. Even Kritskiy is within striking distance of Lecuisinier in the upcoming TT. Had Lecuisinier caught up with Vosekalns and Salinas it would have started to become a bit interesting with close to 2 minutes ahead of Tenorio. 1'13" is too little.

Hopefully the small gap can see him atleast come close in the end, but those stages towards the end unfortunately isn't tailormade to make a significant gap.

Atleast the points jersey was secured today while the KOM jersey seems to be lost by now. It would have required a stagewin or atleast a stage podium to have that in striking distance - But that's a minor thing.

For now we managed to atleast make the final somewhat interesting, but I can't see Tenorio losing it still... Bongiorno really need to find his second breath soon. 31st in the GC isn't good enough and 8th in the Team GC is just pathetic with 85, 79, 76MO riders and a bunch of decent riders just below that.

Congrats on the stagewin to Dion Smith (Whom I chased in the off season btw), aswell as Puma for finally starting to get those stageresults. Brambilla making his usual late jump well inside the top 10. That must be one nice blessing... Tvetcov also keeping up his crazy overperformance will see Evonik keep a decent gap at the end of the month.

Sorry for intervening here, I know I'm not in the Man-game but I just had to comment on this.

Lecuisinier lost 45 seconds on the first TT of 25km to Tenorio - which you called a pathetic showing - which translates to about 1:12 over 40km, so about the gap he has now. So considering that you were not happy with losing 45 seconds in the first TT in what way is it logical to say he needs close to 2 minutes to make it interesting?

I agree that the current gap is not enough to feel safe at all, as daily form is all over the place in the newest PCM editions but surely he at least has a decent chance to defend the lead. But please don't quote me on that.

A decent effort by Arndt to finally ride the way I hoped for, although of course there is not a single relevant stat that Smith is better in than Arndt...
Bikex really deserved that result though after the shortcomings of Reis lately.

He obviously will lose all of the time gained today and then some in the TT tomorrow, but that just means new leeway to attack every single day after, particularly now that the AI hopefully sees the KoM potential in him.
Being done with mountaintop finishes might help his chances for a breakaway win if his sprint starts to matter again, although we're actually just trading the randomness of a 78 climber dropping a 79 climber for the randomness of positioning deciding the stage win.

Helme completes our successful day by climbing in the U25, although only back into the region he should've been in from the start. Still, I'd happily take those mid-to-upper single-digit points at the end.

Brambilla does it again

And with no mountain finishes left, he might actually hang on for another top 10. Oscar Rodriguez looking way weaker than I was expecting, on the other hand.

If Dion Smith can get into the break and gain time on GC contenders with his current position, then Shikai should have no problem getting into breakaways now. He's 19th in GC now, when he's probably the 7th best Stage racer here on paper if you include TT stat. I dont think theres any avoiding relegation now. 3rd best sprinter, a Top 10 candidate and solid climbing depth, who should be either attacking every stage or doing a better job of protecting Shikai, so overall this race has been a disaster.

Really hope Reis and Shikai get into the break on the last mountain stage, and take a 1-2, minutes ahead of the peloton. Its really frustrating that vastly inferior riders are overperforming so much here, and then those same teams seem to have 2-3 riders in the break everyday on top of that. If my teams GC hopes are as much of a failure as they seem why is my team not sending our full team into the break to try and get a win. Its like my entire team gave up.

No idea how Carboni from break to almost OTL there dropping like 50 spots in GC.

Velits again active is nice. Though Valls is the one more fresh to do so. Both in top30 is nice but one should be closer to top15 where all the similar riders from breaks are... So right now this is just bad tactics as sending exhausted riders doesn't neither help for stage results nor GC points.

Valls likely should be able to fight for top3 from those groups seeing he was always just sitting behind in the peloton so far. Similar for Ciccone who might be the better option than Carboni as 2nd break option.

Very nice to see three Evonik jerseys in the break and probably the best options for those as well. A bit of a shame that Vosekalns wasnt stronger on the day but his shenanigans on the last few days probably cost him. Tvetcov however on another strong day on a super tough stage.



I'm completely fascinated by my team during this Vuelta. Our tactics on most stages are a complete shitshow and the near complete lack of stage points is a desaster. But somehow Tvetcov is still 10th in GC despite wasting lots of energy in pointless late stage attacks when the stage win is out of reach anyway. And i completely agree with describing his performance so far as "crazy overperformance". However, even if he defends that position i'd say that my team as a whole underperformed here unless we still get some stage wins out of the remaining stages because we underperformed heavily on flat stages (Eislers #2 sprinter, Liepins top 10 sprinter at least), hilly stages (Skujins #1 puncheur) and we also scored below average from breaks. So while Tvetcov looks super strong, this wasnt a good race for Evonik so far and it still has the potential to be a desaster if Tvetcov drops to a position more in line with pre-race expectations...


