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marktonge

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  1. Absolutely gutted to read this has crashed! Let's hope there is a fix out there one day, and you can get it going again!
  2. CLUB #6 | DOC'S UNITED | ANGUILLA | 2030/2031 Adios Antigua & Barbuda, and Hola Anguilla! It's only a short 44 minute hop over to the new island, and that's where I'll be calling my home for the next few months! Once again I've landed on my feet and secured a job at the best team in the league, who are comfortably expected to win the league this season. They've actually won the league for the past 2 years before this season so are dominating on a domestic level. Doc's United play in the Anguillan Premier League and play at the same ground as everyone else in the league, meaning games are spread throughout the whole week. The stadium, Raymond Gordon Ernest Guishard Center which has a capacity of around 1100. The club were founded in 2007, and are located on George Hill, southwest of the capital city of El Valle. They are an amateur team made up of players who have other careers on the side of the football team. I love that. Presidents Cup Before the league season starts in Anguilla, the Presidents Cup takes place. A group stage affair to start before heading into the knockout rounds. We were drawn in a Group alongside Uprising & West End Predators. We started with a lovely little 2-1 win over Uprising where we went 2-0 up thanks to goals from Ian Fleming (not the author), and Roy Williams before conceding late and holding on. We secured top spot in the group by smashing West End Predators 4-0 thanks to a brace from Ruvin Rogers. We had qualified for the Semi-Final where Roaring Lions (AIA) were waiting for us. A tightly contested game saw us edge it 1-0 with Ruvin Rogers netting the winner in the 38th minute. A close game that could've gone either way, but we were into the final. Our Group Stage friends Uprising were our opponents, and an early goal from Ian Fleming put us ahead in front of a bumper crowd of 1552 fans. (I don't know how considering the stadium holds 1100). They equalised just before the half, but Roy Williams rose highest at a corner and headed home the winner in the 80th minute! A trophy in the early days of my tenure here! Anguillan Premier League The thing that I love about playing in these extended databases, are the lower countries that enable you to fly through seasons quickly. The Premier League consists of 9 teams, and each team plays each other once over the course of the season. There are no home and away games as technically everyone is at home each time. 8 games to get that title secured and in the bag. Nearly the perfect season! We nearly went all season without losing or drawing, but one little pesky game against Roaring Lions put a halt to that! You can see why were favourites for the title before the season, as we racked up some seriously impressive wins along the way. We start in February, with 4 wins from 4. A 3-1 victory over Uprising before a 7-4 spectacle for the fans against Lymers. It was a fun game to manage in and the lead changed a number of times but goals from Ruvin Rogers (2), Ian Fleming (2), Andre Tesselaar, Andre Fleming & Terrace Brooks secured us all 3 points. We followed this up with a 4-0 win over Attackers (AIA) and a 3-0 win over Diamond (AIA). Two back to back clean sheets and plenty of goals scored. The perfect start. March consisted of 3 games, and also held our only loss. An 86th minute penalty gave Roaring Lions the win in front of a big crowd. A gut wrenching way to lose a game but the perfect season obviously wasn't meant to be. We did bookend this defeat with plenty of goals in 2 wins! A 4-0 victory against ALHCS Spartans, before. a 7-0 thrashing against West End Predators, with Ian Fleming netting 4 goals in a magnificent performance. We rounded the league season off with a 4-0 win over Eagle Claw in April, and that was that for the Anguillan Premier League. Did we end up winning it? Of course we did, and by some margin considering we only play 8 games. A lovely gap of 5 points between ourselves and Diamond (AIA). We finished with 21 points from a possible 24 which is impressive. The league says goodbye to Lymers & Attackers (AIA) who both get relegated after only winning one game all season. Another league ticked off, and another league & cup double to add to the resume. Player Stats Top Goalscorer: 1. Ian Fleming (15) 2. Roy Williams & Ruvin Rogers (6) 3. Miguel Rogers (5) Top Assists: 1. Mustafa Ziahi (9) 2. Terrance Connor (7) 3. Andre Tesselaar (6) Highest Average Rating: 1. Ruvin Rogers (8.08) 2. Terrance Connor (7.80) 3. Ian Fleming (7.64)
  3. Club #5 | Antigua & Barbuda | Grenades | 2030/2031 We've left the landlocked country of Armenia, and jetted off to warmer shores of the Caribbean Island of Antigua and neighbouring Barbuda. It lies where the Atlantic & Pacific Oceans meet and are known for the reef lined beaches, rainforests and resorts! A popular holiday island, but for me this is no holiday. This is work, and I've got a job to do. I've taken over at the league favourites and all round big club, Grenades. The strangest concept for a team name and logo I've ever come across I think, but the opportunity was too good to pass up! Grenades are simply the best team in the Antiguan and Barbudan system! I'm delighted to be here and don't think I'll be here long if truth be told. They were founded in 1990 and have only won the league once in their history, in 2022/2023. Grenades play their football in the Antiguan capital St Johns, and their home ground is the national stadium: Antigua Recreation Ground which holds 9000 spectators. It also is the national Cricket ground and regularly hosts test matches. In all honesty, I can't find out a lot about them, so that's your lot. I'm here for a short stay, but a fun stay! 2030/2031 Season Grenades play in the ABFA Premier League (Antigua & Barbuda FA). This is a simple league format where the top side at the end of the campaign wins the title. The bottom two sides get relegated whilst the third bottom side enters a playoff to stay in the league. We also play in the FA Cup which takes place throughout the season. ABFA Premier League You can take a look at the results above and take a little guess at what happened in the league! We absolutely smashed it only losing the one game and drawing one other. We dropped a total of 5 points all season meaning we won 85 points throughout the season. Incredible scenes as we went on a 19 match winning run to end the season! I couldn't quite believe it, but I certainly wasn't complaining as I sat back, relaxed and sipped my pina colada! We started things off with a lovely 2-1 win over Green City which was our only game in October! A solid start. November had 4 games in it, and as you would've guessed, we won all 4. A 5-1 battering over Otto's Rangers before beating All Saints United 4-0 at home. We then had back to back away games which saw us win 3-1 against Bassa SC and 3-1 against Old Road. December was here, and saw us play 8 games in the league. This was the month that we dropped all of our points in. It's crazy that in the 3 months afterwards we didn't drop a single point. We carried on our winning run with a 3-2 win over Liberta FC, a 2-0 win over Lion Hill and a 3-0 win over SAP FC. This is where the winning run ended though, as we put in a shocker of a performance against Hoppers and ultimately lost 1-0. It was frustrating as they are the second favourites for the title. We did get back to winning ways next game as we beat Empire F.C 4-1 in a thriller. I thought that was going to be it, back to a winning run, but a shock 1-1 draw with Potters Tiger stopped me in my tracks. Luckily that was to be it for the whole dropping points things. We rounded the month out with a 1-0 win over Bassa SC and a 1-0 win over Jennings. 2031 came around and saw us win all 8 games in January. An astounding feat of quality and fitness by the lads. Up first was a 2-0 win over Swetes FC before beating Wilikies 1-0. We dispatched Otto's Rangers 3-1 and followed this up with a 4-1 victory against Green City. Striker Tev Lawrence was just finding form and was about to become our key man. We beat Potter's Tigers 5-0 before beating Parham FC 4-1. Another two wins came at the end of the month as we saw off Old Road & Parham FC 1-0 & 3-0 respectively. In February we won 6 out of 6. Another perfect month follows the first. SAP FC were our first victims as we beat them 3-0. A 6-2 redemption win over Hoppers was the highlight, as Tev Lawrence netted a hattrick. Empire F.C were beaten 3-0, before a 2-1 win over Liberta FC. We visited All Saints United next and came away with a 2-1 win. Finally this month we saw off Swetes FC in a 3-1 victory. 18 points from 18 and only a month to go. The final month of the season was here and we continued our winning run. Jennings FC came and went away with a 3-0 loss. We then beat Lion Hill 3-1 before winning on the final day of the season against Willikies. (Such a strange name for a team). League Table As comfortable a league win as you'll ever see. We ended on 85 points and Hoppers who were runners up were a massive 18 points behind us. We could've played 6 games less and still won the league. Crazy, but we thoroughly deserved this title. The league says goodbye to Lion Hill & Liberta FC whilst Green City await their playoff fate. FA Cup: I'm not going to lie, I thought this was in the bag as the season was going on. We were dominating pretty much everyone, week in week out. We came stuck at the end of the season though and eventually were dumped out of the competition. In the Second Round we beat Lion Hill in a 4-0 demolition. Tev Lawrence being the main man and scored twice in the first half. The Third Round was a 2-1 win against SAP FC but this wasn't a pretty win. We were pretty poor overall, but managed to squeeze out a win, but we held on at the end. The Quarter-Finals was an easier affair, as we beat lower league side BlueJays. Once again, Lawrence smashed in a brace as we went on to win 4-0. The Semi-Final was the most frustrating game ever. We were up against Otto's Rangers and should've scored at least 4. We did not however, and after equaliser in the last minute of extra time we paid the penalty and were dumped out of the competition on that stupid pot luck of a tradition. Hate it. Not happy. Player Stats: Top Goalscorer: 1. Tev Lawrence (30) 2. Ridel Stanislas & Tony Jacob (11) 3. Richard Pena (10) Top Assists: 1. Richard Pena (14) 2. Tony Jacob (11) 3. Jacob Blackwood (7) Highest Average Rating: 1. Tev Lawrence (7.55) 2. Richard Pena (7.37) 3. Tony Jacob (7.18)
  4. Appreciate the comment mate! Means a lot coming from someone attempting a challenge as difficult if not harder! Hope you'll check back in further on down the line!
  5. Club #4 | Ararat Yeravan | Armenia | 2029/2030 It was goodbye to Angola, and hello to a country I had no idea where it was on the map. Of course, I'd heard of the place, but I wouldn't have been able to place it on the map if I tried, so a little bit of a google later and I know the location of it. Welcome to Armenia. The landlocked country is nestled inbetween Turkey (West), Georgia (North), Azerbaijan (East) & Iran (South). A very mountainous region that is actually geographically part of West Asia, but counts as Eastern Europe. If you delve into Armenia more specifically, I'm based in it's capital city of Yerevan which is home to my new club: Ararat Yeravan. It seems like an absolutely beautiful country, and one where I'm sure I'll enjoy managing for a short period of time. The club was founded in 1935, and plays in the Armenian Premier League. Since the disillusionment of the Soviet Union in 1991, the club has won the top flight on the one occasion in 1993. They have been runners-up in the league on four occasions, but haven't managed to get over the line again since that 1993 season. The club go by the nickname 'The White Eagles' which is referenced on their lovely club badge which also features the name of the club in two different languages. Ararat play their home games in the Vazgen Sargsyan Republican Stadium which can hold up to 14,403 spectators at once. This is also the home of the Armenian National Team. I'll now update you on how the season has gone for us as I round out the League Campaign, Armenian Cup & The European Conference League. IDBank Premier League Here in Armenia, the league is split into 2 stages. The first being the regular league phase where everyone plays everyone twice. After that, the top 6 break away into a Championship Group, and the rest play in a Relegation Group. The winner of the Championsip group goes on to win the league title and claim bragging rights! Simple as that really. I'll round out the regular league phase first, and then move onto whatever group we get put into. We started the season with back to back wins in August, the first being a 3-1 victory over Gandzasar, and the second being a fantastic 4-1 win over Noah. I had no idea who was good in the league apart from Urartu Ye (who are the league favourites.) A fantastic start to the season and we're on our way. In September we played 5 games and alternated wins and defeats. It was tough to get any momentum but 3 wins out of 5 is a good thing to me. A 4-1 win over Alakshert got us underway before losing to those title favourites Urartu Ye in an entertaining game that ended 3-2. We followed that up with a win over Ararat-Armenia our cross city rivals. That one was for the fans for sure! A poor defeat followed against Pyunik but a solid 2-0 victory over FC Van ended the month. A quiet October was up next where we won our only game against Shirak thanks to a lovely brace from Kassim Hadji. Can't complain with that one. A quiet but successful month. November was a similar month in terms of only playing the one game. What a fantastic match for the neutral as the game against Lori ended with us sharing the points after a 4-4 draw. Unbelievable match in all honesty. Back and forth. We were back to playing lots of games in December, as we racked up the maximum points on offer. 3 wins out of 3 was good enough for me. Back to back 2-1 wins against Gandzasar, Ararat-Armenia before smashing 4 past Noah. 9 points added to the total. In the new year, we continued our winning streak and extended it to 5 games. A 3-0 win over Alakshert was followed up by a massive 2-0 win over title favourites Ulratu Ye. That one was huge for us moving forward and in our quest to give us the best shot at the title as possible. We finally lost a game and it came in a 4-3 defeat to Pyunik. They are proving hard to get a good result against and could well be up there come the end of the season. We'd have to find a way to get a result against them. We did manage to get back on track and beat FC Van 2-0 with 2 early goals in the game. The end of the regular season was a good one for us, as we beat Shirak & Lori back to back with 3-0 & 2-1 wins respectively. A great way to end the season and head into the... CHAMPIONSHIP GROUP! We had finished the regular phase at the top of the pile! 14 wins from 18 games left us with 43 points with Pyunik only a point behind us! The title favourites Ulrartu Ye finished in 3rd with cross town rivals Ararat-Armenia in 4th. Gandzasar & Shirak rounded out the Championship Group. Next up, 2 more games against each of those teams in a bid to finish top of the pile and lift that trophy. Championship Group Results: As you can see we didn't lose a single game in the Championship Group! That seems incredible to me considering we were playing the best from the regular phase. We actually won 5 and drew 5. What struck me, is that we were playing every 2 or 3 days so squad rotation was key, and also raised massive problems with fitness levels. A tough ask for any manager to get the right team to win every single game. I won't bore you with a round up of each game as you can clearly see the results above but I'll whack the end of league table below: It couldn't have been much closer, but those draws against the top sides turned out to be massively important in order to not lose ground on them! We ended up in 1st place and have been crowned Champions of Armenia with a total of 63 points. A 3 point gap formed between ourselves and Pyunik and we held on to that gap to claim the title. Armenian Cup The Armenian Cup provided a nice little break from the intense league campaign that we were in, but it didn't last as long as I'd have liked. I was really aiming for the league and cup double but it wasn't to be. We did get through the Second Round, after beating Gandzasar-2 with a 1-0 victory. Demiri netted the only goal in the 7th minute. In the Third Round we absolutely smashed Mika 5-0 thanks to a fantastic hattrick from Georgi Babaliev. The Quarter-Final set us up with a huge derby game. In front of a masive 1,389 eager fans we were humbled and dealt a 3-0 defeat. It was a shocker of a performance and we were deservedly sent packing from the competition. European Conference League: Now I know what you're thinking, did you really think you were going to win the European Conference League with a side from Armenia. The answer to that would be a huge NO, and ur results show why this view was justified. We did manage a fantastic set of wins against Zoria from the Ukraine, before getting our asses handed to us by Levski Sofia. Of course they are a much bigger side than us, but who cares really. I'll be back for this competition at some point later down the line. Player Stats: Top Goalscorer: 1. Kassim Hadji (15) 2. Arber Mehmetllari & Georgi Babaliev (10) 3. Michael Ruhs & Armen Mkrtchyan (8) Top Assists: 1. Faya (17) 2. Antonio Hossi (12) 3. Irdo Bubeqi & Kassim Hadji (8) Highest Average Rating: 1. Faya & Irdo Bubeqi (7.28) 2. Arber Mehmetllari (7.24) 3. Varazdat Mkhiyaryan & Antonio Hossi (7.18) Next Update | A New Club
