FM23 - Growing Gambia

[ToMexico!!]

July 2053

Champions League | League | African Super Cup | Gambian Cup

Screwed in the ACL Final(s) due to international scheduling. Gambian reached the final of the AFCoN and lost on pens too. We played the CWC too, losing to Newcastle but beating Racing from Argentina with the U19s. 

Recalculated the table for overall apps/goals etc. Darboe reaches 1212 goals before retiring, an unbeatable target I'm sure. Sarr just three shy of 900 career goals for us. 

[ToMexico!!]

August 2053

New rule introduced. I've used a random country generator to select three countries which we can sign players from. Gambian players seem to be drying up from abroad and the quality coming through isn't great at Gambian clubs. 

 

[ToMexico!!]

September 2053

[ToMexico!!]

November 2053

.

With Darboe's retirement, we were short in goal so in came Fallou Scattred from Getafe for £300k, his release clause. We then had the opportunity to sign a former poached player. Yusupha Juwara was poached by Valladolid back in 2045. Eight years later having been sold to Juventus in between he returns to Banjul Hawks for £1m. 

Armed with my new rule of signing players from three randomly selected nations we acquired Chilean right back Pedro Bascunan from Colo-Colo for £1.7m. He will slot into first-choice right-back.

[ToMexico!!]

June 2053

Champions League | League | African Super Cup | Gambian Cup

Back to winning ways in the ACL but it wasn't all plain sailing, just reaching the ACL proper felt a struggle, we won both 1st legs of each qualification round but lost the 2nd legs. Three seasons without dropping a point in the league now, we're pretty imperious. 

Four goals shy of 100 for Sarr this season which also takes him to five shy of 1000 for the club. He's 32 now, I think he could beat Musa Darboe's record by the time he reaches 35/36, so that's a new goal for the save. 

[ToMexico!!]

September 2054

[ToMexico!!]

September 2054

[ToMexico!!]

November 2054

3rd choice striker Malick Wilson was sold to Brentford for £1.8m + 50%. 

Two new signings. 

Chilean centre-back Brandon Martinez joins on a free transfer from Man City. The defender drops his wages from £45k to £9k per week. We then signed another centre-back, Gambian national Ebrima Jallow joins from Valladolid for £800k and then joined Team Rhino on loan for the rest of the season. Hopefully a full season of game time for the 18 year old will help improve his technical ability. 

[ToMexico!!]

June 2055

Bubacarr Mboob | Ebrima Sanyang | Alieu Sariang | Omar Dambelleh

Our best day one intake since the save began but the poor personality / determination combinations hurting the overall feel to the intake. 

[ToMexico!!]

June 2055

Champions League | League | African Super Cup | Gambian Cup

An easier Champions League qualification this time round, easy group too, the only blip being an away loss to Ah-Ahly in the semi-final second leg after beating them 7-0 in the first leg. The first team were called up for international duty so in came many youth players who did the business over Kaizer Chiefs. Another 22 from 22 in the league. We lost for the first time since 2037 as PSV beat us in the quarter finals, we had won 69 games in a row prior to that defeat. 

Doudou Sarr's 91 goals takes him over 1000 goals for the club. He's only 124 goals behind Musa Darboe. Frenchman Julien Blot took the 3rd choice strikers shirt and did well when called upon.

The finances keep growing despite the lack of player sales. The TV money just keeps on increasing. 

[ToMexico!!]

September 2055

Some initial sales to end the summer. 

French left-back Tristan Fonteneau was highly rated at the club up until his 18th birthday, he was still on a youth contract when the likes of Rennes, Lyon, Monaco and Nantes began bidding for him. Bidding reached the £900k mark which was his compensation cost on offering him a contract. Sulayman Kunde fell down the pecking order due to the emergence of Kawsu Keita in the first team, off to Qatar he goes with 35% profit clause attached. Baba Ceesay also headed east to Saudi Arabia, he had game time last season but he felt joining Damac was too good of an opportunity to miss, he has a 50% profit clause in his deal. Last to leave was Chilean right back Pedro Bascunan, he was wanted by a few clubs including Leverkusen and Schalke but ultimately joined Dusseldorf for £4.5m rising to £5.75m and a 35% profit clause. 

