FiftyBeforeThirty

Thanks, I'm certainly hoping the creative juices will flow as opposed to the, of course metaphorical, tears. The CA & PA are simply the star rating my assistant has given the players.

Squad Overview It's been a little while, having not purchased or played any of FM23, so I figured it was time to break out a new set of spreadsheets for the upcoming save and try to develop somewhat of a system of measuring the team throughout our tenure. Not only this, but I'm actually adapting and using different views for my squad which I can't say is something I have ever touched before. Now for the not-so-fun news; well, we kind of don't even have a youth team...We have a senior squad and that is all, potentially since we are only Semi-Professional, but then again so are all Icelandic teams (something I've only just found out). It may be an option in the second year where I'm able to say I'd like one, but there could just be nothing for them in our division. Besides that, we've inherited a small and, if nothing else, unspectacular side. Only 4 of the players are eligible for the challenge, and so it is my goal to play these few as often as possible in order to develop them to the best player that they can be. 3 are Under-21s and the other is 25, so they have a decent amount of time to develop in their careers and I'm hoping that they will continue their development here, especially as we look towards a youth-only future. Goalkeepers We have but two 'keepers, Steinarsson who is young with a fair amount of potential, and Broetto who is more experienced and has a lot better character to work with. I am hoping to form somewhat of a bond between these two through a mentoring group where I'll also be incorporating one of our younger players who relatively well-suited to the group in my opinion. Steinarsson will be starting, since I'd like to use as many Icelandic players as I can, though I'm also not stuck in a position where I'm forcing myself not to use Broetto at all, and he'll definitely be used throughout the season here-and-there. Defenders Here's where we start moving into...I guess, interesting territory. 5 defenders is all that we have, yes, but that's probably not the worst part of this - that'd be the fact I'm dealing with 5 defenders who only play center-back to a high standard. In a way, I'm amused and kind of excited as I wanted to build a tactic around the players that we have at the start and what I've come up with is something that I never thought I'd fashion, or ever need to. I've assigned 3 of our players to work on being wide center backs, a role I don't recall ever using previously and one that I'm fairly excited to see the influence of. Obviously, Garðasson and Helgason are going to be two of our starting three at the back, the former looking like a bright prospect with very little in the way of development skills, though Helgason looks to be better-versed at reaching his, albeit lower, potential. Gustav Kjeldsen will join the two challenge-eligible players at the back in what I think is a very solid back line. Ondo will be leading the mentoring group between the set of defenders, though it's a role that Kjeldsen will probably take over next year, I'm doing it more so that the Gabonese defender's personality may have a positive impact on the side. Midfielders In midfield we have far more depth than at the back, and I'd say that for that reason it'll be our strongest area of the pitch. That's part of the reason for my formation of choice. Ibrahimagic (a fantastic name might I add) looks to be a very solid midfielder on the whole and has already thoroughly impressed me in the intra-squad friendly. He is, by a fair way, our highest earner, and I'm hoping that this doesn't push him to be too far out of our league when it comes to renewing his contract. Elsewhere, we have good options on the wings and Svavarsson looks to be a solid challenge-eligible player for us on the left-hand-side of midfield, though his atrocious determination leaves me incredible pessimistic. I will be putting him into a group with Nacho Gil who can hopefully spur some form of life into his mentals, and maybe have a positive impact upon his development somewhere along the line. Attackers Aaaand we're back to the challenging part of the challenge. One out-and-out striker who's not getting any younger and a couple of wingers, Jakobsen is another Danish player who has some pretty impressive stats that I hope can see him work some magic with younger members of the side. We are definitely praying for a decent striker to come through, especially if they are eligible for the challenge, though that's still 3/4 of a season away yet, if not more. The Tactic Ah yes, the good old...3-6-1? 3-3-3-1? 3-2-1-3-1? Defensively we are looking to pressure, win the ball, and counter. With an overload in the middle of the park and attempt to force players inside, we will hopefully create an overload both defensively and offensively meaning that teams lose possession in the chaos. The wide centre backs - while out of possession - will look to create a 4-back by allowing Gbadamosi to join Helgason in the middle, while Gil looks to sweep in and snuff out anything in the middle of the park. Jakobsen and Svavarsson will be given the instruction to track back with the opposition midfielders and Kjeldsen and Garðarsson will be asked to mark the wider attackers, in a hope that we can also stay relatively strong in the face of wider formations and playstyles. Attackingly we are simply trying to feed the ball to any of our 5 in attack. After watching a tactical video recently on the usage by modern teams of a 3-1-6 going forwards, and how using wingers in order to draw a defender wide to create space for another attacker works, I've opted to attempt my own iteration of this. The idea being, in short, that if a team lined up with a 4-back, we can push Einarsson up and have the three central players push into the box, while the wide man on the other side will go toward the back post, in order to stretch the defence and force a midfielder to track back, leaving some kind of space for Gil, on occasions that he pushes forwards, to dictate play as required. It will be less of a 3-1-6 as it stands, and more of a 3-2-5, but as the season goes on I am certainly not going to be a stickler for a single style of play, just as the video talks about how Girona managed to pick apart a 5-man defence with the extra player, and how Guardiola speaks of having used upwards of 40 singular systems in a game. It's an odd one, and we may well get picked apart leading to a forced change, but I'm definitely looking forwards, among other things, to developing the tactic and the team to play the style of game I'm envisaging with this. That's all for now, it may be a few days before I can progress too far forward but I can feel things slowly but surely coming together. I've got a philosophy and an idea of what I want from the players, it's just time to see if this works and if we are able to but the plan into action. We have played our intra-squad friendly and now have 5 games in the "League Cup A Group C" where we're matched with 8-time Premier Division winners FH, perennial top half side, and current holders of the Premier Division title Breiðablik, Valur - the holders of 23 top tier titles, including 3 of the last 6, and two teams from our own division. It's going to be an incredible ask to get something from a few of these games, as we are facing off against perhaps three of the best teams in Icelandic football over the last two decades, but we'll give it our all and try to develop a more defensive approach than the one we will use against other sides.

