Gammonds

Season 2037/37 (Part 2) – Manchester City and Ivory Coast When I took over Man City in January we were 8th in the table, 7 points off of 4th place, 12 off of 2nd, and 22 from 1st. We were also still in the Europa League and FA Cup and my priority was very clearly to get us back into the Champion’s League for next season. The team I inherited was probably the most expensively assembled team in the league, and certainly the most lavishly paid. It was also full of aging veterans paid on reputation more than current ability and had underperformed to a remarkable degree over the past season and a half. The FA Cup was a prime example of this version of Man City’s lack of genuine competitiveness – we comfortably handled two lower league sides but offered nearly nothing in a limp defeat to Man Utd. Our league form improved but followed that same sort of trend. We were just about good enough against teams outside the competition for European spots, and often won those games by a comfortable margin. We were far worse against the top 4 teams – in my half season we didn’t manage better than a draw. At the end of the campaign, Man City were 5th, 5 points back from 4th, 14 from 2nd, and 27 from 1st. There was some improvement measured in terms of place in the table and points per game, but not enough. While we’d closed the gap to the top 4 ever so slightly, the gap to the top was even wider. Fortunately, there was the Europa League. As we approached the final run in it became clear to me that was our best path back to the CL. The knockout stages proved fairly comfortable as we didn’t face a really challenging team before the final. In the final, we needed extra time to beat Sevilla, which secured CL football for next season and ultimately saved Man City’s campaign. If we just look at the team’s recent form, Man City’s situation could be called a bit dire given their level of spending and expectations. That spending, however, has come from very deep pockets, and I plan on putting those pockets to good use this upcoming transfer window. The current wage budget is ~$520 million, and we’d be a bit over if we didn’t have most of a squad’s worth of prospects out on loan. The clear out of older players started last year, but wasn’t at all complete. I’ll shed at least $75 million of that payroll in retiring players plus a couple leaving on free transfers. The transfer budget is $280 million, so I’ve got plenty of ability to go buy players to spend that payroll on. My expectation is that I’ll go into the next season with a younger and fitter team ready to challenge for a couple of trophies. With the domestic season complete, my focus shifted to the Ivory Coast, where the World Cup would be the last action of my second stint with them. The squad I took to the tournament was very similar to the one which had won the AfCON 6 months prior – a couple of veteran players retired at the end of their club seasons, but those weren’t key members of the national team. I was a bit concerned with the draw – the US were on paper better than my side, and Germany I thought had the potential to be tricky. Group Stage: Second Round: Round of 16: Challenge Progress: 10/32

Season 37/38 – Tigres / Ivory Coast At the end of last season, I said I’d stay at Tigres and take a shot at the Mexican league if the right job elsewhere didn’t open up and I thought I had a decent chance at winning another trophy. Both of those conditions held, so I stayed. The biggest problem with Tigres’ squad was bloat – there were too many players, players who couldn’t be registered, and the payroll budget was pretty well committed. So, in the very short Mexican offseason and transfer window I set out to fix those things first. Terminating a loan and making a couple of decent sales solved the majority of the problem and replenished the transfer budget, but I didn’t end up bringing any additional players in. It left me with a slightly smaller squad than I thought ideal, but still a pretty good one. After last season’s results I thought CF America was a domestic monster and my Tigres side were second favorites at best. The media disagreed and predicted my Tigres team as near prohibitive favorites with CF America second. We were both wrong, at least in part. CF America faded massively from the previous season and lost in the First Preliminary round of the First Stage playoffs. My Tigres team was good but not great, but that was enough top the table without much drama. That put us directly into the Quarter Finals. We opened on the road and lost 3-2 in a game that could have easily gone any which way. We then managed to concede first at home then level that game four minutes later. Shortly after that midfielder Xavi Fernandez decided he’d had enough of the drama and scored a hat trick in the final 30 minutes to see us through on aggregate. That put us into the Semi Final against Toluca, where we were deserved winners in both legs. We were not however through with drama. We lost the first leg of the Final on the road to Atlas 1-0. We played poorly overall but still were a bit hard done by in terms of the result. 3 days later we played very well in the second leg, and won 2-0. That was the last thing worth achieving for me in Mexico, but December was also AfCON time for my Ivory Coast side. We all know national teams can be funny animals, and this version of Ivory Coast certainly was. On the more negative side both my goalkeepers and centerbacks were limited. All three of the GKs I called for AfCON played in European 2nd divisions. The technically best of them (Kone) really doesn’t like big matches. The second in terms of skill (Kouadio) does but is noticeably less skillful. I had a bit more success in qualifying with Kouadio and went into AfCON with him as my starter. Centerbacks? I had one genuinely good one who preferred to get forward out of a back 3 or back 5. I nearly always run a back 4 with CBs who generally stay home. Because one good CB cannot play 2 positions at once and rotation is essential, I found 3 other players who could at least act like CBs to bring in. Those were the best options in the player pool, and all were really backup quality for the team. On a more positive note, I had more good strikers than I could really use at once, an actual elite right winger leading a more than serviceable pool of wide attackers, and a solid and versatile pool of CMs. So, this edition of Ivory Coast played a 4-2-4 with an asymmetric midfield. I prefer to have my teams on the ball rather than off, and that’s even more true when the team is more than a bit soft at CB and GK. We’d win by having the ball a lot, scoring plenty (hopefully) and not conceding too many chances (pretty, pretty please). On to AfCON. Group Stage: Second Round: Quarter Final: Semi Final: Final: As for what’s next, I resigned at Tigres a day after winning the Opening Stage. 2 days before that, South Korean powerhouse Ulsan had fired their manager after a disappointing season. That’s exactly the kind of job I’ve been hoping to get for a shot at the Asian Champion’s League, so I applied there as soon as I left Tigres. Ulsan, however, were slow to act and first Man City then Liverpool came calling. Those are the kind of opportunities it’s difficult to say no to, so: I’ll also be staying with Ivory Coast for the World Cup in the summer. I don’t have high expectations there – in fact I think making it past the Group Stage is a passing grade, getting past the Second Round is a successful tournament, and anything else is a bonus. There’s also no other international jobs opening up between now and then, so I may as well take a shot and see what happens. Challenge Progress: 10/32

