King Power and ISA - Hexacta both confirm their strong seasons and climb up the rankings a bit as a result, but more significantly of course are Aegon and Zwift behind them. With Evonik and Isostar, two of the usual suspects follow, while last month's standout team Generali, as well as Grieg, really struggled.
Like in PCT, the top of the standings has been set for a while and the relegation battle took precedent. But that shouldn't take away from recognizing the amazing season Isostar - Specialized have had. They're the first back to back PT champion since Festina in '15-'17, adding more than 1000 points to their total from last year (granted, with two fewer PT teams) and distancing Puma - SAP by more than 500 points. Nonetheless, the German outfit had a really strong season as well, confirming their status as a perennial title contender.
Evonik - ELKO then takes the third podium spot, never really being close to the very top but still comfortably ahead of Festina - OAKA, whose 4th place is their 6th Top 5 result in the past 7 years.
ISA - Hexacta continue on their upwards trajectory, making not only the biggest jump in October but also compared to last year, as they finish 5th, up from 15th as a promoting team last season. Quite the achievement! Generali and King Power confirm their Top 10s from last year, while MOL had just about as impressive a season as a promoting team could hope for.
The final Top 10 spots go to Grieg-Maersk and Huski Chocolate, who make the jump past Farfetch. The Brits, similar to MOL, did very well as a promoting team, but fall behind Tinkoff as well, who are actually the second most improved team compared to last year, climbing 5 spots.
Then we have Gazelle and Moser - Sygic, who had solid seasons, never really in any relegation danger, but never too close to the top either. In contrast, EA Vesuvio was in the relegation zone for a while, but ultimately managed to put enough points between them and the bottom spots with two strong months.
Isostar takes the double crown as Taylor Phinney tops the individual rankings of the 2021 season. It speaks to smart and efficient planning that he managed to do so without the big points haul of a Grand Tour.
Speaking of, the three Grand Tour winners all find themselves in the Top 6, led by Giro winner Silvio Herklotz in 2nd place, Tour de France champ Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier in 4th and Vuelta winner Rein Taaramäe in 6th.
But it's Taaramäe's teammate Miguel Angel Lopez who jumps onto the final podium step with a very good late season. The puncheurs in general are the main risers in the rankings, with Sean De Bie climbing up to #7 and Lutsenko and Simon Yates entering the Top 15.
Fernando Gaviria ends the season in a very impressive 5th place, easily the best sprinter in the division and another big puzzle piece for Isostar's title run. Lukasz Wisniowski unsurprisingly is the division's top cobblestone specialist in 9th place, two spots ahead of grandmaster Sam Bewley.
Notably, only two riders in the entire PT peloton remained without points, and it's two of the just three stagiaires in the division, EA Vesuvio's Boileau and Matsangos.
Congrats on the back-to-back PT Title Croatia. Just one more to go to level my record
Impressive amount of points, and gaps between the top tier teams. Almost 600 between 1-2, 850 between 2-3 and almost 700 between 3-4. No one can really disagree that the right teams ended up in the right positions.
That said I'm very impressed with some of the depth pointscorers from both Puma and in particular Isostar. Riders like Inkelaar, Bardet, Roman, Ganna, Madouas, Aregger, Zimmermann and Niu really underlines that these teams have worked in mulitple areas - and not only in the top end spectrum. This is also the main difference (but not only) between these two setups and Evonik and Festina.
I have to applaud Scorchio aswell. Making a 5th place out of riders like Vakoc, Pinot, Sepulveda, Berhane and Santos with only Degenkolb being a world class rider is a job done in a manor second-to-none. It's a manager that micromanage his team in the best possible way. Huge shout out!
Regardless of the drop of late, MOL is still the revelation of the season imo. Very solid team work aswell, and a good manager managing to pick up the right riders for the right races, without it ever becoming really noticeable from the piers.
Looking at the bottom it hurts to see Tsmoha go down, but I also recognize the fact that a lack of time might have been crucial to this. Seeing Zwift and Aegon turning on the turbo in the final month or so was a pleasure to follow on the other hand. They enter the below medio of the rankings with notorical super strong teams like Vesuvio, Moser and Gazelle. I still find it very strange to see teams like that this low.
Congrats jph for finally surviving a season at PT level - Is it a first?
