officiallydeej

Season 10 in Portugal is going badly, so much so there's a very real risk that I could get sacked.

Season Summary Liga Bwin - We couldn't quite replicate last season's 7th place finish and unfortunately miss out on European football as a result. We didn't start well due to the European games bringing fixture congestion and were as low as 14th in January before coming on strong as the games thinned out in the new year. We beat Vizela in the last game week to overtake them but unfortunately Casa Pia held their nerve with a win at relegated Gil Vicente to pip us to 7th. Still a good outing all things considered as I was worried we might be closer to the bottom three that we ever were. We took our first points off the big three this season with draws against both Porto and Benfica. The Cups - I'm rolling these into one as it was a really poor outing this season. Both came in the thick of the early season fixture congestion so I didn't really put out a side or make any effort to progress. Europe - We had managed to beat Wisla Krakow 3-0 on aggregate before losing 2-1 to Scottish side Hibernian in the 4th qualifying round. Now this may not look great for a Portuguese side but as I have it as an active league the Scottish teams have become a bit of a European force in this save with Hibernian making it all the way to the semi finals and St Johnstone winning the Conference League this season! Other bits - We managed a set of upgrades across the board which really produced as you will see a little bit later on. We are back in the red and losing almost £400k per month so I really could do with getting back in Europe next season as I don't think league sponsorship will keep us afloat longer term without forcing player sales. Top Prospects This will be the last time we see Roicado 25e on this list as he is leaving us next month. Despite my efforts I couldn't persuade him to sign a new contract so he will be moving to Vizela (who finished below us!) on a free transfer to 'play at a higher level'. He leaves us after a total of 237 appearances, scoring 25 goals with a average rating of 6.85. He was by far our best player for a long time but I think the 6 year contract we gave him kept us up in our first season at this level and also has allowed our newer graduates to get closer. Hopefully we won't miss him too much with strong players coming through but he'll leave a big hole at the centre of our defence next season. Laureano 25h is now far and away our best player and also refusing to come to the negotiating table about a new contract. He has 2 years left to run so hopefully we will be able to get back in Europe and sign him up for another 6 if we can get him to talk. He still loves a booking but gives us boundless energy down the right hand side and is involved in a lot more of our goals than his 7 assists give him credit for. As I suspected last season Madrigal 25g was the key to our success this season. We lost him through injury for 5 weeks late in 2031 and didn't win a single game of the 7 he missed, drawing 5 blanks in that time. He scored a career best 21 goals this season and was our only player to finish with an average rating of over 7. He's knocking on the door of the Colombian national team and with the number of times the manager has been to watch him I think he'll get a call up if he keeps his form up. Youth Intake The new facilities have delivered big time, bringing in what I suspect will be the intake to catapult this save to the next level. An incredible nine 5* prospects with everyone signed up except for Morais and his casual personality. I honestly could have picked 10 of the candidates to share as my best prospects but decided to stick to two as I always do. Tavares 32b has the highest current ability in the eyes of my assistant and would in all honesty already be in the first team if I played a right midfielder. I'm retraining him as a winger and he'll be joining the first team group for pre-season. Correia 32g needs some work on his physicals but has an excellent personality and is already developing at pace. He has an unusually high 18 flair for a box to box midfielder so I'm excited to see what he can do coming on from the bench. Transfers & Next Season Nothing to show on the transfer front but Roicado will soon appear here which is a big loss to us. Neither of the loan players impressed in a side that were relegated back out of the 4th tier. Next season is an interesting one and I'm at a bit of a crossroads in how I intend to proceed. I can replace Roicado with one of our slightly worse but still developing players and stick with the majority of the 24 & 25 intake players that make up our starting 11 (our only original player is now our goalkeeper but his days are numbered) and probably have another run at 7th but they're playing at their absolute max. The 31 and particularly 32 intakes are carrying players who look on another level in terms of current ability at the same age and you'd hope they have a higher ceiling, my assistant certainly seems to think so. I'm inclined to throw a good 6 or 7 of them into the match day squad and deal with the inevitable inconsistency that it will bring with the bigger picture that they are likely to be the generation that see us move towards the very top of the table in 3/4 years time.

I don't usually share these until my season update but.. Nine 5* players in our intake as a top tier Portuguese side! I have definitely been rewarded for my relentless hounding of Mr President to loosen the infrastructure purse strings.

