Another awesome prediction! I guess I Can only dissapoint with these previews. I think what is blinding a bit is the amount of reasonably strong OVL guys and great overall depth. The issue is the leaders. Farantakis and Giannoutsos are really weak leaders when looking across all teams. Farantakis could do well, but the skewed sprints will make that a bit of a wildcard.
I like the assessment, and I too am very unsure about Summerhill, who could end up destroying our cobbled department. I hope having him means that we ride a bit more controlled to keep numbers high for the final, and with weak competition maybe able to snatch something from Boutopoulos, Edmondson or Kortsidakis. Stavrakakis being a decent outsider too.
Boutopoulos and Kortsidakis will get a decent amount of one day races as leaders - so a good read on the team! Farantakis still have the majority but I have spent a lot of time analyzing the races and the historical outcomes to give the roulleurs the best possible chances to upset the springers. This also gives Farantakis a bit more room to target GC races with his PRL/TT stat combo.
Overall I think we have a lot of similar thoughts with the game. Probably not that surprising given our history at the higher end of the PT for numerous seasons. It is however easier to play well when targeting obvious Winners. And I don’t have those, so it will be very interesting for me to see how those goes.
I agree with most of the takes again. Also quick note as much I'd love Ayuso to be a permanent part of my team he's only on loan I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of my team being in a phase of gearing up for a promotion push with Kaspa being the first piece of the puzzle, even if it might not be a push before he's on his first decline. I also don't fully buy into the Tryg hype as stated after sean had his quick preview, I don't think Ovsya is able to keep up at 77 cob, I have seen way too many 78 cobblers getting dropped at the PCT level for him to be able to score as well as he can in the future with another year of training, then he will be a beast.
Really high quality throughout. I dont think there is a single manager who i agree with more on these evaluations as weve seen countless times in the past so there are very few things i disagree with. Not sure if i will get around to put out some lazy predictions but they are bound to look quite similar in both ct and pct.
The format is chefs kiss. I think you have nailed it on first try. Im honestly glad that you didnt get someone to do it with you because you hit the sweet spot for me between going into detail about the teams without falling into unnecessary rambling. I think it you would have partnered up with someone else, that second person would have a hard time adding quality content that does more than extend the runtime.
One thing to note for future previews - and i keep doing the same mistake whenever i do previews: Loaned in talents. Couple of times you praised managers for them when they are not theirs.
ELCO is a particularly interesting case to me: looking at the roster at the end of transfers i thought it would finish around 10th place. But comparing them against other teams, its tough to see ones that should finish higher and the team depth gives them a chance for a jura like run
I only had time to watch the CT preview so far, but that was really great and entertaining!
I'd love to know more about that Scully@Xero story, though - I had Scully for one year, and he was pretty good back then (2020 iirc).
Anyway, thanks for getting/staying involved in ManGame despite having (temporarily, I hope) retired, looking forward to look at the PCT and PT previews in the next couple of days
Great stuff as everyone said. Pretty impressive both that you keep it so crisp and clean without practice and also dissect the team's so effectively at a glance.
ELCO, Sony and Tryg being at the top makes a lot of sense to me. I am with you that Ovsya could be a beast and ELCO's depth is scary.
Good to have another fan of the McNulty deal. I am going with MT on Sosa, As you called out his finishing isn't strong. So would rather leverage his RC and RS. MT can help him in both the hard HI races like the Balkans and if we get him up to 80+ in the future then he can score in non-TT stage races.
Only skipped around a bit to hear a few teams I was interested in your take on while I don't currently have the time to properly savour these, but I love what I've seen Croatia. As knockout said, think you got a hole in one when it came to the format here, just perfect. Can't wait for it all
Fabianski wrote:
I'd love to know more about that Scully@Xero story, though - I had Scully for one year, and he was pretty good back then (2020 iirc).
Think Croatia has actually gotten his wires crossed slightly between Scully in 2016 and Bennett (and Roux to some extent) having a crazy amount of crashes in 2017 losing 100s of points.
Scully was our marquee NZ signing for a big wage in our first year in 2016, maybe the best sprinter in the CT on paper. He then literally didn't sprint all season except for one stage. Not even "just cruising to 18th", he would not be anywhere in the Top 50 at all. Ridiculous
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
You know what's coming...I did yet another thing...
Spoiler
@Ollfardh: after overrating your team year after year I tried to contain myself this time.
@SotD: Loving the input. I think PCT is all a lot about planning and identifying good spots, and multiple winners in the past convinced me enough that you do not need the top dog to win. That said, I agree that the division is wide open. The Summerhill point may be true, but banking on logical PCM is always a little stretch. However, I feel like the current AI is lenient with cobbled depth, so you may be right. I love the intel on Farantakis, takes guts to leave out some classics, but more than guts it takes dedicated prep and analysis and that seems welll done.
@whitejersey: Yeah sry, stuff like that happens when I just look at the db. Good to hear. With tryg I'm quite surprised myself, but the competition for Ovsya isn't great and sometimes those 77 cobblers have preferred treatment if they bring other skills (like sprint).