Season 2036/37 – Tigres and Ivory Coast 4 seasons, 3 MLS Cup wins, 2 NACC final losses and 1 US Cup win. That’s the sum total of my time with LA Galaxy. I’d become increasingly frustrated with that position, and last season’s US Cup win made it just a bit easier to move on. My actual tipping point was 2 fold – 2 of my best players effectively forced moves away and a third looked likely to, while a pair of very appealing Mexican jobs came open. I thought I’d done a decent job of papering over the defections but jumped ship anyway. Tigres were seriously underperforming domestically when I took over but with time to salvage results in the league’s Closing Stage. Crucially, they were also competing in the NACC. My first game with the team was in fact the second leg of the First Round where we dutifully saw off Jamaican side Portmore United. The second round had a bit of potential for awkwardness as we faced off against LA Galaxy barely a week after I’d left them high and dry. A 2-0 win at home followed by an uncertain 1-2 road loss were good enough to see us through on aggregate. Next up was Charlotte FC, where we opened on the road by going down 2 goals in the first 5 minutes, scored the next 4 between the 19th and 31st minutes, and went on to win 7-4. I’m not sure what happened there other than that the goalkeepers did not have good days, but the return leg 2 weeks later was much more sane as we won 1-0. We met Toronto FC in the semis, and won 4-0 at home before losing 0-1 on the road. Continuing the theme of playing MLS teams, that set up a final against NYCFC. At least some of the blame for Tigres’ poor domestic form must be laid on a failure to properly deal with squad registration rules. There were 3 more non-nation born players signed than could be registered, and at least 2 of them probably should have been regular starters. While those players helped me in the NACC, that’s pretty clearly not what they’d been signed for. Squad building issues aside, I was able to make a quick improvement to the team’s domestic form, and took Tigres from 10th to 4th in the Closing Stage table. That was sufficient to put us directly into the quarter finals We took care of business against San Luis and Santos Laguna to set up a Finals clash with CF America. We were a bit unfortunate in a 0-1 home loss, but followed that up with a 2-4 loss in the second leg. Internationally there’s not much to discuss – Ivory Coast remain on course to qualify for the next World Cup but my immediate focus there is on preparing for AFCON at the end of the year. Domestically I’ve a decision to two to make. Winning the Mexican league would be nice, but is not essential for the challenge and I think I’d like to jump to Asia next for the Asian CL. Before I resign at Tigres though I’m going to take a closer look at the state of the squad and how much flexibility I’ll have to improve it for next season. CF America strike me as a bit of a monster, but if the right job isn’t open and I think there’s a good shot at another trophy that counts I may spend one more year in Mexico. Challenge Progress: 8/32

Season 2036 – LA Galaxy / Ivory Coast At the end of last season I complained mightily about just how bad my goalkeeping department at LA Galaxy had been. In pursuit of fixing that problem, I got rid of all the goalkeepers in my senior squad and set out to get new ones. My new starter was a player I’d unsuccessfully targeted the previous year. He’d been looking for an exit from French 2nd tier side Metz, but not fully sold on what I had to offer. 6 months later and not exactly in high demand from Europe’s best leagues he was much more receptive to my offers. His deputy was a 17 year old prospect plucked from my academy, and their emergency cover was a warm body from the amateur draft. That part of the plan worked well enough – the new GK was the MLS keeper of the year, and his deputy performed acceptably in 5 senior appearances. My complaints about my team’s awful goalkeeping also masked the fact that last year’s recruitment had been all around poor. I’d brought in 3 players on paid transfers, and none of them lasted more than 18 months with the team. I’d also drafted 2 players in the amateur draft, but neither was good enough to keep for a second season. This year I did a bit better. Outside of the much-needed GK, I brought in 2 more defenders. The first was a wonderkid CB who had a relegation release clause in his contract. He was pricy, but entirely too good to pass up and turned into one of my most important players. The other was an attacking minded left back who wanted to grow into a starting role for me. By the end of the season he’d done exactly that. As you may assume from the above, I was rather pleased by the way the squad looked going into the campaign, and we started in rather strong form. Outside of a tough 2-legged tie against Chivas to open the NACC it was pretty smooth sailing for the first couple of months. After Chivas, NYCFC put up a fight in the NACC quarters, but Atlas did not, and we were in the NACC final for the second time in 3 years. Once again, we faced CF America. In the US Cup, we had a favorable draw to open in the Fourth Round, then were give quite the scare by San Jose in the Fifth. LAFC and Sporting KC did not equal San Jose’s performance, and we were in to my first US Cup final. Along the way, a gap in cup matches from early June to early August worked in my favor as that window derailed Galaxy’s league campaign just a bit. I had several players out for international tournaments, and more of an injury list that I was remotely happy about. The results there weren’t good and had a lot to do with us slipping a bit from last year’s league performance. We ended up with 68 points from 34 games, and 3rd in the Supporters’ Shield. I’d call that satisfactory but not good for this Galaxy team, but we still managed to defend the MLS Cup without much drama. Despite not needing anything from the US I’m still managing Galaxy as of mid-December in my save. I need the NACC, and despite repeated failures I keep convincing myself Galaxy has the best chance of getting it for me quickly. It might even be true – only one good Mexican team was looking for a manager recently, but they aren’t in the NACC for the upcoming spring. So, unless a stellar Asian opportunity or the right Mexican job opens up I’m taking another run at the NACC with Galaxy. I’d been without an international job for about a year going into the summer but expected some movement after the summer tournaments. There was, but Mexico, Brazil, and France (again) all rejected me. Ivory Coast however has not had success hanging on to a manager since I left them 5 seasons ago. I thought at the time they were about to slip in terms of quality, and while they have a bit, so have the rest of the African nations. I took over for a second time with Ivory Coast 17th ranked – best in Africa. There are gaps in the player pool, but it’s also a reasonable shot at AFCON in a window nothing else will be open. Winning 3 of 4 games in qualifying was enough to ensure our place, and I’ll have both the 2 remaining AFCON qualifiers and 6 World Cup qualifiers to experiment with before AFCON at the end of 2037. Challenge Progress: (7/32):

Thanks, glad you like them. The symbols are for player traits: + / - for likes / dislikes big games, * / % for consistent / inconsistent. It's an idea I took from someone else a while back, and have probably been overdoing it with them on this save, but it helps me keep those attribute straight without constantly diving 3 levels of menu deep.