Thank you kindly - I really appreciate the comment and the efforts of sitting through my ramblings! It does indeed sound like we have a similar calling for FM craziness - it's certainly going to be tough. Hoping that the next update will be one of the next two nights but life is pretty hectic at this point in time!

Pre-amble Hello once more folks. I'm here, after a lot of thought as to where I want to take my main thread and Football Manager save this year and after a lot of deliberation I've finally come up with a plan. See, this year saw me take on my first managerial/coaching position, with a local town club's Under 11 side. Not exactly leading out a team at Old Trafford or the Bernabeu but, alas, it was a start in a goal I've had for countless years, since dedicating too-many-hours-not-to into Football Manager. It was awesome, I enjoyed it, but it was tough. See, I live in a very rural area of New South Wales, Australia (originally from the U.K. - moved here around 18 months ago. You know that map where it goes "Oh hey, 95% of people live in this red zone in Australia"? The region I live in is probably just about visible. My wife and I live in a town of about 700, with the next town over (where the team I manage is located) having a population of roughly 6,000. Hailing from a "small" town in South-East England with around a 100k population...it's been different for sure! Anyways, what I'm hoping to get at is the pool of players was small, but it was made even smaller when compared to every other team in our division. See this is "footy" country. No - not this "footie" - Rugby League. So there aren't a lot of football teams for people to join. Hence why every other team in our division is just over an hour away...in the nearest "city" (that has roughly half of the population of the English town I once strode the streets of). So, not only was every other game game a 2-and-a-half hour round trip, but they had a pool of roughly 8-10 times as many players as we had to choose from. To make things "worse", or simply more difficult, every team in the city has various stages of trials and recruitment and some even have 3rd teams for their youth. My team? Well they just let the first 15 sign-ups play. No replacements when a kid dropped out in Week 3 of 15, no back-ups for when I get a message halfway to the city saying poor little Timmy has a snotty nose and won't make the game. We just had to make do. As you can probably imagine, we didn't win a game, and scored just 2 goals all season long... However, it was a fantastic experience for myself. We had two quite fantastic girls, one of whom I genuinely believe could make a few of the city-based teams and just needs some more intensive training (and sessions where more than half the kids show up...). I also got to feel the pride as we scored our goals, pulled off great saves and managed to string more than 5 passes together (the latter was only in the last couple of games). And so, through all the trials and tribulations, I am happy to say that I'm confident of continuing in a role at the club again next season, and hopefully I'll get to see a team I manage and coach take to the field for a win, but that's enough biographical detailing for now. It's time to get into the Football Manager part. The Concept My idea isn't particularly "unique" or unheard of before, but I've tried to make this FM save feel as much of a challenge as my coaching was, just without the parents driving me to the brink of insanity. I want to build up a team with minimal infrastructure and that is isolated from other clubs in the region and divisions, and attempt a Youth-Only region-locked challenge. That means, only players from that State/County/whatever-your-country-calls-it, can be used and only from our own Youth Facilities. Obviously, at the start of the game this won't be possible but I'm hoping we will be able to slowly fill our team up with more and more players from the chosen region over time. I will note, if this doesn't end up being possible I may have to move away from one point of this, either signing players from the region from other teams, or to make it a youth-only in general, but we will see how we can do. The Team It started by me looking through leagues with "isolated" teams. Teams that are far from any other, be it on other islands like OFI of Greece or Kuressaare in Estonia, teams that are almost half a country away from their closest divisional rivals like Tromso and Ross County. And