With Bascunan sale I have decided to swap signing players from Chile in my player search filter to that of another random team which is...

The aim now is to sign a player and sell him before selecting another random country. Multiple players of that country can be signed but only one has to be sold to move on. 

[ToMexico!!]

September 2055

[ToMexico!!]

September 2055

Surprising to see former German international player Lukas Klosterman as the national team coach of The Gambia. 

Having ended his playing career in the US with Seattle, he took up the role as Kaiserslautern U19 Manager until 2041 when he took over as Belgium U19 Head Coach, he spent 7 years at the helm before returning to Germany as the Head Coach of Regensburg, he guided them 15th and 13th placed finishes before moving to Cottbuss in 2050. In his only season he guided them to a 14th place finish before Furth came calling. In his four seasons with Furth he saw them finish 7th, 7th, 5th and 7th. 

He was offered the Head Coach role at both the Ivory Coast and The Gambia, ultimately plumping for the latter. The Gambia currently find themselves in 41st place in the World Rankings. 

[ToMexico!!]

November 2055

Two players join. We signed Zambian goalkeeper Matthew Bulambwo from Zanaco for just £20k, he returns to them on loan for the remainder of the season. We also signed Gambian youngster Babou Jarju on loan from Real Betis with the option to buy £2.6m, which feels steep but he could be first-choice RB for the next 10 years. 

[ToMexico!!]

February 2056

A couple more transfers out from the club. Our other Chilean Brandon Martinez leaves for Al-Gharafa in Qatar, all profit in this deal as he was a free transfer signing. We also sell youth academy player Edrisa Jeffang to Premier League side MK Dons for £600k with a 50% profit clause. We've also loaned out five youth players to other Gambian sides, hopefully some game time will help them develop a little more.

[ToMexico!!]

June 2056

One elite talent in Modou Gitteh, the young striker has some decent attributes in the right places, just a shame about the personality. 

I like the look of Muhammed Juwara, a solid-looking centre-back, he could become first choice pretty quickly for us. 

[ToMexico!!]

June 2056

Champions League | League | African Super Cup | Gambian Cup

An 18th Champions League win as the youngsters kicked us off with a 2-0 home win as most of the first team were on international duty, the first teamers came back to seal the title. A low scoring league campaign, with just 139 goals scored, our lowest in 16 seasons. A dominant Gambian Cup final, Doudou Sarr with a double hattrick. 

Signs of slowing down for Doudou Sarr, his physicals are showing signs of decline but another 75 goals for the veteran striker, taking him to 1165 for his career, he needs 48 goals to overtake Musa Darboe. French U21 international Julien Blot scored 40, flitting between as a second striker and right wing. 

[KristianT]

"showing signs of decline but another 75 goals "

[ToMexico!!]

2 minutes ago, KristianT said:

"showing signs of decline but another 75 goals "

Recent seasons have been 94, 82, 83, 96 & 91 goals then 75... 

He's just reported back for pre-season with the downward arrows of death  

[KristianT]

6 hours ago, ToMexico!! said:

Recent seasons have been 94, 82, 83, 96 & 91 goals then 75... 

He's just reported back for pre-season with the downward arrows of death  

Oh no 

[ToMexico!!]

January 2057

Huge sale of Ansumana Jammeh to Hertha Berlin for £43.5m rising to £59m plus 20% profit. He's a big loss but we will play Omar Dambelleh there next season having muddled through the remainder of this season. 

We'd also sold a few more players, Ebou Sohna had fallen out of favour to 3rd or 4th choice CM. Sarr, Scattred and Nyassi were bit-part bench players whilst Yusupha Juwara wanted out, Ajax bid the price we gave him that he could leave for. 

We're swimming in money. 

[ToMexico!!]

June 2057

One elite talent in goalkeeper Alieu Bambelleh. Poor personality and determination combination. 

[ToMexico!!]

June 2057

Champions League | League | African Super Cup | Gambian Cup

Our worst season in a long while, we lost heavily in the first leg of the Champions League having had 20 players called up for international duty. We managed to win 4-0 in the 2nd leg which saw the game go to penalties but we lost to Kaizer Chiefs. 22 from 22 in the league and another Super Cup win but we lost in the semi-final of the Gambian Cup to PSV. 