Season 2035 – LA Galaxy / South Korea The first competitive matches on the calendar for the 2035 campaign were the Asian Nations Cup beginning in mid-January. The Korean player pool looked more than decent to me, we were just about favored to win the tournament, and the group stage draw was if anything friendly. So, off we went. Group Stage: Second Round: Quarter Final: Semi Final: Final: Back at LA Galaxy, I’d done all the cleanout I really had in mind over the previous summer window, so what I needed to address in January was bringing in the additions that I needed. Those were a CB, DM, and backup goalkeeper; all good enough for the league and with room to improve. My hope was that I’d be able to integrate those players quickly and get off to a strong start. Unfortunately, the playing staff, board and fans all suffered a bit of a hangover after last season’s disappointments. It took the board and fans several months to get out of their funk, and the players felt the effects even longer. The hangover effect showed up mostly in weaker than ideal player morale, and some spotty league form early on. In the NACC, we opened with a relatively tough draw against defending champion’s CF America. That was a nice bit of revenge as we beat them 3-2 and 3-1 to advance. Next up was Leon, where a road draw and home win got the job done. This took us to the Quarter Final against Tijuana. Losing on the road 2-0 was at least a bit harsh on us – we were the better team for much of the match, but conceding an early penalty did us no favors. We were absolutely dominant a week later at home, and the 2-0 scoreline flattered Tijuana more than a little. On to penalties we went – and lost in 13 rounds. In the US Cup, we saw off 2 fellow MLS sides before losing 1-0 to rivals LAFC. That left me in the first week of June with nothing left to play for I actually cared about. However, I need the NACC for the challenge, and another domestic cup certainly wouldn’t hurt. There were also no jobs open that had a better chance of winning either of those things, so I stayed at Galaxy. I was however keeping an eye out for an ideal opportunity, or a good option internationally as I was at this point somewhat of an absentee manager for South Korea. In the second half of June some major jobs opened up, and as the shuffle proceeded, the French manager moved to Bayern. I of course resigned my position with South Korea post-haste, but the French federation was equally quick to reject me. This version of Galaxy never felt like it reached its potential with any regularity for me. We would absolutely hammer a couple of teams, then slump to limp defeats. That was a bit frustrating, but ultimately didn’t matter in the fall. Last season 73 points in the regular season was enough to tie for the Supporters’ Shield, this year we won the Shield with 72 while 10 points clear of our closest challenger. Last season I learned that the playoffs first round in the MLS is 2 legs which actually means win 2, not win on aggregate. This year I was surprised to learn that win 2 means win 2, not win one draw one. I won the first leg comfortably, and was draw the second rather than win. Much to my surprise, that went straight to penalties. We won there, and proceeded to win the MLS Cup in solid if unspectacular fashion. With the benefit of hindsight, I did not get the squad building and balance quite right for this season. I bought 3 players and expected them all to succeed. Only 1 truly did. The DM I brought in met expectations. The CB is skilled enough but I’m overpaying him, and can’t quite trust him in the biggest matches so will probably look to move him on after only a year. Then there’s the GK. That’s been a bit of a problem position for this team so far, and must get fixed. The player who’s been first choice my entire time with Galaxy is above average for the league but has been prone to vanish in the occasional game – and did it in a couple of really important ones the previous season. His runs of bad form got to the point I benched him twice this season, but had to come back to him both times. He’s also leaving in the winter window – he wants star player money and wasn’t likely to be happy as a backup. The GK I brought in is, on (virtual) paper, a fair player for the league with potential to outgrow his competition. He plays like a traffic cone. Said new GK started 4 out of 5 playoff matches after an injury to the one who’s leaving. Outside of the penalty shootout mentioned above, said new GK made exactly zero saves. He’s a traffic cone in a jersey, and must be replaced. So, if it wasn’t clear the priority for my offseason with Galaxy is to find a GK with hands, who knows how to use them. After that, there’s a couple of other positions where the squad is aging a bit and could do with fresh blood. Then it’s off to another run at the NACC and US Cup. I’d hoped for some international turnover, but nothing came out of the Gold Cup so it looks like I’ll be waiting a bit longer on that front. Challenge Progress: 6/32

Season 2034 – LA Galaxy / Uruguay At the end of last season, my backroom staff thought Galaxy had the best squad in both the MLS and the NACC. I generally agreed but thought there was a need to improve the squad’s depth a bit and expected some turnover among my important players. I think it was goonergez who noted recently in this thread that you shouldn’t expect to get great players in the MLS draft, at least outside the first few picks. I’ll agree with that but note there is room to get backups and prospects on cap friendly contracts, which is pretty important. I had the 6th overall pick, which netted me a quite decent AM(C) with a very high ceiling. My picks in the later rounds were all backups at best – 2 defenders and a 3rd choice GK. Still, all the outfield players made their competitive debuts for me within the season’s first month. I also brought in a versatile attacker and a CM from second division European sides – England and Italy respectively – both of whom ended up being rather important for me. Between that and managing to hold on to all of my real quality players through the winter European window I started the MLS campaign quite confident. Having won the MLS Cup last year, and with the Supporters’ Shield of no real importance, I focused my efforts on the NACC and US Cup. Our path through the NACC’s knockout rounds was relatively smooth. Seattle put up a bit of a fight, but none of the teams we faced on the way to the final looked likely to handle Galaxy over two legs. The final matched us against Mexican side CF America, winners of 2 of the 3 previous editions. Exactly a week later, we opened our US Cup campaign against USSL side