In the first benchmark we looked to be scoring close to 8500 points, while by the end of the 2nd Grand Tour numbers had reduced to 8.150 points, with an expected end result aproximately 1500 points lower than that due to actual raceday situations.
Now we are all through the Grand Tours and thus can set a realistic end benchmark for the season. Lecuisinier is out of the picture, and the remaining riders have a reasonable mixed amount of racedays referring nicely to the actual results so far.
From the top down...
GC Riders:
In 2020 we had just two riders in this category. Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier and Francesco Bongiorno. Combined they scored 2.316 points and exceeded expectations by quite a lot. The expected level was 2.000 points. Lecuisinier exceeded a lot, while Bongiorno actually never met up to standards by only scoring 233 points.
In 2021 we again have two riders. But rather than Bongiorno we have David de la Cruz, who in our perspective is a better rider, more suitable for higher points at PT level.
Name
Exp. Result
Exp. PPrD
Actual PPrD
Projected result
Difference
Lecuisinier
2000
55,6
52,8
1.901
-99
De la Cruz
500
8,1
5,5
339
-161
Total
-260
Last time we had a projected result of around -150, unfortunately those figures have increased in the wrong department, and it revolves around Lecuisinier performing worse than expected in many races. Tour of Colombia, Tour of East Java and Tour de France all saw him below expectations, and with just 36 racedays on hand we can't afford that many slips. David de la Cruz might end up more realistic in the region of 350 points than the 500 I innitially expected from him. He didn't deliver and top results, and that was partially due to being a domestique for Lecuisinier in Tour de France and Hallstatt. Had he had 23 racedays in his own leadership he would likely have ended up pretty close to the expected level. Atleast 400+ points. Both have ridden their last race and won't further contribute to the pointscoring.
Hills:
In the hills we had Clement Koretzky, David Boily, Aidan van Niekerk and Anatoliy Budyak last season and we just have to accept that we cannot match that this season. van Niekerk have become a better puncheur, but the lost ground isn't going to come back. The 4 riders scored a combined 1555 points, with Budyak hardly showing up, but both Boily and van Niekerk scoring above 300 points with Koretzky a massive 830, setting a new record high for him. We can't expect him to score that well again, but we might want to see Aidan score even higher than last season to cover the lost.
Name
Exp. Result
Exp. PPrD
Actual PPrD
Projected result
Difference
Koretzky
800
16,7
26,6
1.277
477
van Niekerk
400
6,3
4,2
269
-131
Total
346
Last time we looked to be almost 1000 points better than anticipated due to the inflated results of Clement Koretzky, but while numbers have reached a more realistic bottomline we still have to applaud Koretzky who is still significantly over the expected level. In fact he only need to score 56 points to reach his goal. Seeing both Lecuisinier and De la Cruz missing their goal line, however it is very much needed for Koretzky to keep a steady scoring. He has 4 races to go, so he will go above "budget", but how much is yet to be seen. Aidan van Niekerk had a horrible benchmark last time, but with two stagewins in Switzerland things look more legit. He's still underperforming though and a domestique for Koretzky in his remaining 3 races - so not a lot of points will come from him. The goal however is to cover the 260 points loss from the GC department, which seems somewhat realistic still.
Timetrials:
In the 2020 timetrial setup we had Vlatos, Ioannidis and Zoidl present, and while we have lost Zoidl we have decided to include Kiriakidis to this as he is now almost up to a level where we can expect him to score more than minimum. Both Vlatos and Ioannidis remain at the same level. Last season the trio scored 703 points, with no one scoring below 100 points. Zoidl and Ioannidis both roamed in the area of 110 points while Vlatos had a new record scoring season claiming a total of 484 points, while expectations where at "only" 350 equivalent to his average. We have turned the expectations back to 350 for Vlatos, while Ioannidis is slightly up from his 125 last season.