  6. 2028/2029 | Angola | Wiliete SC de Bengula Welcome back in to Angola, the land of the Giant Sable (Antelope). We're still here in the wonderful city of Benguela, home of the mighty Wiliete SC de Benguela. I've been in charge here for the past 2 seasons and have improved year upon year, and I'm hoping that this year may be the one that we can topple the mighty 1 de Agosto from their perch at the summit of the Angolan footballing pyramid. I set about this off-season with the aim to try and bring in more quality depth to the first team. I noticed that when player got injured last season, the replacements that came in weren't half as good. I had a cracking budget of around £100k to do some damage with as well, and a whopping £11k in the wage budget left to tempt some players in with. I'll list who came in below for you all to look at it. Transfers IN: Domingos Kandumba | ST | £7k | Sagrada Esperanca Marco Almeida | DM | £37.5k | Benfica du Luanda Ismael Barbitos |GK | £21.5k | Petro de Luanda Christian Njalla | CB | £8.5k | 1 de Agosto Kwame Appiah | AMC | £0 | Real Tamale *December Onwards* This motly crew were a massive upgrade on what we had already on the bench, and most with the exception of Kandumba slotted straight into the first team. Keep an eye out for some of their names below to see how they performed throughout the season. This left the squad looking abit stronger heading into the season. The squad is posted below. Taca de Angola I'll update you first with how we fared in the domestic cup, and how we failed miserably to live up to the standards and expectations placed upon us by the board and more importantly by the fans. In the first round, we managed to draw Kabuscorp once again (just like last season). Once again we managed to beat them, but this time we dominated them from start to finsh. A 4-0 victory with the backups playing most of the game. A great way to start the cup campaign. We unfortunately fell at the second hurdle for a second straight year. This time we lost to lower ranked side Baixa de Kassanje via the dreaded penalty shootout. We probably did enough to win the game in 90 minutes, but let our 2-0 lead slip towards the end of the game, and then lost via the lottery of the penalty shootout. Not to be again. AFC Champions League The CAF Champions League is a competition that had fond memories for me. I won it in my first season with CR Belouizdad from Algeria. A fantastic run we had, but could I replay it with Benguela? Probably not as we aren't of the same standard, but you never know eh? We sailed through the preliminary phase with a 12-1 aggregate victory over Operarios from Sao Taome & Principe. They were no match for us, and Adriano Lussivicia netted a cool 5 goals in the second leg. A fantastic individual performance. In the 1st Round, we eased past Asante Kokoto from Ghana after a. 5-3 aggregate victory. Uche Sebastine showed his quality on the big stage once again and earned us the overall victory. This meant we had qualified for the Group Stage where we would face: Al-Merreikh Omdurman (Sudan) Al-Ahly (Egypt) Orlando Pirates (South Africa) We performed pretty damn well in this tough group, earning fantastic wins against Al-Ahly and two against Al-Merreikh Omdurman. We played in front of some huge crowds but fell just short in the final game where we needed a win against Orlando Pirates, but could only manage a defeat. If we had won, we would've been going through in 2nd place in our group. Not to be, but a solid run for the Angolan outfit. Girabola ZAP Time for the league update, which is the key to this challenge. Could this be the year where we took the next step? It was going to be a difficult start as we were up against the holders first match. August was a tricky opening month for us, and saw us face 2 of the top 3 favourites for the league title. We were ranked as 3rd most likely to win it, so 1 de Agosto & Petro de Luanda were the 1st and 2nd. Luckily for us, we caught the title holders on a bad day and managed to secure a 2-1 victory thanks to a 94th minute winner from Filipe Tchitungo the holding midfielder. One hell of a start to a league campaign. We followed this up with a win over ASK Drago before losing two on the bounce against Petro de Luanda & Progresso Sambizanga. A poor couple of results to finish out August, but we'd done what we hadn't before. Beat 1 de Agosto. In September, we continued our patchy form by winning 2, drawing 1 and losing 1. The two wins were decent, a 1-0 against Academica Lobito and a 2-0 against Desportivo Huila. Two solid wins, but a surprise loss to Interclube meant we had lost ground on those at the top. October quickly came around, and saw us produce a top quality month of results. 5 wins out of 6 matches with the other being a draw. We managed to beat Sagrada Esperanca, Recreativo de Libolo, Academica Lobito, Desporitvo Lunda Sul, 1 de Agosto before drawing the Benguela derby 2-2 at the end of the month. Can I just note, that second win in a row against 1 de Agosto came courtesy of a 92nd minute winner from Manu, meaning we had beaten them twice with goals in injury time. You'd take that anyday of the week. November was here, and we managed to win both of our games this month. A lovely little 3-0 victory over Sp. Cabinda thanks to goals from Lamin Demba, Ricardo Adao & Tombe. We followed that up with a 4-1 victory over CR Caala. Easy as you like and maximum points from the month. December now, and fixtures started coming at us thick and fast. We played no less than 6 games this month, and had a healthy return of 13 points. Wins against ASK Drago, Desportivo Lunda Sul, Progresso Sambizanga & a rather important win over Interclube. Uche Sebastine was showing his class as per usual netting 7 times in the month, but scoring some important goals with that. We did lose a game, this time against Petro de Luanda meaning they gained ground on the title whilst we lost ground. In the new year, we managed the perfect month just when we needed it most. 5 wins out of 5 and absolutely zero goals conceded. You can't ask for more as a manager and it came just at the right time. We saw off Sp Cabinda, Benfica de Luanda, Desportivo Huila, Recreativo do Libolo & Sagrada Esperanca. They are all games we should be winning, but we did them convincingly. Only one game to go now. That game came in March, and saw us put in a fine display on the final day of the season. A 5-2 victory over CR Caala saw us gain a crucial 3 points meaning... WE HAD WON THE LEGUE TITLE ON THE FINAL DAY! CHAMPIONS OF ANGOLA FINALLY! What an achievement, and probably my favourite one of the career so far. We've built this team over a 3 year period and we've only gone and toppled 1 de Agosto from their perch and wrestled the trophy from them. It'll look lovely in our brand new trophy room at our place. We'll look after it for a while now I think. Player Stats: Top Goalscorer: 1. Uche Sebastine (25) 2. Adriano Lussivica, Manu (12) 3. Neymar (7) Top Assists: 1. Neymar (16) 2. Kapick (13) 3. Manu (9) Highest Average Rating (minimum 10 games) 1. Uche Sebastine (7.47) 2. Manu (7.34) 3. Pedro Agostinho (7.33) Next Update: It looks like we'll be moving on to the next country beginning with A, and I'm excited to figure out our next step! That's our 3rd country ticked off, and only 11 to go in this first stage! Progress is being made. Thanks for reading!
  7. Been following this from a far since the start! What a journey it's been for you. Nice to get a good start in Mexico! Won't be long until you're in Asia!
  8. Best of luck with this! Like @Sizeman21 said above, I love the black and gold logo & branding. We're all Intercity from this moment.
  9. Wiliete SC de Benguela | Angola | 2027/2028 Welcome back to Angola, the 3rd stop on our wonderful trip around the World. We're still focusing on countries beginning with A, and will be for a long time to come. I decided to stay at the club since there was literally nothing else on offer that interested me. I believe I had the makings of a good squad here at Benguela and I look forward to filling you all in on what happened this season. CAF Confederations Cup Due to our performances last season, we had snuck into the CAF Confederations Cup as a reward for finishing in 4th place. I have no idea how that worked, but I'll take it. Unfortunately we were drawn against one of the better teams in Africa: Cape Town City. We played them at home in the first leg in front of a crowd of 508 which is shameful considering it's a continental competition. We were poor so I'm thankful that not many saw it. We ended up losing 2-0 and headed into the second leg with little to no confidence that we could turn it around. The players were right, as we fell to a 1-0 defeat at their place and had to endure the plane journey home thinking about what could've been. Never mind, as success wasn't on the cards in this one. Taca de Angola: WOW, this looks like a sorry set of results so far, and that's exactly what it was at this point. I wanted to perform better than we did last season in this competition and maybe even have a run at winning it this year, but to be knocked out in the 3rd Round is shameful. We managed to get through the 1st Round thanks to a lovely solo goal by Galaxi who curled one round the keeper from distance. Scraping through against a lower ranked Kabuscorp isn't exactly what we needed to show the fans that we mean business. The 3rd Round was against another lower ranked side, this time against Kuando Kubango which is a fantastic name for any team to have. We were poor with our finishing, and couldn't hold on after Beny put us ahead from the spot. We ended up losing in extra time and bowing out of the competition earlier than we would've liked and expected. Gibrola ZAP So, without success in the other two competitions we entered this season it was back to the league to try and tick off another country in the 'A' list. It'll be a tough ask to knock 1 de Agosto off their perch. They certainly have a dominance over the rest of us and it's very frustrating. Results against them are massively important. The start of the season came around pretty quickly, and we started pretty darn well as well. We were unbeaten in the first month with 3 wins and 1 draw. The draw came on the first matchday as we drew 1-1 with Bravos de Marquis, before then going on a 3 match winning run against Recreativo do Libolo, Sp. Cabinda & Academica Lobito. I think it's clear to see that Uche Sebastine is going to be key for us going forward this season, as he netted 5 times in the 4 game, including a 100th minute winner against Sp. Cabinda. October was the busiest month I've had in my career to date. We had no less than 7 games, and came away with 15 out of 21 points on offer. 5 wins and 2 defeats. Our first defeat of the season came against Petro de Luenda. We followed that up with a run of 4 wins against Progresso Sambizanga, Interclube, Benfica du Luanda & CR Caala. We've been scoring goals and plenty of players have been chipping in with them so it's been a good start. Our first game against the enemy: 1 de Agosto was up, and we were absolutely spanked by them. A 4-1 defeat was not the performance we needed to have against them. First blood to them. We did bounce back with a win against newly promoted side AFA (ANG) with Lucoquessa & Sebastine with the goals. Another good month to back up the opening one. Coming off a really busy month in October, it was nice to have a quieter November where we only played 2 games. Both ended up being wins, as we saw off Sp. Benguela in the cross city derby 3-1. Goals from Neymar, Vidal & Sebastine gave the fans exactly what they wanted in this one. We then managed to beat Desportivo Huila 2-0 with 2 more from Sebastine. A perfect month. In December we managed to pick up another 12 points to add to our total with wins against Sagrada Esperanca, Recreativo do Libolo, Bravos di Marquis & Academica Lobito. What annoyed me is the fact that we didn't manage a clean sheet in any of them. It may be because my star CB tore is cruciate ligaments and is out for the season. He's 31 and may just call it quits on his career. Our one defeat this month came at home when we lost 4-3 to Sp. Cabinda. The New Year supplied us with a poor month by our standards. One defeat, one draw and one win. The defeat was a surprising 2-1 loss against Progresso Sambizanga whilst we drew 0-0 against Petro de Luanda. We bounced back at the end of the month and produced a fantastic 4-2 victory over Interclube. The first month in which Sebastine didn't get on the scoresheet. In February we were back with the good form which included a 3-1 win over Benfica du Luanda, a 2-0 win over CR Caala before losing the second game against 1 de Agosto. It was such an unlucky defeat as we lost it in the last seconds. We just needed to switch on for a couple more seconds, but that's football at the end of the day. A 4-3 defeat probably meant the title wasn't going our way. The month ended with back to back wins against AFA (ANG) & another derby win against Sp. Benguela. We round the season off in March with 2 more victories against Desportivo Huila & Sagrada Esperance with 3-1 & 4-1 victories respectively. We were brilliant in both games and gave us a chance at the league title. League Table DAMN! We were so close this time as we finished in the runners-up spot! 4 points behind 1 de Agosto which means that if we had won our games against them, we would've been crowned Champions! I'm not here for should've, would've, could've's. Let's look at the positives here, we've climbed another 2 places from last season and increased our points from 56 to 65. That's continued progression and hopefully we can go 1 further next season. Any other season, we'd have won the league! Literally any other season in the history of the Girabola ZAP. That's just our luck eh. We say goodbye to Bravos do Marquis & AFA (ANG) as they make their way into the league below for next season. Player Stats: Top Goalscorer: 1. Uche Sebastine (28) 2. Neymar, Lamin Demba (9) 3. Adriano Lussivica (7) Top Assists: 1. Neymar (14) 2. Lamin Demba (10) 3. Adriano Lussivica (9) Highet Average Rating: 1. Uche Sebastine (7.80) 2. Neymar (7.25) 3. Lamin Demba (7.22) It's been a fantastic season for the squad again, and I really think I'm building a title winning squad. A few more additions in the right areas will hopefully kick us onto that next step. Next Update | End of 2028/2029 Season
