Our East European buddies look to become strong in the future Like the idea for Grosu and will be interesting to see Zmorka as maxed, he would have the ability to become one of the best TT riders around
@sgdanny: Thanks mate for the wishes and good luck to you too for finish at least inside top5 of CT. Promotion seems secured for you and i will be happy to have few more friendly teams in PCT.
@TMM: Yeah, he will, but i will have grey beard by that time and who knows if i will be in the game around 2025.
@Roman: Thanks Roman, you know that for me, seeing Sagan successful is next best thing to our wins.
Hačecký seems like a great pick from the FA market, he is a great TT/lead-out man combo.
We entered the 2015 PT after some crazy things happening in the off season, not really expecting it before, so we had to act fast and come out with a plan. Main goal was surviving in the PT, but after acquisition of superstar Aleksandr Pluchkin, we begin to quietly think about doinf better and maybe entering the top 10-15 if things goes well. So how we rolled?
Team Rankings: Team
1
Festina-Canal+
7672
2
Vesuvio - Accumalux
7575
3
Becherovka - Petrof
7323
4
Aker - MOT
6674
5
Good Energy
6507
6
Metinvest-Dacia
6455
7
Tinkoff Bank - Tinkoff Insurance
6292
8
Pokerstars.com
5914
9
Bouygues Telecom
5597
10
Red Bull - Huawei
5403
11
Oz Cycling Project
5320
12
Project 1t4i
5262
13
Pendleton's
5227
14
Quickstep
5070
15
Orange - KLM
4929
16
Venchi
4808
17
Movistar - US Postal
4523
18
VolksWagen - Andritz
4387
19
Bacardi Limited
4294
20
Swisscom - UBS
4176
21
Meiji - JR East
3586
22
Ayubowan!
3577
Certainly better than expected! Not only better than we expected, but we probably surprised whole cycling world, with fighting for PT top5 spot until the last metres of last race. Ponzi phenom denied that in the end, but still 6th place can be called an enormous success and we are bathing in champagne and feel of importance right now.
Who was the main engineer of this success, riders wise?
Individual Rankings list:
2
Aleksandr Pluchkin
MOL
Metinvest-Dacia
2844
19
Mikhail Ignatiev
RUS
Metinvest-Dacia
1088
85
Frederik Nolf
BEL
Metinvest-Dacia
371
96
Marlen Zmorka
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
333
161
Vojtech Hacecký
CZE
Metinvest-Dacia
180
187
Eduard Grosu
ROM
Metinvest-Dacia
157
197
Michel Sibilla
FRA
Metinvest-Dacia
152
204
Denys Karnulin
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
145
249
Sergiy Lagkuti
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
116
278
Andrii Bratashcuk
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
101
281
Andrea Guardini
ITA
Metinvest-Dacia
101
283
Nicolae Tanovitchii
MOL
Metinvest-Dacia
99
291
Kristof Goddaert
BEL
Metinvest-Dacia
94
302
Vitaliy Popkov
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
88
320
Andris Vosekalns
LAT
Metinvest-Dacia
82
325
Jonathan Salinas
VEN
Metinvest-Dacia
81
332
Philip Lavery
IRL
Metinvest-Dacia
78
390
Steven Burke
GBR
Metinvest-Dacia
63
397
Volodymyr Dzhus
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
60
401
Anatoliy Sosnitskiy
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
60
443
Oleksandr Grygorenko
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
50
454
Anatoliy Pakthusov
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
46
471
Andriy Vasylyuk
UKR
Metinvest-Dacia
38
491
Roberto Traficante
ITA
Metinvest-Dacia
28
*loaned in riders*
Aleksandr the Great was obviously a key to our 2015 PT success and winning two GTs can take you to the sky, but still a long way to go to certain mr.Bewley. One would think you cant do better than winning Tour and Vuelta, but as you see, you can.
Despite we were seen as one man team by many prior to the season, Aleksandr provided us with less than 50% of all points and was backed up with several other strong point scorers. The biggest surprise for some experts can be the great season from our russian flat beast Mikhail Ignatiev. Be it MSR podium, or stage win in TONE, or other strong results on different terrains, he did it once again and paid back our confidence in him.
Frederik Nolf and Michael Sibilla were the newcomers in Metinvest, bought for never tackled cobbled terrains and i think they did great job for their decent salaries. Especially Nolf was great in some of the toughest one day races and should be a clear leder also in the future.
Next group of scorers are our young upcoming stars and luxury domestiques as Zmorka, Grosu, Karnulin or Brataschcuk. All these youngters should improve in their abilities next year, which could mean some crucial changes in our depth, which was the biggest problem for us in first PT year.