Name
Exp. Result
Exp. PPrD
Actual PPrD
Projected result
Difference
Vlatos
350
5,0
7,2
504
154
Ioannidis
150
1,9
1,9
144
-6
Kiriakidis
100
1,1
1,5
143
43
Total
191
At the first benchmark it seemed like Vlatos would go through his worst season in many years missing some obvious season targets - but he made a very solid recovery. In fact so much that he already reached his season goal of 350 points. Last season he scored 495 points, and this record is actually within reach aswell, having landed 411 currently - It will require a good Deutschland Tour though. Overall we were 127 points in the green last time have increased to 191 points, and it seems very realistic that we will end up between 150-200 points in the positive. Ioannidis have concluded his season being 6 points behind schedule. This is within the expected level of innacuracy obviously, and we are fine with that result. Kiriakidis is still on track to beating his estimate. In fact he's currently on exactly 100 points and thus on par with expectations, yet he has 27 racedays remaining to add to that. With some races still to go we can already conclude that we will end up above expectations, and whatever scored from here is just a bonus.
Sprinters:
Bryan Coquard have been our main sprinter ever since Tzortzakis left the team, and this season is no different. Coquard scored 965 points last season, which was slightly below expectation, and notably worse than 2019. Nizzolo, however was the big misfit with only 84 points against the relatively modest 200 point expectation. Bouglas with 117 points were better while Farantakis with 50 was more of a domestique. Overall the quadruple landed 1216 points. This season there's no Nizzolo and no Bouglas (unfortunately), so we have to rely on Coquard and the development of Farantakis, which is to the level of Bouglas though.
Name
Exp. Result
Exp. PPrD
Actual PPrD
Projected result
Difference
Coquard
1000
23,8
25,0
1050
50
Farantakis
75
1,00
3,2
253
178
Total
228
In the last benchmark we seemed to end up around 223 points on the positive. Coquard is still very close to the expected 1000 points mark. At the momenth he is slightly above, and with 774 points in the bank it seems realistic that he can increase to 1000 in the remaining 3 races for him. Farantakis just keep on impressing, and while the 75 points was obviously too low for the realistic output, I would have never expected him to currently sit with 220 points. Farantakis will however leadout Coquard in his remaining 3 races, and thus conclude both of the riders season. So whatever succes comes will be down to the co-operation of the two. With 994 points in the bank and 1.075 points expected many things need to go sour in order to miss the expected goal though.
Cobblers:
The cobbled department of the team have been neglected since the departure of Maxime Daniel, and it's evident that we won't score a lot of points. The combination of Karatzios and Kortsidakis is more of roulleurs and domestiques than they are cobblers, yet those stat combinations might be worth a few points here and there. Last season Kortsidakis was away on loan out, while Karatzios was the cobbled leader of the team, and Karatzios actually did well. Scoring 193 points was well above the expected 150 points, which are now carried over as a mixture with the ambition of scoring 175.
Name
Exp. Result
Exp. PPrD
Actual PPrD
Projected result
Difference
Karatzios
175
2,4
1,9
141
-33
Kortsidakis
100
1,3
1,9
146
46
Total
13
Karatzios have been trailing the entire season, while Kortsidakis have kept the department afloat by overperforming. Nothing have changed, except for the margin in which Kortsidakis overperforms. Karatzios are still underperforming, but also have 3 decent races left that could give him the 80-odd points missing. Not realistic though, but if Kortsidakis can keep his slight overperforming, then it should be OK. Kortsidakis have currently scored 104 points, and with Karatzios' 92 points we are trailing a total of 79 points with a total of 47 racedays remaining. This should be OK to get atleast very close to the target. The 130 points in + have been reduced to nothing though.
The rest:
The remaining rider pool is relatively large, and covers a decent spread of quality, from riders that we expect as little as 50 points from to the more well rounded once in the spectrum of 150 points. This is the pool where it's not so important who score what, but rather that we get the points needed in general. Some will be helpers and others will get a lucky punch and this will affect the PpRD drastically. Last season we had 9 riders and 2 stagiares in this pool, and they scored a combined 838 points with Kastrantas being the usual overperformer, and Morin at level 3 unsurprisingly scored the least. This time we have 10 riders in the pool, but no stagiares, yet we expect slightly more than we actually got last season, as some are quite capable, and could have been put in other categories.
