DaneBramage Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 Intro Michael Prince loves promotions. He doesn't care about winning the league - ending up in 7th place and scraping through the play-offs is just as good as finishing top with a 15 point margin. The trophy would be nice, but it's not essential. The ascension to the next level is all that matters. He doesn't care about cup competitions. Waste of time. If his team makes it through a couple of rounds, fine, cool, but it's never the main objective. If ever there's fixture congestion and players need to be rested, it will be the cup that is sacrificed. He doesn't care about international football either. Waste of time. That being said, he does see some merit in the lower reaches of the Nations League. Objectives 1. Earn a first promotion. 2. Earn a second promotion. 3. Earn a third promotion. 4. You get the point. Promotion, promotion, promotion! Rules Just the one rule. If he ever reaches the top flight, he'll resign from that job. No point staying if there's no promotion possible. Other that that, he can stay with clubs or move around as he wishes. The only thing that matters is the quantity of promotions. Leading the same team up multiple divisions, travelling round and racking up a single promotion in different countries, either approach is fine. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 23 Author Share Posted January 23 Set-Up I downloaded a pack with a bunch of additional countries, and after weeding out those with only one tier, and those without a promotion/relegation set-up, used a random number generator to select eight countries to start with it. Periodically countries will be rotated, to open up new opportunities and make this a bit of a worldwide journeyman game, playing in a load of places I've not touched before. And once I've (hopefully) seen a bit of success, the larger out-of-the-box countries will be added in. These are the first eight countries activated. The RNG has provided a lot of African representation, with six of the initial options coming from that continent. Elsewhere there is one Asian country, and one European country (which is also the only one with a third tier). The Job Search I started the game with a June 2022 commencement date, and then holidayed through to 1st January 2023 to let the gameworld take shape, and for the initial available jobs to be filled. Once January came I started applying for jobs, looking for openings in the lowest tiers only. My manager has no experience and no qualifications, so expectations should be at a minimum. He's English, with Swedish as a second nationality (that's my mistake - I meant to add it as a second language. Never mind, doesn't really make any real difference). I avoided applying for roles at clubs in their relegation areas, not wanting that on my CV at this early stage. Clubs looking at promotion were out of my reach, so midtable sides were more the target at this time. By mid-February I'd enquired about four jobs in four different countries, and was considered favourite by the local newspapers in both Moldova and Tanzania. All four invited me to interview and I attended each. None of them were prioritised or favoured, I would sign up with whoever offered me a job first. And so I was off to Moldova. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 23 Author Share Posted January 23 February 2023 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita League and Expectations The media expectations at the start of the season were for a solid season, a top-half finish the target. But things haven't gone that way and with just three wins from 15 games the side are languishing in 10th. Only one team get relegated, so with a seven point gap down to EFA Visoca, we're probably safe barring disaster. -------------------------------------------------------------- Finances and Facilities We've got almost £21k in the bank. Doesn't sound like much, but everyone at the club is on an amateur contract and not being paid, so it may well be a healthy amount. Training facilities and youth facilities are poor, junior coaching is basic, youth recruitment is limited. Improving facilities isn't necessarily going to be something I focus on, as often times any upgrades made won't have any affect while I'm still there. -------------------------------------------------------------- The Squad At the moment I've delegated most jobs to the staff, though I did have to take back control of outgoings when they tried letting one of my best rated players go. I joined with a few weeks of the winter break remaining, so most of my time was spent asking players to stay at the club instead of moving elsewhere. Luckily no one chose to leave, and the club brought in another striker too (Ion Bobrov). There are a lot of horrible average ratings in this group, and apparently not a lot of quality in defence. Terrible personalities and determination too. The attack looks a lot better though, we should be able to get some goals out of these players. Dmitry Lisitsyn has a one-in-two record so far, we need this to continue but with more support around him. Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 23 Author Share Posted January 23 CF Locomotiva Ocnita - 2023 Youth Intake Before I'd had my first match, the youth intake for the year came through. These probably won't be massively important throughout the save as I'll likely be moving on before there's any impact (hence why only four players have been tagged, though all have been signed), but a 5 star CA player will always catch the eye. Spoiler Unfortunately, it's not as good as it looks. The window to register players ended just a few days ago, so we can't start playing anyone yet. And we can't use foreign players in this league. So the top two, 23a Enes Aksu and 23b Tadas Juska, can't be selected anyway. Bummer -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 23 Author Share Posted January 23 (edited) May 2023 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Divizia B Nord Should have won my first game in charge, but right-back Artem Lobanov missed a 95th minute penalty. Goals goals goals! Inter Soroca were 3rd in the table so it was a big win over them. We led from the start, but kept inviting them back into the game. Our attacking force had a field day. Then our attack one-upped themselves the following week, battering bottom club EFA Visoca. Ion Bobrov scored a hat-trick in his third game for the club. We couldn't continue in this fashion, though, and were again let down by Artem Lobanov. We were winning 1-0 until he got sent-off in the 31st minute, and we were never in the game after that. He's never playing for us again. We managed to allow Riscani to score with their only shots on target to give them a point, before getting back to winning ways at home. Our final games of the season were against a succession of midtable sides. Three good wins, and our strikers and wingers continued to fill their boots. A three place gain, I'm very happy with this. Just the one loss and we brought our goal difference up to a positive value. -------------------------------------------------------------- Squad Stats Artem Lobanov will be ditched this summer, two mistakes to cost us games is a career-ender under my management. Ibrahim Misyura and Ruslan Yefremov on the wings and Dmitry Lisitsyn and Ion Bobrov up top proved to be a potent combination. I've been using a fairly standard 4-4-2, as I'm pretty much tactically incompetent at coming up with anything else. Spoiler -------------------------------------------------------------- History A good start, and one that gives me encouragement for next season. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited April 7 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 23 Author Share Posted January 23 (edited) September 2023 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Qualifications First qualification ticked off. My reputation is obviously still very low, but it's given my stats a little boost. -------------------------------------------------------------- Departures A starting centre-back and goalkeeper were both stolen away. I also kicked out the crap right-back mentioned previously. So this left us a bit short of numbers at the back, so that was the priority for the transfer window. -------------------------------------------------------------- Arrivals My staff weren't as active as I hoped they were going to be. The only early movement was a new first-choice goalkeeper on loan (Alexandru Popa), so I had to get involved. I picked up two defenders from Inter Soroca. Neither are good, but they'll work as back-ups. Towards the end of the window my assistant brought in two more players; a sub striker, and a new first-choice right-back (Vyacheslav Zhikarev). -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited January 23 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 23 Author Share Posted January 23 (edited) September 2023 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Divizia B Nord A win on the opening day is the ideal way to start the season, but following it up with a loss to last year's runners-up wasn't good. A draw would have been a fair result, but a defensive calamity doomed us - their free-kick hit the crossbar, and then my left-back's attempted clearance hit the goalie in the face to ricochet in for an own goal. We were back on form over the next five games, picking up some big wins. In particular my wingers were flying, with 13 goals between them already. Ruslan Yefremov scored in all five of these wins. In comparison, my strikers were struggling a bit. Dmitry Lisitsyn has four goals despite missing some time with a knock, but Ion Bobrov has had a stinker with no goals yet. The loss to FC Singerei was dreadful. We had plenty of chances but just couldn't hit a barndoor. We're looking good, but that loss at the end of the month was a blow and allowed FC Olimpia to catch up. Edinet are also only a point behind. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited January 23 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 23 Author Share Posted January 23 December 2023 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Divizia B Nord Ruslan Yefremov had a great run through October, scoring four times in three matches, then adding another at the start of November for good measure. Then Sergey Rodin took over the baton, scoring six times in four games in November. We flopped in the final game of the year though. It was a low quality affair all round against FC Olimpia, but they were clinical with their chances and we were not. We're in a good position going into the winter break, five points clear at the top and with a far superior goal difference. Spare a thought for FC Cahul at the bottom. -------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 March 2024 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Departures Just the one player left during the winter transfer window. Ordinarily losing the 5.0 star prospect from the last year's intake would be a disaster, but when the player in question is Turkish and we can't register foreign players in this division, it doesn't really matter. -------------------------------------------------------------- Arrivals We were busier bringing players in. I signed a midfielder, while the AssMan brought in a couple of defenders. All will go straight into the starting line-up. -------------------------------------------------------------- Youth Intake I've decided there's no point providing the full screenshot of the youth players, as few if any will make an impact on the team before I move on. So I've just included the top-rated, those who may appear next year if I'm still around. Only one player from the 2023 batch has featured for me, though they have played in every game so far, so there is a chance. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 May 2024 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Divizia B Nord It was never in doubt really. We had a decent lead going into the run-in, and we just kept winning when it mattered. The 6-0 win over Edinet was a record victory for the club, and eight wins in a row was a record streak. Dmitry Lisitsyn scored in the 1st minute of a match for the third time this season, improving the record fastest goal in a game from 47 seconds, to 32 seconds, then 22 seconds. 23c Vadim Chiper scored the first goal of an academy graduate. The final winning margin was 15 points, We were top of the table since week six, and after the winter break in particular no one could keep up with us. The title was wrapped up with four games to spare. We averaged over three goals a game, setting a record for the most goals scored in a season. FC Cahul embarrassed themselves, but at least they finally got some points on the board. -------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 May 2024 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Squad Stats This season was all about our four attacking stars. We scored 75 goals, and 65 of them came from this quartet. Ruslan Yefremov came out on top, with 22 goals, 13 assists, and an average rating of 7.93. -------------------------------------------------------------- History Wahey! The first promotion is in the bag. Admittedly it wasn't much of a challenge, but you've got to start somewhere. I have a decision to make next though. To quote The Clash, should I stay or should I go? Will having a crack at the second tier with this team give me the best shot at another promotion, or do I look elsewhere? -------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 25 Author Share Posted January 25 September 2024 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Facilities We have over £60k in the bank so it made sense to spend some of it, even if the benefits from this probably won't come to fruition while I'm still at the club, but at least when it is time to go I'll be leaving the place in a better state. -------------------------------------------------------------- Departures The AssMan spent most of the summer tying players down to contracts now that we're semi-pro, but he couldn't keep hold of our best midfielder who chose to retire. -------------------------------------------------------------- Arrivals While there weren't many leaving, there were plenty joining the club. First, three of last year's loanees were renewed for another year. Then we added a new first-choice goalkeeper and a pair of midfielders, plus a sub defender and striker, The latter shares a name with a defender already at the club, hence the ST at the end of his name to differentiate them. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 25 Author Share Posted January 25 September 2024 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Divizia A - Group B The second tier has a bit of a wacky set-up. There's 12 teams in the division, but split into two groups of six. The top two from each group then qualify for a promotion stage, and it looks complicated at that stage so I'll worry about it if and when I need to. For now though, we haven't made a great start to life at this level. Performances haven't been as bad as results suggest, but ultimately it's the points that matter. On the opening day a draw would have been a fair result, but the opposition were clinical and we were not. It was the same story against Olimp Comrat, but even more extreme. We had an xG of 2.60 from 22 shots, but only five were on target and we didn't trouble the goalkeeper anywhere near enough. We battered FCM Ungheni for our one win so far. It should have been more emphatic, but I can't complain. I can complain about dodgy defending letting Spartanii Selemet steal a point though. And we were just rubbish away at Speranis Nisporeni. It's not looking good for our chances of reaching the promotion stage, and that's even having played a game more than a couple of teams. We'll need to do a lot better in the second half of this group, but I wouldn't put any money on it. -------------------------------------------------------------- Available Jobs There's a few jobs currently available in Tajikistan. I considered Lokomotiv-Pomir, with seven games left they were seven points off of 2nd place, which would see them get promoted. But their squad looked too thin, just one winger and one striker. So I'm sitting tight in Moldova for now. -------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 26 Author Share Posted January 26 November 2024 - CF Locomotiva Ocnita Divizia A - Group B Our record for the second half of this stage was near identical to the first. Two losses, followed by a win and a draw, then another loss. The defeat to Olimp Comrat was a disaster. We somehow conceded twice despite them having an xG of just 0.15. The first was a mistake from our keeper, the second was a great volley from the edge of the area. There's definitely a clear divide here. We lost all our games to the sides above us, and our only points came from the sides below. We did the double over FC Ungheni and they were our only wins during this stage. Points are now reset to zero, and we go into an eight team relegation stage with the corresponding four from Group B. Bottom two go down. -------------------------------------------------------------- Available Jobs I'm a few months into the winter break now, and we return to action towards the end of March. But with no prospect of promotion this year, and since we're so far off the pace probably not next year either, I'm keeping my eye out for other opportunities. I did apply for a job with the team 5th in the Algerian second tier, but they just laughed at me. An application at Ndanda in the Tanzanian Championship may bear more fruit though, as I've been invited to an interview. -------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 26 Author Share Posted January 26 (edited) February 2025 - Ndanda FC One successful interview later, and I was off to Tanzania. Pre-season expectations were for a midtable finish, so the club is doing about as well as expected. And that was enough for the previous manager to get poached by the side bottom of the Premier Division. There's £115k in the bank, and the balance has steadily been increasing over the last year, so it looks like a well-run organisation. Training facilities and youth facilities are poor, junior coaching is fairly basic and youth recruitment is basic. All the board want from us for now is to avoid relegation, so I can use these eight games to get a handle on the squad and see what we need to improve on. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited January 28 by DaneBramage 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 28 Author Share Posted January 28 May 2025 - Ndanda FC Championship Pretty good results. We won half of the remaining matches, including a hammering of JKT Tanzania which screwed up their push for automatic promotion. We nearly upset the eventual champions Prisons SC too, but they escaped with a point due to a missed penalty from our left-winger. Away form was a bit of a worry though. We only gained three points from a possible 12, compared to 10 at home. We gained one place in the table and turned the goal difference into a positive, so we'll call that a decent enough start to my time here. Before my arrival the team was averaging 1.18 points per game, during my time it was 1.63, so there's a big improvement which hopefully we can carry over into next season. -------------------------------------------------------------- History The immediate improvement in results shows there's some quality in this side, but additions are definitely needed in the summer. I don't know if we'll manage it next season, it might take another year, but I think there's potential for a promotion here. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 29 Author Share Posted January 29 September 2025 - Ndanda FC Championship My scouts very helpfully managed to not find a single player in Tanzania to recommend. In addition to that, my AssMan didn't bother to arrange any pre-season friendlies, so I had to scramble together a few last-minute matches against the under-21s. Thus we didn't go into the new season in very good shape. No additions to the squad, and not fully fit. Yet somehow we flew out of the gates, smashing newly-promoted Majimaji on the opening day. We followed this up with three more wins before the streak was ended when we only took a hard-fought point from Mwadui Utd. We were straight back to winning ways next time out though, beating second-placed Pamba SC to open up a six point lead. All good things come to an end though, and we were comprehensively outplayed by Mbao for our first loss of the campaign. Top of the table, I will take that. Top two go up automatically, 3rd and 4th go into a play-off system with two teams from the Premier Division. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 November 2025 - Ndanda FC Championship Ugh. We've lost any semblance of form, just blindly stumbling from one result to another. It's basically just a roll of the dice. We had made it six home wins in a row, but now we haven't won either of the last two. We hadn't won any of the last four away matches, but then we picked up our biggest win of the season. I've lost count of how many players were fined over these two months, there were a lot of individual terrible performances. We've tumbled from first place down to third. We're still strongly in the mix as we approach the halfway stage, but I'm feeling a lot less confident now than I was in September. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 December 2025 - Ndanda FC Championship Losing to Majimaji is disastrous. They were in 15th place at the time, yet they bossed the match. We only managed one shot all game, and that was from the spot. Then we hosted Fountain Gate in a top of the table clash, and smashed them with ease. Bafflingly inconsistent. Both my strikers ended their goalscoring droughts in this match (after 10 and 15 hours). We also won a cup match, but I don't care one bit about that. It's all very close at the top. We hold pole position at the moment, but only because of goal difference. One badly timed slip-up and we could easily fall to 4th, but at least there's then a small gap down to 5th place. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 (edited) February 2026 - Ndanda FC Staffing Issues My AssMan left to join another team in our division. And in his infinite wisdom, the chairman decided we don't need someone in this role so I can't hire a replacement. Brilliant, thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------- Arrivals I wanted to bring in some new players this window, but my scouts managed to provide reports on just one player over the last six months. In one of his last acts before leaving, my AssMan signed that one player. But he's rubbish, I haven't even bothered registering him. I did bring in a new starting left-back though, from an agent offering his services. -------------------------------------------------------------- Championship Abdalla Ferouz returned to action after eight months out with an ACL injury and scored a brace on his comeback, then added another two in the next few matches. We've managed some good wins in this period, but also some really poor losses. We lost to Stand Utd due to my useless centre-back giving away a penalty in the second-half, but really I think most of these players are useless. I don't like any of them. We beat one Premier Division side in the cup before losing to another, but neither result matters. We're still 2nd with seven games left, but I'm not feeling good about the rest of the season. We're losing too many games, could easily bottle this. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited April 7 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 April 2026 - Ndanda FC Championship I hate these players. Every single one of them. I don't even care that this lad has scored four times in the last three games, he's been crap for long spells of the season. Every time that it looks like we're getting back on track we manage another stupid loss. I've been offered a new contract but I've turned it down. Obviously if we get promoted to the top tier I'd have to quit anyway, but even if we fail (as is looking increasingly likely), I don't want to stay here for another crack -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 (edited) May 2026 - Ndanda FC Championship Transit Camp had earned 10 points in 27 games, and had a goal difference of -49. They hadn't won a game in more than six months. They had a player sent off after 26 minutes Easy win, right? Nope! 34 shots compared to their four, an xG of 3.25 compared to their 0.17, and all for a 1-1 draw. Pathetic. We let African Sports score with their only shot on target. Meanwhile, we had 23 shots and could only get three on target. Pathetic. Completely bottled it. We now go into a two-legged play-off against Pan-African. The winner then takes on the loser of the Premier Division relegation play-off. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited January 30 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 (edited) June 2026 - Ndanda FC Championship Promotion Play-Off During the regular season we lost twice to Pan-African, going down 1-0 both home and away. In the two week break between fixtures we played the under-21s a couple of times. Losing the first of these games to them probably wasn't ideal, but it did mean we were prepared. Pan-African however, were not. They rested during this period and that gave us the edge. We ran rings around them on their patch, having 63% possession and making twice as many passes. Two goals within the opening 25 minutes took all the wind out of their sails, and from that point on we cruised, adding another late on to kill off the tie. At home we just needed to avoid doing anything stupid, admittedly something we've struggled with a lot this season. But Pan-African didn't offer much, and a goal in each half gave us the 5-0 aggregate victory. Mbeya City finished 14th in the Premier Division. They then lost 4-1 on aggregate in the first stage of the relegation play-off. There's now a three week gap until our two games in July, so again I'll put together some friendlies to keep our players sharp. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited April 7 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 July 2026 - Ndanda FC Contracts So it turns out that my contract was expiring on 30th June, a week before the play-offs. Thus I had to sign on for another year, though I will be resigning after these games no matter what happens. The bigger issue though was that a bunch of the players also had contracts coming to an end. I'd generally left that to someone else, but now I had to make an effort to get it sorted asap. I managed to get a few players to re-sign, but five players who I'd caused to dislike me left, including a starting left-winger, central midfielder, and centre-back. My scouts had finally found one more player in the country, so I signed a new midfielder to make sure we weren't weakened too much going into the big games. -------------------------------------------------------------- Championship Promotion Play-Off Mbeya City were clearly a stronger side than us, but due to the friendlies we'd arranged we were fitter. They had a lot of possession but failed to make it count, and we were able to surprise them with a goal just before the break. Another just after the interval really swung things in our favour, and Mbeya City were rattled. When we added a third in the 67th minute the game looked as good as over, but that's when Mbeya City hit another gear. Two goals in the final 20 minutes made the score a lot more even and meant we had just the one goal advantage going into the second leg at their place. The second leg was a more cagey affair, with chances limited. And then we scored with the first big chance of the game. The lead barely lasted a minute before Mbeya City equalised, but thankfully that was it for the day. The game fizzled out, we did enough to contain them, and we ran out 4-3 winners on aggregate. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 30 Author Share Posted January 30 (edited) July 2026 - Ndanda FC Squad Stats These players annoyed me a lot throughout the season. Given that we won promotion my words are probably harsh, but I did not like this squad. 18 goals in 33 games should impress me from Optatus Lupekenya, but he was rubbish so often. Same with Nohome Tadase, who reached double figures with goals and nearly the same with assists. I think the fact that so few average ratings are in the green tells the real story. -------------------------------------------------------------- History Job's a good 'un! I'm glad of the second promotion, but I did not enjoy this season. After a great start we just made hard work of it, never getting back into a good rhythm. From November onwards we never won more than two games in a row, or went any longer than three games without defeat. But at least we came strong when it mattered in the play-offs, and I gained my second promotion in four seasons. Now it's time to put in my resignation, as there's no point staying with a Premier Division side. I would have resigned even if we hadn't gone up this year though. Tanzania just wasn't fun. Between my scouts finding just two players all season, the chairman not letting me sign an AssMan, and only being able to arrange friendlies against our under-21s, there were too many annoying challenges. -------------------------------------------------------------- The Job Centre There are a lot of jobs available now the seasons have finished, and no doubt more will be available as it ticks over into the next campaign with all the newly relegated and promoted clubs. So I don't know whether to jump straight in to a new role now and have the summer to prepare for 2026/27, or wait a few months and see how everything shakes out. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited January 31 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 31 Author Share Posted January 31 (edited) August 2026 - Vihiga Bullets I didn't stay unemployed for very long. When looking at the available jobs I noticed an interesting opportunity in the Kenyan second tier. The top two get promoted automatically, while third go into a play-off. And Vihiga Bullets had just missed out, finishing in 4th place. There was a massive gap between them and 5th place, 23 points, so they were by far better than most teams in the division. -------------------------------------------------------------- Game World I've made the first adjustments to the active leagues, with RNG helping decide which to bring in. Tanzania has been removed. Bolivia and East Timor have been added. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited January 31 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted January 31 Author Share Posted January 31 (edited) December 2026 - Vihiga Bullets Pre-Season The board want us to finish in the top-half, while the media think we should be aiming for the top three. So hopefully the press have a more accurate view of our quality. The backroom staff were hard at work during the summer and autumn, bringing in 13 new players. Six are on loan deals, and seven permanent. The club is £500 per week over the wage budget, and more than £100k in the red, but since I'm delegating transfers I'm shifting the blame elsewhere for that. -------------------------------------------------------------- Second Division In a change from my previous clubs, this is a large division. 20 teams, so 38 games. None of the sparse fixture lists and long winter breaks I had to deal with earlier. Fitting eight games into December is excessive though. That's just too much, and I can thank my staff for bringing in so many new players allowing us to handle it so well. I followed the Jimbo technique of using two separate XIs (other than the goalie), with the stronger team taking weekend fixtures and the weaker team playing in midweek. And it's worked very well so far. We've won seven games out of nine, and lost just once. Star man has been Christopher Ojwang, a loanee striker with seven goals in five starts (and four sub appearances). Spoiler Top of the table! It is a bit of a false position though. I've no idea why we've played so many games already compared to everyone else. Two other teams have played eight times, then everyone else are two games behind on seven. It does make for enjoyable viewing. Even if all the contenders won their games in hand, we'd still be in 3rd place. Muhoroni Youth in 2nd are the only team to have beaten us so far, they could well be our big competition this season. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited February 3 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 1 Author Share Posted February 1 (edited) January 2027 - Vihiga Bullets Second Division The 10-1 win over Admin Police was a mad one. They were bottom of the table with just one point so far and we just ran riot. Christopher Ojwang had a hat-trick within six minutes, and made it a double hat-trick after the break. Incidentally, Admin Police then bounced back with their first win of the season in their next game. We dropped points in a draw with Vihiga Utd, who I'm going to assume are our local rivals. Was an exciting game, no one would be leaving unhappy at that result. It was a bit more of a struggle at the end of the month. We needed goals very late in the game to turn around the result against Muranga Seal (in 3rd place at the time, so an important win), and although we battered Dandora we only just managed to gain a point with a last minute strike (disappointing as they were in 18th place). Muhoroni Youth could overtake us if they win their game in hand. We hold a commanding lead over everyone else though. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited February 3 by DaneBramage 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 1 Author Share Posted February 1 (edited) February 2027 - Vihiga Bullets Second Division Another good unbeaten month. The rotation policy continues to treat us well. The weekend team won three and drew one, while the midweek team won one and drew two. Our goalkeeper has played every minute of every game (22 games = 1,908 minutes), but nobody else has started more than 13 games or played more than 1,300 minutes. I missed taking a screenshot of the table, but we're running away with it. Muhoroni Youth collapsed and suffered five defeats this month, we now have a nine point lead over Muranga Seal in second place. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited February 3 by DaneBramage 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 2 Author Share Posted February 2 (edited) March 2027 - Vihiga Bullet Second Division A perfect month! Five wins from five in the league, magic. Christopher Ojwang is now on 26 goals for the season, while Brian Onyango and Gadiel Singano have joined him in double-figures. Not that it matters, but we also won two games in the cup. Due to the way the fixtures fell our strongest team played and won in the first round, and our second-string then pulled off an upset to beat Premier Division side Nairobi City next time out. This is the last month where the fixtures will be so busy - there are only three league games planned in April, four in May, then two in each of June and July. 16 points clear with 11 games remaining. Start engraving lads, the trophy is ours. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited February 3 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 2 Author Share Posted February 2 (edited) April 2027 - Vihiga Bullets Second Division Seven more points in the league, but it should have been more. We had 22 shots against Migori Youth, but only managed an xG of 0.99. Wasteful. We led Coastal Heroes 4-0 at half-time, then nearly let them stage a heroic comeback in the second-half. There was over a week after the cup game, so I let the AssMan take charge of it and pick his strongest XI. We smashed the side bottom of the Premier Division. The hat-trick from Christopher Ojwang brought him up to 31 goals for the year. We're currently on 79 goals. I'd like 21 more in the final eight games to reach the big 100. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited February 3 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 3 Author Share Posted February 3 (edited) July 2027 - Vihiga Bullets Second Division The win against Muranga Seal clinched promotion, the win against Assad clinched the title. The second-string were given a runout at Mwatate Utd but disgraced themselves, ensuring the first-team would play the rest of the games this year. Cups are stupid anyway, and we got knocked out of the semi-finals. Christopher Ojwang scored a brace in his final appearance for the club. My contract ran out on 30th June, so I had to renew for another year to take on the final two games of the season. This was the same date as player contracts, so a couple of them left at this point, as well as our five loanees, meaning we had a bit of a depleted squad in July. No matter, we still ended the year on a high. Easy. We ran away with it, even from the first update in December we never looked like being caught. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited February 3 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 3 Author Share Posted February 3 (edited) July 2027 - Vihiga Bullets Squad Stats The first screenshot shows the players who left at the end of June, the second shows those still with us at the end of the season. Hence the mismatched sizes. Christopher Ojwang is the obvious star, scoring 35 goals in total, one roughly every 67 minutes. He wasn't the only major goal threat though, three other players reached double-figures and five players in total managed 20+ goal contributions. -------------------------------------------------------------- History Another successful year. I'm sure the promotions will slow down when I move out of the additional database leagues and into the out-of-the-box nations, but smashing my way through this season was a lot of fun. -------------------------------------------------------------- Languages Since I'm globetrotting I thought I'd take a look at the languages I'm picking up along the way. English and basic Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish came from the initial set-up. Russian has come from my time in Moldova, Swahili has come from Tanzania and Kenya. -------------------------------------------------------------- Qualifications Just before the season ended I completed another coaching course. -------------------------------------------------------------- The Job Search With promotion to the top flight completed I handed in my resignation. There's a lot of jobs available, so it's time again to consider options for what's next. Aiming for another promotion is obviously the goal, but I think there has to be an element of progression too. I'm in no rush to get to the endgame, I'm happy with exploring a lot longer first, but eventually the challenge will be getting a side promoted from the second tier in one of the top European leagues. I've taken a look at the competition rankings for the leagues I've had active so far, and this is how the second divisions are sorted (and third for Moldova). I've highlighted those I've achieved promotions from so far. 2 stars - Tunisia, Algeria, 1 star - Moldova (A), Bolivia, Tanzania, 0.5 stars - Senegal, Tajikistan, Kenya, Moldova (B), Liberia, East Timor. So I probably shouldn't be looking at a 0.5 star league again at this point. I'm not entirely ruling it out, if needs must I'll happily try out another one of those countries, but having another crack at Moldova or working out the very complicated looking Bolivian league system should probably be next. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited February 3 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 3 Author Share Posted February 3 January 2028 I decided to stay unemployed for a little while, looking for the right job to come along. There were plenty of open jobs in Senegal, Kenya, and Liberia, but they felt like a backwards step. By January a few months of the various seasons had passed, and roles started opening up elsewhere. I put in two applications, both in North Africa. US Tataouine had no interest, but I was granted an interview with HB Chelghoum-Laid. And it went well, and I was very quickly packing my bags. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 3 Author Share Posted February 3 (edited) January 2028 - HB Chelghoum-Laid League 2 - East Since getting relegated in 2025, the club have finished 2nd twice in the second tier. Unfortunately, only the team that wins the division gets promoted, so they've just missed out. The same was expected this year, but instead they've been slumming it in midtable and the old boss was given the boot. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited February 6 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 6 Author Share Posted February 6 (edited) March 2028 - HB Chelghoum-Laid Transfers I joined with a few days left in the transfer window. During this time the scouting staff added a few loans, including a goalkeeper, midfielder, and left-winger, all of whom went straight into the starting line-up. Perhaps most importantly though, our highest rated player Younes Sayah chose to stay. Two transfer approaches had to be accepted as they met his £43.5k buyout clause, but he couldn't agree terms with either club. Spoiler -------------------------------------------------------------- League 2 - East When we started with two losses I thought I'd bitten off more than I could chew here. I was definitely starting to feel the pressure by the start of March, when we'd only had one win in six games so far. But by the end of March we were looking in much better shape, with four big wins in a row. The loanees had settled in, the players were getting used to my 4-4-2 tactic, the gaps in the coaching staff had been filled, and Younes Sayah was moved from the right-wing to a deep-lying forward role. The peak was a 3-0 away win at CR Temouchent, where we tore the league-leaders apart in a great first-half display. We haven't yet made any upward movement, but there are teams within our sight over the final eight games. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited February 6 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 May 2028 - HB Chelghoum-Laid League 2 - East An excellent finish to the season. We made it 16 games unbeaten, which included a club joint-record of seven wins in a row. Moussa Mubarak was a man on fire with 11 goals, including four braces in this time. Younes Sayah wasn't to be outshone though, ending the season by clinching a hat-trick in the 95th minute on the final day. We managed to gain three positions to finish in 8th place. Prior to my arrival the club was averaging 1.42 points per game, during my time it was 2.22 points. We finished as top scorers, with only the champions CR Temouchent coming close. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 May 2028 - HB Chelghoum-Laid Squad Stats We're allowed two foreign players in the squad, but at present we have only the one, Moussa Mubarak. And he had a cracking season scoring 21 goals. If you only look at the period while I was in charge, he smashed in 17 goals in just 15 games. His strike partner Younes Sayah also impressed with nine goals and six assists under my management. Walid Hellal also contributed plenty of goals and assists from the left-wing, we'll be renewing his contract shortly. The three loanees we had in all did well, but it doesn't look like we'll be able to bring them in again next season. -------------------------------------------------------------- History After losing my first two games here, we then won 12 and drew four to end the season on a 16 game unbeaten streak. With only one team getting promoted from this league going for that sole spot will be tough, but there's reason to believe we could be in the mix if we make some good additions to the squad over the summer. -------------------------------------------------------------- Languages I've added basic Arabic to my repertoire. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 7 Author Share Posted February 7 October 2028 - HB Chelghoum-Laid Transfers Big money changed hands, as my chairman accepted an offer over my head. My best centre-back left for £13.5k. We're still more than £300k in the red though. We brought in four new players for a total of £2.6k, who will all be going straight into the starting line-up (a goalkeeper, left-back, left-winger, and striker). -------------------------------------------------------------- League 2 - East A good start so far with only two points dropped. That game against CA Batna was infuriating, with ten minutes left it was goalless. We scored twice late on, then they immediately pulled one back and then equalised with their only two shots on target. New signings Youcef Fellahi and Noureddine Zouaoui have settled in well with nine goals between them. We went out of the cup at the first hurdle, but it meant we could rest players and leave the first team fresh to take revenge against NRB Teleghma a few days later. MC Alger are the newly relegated side, and they've made a perfect start. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 9 Author Share Posted February 9 January 2029 - HB Chelghoum-Laid League 2 - East Perfect, eight wins from eight games. Lots of goals with both strikers and both wingers chipping in. Our big test this period was against MC Alger, and we dispatched them with the only goal of the game. That's helped us overtake them and build a small lead. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 9 Author Share Posted February 9 March 2029 - HB Chelghoum-Laid League 2 - East Our long unbeaten run came to a crashing halt against USM Annaba, in an absolute shocker of a game. They hadn't won a single game all season before this match, picking up only two points. Our attackers had plenty of chances to score, but just didn't take them. Our defence were abysmal making so many stupid mistakes. Our goalkeeper couldn't catch a cold. And the midfield weren't up to much either. Just terrible all round. I dropped the whole starting XI for the next game and the back-ups just about scraped a 2-1 win late on, but couldn't produce the goods a second time when they lost to CA Batna. I then put the AssMan in charge of team selection for a while, and luckily we got back to winning ways throughout the rest of March. We still have a six point lead, and it's now CA Batna leading the chasing pack. We've played them twice this season, but only gained one point from these fixtures. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 9 Author Share Posted February 9 (edited) May 2029 - HB Chelghoum-Laid League 2 - East Two losses at the start of April had me worried that we were going to bottle it. Luckily CA Batna also lost one of their games at this time, so we kept the lead, though it was reduced to just three points. A number of fines were handed out, and a stern team meeting was also held to get minds back in the right place. From that point onwards we didn't slip up again. The ball was in our court, and by winning our final six games we did what we needed to. MC Alger came on strong to finish 2nd, but we'd done enough that they couldn't get close to us. CA Batna had been our nearest challengers but they fell away badly. USM Annaba ended in last place, I'm still annoyed they inflicted the first defeat of the season on us. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited April 7 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 9 Author Share Posted February 9 (edited) May 2029 - HB Chelghoum-Laid Squad Stats Noureddine Zouaoui had an incredible season, with 28 goals he was just one off being the division's top scorer. Younes Sayah also had a great year, and was picked as the division's player of the season. -------------------------------------------------------------- History Another promotion in the bag, and this one came easier than expected. I thought it would be more of a challenge grabbing the sole promotion spot, but we never looked in any danger of missing out. As much fun as it is smashing through these promotions, I think it will be time sooner rather than later to move on to the pre-existing countries rather than the additional nations to add a degree of difficulty to this. I've had three African promotions so far and one European promotion, so maybe I'll try and add an Asian, Oceanian, and South American promotion from created leagues before going mainstream. -------------------------------------------------------------- Job Search + Game World No point sticking around in a top flight, so I've handed in a resignation letter again. To freshen up the available jobs I've removed Kenya and Algeria, and added The Gambia, Uzbekistan, and Bosnia & Herzegovina. -------------------------------------------------------------- Edited February 9 by DaneBramage Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 11 Author Share Posted February 11 January 2030 Job Search I spent more than six months unemployed, there weren't any appealing vacancies out there. A few spots opened up in Bolivia during December, but their season wasn't starting again until July so I didn't want to join a club but then spend ages doing nothing. In January the managerial merry-go-round kicked into gear in Algeria. Ben Guerdane (bottom of Ligue 1) sacked their boss and brought in the manager from JS Kairouan (2nd in Ligue 2). I applied for that job and was swiftly rejected, and they instead stole the manager from Kasserine (5th in Ligue 2). So I applied for and won that job instead. We're in a pack of five aiming for one promotion spot. The winter break is ongoing at the moment with a month until our next game. This is good news, as we have very few staff at the club so recruitment will be the priority first. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 11 Author Share Posted February 11 March 2030 - Kasserine Ligue 2 - Group A Win big or lose big. I had a good feeling when we battered league-leaders EGS Gafsa on their own patch, and even cockier when we smashed AS Ariana. We were knocked back down to earth though by O. Kef, they just ran rings around us. The win over EGS Gafsa saw us jump into 1st place, and was the start of them plummeting out of the mix. But losing to O. Kef saw them climb over us again, and we fell to third. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 11 Author Share Posted February 11 April 2030 - Kasserine Ligue 2 - Group A The loss to ES Beni Khalled was a nightmare. We had 15 shots, and got none of them on target. They scored four times from an xG of 0.64. Just an absolute shambles. With three games left there's realistically only three teams still competing. If two teams end up level on points then results between the teams is the deciding factor. That wouldn't work in our favour, both O. Kef and Stage Gabesien have winning records over us. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 11 Author Share Posted February 11 June 2030 - Kasserine Ligue 2 - Group A Gameweek 24: We picked up a big victory to reach 48 points, but O.Kef also won (49 points). However, Stade Gabesien lost and remained on 45 points. Gameweek 25: We massively outplayed EA Mateur, but could only find the one goal to earn a draw and reach 49 points. Luckily, O.Kef lost so we equalled their tally (49 points), but remained behind them on head-to-head record. Stade Gabesien couldn't take advantage of this, only drawing themselves (46 points). Gameweek 26: It looked like it wasn't coming, but a late penalty from Taoufik Messadi for the only goal of the game saw us beat CS Korba. But how did O.Kef do? A win and they'd take the title and promotion, anything less and it would be ours. Wahey! That draw to EA Mateur very nearly saw us lose out, and it would have been gutting to do so by not beating the side bottom of the table. Luckily, both our rivals bottled it during the run-in and we kept our nerve. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 11 Author Share Posted February 11 June 2030 - Kasserine History I haven't bothered with a screenshot of the squad. I have no clue who most of them are, could barely hazard a guess at most of their names. I know my two strikers were teenage loanees and both scored a bunch, but that's about it. Instead I'll celebrate my quickest promotion yet, just 10 games, due to inheriting a team in such a good position. -------------------------------------------------------------- Job Search + Game World Job's a good 'un, time to move on. I had been using RNG to select active leagues, but after four African promotions in a row I've decided to de-activate all African leagues. So I've still used RNG to pick the replacement leagues, but only including the other continents. These are the nations I'll have available once the effective dates pass. Asia: Cambodia, East Timor, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Europe: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Oceania: Tuvalu, South America: Bolivia, Paraguay -------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 14 Author Share Posted February 14 November 2030 Job Search I applied for two jobs in the Bosnian second tier, for teams in 5th and 6th place at the time. The team in 5th didn't offer me an interview, but the team in 6th did, and soon enough I was off to NK Travnik. The caretaker manager had been doing a good job, as he'd taken them from 6th to 3rd during his games in charge. There's 13 games left this season, but with the winter break just starting now it'll be four months before the first of them. Hopefully the recruitment team will get to work in this time, as we have four teenagers in the first-team squad, one 26 year old, and then a lot of players 28 and above. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaneBramage Posted February 15 Author Share Posted February 15 March 2031 - NK Travnik First League My first match in charge came around, and we struggled to a draw in a game pretty low on quality. The match against Jedinstvo was a six-pointer, and it didn't go our way. All the stats pointed towards us being the better team, apart from the one that actually mattered. Our starting strikers had a stinker and wasted too many chances. Luckily, we then had games against two sides struggling near the bottom. We spanked both teams easily. The draw against Celik Zenica was actually enough to temporarily send us top, but only because we played before Jedinstvo. Once they'd played their game they jumped back above us, and the loss to them saw the gap grow further. -------------------------------------------------------------- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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