  10. Club #3 | Wiliete Sport Clube de Benguela | Angola Welcome to Angola! An African country on the western coast, situated just above Namibia and nestled below the DR Congo. From google images it looks a lovely place but I've never been so I can't vouch for that. Anyway, a whole season has passed since I resigned from my role in Andorra. There was a distinct lack of jobs available and the ones I did want to go for turned me down straight away. That was until Wiliete SC de Benguela turned up to the party. Don't get me wrong, I usually try and pick the best team available to me and tick the league off in the first season, but that wasn't happening this time, so I had to settle for this club, and it's turned out alright to be fair. They finished lower mid-half of the table last season, but were predicted to finish 6th this season so things to build upon for sure. I'm definitely the man for the job. Time for some more information about them. Wiliete Sport Clube de Bengula The team is based in Benguela which is nestled neatly on the Western side of the country, right on the coast. It looks stunning to be honest, and I've landed on my feet by getting this job. Time to find a lovely little seaview apartment for my time here so I can relax on the balcony with a beer. Anyway, the club was only recently founded in 2018, and has made their way from the bottom to the top league in a matter of a few seasons and now play in the Girabola after a team was excluded from playing in it. Benguela took their place. A nice little bonus for their hard work. They play their home games at the 'Estadio de Ombaka' which was used for the 2010 African Cup of Nations and has a capacity of 35,000 people. It's safe to say we won't be getting anywhere near capacity at our home games unfortunately. It's a beauty of a stadium though. The team don the famous Green and White kit, and haven't won anything in their history but that's not for the lack of trying. I'll be aiming to win the team their first trophy to put in their new trophy room. 2026/2027 Season Review: I forgot to take a photo of the squad before the season as I usually do, but you'll be able to see my team at the end of the season with their stats and how they performed. I hope that's alright with you all. The team play in the Girabola which is the top flight of Angolan football, and finished down in 11th last season. The board thought they underperformed and duly sack their manager which is where I come in. The media have us predicted to finish in 6th which is a massive improvement from last season, but I'll be aiming higher than that of course. A top 3 finish would be ideal for me this season before we launch an attack on the title next season. A 2-3 season project I see this as. Girabola Results: Let's kick this off with the league format. One league campaign consisting of 28 games.15 teams in the league so we play each of the other teams twice throughout the season. Top spot wins the league title, whilst the bottom 2 go down into the league below. We kicked things off in August with a solid 3-2 victory over Recreativo do Libolo and a draw with Progresso Sambizanga. A very good start to the season and promising signs that we can compete at the top end of the league. We continued our unbeaten run throughout September where we won 2 and drew 2. Our wins came against Petro de Luanda & Interclube (another team I applied for the job at). Things work out for a reason eh. New striker Uche Sebastine netted twice in that win which was nice to see. 8 points added to the total this month. In October, we saw our first defeat, at the hands of league favourites 1 de Agosto. We never stood a chance in this one and got our asses handed to us. Things to improve on for sure. We did secure 4 wins this month though. 3 of the 4 wins saw us score 4 goals and concede only twice. A lovely little run of results. Those wins were against ASK Drago, Escolinnha Isaac, Academica Lobito & Bravos do Marquis. We also had a little 1-1 draw at the end of the month against Sp. Cabinda. November came around and saw us pick up two more wins, a 2-1 victory over CR Caala & a 3-0 win over Sagrada Esperanca. Two good results before we ended up losing to Interclube 2-0. A poor way to round out the month but a very good start to the league. The end of the year was here, and we won 3 out of our 4 games in December. Neymar (Not that one), was starting to perform after joining the club in the summer, and helped us secure 3-2 victories over Recreativo de Libolo & a 1-0 win over Progresso Sambizanga. Our other win was a 2-1 victory over Benfica de Luanda. Our lone defeat in December came at the hands of Petro de Luanda. As we rolled in 2027, results started dropping. We lost two this month against Desportivo Huila & 1 de Agosto again. We did however grab 2 more wins against ASK Drago & Escolinha Isaac. The latter was a fantastic 6-3 victory. Our league campaign was drawing to a close in February, but saw us claim 7 points from a possible 12. A 4-0 win against Academica Lobito was followed by a 3-3 goal fest against Bravos do Marquis. A 2-0 defeat set us back in our hunt for a top placed finish but we rounded out the month with a 3-0 win over CR Caala. We had one game in March which saw us beat Sagrada Esperanca 2-0 in front of nearly 6000 fans. A great final result, but where did it leave us in the league table? League Table Considering we finished well down in 11th last season, we have massively improved upon that! We are definitely headed in the right direction. A 4th placed finish sees us dramatically off top spot, but not far off the 2nd and 3rd places. I'll take that considering we were predicted to finish 6th this season. Escolinha Isaac & ASK Dragao finished in the relegation zone and we won't be playing them next season. 1 de Agosto stormed to the league title and continue their dominance in Angolan football. We'll knock them off their perch if we can. Taca de Angola The domestic cup here is called the Taca de Angola, and we were out to perform well in this. The board wanted a latter round finish for us, and we fell short of their expectations unfortunately. In the Second Round, we managed a fantastic 4-1 win over lower leage side Renascer do Estoril with 4 different scorers on the board. Onto the Third Round where we faced another lower league side Progresso da Lunda Sul. We spanked them 3-0 with new signing Galaxi getting on the scoresheet. A great win. We fell to Sp. Cabinda in the Fourth Round, and our journey in the Taca de Angola this season ended in extra time. It was a tight game and could've gone either way. Unfortunately that is football, and we wouldn't change it would we? Player Stats: Top Goalscorer | Uche Sebastine | 17 in 31 Top Assists | Neymar | 13 in 24 Highest Average Rating | Neymar | 7.41 in 24 Next Up We'll be staying at the club unless a very attractive offer from a guanteed league winner comes in. I want to topple 1 de Agosto and claim this Angolan title for ourselves. We're on the right path and I believe we can do it in the next 2 years or so. See you at the end of 2027/2028.
  11. Club #2 | FC Santa Coloma | Andorra After resigning from my post in Algeria at RC Belouizdad, I set about trying to find the perfect job to move on to. A couple of decent jobs came up and went away just quickly without even shortlisting me for an interview. Then one job came up, and instantly attracted me to go for it. FC Santa Coloma of Andorra was that club. They interviewed me within the week, by the end of the week they had offered me the job as First Team Manager. I'm pretty particular in jobs that I will apply for. You have to pick the right team in order to get the job done as quickly as possible. You'll learn more about the club and why I chose them below. FC Santa Coloma The club was founded in 1986 and quickly established themselves as the best team in the history of Andorran football. They are based in Santa Coloma which is 2km away from the capital city of Andorra la Vella. In their history they have won the league title on 13 occasions, and the domestic cup 10 times, meaning they are the most successful team in Andorra. They also are the most successful Andorran side in European Competitions having made the Third Qualifying Round where they eventually fell to Dutch side AZ. They are also the only team to win a game and not concede in that game. No small feat for an Andorran side. They play their football at the 'Estadi Communal Vella' which is the largest ground in Andorra. The club colours are Red and Black although they originally donned white and alternated that with blue and red. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2024/2025 Season Review Having taken over, I instantly went to the squad to see what I had to work with. There was about 7 players in that meeting. Crazy that I didn't have more, but I'm guessing a fair few hadn't had their contract renewed and had left the club meaning I had to get to work quickly to get some players in. I used my intensive knowledge of Andorran football to help me. You'll be able to see the additions that I made to the squad in my post season player stats. Some came and left and left me in the lurch a little. I had 2 strikers for half a season who were poached by teams in the Spanish leagues so I can't blame them, but they were insane for me. Supercoppa Andorrana As the team won the league in their last season, we were in the Supercoppa Andorrana which gave me the chance to win a trophy early days and get the fans onside. We were up against Inter d'Escaldes and came away with a 1-0 victory thanks to Ivan Garrido netting early doors to give us the lead. A close game, but a trophy in the books. Lliga Multisegur Assegurances The league campaign here consists of one single stage of 10 teams playing each other three times throughout the season. 27 games to win the league and tick Andorra off. We went into the league campaign as media favourites which is not surprising considering their dominance over the years. Can I add my name to the legacy of FC Santa Coloma? Well well well, what a start to the season we had. We casually went on a 12 match winning run to put us firmly in control of the league campaign. It's clear that we are the best team in Andorra right now, and we were looking for that to continue. September got us up and running in the league, and saw us gain comfortable wins against Atletic Escaldes, CF Eperanca & Carroi. Miguel Ponce, one of the new strikers I had brought in was on fire, netting 7 times in those 3 games cementing him as my first choice striker until he eventually left me before the new year. A great start. October came, and we continued our dominance securing wins against U.E Santa Coloma, Ordino & Mavlon FC Andorra. The first of these wins came against bitter rivals, and really put me as a favourite at the club considering I didn't take our foot of the gas and hammered them 4-2. The fans loved it. November was up next, and we gained another 4 wins to add to our total and continue our perfect start. This time the wins came against At. America, Pas de las Casa, Inter d'Escaldes & CF Esperanca. Inter d'Escaldes are our biggest rivals for the league title so that was a crucial win. December saw us lose our first games and also drop further points with a draw. We did gain 3 wins against Atletic Escaldes, Carroi, & Ordino. The 5-1 victory over Carroi was a fantastic performance and probably our best of the season so far. The goals were starting to be spread around now and we weren't just a two man team in Ponce & Garrido. Our defeat came at the hands of Pas de la Casa who are comfortably the third best team in Andorra. It was a great game but we narrowly came out on the wrong end of the 4-3 scoreline. In the new year, my two strikers left me: Ponce & Garrido who both left for Spanish shores meaning I needed to promote some youngsters or sign a new striker or two. I went with the former and promoted some good prospects. We picked up 2 more wins with a 2-0 win against Mavlon FC Andorra and a 4-1 win against Atletic America. We did lose our second game of the season though, as we fell to Atletic Escaldes 1-0 away. We followed that with a 3-3 draw against Inter d'Escaldes so not a great end to the month. February was soon upon us and we only had the one game, which saw us run out 5-1 winners over CF Esperanca and secure us 3 more points and our first win in 3 games. March saw us gain 6 points from 9, winning 2 out of the 3 games. Our wins were against Carroi & U.E Santa Coloma which is always pleasing for the fans. 2-0 the scoreline this time in the derby. Our 3rd defeat on the season came at the hands of Ordino in a strange game that we hit the woodwork 4 times in. It wasn't our day obviously. We then decided that we wanted to try and wrap up the title as soon as possible and went on a little 4 match unbeaten run to end the season. 3 wins out of 4 whilst the other was. a draw. The wins were against title challengers Pas de la Casa, Mavlon FC Andorra, Inter d'Escaldes and the draw game against At. America. League Table As you would've expected after that 12 match winning streak at the start of the season, we ended the campaign on top of the table and secured ourselves the league title! CHAMPIONS OF ANDORRA! We finished with 21 wins, 3 draws and 3 defeats meaning we ended up with 66 points. A cool 10 points ahead of Inter d'Escaldes and 12 ahead of Pas de la Casa who ended up in 3rd. A fantastic campaign that sees us win our second league title in 2 years. Copa Constitucio The domestic cup campaign here in Andorra is called the Copa Constitucio, and as you probably would've predicted, we went into it as favourites, having last won the competition in 2022/2023. We just had to get past or avoid Inter d'Escaldes as they were the most recent winners. In the second round we dispatched Atletic Escaldes thanks to a 2-0 win with goals coming from Titouan Richard & Alex Sanchez. A comfortable performance and an easy passage secured through to the Quarter-Final. In this round we had to face a good outfit in Pas de la Casa but put in a performance of real quality. A 3-1 victory thanks to Pele, Christian Garcia & David Crespo. The big boys had both been knocked out leaving a supposedly easy passage to the trophy! In the semi-finalss we had a close call against Carroi we were sitting pretty at the half way stage as we were leading 4-0 but they came surging back in the second half to pull it back to 4-3. A fantastic game for the neural but a nervy ending at the end left me nearly having a heart attack. The final was against Ordino who didn't really pose us any problems. We were comfortable and dominant from start to finish and secured our third trophy of the season. A 5-2 victory with goals from youngster Evan Ancel, Moises Bazola, Christian Garcia and a brace from Alex Sanchez. As easy as you like. Player Stats | End of Season As you can see, I really fleshed the squad out and it looks a lot different from the squad I had come into at the start of the season. A fantastic job done by all but as usual I'll highlight the top performers below: Top Goalscorer | Pele | 15 Goals in 31 Games Top Assists | Titouan Richard | 17 in 31 games Highest Average Rating | Evan Ancel | 7.32 in 15 games Round Up I could not have wished for a better start to this save. 2 countries ticked off in 'A' already and only 2 seasons in. We also managed to complete a quadrouple and a treble in back to back years which is an insane feat. Things will get harder for sure a I won't always be able to head to the best team in each league. I'll have to build something eventually. For now though, it's bye to Andorra, and hello somewhere else beginning with A.