This is the rare situation where a TT might actually help Evonik as Tvetcov is not worse in TT than most of those riders around him and will hopefully gain some time on some direct opponents like e.g. Godoy.

You are most welcome to comment on the Man-Game whether you are part of it or not :-)

I wasn’t particularly dissapointed with the time loss, rather the Stage result. 10th was a very bad result for Lecuisinier I think.

I agree that it isn’t impossible to keep the jersey if scaling up the time is working. I would rather believe though that the ITT stat difference play out bigger margins over longer routes - and also the longer into the race we get. So I expect the deficit to be around 2 minutes, which is what I anticipated would be needed at this point (prior to the race). Daily form Can obviously play it either way as you say - but that was pretty much what I wanted to eliminate with a higher margin.

Fortunately we managed to get a decent gap now to both Kritskiy and Tenorio so it seems like we only have to look out for 1 rider in the ITT. The timedifferences to Kritskiy though is so slim that Lecuisinier can’t afford to have a day off by any means.

Dion Smith <3

Haig struggling again, but yet good enough to drop a place. Concerning though. He now needs to deliver in the TT.

Was happy to see Power in the early break. Not a bad result eventually, but not worth any points. Keep joining those breaks and we may get a minor result somewhere..

Ouch, this is the second time Formolo loses minutes after he clumsily drops during a downhill and has to burn energy to get back.

Great ride by Sosnitskiy though

Must say I disagree with SotD on the fight for red. I agree that the first TT was a bad one by Lecuisinier placing wise, and thus also time wise seeing the time he lost to Tenorio, as he really should have placed better in that TT, which also would have seen him loose less. The fact that we're now in the third week is also in big favour of Lecuisinier. I'd say he's the favourite for red going into the TT, but as Vali points out, daily form will be key, whoever is favourite pre-stage

Nice to see Amezawa join the breakaway! Finally we tried, which is good. Fingers crossed we continue that way after the TT, as those stages should suit our "breakaway riders" better than this beast of a stage.

Galta's race is turning out to be a bad one, eventhough he sits inside the top 10. Before knowing the startlist, I hoped for aggressive racing and maybe a stage win on the way. After knowing the startlist, I even hoped for a top 5 overall. Now it looks like we'll get none of them, as passive racing seems to be what the AI gave him. We'll take that, then, and fingers crossed he can climb to 7th, past Brambilla.

Thank you for the reports, Nemolito! Very well done so far on your first GT

That's the way SotD is. Overly optimistic (always expecting the max out of his riders) but also overly pessimistic (disaster when something slightly doesn't go according to his plan) at the same time

Great to see you are following the ManGame. Perhaps you should consider applying for a spot in the off-season if you enjoy following it as a by stander. It's even more fun when you are part of it

@SotD:
Makes sense what you say but I still think chances are about 50|50 at this point. We'll see anyhow who is right in the next couple of stages.

@alexkr:
Well the thing is, I've been following the man-game for lots of years now, so when Cunego and Madrazo were still tearing up the field. So far I've never applied because I honestly don't really enjoy the planning and everything that much (I'm a manager in ICL but there's probably a bit less to do there) but I just love the little stories that these races create.

It was similar for me with pcm when I still used to play it more often. Sometimes I just "gave away" stage wins or something because I didn't want to win everything and I felt like the other rider deserved it more. But yeah we'll see what happens, maybe I'll change my mind.

Well then you should definitely join the ManGame to experience the other side of things as well:
This season, the game gives away stage wins to riders who deserve it less!

Hehe, well for me it was mostly riders who didn't achieve that much in their careers or were outsiders in a way and so I thought they "deserved" a bit of success. So probably the complete opposite of your definition.

It's going to be really really close. Tomorrow's stage will be one of the biggest stages in our program's history. Make or break! Come on Tenorio, make the home supporters ecstatic. Let's show up these Pro Tour teams and take red back one last time

Absolut cracker of a race. Awesome to see two stalwart managers going head to head. I really hope the final stages aren't anti-climatic should we have a handful of seconds seperating first and second place.

Vesuvio having a great tour as well. Godoy in white and up high in GC - along with Goos. And Smit getting a stage win and a day in red (X2!!!!)!