The top of the October rankings tells one of, if not the story of this final part of the season. With a strong final stretch, both Voyagin - Bird and Philips - Force India manage to escape the relegation zone, an especially impressive feat for the Japanese team who entered the month in third-to-last place.
The two top teams are followed by a bunch of Top 10 teams - and the Minions. The fact that, despite such a strong month, they weren't able to move a single spot shows how large the gap between the lower and the top half of the rankings was.
While Voyagin and Philips excelled and Indosat rode an impressive Bayern performance - the highest single race points score of the month - to safety, other relegation contenders were not quite so hot. Carrefour - ESPN and Sauber Petronas Racing were firmly in midfield, while Jura - Fiat had a month to forget. How does that impact the final rankings?
Maroc
Japan
Vilnius
Bayern
Emelia
Total
1
Voyagin - Bird
0
102
0
115
140
357
2
Philips - Force India
160
20
0
0
98
278
3
Team UBS
79
0
25
91
82
277
4
Cedevita
112
78
0
0
46
236
5
Minions
0
127
15
46
31
219
6
Duolingo
76
0
65
37
38
216
7
Polar
54
4
45
90
12
205
8
Kraftwerk Man Machine
192
0
0
0
5
197
9
Indosat Ooredoo
0
21
0
163
5
189
10
Red Bull Zalgiris
0
0
50
118
15
183
11
Aker - MOT
30
0
35
92
15
172
12
Carrefour - ESPN
150
0
0
0
11
161
13
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
146
10
0
0
0
156
14
Assa Abloy
128
0
0
0
5
133
15
cycleYorkshire
0
32
100
0
0
132
16
Sauber Petronas Racing
0
0
0
9
76
85
17
Tryg - Ritter Sport
0
0
0
7
70
77
18
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
0
0
0
0
75
75
19
Los Pollos Hermanos
0
0
10
51
5
66
20
Project: Africa
0
0
30
0
26
56
21
Jura - Fiat
28
0
20
0
5
53
22
Bralirwa - Stevens
30
0
10
5
0
45
23
Binance Cycling
0
0
0
0
45
45
24
Eurosport x GCN
0
12
0
0
0
12
25
Podium Ambition
0
2
0
6
0
8
26
Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff
0
0
0
0
7
7
Final 2021 PCT Rankings
Hello everyone who presumably skipped the part above to get to the important stuff. Obviously, the relegation race is where most of the attention was focused over the past few days, but I still want to take the time to congratulate our five direct promotion teams.
Aker - MOT had an incredible season. They first hit number one in July and never looked back, ultimately winning the division by more than 400 points. cycleYorkshire in 5th place joins them as the second 2020 PT team that immediately moves back to the top division. Polar and Duolingo take 2nd and 3rd after just all around strong seasons, and then of course I need to point out the audacity of Los Pollos Hermanos' achievement of back-to-back promotions. What a season!
It is also potentially noteworthy that Team UBS, thanks to a strong final month, moved past Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff into 6th place. From a neutral perspective, we obviously hope that this is not a promotion place, but there's always a chance. Kraftwerk Man Machine is the other big winner in the top half, pushing Binance Cycling out of the Top 10.
But now, to the part many of you have been waiting for. Looking towards the bottom of the table, we see the most impressive jump made by Voyagin - Bird, who climb up no less than six places, and to safety. Ultimately, they as well as Philips - Force India and Indosat Ooredoo bring over 100 points between them and the relegation places.
Behind them, three teams are within just 27 points, but only one of them can stay up. And thanks to a strong Tejay Van Garderen performance on the final day of the season, that team is Sauber Petronas Racing! That means that unfortunately, after promoting last year, it's back to CT again for Carrefour - ESPN, whose strong last couple of months simply came too late, and Jura - Fiat, who on the contrary did not manage to stop the late season slip down the rankings.
