The DanFootball Gazette: Season 16 Retrospective

Act I: Seven goals. In a whole season.

Read the number slowly. Wild Roses Edmonton conceded 7 goals in 30 matches of World League 1. The previous record for the fewest goals ever let in by a top-flight club was 9, shared by Wild Roses themselves (Season 11) and Spicey Boys (Season 14). This year's champions kept 23 clean sheets, never conceded twice in a match, and finished 26-3-1, 71:7, 81 points: the joint second-highest total in history, behind only Raiders' 83 and level with Raiders' 81 from Season 8. Their goalkeeper, Mario Spadafora, was sent off twice during the season, once for "aggressive language towards the official". They still conceded seven. Some defences are a wall. This one is a wall that keeps a spare wall in the boot.

They opened with eight straight wins, which took the club's unbeaten league run to 54 matches, stretching back to Season 14. It ended in Round 9, Adria 1-0 Wild Roses, a goal by Ticona in the 85th minute, and Split can now sell tickets to the spot where it happened. Wild Roses replied by winning ten in a row and not losing again: 21 unbeaten to the end of the season. At home they were 14-1-0. The title was sealed in Round 29, Wild Roses 1-0 Arrows, Izzet Uzel in the 83rd minute, which is late for a coronation but right on time for a team that only ever needed one goal.

• Sixth title (Seasons 2, 11, 12, 13, 15 and 16). Raiders still lead with seven. The gap is one, and it is getting nervous.
• Goals spread like butter: Aquilino Fariña 14, Uzel 13, Roland Tóth 9 and Santo Franceschini 9. Franceschini is 19, cost 10,500 credits on the first night of the season, added 10 assists, and scored the only goal in Bucharest in Round 19.
• Friendlies, for the sake of completeness: 28-2-0. Nobody beat them there either.

Act II: Spicey Boys, or how to score ninety and lose

Somewhere in Barranco there is a spreadsheet that proves Spicey Boys had a better season than the champions. 25-2-3, 90 scored, 16 conceded, 77 points. Ninety goals is the most in World League 1 since Raiders' 98 in Season 8 and the fifth-highest total ever. Seventy-seven points equals the highest runner-up total in history (Raiders, Season 12), and would have won the title outright in eight of the previous fifteen seasons. This year it bought a silver medal and a long stare out of the window.

The whole season came down to two afternoons. Round 11: Spicey Boys 0-1 Wild Roses, Branko Lazarevic in the 53rd minute, the only home league defeat Barranco suffered all year (14 wins, 1 loss). Round 20: Wild Roses 1-1 Spicey Boys, Uzel in the 12th minute, Al-Tauqi with an equaliser in the 84th that felt like a victory for about a week. Add a 0-2 at Sharks and a mad 2-4 at Banatul, and the gap reached eight points by Round 18. Then Spicey did everything a chaser can do: ten wins in a row to finish the season, starting with 9-1 against Nordlys and including 4-1 against Galaxy and 2-0 against Adria. They cut the lead to four. It stayed at four. Wild Roses simply kept winning in front of them, like a man calmly closing every door his pursuer opens.

• Miguel Mancebo, 21: 22 goals and the World 1 Golden Boot, with three hat-tricks, two of them in consecutive rounds (9-1 against Nordlys, 3-0 at Arrows). Last season he cost 11,000 credits. Spicey would now like to see the receipt framed.
• Luca Barsotti 15, Tadashi Masui 11 (bought for 9,500 on the first day), Yoda 10. And in Round 10, Nordlys 0-7 Spicey Boys, with Nerazzurri scoring three.
• The friendly record is our favourite coincidence of the year: 29-4-1, 90 scored, 7 conceded. Spicey's league attack and the champions' league defence, in one line. Football has a sense of humour.

Three seasons in World League 1 for Spicey Boys: first, second, second, with 76, 70 and 77 points. And every year Wild Roses find a little more. The Gazette has seen this film before, with Wild Roses in the other role, four times runners-up to Raiders. It ended well for them. Season 17 tickets are already being printed in Barranco.