Tampa Bay Rowdies – one would think that should be an easy win. It would be fair to call those 8 days in early May disastrous from my point of view. At that point, I decided one of two things would happen – either I’d find a job with a top Mexican side and chase the NACC from there, or I would perform far more radical surgery on my Galaxy side who still really are about the best team in North America. Despite my frustrations with the cups, Galaxy were still doing quite well in the league – comfortably first in the MLS Western Conference, and level on points with a game in hand in the Supporters’ Shield. This brought us to the summer, and the World Cup, but no mid-season break in the MLS. World Cup (Uruguay) The side I took into the World Cup wasn’t quite the one that had qualified. A handful of veteran players had decided to retire, and while most of them were still planning to play in the cup 2 suffered serious injuries that ruled them out of the tournament. Fortunately, a couple of younger players had established themselves at good clubs, and I trusted them to make a positive impact. We didn’t look particularly sharp in the 2 friendlies we played as warmups, but I also wasn’t too worried about that. Our group wasn’t a pushover but looked pretty easy to get out of. We still managed not to open well. Playing Saudi Arabia, who were the weakest team in the group, we failed to put the game away like we should have and conceded a late equalizer to slump to a draw. We were a bit better securing a 1-0 win over Costa Rica, which set up a clash with Norway to determine the group winner. That ended in a scoreless draw which suited both teams well enough, and while I was satisfied to be through to the knockouts our form was a bit concerning. Second Round – Ecuador vs Uruguay We started the match looking fairly strong and seemed in control of proceedings. After a couple of decent half-chances in the first 15 minutes, we trailed off a bit and didn’t generate much going forward. Ecuador had their only real decent chance early in the second half off a poorly cleared corner but weren’t able to convert. We found our breakthrough late from a well-placed cross delivered from the right corner flag into the 6 yard box. I thought we were in a bit more control than the scoreline indicated, but we’re going to need to generate a bit more offense if we’re to make a deep run. Ro 16 -Uruguay vs Spain Spain started the match on the front foot, generating a couple of decent chances in the first 10 minutes. My Uruguay side had more of the ball, especially early, but it was sterile possession that wasn’t generating chances. Spain got their breakthrough shortly before the half, and we went into the break down 0-1. I made one change at the half hoping to enliven the attack, and 2 more shortly after 60’. It didn’t help as Spain went on to score 2 more and send us crashing out of the World Cup. While I found the results a bit disappointing, the federation was content. The manner of the loss wasn't great, but getting to the round of 16 at least met their expectations. I hoped the coaching carousel would spin quickly at the end of the World Cup. It did, at least on the international level. I waited a day after the mass firings, then resigned from Uruguay to apply for different international jobs. South Korea was my first choice, not because they’re the best team but because they’re well postured for an Asian Cup in the near term. They were relatively quick to give me the job. There wasn’t any movement at the top North American clubs, really the Mexican ones, that would have attracted my interest, so by late summer I had already accepted I’d stay with Galaxy for another run at the cups I need. The MLS continued during the World Cup, and by the time my Uruguay side had gone home, Galaxy were well in control of the league table. My roster churn also started in early July as I finally agreed a sale for a wantaway wonderkid midfielder. He was followed out the door near the end of the summer window by two of my most senior and expensive players. Both remained quite good, but were also the two player’s I’d need to shift to make major improvements. I didn’t try to sell them but was more than happy to negotiate reasonable transfers in response to offers they were interested in. Getting the right players to join was a bit harder. I had a couple of transfers fall through when players (or agents really) got stubborn about silly contract demands, typically expecting a Designated Player contract despite a salary ask that would work well as a Senior contract. The joys of managing in the MLS I suppose. I ultimately only brought in one paid transfer to replace the 3 outbounds – this wonderkid from the Scottish leagues: Three starting quality players out and 1 in left me a tiny bit short on depth, but I wasn’t very concerned about that as the last few months of the season were much less busy than the first half. I also do like to worry about squad depth, and signing a CB prospect out of my academy made me feel a bit better. Galaxy continued their generally strong form across the fall. We won the Leagues Cup in a run that included a win on penalties, a 5-1 win, and winning the final 1-0 in extra time. Unfortunately, we slipped a bit at the very end of the regular season and missed the Supporters’ Shield on a tiebreaker after losing 2 of our last 3 matches. That rough patch continued into the MLS playoffs, and we were lucky to make it out of the first round after this nightmare in the second leg: Fortunately, the MLS doesn’t treat aggregate scoreline as the decider. That round is actually a best of 3 series, with only the first 2 matches actually scheduled unless a 3rd is needed. It’s a very odd system in my view, but it’s also the one that got Galaxy to advance. Unfortunately, we failed to put away a very winnable game against Seattle in the Western Conference semis and lost in a penalty shootout that took 10 rounds to decide. That marked a poor end to an overall disappointing campaign. It was in fact bad enough that my position with the team was under a bit of threat – the board summoned me to a meeting to discuss why we’d failed to meet expectations by not winning the league. The good news from my perspective is that I should have plenty of flexibility in attempting to strengthen an already solid squad. My scouts also claim several potential targets I’ve been monitoring are amenable to joining over the winter, so we’ll see how that works out. My next season will begin with South Korea in the Asian Nations Cup in January, which really should be a good chance at my first international trophy. Challenge Progress: (5/32)