then I found KA in Iceland. They are in the north-western territory of Iceland, and to show this I looked, trying to find the map I had discovered on my phone, only to be alerted to an even greater challenge. This is the map I found. KA are north of "Iceland" on the map, and I had a good look and thought it through. And then I saw them. That club, right up in the north-west corner, sat all on it's own. Vestri. Vestri, or Knattspyrnudeild Vestra (definitely not a copy-paste job I'll have you know!) sit all alone in the administrive district of Westfjords with a dwindling population of just 7,000 people, making up just under 2% of the entire country's population. Just 100 years ago, almost 15% of the population lived here, though the harsh conditions and lack of flat land upon which to build and to expand has meant that the population in that time has shrunk by almost half, and while other areas of the country have developed, this small peninsula has changed very little. It must be said though, the small town in which Vestri are located, Ísafjarðarbær, is an absolutely stunning location. Everything just looks so naturally maintained, the roads are perfectly fitted around the Danish Strait's coastline, the short airstrip right on the precipice of the water's edge while hardly maintaining clearance from the mountains...it's idyllic - at least to me. And this is where our save will be starting - in the second tier of Icelandic football in an area nearly 6 times as large as London, with a population not even a quarter of Gibraltar's. The Manager Kjárr Vignisson is a former semi-professional footballer who plied his trade in the lower leagues of Iceland during his career. Now, at 35 years of age, he is taking his first steps into management having just attained his Continental C License. His time between attaining his license and the end of his playing career was spent working in a local educational facility and coaching younger sides around the area in the Westfjords town. His youth management has led to him seeing some rising talents and helping them to achieve some forms of success, and he hopes that one day he will be able to hand a debut to a former youth-player for his new club, Vestri. The Philosophy We will be attempting to use a solid defensive formation off the start, which looks to press and counter to create chances. The exact systems that we will incorporate with the team will mainly be based on the players themselves, especially those who come through the youth facilities in the first couple of seasons. Our main financial aid at the start will have to be slowly selling off the players who were not raised in Iceland, and eventually in the Westfjords area, and hopefully our youth candidates will be of a reasonable quality, even if not from Westfjords, so that we may be able to sell them in the future. I'm mainly keeping my fingers crossed that we don't end up with a generational talent who is from outside of our region and will have to be sold off at some stage, but the less we say about that, the less likely it is to happen, right? Now, let us see how this works out!

We have officially left the Oceanic continent for pastures new and for the Benin National team. Here's how their current records stand: They've not been a particularly impactful force upon African football and have only made a handful of mostly lackluster showings in the AFCON and African World Cup Qualifiers, and that's where we come in. We've inherited a far from ideal squad of players if we're being completely honest, though I certainly think we should be higher than we are in our World Cup Qualification campaign: Don't get me wrong, some of the other groups look like an absolute cake-walk in comparison, but we should definitely be above teams like Rwanda, and challenging Zimbabwe/South Africa. So far in the campaign we've drawn 2-2 on three different occasions; against South Africa (Home), Rwanda (Away), and Zimbabwe (Home), before losing to Nigeria (Away). The campaign is spread over 3 years for whatever reason and so the two games the side have just played are the last until next year in the competition. This being Africa, however, we do have the spectacular AFCON prospect inbound, with the competition beginning in just over 2 months (with the Preliminary Round). I'm excited to see how we can progress and looking forward to a new start (not just with the Spreadsheet information!). We shall see where Benin takes us, and where we can guide them!