Act III: Galaxy, from zero to fifth

Promoted clubs are supposed to be nervous. Galaxy Vilnius took it literally. Their first five matches in World League 1: 0-0, 0-3, 0-1, 0-2, 0-0. No goals scored, fifteenth in the table, and the friendly wisdom that the Lithuanian lift had finally reached the top floor and stopped.

It had not. From Round 5 to Round 25, Galaxy went 21 matches unbeaten. In Round 7 they beat Astral 6-0 with two hat-tricks in the same match, scored in strict alternation: Hua 8', Storey 9', Hua 39', Storey 44', Hua 57', Storey 59'. Two strikers taking turns like brothers sharing a bicycle. They held Wild Roses 0-0 and Spicey Boys 0-0 in Vilnius, won 1-0 in Bucharest, and beat Sharks 2-0 in the penultimate round. Final record: 17-8-5, 49:20, 59 points, fifth, the second-highest total ever for a fifth-placed club.

And the last scene was cruel. Final day, Adria 1-0 Galaxy, the only goal an own goal by Kostopoulos in the 44th minute. A draw would have given Galaxy fourth place. Instead they finished one point behind Adria. Still, look at the staircase: Lithuanian league in Season 13, World 3 champions in Season 14, World 2 runners-up in Season 15, fifth in World League 1 in Season 16. Four seasons, four floors. Galaxy also went 28-9-1 in friendlies, because a club this restless needs something to do on Tuesdays.

Act IV: Adria, the club that beat the champions

One club in World League 1 beat Wild Roses this season, and it was Adria Split. Round 9, 1-0, Ticona, 85th minute (Act I). Adria finished fourth with 60 points (17-9-4), unbeaten in 18 straight at one stage, 11-3-1 at home, and they did it with the defence of a bank vault: 19 conceded, third-best in the division. They also beat Raiders 1-0, drew twice with Sharks, and on the final day ended Galaxy's season with somebody else's own goal. Adria do not always play beautifully. They always send the invoice.

The spending continued: Ever Gauto, a 17-year-old left-back, for 13,500 credits, level with last year's Dünnwald as the joint fourth-largest fee in the game's history. Gauto played 28 matches, scored twice and set up four. Dünnwald, last year's 19-goal sensation, scored nine. Adria have the budget of a club that expects to be in this column for years, and on this evidence they will be.

Act V: The fall of Bucharest

For seven seasons Raiders Bucharest did not finish anywhere but first. Then third, then second three times, then fourth twice. This season: sixth. 16-2-12, 50 points. Twelve defeats, the most in any World 1 season since their first, and their lowest finish since Season 1. Between Round 19 and Round 28 they lost seven matches out of ten, including 0-1 at home to Wild Roses, 0-2 at home to Spicey Boys and 0-1 at home to Galaxy. Opponents now visit Bucharest the way tourists visit a famous castle: with respect, a camera, and no fear at all.

The tone was set on opening day. Pyramids 3-2 Raiders, and two of the Pyramids goals were scored by a Raiders player, Jonathan, in the 28th minute and the 90th. A season that starts with your own man scoring twice for the other side was never going to be ordinary. Dwight Stafford scored 16 and was the club's best player. Elías Olivieri, 36, scored 9 and went past 200 career goals.

And Hector Ojeda, now 38, played 28 matches and scored twice, both against Astral (2-0 at home in Round 5, 1-1 in Amsterdam in Round 26). Career total: 259. He did not retire. This column stopped predicting it a year ago and feels vindicated. In the penultimate round, Raiders won 3-0 at Hussars thanks partly to an own goal by Matthias Baudet, 36, 456 appearances, who finally scored for Bucharest after all these years. Just not on purpose.

Act VI: World 1, the bottom floor

Astral Amsterdam have now played five seasons in World League 1 (Seasons 2, 4, 11, 14 and 16) and been relegated from all five. Fifteenth, 21 points, 17 scored and 65 conceded, including 0-6 against Storm, Galaxy and Pacific, and 0-7 at Banatul. Their great striker Zurab Beridze, 37, retires with 116 goals, the highest total of any player who has ever retired (Act XII). He played three matches this season. The lift is back in World 2. The engineers have been told to stop answering the phone.