  12. Club #1 | CR Bèlouizdad | Algeria I start this challenge in a randomly assigned country, which came out as Algeria, and what a dream scenario it has turned out to be. I haven't managed to load the entirety of the countries beginning with 'A' because of the database side, so I'll be looking to load the rest in when I've ticked off a couple of the current ones. Algeria would never have stood out to me originally but I'm delighted to kick things off there. CR Bèlouizdad It's time to tell you all about my first club in my career. Welcome to, Algiers, the capital city of Algeria. You'll find them based at the 20 August 1955 stadium which holds 15,000 spectators and looks to be a belter for the level of football we're at. [Pictured below] The club has been playing in the top flight of Algerian football for a record 55 years, having played one solitary season in the second tier in the 1988/1999 season. In this time they have won the Ligue 1 Professionnel Mobilis on no less than 10 occasions, and have finished as runners up a further 4 times. One of these wins was the covid affected season when they were declared Champions as the league was halted. The club go by a couple of nicknames: The Chababists, The Reds & The Belcourtois, and are famous for donning the famous white and red shirts. The most noteable player to have played for the club is: - Islam Slimani (Leicester City, Sporting Lisbon & Lyon) _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2023/2024 Season As I took over at the end of the previous season, I had a mammoth wait before any pre-season friendlies were scheduled so I went about trying to implement a tactic and thin the massive squad out a little bit. I hate it when my squad overflows so I have to scroll to see everyone's stats. My squad at the start was a bit like this: Lots of talented players in there, but just too many to manage for my liking. As the favourites for the league title I knew I didn't have to do much to make improvements to the squad, but I did offer a contract to Leonel Wamba who was down to be released, despite being one of my most promising strikers. What a decision this turned out to be in the long run. My tactic is a simple 4-2-2-2 formation, using 2 DMs, 2 Wingers and 2 strikers. It seems to work well in a Gegenpress so I was sticking with it here. I prefer playing 2 strikers as I like them to build a partnership and score plenty between them. Think, Yorke & Cole, Sheringham & Solskjaer, Henry & Wiltord! Ligue 1 Professionnel Mobilis The season soon came around, and off we went. I'll be filling you in on each competition I entered separately just to avoid confusion. We'll start with the league campaign as that's the one we want to tick off in order to deem Algeria completed. The league contains 16 teams. One wins the league, the next 3 go into the continental competitions and the bottom 4 go down into the league below. Each team plays each other twice so let's see how we did. As you can see form the results above, we were the dominant team in the league. There is only 2 little red circles on the list meaning we only lost on two occasions. Both times were against MC Alger who have won the league title on 7 occasions since they were formed. They would be a thorn in our sides for most of the campaign to be honest. September was a really good month for us as we kicked the campaign off with 2 wins from 2 games. They came against MC Oran & USM Alger. 6 goals scored and 0 conceded meant we were off to a flyer. October was a busy month which saw us collect 13 points from a possible 15. 4 wins and 1 draw. That solitary draw was a 2-2 draw against CS Constantine, whilst the wins were against US Biskra, HB Chelghoum, Paradou AC & JS Kabylie. We were scoring for fun, with Lamin Jallow netting 6 times in the 5 games. November saw our first defeat off the season, which I mentioned above. We followed that up with 2 back to back wins against MC El Bayadh & ASO Chlef. A solid month all thing considered, and nice to see us bounce back from our first defeat. Back to a winning run we go. December was another good month, that saw us collect 3 more wins whilst drawing the other 2 games. Our wins all had loads of goals in them. A 5-1 victory over NC Magra, an 8-0 victory over JS Saoura and a 9-0 victory over ES Setif. Insane amounts of goals from all over the pitch as well. The draws were against USM Khenchela & MC Oran. The new year came around, and only saw us play the one time before the Winter break. That game was a 0-0 draw with USM Alger. A boring game with no action to be honest. Not how we wanted to go into the break, but that's football. February was quickly upon us and once again, we only played the one time. A 5-0 victory over US Souf with Leonel Wamba netting a hattrick. A solid performance and 3 more points. March saw us pick up back to back wins against CS Constantine & US Biskra. The latter was a mammoth 9-2 victory with 4 from Wamba, and 2 from new signing Ghezala! April was a busy month as we headed towards the latter end of the season. 4 game and 4 wins for the Reds as we continued our march to the league title. Those victories came against HB Chelghoum, NC Magra, JS Kayblie & MC El Bayadh. A perfect month. May was our final busy month and one that could make or break our title challenge. 4 wins out of 5 on offer, whilst our second defeat of the season was scattered in there as well. The victories included a 6-1 win over USM Khenchela and a 4-2 win over ASO Chlef. The other teams we beat were Paradou AC & JS Saoura. The final month of the season saw us draw the first game against ES Setif who we had previously demolished 9-0 earlier in the season. The final match of the season was a convincing 5-0 win over US Souf. A fantastic way to end things. Did we do enough though? League Table CHAMPIONS! WE HAD DONE IT! It was comfortable in the end, and we had sewn the league title up with 2 games to go. A total of 74 points gave us a 6 point gap to runners-up MC Alger who had done everything they could to challenge us, including being the only team to beat us, not once, but twice. 23 WINS, 5 DRAWS, 1 DEFEAT. I'm delighted to have lived up to the media's pre-season prediction and to have ticked off my first country at the first attempt. A lovely little start to the challenge. Supercoupe d'Algerie I'm guessing because of the success in the previous season that we had qualified for this one. It's a bit like the Charity Shield here in England. The league winners verses the domestic cup winners at the start of the season. A showpiece if anything, but it's always pleasing to win it in my eyes. A 2-0 victory over JS Kabylie with goals from Leonel Wamba & Oussama Chita saw us comfortably lift the trophy! It was a game we dominanted from start to finish, so two goals either side of the break saw us ease to the trophy. Coupe d'Algerie The domestic cup here in Algeria is called the 'Coupe D'Algerie' and is open to every professional team in the Algerian football pyramid. We went into it as favourites, but could we live up to that billing? It wasn't going to be easy considering the amount of games we would have to play in order to win it. An absolute hammering in the second round saw us win 15-0. I've never had a bigger result in FM so that was special to me. They must be a non-league side here in Algeria so no surprises with this one. In the third round we overcame lower league side WA Boufarik 4-1, with Boutemene netting a hattrick along the way. A solid performance that saw us go into the next round. The fourth round was another convincing win in the form of a 4-2 victory over MC Oran. In the fifth round we smashed MC El Eulma 6-0 as our run continued. It was nice to see the goals being spread around the squad as well. The quarter-final saw us overcome our title rivals MC Alger 2-0 thanks to messers Wamba & Boutemene. In the semi-final we narrowly overcame JS Saoura in a nail biter. It was a game we probably didn't deserve to win, but we all need that bit of luck eventually. A sole goal from Boutemene saw us head to the final. The final was a one sided affair, and one that we won 3-0 in convincing style. Jallow netted the first, with Wamba hitting the other 2 goals. TotalEnergies CAF Champions League The continental competition here in Africa is the CAF Champions League and is one that I didn't expect us to be majorly competetive in. That may be because I don't really know too much about African football. How I was wrong. We had to qualify through the Preliminary Rounds in order to reach the Group Stages. In this we beat Medeama SC from Ghana in a 7-1 aggregate victory. Easy as you like and it set up a big tie against ASEC Mimosas from Ivory Coast. This tie was a spectacle as we went down 2-0 in the firt leg away from home. We really turned it on at home though as we overturned the 2-0 scoreline to win 3-0 and book our place in the Group Stages! Excellent turnaround and was the start of our amazing journey in this competition. We were drawn in a group with Saint George (Ethiopia) Al-Merreikh Omduran (Sudan) Sundowns (South Africa) The groups saw us pick up 5 wins and a draw. The solitary draw came against Sundowns who were by far the second strongest team in the group and rightfully qualified beneath us as we topped our group in convincing fashion. Into the knockouts we go. In the quarter-finals we faced former champions and holders Al-Ahly which is where I thought our journey would end. We were remarkable in the first leg which saw us dominate them and come away with a 3-0 lead going into the second leg. I couldn't quite believe what I was watching. In the return leg they turned it on and defeated us 3-1, but that lonely goal from Benayada in the 32nd minute was the difference in us going our and us going through to the semi-finals. Orlando Pirates were our next opponents, and being one of the biggest names in African football, again I thought our journey was about to come to an end. It wasn't as we came away 2-1 winners in both legs. Islam Bakir the hero of both legs scoring two stunning goals to put us ahead. We had qualifed for the final!! ES Tunis awaited us in the final which was stragenely enough a 2 legged affair. I don't like that, but I couldn't change it. We were away from home first and fell to a 4-2 defeat with goals from Oussama Chita & Mohamed Islam Belkhir making sure we were still in with a shot in the return leg. We made some changes going into the second leg and ran out 3-1 victors meaning we were headed to the dreaded penalty shootout. Player Stats (End of Season) What was really pleasing to see was the amount of players above that 7.00 magical average rating. 18 of them had this achievement having played a differing number of games. I'll go through the main stats below: Top Goalscorer | Leonel Wamba | 35 goals (26 games, 10 subs) Top Assists | Houcine Benayada | 27 Assists (44 games, 4 subs) Top Average Rating | Zinedine Boutmene | 7.82 (45 games, 1 sub | 27 goals, 27 Assists) Round Up So a casual Quadrouple to start the save off, and one that has really got me into it! I'm excited to move on and hit my second country to see what we can do. Where will I head to though? All I know, is that it has to begin with the letter 'A'.
  13. Management History Flag | Logo | Team Name | Country | Dates in Charge | Days in Charge | Reason Left CR Belouizdad | Algeria | 08.05.23 - 24.06.24 | 413 Days | Resigned FC Santa Coloma | Andorra | 19.07.24 - 26.05.2025 | 311 Days | Resigned Wiliet SC de Benguela | Angola | 13.04.2026 - 03.03.2029 | 1055 Days | Resigned Ararat Yerevan | Armenia | 10.07.2029 - 28.04.2030 | 292 Days | Resigned Grenades | Antigua & Barbuda | 20.05.2030 - 26.03.2031 | 310 Days | Resigned | Docs United | Anguilla | 25.05.2031 - 26.04.2032| 292 Days | Resigned | SV Britannia | Aruba | 03.08.2032 - Present | N/A | N/A Trophy History Flag | Logo | Competition Name | Date Won | Team Won With | Country | Supercoupe d'Algerie | 06.11.23 | CR Belouizdad | Agleria | TotalEnergies CAF Champions League | 26.05.24 | CR Belouizdad | Algeria | Ligue 1 Professionelle Mobilis | 01.06.24 | CR Belouizdad | Algeria | Coupe d'Algerie| 13.06.24 | CR Belouizdad | Algeria | Supercopa Andorrana | 31.08.24 | FC Santa Coloma | Andorra | Lliga Multisegur Assegurances | 12.04.25 | FC Santa Coloma | Andorra | Copa Constitucio | 17.05.25 | FC Santa Coloma | Andorra | Girabola ZAP | 03.03.29 | Wiliet SC de Benguela | Angola | IDBank Premier League | 22.04.2030 | Ararat Yerevan | Armenia | Antigua & Barbuda Premier League | 01.03.2031 | Grenades | Antigua & Barbuda | Presidents Cup | 16.12.2031 | Doc's United | Anguilla | Anguillan Premier League | 17.04.2032 | Doc's United | Anguilla | Division di Honor | 29.06.33 | SV Britannia | Aruba Alphabet Completion A Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan
  14. The Grand Alphabet Tour Hello, and welcome to what will hopefully be a save that I can continue posting about for a long time to come. I've seen versions of this save attempted on differing forums and blogs out in the Football Manager Community, and thought it was about time that I attempted it myself. I'll post more about the challenge below, but firstly, thank you for taking the time to read this first bit. I'd love for people to get involved, and comment along with their thoughts on where the save should take me, so please feel free to comment and like whatever takes your fancy. About Myself Hi there, I'm Mark, a little bit of a Football Manager addict and lover of all things non league football. I hail from the North West of England and have spent many a year playing FM for too many hours of the day. It's such an escape and I just love it. Having studied Film & Television at the University of Lincoln I thought that my path would lead to a career in that industry and by now I'd be a world famous movie producer. The fact that I'm here posting this, probably suggests that it did not work out like that. What actually happened was that I went to work in Education, and work as part of the Access & Achievement team at a local high school. A job that gives me plenty of time to play Football Manager on the side once home from those pesky kids. Football wise, I support Manchester United, and I am part of the committee of my boyhood club Northwich Victoria who I run the social media for. A fantastic fan run club who aim to bounce back up the leagues one day. A tall order, but one we're definitely looking at completing one day. I also support the Denver Broncos in the NFL and have recently made my way out to Denver to watch them live for the first time. I was featured on the Denver Broncos official socials for making that journey and spreading the love of Broncos Country worldwide. The Challenge The Grand Alphabet Challenge is a challenge that more than likely will never, ever be completed. BUT, I'll be giving it a bloody good effort. I'm using an extended database to make this challenge even harder, which probably makes me a little bit insane. Starting with the 'Letter A', I have to win the top league in each of the countries, before making my way to the 'Letter B' and so on, and so on. Quite simple rules wise, but a long old slog it will be. I'll be posting season updates, and will have a post under hear with my career progression and completion on. I also have a spreadsheet that you can keep up to date with if that is your thing. Spreadsheet - Click Here Anyway, if you like the idea of this challenge, please support me on the way as it'll keep me motivated to keep going. If you have any questions, please let me know below. Mark.