Before we get into the thick of things, it looks like it's a random, unseeded draw from the top 6 teams in the OCE Nations Cup Groups, and of course we get paired with New Zealand. The other group is weak with one of Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to progress to the Final and attain at least a Play-off spot in World Cup Qualification. It's harsh, but it's the way that the cookie crumbles; we'll do our best against the Kiwis and hope that we can catch them out or they slip against New Caledonia if need be. For now though, we have more pressing matters at hand... New Zealand make it to the final, and we now just have to book our place in joining them! Fiji Game #012 - Solomon Islands (Neutral) - OCE Nations Cup Semi-Final We line up with the same 11 that won on the opening day so excellently. Hopefully we can repeat the successes of that fixture in a much more high-stakes environment this time. It just wasn't to be. We pushed hard, fought for every ball and had several great opportunities. We weren't good enough on the few efforts they had but it hurts to have conceded to their only 2 shots on target. We thought we'd equalised straight after Mekawir had put them back in front but Nalaubu was offside and with that seemed to go all of our momentum. We have been told that the FA are happy with our progress - they didn't even see the competition as relevant for whatever reason - but we've now got to kick on as we have 4 friendlies before we open the World Cup Qualification Group against New Caledonia in November. A good effort to reach the Semi-Finals but a bitter taste being knocked out so close to the end! New Zealand take home the trophy in a relatively one-sided display against the victors of our semi. Fiji Recap Well...this could be interesting...

Just hours before we started the tournament, news broke that Rabo would miss the entirety with a 3 week long injury, bringing the more experienced Begg into the 23. We are really looking as though everything is falling apart at the seams, having hardly dealt with a single injury, we are now dealing with what I would call a small way short of a crisis situation. Nonetheless, the world waits for nobody! Fiji Game #009 - Samoa (Neutral) - OCE Nations Cup Second Round Group Stage Matchday 1 Undoubtedly not our best eleven, though I'm very happy with the quality that we do possess in this squad. I'm hoping we can see our final third be a lot more dominant today than they have been of late, and although we have some more experienced subs in that area of the pitch, I'm hoping that we aren't going to need to rely on them. Samoa should, on paper, be the most routine encounter and hopefully that proves to be the case. We were quite superb today, Ravukitiliva ran the show from the opening minutes and never relented. Nabenu scored on his debut with a delicious trivela from 25 yards that left the keeper looking like David Seaman when Ronaldinho broke English hearts back in 2002. We were able to make the most of substitutes earlier on than I thought we may due to our commanding position and so a few players will be in better condition than they otherwise would have been. Most of their chances were half-chances or corner headers that were dealt with relatively easily. Hopefully Ravukitiliva can take confidence into the next game! New Record Achieved - Youngest OCE Nations Cup Player ever - Mohammed Ledua (17 Years 54 Days) Fiji Game #010 - Papua New Guinea (Neutral) - OCE Nations Cup Second Round Group Stage Matchday 2 A slight shuffling of players as we change out 3 of our back 4 with only Kishan Sami retaining his place. Naberu was tired after last game, Matanisiga picked up a yellow and so we may sit him out for the next game also in the hope the yellow cards get wiped out after the group stage, and William Khan was lacking fitness also. Thanks to our depth I feel asl though there's not too much to be disheartened by and Naicker making his debut is just another positive. It'll be a closer game this time out, but hopefully the changes at the back won't affect us too much. Another cracking performance. I got a little worried when Steven scored after we failed to deal with a set piece correctly but for no real reason. Their chances were all around set-pieces and we dealt with them well besides their goal. Dominating possession, almost 4 xG, the only thing missing was maintenance of our clean sheets run which came to an end after 3 matches. Ravukitiliva once again showed that the continent is at his feet and was unlucky in a couple of situations that he get an opportunity for a hat-trick - I find bringing on Nalaubu has that profound impact as he loves to drive at goal with blinders on. We still haven't sealed qualification however, as there are two teams on 3 points in our group, though our goal difference is pretty solid. We have Vanuatu who sit on 3 in the final game, we will look to rotate a few players but not too many as I'd like to keep things consistent between this game and the Semi-Final without too many rotations. Fiji Game #011 - Vanuatu (Neutral) - OCE Nations Cup Second Round Group Stage Matchday 3 Well it took 11 games, but I finally forgot to take the screengrab at the correct time. A few changes as we bring in the experience of Waranaivalu, Nalaubu and Begg in order to replace some more tired legs, but furthermore to hopefully give them a bit of a run so that they may come off the bench in the Semis looking a little more comfortable than they have been. A tighter affair than I would have liked but we escape with the win nonetheless. Soromon gave us a real run around all game but we adapted and shut him down for most of the game. We're looking good, this was definitely our weakest game but overall I'm pleased with how the Group Stage developed as we take maximum points and progress as group winners. We face the Solomon Islands in the Semi-Finals while Papua New Guinea play New Zealand. We may be hoping a little that they hold New Zealand but the main focal point is to progress to the Final ourselves first, in what would be our first major tournament progress record, as Fiji have only made the semis, finishing 3rd on 2 occasions and 4th on another. But that'll be in the next update! Fiji Recap