Podium Ambition, who will continue their project in CT, as well as Tryg - Ritter Sport, the third of last year's crop of promotees in the bottom 5, will join them, while Eurosport x GCN's remarkable MG journey comes to an end today.
The last few weeks of the season saw plenty of shakeups in the team rankings, but there have also been some significant changes in the individual ranking. Most importantly, after a long time on the top, Aleksandr Pluchkin had to relinquish the number one spot to Eduard Alexander Beltran, who will be crowned the individual champion of the 2021 PCT season! Congratulations!
Matti Manninen does even better than his stellar last season, climbing one place to finish third ahead of Michal Kwiatkowski and teammate Marlen Zmorka - the two pillars of Los Pollos Hermanos' fabulous season.
In accordance with the team rankings, the biggest riser of this final month is Tomohiro Kinoshita, who moves up to 8th place and ends the season as the fourth best puncheur behind Beltran, Kwiatkowski and Simone Ponzi. And Joeri Stallaert, eventhough he ultimately falls out of the Top 10, ends up as this year's best cobblestone rider.
It also seems noteworthy that only 38 of the 576 PCT riders did not score a single point, many of whom are stagiares. 9 teams even had point contributions from every single one of their riders. After all, despite the flashy names at the top, it takes everyone to propel a team up the rankings.
It was indeed a very good season for us. We were solid from the very start, and when we caught up on race days, we took to the top of the rankings and never looked back. Super happy with that, it was great to kind of go into almost any kind of race with hopes of a result.
Kwiatkowski obviously was a key rider for us, scoring more than 1000 points. He was consistent, and eventhough Beltran was difficult to beat on several occasions, his consitency gave him a great season overall.
Anderberg and Laengen though, are our two real standout riders for this season, I feel, considering their stats and pre-season "value". Counting Anderberg as a cobbler, his scoring has been amazing compared to other cobblers in the division. Stallaert is the only other cobbler who has scored better than him, which says it all about his season. Intrigued to see if he can keep momentum and be a good scorer in the PT as well. At least this season he has combined his cobbles stat and TT stat very, very well, obviously helped by solid backup stats. Laengen has also been phenomenal, being super consistent in stage races containing a TT, where he has overperformed on almost every occasion.
Of our big wages riders, Galta has been the underperformer, eventhough that might be a strong word. Though, I definitely expected more than 281 points from him. Fingers crossed he's better suited to the PT, where he can hopefully get the green light for aggressive racing and breakaway appearances in GTs, similar to what he has done in the past.
Very sorry especially for Fabianski for relegating on the final day, but it was always going to be a nightmare for one of the active managers. Congratulations and well done to sammy for staying up, with TVG finding a big performance to secure safety. Sorry to see lifewarrior and his Danish/Scandinavian relegate, but hopefully he can figure out a strong rebuild and come back stronger than ever. Wellens and Skujins were a gamble, but were it was greatly rewarded for Los Pollos with Manninen and Zmorka, it wasn't meant to be for Tryg.
Congratulations to the other promoting teams! Will be fun to take the step up to the PT together with you, and surely mix it with you in the FA market when transfer season comes
Thank you for the amazing rankings work and the write up Cunego!
For Carlsberg, it was a tale of two seasons. At the end of June, we were flying high. 4th in both actual rankings and PpRD. And that didn't even include a Giro top 5 and multiple stage wins there. Everything was clicking, and it really felt like a back to back promotion was a realistic possibility. AKA had emerged, Trentin was winning, and Guldhammer was scoring big in almost every race he was in, not to mention 5th at the Giro.
And then, it fell apart. The summer/fall saw us completely tank. Just a horrendous collapse that happened very quickly. Trentin had some head scratchers, like in Benelux. Guldhammer suddenly went from GOAT to disappearing in almost every race towards the end, with Maroc being the worst case. And our lack of depth scoring, which was a problem all year, caught up to us, culminating in Warbasse's atrocious effort in the Tour of America. Only AKA stayed valuable all year.