We also competed in the Club World Cup this summer, we faced Man City (lost 6-2) and Racing Club (lost 4-2). We had 11 first-team players away with Gambia at the AFCoN. 

35-year-old Doudou Sarr becomes the club's top scorer with 1234 goals having scored another 66 this season, he's also just 18 games shy of being our highest appearance holder. Blot and Kanteh rotated in the second striker slot and did well. 

[ToMexico!!]

July 2057

Defeat in the final of the AFCoN for the third time. 

Every single player in the squad apart from Sheriff Sillah has some connection with Banjul Hawks. 

[ToMexico!!]

May 2058

It's been a while since the last poaching. Will he be any good, probably not. 

[ToMexico!!]

June 2058

Going through a poor time for intakes again. 

Zimbabwean Prince Tapera as the only elite talent. 

A few second nationalities, a really poor crop of personalities but we get a full Spanish national. 

[ToMexico!!]

June 2058

Champions League | League | African Super Cup | Gambian Cup

A torrid feeling season. We struggled for goals, for consistency, for fluidity, for fitness. 

A draw in the league stopped our winning run at 157 games. We lost in the semi-final of the Gambian Cup in sudden death penalties. We faced Kaizer Chiefs in the final of the ACL but without 11 first-choice players as they were called up to the Gambian squad for the 2058 World Cup. A 1-0  away win followed by a 0-0 saw the U21s win the ACL. 

Sarr is 37 now and contracted for two more years, I'll look to drop his game time down to league only from next season. He needs 18 goals for 1300 for us. 

[ToMexico!!]

I'm away on holiday now for a week, so that gives me time to think where to take this save next. I want to keep going but things feel a little stale at the moment. 

[Mr Jabay]

Enjoy your holiday! I am curious to see what you decide to do with the save:)

[ToMexico!!]

On 15/09/2023 at 16:13, Mr Jabay said:

Enjoy your holiday! I am curious to see what you decide to do with the save:)

Thanks, @Mr Jabay was a nice holiday! Great to get away around the Mediterranean. 

I played a bit yesterday, I think I'm just going to carry the save on as I was. A week off of it has freshened it up in my mind, starting a new save with FM24 not so far away wouldn't be as rewarding, I doubt I would carry the save over to the new game like they have said you can do. Fresh game, fresh save. 

[ToMexico!!]

Jan 2059

A couple of transfers from the summer. 

Manga wanted game time, off to Saudi he goes and it was a shame to lose Jawneh to Dusseldorf, the youngster kicked up a fuss in which the team leaders of the squad got involved. 

I also sold Albanian defender Tairi to PSV for a pittance. That means we tick off Albania on our foreign player list and can find a new one...the random country was Spain

So I had a look at Spanish players who wanted to join.

Malick Sibi was available for his release clause of £950k from Fuenlabrada. Being out of touch with the game I didn't even notice he was also Gambian and has since changed his allegiance to The Gambia over that of Spain. So this doesn't count in my eyes as a Spanish player. 

[ToMexico!!]

Jan 2059

The end of an era is nye. 

[ToMexico!!]

March 2059

We've changed our HoYD to newgen Jay Cain in recent months. Purely because he was Filipino. He's only on a National A license, so plenty of room to grow if he decides to take the courses. 

[Ace40]

How have you managed to get the TV money to be so high? I'm in 2050 in my build a nation Iraq save, and the TV money is only a 2Mil. Are you the highest reputation league in Africa? have you been so for a while? 

[ToMexico!!]

On 26/09/2023 at 17:07, Ace40 said:

How have you managed to get the TV money to be so high? I'm in 2050 in my build a nation Iraq save, and the TV money is only a 2Mil. Are you the highest reputation league in Africa? have you been so for a while? 

Hi @Ace40, I didn't do anything, it just triggered after about 20ish seasons, I think someone mentioned it was a bug that they had in their save too. 

We're top of the club reputation rankings in Africa, we're currently 2nd in the league reputation rankings but we were previously 1st and we're also 2nd in nation coefficients behind South Africa. 

[ToMexico!!]

On 26/09/2023 at 10:42, ToMexico!! said:

March 2059

We've changed our HoYD to newgen Jay Cain in recent months. Purely because he was Filipino. He's only on a National A license, so plenty of room to grow if he decides to take the courses. 

