Ace40

Nice save idea. I'm currently doing a build nation save with Iraq, it is a slow slog, and beating the Saudis in the CL is proving a near-impossible task. I was in the stadium when Bengaluru played in the final of the Confed cup a few years ago, although I was cheering for the other side. Met some lovely fans Good luck!

March - Oct We retain the Premier League title, by the skin of our teeth In the most exciting title race in years, Samar'a were leading by a point with two games to go when they dropped by points, but we failed to beat Al Shorta. This allowed Al Jawiya to leapfrog both of us into the lead. 16th place Naft Maysan did us a huge favor by holding them to a draw, which allowed us to win the title We were knocked out by eventual champions Al Hilal in the Asian CL QF. It is getting very difficult to beat the Saudi sides We smash Samar'a 7-0 in the FA Cup final to complete the domestic double. The main reason for our poor league form is the performance of Mo Hassan. Our young striker who, despite his good stats, has failed to deliver when we needed him Our Youth Intake continues to disappoint with another poor batch

Not so fast ...

Oct-March A quiet first half of the season We are top of the league, although Samara'a are putting on a fight We are through to the QF of the CL and round of 16 of the FA Cup No incomings or outgoings in the window

Notable Transfers The new minimum to be added to the list is now 1 Million Euros Assana is sold to Leicester city, 625K is our share of the spoils No other clause has been used so far

July-October After our busy transfer window, we enter the season as title favorites We also take a clear lead in the wage expenditure table, No changes in the sponserships We get another training facility upgrade, which should push us to 5 stars

Transfer Special 39-40 A number of moves were made this summer, so thought I should make its own thread Starting out with the outgoings, David Ngoma (AM) was sold to Umm Salal of Qatar for 4M Gjoni (AM) was sold to Leverkusen for 2.4M, despite him being a better player and an Albanian international, the Euro clubs don't negotiate and just getting that fee was a success. Alaa Abdul Hussein (31-ST) was sold to Dibba for 1.4M. A great player that seems to always get misused when I sell him, he is old and we have an academy kid waiting to take his spot All three players were sold with good clauses Moving on to the Incomings, It was quite a busy summer and I may have gone overboard with the signings Mubarak (25-AM) Spent some time on loan a few seasons ago, and I decided to bring him back to replace Gjoni as he has similar stats. Diop (19-W) Was signed to play on the right wing, he has some amazing stats but forced us to put in a measly 1.7M release clause. I decided to not register him for the league in the hopes I ward off interest and give him a new contract Nasr (20 CB) Is our third Seven figure signing this summer, The Egyptian also put in a release clause so he is going unregistered while we use his abilities in the Champions League Alhassan (20-W) Was signed to play on the Left Wing from Ghana Alain-Pierre (20-CB) A signing I'm excited about, he can play CB, RB, and DM. Diarra (20-ST) a young man from Mali, 100K seemed a reasonable gamble on him and he is spending the season on loan at his current club Barkov (22-W) This one is a bit of a gamble, he is 22 and hasn't been capped yet, but he is 6'2 and has great physicals. He is spending half the season on loan at BATE Carpanu (19-CB) A Romanian CB, also going unregistered due to foreign limits but he will be useful in the CL and one for the future

End-of-Season Review Still, have no reached the elusive 2.5* reputation Gjona scored 30 goals and provided 18 assists, so deservedly gets POTY Attendance increased by 300 people

Iraqi NT in 2038-39 A disappointing year for the Lions of Mesopotamia following our impressive WC run We failed to win three tournaments that we took part in over the span of seven months First, we lost in the Semi FInal of the WAFF tournament against Qatar. Syria won its second title Saudi Arabia beat us in the final of the Gulf Cup The one that hurt the most is another SF loss against bitter rivals Iran, losing to a last-minute penalty. Iran went on to win the title to rub salt in the wounds

Iraqi Clubs in 2038-39 Kufa goes straight back down, joined by Al Naft Both Electricity clubs go up as Al Kahrabaa and Al Sinaat Al Kahrabiya are promoted We won the league despite Nast Al Wasat putting on a fight Al Shorta are back to winning ways after beating us in the FA Cup Iraqi clubs in Asia in 38-39 The game bugs out again, so we were the only club in Asia for the second straight season We were eliminated in the Round of 16 by Al Gharafa However, I have realised that us being the only team is a blessing in disguise as we now have enough teams to go into 5th in the coefficient This will get us, if the game doesn't bug out, three clubs in the GS and one in the playoffs next season

March-July With no Asian football to distract us, we cruised to another Iraqi League title Al Shorta beat us in the FA Cup final We get one Elite Talent in the Intake

Oct-March A routine first half of the season, we are second in the league due to a few draws We top our CL Group but we are knocked out in the Round of 16 due to away goals We finally get a training facility improvement approved

Notable Transfers Haidar Ammar becomes our highest-ever sale Abdul Ridha's move to Portugal was very random but I'm not complaining

July - October We have reached a weird point in the save where European clubs have started putting in bids for our players, but they completely lowballed us and refuse to negotiate, so I don't accept any. While the Gulf Clubs we're used to dealing with seem to have stopped coming in with the same frequency, perhaps due to the player's reputation increasing beyond theirs For those reasons, we had a quiet summer. Jallow is a 31-year-old backup DM who spent over 10 years in Iraq so counts as a local player, but he's 32, and getting 250K for him was a no-brainer Hatem Abdul Ridha, a backup LB, moved to Vizela in the Portuguese league for 250K Our main talisman, Haidar Ammar, is moving to Dusseldorf in the 2.Bundesliga for 4.8 Million Only two incomings as I kept all my local players. We rise to 2nd in salary spend, and first in sponsorship money Naturally, we are predicted to finish first in the league We get another training facility upgrade underway