This makes me want to stop playing in Portugal and take on one of the outstanding countries.. argh decisions. Congratulations @ludak

Liga Bwin - European football is coming to José Fonte Park! We were the best of the rest outside of the six strongest teams in the country and thanks to Benfica's stellar performances to boost the nation's co-efficient we will be entering the Europa Conference League for the first time next season. A huge boost and probably the one I needed to push the club forwards in this save. Our players are still performing well above their level of ability so I'm not sure we'll be able to replicate this next season, especially with the extra fixtures but we shall see. Taca de Portugal - We finally had a decent cup run! Our second team beat Penalva do Castelo (non-league), Chaves (2nd tier) & Lank FC (3rd tier) before our first team took over and despatched fellow top tier side Portimonense in the quarter finals. We were rewarded with a two legged semi final against Porto (The other semi was Benfica v Braga so there wasn't exactly a great choice!) and although we held them 1-1 at home they beat us 4-0 in the return leg. All in all a success and by far our best cup run to date. Allianz Cup - Less to report here, beaten 1-0 in the second round by Famalicao. Other - A week after my previous season review we got our sponsorship pay out for the season, £4m! This took us out of debt for the first time in the save and I immediately managed to get the board to approve upgrades to both Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment. I revisited the boardroom in January to ask for a coaching badge (I'm still National B) and noticed the options for JC & YR available again. With a little persuasion we got our second set of upgrades in 6 months to now take both to excellent! There hasn't been any movement on the training or youth facilities so far but I'm hoping the financial boost from European football may twist Mr President's arm. We are due to move into our new 9,500 all seater stadium next month, which will save us on rental costs if nothing else. Top Prospects After 6 seasons playing together in our back four Laureano 25h has finally overtaken Roicado 25e to be our best player in the eyes of my assistant manager. Laureano is now our only 5* player, with 9 assists and an average rating of 6.92 not to be sniffed at playing at the top level against technically superior footballers. He is also showing no signs of wanting to leave at present and with another 3 years to run on his contract will hopefully be sticking with us for a little while yet. Roicado is still the rock that holds our team together. He's so much better than any of our other centre halves that if he's ever unavailable we simply don't have a chance of winning the game. Racking up an impressive 16 bookings probably shows how much defending we did despite finishing 7th (41% average possession in the league!) but he really is key to all our success. His contract situation is a little more precarious with only 1 more year to run and mumblings of wanting to explore his options which so far I've managed to twice dissuade him from. Although he is willing to come to the negotiatining table his agent is demanding a non-negotiable £400k release clause which is frankly ridicious and I'm not willing to put in until a week before he hits 6 months remaining and be poached for free. I keep working on trying to get him to sack his agent and will keep doing so weekly for the first half of next season. Madrigal 25g has been a somewhat slow burner. He joined in the famous 2025 intake (still populating 7 of the starting 11) but until this season had floated around between the B team and subs bench, mainly due to him not having a good attitude to training or matches. After 2 years intense mentoring from one of our original players (model citizen) I managed to boost his personality enough to start to see him push towards his potential. He finally nailed down a place in the first team this season and his return of 15 goals was more than double that of our next highest scorer. Centre forward is probably our weakest position and our continued development is probably hanging on Madrigal's performance for the next few seasons. Youth Intake The board's investment in coaching and recruitment paid off immediately with our most promising intake in a long time. Three 5* and three 4.5* prospects looks very promising for this stage of the save. Abulai Co appears to be the best of the bunch and since these screenshots were taken has already begun developing rapidly in our U19s team, overtaking both the left backs playing at that level. He'll move to the B team from August and I would expect to see him on the bench for the first team fairly quickly. Caldao Senica has a little bit further to go to break into the first team but he's already scored 7 in 9 for the U19s playing as a left winger so certainly has an eye for goal. Hopefully this is the intake that can sustain the team's push to the top of the league in the next few seasons. Transfers & Next Season I didn't particularly want to lose Almeida 27b as he had decent potential but he started demanding first team football despite being nowhere near the level needed. He was about to enter the last year of his contract and intended to explore options so I left him leave before he started unsettling the squad. Next season will undoubtedly be tough with the early season European games and it wouldn't surprise me to finish lower in the league. In all honestly with the players we currently have I'd be happy to finish 1 place above the relegation zone whilst facilities improve and better graduates develop. We haven't had our sponsorship payment yet but if it matches last season then along with any boost from Europe we should be financially sound at last. We still only spend £17k pw on wages throughout the whole club so hopefully the players don't get too greedy at the next set of contract renewals.

