All these people acting as if Nationality is the be all, end all of a team. Please come join me harvesting the Bulgarian/PNW talent, i would hapilly welcome the competition and extra motivation to improve!
Going to miss seeing Rothaus as a sponsor but by the sounds of things it won't mean significant change to the squad and it's the squad i'm more interested in than the sponsor. Kepp that same focus and philosophy because it's a good one and i look forward to seeing how this team develops come the off-season.
Thanks for those kind words TMM. And I will promise you, that the main core will stay the same. In especially as I get my first self maxed riders next season, so I really don`t even think about trading those.
TheManxMissile wrote:
All these people acting as if Nationality is the be all, end all of a team. .
I think this is were the role-playing comes into the game everyone likes to pretend that our sponsors affect our transfers TMM, of course you can literally sign no riders for the team from your country, but I feel one of the things that makes the man-game great is the way we as a group embrace our teams as if they were real life organisations so that's why the interest in the companies
After Rothaus is disbanding as the teams main sponsor, the announcement of a new one does not take very long. Just about a week later the team is proud to present the new sponsor for the 2015 season.
Spoiler
With the new sponsor we won't (!) change our focus really. The team will most likely look the same as in 2014 as there was a big Italian core already. After some Italian teams disbanding recently, the team became a nice place for young talents like Nizzolo, Sbaragli or Villella. Also the additions of veteran Ballan and loanies Bongiorno and Guardini played an important role for the sponsor to come into good talks with us.
With Aegon stepping up, the team will have its new headquarter in the Netherlands forming a strong Dutch/Italian squad. Also Germany and Benelux in general keeps an important market for the team as we can also announce another season with the German bike manufacturer Stevens Bikes.
It's a great sign for the team to have a new sponsor that early beside the probable relegation to PCT after one year in the highest level of cycling. The team would immediately try to find their way back.
So we will have a nice core of Keizer/Boom/Olivier, Nizzolo/Villella/Sbaragli, Krieger/Schadlich/Thurau, Vanmarcke/Nooytens to go into 2015 under the new name Aegon - Lavazza.
It's not decided yet what happens with some of the older riders. It might be possible that Ballan and Gomez Marchante will find themselves on the FA market going for a CT team. Also strong riders like Luis Leon Sanchez and Roux are still in talks with the management about the next season but could possibly stay due to the rather weak hill squad aside them.
Edited by roturn on 19-01-2015 07:09
Not sure if i like another big player on the italian market, as it is my side focus for Metinvest i am not willing to leave. But there are many good italian riders and talents though.
Indeed lots of Italians for a few teams.
I already have several. And when going down I won't have much money for FAs anyway. Just keeping my team together mainly.
It's probably the right time for another Italian team what with their being a few who have it as a sub sponsor but few go all in with it, theirs probably a few really good riders their for the taking as well
Festina would be very interested in equipping Anthony Roux for the french hilly setup. A lot of young french puncheurs are already ready to step up a bit for the upcoming season, and all of them could be effectively influenced by a talent such as Anthony Roux.
roturn wrote:
Nah. While I would love this, it's hard to do when having lots of self formed talents.
Unfortunately didn't thought about it when I joined.
Edmondson stays with me though. Nice 77/77 Sprint with 79 prologue.
Might never be a good scorer but as I like him in RL, he should have a spot in my team anyway.
Yeah, i know this "feeling" of keeping riders for that reasons Will have a similar styled talent in Kiwi Alex Frame, so no real interest in Edmondson from my side. But it's indeed cool to see him taking his next steps irl!
Daan Olivier was our rider for the Tour de Avenir this season. As top 5 candidate we had high hopes to shine in the most important U23 race. It`s a great race for the future greats to shine.
After he was always within the top groups for the first week going over some hilly stages, he proved to be very strong on the longer mountains as he gapped most opponents on the first mountain stage being one of the strongest.
While losing a bit in the time trial he once more showed his great skills on the final stage up Mont Ventoux.
Olivier climbing Mont Venoux with the best
Together with race leader Lecuisinier, Kirsch or Shikai he was going up the legendary climb. In the end the others showed a bit more strength and so it was Kirsch taking overall glory ahead of Lecuisinier. Shikai did crash earlier in the race and was not able to fight for the podium.
So it was Daan Olivier finishing the race as 3rd in the GC ahead of strong stage racers such as Morton, Lutsenko, Galta or Meintjes.
Next year he will come back to Avenir trying to defend his podium even though it will be very hard against even stronger competition then.
Thanks to our friends from Team Evonik - Signal Iduna, who helped us a lot to reach this result.
Next race for the team will be another very important one as the Deutschland Tour is just ahead. It might become a direct duel with Team Volkswagen for the last PT spot. Keizer has to face a strong VW duo Sella/Monsalve while Nizzolo/Krieger might hope to beat Zabel in the sprints.
Interesting to see that it`s not Villella, Thurau or Roux being my best breakaway riders. Instead Daan Olivier slowly built his form in California, Vuelta and Suisse to shine in Avenir.
But the obvious. My sprinters are just not strong enough and the team lacks breakaway success in total. No single breakaway win.
The Lisbon Classic just finished and despite a hard blow in our relegation fight, we can`t really be unhappy with our performance. We did send a balanced squad of sprinters, puncheurs and roleurs. So we expected to be there in any scenario.
Unfortunately we missed the breakaway but performed well on the 2nd half. First Vanmarcke attacked solo highering the pace in the peloton in the end.
In the end though this move made it hard for our sprinters Guardini, Nizzolo or Krieger to stay with the best. The decision was more a battle between puncheurs and roleurs with Pozzato winning after a nice attack.
Our top riders Luis Leon Sanchez Gil cam in 12th ahead of Alessandro Ballan 14th.
Tour of Northern Europe
The Tour of Northern Europe is one of the most interesting races of the season. It combines a really tough cobbled stage, hilly stages, sprinter stages and two time trials. Only the mountains are missing to make it an all around race. As eventually last chance to score big here we decided to send one of our strongest squads of the season with a leader for every single stage.
Our most complete rider for this race is probably Lars Boom. He perfectly combines the needed strength on all terrains despite not being the best on all, he should be able to limit his loss more than other riders.
Then we have two excellent puncheurs for the hilly stages in Luis Leon Sanchez Gil and Anthony Roux. Both are supposed to go hard on the hills while the first is also going for a high GC due to his good time trial skills.
For the cobbled stage we have our trio of Alessandro Ballan, Sep Vanmarcke and Sven Nooytens. All of them have shown some solid riding throughout the season and are definitely looking to gain time on the 2nd stage. This could give them a moral boost ahead of the hillier stages.
For the sprints we do send Giacomo Nizzolo alongside young talent Kristian Sbaragli.
We really need good scoring on any possible day and good GC results by as many riders as possible obviously to avoid relegation. So stay tuned for the ToNE soon.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