End-of-Season Review The league and cup double sees us increase our reputation, but not to 5 stars We increased the training facilities to 4 in Iraq, but the club won't budge on the youth facilities Our great World Cup sees us move into an all-time high of 25th on the world Diaara had a monster season which saw him become top goal scorer, top playmaker, and obviously player of the year My poor crop job shows that we almost doubled our avg league attendance, becoming 1,057

World Cup 2038 Iraq vs DR Congo In June, we headed to South Africa as the country prepared to host the World Cup for the second time. Our first match was against DR Congo, we took the lead through defender Alaa Abaas in the first half, and Haidar Ammar doubled our advantage in the 83rd minute before Kalenga brought one back for the Congo before the whistle Iraq vs Germany Our second match was against Germany, and unforutantly they proved too much for us to handle We took a surprising early lead through Sami Ahmed, but the Germans were up 2-1 at halftime and made it 3-1 in the 75th minute. Despite the defeat, our 3 points from the opening game are enough to send us to the Knockouts Iraq vs. Scotland - Round of 32 For the second consecutive World Cup, we face a team from the British Isles in the knockout stages We absolutely dominated Scotland, with 2 goals from our brilliant striker Haidar Amamr in the second half Jay Pirie brought one back for the Scots but it was too late to make a difference, and we reached the round of 16 once again Iraq vs. Turkey - Round of 16 We faced a neighboring nation in the round 16, and the first half showed we were out-of depth Turkey were up 2-0 by halftime, and seemed to be cruising But in the second half, I brought on Haidar Ammar, who was benched due to fatigue, and he willed his team back into the match by scoring a brilliant hattrick We had to play the final 10 minutes with 10 men as Aoun Sattar got sent off, but our men stayed strong and qualified to a historic QF I Iraq vs. Colombia - Quarter-Final We went into the QF with high hopes, as Colombia was not the unbeatable team that we stood no chance against We were suffering from a few suspensions and fatigue was starting to impact some of our undroppable starters Colombia took the lead in the second half, but the brilliant Haidar Ammar quickly equalized. It was a tight affair until heartbreak struck at the final moment George Pinerez scored a goal to send Colombia to the World Cup Semi-Final and end our fairytale run. They would lose in the next match to eventual champions Spain

Iraqi Clubs in 2037-38 Nawroz and Al Kahraba are down A huge surprise as Kufa came up, followed by a swift return for Al Qasim We won the league and cup double Iraqi clubs in Asia in 37-38 The game bugs out again, so we were the only club in Asia As mentioned we were eliminated from the GS However, that was enough for us to move back up to sixth in the coefficient table

March - July A routine end of the season where we smashed through the premier league WE ALSO FINALLY WON THE FA CUP After 15 long season, the FA Cup curse comes to an end as we beat Al Jawiya to win the FA Cup final No Elite talent for the first time in the Karbalaa save.

Oct-March Disaster in the CL as we fail to make it out of the groups. We had a very difficult group with Ittihad and our loss to Al Sadd meant we were out We breeze through the League's first half, and we are in the next round of the FA Cup We got a lot of offers for Assana from big clubs, but they were all non-negotiable, I think it might be because our reputation is so low that they just strong-arm us We got an offer for 1.1Mil and 30% of the profit from HSV, which was the best of the bunch and we decided to make the sale We immediately spent it on a training facility upgrade

Notable Transfers Bonaice Abdullah's loan move becomes permanent by Al Taawoun. I regret having a buy option because he looks much better than I thought he did Zoughi, one of the Tunisian CB we signed on a free, moved to a Qatari club for 475K

July - October A very quiet summer this season I activated Mutero's sell-on clause, that way we can have money in the bank and not have the chairman accept offers on his own He still accepted many of them, but I managed to talk him down from all but one DM Aoun Mohammed went to the Emariti league for 425K None of my star players got offers I found satisfactory so I didn't sign anyone to replace them I bolstered my defense by reuniting with two former players, Sami Ahmed, and Ahmed Jasim. Ahmed Jasim was my POTY my very first PL season with Samar'a, and now he is back 10 seasons later We are now third in the Salary expenditure and of course, favorites to win the league

End-of-Season Review A good season where we made a facility upgrade and boosted our coefficient I give POTY to RW Assana

Iraqi NT in 2037-38 We start off by reaching the SF of the WAFF Championship before losing to eventual champions Saudi Arabia We smash through the final qualifying round to book our place in the World Cup We win the Gulf Cup of Nations

Iraqi Clubs in 2036-37 Duhok's fairytale is finally over after they go down, Al Qasim joins them Naft Maysan return to the PL, alongside Nawroz We won our 2nd PL title in 3 years Al Najaf beat Zakho in the FA Cup final to get their first taste of silverware Iraqi Clubs in Asia 2036-37 Samara'a out in the GS, but gave it a good effort Naft Al Wasat contributed heavily this season, they won the playoffs to reach the GS Then topped their group before going out to a very tough opponent in the Round of 16 We reached the SF in our second-ever participation in the CL Al Ittihad has been dominating this competition under Nano Santos, they now won their 6th title Our good run sees us move into 7th in the coefficient

March - July We comfortably finished top of the league, picking up our second title We are knocked by Al Ittihad once again in the CL, this time in the SF We get 3 Elite talents in the YA, but no one that really impresses me #