The relegation fight was settled in the last minute of the season. Before Round 30, Storm had 20 points and Hussars 23. Hussars lost 0-4 at Spicey Boys. Storm went to Amsterdam and won 2-1, the winner an Astral own goal in the 90th minute. Storm 23, Hussars 23, and Storm stayed up on goal difference, −23 against −26. Astral, already down, made one last gift on their way out. Hussars FC, World 2 champions two seasons ago, go back down with Baudet. Jökull Reykjavik finish last with 16 points and 10 goals, after paying 10,500 credits for Amine Fizazi, who scored three, the last of them a 1-0 winner over Banatul on the final day. Goodbye, and thank you for the souvenir.

Two clubs scored 10 goals in 30 matches, equalling the lowest total ever (Hussars, Season 13): Jökull, who went down, and Nottingham Arrows, who stayed up. Arrows won seven matches and every single one of them finished 1-0. They are not a football team. They are a precision instrument for the smallest possible victory. Nordlys scored 11, drew nine matches 0-0, and finished eleventh. At the other end, Banatul scored 65 and conceded 57, won 7-0 against Astral (Bekavac in the first minute) and 4-2 against Spicey Boys, and finished seventh, having clearly decided that entertainment is a public service.

Act VII: World 2, Dacia come home

A year ago this newspaper reported the first relegation in the history of FC Dacia Brasov. It lasted exactly one season. Dacia are champions of World 2 with 57 points (16-9-5, 38:14) and go straight back to World League 1. They did it with a nine-match winning streak between Rounds 12 and 20 that took their lead to eleven points, and then with a run-in designed by a cardiologist: lost 2-3 to Atlas, lost 0-2 at Halicspor, lost 0-1 at Juventud. The lead shrank from eleven to two. On the final day Dacia drew 0-0 at Union, Juventud won 2-0, and the title went to Brasov by two points. Aníbal Tineo, 33, scored nine, including two in the last three minutes against Halicspor, and now has 241 career goals. Welcome home. Try not to do that again.

Now, a moment for Juventud Buenos Aires. Argentine champions three seasons running (11, 12, 13), World 3 runners-up in Season 14, eleventh in World 2 last year, and now runners-up with 55 points and the first Argentine club ever promoted to World League 1. They conceded 9 goals in 30 matches, the best defence in the division and the tightest in World 2 since Baltic's 8 in Season 12. They drew thirteen times, lost only three, and never lost to Dacia (0-0, then 1-0 in Round 28, Cárdena in the 24th minute). Paulinho Borralho scored 12 and shares the World 2 Golden Boot with Diamonds' Nelso Trinidad.

And then there is the transfer. On the Friday of the last week, Juventud paid 18,000 credits for Charly Gautier, a 23-year-old French midfielder: the most expensive player in the history of the game, two thousand more than Kuster's 16,000 from Season 10. Gautier played five matches, scored nothing and made one assist. In Buenos Aires they are calling it an investment. In the accounts department they are calling it Friday.

Atlas Marrakech go up in third (49 points, 16 draws), a second promotion in two years after winning World 3 last season. Imperial, relegated with Dacia, finished fourth and stay down. And a special mention for Trakia Plovdiv: 18 draws, a World 2 record, sixteen of them 0-0, 10 goals scored and 13 conceded in thirty matches. Trakia finished twelfth and safe. Their matches produced 23 goals all season, which Oresund managed in about five afternoons (Act VIII). Going down: Tomis, Union and Diamonds, the last after eight defeats in a row.

Act VIII: World 3, settled by goal difference

Kingston Barracudas are champions of World 3 with 58 points (17-7-6), the first world-league title for a club from Jamaica, built on a 12-2-1 home record and Callum Hampton's 14 goals. They finished with two draws, the last a 0-0 at Plymouth Sea Dogs, who also go up in second. Sea Dogs, you will remember, ended last season with six goalless draws in a row. This year they ended it with another one, and a promotion. Plymouth has learned that nothing can also be something.

Third place was the knife-edge of the season. King Cobra, Accra Stars and Hammer all finished on 48 points. Goal difference: King Cobra +16, Stars +9, Hammer +4. King Cobra even lost 0-2 at Butterfly on the final day and went up anyway. Accra Stars, last year's qualifiers, led the division for eight rounds with the best defence in the league (15 conceded), then won two of their last twelve matches and missed promotion by seven goals of difference. Hammer lost the direct duel on the final day, 0-2 in Accra. Nobody went home happy except Jakarta.

