In 2018 we managed to finish in THIRD place in the Pro Continental Division, earning a direct promotion to the Pro Tour Division in our very first season on PCT level, making it back-to-back promotions, one of the hardest feats that a team can achieve in MG

This year we've kept all our principal sponsors, with Repsol being on his third season as naming sponsor, and Netflix on its second. With no sponsor changes, we decided to keep the same jersey that we had in 2018, created by Norwegian designer Hillis91

Honda apart from being a secondary sponsor for the team, will provide the team cars, and also rider's cars

Fuji will be our bike supplier

MegaPlus will provide the team with supplements and nutrition products

Suomi will be the helmet supplier for this season

As every time, renewals are the trickiest moment of the off-season, but specially for a promotion squad, it's even more important. Drop any dead weight, squeeze the available salary cap and try to reach transfers with as much free salary cap as possible.

Overall i would define this phase for the team as a big success, as we managed to keep every single rider that we wanted to keep, and dropped the rest. The most important leave is Jurgen Roelandts. The aging Belgian sprinter gave us an amazing season, but his age is catching up, and is very unlikely he'll be able to do anything significant in PT level. He's still interesting as a leadout rider or as a sprinter for a CT squad, and we don't rule out the chance of giving him a contract again if we need a leadout in case we get an sprinter in transfers.

Next, we have Spanish MG legend Luis Leon Sanchez. Luisle filled the role of Road Captain and brought experience to the youngsters perfectly. But his heavy decline made us not renew him. We'll be looking for another Spanish experienced rider in this transfer season, as we had with Valverde in 2017 and Luisle in 2018

The other two dropouts are Guillaume Levarlet and Sergio Barrio. Both puncheurs didn't meet expectations, specially the Frenchman, that was always going to be a one-year stint on the team, while on Barrio we think he's not worth more than the minimum salary he signed for last season

		Wage 2019	Wage 2018	Difference
Merhawi	Kudus	€ 570.000	€ 860.000	€ 290.000
Sep	Vanmarcke	€ 215.000	€ 185.000	-€ 30.000
Sven Erik	Bystrom	€ 170.000	€ 185.000	€ 15.000
Valens	Ndayisenga	€ 115.000	€ 150.000	€ 35.000
Jakub	Novak	€ 110.000	€ 100.000	-€ 10.000
Antoine	Duchesne	€ 80.000	€ 80.000	€ 0
Eddie	Dunbar	€ 80.000	€ 150.000	€ 70.000
Jacopo	Mosca	€ 75.000	€ 50.000	-€ 25.000
Stefano	Agostini	€ 55.000	€ 55.000	€ 0
Rafael	Serrano	€ 50.000	€ 50.000	€ 0
Jaime	Roson	€ 50.000	€ 50.000	€ 0
Stefano	Pirazzi	€ 50.000	€ 50.000	€ 0
Cristian	Rodriguez	€ 50.000	€ 50.000	€ 0
Fabien	Taillefour	€ 50.000	€ 50.000	€ 0

A couple of small rises for big performers last year like Vanmarcke and Novak, and the less welcomed rise of Mosca, thanks to his growth as a rider and his great performance in his loan at Moser.

Then both Bystrom and Ndayisenga agreed to wage reductions, a significant one in the latter. Also Dunbar halved his wage.

But obvioulsy the biggest accomplishment was the almost 300k we managed to reduce from Kudus' salary despite his amazing PCT season, taking the U25 jersey in every race he took part, and winning both Tour d'Eritrea and Tour of Middle East.

This leaves us with 14 riders and around 1.78M of free cap space entering our first FA as a Pro Tour team. The future looks bright, but we need to make the hard work now

Maybe an Amateur team picks him? And yes, it was really tense with Kudus, though i setteled it in one round, he's still overwaged comparing to similar OVL riders, but he's also only 25 and training eligible, so it's not a terrible salary

One of the team goals for this transfers season is to make the team more Spanish. We need to have more Spanish riders and specially more important ones. We aren't going to restrict us to one country to search for riders, but at least one terrain leader should be from our focus nation. Also this means that both our Spanish young unmaxed talents are off-limits, and will stay with the team 100%, Jaime Roson and Cristian Rodriguez. Rafael Serrano should stay too as the only other Spanish rider in our current roster. Also, Eddie Dunbar won't leave the team, as he will continue to work towards being a complete stage racer in the near future

About our star rider Merhawi Kudus, he's not in sale at this point, but could potentially be in the market if it's needed to make room for new riders. As with every rider, we'll listen to any offers that comes, but whether we consider them or not will depend on how our transfers go

Sep Vanmarcke is kinda in the same situation as Kudus. We think that a cobbler of his quality and his good wage is a great piece for any PT team and should provide a good amount of points that will help us to survive any relegation fears.
Same case for Valens Ndayisenga and Jakub Novak. The first one is still U25 eligible while the second is a great asset as a domestique in various terrains, and might have the odd chance to lead in TT races

