shaunvamos

April 2044 A nightmare run of away games, which we managed to turn around at the end of the month, but now the gap is only 5 points with 3 games to go. Our time in the Europa League is also probably over, but we had a fantastic win over Julian Nagelsmann's Union Berlin to look back on.

March 2045 Scraped a draw with a rested team against Celtic, and we have a shot at going 11 clear. We navigate Aberdeen, and are rewarded by Union Berlin again. At least we had a nice run.

February 2045 We're out of the cup, but that's fine as we look to maintain our lead on top and also make a deeper run in the Europa League. We get a fairly favourable draw here too, against a struggling Aberdeen.

January 2045 Very very weird result against St Mirren - had to rest a few players and had a player sent off early. But it shouldn't have ended up like that. But anyway, we're still top, by 8 points this time, and we're through to the last 16 of the Europa League after finishing 5th in the League Phase.

December 2044 A very busy month, but an immense effort as we make it out unbeaten. We're now 7 points clear at the top, and comfortably into the knockout stages of the Europa League.

Novembver 2044 A heavy loss to Rangers dampens things a bit, but we managed to smash Hearts in our Edinburgh revenge to stay top of the table. We're also in a strong position in the Europa League with a really good win at Sevilla.

September 2044 An unbeaten month, and we have an opportunity to go 6 points clear.

September 2044 We began the month with a disappointing loss in the most important fixture of the season, the Edinburgh derby. But we end the month with a fantastic win over Celtic and we're already 3 points clear after 8 games.

Thanks! We haven't done too much culling at this stage but it was surprisingly easy to improve the side

2044 Summer Transfer Window No, we didn't really spend 105 million pounds. Most of it will be paid if we don't play those loanees as starters, and they'll be starters. It's nice to be able to sign players again, even with Brexit restrictions we've still been able to make some good foreign signings in Ehrmann and Zackrisson. It's been a dream start in Scotland, including a strong win over Rangers as we start things on top already. We get an interesting draw, featuring 2 Irish teams as well as Partizan and Anorthosis. I'm hopeful those 4 teams are ones we can beat, but the Irish sides are strong in this save.

Time to upend the Old Firm Eh, the team's not that much stronger than Cardiff if I'm honest, we'll see if we can find any good finds from the released players.

Around Europe After just over 21 seasons in this save, I thought it'd be good to take a look around the continent to see if much has changed. I'll do the top 10 leagues to condense it, but also look at continental and international tournaments as well. England Not a lot has changed here really, the same big teams are still dominating with Newcastle managing to sneak in for an EPL win in 33/34. Everton also managed to get a runners up a couple years later. Italy Italy are now the second most reputable league in Europe, and it's mostly been the Milan show. No non-Milan team has won the Serie A for 16 seasons, although it looks like Napoli might be the best positioned to change that. Spain Spain is probably the most unchanged, with only Barcelona or Real Madrid winning the league. How boring. Germany Returning to familiar territory, and it looks like Union Berlin have done pretty well since I left. They've won the league again, and finished in the top 3 in 8 of the last 10 seasons. Those 2 seasons they missed were the most recent though, as they finished 5th and then 6th, which could mean the start of a slide. France The era of PSG dominance looks to have some cracks, as they've only won 2 of the last 6. This coincides with the departure of the Qatari oil money in 2038, which was clearly a huge loss. Cool to see Lens as the possible benefactors of that though, as their new tycoon clearly helped them to those 2 Ligue 1 titles. Netherlands Nothing overly exciting in terms of winners, but a few not so fancy teams appearing here like Go Ahead Eagles and Heracles. Portugal Famalicao is the only club outside Porto and Lisbon to have won in Portugal, but currently the biggest challenger to that norm looks to be Penafiel. Belgium Antwerp have emerged as the new force in Belgium, also thanks to a tycoon takeover in 2036 that saw them also make the Conference League final. Scotland Nothing is dispatching the Old Firm, with Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibernian a very distant 3rd. Austria We wrap things up in Austria, where the most noticeable absence recently is RB Salzburg. They were actually relegated in 2037 but rebounded straight away and haven't finished higher than 7th since. Tirol have been a sensation, winning the league in 2040, getting relegated in 2041, promotion in 2042, and then the two straight league wins. Insane! Champions League Liverpool had a brief dominant run, with 3 straight in the last 5 seasons. Apart from that no real new teams except maybe Everton in a losing Merseyside Derby effort in 2041/42. Europa League Union Berlin ended up being the runners up this season Mostly seems to be German clubs and Atletico Madrid that won this recently, with a few niche English clubs like Everton, Leicester and Leeds coming close. Conference League Everton finally got a win in European competition, but not before Kobenhavn who defeated another surprise nation in their final. Some other cool teams include Raith Rovers, Antwerp, Utrecht, Torino and Slavia Prague. World Cup The World Cup has not left Europe in this save, with only Colombia and Argentina not from the continent. EURO It finally came home in 2040, but the first 3 were dominated by France and the Netherlands, with France going 2-1 in their final encounters. Copa America Ecuador is sandwiched between Colombia and Uruguay here, with Argentina and Brazil being surprising perennial bridesmaids. Gold Cup For some reason USA, Mexico and Canada weren't in the 2025 and 2027 editions (something to do with the 2026 WC perhaps) which produced some fun results. Trinidad and Tobago managed to win a title with the big 3 present, and Martinique also featured prominently, no doubt making use of the French dual nationality. African Cup of Nations Strangely enough, the only non-traditional superpower that won the AFCON was in the first running. Guinea-Bissau had a couple of nice third places, but apart from that nothing unusual. But now onto the next destination..... It looks like I have two choices, either Scotland or Turkey. Given my fictional proximity to Scotland, I'd like that to be my next destination and have applied for a job there. But failing that I'll activate Turkey as playable and see who from Ankara wants me.

