The Canadian Premier League is a new challenge. I’ll be taking charge of Pacific for the 2020 season is by no means an easy task. It’s one that presents several obstacles such as working under a tight financial restraint. Did you know that the overall squad wage must not exceed £11,250 P/W?

That’s for a full squad of 23 players which just seems bizarre to me. But that’s something I’m gonna have to work through whilst building a squad that is capable of challenging for the Canadian Premier League title this year.

We have several different rules to follow throughout this year, such as Under 21 players having to play 1000 minutes over the span of the 28 games. We’ll contest in the Spring season where we play 10 games, then we will head into the Fall season where we will play a further 18 games. Strange how the season splits but if we finish top of either the Spring or Fall season, we’ll compete for Championship title.

Last season, Forge won the title after defeating favourites Cavalry over the 2 legged final but this season, the bookmakers are expecting to see the same final as last year. York 9 will be looking to build on last year along side FC Edmonton with Easton Ongaro upfront on his own.

If you take a look at the squad picture attached, you’ll note that we only have one goalkeeper. We have no Central Defenders & we are incredibly short on Left Backs and also Right Backs. So the plan for the transfer activity is to recruit in those positions. We could use another Striker as Marcus Haber isn’t exactly the best first choice option. Terran Campbell can play out wide and as a striker. I’ll post some players down below so you can see what I have to work with. Looking at the starting squad, 6 of them are aged under 21 which means we will get past a few of the league rules with relative ease. Other than that, the squad is looking fairly shallow & definitely needs depth adding to it.

Callum Irving // Free Transfer

Callum will undoubtedly come in as the number one goalkeeper. Having been born in Vancouver, hes a local lad who will act as number one leaving stiff competition for Wirth.

Maxim Tissot // Free Transfer

Having spoken briefly about bringing in defenders, I absolutely jumped at the option to sign Maxim Tissot. At 27, he’s the perfect age to be acting as one of our wing backs, he will almost certainly feature most games.

Nana Attakora // Free Transfer

This is a HUGE transfer for the club. Attakora brings a massive amount of experience to the squad. Not only that but he’ll help nurture the younger centre halfs in the squad & hopefully take the squad to the next level.

So, lets just go ahead & call this purple reign. It’s the attacking formation I’ve chosen to work with this season. The complete Wing Backs role will be key as we see them push higher up & take on attacking positions. We push higher, we sit higher up which could cause problems.

Ideally, this will be the formation that sees us through the year but it doesn’t always go to plan. Coming up against teams like Valour or Forge will throw up surprises by themselves so it’ll come down to how we react to them.

Now that we have an addition or two in defence, we should be sitting pretty. This year will be a huge test but it’s one we can compete with. We open up against York 9, a team that posses real quality but don’t show it. York are also an incredibly attacking team, countering that will be key.

Listed below are my three key players for this season. I’ve got 2 attacking players and a Central midfielder (kind of) so lets get into it.

Victor Blasco is like a pint of beer. He’s either incredibly good, or incredibly bad, no inbetween. Having managed him a few times on Football Manager, hes usually the first for me. His stats may not reflect, but he is the perfect attacking midfielder & he is one that I plan on using regularly. However, this won’t be in his preferred AM role. Instead, it’ll be as a central midfielder where he still gets good results.

Much like Blasco, Noah Verhoeven is a very good player in the CPL. He’s incredibly good at getting assists and constantly gets himself into impressive positions. His position is predominantly as an attacking midfielder however retraining could be an option. I’m not expecting incredible results but it’ll be interesting to see how he develops with solid first team football.

Issey Nakajima-Farran is a very good player for this level. At the age of 35, he’s getting towards the latter end of his career but he can be a very tricky player on his day. Having had him in previous teams, if played correctly he will be dynamite. He scores goals & he provides assists. He could be the player to lead us to the CPL title.

I hope you have enjoyed this first part of a journey with Pacific FC. In the next part, I will round up the opening season. Both Spring and fall seasons, work my way through key points in the season, big games, key players & more!

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