  15. 2036 | Sarmiento (Junin) | Argentina It's been an absolute age since I last updated you all on this save! That's because of a couple of different reasons. Firstly, we are in the process of moving house so we had to tick some admin things off and get the house ready for viewings etc etc. That drastically cut into my FM playing time. Secondly, I've been away on a residential trip with 39 unruly teenagers, meaning my energy was into making sure they returned home safely so I didn't lose my job. Anyway, I'm back, and I've got a season update for you all to peruse over. I'm still here in Argentina, and I'm still at Sarmiento (Junin). We were promoted as Champions last season, meaning we are in the top flight now and I'm looking forward to the challenge of testing ourselves against the best of the best in Argentina. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Squad Overview: Goalkeepers: Denilson Vera | GK | 29 Naren Ladino | GK | 22 Yanina Abasse | GK | 35 Defenders: Hector Freundt | CB | 27 NEW Lucas Silva | CB | 24 Augustine Mielniczuk | CB | 30 Juan Pablo Decima | CB | 20 Carlos Delgado | RB | 28 NEW David Garcia | RB | 31 Francisco Ortiz | RB | 20 Hernan Silvero | CB | 28 Guido Delgado | LB | 27 NEW Midfielders: Cristian Medina | CM | 23 NEW Luis Duarte | DM | 23 Eliseo Lopez | DM | 22 NEW Esequiel Echeverria | CM | 20 Alexis Brunelli | CM | 23 Miguel Cardenas | MR | 22 NEW Wingers/Attackers: Misbahou Goibruru | AMC | 31 Miguel Gutierrez | AML | 27 Brendon Coronnel | AMR | 30 Roman Barbero | AML | 19 Strikers: Juan Villarreal | ST | 20 Craig Milo | ST | 36 Mateo Peralta | ST | 29 Tauya Ozuna | ST | 33 NEW Todd Leguizamon | ST | 30 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Torneo Binance The Liga Professional de Football is split into two sections for some strange reason. I've still not figured out why, but I can't change it. The first stage is called the Torneo Binance and for a team who have just been promoted from the second tier, we performed ridiculously well. We had a pretty poor start, but I didn't think we'd get off to a fast start. When we did get going we went on a fantastic run of form, which included a 9-match run where we didn't lose. I switched around the tactic to make sure we were more defensively sound, whilst making sure we were still scoring. It seemed to work reasonably well and led us to a mid-table finish in the opening stage. I'll take that any day of the week. The result of the stage was definitely the 1-0 victory over Boca Juniors. Who thought that I'd be competing with the big boys this early? We also had a huge win against high-flying Talleres. A fantastic opening stage, and onto the second stage (a group stage to round things out) __________________________________________________________________________________________ Torneo Binance After our heroics in the opening stage: Torneo Binance, we were pretty damn back to what I expected us to be before the season started. The opening 7 games of this stage were all pretty much dismal, and only provided us 3 points. That being said, we did play the better teams in the first half! The second half of this stage saw us consolidate our position in mid-table in the overall league and saw us rocket up the Group B table. 14 points from 21 on offer with fantastic victories against Rosario Central, Instituto, Lanus & Ferro. We were on a roll, and another couple of games would've seen us qualify for the end-of-stage tournament. It's such a strange league system and I still don't know how it works fully. After 41 games in two different stages of the league, we massively over achieved our media prediction of 17th and finished up in 12th. A better start to the second stage would've seen us climb into the top 10, but that's an aim for next season! The league has so many big hitters in it, and we finished 41 points off the top spot! That's crazy! Who knows if the league is achievable with a team like Sarmiento (Junin), but we'll certainly give it a go! __________________________________________________________________________________________ Copa Argentina WOW, WOW, WOW! We've only gone and lifted the Copa Argentina in our first season in the top flight! We had already been knocked out last season when I took over, so this was my first taste of the competition and what a taste it was! We only went and won the whole thing. An easy 2-0 victory over Atletico Tucuman saw us progress to the Sixth Round where we easily sent Arsenal (Sarandi) packing from the competition after a 3-1 victory. We were up against one of the most successful Argentinian teams: Newall's and just about scraped through thanks to a 94th minute winner from Cristian Medina. We didn't deserve to progress, but that's the beauty of Cup Football. I expected a better performance against Defensa y Justicia but I'm just happy to have won the game. A 3-2 victory meant that we progressed to the Semi-Final where we face off against Boca Juniors. I thought this was the end of our journey in the competition, but it wasn't. It was one of those days where we did everything right. We rode our luck slightly as they hit the crossbar and post multiple times and our keeper was magnificent. We got the goal through Leguizamon and held on fantastically. Into the Final, we go. WOW, what a Final it was as well. A penalty from youngster Echeverria drew us level and go into the break squared up. He certainly has big bollocks at the age of 20. It was end to end but Hernan Silvero struck in the last minute to send me on my usual cup-winning knee slide down the touchline! What a game! __________________________________________________________________________________________ Player Stats: Goals: 1. Todd Leguizamon (ST)| 20 2. Miguel Cardenas (MR) | 20 3. Ezequiel Echeverria (CM) | 14 Assists: 1. Guido Delgado (LB) | 9 2. Miguel Gutierrez (AML) | 9 3. Eliseo Lopez (DM) | 8 Average Rating: 1. Denilson Vera (GK) | 7.15 2. Miguel Cardenas (MR) | 7.10 3. Alexis Brunelli (CM) | 7.09 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Season Stats Liga Profesional de Futbol | 12th Copa Argentina | Winners GP | 47 GW | 22 GD | 11 GL | 14 GS | 86 GA | 62 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Next Update: End of 2037 Season Update
  16. 2035 | Sarmiento (Junin) | Argentina Welcome to Argentina! Yes, we've hopped south of the borders and gone as far as I could! When I left Monterrey, I had two options: head back to the MLS to try and tick off the Canadian Championship with one of the three big Canadian MLS sides. The second option is heading into South America and ticking off some trophies down there. I remained open to either, but when the Sarmiento (Junin) job came up, it was a no-brainer. Sarmiento is a side that plays in the second tier of Argentinian football. They were a team that did well last season, but as one of the favourites to go up, they come with hefty expectations as well. It's a team that shouted at me straight away and I'm delighted to be here. Not to mention, I love red wine, and I love a good steak so I'm in heaven over here. Argentina, you rock. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Team Overview: Goalkeepers: Denilson Vera | GK |28 Yanina Abasse | GK | 34 Defenders: Lucas Silva | CB | 22 Moissi Mze Issa | RB/CB/LB | 33 David Garcia | RB | 30 Todd Lorenzon | RB | 33 Hernan Silvero | CB | 27 Midfielders: Luis Duarte | DM | 22 Vladimiro Meneses | DM | 34 Aaron Brauer | DM | 29 Ezequiel Echeverria | DM/CM | 19 Ahmed Mori | CM | 33 Assoumani Pellegrino | CM | 29 Wingers/Attackers: Loutdi Longo | AMC | 30 Juan Bisanz | AMR | 34 Franco Espindola | AML | 19 Craig Milo | AMR | 35 Strikers: Mateo Peralta | ST | 28 Tauya Ozuna | ST | 32 Todd Leguizamon | ST | 29 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Primera Nacional When you lose only 4 times in a single league campaign, you're definitely doing something right! I think this may be the longest season I've had in terms of league games. 36 in total. Things just went very well for us from the start and they kept on rolling. The league is split into 2 groups of 19 teams. The two winners of the leagues then face off against each other to determine who wins the league. The loser then goes into the playoffs where the top teams compete to earn a promotion spot. It's a bit chaotic but works nicely once you get a grip of it. I won't go through month by month, but I'll pick out some key results that set us on our way. Back-to-back 4-0 victories at the beginning against Defensor de Belgrano & Agropecuario Argentino really saw us start in a positive fashion. We had my biggest defeat ever when we lost 7-3 to Racing (CB). A crazy game that I wanted to forget as soon as possible. The middle portion of the league was very successful, as it saw us pick up 33 points from a possible 45 on offer! A very good return from the middle stint. In that stint, we had a 6-0 followed by a 5-0 victory against Deportes Maipu & Deportes Madryn. Two decent teams but we showed them who was boss! A lovely 4-1 victory on the Final day, against Mitre (SdE) meant nothing in terms of league position as we had already secured the top spot, but it's nice to give us confidence heading into the Champions Playoff. We had easily secured the top spot, and left the rest for dead! They were no match for us as we stormed to a 9-point lead over 2nd place Defensor de Belgrano. It's crazy that we had 10 draws this season, if we had turned some of those into wins, we'd have walked the league by an even bigger margin! All if's and buts though eh? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Champions Playoff We were drawn at home against Aldosivi who had romped to the Group A title by an even bigger margin than ours. The two best sides were meeting in this game, that's for sure! David Garcia placed a lovely finish into the bottom corner to put us ahead in the 28th, but it wasn't long after that they equalised. It stayed 1-1 at the half, but Todd Leguizamon headed home in the 47th to put us back ahead. We kept the lead for longer but rode our luck slightly as they missed a couple of big chances after. They did finally draw themselves level in the 68th, but we made a big push, went attacking and got our reward through Leguizamon once again. He dribbled past 2 and fired a low shot past the keeper to make it 3-2. They had a guilt-edged chance in the last second but the header went over the bar! Crazy as it was free from 4 yards out! PREMERA NACIONAL CHAMPIONS 2035! __________________________________________________________________________________________ Copa Argentina Well, let's be honest success wasn't going to be on the cards in the Copa Argentina this year really. We are a second-tier team playing in the big boy competition, so to get to the 6th Round will do me nicely. We managed to beat Central Norte in the 5th Round, after a classy 2-0 victory! Easy as you like, and no issues in this one. The 6th Round was against Argentinian big boys Independiente (a team I loved growing up). We held our own to be honest, but fell to a 2-1 defeat after Todd Leguizamon had got us a goal back after going 2-0 down early doors. I'm happy with the performance, but we exited the competition at this stage. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Player Stats: Goals: 1. Loutfi Longo (AMC) | 20 2. Todd Leguizamon (ST) | 19 3. Juan Bisannz (AMR) | 11 Assists: 1. Loutfi Longo (AMC) | 15 2. FJuan Bisannz (AMR) | 8 3. Todd Leguizamon (ST) | 7 Average Rating: 1. Loutfi Longo (AMC) | 7.70 2. Assoumani Pellegrino (CM) | 7.63 3. Hernan Silvero (CB) | 7.36 Argentine Second Division Player of the Year | Loutfi Longo (1st), Ray Guzman (2nd, former player), Hernan Silvero (3rd) __________________________________________________________________________________________ Season Stats Primera Nacional | 1st (Winners) Copa Argentina | 6th Round GP | 37 GW | 22 GD | 10 GL | 5 GS | 96 GA | 46 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Next Update: End of 2036 Season Update
  17. 2033/2034 | CF Monterrey | Mexico I've been a little bit sneaky here. I haven't posted an update at the end of last season so I'm going to squeeze my Leagues Cup from the 2034/2035 season in here at the end, as a little bonus content. Exciting huh! At the end of last season, we had managed to somehow win the CONCACAF Champions League whilst failing miserably in the league after taking over. A definite season of mixed fortunes, but I'll take a Champions League win any day of the week! This season we had 2 aims: The first being to win the LIGA BBVA MX and the second was to win the Leagues Cup. If we manage to win the league, then we'll be entered in the Campeon de Campeones as well which is a sort of Charity Shield type competition. Plenty to aim for, but could we manage any of them? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Squad Overview Goalkeepers: Diego Kochen | GK | 28 Defenders: Thiago Prado | CB | 25 Felix Diaz | CB | 26 Marko Obrenovic | CB | 26 Jose Prieto | RB | 21 Bernardo Zurita | CB | 27 Jose Gutierrez | CB/CM | 22 Alonso Aceves | LB | 33 Jose Salazar | RB | 23 Nestor Rodriguez | RB/LB | 24 Midfielders: Martin Zolorza | DM | 26 Leandro Barboza | DM | 25 Daniel Gustavo Nelly | DM | 20 Luigy Arellano | CM | 23 Attackers/Wingers: Matheus Goncalves | AMR | 29 Ivan Rodriguez | AMC | 22 Franco Gomez | AML | 25 Israel Acevedo | AMC | 24 Oscar Luis del Real | AML | 21 Luis San Roman | AMC | 16 Tomas Garcia | AMC | 26 Strikers: Luciano | ST | 27 Juan Pablo Barrios | ST | 26 Lisandro Machado | ST | 22 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Liga BBVA MX | Apertura A fantastic set of results for my first time managing in the Apertura stage of the Liga BBVA MX. We had a casual 14-game unbeaten run which included 11 wins and 3 draws. What a ridiculous start that really put us in control of the league table. Most notable, was the 6-2 victory over Queretaro, and a 4-0 victory over Club America. We had a fantastic tight game with Pachuca where we just about came out victors in a 5-4 victory! A great game, but a nervy one at that. One thing that I did notice, was that we weren't recording many clean sheets. It's a good job we were lethal in attack as at the back, we weren't that great. I guess it doesn't matter when you get the victory secured. We hit a little rocky patch towards the end, but even that suggests that we were poor. We weren't. We lost 2 in a row, against Mazatlan & Pumas. Truth be told, I rested key players in most to ensure we were fit and healthy for the Knockout Rounds. We did end the season on a real positive when we ran out 5-0 winner over Puebla. A fantastic season all in all. Now for the playoffs… 17 games, 12 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. We ended on 39 points with Atlas securing second place on 34. A solid gap between us two, and meant that we had secured our space in the playoff competition to crown the eventual League Winner. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Liga MX Apertura | Knockout Rounds Look at that! A crazy run of games where things didn't always go our way. In the Quarter-Final we nearly blew our chances straight away as we lost the first leg 3-1 against Club America. In the return leg, I have absolutely no idea what happened. I stood in shock as every shot seemed to find the back of the net. 10 [TEN] - 0 was the final result and meant we went through to the Semi-Finals. I also think that may be my biggest-ever win. The Semi-Finals were also a close-fought tie. We were up against Tijuana, just south of the American border. A 2-1 victory in the second leg with the winner coming late on thanks to Julian Araujo, was enough to see us through after the first leg ended in a 0-0 stalemate. I breathed a sigh of relief after this one. The final was against probably the best team in Mexican football history: Tigres. Once again we didn't start the tie off in a great way, losing 2-1 away from home. Not a great position to be in going into the return leg. We did have our fans on our side in the decider though. We left it late, but a lucky own goal got us level in the tie, and then up stepped Bernardo Zurita in the 87th minute to slam a loose ball home and earn us the trophy! A great comeback! __________________________________________________________________________________________ Liga BBVA MX | Clausura Going into the Clausura phase as Champions obviously didn't help us in the league stage! Comparing the two stages, this one was definitely a tougher slog. I did sell a few players in between the stages so that may have played a part. We started off really well, with a lovely 4-match winning run against Atletic San Luis, FC Jaurez, Chivas & Santos Laguna. Form then started to get a little patchy as defeats and draws started to seep in. A humiliating 6-3 defeat to Pachuca, was a real disappointment. The bad run consisted of 8 games where we only managed one win against Toluca. We lost 3 times and drew 4 times! It wasn't pretty and saw us slide considerably down the table into around 6th position! Top 10 qualify so we weren't in a dire position, but it just wasn't pleasing to see. We ended the season on better terms, as we battered Mazatlan 6-2 before losing to Pumas and securing a lovely 4-1 win over Puebla on the last day! A good end to the season. We had qualified for the Knockouts once again, but were down in 6th. Not ideal, but at least we had qualified. That's the main thing. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Liga MX Clausura | Knockout Rounds Compared to the Apertura knockout rounds, this one was a lot easier. We eased through the Quarter Final against Cruz Azul with a massive 9-4 aggregate victory. The first leg ensured we had wrapped this one up at the earliest opportunity. The Semi-Finals followed a similar script. Ensure we had done enough in the first leg then ret a few players and ease on through with no injuries. In this case, we secured a huge 4-0 victory over Queretaro in the first leg where a Gonvalves hat trick was the headline! Excellent individual play from the young man! We actually lost the return leg 1-0, but the job had already been done. The Final was again, against our old rivals Tigres. The first leg was at home this time, and we did a fantastic job of neutralising them as best as we could. Twice times we came back from being behind, and then we turned it on in the final 20. A late Acevedo goal gave us a 2-goal cushion and secured the victory! The return leg was a much calmer affair. A 2-2 draw and game we managed from start to finish! We never gave them a chance to get ahead properly and challenge our first-leg lead. This mean that we had won both the Apertura & Clausura trophies, which meant that we had secured another trophy whilst doing so. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Leagues Cup | 2033/2034 My first attempt at trying to secure the Leagues Cup with a Mexican side! It's never been doable when managing with an MLS side so I was looking forward to trying to get further than I've ever been. It wasn't the case. We came through our group fairly easily, dispatching Columbus & Sporting KC and finishing top. In the Central Quarter-Final, we managed to grind out a 2-1 victory against fellow Mexican side Atlas. It was a great game but we got a little lucky. It meant that we had a Central Semi-Final against Pachuca to look forward to. It was nothing near enjoyable as we were unceremoniously dumped out of the competition after a disappoining 3-0 defeat. We didn't show up and deserved what we got. Another year in Mexico it is then… __________________________________________________________________________________________ Leagues Cup | 2034/2035 This was a much easier run in the Cup. Since we had won the league title the season before, it meant that we went straight into the Quarter-Final. We were drawn against FC Dallas and comfortably beat them 2-0 in a dominating performance. Nothing special, but we got the job done! Simple as that. Into the South Semi-Final we went, and we faced off against another MLS side: Sporting KC. We played very, very well and came away with a 4-1 victory! Dominated from start to finish. The South Final was a much tougher game, as I expected it to be, playing against another Mexican side. We were playing Atlas who we've done well against in the past. What a game this was. A 4-4 draw in regulation time, with a late equaliser from ourselves thanks to Franco Gomez. It was enough to earn us a chance at a penalty shootout. My nerves were shot, but my players were immense. They held their nerves and scored all 5 of the spot kicks, with Kochen the hero saving their final effort. Into the main Playoffs we were. Santos Laguna were our first opponent, in the Semi-Final of the whole competition. It was a much simpler game than against Atlas in the previous round. We dictated play, kept the ball well and secured a 4-2 victory meaning we were on our way to the Leagues Cup Final for the first time in my career. We were up against Club America who I've got a very good record against. The good record continued, as we secured a 4-1 victory that earned me my final trophy in Mexico. What a performance this was. Easy as you like, no nerves, and jus pure excitement. The lads deserve all the success they get as they executed our gameplan to perfection! __________________________________________________________________________________________ Next Update: End of 2034/2035 Season Update (NEW TEAM)
  18. Did someone say Taco Tuesdays are back...? 2033 | CF Monterrey | Mexico VIVA LA MEXICO! We're back in the land of bountiful tacos and tequila, and it feels oh so good to say that! I really do love Mexico it seems. I've already ticked off half of the countries trophies, but I'm here for the top league and cup, as well as trying to tick the continental competitions as well which should be easier with a Mexican side. I took over half way through the season so the Apetura (Opening) stage has finished. We finished 6th in the league stage, and then were knocked out in the Quarter-Final by Pachuca. Not where the club needs or wants to be but definitely something for me to build upon now I'm in charge. Here's the squad I inherited. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Squad Overview: Goalkeepers: Rodrigo Formento | GK | 33 Hugo | GK | 25 Defenders: Thiago Prado | CB | 24 Felix Diaz | CB | 25 Jose Prieto | RB/LB | 20 Bernardo Zurita | CB | 25 Jose Gutierrez | CB | 20 Julian Araujo | RB/LB | 31 Alonso Aceves | LB | 32 Midfielders: Frederico Navarro | DM | 33 Leandro Barboza | DM | 23 Patricio Tanda | CM | 31 Wingers/Attackers: Bryan Diez | AML | 24 Oscar Luis del Real | AML | 20 Jose Pablo Castro | AMR | 24 Nestor Rodriguez | AMR | 23 Matheus Goncalves | AMR | 27 Israel Acevedo | AMC | 22 Biel | AML/AMC | 32 Jonathan David | AMR/L/C/ST | 33 Strikers: Luciano | ST | 26 Juan Pablo Barrios | ST | 24 Eric Teran | ST | 22 Carlos Arana | ST | 18 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Liga BBVA MX | Clausura (Closing Stage) As I mentioned above, the Apetura Stage had already been and gone, so I was taking charge of the team for the first time in the Liga MX Clausura. 17 games in this stage, and we weren't the best over the campaign. We had good stages, but we also had bad stages including a 3 game losing run at the end of the season. We actually took charge just before the Pumas game, so the absolute hammering 7-1 victory was my first game in charge! I thought we were in for a hell of a campaign and for us to be challenging at the top of the tree, but that wasn't to be the case unfortunately. We followed that huge win up with another 2-0 victory over Queretaro. A poor March probably laid an end to the title hopes, as we only managed one win this month. A 3-1 win over Santos Laguna with Jonathan David the cultured Canadian grabbing 2 goals. The other two games ended in defeat against title hopefuls Tigres & Toluca. Not to be this month. If I thought March was poor, then we were in for a shocking April. I lost 3 of the 4 games and only won 3 points from the 12 on offer. A lovely 3-1 victory over Chivas. Then came the 3 match losing streak which put an end to the playoff qualification as well. As we headed into the last game we were just about qualifying for the knockouts, but the final day defeat saw us fall out of the qualification spots and into 11th. You'll soon see, we had bigger fish to fry, and an 11th placed finish probably isn't as bad as it seems. I'll be back for this next year. __________________________________________________________________________________________ CONCACAF Scotiabank Champions League The Champions League was a lovely little surprise to walk into. We faced off against San Jose Earthquakes in the 2nd Round. My eyes lit up when we were drawn against an MLS side. As a Mexican side, we definitely have more quality and without the cap limit, we can strengthen easier. We dispatched them 6-2 on aggregate to make our way into the ¼ Final. MLS side Orlando City awaited us, and once again we easily sent them packing from the competition with a 5-2 aggregate victory. 2-1 in the first leg and 3-1 in the return leg. Nothing to worry about yet, and no real challenges in difficulty. Easy as you like and into the Semi-Final. Our first Mexican tie came against Tijuana. This was a much closer encounter, but we managed to somehow sneak through into my first continental final. An absolutely fantastic first leg ended 4-4 with a last second equaliser for ourselves. We can count ourselves lucky that we didn't lose that one. In the return leg a Goncaleves strike gave us the win and sent us on our way! The final came around pretty quickly and WOW, I don't think I've been more nervous throughout a game. A Jonathan David missed penalty set us on our way and I thought that was the day we were in for. No luck at all. We rode our luck a bit in the first half wit a couple of chances for Tigres but nothing of too much note. A quickfire double in the second half through Goncalves & Diez gave us a 2-0 lead which turned out to be unassailable. A bit of a flukey goal for Tigres gave them a way back in but we held on and lifted my first Continental Trophy of the save!! __________________________________________________________________________________________ Player Stats: Goals: 1. Jonathan David (ST) | 20 2. Matheus Goncalves (AMR) | 13 3. Bryan Diez (AML) | 9 Assists: 1. Israel Acevedo (AMC) | 14 2. Frederico Navarro (DM) | 14 3. Matheus Goncalves (AMR) | 10 Average Rating: 1. Matheus Goncalves (AMR) | 7.46 2. Leandro Barboza (DM) | 7.22 3. Alonso Aceves (LB) | 7.08 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Season Stats Liga BBVA MX (Clausura) | 11th CONCACAF Scotiabank Champions League | Winners GP | 17 GW | 11 GD | 1 GL | 5 GS | 42 GA | 27 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Next Update: End of 2034 Season Update
  19. Second times a charm eh! I knew I'd get it right eventually but I'm glad I'm not hanging around too long this time. I'll have to come back to tick off the Canadian Championship at some point though. 2032 | St Louis City SC | USA With the MLS ticked off last season along with the MLS All-Star Game, all we had left to tick off realistically in the USA is the US Open Cup! This is exactly the competition that I'll be trying to win this season without having the pressure of trying to win the league once more. It would be a lovely bonus if we did though. Once again, I had to navigate the weird off-season in the USA, which includes multiple types of drafts with the main one being the MLS Superdraft which is where you can get your hands on one of the best young players coming out of the college system. It's always a pot luck system to be honest, but I once again seem to have pulled a few gems out of the bag as for the second straight year, we were the highest graded Draft Class: A+ the grade. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Squad Overview: Goalkeepers: Antonio Carrera | GK | 28 Ron Richards | GK | 23 Defenders: Lloyd Guzman | RB/LB | 29 Jonathan Kraus | RB | 23 Jose Andres Torres | CB | 19 NEW SIGNING Chase Gasper | LB | 36 Joe Apples | CB/LB | 22 DRAFT PICK Owen Otasowie | CB/DM | 31 Steve Burrows | CB/DM | 22 DRAFT PICK Midfielders: Mark Cheston | DM | 21 Chris Durkin | CM | 32 Keaton Parks | CM | 35 Brooklyn Raines | CM | 27 Wingers/Attackers: Gerardo Ramirez | AML | 22 Wilfredo Rivera | AMR | 29 Leandro Soria | AMR/L/ST | 28 Carlos Gomez | AMR/L | 30 Jeff Brierley | AMC | 27 Alfredo Diaz | AMC | 22 Eric Byrne | AMC/ST | 22 DRAFT PICK Aziel Jackson | AML/C | 31 Strikers: Eddie Montero | ST | 25 Nick Lee | ST | 24 __________________________________________________________________________________________ League Campaign: MLS I won't bore you too much with this one, as we've already ticked the competition off the to do list! All I can say is that we had a ridiculous start to the season, going a massive 17 league games unbeaten. In that 17 game run, we managed 15 Wins and only 2 Draws. That's pretty darn impressive, even if we are the reigning champions of the MLS. I think it's clear we are the best side domestically, but can't quite compete on a Continental Stage just yet. Mexico dominates that stage. Anyway, back to the league, We continued our good form which put us in a fantastic position to retain our league title when it came down to it. We did go on a little bit of a drab run of form later on in the season, where we couldn't get a win in 4 games, where we lost to FC Dallas, Charlotte FC & LA Galaxy and drew with Austin FC. What was noticeable was that we couldn't score. We had a lot of injuries at this stage, but that's no excuse. We have good depth so that shouldn't have been a problem. We bounced back with a nice 6 game run to end the season. A fantastic 5-0 win on the final day set us up for the playoffs nicely. Supporters Shield: Our league form, meant that we managed to win back to back MLS Supporters Shield trophies. It wasn't exactly close either, with ourselves ending the league with 78 points. Inter Miami who finished as runners-up, could only manage 61 points. A staggering 17 point gap between ourselves. Like I said above, we are the best team in the MLS right now. __________________________________________________________________________________________ MLS Final: Western Conference: I won't bore you with a detailed play by play of each round, but you can see from our schedule above that we managed to WIN THE WEST! We didn't have it all our own way though, as LAFC made it difficult for us in the First Round as they managed to secure a win in the second leg to force a decider. We decided to show up in the decider and dispatched them easily from the competition. Into the MLS Cup Final we go for a second straight year. Can the West remain on top? MLS Cup Final: Once again, we are crowned MLS Cup Champions! That's back to back Supporters Shield & MLS Cup's for us. The board and the fans love me! A lovely 3-0 victory in this one over a poor Philadelphia side. I was surprised to see them in the Final to be honest. Superhuman Leandro Soria the MOM, with Raines getting the other goal. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Campeones Cup For the 2nd time in 3 seasons, we have been crowned the Campeones Cup Champions! I think this is the league winners from Mexico against the league winners from America. I'm surprised we have won this one twice, as the Mexican sides always seem stronger. Eddie Montero scored a screamer to secure the trophy! __________________________________________________________________________________________ Leagues Cup It wasn't to be in the Leagues Cup, which I wasn't too surprised with to be honest. Again, the Mexican sides dominate this one. We did qualify straight to the Quarter-Final because we won the league last year. We sent Club America packing as we have the upper hand against them seemingly. A lovely 3-1 victory with 3 different scorers. A dominating performance. It wasn't to last a we were sent unceremoniously out of the competition after a 4-1 defeat againt Tigres. I think they knocked us out last year as well. Not to be, but I'm not too disheartened. This will be one to tick off when I'm in Mexico later in the career. __________________________________________________________________________________________ US Cup The US Cup is the that we were looking for this year, and I'm delighted to have ticked it off the list! It never looked in doubt to be honest, as we had a pretty easy route to the trophy! In the 4th & 5th Rounds, we had an easy win against DC United and sent Chicago Fire out convincingly after a 3-0 victory! No troubles in the early rounds, and that continued into the Quarter-Final. A 4-2 victory over USFL side San Antonio saw a brace apiece for Jackson & Montero. Montero keeping up his record of scoring in every round so far. The Semi-Final brought our toughest match up to date, but again, we weren't troubled as a 4-2 victory followed. Joe Apples netted a beauty in this one on the way to the Final. In the Final, we faced USFL side Sacramento who had knocked out so many MLS sides on their way to the final. They were a real feel good story in this years edition of the cup, but I wasn't going to let that distract me from winning it. A comfortable 2-0 victory on the night thanks to Montero & Soria saw us raise the trophy high into the St Louis skyline! United States Complete! __________________________________________________________________________________________ Player Stats: Goals: 1. Eddie Montero (ST) | 28 2. Leandro Soria (AMR/ST) | 21 3. Gerardo Ramirez (AML) | 19 Assists: 1. Leandro Soria (AMR/ST) | 24 2. Carlos Gomez (AMR/L) | 19 3. Mark Cheston (DM) | 12 Average Rating: 1. Carlos Gomez (AMR/L) | 7.56 2. Leandro Soria (AMR/ST) | 7.42 3. Gerardo Ramirez (AML) | 7.35 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Season Stats MLS Western Conference | 1st Western Conference Finals | Winners Supporters Shield | Winners Leagues Cup | South Semi-Final US Cup | Winners CONCACAF Champions League | Quarter-Final GP | 47 GW | 33 GD | 8 GL | 6 GS | 128 GA | 56 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Next Update: End of 2033 Season Update | New Team