2024 Oceania Nations Cup Squad Announcement We were without 2 key names in the initial squad announcement as both of our first-choice centre back have picked up long-term injuries whilst out at their clubs, and just hours after the announcement, our first-choice right back - Iowane Matanisiga - has picked up an injury keeping him out for 10 days. We are opting to keep him in the team, I feel that some experience in our system and playstyle will hopefully mean he is able to make it back to the squad for at least the Semi-Final, if not the Vanuatu game. With us already having to rotate the squad in a couple of games, it leaves us in a real sticky situation in terms of defence. We bring in Semi Nabenu and Aron Naicker in defence, both being potential debutants and at least one of them will start in the opening fixture, and both will feature in the Group Stages. Despite this all, I'm still quite confident in our ability. I aim to target the Samoa and Papua New Guinea games with our better teams, so that we can hopefully have qualified by the time we face Vanuatu, so that we may rest up before the Semi Final. We will see how the strategy goes as, despite us not having lost yet, I am still aware that we can make hard work of even the easiest of tasks!

Oceanic Cup Second Round Group Stage Draw Well, it finally came around as Samoa came out on top in the First Round with only 5 points from 3 games - I guess showing just how tight the bottom 4 teams in the region are! Now before I show this draw, I will confess that we have been gifted - by some divine intervention - a fantastic group from which we should progress. In Group B, New Caledonia are the only team lower ranked than us, and they are still higher ranked than the other 3 teams in our own group. We have already beaten Samoa and Vanuatu last year, and we drew against Papua New Guinea despite dominating, so I'm very pleased with the draw! I'm not quite sure how it's drawn but if we could've been drawn with New Zealand, I'm glad we weren't. We should be able to top the group and hopefully make the final against New Zealand as we should be able to repeat wins over New Caledonia or Solomon Islands, or grab a first win against Tahiti. Nevertheless, we've been given a good group, but that's not even a fraction of the puzzle, we must still progress with hard work and grit. All three games are crammed into a week in June, with the Semi-Final and Final both coming within a week after the last group game, so a lot of games to be played and much rotation to be had among a squad of only 23. Allegedly this all works somewhat in tandem with the World Cup Qualifying Group Stage for Oceania though I'm not entirely sure how. There is a definite space up for grabs from this, as well as a World Cup Playoff spot for the other Qualifying "Finalist". I look forward to finding out exactly how it all works and it all coming together - the qualifying for the World Cup starts in November and ends next June so we have plenty more time to wait for that, but nevertheless it is a prospect I am anticipating with great enjoyment. First, we must concentrate on the first potential piece of silverware in our sights, though many obstacles stand before us before then!