Liga Bwin - Really happy with our first season at this level. We floated around in mid table most of the season and although we hit a bad run in the last third of the season had enough points on the board to keep us out of any real trouble. I've still not managed to improve our poor away form, we didn't win a single game away from home all season. Luckily home was a relative fortress and we finished with a home record of 10-3-6. This does seem endemic across the division, despite only taking 3 away points there were 3 teams who had worse records! Taca de Portugal - The usual fourth round exit here, our second string losing 4-2 at Visela. Allianz Cup - I use the first two rounds of this as extended fitness friendlies as they are before the league starts. We picked up an impressive 3-0 win at Estoril (only away in all comps) in the first round before losing on penalties to second tier opposition in round two. Our squad is still paper thin in terms of quality players so I wasn't disappointed to not need to staff the two extra group games that round three brings. Top Prospects Well Roicado 25e is still here and still frequently unhappy about it. We did our usual dance of him asking to leave if a fee that no one is willing to pay is offered, followed by him coming back after the window happy to stay as there were no offers. I need to try and extend his contract again soon but his agent is asking for a non-negotiable 400k release clause at the moment which isn't something I'm willing to give him with 2 years still to run. His average rating took a dip this season but that's to be expected playing against a much higher level of opposition. Laureano 25h has now joined Roicado in asking to leave at least once per season though he seems much easier to appease straight after the window closes. He has now been capped by the Portugal U21s and although I don't think he'll make the full side does have the option Angola as a fall back. Ramos 27h broke into the team from nowhere this season, skipping the B team and jumping straight in from the U19s. He wasn't a star of his intake and I'd not really picked up on him until he came and asked to change his status to first team player which caught me completely off guard. I gave him a chance in the first five and he ended the season with 31 league appearances and 3 caps for Sao Tome & Principe. Youth Intake Although it doesn't look great I'm quite pleased with this intake. An okay mix of personalities and two 5* potential attacking players isn't to be sniffed at now we're in the top tier. Although naturally a striker Garnito has attributes more suited to an inside forward so I'll be looking to retrain him out there. Borges is also giving me winger vibes but he's scored 5 in 5 up front for the U19s so far so I'll keep an open mind on how to develop him. The nationality diversity is also excellent as our reputation is increasing with no fewer than 8 dual nationals and 2 non-Portuguese players coming through, over half of the intake, Transfers & Next Season Nothing to report transfers wise other than two largely successful loan spells for Silva 28b who will now be knocking on the door of the first team next season. I've only lost one players I didn't want to let go so far in this save and I still feel keeping the squad together is key to staying up the next couple of season before we are in a position to push on. The biggest issue in the save is finances and even after a season in the top tier we are sinking further into the red. The board keep cutting the wage budget with our now less than a third of the next team at this level and although we can still offer contracts the players are happy with this is starting to get tight. I'm not really sure how to get out of this whole short of miraculously getting into Europe or someone offering big money for Roicado or Laureano but honestly neither of these events seem likely. For now we'll keep pushing on and hope there's something positive to report on the balance sheet in 12 months time. We move into José Fonte Park (yeah I'm still unhappy Mr President) in 12 months but with the capacity only 9,600 I'm not sure it will be the game changing money spinner our glorious leader is hoping for.

@lionel messi sorry I meant non-contracts, poor wording on my part.

Nothing for the leaderboard yet but a decent first season with a playoff semi final defeat. I abandoned youth only mid-season as with amateur contracts we were 16th and running out of players. Managed to storm up the league towards the end but didn't turn up at all in the playoff game.

I'm not one to question Mr President but from what I can see on Wiki José Fonte only ever played for the club's youth team and gets a stadium named after him yet the manager who took them from the fourth tier to the first isn't even favoured personnel! One of my players (Senica) is the club's only legend but I'm guessing they didn't choose him because he's still playing.

League - Wow. We did it! After two seasons at this level narrowly avoiding relegation we almost doubled our points tally and will be playing in the top tier next season! Despite what the image says we started strong, winning 7 of our first 10 and despite the odd wobble kept form going to win promotion with two games to spare. We were incredibly good at home finishing with a home record of 14-3-0 and actually quite poor away finishing 6-1-10. Our board cut our wage budget in half mid way through the season due to mounting debts and it was only 15k pw for the second half of the season. I've only realised it now looking back as I type this but due to the debt this was probably a now or never season for promotion with the wage budget being so low. Taca de Portugal - We squeaked through a third round tie on penalties against 4th tier opposition before losing at home to top division side Mafra in round four. I rested players when it looked like we were going to be league contenders so no concerns here. Allianz Cup - A really good run here starting with away wins against top division sides Tondela and Boavista (both 2-1). This rewarded us with a group against two more top sides, Casa Pia and the mighty Benfica. We drew 1-1 with Casa Pia but due to fixture pile up I opted to put out a very young second XI against Benfica, though they did not disgrace themselves only losing 2-1. Top Prospects Our main man Roicado 25e is still here despite again coming and asking to leave twice this season. He always walks away happy when I say I'll sell for for a reasonable price (2.5m) but strangely I've not had one offer for him in the save, let's hope it stays that way this summer. His average rating of 7.18 was the highest at the club and reaffirms his place as easily our best player. The mentoring of Laureano 25h has really paid off and definitely contributed to his continued rapid growth this season. Now a regular in our back 4, his highlight (or lowlight) is probably picking up a ridiculous 20 bookings in 35 matches. He missed 5 league games this season because he was banned for all of them! Santos 24d has been with us since our first intake and a regular starter for 3 years now but appears here for the first time. His 22 goals were key to our promotion and although I don't think he has much more room to grow will be key to any hope we have of survival next season. Youth Intake We have a son! I think this is the first time I've ever had this playing FM. Sadly Ollie Cash looks absolutely hopeless but he'll be sticking around and I'll do my best to at least develop him a little bit. I'm not overly impressed with this intake but there should at least be a couple of players to fill out the squad if nothing else. Jose Rosario looks like another big unit of a centre half similar to Gomes 28c from last year's intake who played 20 first team games this season at only 16. We are still a bit light at centre half after losing Lamelas two seasons ago so Rosario is a welcome additon. Bernardo Esguelha has some work to do but starts from a good base of attributes and also comes packing a professional personality to hopefully aid faster development. On the whole I still feel the quality is nowhere near the class of 2025 but I hope playing in the top league may influence this next season. Transfers & Next Season Only one permanent departure this season with Duarte moving on to pastures new. He was never a first team regular and had gradually become surplus to requirements so left us for the offer of first team football in the fourth tier with Coruchense. In terms of next season I don't really know what to expect. We do compete well with the Liga Bwin sides in the cups but they are one off start of season games and we're usually much fitter due to our season starting earlier. The target will be to keep our heads above or as close to the water as we can and make sure we don't get cut adrift early. I look at our players and don't even see a top half side in the division we're in, never mind the one we're going into but clearly they think otherwise. One of the keys to our success was our second string getting much better which allowed me to rotate and cover injuries without completely sacrificing results like in previous years. I do feel a number of our top players are playing close to potential already so we'll be looking to the next generation to develop quickly if we're going to stay up. Our U19s finished 3rd in the top tier this season, only 2 points behind champions Boavista.