I thought I posted this a while ago, but it seems to have been sitting in the forum composer for a while, so this one's a bit late and will be followed directly by another update. Season 2033 – LA Galaxy / Uruguay While I waited for the right club opening over the winter, I received a few offers for interviews without expressing any interest in the positions. A couple of international teams similar in stature to my Uruguay team offered me jobs, but as they seemed to have an even harder path to a major trophy I declined. On the club front there were also some interesting openings that didn’t fit my target for the time being. Most notably to me, INT, my tormentor of the past 2 seasons, offered me an interview in March, right before the start of the Brazilian league season. They were still favored to win pretty much everything in Brazil, but I have no real appetite for another of those long seasons and would feel a least a couple of seconds of guilt for moving so swiftly to a former rival. The club opportunity I’d been looking for came in April when the LA Galaxy fired their head coach after a weak start to the MLS season. They were 9th in the conference when I took over, in the last playoff spot and unfortunately already out of the NACL. They’re also among the richest teams in the league and have what should be a better than decent squad. On taking over, my agreed goal with the board was to get the team into the playoffs at a minimum. My external view of the squad was promising. When I took over and got into details from the inside, things were less than ideal. The first team lacked mental strength – several key players are inconsistent or don’t handle pressure well. There was also a lack of quality depth, or really much depth at all, that wasn’t apparent from the outside. Those are normally the sort of problems money can solve, but while I had plenty of actual money available, my funny money (cap space and tools) were much more limited. I did take a shot at one of my former SEP defenders for a bit over $20 million, which is a ton of money in the MLS. He ended up turning down the contract I offered him in favor of a 2. Bundesliga side. I ended up only bringing in 3 new players by the end of the summer window – a good CB as third choice with room to improve, a back GK, and a winger I pulled out of my academy. So, the squad I inherited was pretty much what I played the season with. Fortunately for me, it was just about as good as predicted. We weren’t great in the cups as we made midpoint – ish exits in both the US Cup and Leagues Cup. The former was a minor disappointment at worst, the latter was a nice break for some needed rest. Once the team adapted to my system and got out of their tired rut, we did quite well in league. From 9th when I took over, we climbed to 2nd in the Western Conference and Supporter’s Shield by the end of the season. I found it noteworthy that there were no truly outstanding teams – RSL won the Shield with 66 points from 34 games. Our run through the Western Conference playoffs started very well before becoming increasingly nerve wracking. We thumped San Jose across 2 legs. In the semis we opened up a 3 goal lead to Seattle, let them back in the game with goals on either side of the half, and made it look a bit better with one more goal to win 4-2. We played the same way against Salt Lake in the Western Conference Finals – a 2 goal lead in the first 16 minutes, conceded one to make it a game, then conceded a very late equalizer. After a quiet bit of extra time, we won the penalty shootout to get to the cup final. The cardiac kids came out one more time in the final. Red Bulls were up 2-0 in the first 30 minutes, but we clawed our way back into the game in the second half with a goal in the 57th minute. An 82nd minute equalizer was followed by an 89th minute winner, and LA Galaxy won the MLS Cup. I’m obviously staying with Galaxy next year and chasing the domestic and North American cups. 2 long-serving players with just over 500 appearances for the club will be on the way out over the offseason. Both are highly paid, well past their best, and suffered season ending injuries in the fall. The more noteworthy is the club’s icon, a 34 year old Riqui Puig who can at least leave with credit for his first ever MLS Cup win in his final season. Those 2 will open up quite a bit of budget (real and funny money) space, and an all-important Designated Player spot. About half a dozen of my other players have been attracting a bit of interest, and I expect to sell 1 or 2 of them out of the MLS. I could offload as many as 4 I think before I run into trouble replacing them, but am not planning that much of an overhaul. I will be looking for a few depth options in the drafts coming up regardless. Internationally, Uruguay met expectations by qualifying for the World Cup, now about 6 months out in my save. We finished 4th, which is neither great nor terrible, but also qualified with plenty of room to spare. Most importantly from my perspective I think we’ve demonstrated our ability to compete with the best teams in the world. Brazil is ranked 1st, Argentina 4th, and we collected 2 draws against the former and a win and a loss against the latter over the past 18 months. My current tentative player pool is almost 30 deep as I’ve got some choices to make between a few senior players on their last legs and youngsters on the cusp of their breakout. Challenge Progress: (5/32)

Season 2033 – LA Galaxy / Uruguay While I waited for the right club opening over the winter, I received a few offers for interviews without expressing any interest in the positions. A couple of international teams similar in stature to my Uruguay team offered me jobs, but as they seemed to have an even harder path to a major trophy I declined. On the club front there were also some interesting openings that didn’t fit my target for the time being. Most notably to me, INT, my tormentor of the past 2 seasons, offered me an interview in March, right before the start of the Brazilian league season. They were still favored to win pretty much everything in Brazil, but I have no real appetite for another of those long seasons and would feel a least a couple of seconds of guilt for moving so swiftly to a former rival. The club opportunity I’d been looking for came in April when the LA Galaxy fired their head coach after a weak start to the MLS season. They were 9th in the conference when I took over, in the last playoff spot and unfortunately already out of the NACL. They’re also among the richest teams in the league and have what should be a better than decent squad. On taking over, my agreed goal with the board was to get the team into the playoffs at a minimum. My