Our TTT setup also bring some nice points and so did the loaned in riders. Big thanks to our partner teams BoI, Azteca and Evonik for their loanees, i hope we can continue our cooperation in the future.
Biggest bust of the year is Andrea Guardini, the expensive italian sprinter failed to establish himself in the PT and is very likely on the way out of Metinvest, most likely to lead a PCT setup.
..::Sponsor Goals::..
..::Win Vuelta a Espana::.. - ACHIEVED! Aleksandr Pluchkin 1st GC. ..::Top 3 Tour de France::.. - ACHIEVED! Aleksandr Pluchkin 1st GC. ..::Top 3 Copenhagen-Malmo TTT::.. - FAILED! 6th. ..::Top 3 Chrono des Herbiers::.. - ACHIEVED! Marlen Zmorka 1st. ..::Avoid Relegation::.. - ACHIEVED! Metinvest-Dacia 6th PT.
We set some very tough goals for our first PT year, some even called them crazy. But we set them with getting Pluchkin in mind for first two goals and other two playing well with our usual strenght in TT department. Strangely enough, the goal i expected as easiest was the only one we failed, because of bad weather conditions during TTT race.
Still getting 4/5 goals i extremely pleasing and it is our best result in history of the team, which is great considering the toughness of some of these. It should provide us with some nice bonus cash for the off season, we already contacted several well know coaches.
*credits to SotD for some of the layouts, we want to learn from the best*
Congrats yet again mate. It sucks to miss that one goal by a shit AI delivering some retarded results, but yeah - You did great!
You were heavily reliant on those two stars of yours and I can't but help both of them overperformed a bit. Pluchkin is clearly one of the very best GT riders, but the lack of competition made him go so well. You can't expect him to break 2500 points in the future. Also Ignatiev inside the top 20 individual rankings I think is a first for him ever. He surely got his chances as a leader and took it. Well played, but yet again. Getting Ignatiev past 1000 points, next season will be very difficult.
Nolf is about where you would expect him to be, while Grosu and Zmorka will be better next season. So those points you got a bit lucky this season should be leveled out by better riders in other areas.
Letting Guardini go seems like a good idea, unless you are targeting to train Grosu in a years time. Then Guardini will be the perfect leadout, but I understand your reasoning behind letting him go, although 100K wage is really not high for a rider of his level.
I'm looking forward to see what you will end up doing in the off season, and especially who you aim to bring in.
*No problem for loaning the setup btw. Feel free to steal whatever of my setups are useful. In this aspect I'm no way near the best though
@SotD: Thanks a lot! I agree with your observations, i also doubt that both our best point scorers can replicate such a wonderful seasons. Maybe Igantiev can, as he also had some bad luck during the season and if TTs would be placed earlier in many races, he would be even better (same with Coppel). I think he is one of the best riders in the game and is severely underrated, being a beasty rider with extreme secondary stats, he just wasnt always used right i think, or hindered by AI, like in 2014 PCT season. But he has just one more year on top, before decline iirc. Then he can smash lower divisions.
As you said, i hope to fill those possible holes with improved depth in climbing and hilly department, we were probably the worst hilly setup in 2015 PT and that should improve at least a bit. We are maxing many riders for 2016, almost as much as Festina. I only fear the renewals and idoubt i can really bring someone in, i expect rather quiet off-season, with minimum of roster changes
Guardini is big question mark. 100k is great for his stats and he can become great leadout as you suggested, but 1k for one point sucks imo.
@knockout: Thanks mate! To be honest i was also surprised that Mikhail made it into top20 in the end after some bad luck in TTs placed near the end of stage races, but i still think that it is the spot where he belongs, look at his stats! Looking forward to meet you in PT. Edited by Avin Wargunnson on 23-11-2015 10:25
Congrats on a great season mate, certainly one of the surprises of the year. Pluchkin has really been outstanding - to an extent where I'd say he will be a ddisappointment from now on, simply because he can't possibly reach these levels again. Also big thank you for taking Phil Lavery on loan, looks like he chipped in nicely in the scoring.
Thanks a lot guys, that double was indeed fantastic, but to some extent very lucky.
Lavery was a good teammate whole year, even had a chance to attack in some stages, you will have a good rider in him Dippo, we were happy to help with his development.
We are always happy to take riders on loan, so dont worry to contact Metinvest during transfers with an offer. As you can see, not only eastern europeans are welcome, however these are prefered.
Damn those goals achieved are impressive. Very ambitious goals and yet so easily obtained (well, easy is relative ).
The double was amazing, and hopefully can be repeated
A sixth spot on the rankings though, says it all. The entire team performed well and thus you did manage avoiding relegation quite elegantly!
Like the idea for Grosu and will be interesting to see Zmorka as maxed, he would have the ability to become one of the best TT riders around 
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