Looking at the individuals tells the story:
AKA became a god. From 12th in CT to 14th in PCT. I couldn't have asked for more. Tons of wins all year, including in GT's. Great placings too throughout. I had a feeling he could be better in PCT as a second tier guy, but I didn't imagine he'd end up as the 4th best pure sprinter in the division. It was a dream to watch, and I hope we get a few more years of it.
Guldhammer still finished well in 15th I suppose. 3rd best pure climber, 5th if you include the better hybrids. That's great! He had such an amazing first half that he never really fell off standings wise. His Giro performance will never be forgotten, and having him on my team has been a dream for a decade. We got him, he got some wins, he got a GT top 5 in our colors. It was unreal. His last few races just soured it. His inexplicable bonk in our Maroc goal is still on the mind. Maybe once I have some perspective and time has passed I'll be more positive.
Trentin was okay. Cobblers always score less, and while I would have preferred he scored more, he scored better than most of his competitors. Again, it was just poorly timed stupidity though. Winning one day, then failing an easy goal race in epic fashion the next. Sinkeldam helped at times and scored pretty decently, though I do think my lack of cobbles depth probably hurt both of them at times.
Then things get really bad. The drop off is dramatic. Alex Aranburu was terrible. I was really hyped for him and his resistance, with how well hybrids did in PCM 18. He flopped. 167th, barely over 100 points. To be fair, he wasn't planned especially well to fit his needs. There are so many mandatory hilly races on the calendar, and he was the only guy to send even with no chance of success. But he failed elsewhere too. He was a total no show in the hybrid races, save Balkans, and he was atrocious in almost every race he was supposed to be a mountain superdomestique. Not sure what to do with him now.
Nobody was as bad as Warbasse though. Wow. I mean, he was a PCM 18 darling, and a PCM 20 demon. 204th with 79 (!!!) points ALL YEAR. Unlike Aranburu, he had leadership and support in races that suited him. Basically any GC type race that Guldhammer wasn't at, he had free reign, including a GT. He was abysmal. Not sure how to explain it. Just a completely different rider than the last two years. In some cases it was the crowded fields, in others it must have just been -5's. But you can't succeed if a guy like that is a no show. The fact that Eg outscored him significantly is a very bad thing, as much as I love Eg.
When you add in the fact that we were never especially built for depth scoring, and you account for my terrible planning (like every year), we ended up about where one would expect I guess. It just feels like such a waste of a great offseason.
12th place isn't bad. It's my best ever finish. In my 8th MG seasons, I finally made it to the top half of the PCT table. Going into transfers, that would have been my goal - just forming a stable mid table team. That's why my rankings goal was for the top 15. But then things went really well during transfers. I got multiple high value leaders coming off a 5/5 goals season, and suddenly we were being predicted in the promotion hunt.
Somewhere along the way, I realized that I had screwed up by going all in on two 32 year olds. I desperately wanted the true leaders I lack during my earlier PCT stint, and they seemed like such great fits. But you can't form a stable mid table team when your leaders will be declining. So it quickly became promotion or bust, and through June, we were there. But ultimately, our team just wasn't good enough. We were beaten badly.
And so that 12th place, which should be sweet, feels bitter, only because I know it means we'll likely be back in the relegation conversation again next year. We have declining leadership and just completed 1/5 goals. Our upward trajectory has been reversed in a matter of months. It hurts, and I honestly have no idea how to fix it.
Huge congrats to Aker on proving that they belong back in PT. Cool to see some other MG veterans jumping up too, along with Nemolito. What a fantastic run! Getting to PT in 2 seasons is a very rare feat, so massive congratulations! I certainly didn't expect it, but Manninen and Zmorka just clicked.