Oresund Copenhagen scored 79 goals (the third-highest total in World 3 history) and conceded 62, which is how you finish seventh. Damien Blenheim scored 27, the World 3 Golden Boot, four of them on the final day in a 6-1 at Aronsson Academy. Oresund also won 8-2 against Hangang and 7-1 against Vltava. Going down to their country leagues: AC Vesuvio, Aronsson Academy (10 points, and sixteen defeats in a row to finish), Pokrok, Vltava, FC Leman and Oxygen Montreal, whose return to the world leagues lasted exactly one season. Last year's headline was "Oxygen are breathing again". This year, the Gazette recommends a short rest and plenty of fluids.

Act IX: Gladiator, back from exile

Some names come from the very first page of this newspaper. Gladiator Milan played in World League 1 in Season 1. And Season 2, and every season up to Season 8, then again in Season 10, when they finished last with 18 points. After that, the slide: relegated from World 2, promoted from World 3, relegated again, and in Season 14, fifteenth in World 3 and sent home to Italy. Last year they finished second in Italy, behind Vesuvio. This year they won it: 12-3-1, 30 scored, 4 conceded, 39 points, a perfect 8-0-0 at home.

Then the qualifiers, and Gladiator remembered how to fight. 5-1 against FC Backgammon of Bucharest (then a 0-1 in Romania, to keep things interesting). 6-0 on aggregate against Ashwaganda, the German champions, 3-0 home and away. And the final round against Harimau Selatan of Malaysia, the best friendly club in the game:

• First leg in Johor Bahru: Harimau 6-5 Gladiator. Gladiator were 3-5 down at the 84th minute. Cabaña scored in the 85th and the 88th. Level at 5-5. Then Pacay scored for Harimau in the 93rd.
• Second leg in Milan: Gladiator 2-1 Harimau. Pacay again, in the 4th minute. Sandberg in the 57th and the 71st. 7-7 on aggregate.
• Penalties: Gladiator 4-3. Fourteen goals in two legs, one shootout, and Gladiator are back in World League 3.

Is it a comeback? The Gazette says this much: the last time Gladiator played in World 3, in Season 12, they were promoted at the first attempt. Their supporters have long memories and longer patience. World 1 is three floors away. Galaxy just showed that three floors can take three seasons.

Act X: The qualifiers, six seats

• Harimau Selatan did not go up, but they took a scalp first: Trovadores Granada, unbeaten Spanish champions (11-3-0), knocked out 4-2 on aggregate in their first tie. For the second year running, the Spanish champions did not reach the final round.
• Panthères FC Kinshasa won 4-3 in Astana, then 6-0 at home for a 10-3 aggregate against Esil, the club that put ten past Harimau a year ago. What goes around comes around, with interest. They then beat Nagoya Shachi 1-0 on aggregate, with the goal coming in Japan.
• Kaunas Tauras beat Tamtranlu, Enfield United (6-0), Asteras and Al Najd, conceding twice in eight legs, and finished third in the friendly ranking on the side.
• Atletico Aburra Medellin started with two 0-0 draws against Al Rafidain and won the shootout 8-7, then went through 1-0 and 2-1. Three goals in six legs. Promotion by economy class.
• Atlantico Porto beat Shanghai Dragons, Wouri and Europe Brussels 5-1 on aggregate. Aberdeen Bad Boys, last year's beaten finalists, finished the job this time: 6-0 on aggregate against Avala in the last round.

Elsewhere: Algiers Mouloudia 0-10 Asteras on aggregate (0-8 in Rhodes), Cardiff beat Busan 9-2 on aggregate (6-1 at home), and Argentine champions Ciudadanos were knocked out by Viljandi Hundis of Estonia.