  20. Thank @The Last Throw. The MLS isn't as scary as I remembered (YET). I think the team you choose makes a huge difference. LA Galaxy were TOO big for me... 2031 | St Louis City SC | USA After seeing out the remaining half of last season with pretty much zero idea of how the MLS actually works, I've come back for another season with the mighty St Louis City and I'm going to try my best to make it work without signing an International player. For those of you that haven't remembered, for some reason one of my rules at the club is not to sign international players as I can't register them. In the MLS that is a huge disadvantage as the best players are often from other shores. A fun season awaits ahead… Here comes the team news! __________________________________________________________________________________________ Squad Overview: Goalkeepers: Antonio Carrera | GK | 27 Igor Moreira | GK | 22 DRAFT PICK Ron Richards | GK |22 Defenders: Jonathan Kraus | RB | 22 Lloyd Guzman | RB/LB | 28 NEW SIGNING Owen Otasowie | CB/DM | 30 Chris Durkin | CB/RB/DM/CM | 31 Daniel Edelman | CB/DM/CM | 28 Chase Gasper | LB/CB | 35 Caleb Wiley | LB/AML | 26 Midfielders: Keaton Parks | DM/CM | 34 NEW SIGNING Brooklyn Raines | DM/CM | 26 Mark Cheston | DM/CM | 20 DRAFT PICK Attackers/Wingers: Alfredo Diaz | AMC | 21 Aziel Jackson | AML | 30 Wilfredo Rivera | AMR/L | 28 Carlos Gomez | AMR/L | 29 Jeff Brierley | AMC | 26 Gerardo Ramirez | AML | 21 NEW SIGNING Matt Tollefson | AMR | 21 NEW SIGNING Sonny Goodwin | AMR | 25 Leandro Soria | AMR/ST | 27 NEW SIGNING Strikers: Eddie Montero | ST | 24 Nick Lee | ST | 23 Nick Gater | ST | 22 NEW SIGNING Mark Caution | ST | 17 That's the first part of the season navigated, as we have strengthened the squad through the draft, and through the transfer market. In fact, the MLS grades each team's draft picks and out of every team in the MLS, we were graded the highest with a solid A grade. We only made 2 picks as that's all that we had, but what a 2 picks they were. __________________________________________________________________________________________ League Campaign: MLS Western Conference We knew that we were going to be force this season, due to our strengths up front. The ‘Gegenpress, 4-2-3-1’ tactic always produces goals, but isn't always the best at the back, but looking at this results view, it's worked pretty darn well this year. March proved out to be a fantastic start to the season and exactly what we needed! We launched ourselves to the top of the tree and stayed there for the majority of the time. Solid wins against New York Red Bulls, Portland Timbers & Chicago Fire without conceding set us on our way. We then lost a tight one to Colorado Rapids before starting a new winning run of 3 games against San Jose, Orlando City & Portland Timbers. April saw us drop a few more points than March but I'm not too worried about that. We only lost the once this month, against NYCFC but the majority of games were good wins. We scored 14 goals in 7 games which is pretty good. Wins came against Portland TImbers, DC United, New England, & CF Montreal, whereas we drew with Vancouver & Minnesota. A fantastic month. May continued the form, and we only lost once more. This was a poor performance against Seattle. The other 5 games saw us gain maximum points and continue to score plenty of goals whilst being pretty solid at the back. A 5-0 battering of LAFC was a particular highlight. We are becoming a real force this season. The second half of the season was here, and we continued to dominate. In June we followed our trend, and only lost one game against Sporting KC. We had a fantastic few wins against Atlanta United, Sporting KC & Toronto FC. I can't actually believe how many goals we're scoring. The strikers are on fire, and the wingers are chipping in aswell. This is all when our main striker Eddie Montero is our for the season as well. July & August saw us collect maximum points, 12 in total and continue our assault on the top spot. We were easily top of the Western Conference, but the Supporters Shield was closer. At this stage we only needed a couple of wins to secure it, but a bad patch started. We lost 3 on the trot against Houstan, Real Salt Lake & San Jose. I don't know if the pressure was getting to the lads, but we bounced back on the last two matchdays and gianed 6 points against Cincinatti & Austin FC to round the season out. As you can see, we absolutely dominated the Western Conference and managed to secure top spot by a whopping 12 points. We finished on 77 points from our 34 points with San Jose securing 2nd on 65. The gap between themselves and 3rd placed Sporting KC was 13 point. We were the better two team in this conference. The West not looking strong going into the playoffs. I'll be posting the MLS Playoffs a little bit underneath here. __________________________________________________________________________________________ MLS Supporters Shield The MLS Supporters Shield combines both the Western & Eastern conferences together and produces one big league table. We ended up being top of the pile and have been crowned CHAMPIONS! Another trophy to be added to the list of successes. Despite our little blip in the last month we managed to claim the title by 6 points, no doubt down to our early season form! __________________________________________________________________________________________ MLS Western Conference Finals First Round | Houston: A favourable match up saw us draw Houston in the first round. For some reason it's a two legged affair, but only in this round. The first leg saw us come out with a 2-0 victory thanks to Leandro Soria. He's been a game changer since his arrival mid way through the season. He didn't want us to lose this one and scored two fantastic solo goals. The second leg was a fantastic game for the neutral. Not so much for my heart rate. A 4-4 draw with many lead changes, and a last second strike from Soria saw us go to penalties. A loss would give us a deciding game, and a win would send us through. Fortunately we didn't miss a single spot kick, and Carrera managed to pull out a good stop to send us through. Semi-Final | Portland Timbers Another favourable tie, this time against Portland Timber. In fact, most match ups are favourable in the West as we are such a dominant force. We came through this one pretty easily and ended up winning 5-2. Aziel Jackson showed his quality down the left netting twice, with Leandro Soria doing the same, but from the right hand side. Cultured defensive midfielder Otasowie hit a thunderbolt before the half to add to our lead. Into our first Western Conference Finals we go… Final | FC Dallas: Once again, we played a team that we've beaten in the season. The usual goalscorers weren't on show, but backup striker Nick Lee who has performed brilliantly in the absence of Eddie Montero got us ahead, and Gerardo Ramirez added to the lead to make it a difficult comeback for Dallas. We held on through a barrage of attacks from them, to see us lift the Western Conference title high into the sky, before heading to the MLS Cup Finals (Superbowl equivalent). __________________________________________________________________________________________ MLS Cup | Atlanta United The title holders of the Western Conference & the Eastern Conference met on a lovely sunny day in St Louis. Atlanta United were the visitors and they were coming in on a high after claiming the East. They were no match for us again, as we raced out to a 2-0 lead thanks to Leandro Soria & Nick Lee. It wasn't until the second half that Jacksona added a 3rd to our lead, before they hit back with 2 late goals to put the pressure on. I was a nervous wreck at this point, but Lee scored his second of the game to put it on ice. Queue the chaos from the stands. I may or may not have pulled out a knee slide down the touchline… __________________________________________________________________________________________ Player Stats: Goals: 1. Aziel Jackson (AML) | 18 2. Nick Lee (ST) | 17 3. Leandro Soria (AMR/ST) | 15 Assists: 1. Gerardo Ramirez (AML) | 19 2. Caleb Wiley (AML) | 12 3. Brooklyn Raines (CM) | 10 Average Rating: 1. Aziel Jackson (AML)) | 7.40 2. Gerardo Ramirez (AML) | 7.38 3. Leandro Soria (AMR/ST) | 7.37 Awards: Comeback Player of the Year | Owen Otasowie Most Valuable Player | Aziel Jackson Coach of the Year | Tongey I also managed to enter the North American Hall of Fame with the famous treble win this season. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Season Stats MLS Western Conference | 1st Western Conference Finals | Winners Supporters Shield | Winners Leagues Cup | 4th Place GP | 46 GW | 34 GD | 2 GL | 10 GS | 132 GA | 68 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Next Update | End of Season Update 2032
  21. Appreciate this mate! A dreaded return to the MLS is on! Can I do better than before? 2030/2031 | St Louis City SC | USA Half of Mexico ticked off, and it was my aim to stay in Mexico, but try and get a job at a team in the top flight which could challenge fairly quickly so we could tick off another country. It didn't turn out that way, and the MLS seemed desperate to get me back in the league. I've had job interview offers from about 10 MLS teams since I left there, and I thought now was the right time to go back. I'm now the manager of St Louis City. What I didn't realise when I took over was that St Louis City have a rule that they can't sign international players to their roster. They cannot register international players in the MLS squad list, so it's Americans, and Americans only. Time to believe in my youth team and master the draft I guess. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Squad Overview: Goalkeepers: Ventsislav Petrakiev | GK | 22 Ryan Reitsma | GK | 23 Ron Richards | GK | 21 Defenders: David Holmes | RB | 23 Jonathan Kraus | RB | 21 Owen Otasowie | CB/DM | 29 Chris Durkin | CB/RB/DM | 30 Daniel Edelman | CB | 27 Chase Gasper | CB/LB | 34 Caleb Wiley | LB/AML | 25 Diego Luna | WBR | 27 Midfielders: Franco Watson | DM | 28 Brooklyn Raines | DM/CM | 25 Tyson Pearce | DM/CM | 23 Ian Haines-Richards | CM | 23 Attackers/Wingers: Aziel Jackson | AMR/L/C | 29 Wilfredo Rivera | AMR/L | 27 Carlos Gomez | AMR/L | 28 Jeff Brierley | AMR/L/C | 25 Sonny Goodwin | AMR/ST | 24 Strikers: Michael Stajduhar | ST | 27 Eddie Montero | ST | 23 Nick Lee | ST | 22 Sean Davis | ST | 22 __________________________________________________________________________________________ League Campaign | MLS Here it is, my MLS redemption journey. You can see that we actually got some good results and were fairly consistent with picking up points. Yea we had our bad days but the good days outnumbered them. We didn't manage a win for the first two games but when we did get our first win, it came in style. A huge 8-2 victory over Toronto FC. It was insane that pretty much everything went right, and at one point we had scored 5 goals from 5 shots. Great finishing from the lads. Anyway, we had a bad result not long after when we lost 6-2 to Chicago. Substitute Nick Lee managed to get us a win after going behind with 2 late goals against Atlanta United and a run of 4 games unbeaten was to follow. An absolute classic against Cincinatti was a great game to be part of. A 4-4 draw which saw them equalised in the last second of the game but I can't be too disappointed. Things weren't amazing, but we were pretty good througout the campaign. The aim was to just consolidate our position in the league and see how high we could finish. How high was that I hear you ask? We had qualified from the Western Conference for the MLS Finals, and had qualified in 4th place which meant we got to skip a round for doing so. This meant that we had qualified for the next round at my first time of asking! We were hovering around the bottom of this qualifying group for the most part this year so progress was made. A total of 52 points meant we were 1 point behind FC Dallas and only lost out to Sporting KC on goals scored. Madness. Western Conference Finals First Round: An absolute stinker of a first leg against San Jose saw us lose the tie 3-1 with Jeff Brierley getting our goal on the stroke of half time. We were poor but the scoreline flattered them slightly. It was more of a 2-1 kind of game, where we didn't take our chances when they came. We needed to as we didn't create much. The Second leg ended with drama as Carlos Gomez headed home in the 95th minute to give us an important win and send us to a decider (no aggregate wins in the MLS, it's the American system over here). We played much better in this leg and just about shaded the result! The decider was a tight contest which ended in penalty shootout heartbreak! A late Montero strike drew us level, and sent us to the dreaded penalties. They missed the first one and I thought we were on our way, but we didn't remain calm and skyed one penalty before their keeper saved the 4th. We ended up losing and that was our MLS Conference Finals journey this year. _________________________________________________________________________________________ MLS Supporters Shield: In the MLS there is a seperate competition called the Supporters Shield which is a combination of the Eastern & Western Conferences. It's no extra games and just takes into account the regular season games. We finished in 10th overall which isn't too bad, but we'll have to be better over the whole season to compete for this title! I'm hoping it won't take too long to topple New York Red Bulls for this title. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Leagues Cup Our performance in the MLS last season meant that the club had qualified for the Leagues Cup. Now I think this competition takes place between the better teams in Mexico & the MLS. We were drawn against LA Galaxy in the Quarter-Final and ended up smashing them 5-2. We were brilliant, every single man was better than our opponents. A great start to the competition that could give us confidence moving forward. Atlanta United awaited us in the Semi-Final and once again we were brilliant. We probably didn't deserve to win 3-1, but we definitely deserved to win this tie so I'm glad we got our rewards. Atlanta are no slouches either so a great win against a fellow MLS side. Our first Mexican opponents came in the Leagues Cup South Final, where we fell to Necaxa. We played well but they showed their quality and just took their chances. They didn't create much but neither did we. It was a game that could've gone either way but it didn't swing our way unfortunately. A great performance overall in the Leagues Cup! We'll be back for this one. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Campeones Cup This was a lovely little surprise when the draw came through to my inbox! I had no idea we were in the Final of the Campeones Cup when I took over. It turned our we had qualified last season and we were to face Club America in this one. A fantastic game followed where we took the lead through Brooklyn Raines before they equalised. They took the lead early in the second half, before Carlos Gomez netted a fine finish from the edge of the area to level things up. Brooklyn Raines was the match winner in the 75th minute as he powered a header home to send the St Louis fanatics into bedlam. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Player Stats: Goals: 1. Eddie Montero (ST) | 17 2. Carlos Gomez (AMR/L) | 11 3. Jeff Brierley (CM/AMC) | 7 Assists: 3. Jeff Brierley (CM/AMC) | 7 2. Brooklyn Raines (DM/CM) | 7 2. Carlos Gomez (AMR/L) | 7 Average Rating: 2. Carlos Gomez (AMR/L) | 7.30 2. Owen Otasowie (DM) | 7.26 3. Caleb Wiley (AML) | 7.16 Awards: Fair Play Award | St Louis City SC __________________________________________________________________________________________ Season Stats MLS Western Conference | 4th Western Conference Finals | 1st Round Supporters Shield | 10th Leagues Cup | South Final Campeones Cup | Winners GP | 18 GW | 10 GD | 3 GL | 5 GS | 33 GA | 14 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Next Update | End of Season Update 2031 / 2032