Looking into my team I am really happy to see Koretzky shatter his old record of 875 points, and thus entering the top 25 of best individual riders. He have often been in the 35-50 tier living a relatively uninteresting "life" in the Man-Game universe. But being on level with Coquard, Gerts and Madrazo is something new entirely.
Coquard doing OK beating our relatively low expectations to him (1000 points), while Lecuisinier couldn't quite get there, despite winning the Tour de France and making history.
Panagiotis Vlatos did what Koretzky did, and beat his old record. 552 points from a pure timetriallist is a massive achievement.
Karatzios made himself a historical figure aswell winning the first ever cobbled race from a greek rider. We now have been part of history for quite some time, creating wins a B level of the Worlds, over Grand Tour stagewin, winning one day races, and even getting respectable GC results here and there. Greece cycling is at another level than for 4 years ago.
Overall very happy with the season, the team and the universe. Thanks to everyone for making this a fun an epic game and universe.
Finally we have 3 riders with over 1000 points. But, we still barely make it into the top 10. This means that the core needs to be rebuilt next year or upgrade one of the leaders to a better scoring one
Congrats Croatia and thank you everyone who worked on this year's MG. A fantastic job done by the behind the curtains team as always!
TheManxMissile wrote:
Was the 2021 Isostar team the best MG team of all time? It's a serious contender in my books.
It's definately up there indeed. Accumalux from 2012 (I think) and Wikipedia from a couple of years later was also extremely dominant. I remember Sony Ericsson having a phenomenal season aswell.
Maybe we have a list somewhere that makes it easier to showcase the difference? I know points can't stand alone as the scales and amount of teams/races have changed throughout the years.
SotD wrote:
Maybe we have a list somewhere that makes it easier to showcase the difference? I know points can't stand alone as the scales and amount of teams/races have changed throughout the years.
I was looking for something like that while doing the write-up and didn't find anything. I think I'll take the time over the next few days to compile some sort of historical overview.
SotD wrote:
Maybe we have a list somewhere that makes it easier to showcase the difference? I know points can't stand alone as the scales and amount of teams/races have changed throughout the years.
I was looking for something like that while doing the write-up and didn't find anything. I think I'll take the time over the next few days to compile some sort of historical overview.
Then you can easily break it down yourself. Vesuvio 2012 being 1200 clear sticks out. Festina 2016 about 1700 clear. But also looking at Indi rankings to see whether this is due to a dominant rider, or smart depth, or clever planning, or combinations there of.
Isostar '21 for example has the dominant Phinney, but is so dominant due to smart planning. Plus maximising Gaviria & adding Lutsenko to clever depth.
Gazelle '19 defeating the powerhouses with their crazy depth and Hills Swarm approach is up there.
Even throw in 2010 La Gazzetta, who's gap to Wikipedia wasn't big, but the two were way ahead of 3rd. Plus when you consider how strong Wikipedia were for years that's a super strong year for the Italian team.
Or even consider Carlsberg '08 with a sizable gap for the old points system.
I don't want a "here's an adjusted ranking, therefore X team is top". That's boring. Debate, opinion, personal preference, gimmie gimmie gimmie!
SotD wrote:
Maybe we have a list somewhere that makes it easier to showcase the difference? I know points can't stand alone as the scales and amount of teams/races have changed throughout the years.
I was looking for something like that while doing the write-up and didn't find anything. I think I'll take the time over the next few days to compile some sort of historical overview.
Well that rankings archive makes me feel alright... most years there is a team or teams worse off than we were in terms of gap to the rest. Still, none of that really matters to me. Maybe if you look at all my seasons I might have just used up one of my best ever planning years on coming "only" 297 points away from not last
For us there was never any other result coming and I knew that from before transfers. Ok with it, renewals next year will be tough but if I can get through that and activate my parachute to stop back-to-back relegations then I feel positive in the long-term future of the team. While I was a little disappointed in a lack of breakaways and potentially even stage wins, this was still a solid season with some very memorable moments.
Not least of which is nearly every race Joseph Areruya was in. Man, what a season. His first year maxed as our main guy and he not only delivered a season in the Top 30 of the top division, but the aggression in every race, be it attacking for a stage win and holding off Pluchkin, Dombrowski and Morton in Tirreno to get a podium on GC, despite losing time on the flat stages, his animation of the Giro to fight back into the top 10, or even being oen of the main aggressors and a serious candidate for the win in Lombardia, he really announced himself and was fearless this year. 260,000 to get him in his first year looks like an absolute bargain - I think he has well and truly proven himself to be the real deal, especially if our future is in the PCT.
Houle was really good too - quiet, but good. Perhaps unlike the old days PT is a much better division for his type of rider than PCT. His future and Rowe's are both uncertain, but if this was his final year it was a very dignified one. Rowe was good too, as was Bennett - Bennett especially just clearly more suited to the PCT field but neither were bad at all, but I struggle to remember anything they did.
Sergio Higuita, absolutely brilliant. The team's first ever Grand Tour stage winner and that will never be forgotten. Not to mention his Tirreno, with huge work to help Areruya get that stage win and GC place as well as being in breakaways himself and grabbing the KoM jersey and 27th overall. 97th in the Pro Tour is brilliant for a level 4 guy and I can't wait to see him maxed next year. Probably my biggest case of screwing myself for renewals. I really did think about not trying my best in planning so that I would get easier wage demands for the likes of him and even Areruya and Bennett, but I just can't tank race planning ever - that feels like a cardinal sin to me. We will have to see what he asks for next year.
No real ups or downs from the rest of the riders. Schomber was good with his stage win in Portugal and a top 200 finish - but I always knew he would be a worthy roster spot when he maxed even if others doubted it. Hope he gets some respect next year if there is another Conglomerate preview. I think Bazhkou sadly has ridden his last race for us and probably a couple of seasons too late - it's so sad to see but in newer PCM versions he just has been screwed over and yet his OVL and therefore wage is still the same as when he was a top 70-80 rider in the PCT. Habtemichael maybe slightly disappointing but Higuita just makes him look bad, he was fine and looking forward to having an actual stage racer next year as he also maxes.
Congrats Croatia, I know you know how much I think of you as a manager and a member of this game and community, and you have done something really special once again with your team this year, it's great to see. Congrats to the rest of my promotion class on staying up, I really love to see it Hope one day I'll see you all on this side of the divide again
Thanks to all the reporters, organisers, calendar compilers, database makers, and everyone else who has helped make this game run another year. You're all brilliant and I'm really sorry I haven't been of as much help the last couple of years. Also sorry my participation has been down - partly real life which I can't promise will change, partly of course it's a result of being plum last all year
I know it isn't a mathematical formula to succeed or not to succeed, and like TMM notes, the objective feeling is often more interesting - but I like numbers. So I don't find it boring. But it can't stand alone of course.
So here are the most succesful ever Man-Game teams from a statistical point of view.
I have ordered them in groups of how many teams were in the PT, as it's obviously easier to get a high percentage of the overall points with less teams than with many.
I'm still struggling to find a way to reflect the dominance through the number gap of participants. Maybe someone have a good suggestion?
In order to reflect dominance I have given the highest credit to the teams scoring the highest percentage of given points in the highest division. It isn't a perfect model - especially as PTHC calender have changed during the years, but I think it's the best indicator of dominance to see how many points the winner (or better placed teams) scored in respect of the totalt points accumulated said season.
Here are the top 10 teams from the seasons with 20 participating Pro Tour teams (3 seasons):
Rank
Team Name
Percentage
Position
Season
1
Vesuvio-Accumalux
7,5%
1
2012
2
Isostar - Specialized
7,2%
1
2021
3
Wikipedia
6,8%
1
2013
4
Team Puma - SAP
6,8%
2
2021
5
Pearl Adidas
6,5%
2
2012
6
Pearl Adidas
6,3%
2
2013
7
Koenigsegg
6,3%
3
2013
8
Sony Ericsson
6,2%
3
2012
9
Santander
6,1%
4
2012
10
Evonik - ELKO
6,1%
3
2021
And the top 15 from the seasons with 22 participating Pro Tour teams (7 seasons):
Rank
Team Name
Percentage
Position
Season
1
Festina - Dexia
7,1%
1
2017
2
Wikipedia
6,8%
1
2014
3
Moser - Sygic
6,7%
2
2017
4
Team Puma - SAP
6,7%
1
2018
5
Vesuvio-Accumalux
6,6%
2
2014
6
Team I-Gen - Festina
6,5%
1
2016
7
Festina-Canal+
6,4%
1
2015
8
Vesuvio-Accumalux
6,3%
2
2015
9
Isostar - Specialized
6,2%
1
2020
10
Becherovka - Petrof
6,1%
3
2015
11
Gazelle
6,0%
1
2019
12
Evonik - ELKO
6,0%
2
2020
13
Good Energy
5,9%
3
2014
14
Moser - Sygic
5,9%
2
2018
15
Becherovka - Kiwibank
5,8%
4
2014
And finally I have grouped the first 5 seasons with 17-19 teams:
Rank
Team Name
Percentage
Position
Season
1
Carlsberg
11,3%
1
2008
2
Accumalux-Formex
9,9%
1
2009
3
Saunier - Duval Prodir
9,8%
1
2007
4
La Gazetta dello Sport
9,4%
2
2008
5
Magenta All Stars
9,3%
2
2009
6
France Televisions
9,2%
3
2009
7
T-Mobile Team
9,1%
2
2007
8
Credit Agricole
8,6%
3
2008
9
Accumalux
8,4%
4
2008
10
Lampre - Fondital
8,3%
3
2007
The team winners from 2010 (La Gazetta dello Sport 8,2%) and 2011 (Sony Ericsson 7,1%) didn't find the way to the top 10 in this period.
Regardless of the accuracy it does showcase the dominance of teams like Vesuvio (2012), Isostar (2021), Festina (2017), Wikipedia (2014) and Carlsberg (2008) which are the ones that have also been highlighted so far.
First of all: A big THANK YOU to all the reporters, ranking calculators, stage designers, calendar creators and man-game workforce behind the scenes to make another amazing MG season happen. It's been a blast!
Next I'd like to thank Puma, Evonik and Festina for a tough title fight, I guess we pushed each others to the limit over the season. There was also huge success fpr MOL and ISA, what a season those teams had! Tinkoff also really surprised me positively, while I'm quite shocked to see Mapei and Amaysim going down. At the same time I'm glad that Aegon and Zwift survived, love to see them continue in the PT. Xero will bounce back, I'm 100% sure.
Then I'd like to thank you all for the congratulations. I'm over the moon with what we achieved this year, and that we were able to make it happen in that style It's been a special 6 years in man-game so far, with two years rushing to the World Tour, two years of establishing ourselves and now two title years.
What means a lot to me is that we've developed our cycling nation in the process. While we don't have the Slovenian base we used to, riders like Mohoric, Kump, Polanc, Per and Novak became what they are now at our squad, while we also had other greats in Bole, Roglic, Brajkovic and Mezgec on our team. Not to forget winning the Tour with Simon Spilak, the greatest Slovenian in the game.
This year has been a fantastic journey, with ups and downs. We are quite proud of being one of the few teams that got sprint trains to work when we had one, while also managing to set up Phinney well. Lutsenko and Per haven't had the best of years, but still managed to perform. What was amazing however was the how the "free role" planning worked, races where we intentionally set up squads that forced us to attack. Of course that didn't work all the time, but the success of Inkelaar (thank you Abhi really sorry for the wage demands though ), home-grown Roman, Bardet, Bernas (!) and Villella was key to our title run.
I don't think it will be easy to keep the team this way, especially with wage demands due to individual success and as I won't be able to plan Gaviria as well as I did this year with other teams probably boosting their sprint trains, while people will probably try to adapt to our roster strategy. But I'm very much looking forward to 2022, especially as I can see teams like Grieg and Farfetch joining the fight for the PT title.
Awesome and somewhat unexpected for ISA - Hexacta to crack the top 5 of PT, definitely a proud achievement for our team. Hopefully during the off-season there will be some opportunity to reflect on this in our HQ.
Congratulations to the teams above us, and particular kudos to Isostar on a tremendous run to the title. The last RD tension around relegation spots resolved itself in the best way possible if in fact Mapei do confirm as indicated that they intend to stop; well done to Aegon and Zwift on clawing their way out of trouble as the season drew to a close.
Special thanks and congratulations to the tireless race reporters who have delivered a fantastic season of entertainment at a rapid and sustained pace. And of course thanks to all my fellow managers whether your role includes reporting, admin or like me a simple participant - it all adds up to so much more than the sum of the parts that we each contribute.