Fiji Game #007 - Cayman Islands (Home) - Friendly 2 debutants in the starting lineup, as well as 4 possible first cap subs on the bench. I feel like this is a strong line-up to go against a team quite a way below us in the rankings, certainly hoping that the time away from the team hasn't negatively affected our ability to play our brand of football and build upon the progress of last year. An extremely poor way to start your international career from Rabo. Promoted from nowhere to the first team and he slides in from behind in the 3rd minute and picks up a deserved red card. From there it was uphill and it was, in no small part, thanks to Ledua that we managed to keep things even. I don't remember a single highlight of our own, we were especially poor and as much as I'd like to solely put that down to the early dismissal, we should have performed to a much higher standard than we did. The less said about this game the better... Fiji Game #008 - New Caledonia (Home) - Friendly A few adjustments sees a few players with their first starts. William Khan will make a debut alongside Josh Laqeretabua in the defence. Ledua keeps his spot in goal after a Man of the Match performance last time out, and we switch Yada and Ravukitiliva into the final third. New Caledonia are a few spots ahead of us, so it'll likely be a tight game, I'd love to see a much improved performance from last time out, which shouldn't be too much of an effort! A good win on paper, though it had me concerned at stages, especially when our characteristic "better in the second half" didn't come to fruition. William Khan enjoyed a near-perfect debut, some crucial interceptions as well as a goal, albeit perhaps the luckiest ever, with a shot rebounding off of his fellow centre-back, and ricocheting off of him again, quite how Laqeretabua got the assist for that I'm not sure but we'll put it down to superior management... Nalaubu came on to score, of course, his 10th goal in 9 caps. I'm not overly concerned with his scoring currently, as it doesn't really "interfere" with our goals and he's a solid player giving us some hard-fought victories. Back-to-back clean sheets to start off the year and we're still unbeaten as manager, taking home 5 wins and 3 draws in our games so far. New Record Achieved - Youngest Fijian Goalscorer - William Khan (17 years 300 days) Fiji Recap

2024 Preview It doesn't appear that we have too much going on in 2024, though we may begin our run in the Oceanic Nations Cup. I have, however, come to my senses and made a much more detailed and described Starting XI and "backup" for each position. As you can see, we've given caps to quite a few and plan to give caps to another large amount - though the majority are outside of the first planned call-ups for our March friendlies. Perhaps a shock, perhaps not, but Simione Ragoneturaga, the man tipped to be our leading scorer, or at least the one to charge for Krishna's title has fallen to 4th choice. Etonia Dogalau was deployed in a midfield position, but our first two options - though much younger and less experienced, have a lot more potential and I think could genuinely be very strong players for the side. In the same vein, Asivorosi Rabo will hopefully make his debut in March, he takes over the role from Nalaubu who still maintains a ridiculous scoring record so will only be "dropped" so far as the bench, with Nabil Begg being the unfortunate cut. I'm feeling a lot more confident that I know, at least roughly, what our "best squad(s)" look like, and I'm not just plucking at stars on the screen, having undergone a relatively detailed analysis of player stats and their fit to the national system and style of play. This is currently what the year looks like, as we continue our home outings against more of Oceania's teams - and a few Asian additions. We include a fixture against New Zealand to test ourselves followed by facing two Asian teams in November. As I mentioned before, however, I'm not sure how many of these may be cancelled due to the Oceanic Nations Cup schedule, we shall see! Really looking forwards to see how this season goes so let's get it underway without any further delay!