Name
Exp. Result
Exp. PPrD
Actual PPrD
Projected result
Difference
Mavrikakis
100
1,3
2,5
195
95
Vila
50
0,8
2,0
120
70
Rochas
75
0,8
1,3
118
43
Agrotis
50
0,8
0,9
59
9
Miltiadis
100
1,1
0,9
85
-15
Kopfauf
50
0,9
0,8
47
-3
Kastrantas
150
1,9
1,5
125
-25
Spanopoulos
100
1,3
1,2
96
-4
Giannoutsos
150
1,9
1,3
100
-50
Jang
150
2,0
1,1
84
-66
Total
54
At the first benchmark this group was 400 points in the green, while at the 2nd benchmark this had been reduced to 150 points. This time we have decreased further to a total of 54 points. Giannoutsos, Jang and Kastrantas being the biggest dissapointments here. Giannoutos' season is over, while Jang and Kastrantas still have a small chance to attack the needed points. On the contrary Mavrikakis have showed good skill throughout the season without ever really attacking. He is currently 92 above is expected goal, and with only Lombardia left. It seems realistic that the group will be almost spot on with the initial expectation, although it isn't ideal to lose 400 points from the early benchmark in this group.
Conclusion:
As mentioned, the first benchmark saw us in the region of 8500 points, while the second had us at 8150 points. Both remarkably above the 6500 points pre-season estimate. In fact we were looking to comfortable in reaching our goal, that we decided to up the ante to 6.750 points as a new estimate. Between the 2nd and 3rd benchmark however we have lost a lot of ground - also a lot more than the 350 between the 1st and 2nd. In fact we are now within the estimate of 7.300 points. Still well above the 6.750 points goal, but not a lot can go wrong at this point. The positive aspect is that we have currently scored 5.900 points, so in order to reach our goal we need "just" 850 points, and we have 9 races (3 horrible ones) to reach that goal. This averages 94,5 points pr. race, which should be doable - in particular if August goes according to plan!
As always - Feel free to comment, as it is much more interesting to debate than to just post numbers
Im impressed with this preview-review-analysis of yours. Well done. And as for debate i think too that this strange TdF messed up for Lecuisiner, still being in green its pretty good. I wish i have your understanding and skill to make this for sometime for my team
jaxika wrote:
Im impressed with this preview-review-analysis of yours. Well done. And as for debate i think too that this strange TdF messed up for Lecuisiner, still being in green its pretty good. I wish i have your understanding and skill to make this for sometime for my team
Thanks mate
Indeed, the "lost" points in Tour de France is the main reason why the drop between sector 2/3 is significantly larger than 1/2 - Otherwise I would have probably upped the expectation for the remaining part as to finish on 7.000 points. Still 6.750 points is 250 points higher than the pre-season estimate.
It's not all too complicated to be honest. It's all about knowing what to expect, and to do that I tend to use the last couple of actual results, and tweak the unforeseen successes and failures to give a reasonable image. This is why I tend to almost always get within 100 points deficit from the expected - with very few exceptions. And once you know what to expect, it's just picking up the median and add up the score.
Obviously the more riders that you had yourself in the past, the easier it get's as you tend to know how you want to plan them, how often they ride for themselves and how often they are part of a team working for another rider. This will obviously hurt the domestiques, while other domestiques riding in a free role setup will tend to score much higher. F.e. Kastrantas have often been used in races without a clear leader as he works very well in breakaways - this season not so much unfortunately.
Maybe if we can stay at PT, ill can try after a few seasons. Its a lot more difference to the other categories. Even in the predictions this (non)understanding was the main cause of placing my team near bottom.
Your position in the rankings is largely due to you and your performance rather than your team strength IMO. You have done exceptionally well to be 4th currently.
Waeytaens and Aular in particular have surprised me a lot. I didn't think they would be PT material. I was very wrong
After mature consideration it has been decided that Festina - OAKA will stop at the end of the season.
The decision has been a long way in the proces, but can now be considered final.
Festina (in various forms) took over after Discovery Channel in 2009, and at the end of the season have concluded their 13th season (15 in total) at PT level. OAKA joined in 2019, and have been the 2nd longest running co-sponsor shared with Canal+, who was onboard in the period 2013-2015. Except for OAKA also Dexia, Gen-I, CONEC and Corona have featured as co-sponsors.