@XaW good luck in Hungary, I loved my 8 seasons at Budaorsi! Hopefully your U19s team get entered into a league at some point, mine never got an invite to join the youth league at any point in the save.

Finally getting started! I've gone with Dronfield Town and will be aiming to stick to using only youth players.

League - This really was a season of two halves. After 12 games we were 2nd in the league with 7 wins, 4 draws and only a single defeat. Sadly only won 2 more games in the last 22 games of the season which saw us drop like a stone, though we did finish up 3 points better off than our first season at this level. There are a couple of things that caused the loss in form, firstly fatigue to our first team with little quality outside of our starting 11. The second was Mr President deciding to sell Lamelas 25d to Vitoria du Guimaraes, a bitter blow to what was a settled defence. We leaked goals from there and ended up with the unusual record of both most goals scored and against by the end of the season. A big shout to Canelas 2010 who were a fourth tier side when I took over at Sacavenense but thanks to a late season surge will be mixing it with the big boys next season. Taca de Portugal - We made it to the fifth round for the first time before being soundly beaten 3-0 at home to Arouca as our dip in form began to take hold. Allianz Cup - A poor outing this season going out to fellow second tier Farense on penalties following a 1-1 draw. U19s - They made it into the end of season Championship Group in the top U19 league for the first time, eventually finishing 5th behind winners Porto. Top Prospects Evora 25j is a new entry in this section following the untimely departure of Lamelas. He initially joined the first team group last season as our back up left winger but after rapid development from the bench took over as our regular starter. 5 goals, 13 assists and a call up to the Cape Verde under 21s marked a good debut season in senior football. The rapid progress of Laureano 25h continued this season, making him the latest of my starlets to make noises about wanting to leave. I've managed to stifle them for now but mentoring has led to a marked increase in his ambition will be no doubt see him at my door again soon enough. I probably need to tone down the hard tackling after he managed a ridiculous 19 bookings in 29 games. Our star man Roicado 25e is still here and actually decided for a brief period of time he was happy at the club until he remembered he was twice as good as anyone else and requested to leave again in mid March. His performances are now starting to match his attributes and he's creeping towards an average rating of 7 which would be excellent for a centre half at this level. I activated his contract clause in the summer so we'll be getting at least 4 more years of him - unless Mr President has other ideas. Youth Intake Our best intake for a while, possibly since the golden generation of 2025. Bruno Silva 28b has a lovely set of base attributes for a striker and with a fairly professional personality has already started developing and leading the line for the U19s. Filipe Gomes 28c is a raw centre half but is also absolutely huge, I feel he'll be a threat from set pieces if he develops enough to make it into the first team. Transfers & Next Season Only one but unfortunately it's the big one I mentioned earlier. Our rock solid centre half partnership was broken up when Mr President decided selling Lamelas 25d for 500k was a good idea, seeing us plummet from 2nd to a final league position of 14th. I wouldn't have minded if the money was right but the 500k barely scratched the surface of our debt. Luckily I managed to negotiate a 50% next sale clause meaning if he does go on to be a superstar he might just help us out financially in the future. Next season is a case on continuing to chip away and pull ourselves further towards mid table. I'm at risk of losing a couple of our stars if they get sold from under me and I don't have a huge amount of oven ready talent waiting in the wings. There isn't any real money at this level so we could use an away trip to one of the big 3 in the cup to try and force a set of upgrades. Annoyingly my board haven't approved any coaching badges for me through the whole save and show no sign of changing their stance. They did however cancel the new stadium they started planning 4 years ago, deciding that funding could not be sourced.