On the other end, very tough to see those teams going down, especially with it so close. So many active managers down there, so there would always be a tough result. Carrefour came into the game with Carlsberg in 2014 and, like us, has struggled to enter the top half of the game. Last year with our CT title battle, it felt like we were both turning the tide. It hurts to see them go back down again. Same of Jura, Podium Ambition, and Tyrg, all of whom were the victims of bad luck and bad AI throughout this year. At the end of the day, PCT was just so even on paper this year that it's hard to say anyone deserved to relegate. But that's the game I guess.
Thank you to everyone who made this season possible, especially the crew of frequent reporters that kept this game afloat!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Deeply satisfying 1800 round number of points scored. To not be last is positive given the sherr number of youngsters we had to field this season, and to only be 230 points off survival shows we were arguably only single Top100 rider away.
The negative, those 230 points really could have been got by the leaders we had.
Ewan misses the Top30. This season has been awful for him. Just one Win, only 4 more Podiums. If he performed close to his Wage, we'd be almost safe just on him alone. With the hopefullly continuing to be updated wage formula it'll be interesting to see where his demands are.
AC just misses the Top50. He's also come off much worse than last season, same number of wins as Ewan though as AI randomness did not fall in our favour repeatedly. Hoped for a few more points but overall he was about right. Renewals will be interesting again if we can keep him as a strong CT option.
Altur somewhow holds his Top100 ranking, but is so so so far below where he should be. An embarassment of a season with only 3 stage podiums, and zero Classics Top5's. Just awful. The worst training spend in MG history.
If he scores around Daniel or Blythe (still below expectation but far closer to his Stats & Wage) with Ewan being closer to Howard or AKA and we're safe. How?!
A solid season for Aberasturi, didn't expect much and he popped in a few Top5's.
Alexandre Meyer is probably our rider of the year! An excellent 115 points to take out 5th best scorer position, almost equalling Aberasturi's total.
Behind them not much to say as the odd points from breaks, jerseys and the like mean the rest are relatively close and about on par.
Very happy with the Mauritian and Caribbean neo-pros. Nathan Alexander was phenomenal in Avenir. Cristian Perez, Chris Lagane and Hennis with Top5 stage finishes.
Jonathan Croes with a stage Podium and Top5.
Josh Gayral twice a stage Podium, he deserved a win this year!
Alex Meyer only a stage Top5 but did claim the teams only Jersey of the year at the TDU.
And of course the pre-season double of Caribbean Championships. And now to take home a range of colorful NC's.
Honestly a positive year. Next season we'll be down to solely riders from our key sponsor nations and region. To come within 200 points of safety given that kind of rebuild is still a good year.
____
Congrats to Beltran on claiming the Indi crown ahead of Pluchkin! Aker with a very deserved Division title. Cracking PCT season y'all.
Huge drop by Jura - Fiat in the end. That hurt to watch, aswell as a couple of other relegations.
Big congratulations to the promoted teams - and to those punching above their weight! Impressive to see Beltran making a huge comeback after a dreadful last season.
I had a great season! A brilliant season!! 8th place is fantastic
I just didn't know what to expect before the season. With the underwhelming performances of a year prior and seemingly not having a good transfer period, I was very sceptical. I thought I would be hanging around the bottom versus fighting near the top. But a lot of things seemingly went my way.
First of all I need to talk about the Swisslion and now Cedevita legend Eduard Alexander Beltran
I have to say I wasn't confident at all that Beltran can have a season like this. The hilly competition got a lot harder and it didn't seem to make much sense that he'd improve that much. But I did double down on committing my near future to him by signing a bevy of domestiques to help him out. Gaudu, Zordan, Le Gac, Vysna, Blikra all were brought in to help Beltran and it seemed to do the trick. Gaudu was especially good for him. I also changed up his schedule a bit and that paid off
To win the individual ranking is just an incredible achievement that adds to his palmares and legendary status
And I get to enjoy having him at his best for one more year, unless someone wants to test my resolve with a huge money offer
Apart from Beltran the real key to our great season was depth scoring that I hoped for, but was even better than I thought it would be. Gaudu scored over 200 pts even though he was shadowing Beltran most of the time. Pogacar scored 185, when I thought 100 was about the best he could do. Gilanipoor again scored a 100+ even though he spent time following Alarcon. Zordan took his chance to score and added another 100 pts, Penko had a bonkers day in Norway to score big points for him. Rajovic took his chance being U25 eligible as a sprinter and a bunch of other riders added points here or there.