June 2059

This was not a good intake. 

[ToMexico!!]

June 2059

Champions League | League | African Super Cup | Gambian Cup

A 20th Champions League, our 37th league title and 31st Gambian Cup of the save. 

Final seasons at the club for the retiring Doudou Sarr, Lamin Carayol and Musa Savage. That's 1720 appearances, 1449 goals and 796 assists combined. Carayol and Savage were first and second choice LWB's. We don't really have a replacement at the club already so we will be delving into the market to find someone, maybe a left winger who we can retrain there. 

We sold a handful of clauses for around £12m this season plus the TV Money continues to increase. 

[ToMexico!!]

June 2059

A second new stadium. Delightful. Hopefully the Doudou Sarr Stadium.

[ToMexico!!]

October 2059

A few transfers in to try and flesh out the squad a bit after last season's retirees left. 

Cesar Navarro becomes the club's record signing and can cover the whole back line. He also ticks off the Spanish signing from our list. 

Nyang, Kunde and Sarr all arrive as bench players. 

One major loss from last season's team was our first choice GK Kemo Bajo who refused to sign a new contract and opted to leave on a free transfer. Toulouse stepped in a offered him a huge increase in wages to take him to France. 

It will be interesting to see how we fare this season without Bajo, Carayol, Savage and Sarr. 

[ToMexico!!]

April 2060

Edrissa Ceesay has come through at Valencia after his poaching from us back in 2058. He doesn't look a great option to potentially buy back just yet. 

[ToMexico!!]

Finally got power back having woken up to a power cut from 3am this morning. 

June 2060

Another season completed. 

Champions League | League | African Super Cup | Gambian Cup

Life after Sarr began and it felt like we struggled. But a Champions League win and 22 from 22 in the league were achieved. The biggest disappointment was losing to Wallidan in the 2nd Round of the Gambian Cup. 

Mediocre numbers in comparison to previous years but we feel at our weakest in probably a decade or more. Hopefully, if I can keep Sibi around he can take on the main goalscorer threat and achieve 50+ goals each season going forward now but he is wanted by the likes to Arsenal, Schalke, Wolfsburg and a few more big clubs. 

[ToMexico!!]

June 2060

To Mexico Park, why we are selling To Mexico Stadium I'm not sure, the reserves could have played there instead. Gives me another reason to complete at least two more seasons. 

[ToMexico!!]

July 2060

Early business. 

We lost Ceesay to Porto, he refused to sign a new contract and I would rather see him leave on a free transfer than get £500k for him as we don't need the money. 

I also released our Zambian goalkeeper Bulambwo, this allows us to choose another nation to buy a player from. 

I still need to sign a player from Liechtenstein but as you can imagine, they're hard to come by. As are players from the Dominican Republic by the looks of it. 

[ToMexico!!]

August 2060

Two more players have left before our own transfer window opens. Dambelleh had a decent scoring record for us but kicked up a fuss about leaving so we get £3m + 50% profit on any future deal. We also sell Spanish defender Cesar Navarro to Aston Villa for £8m + 50% profit. Instantly worth north of £50m and not at a top-top team so if he plays and moves on it could be for big money.

Selling Navarro means we tick off Spain from our random list and we get...

...as our new nation which gives me more hope than the Dominican Republic at least.  

[ToMexico!!]

November 2060

Three players arrive in Gambia. 

Musa Mansally is the direct replacement for Dambelleh who had left at the end of the last season to join Leverkusen. A decent scoring record for Malaga 'B' but that should go up a notch or two for us. We ticked off the Liechtenstein signing with Bugra Kilinc from Swiss side Lausanne, we undoubtedly overpaid for him but we'll get him playing at some point and move him on. We've also ticked off the Venezuelan signing, Tulio Duncan joining from Spanish side Girona for £150k, the 29-year-old can play at CB, RB and DM, we're paying huge wages for a squad player but it was necessary. 

 

[ToMexico!!]

I've really struggled with FM in the past 6 months, starting saves and not getting beyond four or five seasons so I've come back to this one, and updated it from FM23 to FM24. 