Season Summary A successful first season at this level eventually finishing 4 points above the relegation playoff. We struggled at the start end end of the season, winning only 1 of our first and last 7 respectively. 7 wins in the 20 games sandwiched in between saw us mid table for the most part and with enough breathing room to cover the end of season drop off. The Expected Points table actually had us way up in 6th giving me hope that as our players mature and become more consistent there is potential for us to climb the table in coming seasons. We entered the Allianz Cup for the first time this season which is the Portuguese League Cup, winning our first two games against Amadora and top division side Nacional before being put into a group with Braga, Leiria and Boavista in the third phase. Although we finished bottom we did manage a decent 1-1 draw away at Boavista and certainly didn't disgrace ourselves. In the Taca de Portugal we beat a non-league side away before falling to 3 Liga side Lusitano Evora for the fourth season in a row. Top Prospects Now easily the best player at the club, Roicado 25e came to me half way through the season telling me he was too good and wanted to leave. This was the same problem I experienced in Hungary but luckily this time I'm more prepared for it. I told him he could leave if anyone offered £2.5m for him as he asked, though no-one has been interested in him yet so hopefully that won't be for a while. He also has 5 (2+3) years left on his contract so if he does go it'll be on my (or at least the chairman's) terms. Our other centre half Lamelas 25d broke into the team mid season due to injury and his development has skyrocketed ever since. I'd like his tackling to be a little bit higher but our defence as a whole was a lot stronger this year for having these two in it. Our third strongest prospect is also a defender with Laureano 25h making up this promising trio. He also broke into the team mid-season and kept his place through rapid development. He is actually being mentored by the player he replaced as he as a model citizen personality and I've already had notifications that his ambition and determination have increased. Youth Intake The first success here is that I actually remembered to screenshot the intake this season! There are five 5* players here but I'm not convinced these players are as good as a 2025 intake that is now populating more and more first team slots. That being said it is far better than last season with 9 players signed up in total. Diaz 27c is the pick based on current ability but I don't play an attacking midfielder and don't fancy him as a winger so we'll have to see how he develops. I do like the look of Fernando 27d however and may expedite him through the u19s and straight into the B team. Transfers & Next Season The 4 players we loaned out were a mix of players already at the club when I joined and those from our first two intakes who haven't made the first team. Realistically none of the four will make the first team unless we lose 2/3 from higher up the food chain in their position but they all improved whilst out on loan which was nice to see. Picarra was a back up centre half who had been overtaken by our academy graduates who I moved on to save paying the last season of his contract. I'm hoping we manage to keep hold of our stars and push a little further away from the bottom 3 next season. As mentioned earlier the xPts table has us much higher so I think it's currently a case of playing well but struggling with that bit of inconsistency that comes with younger players. I've been micromanaging morale with a fine tooth comb so even when we lost 4 in a row last season it stayed high and we bounced back, which I think looking back was a big part of our survival. We are still deep in a financial hole and this division won't fix that so no improvements to facilities are on the horizon. Although you never want to sell anyone in a youth only save, if the right money came in for Roicado to clear our current debt and pay for a set of upgrades I would consider selling if our other centre halves keep pushing on behind. Our U19s have stayed up in the top tier again and will play a third season mixing it with Benfica, Porto and the other big boys. Interestingly the Belenenses U19s won the top division this season with an unbeaten campaign, my U19s finished above them as champions back in the U19s third tier!

We did it! This season was a reverse of our last at this tier with us starting very slowly and getting stronger towards the end as our young players improved. We went into the last day of the regular season in 5th place and only crept into the promotion playoffs by stealing a 1-0 win at Caldas and getting lucky with Sporting B slip up. From there on we seemed to get better and better and managed to win our playoff group with a final win against Canelas. The real turning point was game 4, we were in 2nd place having just lost at home to B-SAD and facing the extra playoffs again. Somehow we managed to go to B-SAD and batter them 4-0, putting us top with 2 games to go. We then lost 1-0 at Braga B to put it back in 2nd, but they did us a favour in game 6 beating B-SAD whilst we beat Canelas 5-3 to secure what had all season looked an unlikely promotion. We are in financial trouble and I have no idea whether or not it will level out in the second tier. We still haven't had any interest in our players but that can surely only be a matter of time as we now have one or two very good players for this level. Player Stats & Top Prospects Although we are still using a strong core of our original players our academy graduates are slowly becoming regular starters. Roicado 25e is easily the best of these and is also now ranked our 3rd best player overall. It isn't reflecting in his performances yet which are still wildly inconsistent but he did get stronger and began to stand out in the playoffs, further expediting his progress. Garizo 24a has been in the first team longer than any of my other graduates and although not as good as Roicado is more established and our strongest right winger. 2 goals and 5 assists isn't the best return but he also got stronger as the season came to a close. Youth Intake - This was poor. Really poor. So poor in fact that I forgot to screenshot it! For the first time ever this early in a challenge I didn't sign anyone from this intake. Transfers & Next Season Only one departure and not one I am concerned about. Although a regular in our first season Lopez had been overtaken and was well down the forward pecking order so I was happy to let him leave when he came asking. In terms of next season I have no idea if we will be able to survive in the second tier but only two automatic relegation places coupled with our rapid player development gives me reason to be hopeful. It's also good to see both of last season's promoted sides survived, one of which Beira-Mar started as an unplayable 5th tier side and just finished 8th in the 2nd tier! The 2nd division has a single league of 18 teams and looking at some of the top sides I would expect us to be battling at the bottom end.

