Giant Zucchini Premier League Season 1

Overview

Season 1 of the Giant Zucchini Premier League was won by Gallo FC, pipping AC Romanic to become the first Premier League champions.

James Gorton’s departure from Anglo FC seemed to have left a jinx with his successor Bertrand Paine. After a 3-1 win against Spartak, Paine suffered 3 consecutive defeats, plunging them into the bottom half at the halfway point. However, a second half without any defeats meant that Anglo clawed their way back into a place in international competition. Nevertheless, both Bobby Laredo and David Montgomery were disappointing. Laredo started the season well, but his form started to wane towards the end despite conceding lesser goals. On the other hand, Montgomery never really took off, only hitting the net in 2 games, scoring 3 goals. But the problems don’t stop there. Next season, Paine has to contend with an aging team and many retirements, and will be looking to rebuild the team again. How successful he is remains to be seen in the seasons to come.

On the other hand, Marcel Dessalines seems to have found the perfect balance with Gallo FC. An excellent record on their debut season sees them scoring the most, conceding the second least, and securing the best goal difference. Boasting the scoring prowess of both strikers Charles Poussin and Alain Vartan, Gallo also has midfield dynamo Armand Boyer to thank for about a quarter of the goals they scored. Meanwhile, both keepers Joseph Dessalines and François Wenger have been performing well at the back, recording 7 matches each and less than 10 goals conceded per keeper, as well as sharing a whopping 7 clean sheets between them.

Deutsch SV had a pretty respectable finish considering they spent most of the season in the bottom half of the table. A late surge pushed them from 2nd from bottom in the table to a decent mid-table finish, including a final day thriller against Sino FC. However, manager Georg Klinsmann has to take quick action to stop an impending crisis by bringing some youth into this severely aging team. However, on a brighter note, Deutsch will benefit from the maturing of Günter Herschel and Johann Rilke.

Spartak manager Dovid Yekhanurov launched into this tirade on himself on the last day’s 4-0 loss to Gallo FC. "I have no excuses. It (was) a poor season and I am not shirking any responsibility for it." So much was expected from this team, and the expectations were only raised after going top only 3 matches into the league, captivating the league with their movement and passing. However, they immediately went into a slump, losing 4 matches in a row, bringing them as low as 6th. Yekhanurov seized the slide by ditching their usual attractive attacking football and concentrating on grinding out the results, and they made slow but sure progress back to the top half of the table. However, a second-half collapse on the final day condemned them to the bottom half of the table on goal difference. Nevertheless, Yekhanurov has the luxury of youth in his squad, and the club should hit its peak within the next 2 seasons.

Iberia CF manager Ramón DeVicenzo must be feeling the heat after a less than stellar season. He was forced to revert to a 4-4-2 after his original 5-3-2 resulted in 2 losses and 8 goals conceded. Failing to keep to their defensive expectations, there is enormous pressure on DeVicenzo, and if results don’t go their way early next season, he could face the sack early on. Nevertheless, he will benefit from his young team gaining maturity and experience, but the general feeling is that he will have to make some shrewd decisions in the transfer market.

Sino manager Tay Liang Kee’s dynamic 3-5-2 formation has given Sino a reputation for giant-killing, felling Anglo on the first day as well as champions Gallo FC towards the end of the season. However, consistency has been their stumbling block this season, failing to perform against sides they should win comfortably against. As a result, they spent most of the second half of the season languishing deep in relegation territory, with only late giant-killing drama just pushing them to safety...but only just. The general consensus is that the team definitely needs to spend on defenders, after conceding the most goals this season despite the miraculous heroics of keeper Xie Siak Kee, who impressed enough to bag the Goalkeeper of the Season award. However, rumours are that a number of clubs are chasing after his signature, so Sino have to be prepared to cope with the loss.

Despite providing a defence that is relatively hard to break down, Nordic IF’s lack of firepower returned to bite them after firing blanks for 6 matches this season. Granted, those were against some of the better teams in the league, and you could say that luck was against them this season, as potential stars like Gottlieb Poulsen and Jan Borg failed to light up the pitch, but as they say, you make your own luck, and Nordic definitely failed to make any this season, but they could saved themselves by winning the Promotion/Relegation playoff against FC van Frankenland and getting another chance in the Premier League.

Final League Table

P = Games Played; W = Games Won; D = Games Drawn; L = Games Lost; F = Goals For; A = Goals Against; Pts = Points

Top Goal Scorers

Awards

Golden Boot Award: Carl Hohenzollern (Deutsch SV)
Golden Ball Award: Tommaso Braschi (AC Romanic)
Young Player Award: Armand Boyer (Gallo FC)
Manager of the Season: Antonio di Zoff (AC Romanic)
Goalkeeper of the Season: Xie Siak Kee (Sino FC)
Defender of the Season: Tommaso Braschi (AC Romanic)
Midfielder of the Season: Armand Boyer (Gallo FC)
Striker of the Season: Carl Hohenzollern (Deutsch SV)