@knockout: Thanks mate, I enjoyed the format myself. With loaned talents I should've marked them in the db, but that's hard to do in a 1-take-style.
@Fabianski: sorry for that story hick-up, indeed @jandal is right with the Roux-connection. You may be right on your assessment on Moscon and others, but I feel like that C1/HC scoring opportunity if you hit the nail a couple of times can work absolutely golden with how points scales are distributed. And that system always seems to benefit the puncheurs and sprinters of CT. It indeed will be very wide open
@Ulrich Ulriksen: Thanks! I did not think I'd end up with those names, but at the end they seemed the ones with the least questionmarks around them. On the Sosa-Deal I just respect the role-play dedication and whatever comes with it, and I agree with your training take.
One thing i disagree a bit on is the number of teams where you suggest good sprinters to not ride sprint classics in favor of rouleurs. I like the rouleurs and think they are an intriguing cheap alternative if you dont have the sprint stars (similar to my setup) but if you have some Groenewegen level guy, you need to go for the sprints imo.
I like your thoughts on my team. Think you pointed out the right worries about this team. Hard to overlook Lopez and Lecusinier which should definitely put me in the podium contention but there are question marks behind the rest of the squad so the fight for the title is still a tough task with multiple teams competing with a more rounded approach. Not sure whether i should like the arrival of Arreruya like you suggest tho.
Oh man, it feels so lonely down there 9 teams are "potentially doomed", only I'm definitely going down it seems.
On the upside, I joined the game late enough to not know anything about who Theo Bos was, so let's hope my riders don't know, either
Or I just have to hope that you predict me 6 spots too low like you did last year
But realistically speaking, at least relegation is a likely outcome. Not necessarily finishing last, but bottom 5 is definitely possible.
Once I got outbid on Ganna, then Wisniowski (and missed out on Eastman or Phinney while negotiating for the others), I knew I couldn't get a top scorer anymore. So you're exactly right that I then started planning for the future. Theuns should be gone (don't see how I could sell him at 34 y.o. if there wasn't even major interest this year), and Groves' wage should be significantly cut. If I'm lucky, there are even some OVL changes that bring Schmid down to a reasonable level - so there shouldn't even be too much of a renewals fee in PCT.
Listened to the PT preview now up to my team.
Must say, this is one masterpiece both, the way how you do and reflect it as also the individual detail you add for each team.
Still need time to finish a full video to see how you rank the whole division but from the first third, I couldn`t agree more already.
Regarding my own team, yes, a bit untypical for me to get older, though the replacements had been on the edge already as well at 31/32 and Salas kind of was bonus before knowing about Phinney but was in heavy need to improve TT anyway as I ignored it before.
Regarding Hooydonck, I unfortunately couldn`t get another 1-2 riders in the 76-77 support range as I struggled to get additional wage but hopefully it won`t hurt him too much.
Top5-7 in the end would be fantastic and definitely above expectation going into transfers. Won`t complain but then need another "rebuild" around a trainable Vansevenant then.
Controversial? That is news to me. Glad that I am at least mid table in like every prediction, that only bodes well for next year, as you said, it will be time to get promoted finally
Completely agree with the assessment of my team there. The roster is bigger than I'd ideally like, but I had to find a way to spend the money somehow. With 24 riders I still had 240k in cap space, but no cash to spend (and this was alongside paying 210k in wages for loaned out riders as well) so was pretty limited in what I could do with it. If I renew everyone I'll have 35 riders heading into next season, so even if I don't relegate something will need to change there
Overall, it's the result of a transfer strategy going completely wrong. I had originally planned to sell De Bie (alongside the other sales I managed to make) and to invest the funds into one big signing and then some training, plus some cheap signings. Unfortunately, I couldn't even get below market value offers for De Bie, Ganna became too expensive for me, and other potential big signings were either unappealing, or were off the market before I got outbid on Ganna, like Coquard. So I ended up with a roster consisting of a mix of riders on low wages (as I'd tried to clear cap space for big moves by focusing on maximising value for wage) and talents, but one that was far too big given I couldn't sell riders I wanted to, and that lacked another leader.
The hope is that depth scoring comes to my rescue, and that De Bie, Kemboi and Faglum Karlsson perform to the higher end of their expectations, otherwise I think relegation is pretty certain. It feels unlikely that will happen, but on the positive side just by getting to 20 riders and releasing those who are declining the transition to PCT wouldn't be too painful as I'd be under the cap already. As stated elsewhere, a roster reset is probably overdue - haven't been able to build a top half PT roster in 4 seasons now - and with Pithie ready to contribute from next season the timing may not be so bad after all.
Think I agree with your thoughts for the most part. Beyond Per there's really no surefire scorer, though a lot of guys have the potential to put up results. I indeed planned AKA as my primary sprinter and Walls as the GC/stage race guy. I think I definitely focus less on riders with acceleration and backups for GT attacking, which is probably a mistake. But since I have a main GC leader for each GT, I'm hoping it won't come back to bite me too much. We'll see.