We resumed in 2060 but I have since played five more seasons and am at the end of the 2064/65 season. We have now won 26 African Champions League titles, 43 Gambian League titles, 34 Gambian Cup titles and the African Super Cup 21 times. We're up to 1762 games played with an 89% win rate, we are currently on a 471-game unbeaten run in the league which dates back to March 2044, so 21 years unbeaten in the league. 

We into our second new stadium moving from the To Mexico Stadium, which had a capacity of 11617, to the To Mexico Park, which holds 28155 spectators. We have £260m in the bank and maxed-out facilities. We're only allowed four foreign players in the squad so Gambian players are at the forefront which is great, we're continuously signing and flipping other African nationals to Europe or the Middle East. We've raked in £226m in transfers income whilst only spending £27m on players ourselves. 

I've been keeping track of the stats for players; red players have left the club or retired whilst green are current players. 

Doudou Sarr is back with the club as a youth coach with the view he will become my HoYD in the future once he's improved his attributes via coaching courses. I don't see his or Musa Darboe's goalscoring feats being beaten as we would need a first-team-ready striker straight from the intake which hasn't happened in a fair few seasons. 

We'll see how far we can get with the save for the rest of the FM24 cycle. I won't be doing seasonal updates, probably every five seasons just to keep track. 

[ToMexico!!]

Three more seasons completed since the last post as game-time has been more infrequent than usual. 

I added three more league wins (46 total), three more cup wins (37 total), and three more Champions League titles (29 total) to the tallies, although it felt more of a struggle. Goals scored has been down by 30 - 40 per season on our peak and we've conceded more than what I would have liked to especially in the ACL. We're currently 537 games unbeaten in the league. Our biggest win is 21-0 in the league which I hope to beat before the save is over. 

We eventually had to sell a striker who came through the academy to Sao Paulo for £13m which probably hampered the goal-scoring slightly even though we replaced him with a player who has scored 73 goals in the past two seasons. We seem to be the cyclical drop in quality of players coming through the youth intakes with just one 5* PA player in three seasons now despite having maxed out everything in this area, maybe another change of HoYD is needed. We did however have another player poached back in 2066 by Cadiz, he's come through there and is mediocre at best. 

33-year-old Julian Blot has just one year remaining on his contract. The French national has declined greatly in recent seasons, so I don't expect his totals to rise much next season. Muhammed Damballeh is our current goal-getter, but again, now in his 30s, he has a few more seasons in him and will likely reach the 550 to 600 mark before being replaced. Unfortunately, we don't have a replacement Gambian forward who will likely take over from him as of yet. 

We moved back to the To Mexico Stadium briefly whilst To Mexico Park was expanded by around 13,665 seats to over 41,000, the average attendance was already up to 39,553 last season with around 30k of those being season ticket holders. 

[ToMexico!!]

Three more seasons are done as we continue to win everything possible. 

• 49 Leauge Wins
• 40 Gambian Cup Wins
• 32 African Champions League Wins
• 25 African Super Cup Wins

We're now over 2000 career games as manager of this club and are still yet to lose 100 games. Our goal difference in these games is just shy of +9200. We're currently on a 603-game unbeaten run. 

We're in a tough patch producing players through the academy, again with just one first-team potential starter in the last three seasons, which has its knock-on effect. We either have to look at other Gambian clubs for players or wait and sign Gambian players from abroad when their expectations have lowered enough to join. With a limit of 4 foreign players in the squad, we have to juggle those types of signings to fill the voids left in the squad. Right back is a prime example at the minute, there seems to be a distinct lack of right-backs in the game world let alone Gambian ones, so we've had to sign the best available who was from Colombia but this now means three of our back four are foreign albeit our LWB does have Gambian second nationality but he wants to leave at the end of his contract next season. 

We've had another player poached, I look forward to seeing him come through at Espanyol. 

I've decided to alter the above to sorted on Goals/Assists per Game so now it shows the South African Tshepiso Brenner 3rd in the list and Nigerian Festus Yahaya 4th, not bad for players signed for £250k and £500k respectively. Muhammed Damballeh will reach 600 career goals for us next season which is fantastic. We actually sold Julien Blot in the 2068/69 season for just £50k but he wanted a new challenge, he played three games for them then retired completely from the game. I sold my right-back Morlaye Diallo for £12.5m rising to £17m to Frankfurt, we've struggled to replace him this season. 

Edited 23 hours ago by ToMexico!!