We have gotten scoring from 25/26 riders, with only one of the stags not managing to score. Also over 100 pts came from just the U25 classification with riders like Pogacar, Gaudu, Ardila and even the loanees added their points.
If I have to look where I didn't do well it's with Alarcon and Saber. Alarcon was still pretty good, but I could've gotten more out of him with smarter planning. And of course I for sure should've gotten more from Saber. Maybe if both of those were better used then promotion would be realistic. But that's why there are teams above me with better managers who thoroughly deserve to be there
Congrats to the top 5 teams that automatically promote and to anyone that might do so via disbands. I'm especially happy for Los Pollos achieving back-to-back promotions and for Philips to avoid relegation. Great job guys!
Lastly, thank you to Cunego for these ranking updates lately. These updates are something I think a lot of managers look forward to a lot and to have them a bit more frequently and as well written is certainly a big boost to MG.
So thanks a lot
Gutted for Fabianski - it just shows how thin the line between safety and relegation is. Even if you're places above the live - no one is safe. Hopefully the relegated bounce back (unlike me who is just spinning a directionless wheel).
PluBear defeated in the individual rankings? This can't be
Seventeenth, our second-worst placement in our five seasons in PCT. After barely escaping relegation in our first season we were always right in the middle (12th/13th) but this year we've dropped a bit. Given how the season went I'm okay with that.
I cannot fathom how Boasson Hagen ends up our best scoring rider after literally not showing up for the first half of the season. Vesely was very inconsistent this season which is always the case with sprinters and Uran, despite his second decline, still scored reasonably well. Zepuntke, despite his million banana training, is still outscored by Kalaba, but I felt his performances where stronger while not always getting a better result.
Rider of the season in my opinion is definitely Alvaro freaking Hodeg. Leadout for Vesely to mixed results, but the few opportunities he had he took. Races with only one or two flat stages and he'd be there, at the front, even winning. Growing up from level 1 to to now being here makes me shred a tear.
Congratulations to ember for the division title! Also, congratulations to everyone who has (or will, including disband promotions) get to ride on a higher level this year. Commiserations to the relegating managers and may they return to this level quickly.
Finally, thanks to cunego for providing the final rankings. Many thanks to all the behin-the-scenes organizers and reporters, apologies I could not help out in that regard this season.
I'm obviously very happy with this result, something I could not have expected at all before the season. A superb start from Manninen in the 'hilly' Tour Down Under delivered us big points at the start of the season, but even though Spilak was scoring decently (nothing big but almost always in that top-10 in C1, HC and PTHC), we started to take a big dive because of Manninen not showing up at all in the three C1 and HC sprinting stage races.
Second half of the season was definitely different. The Finnish sprinting bomb clearly liked classics more than stage races and gave us a lot of points again, whereas he also scored big in a time trial stage race in PTHC. In the end a third in the individual rankings for him, outscoring his crazy amount of points last year, is superb. Spilak in 31st is not spectacular but definitely solid as well.
And then there is our beloved time trialist, Zmorka. He actually finished second/third quite a lot as well, but managed to score big in the most important races (PTHC and HC) to make it a great 936 points and a fifth place individually. Only 31 points less than last year at Repsol - Netflix with a clearly weaker time trial team, nice. Wanted to get him at all costs at the start of the season because he would always score big with his dominance on his terrain and is still young, and the tactics really turned out well. Glad for that.
