kandesbunzler26 wrote:

I'm pretty sure that's not a proper representation of the events

Heine wrote:



Thats how Laporte told us

Name	FL	MO	MM	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR	OVR	Age	Wage
Kallberg	67	57	59	61	68	69	68	67	63	70	69	62	64	70	67.77	23
	↓			↓	↓	↓	↓	↓		↓	↓		↓	↓
Track-Sprint	74	57	59	62	69	73	73	78	63	77	76	62	65	77

Name	FL	MO	MM	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR	OVR	Age	Wage
Rolland	63	69	69	68	60	67	66	66	62	58	66	66	71	57	68.03	23
	↓	↓	↓	↓		↓	↓	↓		↓	↓	↓	↓
Cli/Cli/Hil/Cli	64	76	76	71	60	74	70	70	62	60	71	70	75	57

Name	FL	MO	MM	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR	OVR	Age	Wage
Zabel	73	59	64	68	54	73	69	77	64	80	78	65	51	54	75.99	33	170000

Name	FL	MO	MM	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR	OVR	Age	Wage
Price-Pejtersen	72	61	62	62	76	69	76	67	60	62	65	65	64	75	72.42	27	50000

Name	FL	MO	MM	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR	OVR	Age	Wage
Donovan	72	76	74	71	65	74	77	69	62	63	71	72	74	67	73.85	27	50000

We start the presentation with the team captains with 5 riders sharing that title

First and foremost is our climber and GC captain Suranga Ranaweera, one of the best GC riders of the division and joining the team after a great year in a team which name will not be mentioned. He will lead the team over the mountains and is also our best time-trialist. We have to admit we went into the season not planning to have a major GC leader so getting Suranga was a very pleasent surprise

Aurelien Paret-Peintre is another rider signed from the team who will not be mentioned. He is our main French Captain this year and our best puncheur. However he will not ride a lof of hilly classics but will focus on shorter stage races on hilly parcourses. He comes from several great seasons and we hope he can continue! APP was our main transfer target going into transfers and we are really happy to have him on board!

Going into transfers we didn't really plan to sign a cobble leader (like with GC leader) but with Rutsch falling into our lap we couldn't avoid picking him up. He had some mayor development last season and we have also noticed he does look a tiny bit better over the hills this season (minor hill training). Jonas will lead the team on the cobbles, and he will also play a role in other races with his strong flat skills!

Another target going into transfers was to get a strong sprinter, and as he is French Bryan Coquard was the main target. We are extremely happy to sign him as our main sprinter. He is a mangame legend, won PCT last year and while he is not getting younger he is still a very strong rider. With a strong train we expect a good season from Coquard!

A late addition as it just proved to be too good a chance was the signing of Rick Zabel. A known entity for the management of the team. He is also getting older but will be used to split the sprint opportunities with Coquard. Together they will make it possible for us to challenge on all flat stages this season and hopefully score many extra points

Studying last season we noticed that a strong train was maybe the most important factor in a succesfull sprinter was the leadout train and support. We therefor decided early to focus on picking up strong leadout and flat riders for the season. Thus picking up Trondsen, Welsford, Venturini, Frame and Antonijevic was very important for us. They will ride together with Coquard and Zabel all season and hopefully make "The Black Train" a feared unit this year. Some of them might get their own chances during the season, but mainly they will ride as slaves. In our internal "Sprint train calculator" Trondsen and Welsford was among the top scorers with their flat and sprint combo and we are a looking forward to seeing them this season

A good team needs good domestiques and we are quite happy with ours. Outside of the forementioned sprint train we are strongest in the climbing department hwere Wirtgen, Donovan and Kirsch all are good helpers. Wirtgen is also our best helper on the more hilly stages and will be an important asset for Paret-Peintre this year, and migth even get to lead in some C2 races? Price-Pejtersen is our only TT helper and will offer some support in TTTs while Laporte on a "free loan" in his most likely last proffesional season will work as our main cobble support rider. Consdering we are a newly promoted team we are quite happy about the domestiques we have managed to pick up.

Paul Magnier is the big name among our talents and the best paid rider on the team. He is not paid for what he is going to do this season, but what he is going to do in the future. There are many managers who might disagree with the plans we got for him, considering that letting him develop like a pure sprinter would also make him a great rider, but we see the value in making him the best puncheur-sprinter in the world, and then continue training him as a sprinter later!

Wallenborn and Kockelmann are nice talents even though they are not world beaters. Wallenborn will be a strong puncheur while Kockelmann will be a allround / baradeur. We hope they will help us to have a strong Luxembourg identity in the future

Rolland and Paret-Peintre are together with Magnier the French future of the team. Paret-Peintre is not like his brother, he is much more the baradeur type. We are excited to see how he will work out. Rolland is more the climbing type and pretty much takes up the hole in our talent program left by letting Gomez and Tabarez go.