external view of the squad was promising. When I took over and got into details from the inside, things were less than ideal. The first team lacked mental strength – several key players are inconsistent or don’t handle pressure well. There was also a lack of quality depth, or really much depth at all, that wasn’t apparent from the outside. Those are normally the sort of problems money can solve, but while I had plenty of actual money available, my funny money (cap space and tools) were much more limited. I did take a shot at one of my former SEP defenders for a bit over $20 million, which is a ton of money in the MLS. He ended up turning down the contract I offered him in favor of a 2. Bundesliga side. I ended up only bringing in 3 new players by the end of the summer window – a good CB as third choice with room to improve, a back GK, and a winger I pulled out of my academy. So, the squad I inherited was pretty much what I played the season with. Fortunately for me, it was just about as good as predicted. We weren’t great in the cups as we made midpoint – ish exits in both the US Cup and Leagues Cup. The former was a minor disappointment at worst, the latter was a nice break for some needed rest. Once the team adapted to my system and got out of their tired rut, we did quite well in league. From 9th when I took over, we climbed to 2nd in the Western Conference and Supporter’s Shield by the end of the season. I found it noteworthy that there were no truly outstanding teams – RSL won the Shield with 66 points from 34 games. Our run through the Western Conference playoffs started very well before becoming increasingly nerve wracking. We thumped San Jose across 2 legs. In the semis we opened up a 3 goal lead to Seattle, let them back in the game with goals on either side of the half, and made it look a bit better with one more goal to win 4-2. We played the same way against Salt Lake in the Western Conference Finals – a 2 goal lead in the first 16 minutes, conceded one to make it a game, then conceded a very late equalizer. After a quiet bit of extra time, we won the penalty shootout to get to the cup final. The cardiac kids came out one more time in the final. Red Bulls were up 2-0 in the first 30 minutes, but we clawed our way back into the game in the second half with a goal in the 57th minute. An 82nd minute equalizer was followed by an 89th minute winner, and LA Galaxy won the MLS Cup. I’m obviously staying with Galaxy next year and chasing the domestic and North American cups. 2 long-serving players with just over 500 appearances for the club will be on the way out over the offseason. Both are highly paid, well past their best, and suffered season ending injuries in the fall. The more noteworthy is the club’s icon, a 34 year old Riqui Puig who can at least leave with credit for his first ever MLS Cup win in his final season. Those 2 will open up quite a bit of budget (real and funny money) space, and an all-important Designated Player spot. About half a dozen of my other players have been attracting a bit of interest, and I expect to sell 1 or 2 of them out of the MLS. I could offload as many as 4 I think before I run into trouble replacing them, but am not planning that much of an overhaul. I will be looking for a few depth options in the drafts coming up regardless. Internationally, Uruguay met expectations by qualifying for the World Cup, now about 6 months out in my save. We finished 4th, which is neither great nor terrible, but also qualified with plenty of room to spare. Most importantly from my perspective I think we’ve demonstrated our ability to compete with the best teams in the world. Brazil is ranked 1st, Argentina 4th, and we collected 2 draws against the former and a win and a loss against the latter over the past 18 months. My current tentative player pool is almost 30 deep as I’ve got some choices to make between a few senior players on their last legs and youngsters on the cusp of their breakout. Challenge Progress: (5/32)

Season 2032 – SEP / Uruguay I ended up staying at SEP for one more season to take another shot at the league and domestic cup. We’d finished 2nd in Brazil and the Libertadores, had on paper one of the best squads in the division, and I thought we had room to improve on last year’s performance just a bit and that should be more than enough to win us the league at least. Here’s the end of season results: As you can see, things did not go to plan. For a second consecutive year, we crashed out of the Brazilian Cup early. I can blame a less than favorable draw – it’s unfortunate to have to open against one of the better teams in the competition rather than a patsy, but you’ve got to win those games eventually. Not only did we not, we were embarrassingly thumped in the second leg. Our league results were in fact better than last year’s – team records for both wins and points. INT improved even more. It was still in our hands to win, but we didn’t pull it off. Going into matchday 37, we were tied on points and held the tiebreaker – number of wins. All we had to do was win our 2 remaining matches against bottom half teams. We failed miserably to do so. The Libertadores final was the cherry on top of this unfortunate sundae. Our opponent was my least favorite Brazilian rival INT, who beat us 5-1. Despite all this, the fans were still mostly happy with me, and the board really wanted to keep me. I turned down 3 offers to extend my (expiring) contract during the year, and resigned after the Libertadores final. To sum up my time in Brazil, I could have left after 6 months and a wonderful Libertadores win to largely the same effect. I haven’t won a meaningful trophy in the 2 years since. I still don’t feel like staying was necessarily the *wrong* decision, but it certainly didn’t work as I’d hoped. On the international front, a decent chunk of jobs came open after the summer international window. The most notable was France, 2nd in the world in this little alternate universe. They were not interested in me, but my second choice, Uruguay, was. They’d just finished 3rd in the Copa America, and while clearly not the best of the South American teams are quite decent – ranked 10th or 11th in the world, depending on the month. We were 6th in SA World Cup qualifying when I took over, and 3 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss were sufficient to take us to 5th with both a bit of a cushion and room to improve a bit more. Getting into the World Cup should be no issue, but winning anything here might be a bit of a challenge. Domestically, I think I’m at a point where I can afford to be a bit picky about my next job. My preference is to head to North America or Asia to chase those continental cups, but we’ll see. I’m not aiming to start my run through the European big 5 yet but won’t rule a trip that way out either. Challenge Progress: (4/32)