I'll go into a bit more detail on the other riders in my HQ for those interested For now I'd like to congratulate champion ember and the other promoting managers, and give my conmiserations to the relegating managers. Hope to see you all back soon in PCT next year, where LPH will very probably be as well.
Massive thanks to cunego as well for regularly updating the rankings recently.
Firstly, thanks to everyone who contributed for another successful season. This was one of the fastest and more well-organized ever. So a massive thank you to every reporter, previewer and game Admin!
Secondly, congrats to ember. This just goes to show your relegation last year was a fluke. Your team never had anything to do with PCT. Congrats to the rest of the promoted managers, especially, as everyone is pointing out, to Nemo. It's especially rewarding seeing such a heavy contributer enjoying such a successful season.
Thirdly, in the same line, it feels especially hard to witness Jura going down. Some other sympathetic managers taking the hammer blow as well. Good luck in CT. Hopefully it'll be a short stint.
And that's it. Thanks as well to every participating manager for making this such a lovely hobby and absolutely, totally and most definitely not a waste of time I should be spending on rl chores. God bless the lot of you!
Congrats on the division win ember! Was good fun seeing Aker at the top dominating all year. Also cool to see Beltran fell Pluchkin in the individual standings, congrats too redordead.
I can’t actually believe that we’ve managed to survive. I thought going into the season with our lack of depth we had no chance. Jensen and Howard kept us going through the year, but Warchol and Dunbar kept disappointing. They both managed to pull it together in the last few months and along with Page are the reason for survival. Dunbar’s podium in Britain, Warchols in ToA and the miracle on 34th street performance of Dunbar in Germany to keep us up, I didn’t think results like these would have been possible for us earlier in the season. I was pretty resigned to relegating and have actually spent a little bit of time the last couple months doing up little plans for next season in CT, I’m still a bit surprised. Can’t believe we’re staying put.
A lot of work is going to be needed to be done to make sure this team isn’t in the relegation scrap again next season, I don’t think my heart could handle a situation like this again. We were in this situation due to Dunbar’s wage from the FA and the huge gamble we took on him. So, our season will rely on whether we can lower his wage substantially without making him hate us because then this would have been all for nothing.
It sucks to see Jura going down. They looked nailed-on for relegation due to their bad luck before their mid season reprieve. It looked like they had managed to do enough. Sucks to see Maxime going down as well, hopefully Carrefour can bounce straight back. Commiserations to PA and Tryg as well. On the flip side, awesome to see Sauber stay up. Voyagin also managing to salvage their season after their terrible start, also because it looks like it’ll keep the team in the mg too.
Thanks to the mg team for keeping everything running. To the 5-odd reporters that take up 90% or so of the reporting responsibilities, thank you. Thanks for all of the rankings updates as well Cunego, you’re a legend!
Edited by Eden95 on 13-06-2022 10:45
Eden95 wrote:
Thanks to the mg team for keeping everything running. To the 5-odd reporters that take up 90% or so of the reporting responsibilities, thank you. Thanks for all of the rankings updates as well Cunego, you’re a legend!
This!
Loving the promotion spots, congrats to ember especially and all others. Manninnen the man of the season, what an insane year for the lovely chicken. Would've loved to see Cedevita and Bralirwa promote, but I like the promoting teams as well. Surprised to see Assa Abloy this far down, I thought they'd promote as well as Carlsberg.
Glad that the 4 teams escaped relegation, especially relieved that Philips kept safe. It's tough to see Jura - Fiat and Carrefour relegate though Hope they can get up as quickly as possible as well as the other relegated sides.
Really, really disappointing. After a season start where the team was close to non-existing, they did exactly the same in the final races. They basically stopped riding during Balkans, where they threw two Top20 GC spots out of the window. 4 points combined in M-T and Lugano was far less than the worst-case scenario I could have imagined. Morocco was just ridiculously bad, and while Moscon's 21st place in Emlia is in the expected range (towards the bottom of it, though), he's already done so much better this year.