Act XI: The country leagues, decided by a whisker

• England: United Enfield and Kingsbury FC both finished on 20 points. Goal difference: +4 against +3. Enfield lost their first two matches, were seventh after eight rounds, took the lead in Round 12 and won the title by a single goal of difference. Second year running that England goes to the wire. Somebody in London is stockpiling calculators.
• United States: United Lusby 18, Blue Crab Stew 17. Lusby lost their final match 0-1 at home to Valorins and won the title anyway: Blue Crab Stew won 1-0 on the same day and finished one point short, which is about the size of a crab.
• Scotland: Aberdeen Bad Boys 12, Aberdeen Rovers 11, a derby title race inside one city. Bad Boys finished unbeaten and took the title with a 0-0 at Ravens FC, who had one point all season.
• Brazil: Aurora Mineira are champions with 7 points and a negative goal difference (7:8), after losing 1-5 at Guanabara in Round 2. Guanabara led for four rounds, then lost 3-4 in Belo Horizonte and 2-3 at home to Santana on the final day. Brazil has always played its own game.
• India: Vikings 7, Warriors 6. Germany: Ashwaganda by four. Spain: Trovadores unbeaten (36 points), five clear of Toros. France: Union Maritime unbeaten again, a fourth straight title. Belgium: Europe Brussels, back home, won 5-1-0 with 19 goals for and 2 against. Mexico: Jalisco, while Dairylea Lunchadores played four, lost four, and did not score a single goal. A lunch with no main course.

Act XII: Farewells and milestones

The retiring class numbers 505, a new record for the second year in a row (489 last year). Leading them out: Wout Meijer of King Cobra, goalkeeper, 443 appearances, the most of any player who has ever retired, beating Erimescu's 409 from last week, and with 18 career red cards, also the most of any retiree. He retires on the night his club is promoted. Zurab Beridze of Astral, 37, 116 goals, beats Weber's 109 as the highest-scoring player ever to retire. Onyekachi Peretomode of Lions FC leaves with 393 appearances, Peer Reichert of Jalisco with 52 goals, Ricardo Links of Storm with 41 goals and 48 assists.

Still going: Ojeda 259 at 38, Hilmar Ihrig 249 at 37 (four goals for Kaiser this season, one short of 250, and this newspaper will be watching every minute he plays), Tineo 241, Olivieri 201, Bekavac 196. And Tianjama Kontao, Pacific's goalkeeper, collected red cards number 22 and 23 of his career. Both against Galaxy, one in the 93rd minute in Seattle, one in the 81st in Vilnius. We do not know what Galaxy did to him. We suspect it was personal.

Act XIII: Mercato and crime blotter

148 transfers, 273,845 credits, a new record (210,118 last year), and 51 of them at fixed price. The new record fee (Gautier, 18,000, Act VII) arrived on the Friday of the final week. The rest of the top of the invoice: Gauto 13,500 to Adria; Fizazi 10,500 to Jökull (three goals, relegated); Franceschini 10,500 to Wild Roses (nine goals, ten assists, title); Masui 9,500 to Spicey Boys (eleven goals); Austin Maguire 7,500 to Schelde Antwerpen; Pravin Yogeswaran 6,120 to Juventud at auction, the second big buy of Juventud's week.

Discipline: matches with a red card, or a stretcher with nobody left on the bench, 502 of 2,868, about the same rate as last season. In the three world leagues, 136 red cards in 720 matches, up from 107. Penalties: 1,036 awarded, 762 scored. The prisoners of the year are two goalkeepers with three red cards each, Gonzalo Vicente of Fiko and Ionel Dina of Tomis. Goalkeepers continue to treat the penalty area as a place for personal disputes.

Act XIV: The friendlies

Harimau Selatan won the friendly ranking for the second year running: 114 points from 66 matches, 144 goals scored. Between those 66 matches they also reached the final round of the qualifiers and lost it on penalties (Act IX), which makes them, statistically, the hardest-working club in the game and the unluckiest. Azure Chefchaouen (108) and Kaunas Tauras (106) completed the podium. 139 series, every one completed, 4,178 goals. Top scorers: Yannick Prost of Mayab and Cédric Piteira of Osaka Naniwa, 38 each. Wildcards for next season's qualifiers go to Osaka Naniwa, Nagoya Shachi and Jalisco Guadalajara.

New for Season 17: KSV Sottegem in Belgium, Lviv Lions in Ukraine, FC AJM Shtip Augsburg in Germany and FC Farul Fara Bec in Romania, which translates roughly as "the lighthouse without a bulb" and is the most honest club name this newspaper has ever printed. Nobody was disbanded.