Cardiff Corries 2043/44 Season Review For whatever reason I didn't get the big presentation, so here we are. Invincibles Best XI Stewart Hendey - Harry Jones - Peter Alade Progress And the big news... We're now a half star better than our nearest rivals, which means Wales is complete I think I've left Cardiff in an excellent position, they have the best facilities of anyone, as well as the most money. The AI will do well to screw this up...... and they probably will. Anyway, where next?

March 2044 Two games to go, against 5th and 6th. We're bound to mess this up now....

February 2024 We pushed our old club hard, but not enough in the end. On the more positive side, we've secured our third straight league title and have nothing to look forward to but the league for the rest of the season. Watch us bottle the invincible season though

January 2044 We faltered a bit at the end of the month, but we add another trophy to the cabinet and still have a 10 point lead in the league. We're in the playoffs! Also, look at Shamrock Rovers! The RoI have moved into 13th in the UEFA coefficients too, so something's in the water over there. It only seems natural that my last season in Wales I'd be playing against my former club in a European competition. I fully expect to be smashed, but we shouldn't even be here so who cares

December 2043 FM'd out of another cup, but I don't care, I want an invincible season in the league, and after January we'll only be in the Europa League as the extra comp.

November 2043 A much quieter month and we play excellently, including a win over Fortuna Dusseldorf where we were up 4-0 at half time, and we're almost a lock for the knockouts.

October 2043 Another ridiculous month in terms of congestion, but we make it through unscathed. Already 10 points clear in the league too

September 2043 We got FM'd against Glentoran, but I'm glad we lost because that's one less competition we're in, and our players need all the rest they can get.

They're sending themselves out of business, they've had to revert to semi-pro

2043 Summer Transfer Window With our scouting network not yet fully deployed, we again relied on the tried and tested trialling of released players in the UK. And we still can obviously utilise it as we add 7 new players. Langston (DM) made 3 apps for Middlesbrough, Alade (RW) made 7 apps for Derby, Jones (LW) had a few mixed loan spells before being released by Cardiff, Flanagan (CB) had a solitary appearance for Reading, Jepson (AM) made 3 apps for Derby, Hendey (RB) didn't appear for Wolves, and Scully (GK) was released by Nottingham Forest's academy. Who would've thought that an Irish side would be the one to knock us out of the Champions League? Fixture congestion may have contributed, but at least we went comfortably through to the Europa League and an unbeaten start domestically. I'm hoping for 3 wins here, based on previous results I think we can beat Zalgiris, Tirana and Limassol.

And they're financially insecure

Haverfordwest rain on our parade twice at the end of the season, and I think that puts them ahead of us in the reputation stakes. But I'm excited to see what we can do in our first season as a professional club. The staff have already been upgraded, we have a huge transfer budget, and we'll have worldwide scouting. Consider Haverfordwest on notice. Best XI Marcus Evans - Julian Wilson - Jayson McGrath Progress

March 2043 We add another trophy to the cabinet, going one better in the Scottish Challenge Cup after our runner up performance last year, and also becoming the first Welsh club to win it. We only have the Welsh Cup left, and we'd be doing an unprecedented quadruple if we win against Haverfordwest, who we also beat in the Challenge Cup.