I honestly don't understand why everything went wrong lately, but it definitely did. And I don't get why certain riders constantly do nothing on my team, while similar riders on other teams contribute considerable amounts of points. I don't get why Reinhardt worked like a charm in C1/HC races last year and didn't do much this year. Well, shit happens I guess - and PCM20 happened to be way less friendly to us/our sprinters than the previously used version.
So, let's see how we prepare for CT. Being able to keep Nairo would be massive - but it's more probable that we won't renew him or sell him later on. Moscon, Masnada and Mäder should be fine CT riders, although training one of the Italians wouldn't hurt to be less often ignored in C1 races. And one thing I definitely won't do again is spending 260k on a 79 sprinter - at least not with this game version.
What sucks as well is that the future level 4 riders now definitely have to be loaned out - although I already know someone who'd happily take Bissegger or Brunel...
Finally, congrats to those who promote. Aker finally with a dominant win (as it was expected by many); Polar and Duolingo are also promoting teams I expected to be up there. To me, LPH is a big surprise - although not that big, given the names they signed. Fortunately for them, all of them worked out really well - honestly, I didn't dare spending even more on a sprinter, but MM was worth every cent I guess. Congrats on back-to-back promotions, and congrats also to cycleYorkshire for going straight up again. And finally, that Emilia performance should've been enough for UBS, due to the sad Festina disband.
At the bottom, congrats to those who finally made it. Philips and Voyagin definitely belong to this division, but both had rather bad luck with fluky riders - which they all turned around lately. Indosat's Warchol also did a really bad job for most of the season, only to somewhat salvage it in ToA.
And honestly, I'm happy that Sauber stays up - even though they wouldn't have needed to do so at our expense But what Ranaweera did in ToA was just ridiculous; with a somewhat normal performance they'd have been safe already a month ago.
Commiserations to Carrefour who almost did it but just missed out, just like ourselves. And what a disappointment for Tryg! While Wellens definitely did a solid job, Skujins was underwhelming. Along with the lack of depth I recognized when seeing their roster, that just wasn't enough - but by a much bigger margin than anticipated.
For Eurosport, a lot went wrong, too. Carapaz wasn't as solid as he could've been, and especially Blythe was often disappointing - especially when comparing him to stellar Stallaert. And their puncheurs were surely disadvantaged by the PCM18/20 engine; I guess they worked much better when Mo wasn't that much of a factor...
Finally, PA prophetised their relegation pre-season already, and they fulfilled it. They still had some surprisingly great results, despite having probably the most underperforming sprinter in their team. The future doesn't look that bad, tbh!
And finally, one more question that just arose: Given that we have 5 promoting and 5 relegating teams, but only 5 promoting from CT and 3 relegating from PT, how will PCT look like next season? Only 24 teams? 2 additional promoting CT teams?
It just came to my mind as well that with 3 already known disbands (thereof Eurosport, who relegated anyway), in order to have PT and PCT with 22 and 26 teams, we'd need to have 9 promoting CT teams - which would leave us with 5 current CT teams plus 4 relegating PCT teams. There definitely would need to be quite some new sign-ups and certainly no additional disbands to still work with 3 divisions I guess...
(And no, I don't mention this to somehow avoid relegation - I'm absolutely fine with that verdict)
And finally, finally, finally, huge thanks to all administrators and reporters who make that game happy! Although it was a really frustrating start and end to the season, it's still a great game - and the most interesting part is the offseason anyway Edited by Fabianski on 13-06-2022 19:40
And finally, one more question that just arose: Given that we have 5 promoting and 5 relegating teams, but only 5 promoting from CT and 3 relegating from PT, how will PCT look like next season? Only 24 teams? 2 additional promoting CT teams?