Someone that is going to be available from the first minute is Sven Erik Bystrom. The Norwegian puncheur delivered quite a good season in his only season far in our team, but we don't think he's up to the PT challenge, as we have no plans of training him at the moment. With a lot of Scandinavian teams with loads of cap space in all 3 divisions, we think it's better for his future that he goes to a team where he feels more important, and actually get to shine with great results

Another rider in the transfer block is Antoine Duchesne. With no current plans of getting a top tier puncheur in the market, his presence in the team is doubtful and while he might shine in breakaway, we want to give him the chance to maybe lead a CT squad in the hills, or being part of the supporting cast of a top puncheur

The rest of the team is kinda on a situation where they aren't safe if a good offer comes. Stefano Pirazzi is an agressive climber to might be more suited to lower levels where breakaway fields are less strong. Stefano Agostini is an amazing domestique thanks to his endurance. Also, he's used to deliver a big result once in a season, whether is a KoM jersey or a breakaway stage win. Fabien Taillefour was Vanmarcke' main and only support in the cobbles, and his continuity should be tied to Sep's. And the last one is recently maxed Jacopo Mosca, that is the less likely of these riders to leave, as we are yet to see him in our colors, and his performance on his loan to Moser was fantastic

First days of transfers have been quite difficult as always, but we are happy to anounce the arrival of 3 riders to our team, two of them through FA and one via trade. All three are Spanish, important stuff given that last season we clearly had a lack of Spanish presence in the team, and with these signings, we try to build an Spanish core together with our young talents Roson and Rodriguez

Our first FA signing of the season, coming from the disbanding Hugo Boss. A really solid rider that has signed for the minimum wage. 75 mountain, 74 tt, 73 hills are his top stats, and at just 29 years, he has some time ahead of him in this team

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	ACC	FG	DW	PL
66	75	73	74	72	72	70	54	65	69	71	64	73

Coming in from fellow promotee Generali, to whom we pay 100k for his transfer, is another climbing domestique that can do a bit of everything despite being qualified as a climber. Good attacking spirit, he's surprisingly fast in sprints for his rider type, so breakaway hunting could see him outsprint riders for wins

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	ACC	FG	DW	PL
67	76	73	65	73	68	71	53	70	71	76	70	65

Finally we got a big Spanish rider in FA market. Spain's finest timetrialist has signed a 75k contract to ¿lead? us in the timetrials of this season. He can barely only do that, he's very weak on any kind of climbing or cobbles, and he might struggle to score a lot of points, but an 80 TTer on this low wage is worth the risk, specially if he can bring a national title later in the season

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	ACC	FG	DW	PL
70	57	60	80	74	76	67	60	61	54	78	61	80

@Redordead Thanks! It was one of my goals, to expand the number of Spanish riders, and if possible, they being somehow quality riders.

Yeah, myself had been looking at him since i joined MG, but nothing i could do about it till now

Several riders have been confirmed to join the team in the last few hours, including a couple of riders in loan. WARNING: Star presentation coming up

We got him! He was our main goal during this transfer season, and we can finally say he's at Repsol HQ having signed his contract for the 2019 season. He doesn't come cheap though, as he's getting payed slightly more than Kudus (575k). But we think that is fair price given he's still only 26, 82TT and other pure TT guys around his level are starting to decline. So plenty of years at the top of his game. We are really looking forward to see him in action, as a provisional calendar has already been presented at him and he's quite happy with it

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	ACC	FG	DW	PL
74	59	66	82	74	75	72	61	62	70	67	60	82

Another Spanish rider signed, this time a pure cobbler domestique. Bought from Iberia for a fee of 150k, we manage to increase our cobbling depth, at least to the point where we would have more than 2 riders finishing each cobbles race.

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	ACC	FG	DW	PL
70	53	64	66	76	73	64	77	57	66	66	70	66

Flat beast alert! A very desired signing for us, coming from FA in a minimum wage deal. With a couple of years left on his prime, Lluis is an uncommon rider type in Spain's rider distribution. High flat, high acceleration, decent sprint... He's a perfect attacking rouleur, and we can't wait to see him going into the attack in the flat classics that we have in our calendar

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	ACC	FG	DW	PL
78	61	65	68	66	71	61	57	71	78	68	65	70

We have reached deals to loan in two young riders looking for PT experience.

First one is Slovenian Jernej Svab, coming from Carrefour - ESPN. He's an explosive puncheur

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	ACC	FG	DW	PL
70	69	74	57	70	71	68	66	67	76	66	68	55

Second one is the Italian all-rounder Leonardo Basso. He's going to be an amazing domestique for us this season, coming from Centovalli - FIAT. Actually, seeing how good he is, and that he signed a 50k deal in FA, we really regret not investing on him in this FA

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CO	SP	ACC	FG	DW	PL
72	67	72	71	76	72	72	71	71	69	62	69	71

SotD wrote:
Some very interesting signings! Most of them are very strong and quite cheap. And then there’s Zmorka who unfortunately is only the first hehe...

But I like what you have done so far!