The Internationalist

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

A long term goal of mine in Football Manager is to become a great international manage.  Yes, the systems in place to "help" or "guide" me are limited, restrictive and sometimes downright broken, but I'm here to give it a go.

But not just to have a little pop at things...

 

The Plan:

Just like great story, there's a great plan, a ludicrous plan that will likely lead to insanity, but it is a plan nonetheless.  It's simple really.

1. Break every record possible with a national team.
2. Repeat for another nation
3. Repeat until nations are "finished" or my PC fries as the FM year 4000 turns out to be the "Year 2000 problem".

See, as I said; simple.

Now when I say "records" I'm talking most international caps, goals etc. (caps with an outfield player to just exacerbate absurdity), but I'm also talking furthest progression in the World Cup and Continental Championships.

 

So, say I take charge of Belgium.

We have to complete challenges such as:

• Win by more than 10-1 in an international match of any kind
• Win by more than 3-0 in a World Cup match
• Go more than 23 games unbeaten in all competitions
• Go more than 7 games without conceding a goal
• Come higher than 3rd place in a World Cup
• Win the European Championships (finished 2nd in 1980)

Now obviously I don't want to gain records such as most losses in a row, so they aren't counted here.  And since Belgium are a relatively easy example to find records of, I will be restricting the set of records accordingly and showing them in the next post (along with a list of nations completed and nation currently working on), in order to match everything up.

 

The Start:

So where does one begin with an adventure so vast and so, well, stupid?  A random spinning wheel of course!

With the numbers 101-210 loaded into a Random Wheel, I'll be going 1-by-1 eliminating teams until I am left with just one team, rated outside the FIFA Top 100 at the start of FM, and we will take charge of this team and see where the game takes us from there!

There's a few interesting teams in the mix:

• New Zealand - had a decent World Cup run quite recently, also neighbors to my current country of residence, Australia,
• North Korea - perhaps they won't have to make up the fact they've won the World Cup with me in charge?
• Lithuania/Latvia - not the worst European nations by any stretch of the imagination, and with the Nations Leagues it could certainly be a good start to such a challenge.
• Ethiopia/Eswatini - Two of the poorest nations in the world, as well as African minnows,
• Chinese Taipei/Macau - Can we overcome China in the Asian qualifiers?
• Samoa/Tonga - Pretty big Rugby nations but low down on the FIFA rankings, small Oceanic nations that will have to fight hard to even compete with earlier mention New Zealand,
• San Marino - You've never heard of them?

I will bring, in the 3rd post, exactly who the wheel of fate has chosen as well as outlining some philosophies in my management and player selection, and strategies to try and reach some of the enormous goals that lay before us.

 

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

 

These are the kinds of records that we will be attempting to conquer the smaller nations - obviously Europe gives us some more opportunities but until we get into that kind of position, we will have to see!

Team choice is definitely not a spoiler for...

Edited November 11, 2023 by FiftyBeforeThirty

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

The Bula Boys! Fiji!

The Pacific Games are not happening in 2023 due to...something (I'm sure I'll read it up later), and so we have a lot of friendlies to try and organise.

The Oceanic Nations Cup is currently in it's first round and so American Samoa, Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga are all fighting to make it into Round 2, where we might play...?

 

As you can tell, for a man with so many goals, I'm starting from the very basics!

We will be here for a while, since we have to try and beat a 24-0 win...I'm not 100% sure that this'll happen considering the game happened nearly 50 years ago against Kiribati.  I'm going to see how we go on that front, we'll have a crack but if we have to move on and "come back to it when we've finished everything else"...we will.

 

Onwards to the first pair of friendlies!

 

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

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!

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

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

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

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

 

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

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

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

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!

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

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

Edited November 12, 2023 by FiftyBeforeThirty

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

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!

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

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!

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

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

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

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...

[FiftyBeforeThirty]

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!