Fiji Game #005 - Papua New Guinea (Home) - Friendly We start off the international break with a fairly even game, against slightly higher ranked Papua New Guinea. The squad I've chosen is oozing with youth but also with strong talent - only 3 players over 21 make the team. Begg made a debut before we were here so he won't count towards the "first international goals" - since I'm only counting players we gave a debut (hence why Inoke isn't counted either). Jason Rakovucake makes a return in goal and I expect he is likely to become our starting keeper. We hand a first opportunity to strong talent Samuel Navoce as the only debutant - the only other potential one sits in the same position and will likely feature in our second friendly. Hoping for another good performance here and to maybe snag a win though a draw is a fair result on paper here. To say this was a frustrating game would not do it justice. 17 corners, and none of our goals were from them, we used them very poorly (I might take a look at that!). We dominated possession, hit the post once, hit the post again but was offside and were the better side throughout, shown by just about every stat besides goals. Admittedly I should perhaps not be so upset with a draw against slightly higher rated opponents but it was one of those games where no matter what we tried, we managed to lose to ourselves. On a more positive note, Nalaubu's assist was fantastic to give young Simione his second international goal, only bettered by the run from Waranaivalu and a lovely hit into the bottom corner. Back on the other hand again, I'll show that I don't edit the pre-game after the post-game by questioning just why I had to say what I did about Rakovucake after letting in a 25 yard effort that was barely reasonably-well struck, and a lukewarm effort for their equaliser. It was the first time in our first 5 games with Fiji that we have conceded on more than one occasion which, again, I guess can be seen positively, but we're also still yet to keep a clean sheet. Definitely frustrating but at least we can end the year on a high against Vanuatu...hopefully! Fiji Match #006 - Vanuatu (Home) - Friendly Although no massive feat, perhaps the smallest number of changes made between two games in my tenure to date. We looked good last game, but we couldn't get the result we were striving for. I'm pretty happy with the side we have selected, and only one debutant as we see Tuiba Batiratu take to the field for the first time. We, again, are in for a relatively even game on paper, it's just whether we take our chances that's the difference from the experience so far. A good win to end the year but my god, are we good at making things difficult. They could have, nay should have equalised in the 93rd minute but their striker skied it so high the ref looked confused as to whether to call it a conversion or not. We scrape by and definitely won't mention the weird animation glitch where Krishna suddenly turned into a hybrid of Usain Bolt and Victor Wembanyama - bolting from the edge of the D to give yards away in a stride and a kick. Nope, definitely not! I'm not sure what led to our xG being quite so high, I'm thinking our 14 corners is a possibility - I forgot to make the change though will do so going into the new year, but our first goal was from a mishandled clearance where Joseph tucked away thereafter and sent my hairdryer treatment out the window. I will say, as a testament to his longevity and my willingness to not just be "game-smart", I gave Krishna the substitute appearance, and of course the bugger scored so now both his appearance and goal tally are one higher. I will, however, concede that I may not look to call him up again. He's 36 and I don't think having him around his helping the players think "this is the best team on paper" when he's sat on the bench. Rakovucake had a good come-back after the errors in last game and had a fairly solid Man of the Match performance, including a very good save just after the break. Annual Recap An unbeaten start at Fiji, and technically an unbeaten year for them. That must be another record? I won't count it though. We've played very well and have been somewhat unlucky not to win all 6 games, but we will take the progress that we've shown and move forwards. In total, within the span of 6 games, 22 players have made their debut for the nation, though just one has made the scoresheet so far. I'll be looking for another striker to call up in heed of Krishna's "unplanned international retirement" that we shall be enforcing. Sure, we've only got one record to date and it's a relatively easy one, with the youngest player to start, but I feel like we made good progress towards finding players to use in the long term to topple Krishna's caps record, and to somewhat build on scoring, though the latter has a lot more work to come. Fiji Recap