  22. You know me so well @The Last Throw, I absolutely love me some Tacos, and washing them down with a nice Margarita or 7. Anyway, if you think Peralta knew where the back of the net was, wait until you see Esteban Lozano. 2029/2030 | CF Atlante | Mexico Here we are, still in Mexico in charge of the wonderful CF Atlante. I've been gorging myself on tacos 3 times a day so the weight I've put on whilst managing here is incredible. Enough about that though and on with an important piece of information. I was doing some research about the league and found out that the Mexican FA put a stop on promotions/relegations to and from the top league: Liga BBVA MX. This was after Covid so that teams didn't lose a spot after losing out on money throughout those dreadful years. It was meant to be for 6 seasons, but I'm not sure if that is put in to the Football Manager world, so I set my eyes on winning this league, and finding a new club once it was done. No issues created, it just means adding another club to the save which isn't a major thing to me. I'll be at plenty of clubs come the end of this behemoth. Here comes the 2029/2030 season…. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Squad Overview: Goalkeepers: Omar Rodriguez | GK | 33 Juan Pablo Ocana | GK | 21 Defenders: Angel Chico | RB | 24 Benjamin Galindo | CB | 31 Ruben Francisco Merlos | CB | 20 Salomon Jasso | CB | 19 Juan Jose Mina | RB | 25 Aldair Espinoza | CB/DM | 21 Ulises Torres | LB | 32 Alejandro Henriquez |LB | 28 Midfielders: Jahaziel Marchand | DM/CM | 28 Tim Frahm | DM/CM/AMC | 21 Gael Montes | DM/CM | 20 Saul Zamora | CM | 27 Wingers/Attackers: Jose Peralta | AMR | 33 Aristeo Carballo | CM/AMC | 22 Carlos Garza | AMC | 21 Kevin Pacheco | AMR | 20 Oswaldo Cruzalta | AML/ST | 20 Luis Rodriguez | AMR/L | 25 Antonin Pinto | AMR/ST | 22 Oswaldo Espana | AMR/ST | 20 Strikers: Estaban Lozano | ST | 27 Jonathan Ciprian | ST | 25 Juan Salcedo | ST | 23 __________________________________________________________________________________________ League Campaign | Liga BBVA Expansion MX (Opening Stage) Look at that form! We didn't lose a game until the penultimate match in the Opening Stage! That's some form if I do say so myself. Things just kept getting better and better as the team I've assembled seemed to gel quickly and with the addition of new striker Estaban Lozano goals just flowed. We scored 3 or more in 8 of the 14 games which is some statement. OUR MOTTO: WE WILL SCORE MORE THAN YOU WILL! We secured big wins against last years winners Celaya as we beat them 5-1, and also enjoyed revenge against the team who knocked us out of the Knockout Rounds: Alebrijes. A stunning 5-2 victory saw them leave with their tails between their legs. An absolute belter of a game on the last day against Cimarrones, which ultimately saw us secure top spot thanks to a 93rd minute goal in our game, and in a game that involved the other team vying for top spot. What a game, which ended 5-4! Our only defeat in this stage was a surprising 1-0 loss to Tapatio on the penultimate match day. We were in such good form and it did surprise me when they scored and we couldn't find the back of the net from our many, many chances. We are usually lethal in front of goal, but not on this occasion. The league table ended up with us in top spot on 31 points, with Dorados the only team who could keep up with us on 30 points. They were leading into the final matchday, and fell to a 2-2 draw with a 93rd minute goal meaning they dropped below us when we scored our winner. An epic last few seconds of the league. It did mean we qualified straight into the Quarter-Finals once again, but could we do better? Quarter-Final: Easy as you like in the Quarter-Finals. We got our scoring boots back on and secured a 5-2 victory in the first leg away from home. Lozano once again the man who created the magic. This meant that we had very little to do in the return leg, but got the job done professionally! A 2-0 victory at home secured our passage into the Semi-Finals after a 7-2 aggregate win. Semi-Final: A Semi-Final draw against the only side to beat us in the regular league season Tapatio. We put them to the sword and avenged our demons from the league performance. A 4-1 bettering put us in a strong position as we headed back to our ground to play the second leg. A rare defeat saw them push us close. A Tim Frahm goal ultimately saw us win the tie 5-4 on aggregate, but two late goals from Tapatio saw my blood pressure rise, and my heart rate increase dramatically! This was closer than I wanted. Final: The fans were shown two close, close games full of action in the Final! In the first leg away from home, Aristeo Carballo found the net late on in the game to give us a slender lead going into the return leg. It was a smash and grab really and a draw would've been a fair result, but I wasn't complaining. In the return leg we got off to an absolute flyer with a 3-0 lead within 20 minutes! That meant we were up 4-0 in the tie. 2 goals midway through the second half from Dorados saw them claw themselves back into the tie, but the job was done. I think we had stunned them early doors. Liga BBVA Expansion MX (Opening Stage) Champions! __________________________________________________________________________________________ League Campaign | Liga BBVA Expansion MX (Closing Stage) After being crowned champions of the Opening Stage, we set about trying to recreate the feat in the Closing Stage. Our form continued over and we set off on a ridiculous unbeaten run that last until the penultimate game once again. We weren't quite as free scoring as previously, but we did our job professionally and kept on picking up points. In most games, it was all 3 points. In fact, we only drew one game all season, that game being a 1-1 draw against Cancun. A slightly surprising result but you can't win them all. We did have very good wins against Altenos Tepa, Mineros & Dorados. It's always nice to beat good teams, and Dorados are just that. They pushed us close in both competitions, but we bettered them both times. This campaign, we did lose two games (rather than just the one). They came back to back at the end of the season. Once again we lost to Tapatio in a 2-0 defeat. Not good enough, and we followed that up with a 2-1 defeat to Cimarrones. A bad way to end the season and enter the Knockout Rounds, out of form… Quarter-Final: In the opening stage, we cruised through the Quarter-Finals, but it was much closer this time around. A 3-2 victory against UdeG in the first leg saw us gain the advantage in a tightly contested tie. We then scraped through the return leg 1-0, meaning we were through to the Semi-Finals. This tie could've gone either way on the day, but we just about edged it. Semi-Final: A more comfortable tie awaited us in the Semi-Final! We were up against Celaya who actually won a stage last season so there are definitely no slouches. We eased past them in the 1st leg winning 3-1, before Esteban Lozano decided he wanted it to be all about him in the return leg. 4 goals in the 4-1 rout meant that we were through to the Final once again. Final: Well, we faced Dorados once again in the Final, and this time they managed to sneak a victory in the first leg. A 2-1 defeat for us saw us head into the return leg with all the work to do. A late Jose Peralta goal gave us a way back in and some confidence heading into that return fixture. WOW. What a performance in the return leg. We absolutely blasted them away with a 6-1 victory! Esteban Lozano was on a mission and obviously didn't like not scoring in the first leg. It's all about that man once again. With that, we wrapped up the Closing Stage title as well! __________________________________________________________________________________________ El Champions Trophy Usually the winners from the Opening Stage go head to head with the winners from the Closing Stage in a trophy called the El Champions Trophy! It's one of the competitions I need to win, and apparently we've just done that! In the case that the two stages are won by the same time (like we have), then the El Champions Trophy is awarded to that club without a match having to be played! Excellent news! __________________________________________________________________________________________ Player Stats: Goals: 1. Esteban Lozano (ST) | 42 2. Oswaldo Cruzalta (AML) | 12 3. Carlos Garza (AMC) | 12 Assists: 1. Oswaldo Cruzalta (AML) | 23 2. Jose Peralta (AMR) | 13 3. Carlos Garza (AMC) | 12 Average Rating: 1. Oswaldo Cruzalta (AML) | 7.62 2. Esteban Lozano (ST) | 7.58 3. Carlos Garza (AMC) | 7.32 Awards: Player of the Season | Esteban Lozano (ST) __________________________________________________________________________________________ Season Stats Liga BBVA Expansion MX (Opening Stage) | 1st Knockout Rounds | Winners Liga BBVA Expansion MX (Closing Stage) | 1st Knockout Rounds | Winners El Champions Trophy | Winners GP | 40 GW | 30 GD | 5 GL | 5 GS | 106 GA | 47 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Next Update | End of Season Update 2030/2031 (at a new club)
  23. You know what! You're improving year on year! Never easy going up a league, but you're dealing with that very well! Interesting that Golden Arrows keep coming in for you! Are they in a better financial situation? Only reason I'd leave Venda.
  24. You can consider Canada ticked off! In other news, I quite fancy some tacos... Thanks for the kind words mate! Plenty of places to try and tick off but sticking to the Americas for now... __________________________________________________________________________________________ 2028/2029 | CF Atlante | Mexico Another country ticked off, so it's off to another club and country with the hopes of building something special there. This time, I've left the cold Canadian shores and I've moved to a warmer climate. Hello Mexico! I'm not sure why I never manage in Mexico when playing FM, as it sounds like it would be my favourite place to visit. Who doesn't like the sound of tequila, margaritas and a bountiful amount of tacos! I certainly wouldn't turn that down anyway. I've taken charge of CF Atlante who play in the Liga BBVA Expansion MX. That's the second tier here in Mexico so it'll be another little build up of a club which it's time for. You can't always win it all in the first season. I'm aiming to be here for a little while. When I took over, we had already finished the ‘Opening Stage’ of the league campaign and were just about to start the ‘Closing Stage’. The two winners of those stages go head to head to try and win the El Champions Trophy. It's a strange way of operating a league, but always interesting to see how different leagues work. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Squad Overview: Goalkeepers: Omar Rodriguez | GK | 32 NEW Juan Pablo Ocana | GK | 20 Defenders: Ulises Torres | LB | 31 Ignacio Gomez | CB/DM | 20 Aldair Espinoza | CB/DM | 20 Raul Cabrera | CB | 19 Salomon Jasso | CB |18 NEW Ruben Francisco Merlos | CB | 19 Manlio Rivera | CB | 29 Benjamin Galindo | CB | 30 David Vazquez | RB | 20 LOAN Angel Chico | RB | 23 Midfielders: Ivan Tona | CM | 29 Saul Zamora | CM | 26 Jose Huerta | RB/DM/CM | 19 Gael Montes | DM/CM | 19 LOAN Tim Frahm | DM/CM/AMC | 20 Francisco Estrada | DM/CM/ AMC | 21 Jahaziel Marchand | DM/CM | 27 Wingers/Attackers: Oswaldo Espana | AMR/ST | 19 Antonin Pinto | AMR/ST | 21 Victor Marquez | AMR/ST | 20 LOAN Jose Alvarado | AMC | 29 Angel Perez | AML | 18 Oswaldo Cruzalta | AML | 19 LOAN Ronaldo Gonzalez | CM/AML/R | 29 Kevin Pacheco | AMR | 19 Aristeo Carballo | AMC | 21 Jose Peralta | AMR | 32 Strikers: Victor Adrian Carballo | ST | 18 Ivan Daniel Gonzalez Tahuilan | ST | 20 Juan Salcedo | ST | 22 Jonathan Ciprian | ST | 24 __________________________________________________________________________________________ League Campaign | Liga BBVA Expansion MX (Closing Stage) This results page screams ‘MEDIOCRITY’ to me, although we seemed to get our S**T together towards the back end of it. Luckily in this league, the top 10 qualify for the Knockout Rounds, just at different stages. That's doable for most teams in the league so we just have to be good enough, and then become unbeatable in the knockouts. As you can see from above, we had a mixed opening month as we won 2, drew 1 and lost 2. We weren't scoring many but only having 1 clean sheet in that time frame hurt us. We needed to sure ourselves up at the back, which is wy I brought in a new goalkeeper. It didn't immediately work but we definitely looked better once Omar Rodriguez came in as the new number one. Our two wins were against good sides in Mineros & UdeG but we got our asses handed to us by Alebrijes. February was good to us, as we brought in 6/9 points on offer. Two absolutely huge wins against Morelia & Tapatio followed a bad result against Celaya. It's nice to see us start winning games by big scorelines. We look very good going forward which is a usual sign of our tactic working well! March was a hit and miss month for us, losing twice, but also winning twice. Both wins were 2-0 victories against Tlaxcala & Cimarrones respectively. The loss onn the opening day of the month was an absolute spectacle for the fans. We kept going behind but we kept bringing it back. We just couldn't get that equaliser one more time to secure us a valuable point. The final month was very, very good as we secured maximum points against top side Altenos Tepa and relegation threatened Cancun. Two wildly different sides but two very good performances and results! This meant that we had qualified for the Quarter-Finals having done well enough to skip the first round. A points total of 25 was very good, and we only finished 2 points behind the winners Venados. Close league as only 15 points separated 1st from 14th. Insanely close so any points could've moved us a few positions. How did we do in the Knockout Competition? Not good I'm afraid. We drew a team we hadn't beaten all season, but we had finished above in this stage. By a single point may I add. I thought we had a good chance as we were playing some good football at the time. The first leg was at home and didn't go well. We lost 4-1 which put us in a terrible situation to get anything from this tie. We got absolutely nothing right in the return leg either and could only just manage a draw thanks to an own goal. We'll move on quickly and hopefully I can put together a team that's capable of winning the league next season? __________________________________________________________________________________________ Player Stats: Goals: 1. Jose Peralta (AMR) |10 2. Jonathan Ciprian (ST) | 7 3. Ronaldo Gonzalez (AMR/L/C) | 6 Assists: 1. Ronaldo Gonzalez (AMR/L/C) |6 2. Jose Peralta (AMR) | 5 3. Ulises Torres (LB) |5 Average Rating: 1. Aristeo Carballo (CM/AMC) | 7.24 2. Jose Peralta (AMR) | 7.16 3. Ulises Torres (LB) | 6.99 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Season Stats Liga BBVA Expansion MX (Closing Stage) | 3rd Knockout Rounds | Quarter-Final GP | 16 GW | 8 GD | 2 GL | 6 GS | 29 GA | 27 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Next Update | End of Season Update 2029/2030
  25. What a fantastic opening set of posts! I've never read your stuff before so I'm a newbie on for the ride! Looking forward to seeing how you navigate the Scandinavian waters! Best of luck!
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