Festina have won the Pro Tour 3 times (2015, 2016, 2017).
Recently Lecuisinier could enjoy his 2nd Grand Tour win, when he won the 2nd Tour de France for the Festina-setup. Last season he also won the Vuelta a España and thus making only the Giro d'Italia missing from the list. The remaining Grand Tour winner of the team is Simon Spilak, who lifted the team to the 3 consequtive titles.
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Really sad to see you go. I really hope you'll still reconsider it even though it looks like a decision has been made. Festina is one of the most, if not the most iconic teams in the game.
At first, the "The End" title reminded me of Mapei's departure, but I do indeed hope for you to stay in the game. You've built up so many Greek talents now, it would be sad to see that project come to a premature end.
I mean, I might myself leave MG, but that's not comparable. You've built up an iconic team, you just wrote a great story with PHL, and you're probably among the managers investing most time into this game besides the reporters and admins. For the sake of the game, I hope it's really "just" a major rebrand upcoming, and not SotD's end as an MG manager.
If you are really leaving the game, you're leaving an unfillable crater behind you. What Festina has meant to MG is impossible to describe in words. Thank you for being such an active powerhouse of a manager for so long.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Considering your post in the Tour de France thread after the race ended, I guess this is truly the end, and not "just" the end for the sponsors. Even though most of our transfer talks have ended with nothing, your dedication and contribution to the game will be missed. Hope it's still time for a turn around here.
I'm holding out hope that you wouldn't bring up a few new Greek riders in the New Riders Suggestions only to leave us without a Greek team, but otherwise I can only echo what the others have said!
Thanks a lot for the kind words everyone. They mean more than you probably realize.
My motivation has been moving in the wrong direction for quite some time unfortunately. I try my best to keep the activity high and not let my annoyance shine through too often, but recently I have failed in that - more than my usual banter of my riders performances - and that isn't good for the game.
Just wanted to stop by and say its been an absolute pleasure having you as part of the MG. I've always looked up to you and your team(s), and the amount of dedication and passion you've had for the MG. Your departure, to me, will leave a big hole, but I can empathize with your feelings, as I am trending towards a similar decision for the same reasons as you.
August offered the final racedays for Bryan Coquard in the Festina jersey after the announcement of the teams stop at the end of the season, as well as a cobbled race. It would also be the final chance for a dash at a PT podium, as the races in september and october isn't suiting the team very well.
Deutschland Tour:
The month started about as good as we could have been hoping. Bryan Coquard took a season-rare stagewin in the opening stage, and followed up by taking stage 2 from a late dash in the leaders jersey aswell.
In the shadows of Coquards demonstration, Panagiotis Vlatos lurked only to strike on the 3rd stage timetrial. He didn't win, but 4th on the day catapulted him into 3rd overall and with Coquard aiming for more stage glory we had a great position to keep Vlatos out of trouble. Coquard couldn't quite find his position on stage 4, but on stage 5 he took a 3rd and final stagewin - or so we thought. The organizors must have messed up their time keeping, and may well be Festina's next partner in order to fix things.
Coquard was awarded 2nd though, and won the pointscompetition, while Vlatos reeled himself into 3rd in the GC. A great race, in which we score almost double our expected outcome.
Actual Points: 304pts
GP Moscow:
Seeing the magnitude of Coquards domination in Germany we hoped to see him triumph in Moscow aswell, but we never really got in control of the race. Still a 5th place result isn't far off our estimated podium, and thus we still keep afloat on the expected points.
Actual Points: 137pts
SAA Tour d'Afrique:
Bryan Coquard have never really thrived in the african heat, and this time wasn't any different. He did come close on stage 3 where he was 2nd, and jumped into 4th in the GC, but there was no power left in the final stage, and thus Coquard dropped to 8th in the GC, and a slightly dissapointing result. Farantakis stayed up there for the majority of the stages and supplemented the GC in 20th and thus leaving us with a respectable outcome - but below the expected 200-250 points.