SG Sacavenense - 2024/25 3 Liga - North Group I had a feeling we would do well at this level and so it proved. Olhanese and ourselves were the two standout teams all season and we ended up comfortably in the top 4 for a spot in the promotion playoffs. The league it split into two groups and on the face of it we seemed to come out of this badly with Olhanense, Belenenses, Vilafranquense, Belenenses SAD plus the Sporting B team looking a much tougher proposition than the southern group. Luckily we were even better than I realised and with only 3 defeats (2 to Olhanense) we marched on to the playoffs.. The promotion playoff group was a tale of two halves. We won all of our first three games to race onto 9 points, 5 clear of second placed Trofense and only one win from promotion. I gave the lads a 'no pressure' team meeting before the fourth game and they decided to fall apart and lose all three without scoring a goal. Nice recommendation from the assistant there. I thought the season was over but the qualification screens in this league seem a bit odd, and unbeknown to me we went into a playoff against Vilafranquense, who despite a disappointing league campaign came alive in the playoffs to finish second in the other group... A 2-0 win in the home leg meant a 2-2 draw away was enough to see us through. I had this time spotted that this was a semi final, with a final against second tier side Amora at last all that stood between us and a second successive promotion. They'd had a poor season and despite finishing third from bottom only managed 22 points in 34 games whilst 7 of the 11 starting their previous league game being loan players gave me hope they wouldn't be up for the fight... Heartbreak at the final hurdle. Despite dominating both games a combination of fatigue and injuries meant Amora's armada of loan players had just enough to hold us off and consign us to at least one more season in the third tier. We threw the kitchen sink at them in the second leg, registering 23 shots to their 5 but couldn't find a way through. In spite of the disappointing finish however this has been a very successful first campaign at this level and one I'll definitely be looking to build on next time around. Taca de Portugal - We went out in the third around, losing 2-1 at home to top tier side Arouca. Player Statistics & Key Players Senica was the beating heart of our midfield, averaging 7.05 despite picking up a mightily impressive 13 bookings in 26 games. He was injured for our playoff final and I think it's probably a case of what could have been had he been fit to play. He's good enough to play in the league above so I'm relieved there doesn't yet seem to be any interest in him. Oliveira is one of those strange players where every single one of his attributes is between 7 & 12 (I have a few player like this, who does the scouting for SI here?!) so whilst he doesn't excel at anything he is incredibly consistent. He managed 13 assists in 27 games from right wing back, often outlasting his opponents and becoming more dangerous as games went on. Youth Intake Wow. Sometimes at this level you take seven 5* potential players with a pinch of salt but not on this occasion. This intake is better than anything I ever got in Hungary and if I can keep hold of these players will give me a real chance to kick this save forward into the upper echelons of Portuguese football. Laureano is already our second best wing back behind Oliveira and impressed in the playoffs in his absence. Despite his questionable judgment my assistant manager thinks he can be a top division player and I have to agree. Madrigal is a fast and tricky Colombian who is already developing nicely with 5 goals and 4 assists in 12 U19 games at the end of the season. He's got more traffic in front of him but I'll be keeping a sharp eye on him. Next Season I am expecting another promotion challenge and our younger players are developing at a fast rate so we should come back even stronger. Porto B are one of the sides coming down and although you can never predict the strength of reserve teams they only managed 9 points all season so you'd hope we can take them on. I haven't had any interest in my players yet and I'm hoping it stays that way but if we don't get promoted again next season you'd imagine it will only be a matter of time. The one problem we have is finances, we are over £1m in the red due to our facilities and that shows no sign of slowing down. Our U19s won a second successive promotion (the U19s leagues in Portugal are set out very well with promotion and relegation) and will be playing in the top tier of U19s football next season mixing it with the giants of Porto, Benfica and Sporting. This can only be good for our youth development and I think I'm inclined to keep my top prospects around rather than loan them to largely semi pro tier 4 teams with poor facilities.

Considering our stadium was barely a third full last season and we are now nearly half a million in debt this feels like a wholly unnecessary move from Mr President.