The tier is scary, but being near the front of the relegation danger tier is about what I expect. Just gotta make it over the line.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Have absolutely loved all of these previews. What an amazing way to connect us to the start of the season. Tons of things I hadn't thought about and just really making me excited for the first races!
Thank you again for doing this, Croatia. It's super nice to listen to and watch, finally got time to see the PT preview.
For my team, your thoughts on SKA and Peak was strongly considered, but I decided against using them as my main guys for flat classics and instead go for Groenewegen in those races. knockout basically wrote above what I thought in the end and made me go with Groenewegen. I've also done the rouleur teams for two full seasons now in the flat classics, with a lot of good results, but also obviously mixed results and no results. Last year SKA was a big disappointment in those races, as he brought surprisingly little to the table, with Wisniowski turning out to be our main guy for the flat classics too, which was a surprise for me. That also made it easier for me to go with Groenewegen in the flat classics, especially looking at the sprinters field in the PT. Groenewegen really should be a consistent top 5 scorer, and even if he is a consistent top 10 scorer, it's likely to give us more points than last year where we went all in on the rouleur teams for all such races. If another GT would have been tempting for his 85 rec, maybe I would have done 2 GTs and less flat classics, but as the GTs are, it was difficult to go that route with a good feeling.
Our big transition is much down to deciding on going for De Lie, who is out on loan with Zalgiris in the PCT. Listening to the PCT preview, quadsas will need to buy him to actually get to use him later seasons Another thing I quite randomly noticed was your talk on Gaviria's wage, where I suspect a main factor is his big, big wage last year, coming from the FA market then after the years with your team. Suspect Moser are still paying quite hefty for securing him as a free agent, being a key reason for the big wage difference between him and Grosu.
Also agree with you on your Wirtgen thoughts. I fancy EA to be difficult to beat this season, as I expect him to completely dominate his races and make it super difficult for Herklotz to be the top scorer individually.
The title is difficult to predict. Together with EA, Evonik and King Power are the obvious ones, and I guess you could argue King Power might have the biggest potential scoring within their team, as if they get their TTT squad firing and scoring depth points "everywhere", they will be very difficult to catch.
For us, if we can land safe from relegation, I'll be very happy, and I'll take a mid-table finish. If we manage that, the worrying part is our goals, making our budget for next season a very small one, I suspect, which will make the continuation of the transition tricky. Though, those are thoughts I won't trouble myself with too much just yet...
With these videos and the preview threads, I'm really hyped for the season! Thank you again
Thanks for all the cool interaction! I appreciate that you enjoyed the format and content
@knockout: I agree that I may got a little carried away on the sprinters discussion. Still I feel like the season has shown that a top10 roleur often makes a better flat classics captain than a sub-top10 sprinter. With Areruya overall we'll see, but my thoughts particularly regard making the hilly classics tougher.
@Fabianski: It indeed looks angrier than I think your situation is. I think all other teams have a more solid point scoring base due to the transfer issues, but your team indeed got some short term and loads of long term upside. As said, you should be set for the guture, for the present it's fingers crossed that your cool riders can deliver at an early stage.
@roturn: Thanks a lot! Didn't follow how transfer season enough to judge, but I understand the idea. With a leader like Mauri a smaller rebuild should be both fun and feasible anyways.
@jph27: Sounds like a classic victim of transfer season madness. Depth scoring could or should be fine, and your fallback height is very low with the plentiful of great wage & skillset riders on the squad.
@bbl: Tier may be scary, but I think we both know that both of us hope for a great Per season. I think you'll eventually be just fine.
@ember: I think the Groenewegen decision is a sensible one. Still, the freedom of disecting traditional attackers races from sprinters one is a pretty unique privilege for your squad. I did not look at any GT route, hence you're a lot more insightful and likely to be proven right. And with de Lie your prospects look even more terrifying for the others you're right on Gaviria, but his ovl also is really high.
Just got around to finishing all 3 preview now and can only echo what others have said - where has this been all my life? Thanks a heap for taking so much of your time to go through and do these super in-depth previews, they're really well done. Audio/Visual really isn't a medium that's been utilized much in the MG before (I say as race replays are set to become an option this season) so it's good to see something like this that might inspire others in the future. Conglomerate podcast when?
I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of my team being in a phase of gearing up for a promotion push with Kaspa being the first piece of the puzzle, even if it might not be a push before he's on his first decline. I also don't fully buy into the Tryg hype as stated after sean had his quick preview, I don't think Ovsya is able to keep up at 77 cob, I have seen way too many 78 cobblers getting dropped at the PCT level for him to be able to score as well as he can in the future with another year of training, then he will be a beast.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
In particular, I don't know if Cervélo can find enough hilly races to really make their numbers count - especially considering that Moscon was pretty bad last year in PCT races. He should have better support this time around, though.
9 teams are "potentially doomed", only I'm definitely going down it seems.
you're right on Gaviria, but his ovl also is really high.
