|
|
 |
| Relegated on the final day :( |
Knights sadly could not stay in Division 4 on the final day of the season and all their efforts to try and stay up this season were for naught. Not even Arcanta beating The King Punks would have made a difference as Knights managed to lose a game they had to win at any cost. Unfortunately, the situation of desperation that King Punks had found themselves in meant that we failed to anticipate any tactical tweaks they might make in a last gasp situation but even so, Ashley Dinsadle's goal was one of just two chances while Cain Bond had a worldie of a game to deny everything that Knights threw at them.
It meant that Pierre Of Hesslink, after 116 goals for Knights in 320 appearances, could not end his career with a 117th and he even set up Roberto Mora from a free kick during the course of the game instead of shooting himself. Still, after arriving as the club's record signing back in Season 32 for 3 554 300 econ (a small amount compared to what the record is now, 12 089 300 econ for Matts Lagergren) Hesslink has been a key player for us as our free kick taker for many many seasons, indeed, during the rebuilding seasons of recent times he was by far our most threatening player in terms of goal contributions.
The Dutchman joined in Season 32 and took the number 21 shirt, but switched to number 6 in Season 34. He was backup free kick taker to Enver Nesim, Glenn Carlton, Pedro Miramontes and Timothy Wagner but took over as free kick taker in Season 37 and things took off from there. The stats are already well documented and his best game was a 3-0 thrashing of Sobral FC back in Season 46. Hesslink's retirement leaves a massive hole in midfield as we no longer have a specialised free kick taker to replace him... well, we do in a way with Elen but he is not ready to be the taker for the team. But still, the fact that he and Santamaria have been our best performers this season and they're both retiring tells us that this week's relegation is not one we'll easily be able to rebound from.
We will need to improve to avoid another relegation from Division 5 so we will have to halt the purchase of youngsters to buy some older players for average age and to ensure the team can be competitive enough to not get relegated again.
Aquiles Santamaria is also retiring. He joined us back in Season 29 after being one of the first players to join in that rebuild, he was promoted from the youth academy during the early off season and assigned the number 24 shirt. We were amid a mass rebuild following Aperson's takeover in the middle of the previous season and the manager knew back then that his squad needed changes, but on further advice from other managers drastically increased the scope of changes to include the entire squad.
Santamaria's promotion saw the end of Fidel Casal's career as the 27 year old was sacked, the later purchases of Gavril Gorga and Pim van der Kruis saw us drastically cut back on the defenders and sacked Ronaldinho, Espejo and Brecko, leaving only Quico Preciado left from the intial set of defenders the manager had inherited. Both players (Preciado and Santamaria) had a preference for the number 16 shirt but Preciado got it initially due to having been there longer with Santamaria being assigned the number 24 shirt for his first season.
Due to a higher sacking limit at the time we couldn't get rid of Preciado so he stuck around in the squad. After the signing of Emil Silke, Santamaria finally got to take over his favourite number 16 shirt and he wore that ever since. He formed a formidable defensive partnership with Pim van der Kruis, Ibrahim Qamara and Devin Reilly as Knights rose to the top flight in the Ultimate League, won the Ultimate League Cup and were a point off becoming Ultimate League champions in Season 44 but inconsistency and a horribly bad luck defeat to House of Stark meant that we couldn't quite get over the line.
Santamaria didn't help himself by being horrifically injury prone. Now that his career is over we can officially link every time that he picked up a serious injury:
Season 30: vs. Perkistan (Opponents have been deleted so match no longer exists)
Season 30: vs. Roma United (Opponents no longer exist) (Santamaria got a slight injury beforehand)
Season 32: vs. Taunton Town
Season 32: vs. Rayo
Season 36: vs. Taunton Town
Season 38: vs. The Stretford Enders
Season 42: vs. George Best XI (The worst injury of his career)
Season 43: vs. Winners FC
Season 43: vs. Irmaos Unidos
Season 46: vs. FK Vardar
Season 48: vs. Marcus
Season 49: vs. Bowbazar XI
In spite of all these major injuries (12 in total), Santamaria still developed into a colossal 16 bar defender although he was never the best defender with Pim van der Kruis in the backline. It is looking likely he will be surpassed in skill though, hopefully Gicu Elen, Matts Lagergren and Daniel Urs don't turn out to be as injury prone as Santamaria was.
Unusually for a defender Santamaria had goal instincts and he scored 15 goals throughout his career, contributing to the team winning matches as well as not losing them. Suffice to say, Santamaria and Hesslink will leave massive holes in the team in spite of our progress this season, it could be something of a setback which is why we don't expect to get promoted straight back next season. The club are already looking at replacements for both players.
Congrats to Gillan Suckers on promotion and good luck to Bowbazar in the play-offs. We hope to be back in Division 4 within the next four seasons.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|