Season Summary Now this was a better start to my second attempt in Portugal! The squad here, though not one of the best in the division was clearly better than I had at Braganca and it showed. We were in and around the top two all season and despite only winning 1 of our last 4 made it into the playoffs with relative ease. After 3 games we were top and I foolishly didn't realise we played both home and away, losing our 4th game and drawing our 5th meant we went into a winner takes all finale against Caldas, who won our league and beat us in 2 of our other 3 meetings against them. Luckily the boys delivered with a 91st minute winner from midfielder Nuno Sa (his only goal of the season!) enough to take us up and spark wild scenes in my living room which led to two panicking cats and one angry wife. This was just the start I needed after the grind at Braganca and I can't wait to see what the third tier brings. Our U19s also romped to their league title with a very impressive record of 26-1-3 finishing 7 points clear of the prestigious Belenenses academy. We have very good facilities at this level which showed in our both our intake and the players I inherited from the holiday season intake. I'm optimistic we can at least compete in the 3 Liga, though another bizarre league system that means everyone outside the top 4 plays in the relegation playoff! Being professional from the off was a huge help and has already seen some of our younger first teamers developing at a good pace. The only concern is our finances, we are already in debt to the tune of 400k and with our facilities and professional status I don't expect that to slow down any time soon. Key Players as in any promotion season there were a lot of good performers but José Semedo was easily the standout. 28 goals in 34 games was an excellent return in the centre of a front three designed to utilize his acceleration and finishing. He is also a Sao Tome & Principe international and equally prolific for his country, bagging 5 goals in just 3 appearances. The only downside is that at 31 his days are already numbered but he will be remembered fondly for getting us up so quickly and hopefully keeping us there next season. I could have picked any of my midfielders as they all had terrific campaigns but Francisco Sénica was the leader of the pack. Attribute wise he is probably our best player and he absolutely blinds anyone I ever had at Braganca, it's no wonder I struggled! 5 goals and 5 assists is an excellent return for a defensive midfielder and at only 25 I'm hoping he will stick around to help our upwards progression. Youth Intake & Transfers With standout facilities for this level I was looking forward to the intake and it didn't disappoint. Although the personalities aren't great some of the players certainly are. Garizo 24a is already a baller at this level and ended up making 4 playoff appearances due to a number of injuries. He'll stay with the first team group from the start of next season and I'd expect him to register a fair few minutes. Santos 24d is already my 5th best striker and with Semedo aging it will be interesting to see if he has the potential ability ceiling to take over the mantle as our talisman in a couple of seasons time. All in all a solid first effort from our HoYD and I signed all the candidates which is unusual for me. Only one departure this season with our third choice keeper leaving for pastures new. We already have 1 or 2 youths almost at his level so I wasn't concerned when he came to me asking to leave. Although we haven't yet it wouldn't surprise me if we start to see interest in some of our better younger players soon and with money in short supply we'll be looking nervously at Mr President to see if he decides sales are needed to keep us afloat. Next Season Survival has to be the obvious aim but our squad is strong for this level and I feel with the supplement of talented graduates we can push on. I'm not sure we will go straight through to the second tier but I'm cautiously optimistic we can try and finish in the top four. I don't expect the finances to sort themselves out until we are in the top tier, possibly even Europe, and although our players aren't worth much right now I'm prepared for the fact we may need to sell a player or two at some point in the future.

Congrats @Neo_Geo!

SG Sacavenese - Portugal Another day, another save! Or so it feels at the moment. Although I didn't have the heart to go through the slog of struggling for homegrown players with Africanos Braganca, I did love the bizarre way the Portuguese leagues work so wanted to say for another (slightly easier perhaps?) crack. Thanks to @The7Striker's guide to interesting teams I've landed on SG Sacavenese, who have very decent facilities for this level. They also have the huge bonus of starting professional which is a fairly rare commodity for the teams promoted into the 4th tier. Looking forward to this one and I can already see this squad is far stronger than the one I had before so fingers crossed I won't get relegated and sacked this time.

I may have spoken too soon about looking upwards...

Season Summary Although we only got one point more than our previous season this time things just felt.. better. We were always nearer to the top and never looked in danger of going down. We put a strong run together in the third quarter of the season but in the end the B teams were just too strong for us, only managing to get 1 point from the 4 games against them with Braga B hitting us for 6. Some of the teams that came up this season were very poor, particularly the bottom 3 from where 6 of our 11 wins came. It appears the players only have to becoming homegrown at the club at some point of the season to qualify from the start so half of my 2024 graduates were available to me for the whole campaign. I think we are still a couple of seasons away from a proper challenge and we will lose at least 2 of our regular starters this summer but I do feel positive progress is being made. Key Players Bilimbota was out standout again this season, notching another 18 goals despite switching to a front two. Our other striker Tom will be leaving this summer after never getting over being on the bench in the first season so a lot of pressure will be on Billy to keep up his numbers. Another solid season too for Varela with a solid 6 goals and 6 assists after moving out to the right wing. I think he's probably our best player attributes wise and at only 23 I'm hoping he still has a little more room for improvement to give us a push towards promotion. Youth Intake Lots of potential again but not much current ability for the here and now and a poor spread of personalities. Almeida 25a will be available from the start of next season and will give us some depth on the left wing, his 12 finishing looks promising for an inside forward. The other strong player from this intake looks to be Denilson Monteiro 25c, he's also available from the start of the season which will be a welcome boost as I'm currently playing a centre half in that position. Transfers Still nothing to report here. Next Season More of the same I think. It would be lovely to make it into the top two and have a crack at the playoffs but I don't think we're at that point yet. The threat of five teams being relegated is always looming large in such a small division so we'll be hoping for a good start to keep us clear of trouble. I wouldn't mind having a crack at the cup (not sure if there's money to be made) but so far the teams I've drawn in the first round have been too strong for us.