Our last signed talent is Finnish Axel Kallberg. When we noticed noone had picked him up we could not avoid picking up such a strong future sprinter and prologue rider. We expect him to develop into a strong leadout rider who can pick up points by his skills on the shorter time trials

That leaves us with this squad for the 2026 season, 21 riders, 1 of them loaned in, 1 rider left from last season, 6 riders developing, 7 French and 4 Luxembourgian riders this season. We are not entirly sure how this season will end but feel we have managed to build a competitive squad that should be noticed in the PCT this year. We are also very happy that over half the squad are from either France or Luxembourg

Nat.	Name	FL	MO	MM	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR	OVR	Age
	Ranaweera	67	80	77	73	76	75	75	74	52	58	65	57	69	73	77.06	31
	Paret-Peintre	72	76	77	77	72	73	75	73	63	72	74	72	70	72	77.03	30
	Rutsch	77	63	66	68	61	76	75	69	79	69	68	70	69	66	76.22	28
	Coquard	70	56	60	64	62	66	69	79	53	81	78	57	62	76	75.75	34
	Zabel	73	59	64	68	54	73	69	77	64	80	78	65	51	54	75.99	33
	Welsford	75	59	62	64	64	70	70	76	66	77	77	64	65	66	74.54	30
	Trondsen	75	65	69	72	64	72	73	83	66	76	76	66	67	65	74.65	32
	Wirtgen	70	75	75	75	64	73	72	74	58	66	68	70	69	64	74.49	28
	Kirsch	69	75	74	73	70	71	69	73	66	67	66	61	61	70	73.50	33
	Donovan	72	76	74	71	65	74	77	69	62	63	71	72	74	67	73.85	27
	Venturini	74	62	65	67	64	72	72	77	71	74	75	62	72	68	73.04	33
	Price-Pejtersen	72	61	62	62	76	69	76	67	60	62	65	65	64	75	72.42	27
	Antonijevic	78	61	64	66	68	67	74	65	68	71	74	80	72	68	72.25	32
	Frame	70	50	55	61	68	67	72	70	61	76	74	51	67	78	72.11	33
	Laporte	70	59	65	70	59	67	69	69	72	69	68	64	61	62	71.14	34
	Magnier	67	58	63	68	64	65	65	62	66	71	72	67	66	68	69.20	22
	Wallenborn	68	66	69	72	57	72	73	70	56	60	69	69	71	57	70.80	23
	Paret-Peintre	72	67	68	66	63	69	70	70	63	66	71	72	72	58	69.39	25
	Kockelmann	69	67	67	67	69	70	69	66	62	66	71	67	69	69	69.39	22
	Rolland	63	69	69	68	60	67	66	66	62	58	66	66	71	57	68.03	23
	Kallberg	67	57	59	61	68	69	68	67	63	70	69	62	64	70	67.77	23

1a) Sign Aurelien Paret-Peintre
1b Sign Paul Magnier from FA

We managed both our main goals and main targets of the transfer season, which was to pick up APP as a leader and Magnier as our future talent. We felt both were the right moves for our team identity. Magnier ended up being more expensive than we planned, but we refused to give up while APP came cheaper than we feared. In general we managed our main goals

2) Sign Valentin Madouas from FA

We really wanted to create a 1-2 with APP and Madouas and that failed. Madouas became expensive too quickly and we had to keep the money in the "Magnier fund" as we called it. I am not looking forward to racing against Madouas this year

3) Sign Bryan Coquard

We identified Coquard as one of our main targets (but after APP, Magnier and Madouas) and are very happy to have secured him

4) Build a squad with a majority of French and Luxembourgian riders

We did it, even though it was close. 11 of 21 are either from France or Luxembourg with all talents but 1 from our focus nations



Free agents signed:
Rutsch
Coquard
Trondsen
Wirtgen
Kirsch
Venturini
Antonijevic
Frame
Paret-Peintre V
Kockelmann
Magnier
Rolland
Kallberg

Traded for:
Ranaweera
Paret-Peintre A
Zabel
Welsford
Donovan
Price-Pejtersen

Loaned in:
Laporte

Kept:
Wallenborn

Sold:
Galta
Thomas
Kopfauf
Gomez
Tabarez

In the squad for a short time:
Bettiol
Lazkano
Setiawa



All in all we are happy with the transfer season, we entered the transfer season with 6 riders under contract, about 2 millions in wage cap and. We managed to secure our leadership quite early (except for Zabel) which was very nice for us.

We had many talks during transfers and at times were close to signing several other riders than those we ended up with. Had we been a bit more risk willing we would've fought for Lapeira but didn't dare to offer more money than we had at the time. Could most likely have expected to get hold of more money and been thougher there. In the end we actually ended up with a tiny bit of money in reserve that could maybe have been used here.

We pounced on the possibilities that presented themself, panicked at times and did our best. In the end put this as a good transfer window, now we just have to hope that planning wont ruin the season