Actual Points: 139pts
East Midlands Cicle Classic:
Well. A cobbled race. We had some depth, but no good result. Points slightly below expectations
Actual Points: 38pts
Overall Expectations:
We came into the month expecting somewhere in the regin of 500-730 point, so bagging home 618 is almost exactly in the middle. After Deutschland we had every chance to get towards the 730 points though, so it was slighly dissapointing. Still, an outcome in the expected zone can never be really dissapointing.
Bryan Coquard have finished his Festina time, and he did it well by landing 1123 points, more than 10% higher than the expected value and thus closing the gap created by Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier who was 99 points below expectations.
3 of the remaining 5 races will take place in September. Let's have a look.
Balkans International:
When looking at the race profile it seems intruiging for riders like Koretzky and van Niekerk, but I do expect the race to be too difficult for them to flourish in the GC. We still hope that the race offers enough daily opportunities for the duo to strike some points. Whether we'll get close to the expected level is really difficult to say.
Expected Points: 100-150pts
Tour of Northern Europe:
Tour of Northern Europe really isn't for us. Just like in Balkan we can hope for some jumps here and there for a decent couple of stage results, but we can't really fully expect it. The GC is fully out of our hands. All we can hope for is for our cobblers to be strong and aggressive and maybe join the top 50. Clement Koretzky should have a shot at a decent result, while Vlatos is likely among the top 3 timetriallists. So if all goes well, we should have a couple of chances.
Expected Points: 80-130pts
Rheden GP:
Rheden is even worse than the above races, and thus we expect nothing.
Expected Points: 20-50
Overall Expectations:
We are very likely going to see the worse month in the calendar from Festina - OAKA. But low expectations can sometimes come with positive surprises. Let's see what happens.
A forgettable month, by the looks of it. But what happened?
Balkans International:
We came with an expectations to play second violin, meaning that we had no ambitions to target the GC fight. The race was simply too hard, but we did expect to feature some breakaways and get a decent couple of stage results and maybe a KOM battle. We didn't get much, but a bit. Not as much as we had hoped, not expected though.
Getting 44 points from the race we had the highest expectations to (100-150pts) could see the forgettable month becoming futile.
Actual Points: 44pts
Tour of Northern Europe:
Just like in Balkan, the Northern Europe Tour isn't for us. Not before a fully developped Stavrakakis can target an outside top 10 shot atleast. But that is not us just yet. Instead we had to see if we could somehow join the breaks and get a stagewin.
We didn't - but Koretzky was aggressive in the early parts and took home a 3rd place, while also positioning himself high in the KOM rankings. He couldn't make the win, but 3rd in the KOM did amount to more than the minimum amounf of expected points. But only just.
Actual Points: 88pts
Rheden GP:
So the final race of the month was all about getting it over with. Rheden GP, a race to forget at PTHC level with an outside shot of something like 20-50 points. Fortunately our riders were aggressive and somewhat entertaining - so we did have that going for us. It was Kortsidakis who made the first jump with 19km to go when he closed the gap to Polnicky. It didn't quite work, but numerous splits occured and maybe a couple of riders in top 25 would suddenly be possible.
But as Karatzios attacked with 13km to go it all began looking quite interesting. He didn't make it, but he stayed up front, and joined Teunissen, Spengler and Vanbilsen in what looked like a very long and exhausting leadout. Still, being at the front of the race this far in was something new.
So when we actually saw this image on the screen we couldn't quite believe what happened. The muscle-man used his entire force to keep the speed so high that the sprinters couldn't close the gap - and thus winning a cobbled one-day race! As a greek rider! A huge and remarkable achievement at the level of Tzortzakis' win in Lisbon or taking 3 stagewins in the Giro d'Italia. An honorable mention though to Kastrantas claiming a Tour de France stagewin in 2019.
Actual Points: 174pts
Overall Results:
Going into the month with an expected level between 200-330 points the win in Rheden shined upon us all, and saw us land in the higher spectrum. A bit stronger in either TONE or Balkans and we would have destroyed our monthly ambition.
Lecuisinier
De la Cruz
van Niekerk
Vlatos
Agrotis
Kopfauf
Jang
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
I will hope for the best!!
GP Moscow:
SAA Tour d'Afrique:
East Midlands Cicle Classic:
Balkans International:
Tour of Northern Europe:
Rheden GP:
