Here we are, the season is done and dusted. Only one final race for PT on the last day - but not just some random race, it was Lombardia, the final monument of the year!
And well, it had the expected outcome. When Herklotz participates, he wins. In every single race (not stage) this year. Crazy. Pretty boring, at least for me (you know me, I don't like dominating beasts). But just crazy, insane, whatever you want. That guy is just too good for the MGverse, hats off.
But: believe it or not, it actually was the German's first ever monument win! He has already won all three PT GTs at least once - now he's a monument winner as well. Congrats on an awesome season - and career, with pretty much nothing missing anymore. We take a bow.
And yeah, points were obviously awarded as well. 280 for the winner. The Pumas didn't want to settle for minimum points otherwise, though, with both Zimmermann and Zwiehoff in the Top 30 as well, plus Madouas making the Top 50. 333 points to end the season - a final challenge for a podium spot?
Herklotz' big advantage over the stronger puncheurs was that it turned out to be a very climber-friendly race - otherwise, you definitely wouldn't expect someone like Hirt in 2nd place! But the Czech climber made it a great final monument of the year for Moser again, after Sagan completed their "Monument Slam" last year. 205 points for Hirt. Only finisher points for the rest of the team - surprisingly including Kudus - which makes it 240 points in total.
3rd was Valter, the first pure puncheur in the results (although Herklotz is still stronger on the hills, to be fair) - a great result that could push his team back up to 2nd place. The rest of the Vesuvio squad wasn't great, though - no depth points, just like for Moser, just 7 times 5 points. Which makes a total of 200 points.
The rest of the October races were covered in the pre-final ranking update, so let's now look at the full month standings.
It's not hard to guess the winner, right? They did the two mandatory PT races, and they won both of them - the Pumas were just unbeatable in October! Kanter in Moscow, Herklotz in Lombardia, the Germans scored big time. 593 points to be precise - for a completely ridiculous PpRD of 148... Nope, that's no typing error. One hundred and forty-eight. Any questions?
In 2nd place, we have one of the teams that did all races. They didn't do a bad job, but they still scored quite a lot lower than expected - especially one rider. MAL. So yeah, we're talking about Evonik. In their 4 classics, they scored 414 points. In terms of PpRD, that's just 11th place though - and no, Moscow wasn't their worst race. Will it be enough to hold onto 2nd overall, as in the pre-final update?
Lidl, who were co-leaders with the Minions in the pre-Lombardia update, end up 3rd - just 2 points behind Evonik. De Bie didn't deliver as well as expected, either (remember, he was 2nd and 3rd in 2020 and 2021) - instead, Barguil did a good job in Lombardia, somewhat salvaging their race. 412 points.
Next are EA Vesuvio, gaining quite some spots in the final race - and definitely challenging Evonik for 2nd overall thanks to Valter. It's 371 points for the Luxembourgers - will it be enough?
Aker round off the Top 5 with 355 points; Amezawa even was able to beat MAL in Lombardia, crushing any possibly remaining Evonik hopes of still getting the title. They did more than enough to stay up front, that's for sure!
Next are Gazelle with 349 points, followed by Minions with 344 - they couldn't keep up with they pre-final co-leaders Lidl, to finish 70 points down. Kinoshita's pretty bad result (21st) also confirms that Lombardia isn't a puncheurs race anymore.
Moser are another 2 points down, with ELCO 6 points further behind - the Greeks were fighting pretty well in this final month, we'll see where that leads them in the end.
The first team below 300 points - yet the last one in the Top 10 - are Binance, scoring 291 points. A decent ending to their one-year PT adventure. Rabobank scored just 2 points less after a good Lombardia.
ZARA, Polar and King Power are next, all ending up around 250 points. We then have 3 teams with 224 points: Carlsberg, cycleYorkshire and ISA. Tinkoff were slightly below, with Amaysim, MOL, Cedevita and Grieg all scoring less than 200 points.
Here's the full overview of the final month:
Team
Mos
GPC
JCup
Lom
Total
RD
PpRD
1
Team Puma - SAP
260
0
0
333
593
4
148.25
2
Evonik - ELKO
66
22
188
138
414
8
51.75
3
Lidl Cycling
191
0
90
131
412
6
68.67
4
EA Vesuvio
66
105
0
200
371
6
61.83
5
Aker - MOT
66
129
0
160
355
6
59.17
6
Gazelle
64
106
33
146
349
8
43.63
7
Minions
111
170
0
63
344
6
57.33
8
Moser - Sygic
102
0
0
240
342
6
57.00
9
ELCO - ABEA
148
88
0
100
336
6
56.00
10
Binance
70
0
127
94
291
6
48.50
11
Rabobank
88
32
0
169
289
6
48.17
12
ZARA - Irizar
164
0
29
65
258
6
43.00
13
Polar
63
0
0
185
248
4
62.00
14
King Power
40
75
0
132
247
6
41.17
15
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
92
0
0
132
224
4
56.00
15
cycleYorkshire
150
0
0
74
224
4
56.00
15
ISA - Hexacta
98
53
0
73
224
6
37.33
18
Tinkoff - La Datcha Team
118
20
0
81
219
6
36.50
19
Amaysim Australia.com
62
0
67
45
174
6
29.00
20
MOL Cycling Team
54
0
52
50
156
6
26.00
21
Cedevita
100
0
0
45
145
4
36.25
22
Grieg-Maersk
79
6
0
40
125
6
20.83
Full Ranking
It was to be expected - the final month of the year wasn't really exciting at the very top of the standings. And so we can say: Big congratulations to Aker - MOT for their 2023 PT win! If I'm not mistaken, it's their first ever PT title!
After a really strong 2022 - missing out on the podium by 300 points - they sold all of their great TT core, then heavily invested into training - and it paid off big time! Wisniowski was even stronger than before in his WC jersey, and carried them to unknown heights - obviously greatly supported by his teammates, who scored where they were expected to - and even elsewhere!
The winning score in 2023 is 7,664 points - which is even 20 points higher than Isostar last year! Big congrats again for a truly awesome season!
The fight for 2nd was much closer than the fight for the win in the end - unexpectedly, given the three hilly classics where MAL was supposed to make the difference. Well, he didn't, and so EA Vesuvio end up in 2nd place, totalling 7,327 points!
The Luxembourgers had a great start to the season, mostly thanks to Wirtgen, but then lost momentum when the cobbles and GTs started. Only to bounce back in the end-of-year hilly classics, thanks to an amazing Valter. It wasn't quite enough for the win, but still for 2nd place - congratulations!
Evonik were one of the top title contenders according to pre-season predictions. And indeed, Lecuisinier delivered his (expected) Tour de France win, also scoring pretty well elsewhere. Maybe not quite well enough, though.
MAL actually outscored his 2022 total, but it still feels like he didn't get as many points as expected - losing out e.g. to Herklotz in Scandinavia (and Lombardia) and to Areruya in Balkans. On the other hand, Polanc did an awesome job - so it will be a tough job for the manager to identify where the team lost the decisive points for the title.
Still, it's a PT podium for Evonik - although the 20 points gap to Vesuvio will surely hurt. Congrats for a strong season nonetheless!
2/5 predictors saw it coming that Puma might miss out on the podium - they were actually right. Despite Herklotz winning absolutely everything he could (maybe not every stage, but still), the Germans didn't score enough to secure another PT podium. With 7,180 points, they are 127 points behind 3rd place, which definitely isn't much. But it is something.
Herklotz, Kanter, Ganna - all of them did well, but clearly the points lost by Démare's departure couldn't be fully made up for. The future is still looking bright, though, with all their pretty young leaders - title challenge incoming in 2024?
Polar could even hope to overtake Puma for quite some time, before falling off the pace in the post-GT period. With 6,960 points scored, they still did enough to stay in the Top 5 - with Bernal's Lombardia performance being one of the keys. In general, their climbers worked well, and Philipsen did a good job, too - but the rest of the team might need some enhancement. We'll see what the offseason brings for the Finns!
Gazelle were pretty hopeful to move past Polar in the end - but that was before Japan Cup. Lombardia then was decent, but not great - and so it's 6th place for them. 6,844 points means they're 116 points off the Top 5 - that one weird Giro stage definitely was decisive in the Polar vs. Gazelle duel...
Next in the list are Tinkoff, who couldn't quite close the gap to the Top 5 in the final month. But at least they extended their advantage over Cedevita, who finish 8th. Whereas Tinkoff might be a bit disappointed - in particular by some questionable cobbles performances - the Slovenians should be over the moon, finishing in the Top 10 in their first PT season! Big congratulations as well to the best newly promoted team, who have a great base to build up upon!
We still have two Top 10 spots left - and you may remember that we had three teams separated by 62 points in the pre-Lombardia update. Well, it's actually the last of them that gets first now, with King Power jumping up from 11th to 9th, thanks to another rock-solid Gidich performance - and some good scoring by Sosa and Quita. It's 5,966 points for them in the end - more than 500 behind Cedevita.
Depth scoring actually was the key for the Thai to move past MOL, who end up just 20 points behind! Whereas it didn't look great for the Hungarians pre-TdF, Phinney turned things around for them, and so they still get their Top 10 in the end. Not where Phinney was used to end up with his team, but he was the great leader they expected him to be!
The unlucky 3rd team of this group is cycleYorkshire, who drop out of the Top 10 by just 13 points in the end... The race turned out to be far too hard for 2021 Lombardia winner Yates this time, and Carthy didn't have the necessary speed to get a good enough finish - so it's 11th place for the Brits.
Next up are Lidl, totalling 5,734 points, a bit more than 200 behind the Top 10. For a while, it didn't look awesome for them, but they easily turned things around in the end, finishing safely inside the Top 15. Carlsberg weren't far off, though, ending up with 5,679 points - the Danes are easily the 2nd best promoted team! Mostly thanks to their prime transfer Per, who was a fantastic signing!
Moser certainly were expecting far more than 14th place, having two world-class riders on board with Kudus and Gaviria. But the former was unlucky to face mighty Silvio in La Vuelta, whereas the latter was also disappointing at times and didn't even match his 2022 score. Otherwise, they lost too much qualitiy last offseason to end up higher - let's see what their plans are for the future!
The final team in the Top 15 are Grieg. Whereas they surely must be disappointed to finish 4 spots lower than last year - mostly due to Pedersen scoring about 400 points less than in 2022 - it still must feel like a win for them to get a Top 15 after being in deep relegation troubles for quite some time this year.
The latter surely holds for Rabobank as well - probably even more. They secured their spot in PT in the very final race last year - with that in mind, they could go to Lombardia pretty relaxed this year. And they even gained a place in the final race!
So, we're down to the final team above the relegation zone. Which is... ZARA! Their Northern Europe campaign turned out to be decisive - alongside Jakobsen's 3nd place in Moscow - and so they started the final day of racing with a comfortable enough cushion to not get into troubles anymore. Making it the 3rd out of 6 newly promoted teams to hold the division!
Now, onto the tough part. And that one is really tough, as we have to say goodbye to one of the most legendary teams. Part of the PT for ages, winning the division multiple times, ELCO - ABEA couldn't quite get the necessary points to stay up in their 2nd year after the rebrand. Coquard's performances are one reason; with his 2022 score (almost 450 points higher than in 2023), they'd have stayed up easily. Declined Koretzky only scored half of his 2022 points, which hit them hard as well. Missing out on safety by 244 points, they could have handled one of them scoring clearly less, but not both. Let's hope - and I'm actually pretty sure - they'll make their way back to PT as soon as possible!
Things were looking pretty well for Amaysim during most of the year - but somehow they fell off the cliff in the final months. Dominating PCT last year, they couldn't strengthen their roster as much as needed. Haig's performances might have been a tad lower than expeced - but it was especially McCarthy who got nowhere close to some of his previous scores, with pure puncheurs being old-fashioned nowadays. Some tough decisions might need to be taken - but their core should be strong enough to add another chapter to their "elevator journey" next year!
And now, the big question: Why are ISA going down? Well, that's simple: Ewan's score in 2022: 1,590. Ewan's score in 2023: 813. Difference: -777! Gap to safety: Less than 500 points. So yeah, Ewan probably did overperform last year (e.g. winning the Lithuania GC), but he was just awful this year. Otherwise, they didn't do that bad actually, but the points missing from their big time leader were just too much to make up for. While they do have a pretty good and young enough core elsewhere, they'll have to replace their stage racer unit sooner or later - some challenging decisions incoming!
Next are the Minions, finishing with 4,407 points in their inaugural PT season. 700 points to safety is quite a lot, and surely not only due to bad luck - although they definitely did have their share of it. But the leading duo of Kinoshita and Cattaneo just turned out to not be strong enough; the former probably simply not being strong enough on longer climbs anymore, the latter lacking any kind of punch. And Ahlstrand? Ahl-who? He scored almost twice as many points last year in PCT than he got this year - he has declined, yes, but not by that much... Last but not least, whereas their TTers were great in PCT, they were just average in PT - yep, the gap is huge in this discipline. With all of their leaders about to decline (again), it will be interesting to see their rebuilding plans...
And at the very bottom of the table, Binance. They ended up getting a disband promotion, and they sure tried to make the best out of it - by signing former heros mostly. But none of them was able to make a big impact. Tenorio, Sagan and Kwiatkowski all ended up between 50th and 100th in the individual standings (just like 29 y.o. Rodrigues), which just isn't enough to keep a team afloat. With their age structure, it's obvious that there will be a rebuild in terms of team leaders - an interesting offseason incoming as well for sure.
That's enough text about the teams for this year - here are the numbers:
Well, he did it. Silvio Herklotz had to take 1st or 2nd in Lombardia to win the individual standings - but 2nd would obviously not have been enough for him this year. Grand-Duché, GP Liechtenstein, La Vuelta, Scandinavia, Lombardia - these were all his races this year, and he won them all! Pretty much unbelievable that a rider can be that consistent all year long - Herklotz did it! In the end, he got his 2nd Individual title with a total score of 2,362 points - more than 200 more than last year, despite losing some GT points. What an amazing year, hats off!
But all these points actually were needed, given that Talyor Phinney - overtaken in the very last race of the year - also improved on last year's total, by 12 points, scoring 2,277 in total. And that is despite his first decline! And had he not faced PHL at Le Tour, who knows... Anyway, it was another great season by the American - does he have another one left in his legs?
In 3rd place, we have our best cobbler - like last year. But this time, it's not Pedersen - it is World Champion Lukasz Wisniowski, totalling 2,153 points! The Pole had an absolutely stunning year, and surely must be the main reason why Aker won the PT title. He scored over 600 points more than in 2022, winning 5 classics (including a flat one) and a stage race - he definitely ends his prime with an absolute banger of a season!
With 2,117 points, Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier would have finished 3rd by a huge margin last year - this time it's only 4th place. He improved his scoring by almost the same margin as Wisniowski, but ends up behind the Pole again - not by 1 point like in 2022, but by 36. But all that matters this year is the Tour de France win anyway, and he got that one in style!
Last year, we only had 2 riders above 2,000 points - this year it's 4 of them. And so, Tom Wirtgen's 1,899 points would have been enough for a podium last year, but it's "only" 5th place in 2023. Still, given that he's only #20 in terms of OVL, it's a fantastic outcome for him, getting some nice wins - most notably Paris - Nice - along the way. And don't forget that the Luxembourger is only 27, so he must still have quite some room for improvement - will he crack the 2,000 points next season?
With Joseph Dombrowski, we already have the next stage racer in the rankings; the American actually dropped one spot compared to 2022. Missing out on the Giro win must still hurt - but even a win wouldn't have gained him a spot here. Winning a GT probably will also be a 2024 goal - and will he actually already have a shot at being the best American?
We finally have another new rider type in 7th place, with Miguel Angel Lopez. The Colombian improved his 2022 score by about 50 points; he still won't be overly happy with some of his races. Well, if the MGUCI has you on #3 according to their OVL calculations, 7th indeed isn't a top outcome; winning just 2 classics all year long isn't, either. Can he get more consistent to finally bring Evonik to the top of the rankings next year?
Someone who was far more consistent than before - not the least thanks to some consequent training - was David Per, finishing 8th with 1,472 points. This score wouldn't have been enough for the Top 10 last year - but we've seen it, it's far more crowded at the top, so there are less points for the lower Top 10 spots. The Slovenian won't care - what remains are the memories of some outstandings results - but also some goals, e.g. getting one better in Roubaix next year... But his 500 points improvement over 2022 surely is the main reason why Carlsberg easily hold the division in the end.
Merhawi Kudus is next. And it's almost unbelievable that he's still chasing his first ever GT win. It looks like he's just unlucky to always pick the race with an even stronger contender; this time it was Herklotz who literally smashed the Eritrean's dreams at La Vuelta. Not the least chance for him - but he'll try again. And when he'll succeeds, he won't be lower Top 10, but Top 5 in the standings.
Depending on how you classify Herklotz (stage racer or puncheur?) and Wirtgen (stage racer or TTer?) Egan Bernal is the 5th, 6th or 7th stage racer in the Top 10! Just to compare, we had 4 (Phinney, Herklotz, Dombrowski, PHL) in 2022... Bernal scored 1,342 points - about 130 more than last year, and given that he's only 26, he won't stop improving anytime soon... Right now, he's not yet a sure podium finisher in GTs, but already a great choice for races like Tour de Suisse or Slovenia. 2 more points in climbing, and he'll be among the best of the world, though...
That's our 2023 Top 10. Are you missing a rider category in there? I do. Well, it's obviously the sprinters, who had 2.5 representatives last year (Démare, Ewan and Coquard, with Démare being the "half" one as he's half sprinter, half puncheur). Gaviria was the best scorer this year, narrowly missing out on the Top 10 by finishing 11th.
However, whereas 11th doesn't sound all that bad, the 2nd best sprinter is Philipsen in 19th, then Coquard and Grosu in 24th and 25th. And Ewan, who was the best "pure" sprinter last year in 6th place, only ends up 43rd this year... I said it, there's a reason why ISA go down, and that (main) reason is Ewan.
Let's still look at the major improvers once again. And there, we have to mention Valter, who move up dfrom 29th to 15th after a great month of October. And MAL, who was the only rider entering the Top 10 in the final month, jumping from 12th to 7th (at the expense of Würtz). In the Top 50, we also have Kinoshita (45 -> 35), Kanter (53 -> 38) and Hirt (51 -> 39) gaining 10 spots or more - obviously not that many anymore at this point of the season.
ember! Huge congratulations man! I'm so happy for you.
Awesome to see one of the most friendly people in the game have massive success.
Great job building this unstoppable team!
Once again the reporters did a great job this year. Thank you all for making this game possible. And special mention: the ranking updates were amazing, Fabianski.
Overall I'm happy with our season. Dombrowski, Lutsenko and Teunissen more or less delivered what we could expect from them and Warchol actually overperformed considering his wage. Leknessund showed great promise, Senni and Lander did a good job as secondary leaders and Malecki sneaked himself into some nice scoring positions again. Looking forward to build on this in the off-season.
Big congrats to Ember for winning the PT title!!
Given we had some transfer dealings, I guess I contributed at least a little to your success
Also I second what DD said that it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy
Great PT debut for myself to finish 8th and do it somewhat comfortably. I was lucky that some of the changes with PCM22 worked more for me than against me. I had a good transfer season and I was able to plan decently well with the races I had picked.
With that said I'll enjoy this ranking while it lasts. I've been improving a lot over the last 3 seasons and I feel like I'm at the end of that improvement. I expect my team will look a lot different next season and I won't be able to rely on Pogacar's U25 points anymore. Probably just staying in PT would be a good early goal for next year.
It looks pretty funny to have the 30-32 individual scorers, three riders scoring so similarly. Pogacar and Geoghegan Hart feel like they're there somewhat on merit, but Enger is definitely only there thanks to the shitty sprint AI in PCM22.
Thank you Fabianski for another great update! The consistency and quality of these posts bring the entire ManGame up a level
First of all, thank you so much Fabianski for these updates throughout the year! Truly phenomenal reads every time, always something to look forward to.
We did it, we survived. And frankly, it was much easier than expected. To be over 800 points from the relegation zone and get a 13th place finish is quite the accomplishment. If you had told me I could do that at the beginning of the year I would have been thrilled. And wouldn't you know, I'm thrilled now. Funny how that works.
It's funny though, I look at the standings and the teams below us, and I still think most of them are better than us, so how'd we do it?
Well, David Per is the obvious answer. The guy was just money. A slightly better Northern Europe and he eclipses 1500 points on the year. I've never had a lead quite like him before. Someone with so much consistency. Besides the E3 and Battenkill wins, he was just always around. never missed a big split and bonked completely. Even with guys like Trentin and Vanspeybrouck on my team in years past, they always had their bad races. Per just didn't. I think his lowest cobbled classic result was 6th. Knowing we had those points coming in was huge.
And yes, it makes it all the more satisfying that Per did this after I trained him. Signing a guy for 1 million in cap and then pumping your entire budget into training him is a risky move, to say the least. I rarely have made risky moves in the past, but doing something bold like that, which fit my team identity, and having it work to perfection, was super satisfying.
Of course, it wasn't entirely a solo effort. Galta was our first half MVP with the Portugal win and several other good placings. If he didn't crater from the Giro breakaways, he'd be in the top 30 or close. Solid in the mountains and overperformed on hilly stages within stage races all year. Improvement for him over last year, and from a regional leader was special.
As always, AKA managed to sneak his way into being good despite the usual frustrations. Being a high flat and resistance outsider sprinter is just very useful. He'll get left out of the sprint lottery sometimes like everyone, but it felt like he was more consistent than a lot of his competition. TO my count he was somewhere in the 12-15th best pure sprinter on the year, so it's not like he was even punching above his weight really. But without any dominant sprinters at the top, it was quite an even field, and he did what he needed to throughout the year.
The funny thing is, looking further down, it's not like we got good performances from everyone to stay up. Quintana was very mid, but that was kind of expected at this point, and his Vuelta GC bonk meant his season was never gonna be very good. He was hardly even a real backup plan on GC.
Aranburu was our lead puncheur, but our calendar was not at all built to his hybrid climber skillset, and the TT's in a lot of those stage races meant he couldn't score big even when he was present. He was good in a few spots but understandably a tick behind in the classics.
I was more disappointed by Kamna. He obviously had fewer of the perfect TT hybrid opportunities he got in PCT, but even when he had them, he flubbed them badly Last year he was attacking on the hills, this year he was getting caught behind 100 man splits to needlessly lose time to much weaker climbers. Barely scoring a third of Conci's points when they're so similar is kind of unacceptable I feel. but at least it keeps his renewals wage down.
However, despite those disappointments, our depth was much better this year where it did exist, and that helped a lot. Gregaard is a superdomestique built for the PT. He proved that time and time again this year, ouscoring Aranburu and Kamna and almost ending up in the top 5. Sureda was huge for us on a 50k wage. Sprint lottery loved him for his talent level, and GT stage wins and podiums can get you quite far. Best value pickup of the year. And in general, our guys finished races this year. All our domestique scored in the low 100's, and that adds up over the course of the year.
So, we did it. no huge rebuild needed. Time to reshuffle the leadership a little and try to fine tune this into a top 10 contender. Excited at the prospect.
Congrats to Aker on the win!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Our relegation has been clear for quite some time, so the anger has subsided and the rationalisation has long been done. We simply weren't good enough. An odd good result here our there and some performances we can be proud of (Ahlstrand winning green in the Giro, Kalaba's stage win and day in yellow in the Tour) but overall the results just weren't there.
Next year back in PCT without shame, we have made it to the highest echelon once and have the ability to do so again in the future, albeit with a completely different team.
Congrats to ember on winning the divison title! Congrats to everyone who stayed up including most of our fellow promotees, and wishing all the best to my fellow relegees in PCT next season.
And thanks Fabianski for the well written ranking updates throughout the season!
Really fun season to follow and report here and there! Congrats to ember on a well deserved title win!
Really interesting crop of relegating teams that will join us in PCT next year with this being the first time SotD is not in the PT in his team's history, that will be an interesting venture to follow for sure.
Scorchio hasn't really been around all year so time will tell if he returns to fight in the promotion battle next year, there's for sure a core to work with that could make the immediate bounce back.
tsmoha has shown before that he is able to establish an Amaysim roster that will immediately bounce back to PT.
fintas' anchoring around aging superstars was not enough to stay in the division but could leave him with a ton of cap space to work with in transfers which could in turn create a beastly team that can bounce back as well.
Marco's Minions also have two aging leaders where Kinoshita for sure can put in a shift in PCT next year so it is going to be a super interesting division to follow next year for sure!
Comisserations to them all though as relegation is never fun!
Thank you firstly to all who run this game and have kept this season moving at a great pace from the reporters to Fab for the incredible write-ups to all of the other great work behind the scenes.
On our season, I'm just chuffed that we survived our first season in the Pro Tour! It was quite the rollercoaster between stage wins in Grand Tours, some very disappointing performances in the Tour de France to ending our season in a high winning a Stage Race to effectively keep us in the division.
None of our riders in the Top 30 with Wellens our best in 36th so it's a bit of a miracle we survived but we got some huge performances from other riders throughout.
Wellens himself may only end up here the 1 season but he did what we needed from him. Cosnefroy was outstanding! His points tally aided significantly by his unlikely ToNE win that kept us up. Conci was superb as he was last year as our 3rd best scorer. Surprise package Thijssen outscoring Jakobsen wasn't expected but after Fabio had a no show in the Tour while Thijssen was 3rd in a GT Points classification, I guess it's not a big surprise. Both of them scoring fairly well all things considered though!
Further down, Mas contributed although I'm not quite sure he does what we need for his wage. A big part of his role is as a super domestiques in the Mountains though so I can't be too harsh.
Borges was poor. Only 15 points better than Lvl 3 Henry Alberto Sam who had an amazing season as our highest scoring non-max rider. We need to decide what to do with Ovsya who also scored a few but isn't good enough as it is to compete at this level.
Others all contributing to the overall team haul and as domestiques throughout.
Going to need a big review come renewals time to see what changes we need to solidify our position but it's nice to be in the same division again for the first time in about 5 seasons.
It's been PCT -> CT -> PCT -> CT -> PCT -> PT
Quite the journey to finally have some consistency
Congrats to Ember on an incredibly strong season! Some great set-ups also from SN, knockout and cio.
Really happy to see our fellow first timers redordead be rewarded for his team building to make the Top 10 in the maiden PT season and cool to see bbl survive also (Conci > Kamna though).
Commiserations to those going down. Some amazing managers and teams in there who will no doubt shake it off and be back in no time!
Thank you all for a great 2023 season and looking forward to our conversations in the weeks and months to come
Big congrats to ember! Can only echo what has already been said; I can't think of a more deserving winner. Really cool to see Aker come out on top after being a household name in the game for so many years
Thanks everyone for another MG season. Special shootout to the reporters and Fabianski for this amazin write-ups.
Congrats on the title, ember! Comiserations to those going down, but it's part of the game and most if not all will be able to bounce back. A real shame to see SotD going down. A historic moment. But also sad to see Minions and the energy they bring go down as well. Tsmoha and fintas already proved they can come back so it's just a matter of time before we see them back in the PT I think.
For us, another difficult season, but we survive yet again. Now, the big question, do we risk going for a big talent third year in a row or keep the current structure to give Remco and Kooij time to grow.
After not really following the PT action last season I've been more observant this year and especially via reporting have seen some great moments (most of all the Tour and some classics) and even quite more dramas, so commiserations to those relegating (especially to SotD, whose riders were often part of the drama; at least I can assure you Karatsivis has done rather well this season).
Thank you a lot to every reporter, Fabianski for the great monthly updates, and also everyone helping out behind the scenes to make the game run smoothly. The MG universe is amazing, and you're the guys making it happen. Thank you!
For us, what a season that was. Lombardia as the final one was a weird mix of pure joy and big relief, seeing the gap we had before the last race. Super happy we could finish it in a great way.
Wisniowski has been sensational as our clear leader. His huge points tally is even with small disappointments in the two cobbles monuments, but except for those two races, he was close to unstoppable on the cobbles. Not sure what made the difference compared to last season, but hopefully Anderberg's training helped him a long way. Speaking of whom, Anderberg clearly made use of his training, as landing with 664 points and a classics win, is another level compared to what he has done previously in the PT. As part of a quintet of our riders from 48th to 58th in the individual ranking, he clearly held a key for our success.
Kragh, Amezawa and Mohoric all contributed well, making 629-728 points each. Especially happy with how Kragh and Amezawa (with training) improved. Amezawa in the final two months had some mighty performances to carry us and keep pace with Evonik towards the finale of the season.
Though, whatever I write about great leaders and consistent perfomances from our support crews, our big outlier and difference maker was Prasad. That Vuelta will never be forgotten. His stage wins and points jersey was a lucky AI I can't really describe. I mean, having one stage win in a GT with such a sprint lineup would already be incredible luck and absolutely monumental. Doing it again and even running away with the jersey... I'm not sure how to put it
Thank you everyone for your very kind words and congratulations messages. They mean a lot, and they're all very nice to read. The off season weeks, and obviously the transfer season, is such a joy to be part of, due to all the nice talks you get to have with lots of different managers. With a very different life situation the last few years compared to previous seasons, in a positive way, time is more occupied with lots of other things. Though, it's still easy to prioritize transfer season and the great community here. The greatest thing is I can't see it disappearing Thank you again to all of you making the game work this well.
Incredible to see ember taking the win. Well done mate! Very happy for you. Also a very nice fight at the top between strong and long term managers, spiced up with a couple of not so long term - but very very smart managers.
Thanks everyone for the comisserations. I appreciate that a lot! We miss our own benchmark, and that is the reason for us going down. We can't blame it on anything other than our own performances, which is mostly down to 3 riders heavily underperforming. Koretzky, Farantakis and Carapaz. Neither are top riders, but all of whom performed much worse than they should have given the captaincy roles. I can't complain with Coquards points haul, albeit the way he secured the points was by no means how we expected the points - so this also put some pressure on riders such as Koretzky who was often killed by Coquards reasonable hilly sprints.
I must admit that I have spent a lot of time during the season to decide whether or not this would be the time to call it a day, but in the end I decided that it would be fun to give it a go at PCT level, maybe it is even time to go all-out greek now that I'm somewhat forced to change a bit. Hopefully it's possible to sell riders for fees that is atleast making some sort of training fun.
My efforts will unfortunately be much less active in the future due to some rather big changes in my real life work, so rather than working 40 hours a week, I will often have work weeks in the region of 60 with quite a lot of traveltime aswell. I hope it can be combined, and if it makes too much of an absence in terms of keeping the game active and fun for the rest of you - I really do hope you will let me know. I would not want that by any means.
Thanks for the season guys, and see you all in the off season - albeit at another level of activity.
Congrats ember - have always admired your team and although I may have been an Evonik supporter in the title race I still love to see you win your first title - richly deserved. Wisniowski with a hell of a season but look at those five riders around the #50 spot in the rankings shows the super strong leadership group you've formed over the years finally delivering. Absolutely awesome stuff from you!
Evonik on the podium is great to see - I firmly believe this team's best years are ahead of it with a title-winning core forming. Very interested in what the next steps are.
Also a big fan of Cedevita's top 10 and in general a pretty strong performance from the promoting teams - will be looking forward to reuniting with some of you next year! Some big teams going down, commiserations to all of you. I'm sure they'll all be huge favourites next year in the PCT - particularly ELCO obviously, I have never seen SotD in the PCT and even if I'm sorry to see you relegate I can't wait to see that project destroy the PCT
To the rest of you - I know I started in MG closer to all of your start than to the present (except SN ) which doesn't quite feel real! But you're all managers I admire a lot, congrats on your seasons and I'm looking forward to seeing you next year
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
Thanks to everyone, who contributed to another enjoyable MG season. Reporters, stage makers, ranking update writer, etc. much much appreciated!
From an Evonik POV, a pretty good season. Before the season, i had opted for a semi-contending strategy. Mostly focussed on building for the long-term future with signings like Foss, Eenkhoorn and Kurianov who will help me a lot in the next five years that would make the team good enough to contend for a podium but would need a fair bit of luck to win the title. When it was obvious early in transfers that nobody would be properly pushing for the title, it was tempting to switch to an all in effort with a Chiarello transfer
I'm perfectly fine with 3rd under those circumstances. Sure it felt like Aker especially had a ton of luck but there is bound to be a team with that amount of luck and if not Aker, it could have easily been EA, Puma or Gazelle. We scored pretty much exactly as much as you'd expect a team like mine to score with Polanc being a big overperformer and many of the rest of the team performing about how one might expect but largely without good surprise results.
Puma close behind, definitely feels like a team that will be stronger next season too as this felt more like a restructuring season for them.
Cedevita as 8th a surprisingly strong season. Imo probably the team next to Aker that overperformed their expectations the most. Really cool to see their approach work very well this season.
Carlsberg another team that overperformed (their own) expectations. Really cool to see a promoted team built around a top cobbler being able to stay up.
Of the relegated teams, especially ELCO hurts to see there. Feels like their team should have been strong enough to stay up and they had a huge lack of results all season long. Would have been interesting to see how they would have continued their greek build.
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