Season 2031 – SEP / Ivory Coast Well, this one did not go to plan. At the end of last year, I had thought SEP was a good goalkeeper and a few squad tweaks away from a good shot at the Brazilian league title. So, in January I bought a young Argentine keeper who ended up emerging as his national team’s backup keeper over the course of the year. A CB and RB from a relegated Brazilian team provided needed rotation options on the back line. Last year’s backup keeper ended up staying even though I wasn’t a fan at all – I just didn’t have another solid backup option handy and wasn’t interested in paying a transfer fee for one when I had several prospects coming through the youth ranks that looked to be maybe a year away from ready. I did eventually unload him midseason after he complained about his playing time despite being a backup (not cup GK) with 10 or so appearances already. I brought in one more player as the transfer window closed to start the season in April – a very physical striker who works well as a rotation option and change of pace from my far more technical first choice. All 4 of the new arrivals worked as intended over the course of the year. The (pre) season started well enough. We coasted through the extended preseason tournament that is the Brazilian state championships and won the South American Recopa to start our season with 2 (largely irrelevant) trophies. As a bit of an aside, my best CB took a shine to an offer from England, and decided he wanted to leave because they could offer him a better chance at trophies. Last year’s Libertadores win apparently didn’t move the needle for him, but a promise to win a domestic cup did – and the Sao Paulo State Championship satisfied him. Go figure. Last season I thought SEP would live and die by how well the midfield ticked, and still think this season bore that out. I lost my best DM to a series of injuries as the actual regular season began, and that hurt more than I had expected. April and May looked alright as we beat up on mostly second-rate opponents, but the warning signs were there in a couple of less than stellar results in the league and a very frustrating 4th round exit from the Brazilian Cup to last season’s arch nemesis, INT. That’s the first of the trophies I was looking for this season missed. The wheels pretty nearly came off in June with 2 wins, 2 losses, and 4 draws in the league. Only 2 losses isn’t bad if you’re looking for mid to upper table, but only 2 wins doesn’t cut it at all if you have ambitions of actually winning the thing. By the end of the month we’d slid towards mid-table, but fortunately still had a couple of games in hand. A couple of things worked in my favor at the start of July – we got that critically important DM back from injury, and the midseason transfer window opened. In came an Argentine LB late of Arsenal on a free, and far more importantly an Argentine CM wonderkid with a very affordable release clause from Newell’s. I bought him because the opportunity was too good to pass up but thought I might have trouble making my 2 attack-minded #8’s work well in a stable midfield, but it went wonderfully. Corner turned, we went on an absolutely stellar run – 18 wins and a draw across July – September. As this happened it still looked like INT were favorites to defend their league title. When we met them in August we had the opportunity to seize control from them, and did in a narrow and rather fortunate 4-3 win. INT never looked likely to really challenge after that point. What I hadn’t quite picked up on at the time was how badly they were hurt in the midseason transfer window – they had 3 of the 4 highest value outbound transfers in the window, and financial firepower notwithstanding don’t seem to have been able to replace those players adequately. VDG on the other hand did quite well in the later portion of the campaign, and when we met them in October looked to be the only real challenger left for the title. A win for us would have left us with a nearly unassailable advantage. We lost, and our lead was 2 points with 6 matches to play. We can hold that, right? We dropped a total of 4 points in those 6 matches – a loss where the only goal scored was an opposition penalty, and this disasterclass of a draw: My first choice GK was away in international duty with Argentina. That’s youth team backups (both very good prospects, mostly able to deputize at this level) getting injured 4 minutes apart, and the all important goal as the last action of the match from a free kick while an attacking midfielder looks like a training dummy with gloves on. We finished the season with 83 points, enough for the league title 8 of the last 10 seasons if I’m not mistaken. VDG had 86. The absolute cherry on top of this domestic season? Losing the Libertadores final on penalties a week after the end of the league season to none other than VDG. The season's overall results: At least there’s a promising opportunity with Ivory Coast in AfCON right? 2 World Cup qualifiers a week before the tournament made for a decent tune-up for a side favored to win. 3 wins from 3 in the group stage was no less than expected – Cape Verde and Sierra Leone were not meaningful opposition, and Tunisia didn’t fare all that well either. Benin fell 9-2 in the second round, and the 2 conceded were poor enough to prompt me to change GKs. In hindsight, that probably didn’t hurt, but it didn’t help either. We limped to an embarrassing 1-0 defeat against Mali in the quarters, which was really not good enough at all. I resigned the Ivory Coast job as soon as I did the post match press conference. Even if I’d been able to hold on, that’s a team that was in win now mode and will need a serious rebuild in the near future as the golden generation ages out. I’ve stayed on at SEP as of mid-December in game, but am not sure what I want to do there. On the one hand, it’s still a very good team and just put on a performance that would have won the league most years. I’ll probably need a refresh on the wings for the next season, but shouldn’t be losing too many key players. On the other hand, a 16-ish game preseason tournament that isn’t and a league that doesn’t take the international breaks makes for a hell of a grind and it might be a good idea to bounce. Progress: (4/32)