Season Summary Easily one of the most difficult seasons I've ever done in FM and the table was nowhere near as comfortable as it looked. We started well picking up 4 wins in our first 5 games but then an awful run saw us down in 12th with 8 games remaining. The board summoned me in and told me results must improve and even forced me to drop my left winger or face the sack! We managed 4 wins (all against relegated teams), 3 draws and a defeat in the last 8 to end up in a respectable 7th. The table shows us only 6 points off 2nd but in reality we were nowhere near that for 95% of the campaign. All players that come through the team's system are classed as homegrown in Cape Verde, not Portugal, so I could only field 8 real players at any time and had to play at least 3 greyed out players in every game. This won't get much better either as the manager in the holiday season only signed one of his intake before I took over, so only one player will become homegrown next season. As the training has to be between 15-21 none of my existing first team will ever meet this criteria as they're all 21 and over so I'll be fielding at least 2 greys per game next season too. My academy graduates will become hgn but from my first intake the first one is still 200 days away, the latest 750. In better news we made a profit each month allowing me to persuade the board to upgrade the junior coaching. I've opted to hold off on youth rec and facilities until we can make a more realistic push for promotion and source a bit more income to run them. Key Players Without Blimbota this career would already be over. He single-handedly carried us with 23 goals in 27 games, 50% of our goals scored for the season. He was our only player who averaged over 7 and often won games on his own. His attributes are very simple, pace, composure & finishing at a decent level for this tier and we stuck to his strengths getting him in behind whenever we could. Varela was injured for the first half of the season but his return helped us turn the sinking shift around from Christmas onwards. 4 goals and 3 assists aren't numbers to match Blimbota but he always seemed involved in the good things we did. I've picked out Ofesse because the registration rules meant he had to play alongside a greyed out centre half all season so was effectively doing the work of 2 defenders at times. He's a big lad who enjoys defending deep and sticking his head on it again the more direct teams at this level. I'm under no illusions he won't be around for a long time but I did take to him as a player this season. Youth Intake Lots of potential here and not the worst set of personalities I've seen for a first intake. I would have preferred more CA as being semi pro it will be hard to develop these lads, especially as they can't play for the first team for a while but beggars can't be choosers. Ribeiro 24e & Reis 24h look the best of the bunch and will both be joining the first team squad (along with plenty more!) as soon as their age allows. I didn't realise the full intake would be Cape Verdean which can only be a positive for the national team if/when we do reach the top table of Portuguese football. Transfers Nothing to report here, we really can't afford to lose anyone at the moment! Everyone is contracted for at least one more season and I can't imagine anyone will receive an offer to turn the president's head so we should be okay for another year. Next Season Another season of survival and trying to eke far more out of 8 players than should realistically be possible. I'm hoping by the January registration window some of my graduates should be homegrown and may boost us if we are struggling again at Christmas. Really enjoying this so far!

Africanos Braganca - Campeonato de Portugal Prio A Finally! After 3 hours of holidaying and being ready to accept my second choice of a team from the Azores I managed to get Africanos Braganca (AEAB) promoted. I know they were used fairly widely as part of this and other challenges last year but the draw of a team that produces Cape Verdean regens was too much for me. They were in the same 5th tier group as Mirandela who due to their higher reputation got promoted on 92 of the 96 reloads I did, with only one other team appearing before I managed to get AEAB. The first couple of seasons will no doubt be tough as my understanding is that youth intake players don't immediately qualify as homegrown so cannot be registered for at least a season. The players I start with also aren't all homegrown but I'm hoping I can get around some of that by leaving spaces on the bench as we only have 14 players, 3 of which are goalkeepers. The immediate tasks are to move all my amateur players onto part time contracts to avoid poaching and survive the first season. For those who haven't managed there before the Portuguese 4th tier has four groups of fourteen, though five teams are relegated from each group meaning we need to finish 9th or above which looks a tough ask. Really looking forward to this one, can't wait to get through the first couple of seasons and start seeing the academy players involved. As with my previous save in Hungary, although I won't be managing them of course I will be keeping an eye on the Cape Verde national team hoping that our intakes can help them qualify for the World Cup and maybe win the African Nations Cup.

I've decided to park my Budaorsi save for the moment. I did finish the next season in an improve 6th position but all of my year 3 intake players which make up the bulk of my team are coming to the end of their 3+3 contracts and are all refusing to sign as they have done for the last 3 seasons. I don't have the depth to come back from losing that many players after having to play so long without any sort of competitive youth football meaning anyone outside my first 11 are generally underdeveloped for their age. I might come back to it at some point but right now I'm going to try something new. I'm currently holidaying and reloading to try and get a particular team to appear, 2 hours in and no luck yet but I'm not giving up hope!