Final standings

World 1: 1. Wild Roses Edmonton 81 · 2. Spicey Boys Barranco 77 · 3. Gold Coast Sharks 67 · 4. Adria Split 60 · 5. Galaxy Vilnius 59 · 6. Bucharest Raiders 50 · 7. Banatul Timisoara 43 · 8. Pyramids Giza 35 · 9. Seattle Pacific 34 · 10. Lions FC Lagos 33 · 11. Nordlys IF Oslo 27 · 12. Nottingham Arrows 25 · 13. Cape Town Storm 23 (−23) · 14. Hussars FC Warsaw 23 (−26) · 15. Astral Amsterdam 21 · 16. Jökull Reykjavik 16

World 2: 1. FC Dacia Brasov 57 · 2. Juventud Buenos Aires 55 · 3. Atlas Marrakech 49 · 4. Imperial Tokyo 47 · 5. Amazonia Manaus 44 · 6. Black Army Budapest 44 · 7. Bania Craiova 43 · 8. Halicspor Istanbul 43 · 9. Fiko Tunis 42 · 10. Detroit Motors 36 · 11. Kaiser Vienna 34 · 12. Trakia Plovdiv 33 · 13. FC Sipp Dortmund 33 · 14. Tomis Constanta 28 · 15. Union Santiago 27 · 16. Diamonds Amsterdam 23

World 3: 1. Kingston Barracudas 58 · 2. Plymouth Sea Dogs 51 · 3. King Cobra Jakarta 48 (+16) · 4. Accra Stars 48 (+9) · 5. Hammer Hamburg 48 (+4) · 6. Espada Madrid 46 · 7. Oresund Copenhagen 45 · 8. CD Volcán de Quito 44 · 9. Hangang FC Seoul 43 · 10. Munich Butterfly 42 · 11. Oxygen Montreal 41 · 12. FC Leman Geneva 37 · 13. Vltava Prague 35 · 14. Pokrok Kosice 34 · 15. AC Vesuvio Napoli 18 · 16. Aronsson Academy Gothenburg 10

Qualifiers → World 3: Aberdeen Bad Boys, Atlantico Porto, Atletico Aburra Medellin, Gladiator Milan, Kaunas Tauras and Panthères FC Kinshasa. Friendly Ranking podium: Harimau Selatan Johor Bahru 114 · Azure Chefchaouen 108 · Kaunas Tauras 106; wildcards to Osaka Naniwa, Nagoya Shachi and Jalisco Guadalajara.

Golden Boots: Miguel Mancebo (Spicey Boys) 22 in World 1, Paulinho Borralho (Juventud) and Nelso Trinidad (Diamonds) 12 each in World 2, Damien Blenheim (Oresund) 27 in World 3. Record watch: fewest goals conceded in a World 1 season, 9 → 7 (Wild Roses); most expensive transfer ever, 16,000 → 18,000 (Gautier to Juventud); transfer credits in a season, 210,118 → 273,845; retiring class, 489 → 505; most appearances by a retiree, 409 → 443, and most red cards by a retiree, 18 (both Meijer); highest-scoring retiree, 109 → 116 (Beridze); most draws in a World 2 season, 18 (Trakia). Equalled: highest runner-up total, 77 (Spicey Boys); fewest goals scored in a World 1 season, 10 (Jökull and Arrows). New categories: two hat-tricks in one match, alternating (Hua and Storey); seven wins, all 1-0 (Arrows); five top-flight seasons, five relegations (Astral). Still behind glass: the 10-0, the fifteen-goal match, and Raiders' 83 points.

Season 17 opens with Wild Roses one title behind Raiders and Spicey Boys four points behind Wild Roses; with Galaxy wondering what they could do if they scored in August; with Juventud bringing Argentina and the most expensive player in history to World League 1; with FC Dacia and Atlas back among the giants and Astral, Hussars and Jökull gone; with Raiders trying to remember the way back to the top; with Ojeda on 259 and Ihrig on 249, one goal from history; with Gladiator back in the world leagues, and Harimau Selatan still knocking on the door. Do not change the channel.