We start off by just mentioning the OCE Olympic Qualifiers, where we came 4th, losing to New Zealand in the Semi-Finals, valiantly fighting but falling 2-1, and then Vanuatu sprung a 4-3 win upon us, after also beating us in our group. From this I found a couple of fantastic prospects, including 18-year-old Josh Laqeretabua who looks like a viable option now, let alone in a dozen years when he's in his prime! Fiji Game #003 - Mauritius (Home) - Friendly 5 debutants and 3 on the bench as well. A few of these players, such as Joel Chand, looked solid for our youth squads so I figured I'd give them an outing. These friendlies are all about finding the players who fit our system best and impress me, and hopefully we are able to find a few gems in among the rough like I feel we did with Josh. It should be an interesting game, and we're following with the same tactic though I do fear we may be slightly more challenged than we have been so far. A match we made much harder for ourselves by conceding from a poor chance midway through the second half, without showing much desire to get back into the game until after the break. From the 45th minute onwards it seemed like only a matter of time before we pulled into what seems to be our favourite position of 2-1 up. Sadly though it wasn't to be as, despite hitting the bar, and going close on a number of occasions, our young squad lacked the clinical finishing of a more experienced player. It's a good result against relatively even opposition, and our first outside of Oceania. Fiji Game #004 - American Samoa (Home) - Friendly A relatively similar squad besides a couple of players coming in for debuts. We will likely look to make subs at half time if we aren't ahead by 1 or 2, in order to try and extend our lead and hold more comfortably. We have an average age of 21.5 years with this side and I feel like this will be the case for the next year or two as I try and find the players I most want to utilise in the starting squad. Laqeretabua is definitely the player to take us to a record number of caps, I feel. Besides that, onto a game we should be taking relatively comfortably, especially given the manner of our performances so far! They frustrated us for the first half of this game and their goalkeeper made, I counted (very literally by tally on a notepad), 4 incredible saves during the game - as though he had taken the serum from the original Space Jam for those of you old enough to recall. In the second half, once again, we showed our better fitness and prowess as we avoided an upset and FM-ing to end all FM-ings by scoring 3, and our first "First International Goal" of the challenge by none other than Simeone himself! Nalaubu continues his ridiculous record (5 in 5 from the start of the game) - coming off the bench just after the break to score his 9th in 8 games and save our hides. A decent international break though I certainly need to think long and hard upon the next set of call-ups. Our first aim in the next set of fixtures is to keep a clean sheet! Fiji Recap

Fiji Game #001 - Soloman Islands (Away) - Friendly A very young, and inexperienced squad for our first game, a combined 38 caps, not even exceeding the count of Roy Krishna who has found himself replaced by Kishan Sami as captain, as well as losing his starting place. I feel we are unlikely to cause much of an upset, but I think a draw would be a good result. A good result for us as we dominated the first period, hitting the post on top of scoring 2 in the first 20 minutes. We went on to hit the post just after half time though that was about all she wrote for our spells of dominance as we outlasted their attack, despite a late chance ruled out for a well-planned (I think!) offside. We take a solid win against a team over 30 places higher than us in the rankings, and look towards building on this win. Unfortunately no debut goals, so we are still chasing 32. Highlighted striker Ragoneturaga was the first of our players to hit the post, in the first half, unlucky not to score on another occasion though that was down to a lack of composure and decision making that has me slightly worried about my choice. Perhaps we'll look back on him as an "honourable mention"? New Record Achieved - Youngest Fiji Player - Delon Shankar (16 Years 161 Days) Fiji Game #002 - Samoa (Home) - Friendly Giving the last 2 players we called up international debuts today against a slightly weaker opponent. Also just generally interested in giving other players a start to see how they fair. Sticking to the same system that faired well against the Solomon Islands, but doubting we can get anywhere close to that 24-0 we are chasing. A better performance than result. We thrashed them in the second half, though our finishing was too poor to let the scoreline show it. Still no goals for anyone in their first international break, I'm not quite sure how we've given 11 debuts and none of them have scored, but it's fine and we'll move into our next international break with utmost confidence in our ability, and hopefully with a slightly higher ranking (the latest ranking came out the day of our second match, so I'm not sure that it counted for it). Fiji Recap

Heading into our first international break, I was preparing the side for a seamless transition from old-guard to some fresher blood in order to get started on both our International Caps (48) and International Goals (32) records. Since Roy Krishna (holder of both) has yet to retire, we are going to be leaving him on the bench for as much as we can, as if he gets another cap or another goal, it's another of each that our player chosen must achieve also. The main player for both positions, to tackle two birds with one stone, is Simione Ragoneturaga who actually looks like a quite competent 20-year-old poacher. He has some solid attributes and reasonable physicals so i am hoping that he can prove the difference maker against sides with more stocky defenders. Such teams with said defenders are the Solomon Islands and Samoa, who we face off against in this, the September international break. We face the former away, and the latter at home, in the quest for some international rank scalping in our local region. Solomon Islands are tied 132nd seeds, while Samoa languish down in 189th. With us sitting at 169th, the first fixture may well be tough, but I'm going to look to start out playing positively in a 4-3-3 before, if needed, swapping out to a more reserved 5-back in the future. I feel that any teams in Oceania are ones that we could win against realistically, so long as they are not the "big dogs" or a team with one or two incredible talents, so I consider both games winnable indeed. Let us see how this pans out for us!