It just came to my mind as well that with 3 already known disbands (thereof Eurosport, who relegated anyway), in order to have PT and PCT with 22 and 26 teams, we'd need to have 9 promoting CT teams - which would leave us with 5 current CT teams plus 4 relegating PCT teams. There definitely would need to be quite some new sign-ups and certainly no additional disbands to still work with 3 divisions I guess...
(And no, I don't mention this to somehow avoid relegation - I'm absolutely fine with that verdict)
I unfortunately was very busy lately but this is something that surely will be calculated once I get a better picture of disbands etc.
I wanted to add my thanks to the reporters and admins who make this fun game happen.
9th for Kraftwerk was better than I expected. Highlights were Arndt and Nerz our two overall winners and new signing Dulanjana who had a surprisingly great season.
Massive thanks to the reporters and everyone who helped out along the way for another very fun season.
Congratulations to ember and redordead on the wins, as well as the other promoting teams. Happy to see sammy stay up in PCT this year, though as others have said, very bummed for you Fabianski.
For us, I think this year showed that the core of our team is mostly PCT material. A lot of my homegrown talents (Schelling, Spengler, Reichebnbach...) are only competitive at this level, which is a bit disappointing, but overall makes playing in this division more enjoyable compared to when we were PT. It looks like we are on the borderline for promotion so we'll see what happens, if we do go up there will be a lot of roster work to be done.
Had to take some time before posting a response here, this has definitely been my roughest season in the Man Game in terms of activity, morale etc.
Demoting back to the CT on a 25 point difference after demoting on a 5 point difference 2 years ago is absolutely devastating. This season really did not go how I expected, with Maxime Daniel of all people leading us in scoring... (lol @ MVS) while I really feel like our planning was pretty damn solid. The races registered for was definitely not perfect, but I really thought I spread our team out well, but guys like Kuboki, Hayakawa, Boeckmans all just could not hold up their end of the bargain in the smaller sprints and tours unfortunately.
Honestly I'm just very sad, back to the CT again is depressing after so many years in this game. I'm not sure of my next steps as I honestly believe to get back to the PCT and not get insta-relegated it will require a pretty big rebuilding season or two given our team's age.
Thanks to all who are sending nice messages here and throughout our relegation fight, it really means a lot. And congratulations to all the guys who stayed up and promoted this year, despite our relegation the level of competition was so tight thoughout the division which really makes me happy to see.
Well, back to the drawing board. Next season would be our 9th in the Man Game and our 5th in the CT. That's so tough to swallow to be quite frank.
btw - thanks Cunego, the fast updates have been really great and we all really appreciate it!
What a run at the end here. Just a brilliant recovery. Thank you to everyone for running the game this year, and sorry for not being too active. I've just not got the time to comment as much anymore. Based on the last two transfer windows, I dont really think its possible for me to conduct a rebuild how I would want if we had relegated, which was a big factor continuing or not for me. With safety guaranteed I do plan to keep going.
Very tough to see a lot of great managers relegating this season, particularly Jura, who I thought could be buoyed by Quintana, but it wasn't to be. To be honest the division felt closer than ever and on paper not a lot separates the top from the bottom apart from Aker imo.
Thanks so much again to everybody helping to run the game.
After Japan Cup, I thought it was all over really. But Penasa and Kelderman kept perhaps our two best races of the season for last and we somehow survive and with more of a gap than I thought possible!
Thanks to everyone for a great season. All the work done behind the scenes to keep this game running is very much appreciated
A big congrats to Aker on winning the division, and also to all those promoting. A huge shoutout to Hermano Nemo for going back to back. You have made Gus Fring proud
Hard luck to all those relegating and especially Carrefour and Jura to go down on the last day after such a topsy-turvy season, where any four of eight of us could've gone down. Hope you can bounce back soon enough
Finally, thanks for all the points updates throughout the season to everyone who did so. I know everyone looks forward to these with bated breath and so do I
Hope they can get up as quickly as possible as well as the other relegated sides.