Congratulations on another impressive win Croatia! Puma is an absolute unit of a team and beating it is bizarre. You added exactly the right riders to your Slovenian core and finished it off with clever planning. Chapeau!
Also special mentions to ISA for very quickly transitioning into an established PT team and Generali for doing so well despite the renewal shenanigans.
Our own performance was underwhelming to say the least. For two years in a row our rebuild plans collapsed due to being away from home during transfer season and it is really starting to show. We'll soon start sacrificing to the MG planning gods, because a third year of bad transfers would likely mean relegation.
Massive thanks to the people who make this all possible: the reporters and organizers. I appreciate your high quality work very much and am sorry I don't have time to help.
Been away on holiday lately, so missed the final races. Doesn't seem like I missed much though, some horrible results for us in the last month of the season. Happy to hang on to a top 10 in the end.
The team itself wasn't very much different from last year, but we managed to have a much better schedule this time around. In the mountains and in the hilly races we were absolutely awful though, especially the hilly races. We'll have to see if we can add something that will make us a bit more competitive next season.
Huge congrats to Croatia on the win. A stellar season! We enjoyed the fights between Phinney and Würtz throughout the season
Huge thanks to everyone who invests their time and effort to keep this great game alive, highly appreciate it!
Sadly this is somehow a season to forget for us even though we got some really nice results our three leaders, our depth is seriously lacking. Also when comparing the points gained by Bewley and Barguil, this year we would be much better without that transfer - but at least we were able to stay up so hopefully we can get back on track next year as other step of our rebuild will be definitely needed.
Big congrats to Croatia, cio and knockout to their great seasons, well deserved podium places for all of you!
On the other end of the table: sad to see tsmoha's team going down after so many years, also not happy to see Xero going down, still not really happy about that late overbid on Kudus... Looking at Mapei it is quite a sad story to see Bewley and Barguil not helping their new team to stay up.
I am also seriously impressed how this version of PCM loved Petr Vakoc. Nice to see my old boy finally getting things together. And also it is great to see Scorchio and Jaxika entering the top 10 - some serious shuffle in the top parts of the standings, always nice to see.
A bit late to the party, but very happy to be celebrating a first PT season in which we didn't relegate! 2021 joins 2013 as the only season in which my team has managed to neither promote or relegate, and I'd be happy with many more years of mid-table mediocrity to come
Massive congratulations to Croatia on back-to-back titles, feel like this is just the start of the streak giving the ages of your leaders. Given that Isostar, Puma, Evonik and Festina are the four teams I model aspects of my team building approach on then I feel like this year's rankings are a good sign
12th and 600 points clear of relegation is a reasonably good result considering that Yates and Meintjes had pretty poor seasons and I did a dreadful job with Turgis' planning. Kamberaj's overperformance probably saved us from a nervous end to the season, but I think we would have had enough even without it. With a bit more luck for our GC riders we'd have been in the fight from 5th to 8th, so all in all can't complain too much given our depth is lacking a little.
Next season will definitely be interesting - though I dispute Croatia's belief we'll be anywhere near the title fight, and would love to know his reasoning - as our talents developing will be offset by Paillot, Yates and Meintjes reaching ages where we need to start looking to replace them. Add in the fact that renewals will be a bit unpredictable, with lots of talents maxing (or reaching Level 4) and a few overperformances and underperformances to account for, and we likely won't have too much cap space to use on new additions. I'd also like to start bringing through some more Level 1 and 2 talents, as otherwise we'll have a fully maxed team by 2024.
Finally, a big thank you to everyone who has kept things running this season! I've not been as involved as in the past, but even from afar the reporting and administration have looked to be both quick and high quality
First of all, I'm sorry for my long abscence (which had different reasons, none of them related to any kind of illness, however. So, I'm fine)! Definitely not something, I ever wanted to do, since it never feels fair to those, who dedicate so much effort to this wonderful game. So, again, I'm sorry, guys.
Just promised roturn and cunego (thanks for getting back to me) to continue and of course trying to stay active in the discussions et cetera.
Not happy, but neither surprised, to go down, but a PCT rebuild may be interesting enough The tactics to get rid off Bobridge certainly backfired: shame on me!
Trying to catch up with some "behind the scenes" stuff now - not sure, if I will catch up with our bad season though
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
), home-grown Roman, Bardet, Bernas (!) and Villella was key to our title run.