Season 2030 – SEP and Ivory Coast A Wild Ride, and Fickle Fans I wasn’t out of work long after resigning from SuperSport. Brazilian side SEP were expected to finish in the top 3 domestically but were languishing in the mid-table muddle over the summer. This prompted a change of manager, so here we go: The board expected qualification for the Copa Libertadores, so a top 4 finish preferably, but as low as 7th should actually work. Despite being in the middle of the pack (11th of 20) when I took over, we were within 10 points of the top, and more like 6 from the top 4. With much of the season left, a top 4 finish looked very achievable. We were also still in the Libertadores, so that one’s something of a free hit. I also hoped to get my first international job over the summer in the post-World Cup turnover. The US fired their manager after an early exit but wouldn’t give me an interview, and instead opted for a current MLS manager. The Ivory Coast however does not seem to be able to hold on to a manager - they’d turned me down last time they were looking maybe 7 months ago. This time I’m the lucky winner, and now have 2 jobs. My quick first look at the player pool reveals an aging but still very strong core that should have no trouble in AFCON qualifying this year and if it holds together should have a decent shot at that trophy next year. First, the Ivory Coast. We played 4 matches in AFCON qualifying, won 3 and lost the 4th. That leaves us 2nd in the group on a tiebreaker, almost certain to qualify and with a fair shot at winning the group outright. We’ll play the final 2 qualifying matches at some yet to be determined time next year, and the AFCON itself is at the end of the calendar year. As I got to know my SEP squad, I realized the team would live and die mostly on the performances of an extremely talented young core of midfielders along with 2 attackers whose output effectively determined my offense’s end product. Along the way, I had to hope whichever of my bad options was in goal wouldn’t make a total hash of things. My initial run of matches went well enough, and we climbed into contention for the play in stages of next year’s Libertadores. We missed an opportunity to capitalize on our improvement with a series of underperformances leading to draws in August, and a bad run in late September and early October threatened our position in the Libertadores spots, and had some fans calling for my head. Meanwhile, we were still competing in this year’s edition of the Libertadores. The Second Round gave us a very favorable matchup against San Lorenzo, who we beat 11-1 on aggregate. That lead to River Plate in the Quarter Final, who were every bit as challenging as they looked. We came away 5-3 winners on the back of a 3-3 road draw and 2-0 home win and could count ourselves fortunate in both matches. If River Plate had been tough I assume Boca Juniors would be the same in the Semi Finals. They were not, and 9-0 across the 2 legs set up a tie with fellow Brazilian side VDG in the final. That Libertadores Semi Final first leg kicked off the run of form we needed to fix ourselves in the league. 6 wins and a draw in the final 7 matches took us from 8th to 3rd, and quieted most of the unwelcome noise around both the side and my job. 6 days later we played VDG in the Libertadores Final: Those fans are a fickle bunch indeed: While I could move on from South America with the Libertadores safely in hand, I intend to stay and chase the domestic league and cup next season for a couple of reasons. First, I’m already in charge of a good team, and now have a full offseason and at least a bit of scouting knowledge to shape it into what I want. It strikes me as a bad gamble to leave when I’m still in need of plenty of leagues and cups for the challenge. Second, my manager is developing a bit of a reputation for job hopping, and my early career decision to interview for a whole bunch of jobs while already employed is still following me. My standing is strong enough to handle it I think, but no reason to make things harder than needed. In terms of next year’s rebuild, one of my goaltenders and a few role players are leaving on frees, and I’ve already agreed a sale for one of my young and excellent midfielders. My other goaltender will be sold as soon as I find someone capable of starting there for me – he just doesn’t know it yet. I also expect to lose a first choice centerback who wants to leave, and at least one more midfielder is almost certain to attract a lot of attention. Fortunately, I have decent to good prospects coming along from the youth ranks in all of those positions (and others) and a transfer war chest to dig into. Challenge Progress: 4/32 Table: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's to you all.

Season 29/30 – SuperSport United SuperSport’s summer transfer window was every bit the adventure I expected it to be. To start things off, I let a handful of senior players go on free transfers. (Oddly, some of those don’t show up on my transfer history – looks like only the ones who had a contract agreed before they actually left). Those were my planned departures, hadn’t played much, and were mostly taking up minutes I could hand to youngsters off the bench. Between July and September I lost 4 starters (2 of my front 4) in the transfer market, none of whom I wanted to unload. I was a bit fortunate to hold on to 3 others under a fair bit of pressure and am a bit surprised no one made a run at my striker. The first 2 outbounds weren’t a surprise and had direct replacements from my transfer list. The rest of the player sales would have to be filled by some development from within my youth ranks. We opened the season strong – so strong we were perfect through the end of October. At that point we’d won the Super 8 and breezed through the initial stages of the Champions League while only playing 5 domestic league matches due to our scheduling logjam. In November we lost to Orlando Pirates in the SA KO Cup quarters – mildly disappointing to the board, but an ultimately irrelevant competition to us this year. At the start of the January transfer window, we were leading our CL group and nominally 6th domestically – but unbeaten and with 5 games in hand to close a 6-point gap. It was a pretty comfortable position, but with the concern that we’d have the busiest schedule of any of our competitors through the spring while also losing some key starters to the CHAN from mid-January to early February. The transfer window itself was pleasantly quiet. I brought in a new right back from Cape Town City who should be the last piece of a dominant defense long after I’m out of this job. Outside of that, I only had to fend off half-hearted attempts at some of my depth options and prospects, no overseas teams made a run at any of my best players. Ok, by some key starters out at CHAN, I mean 6 of my first 11 and a squad player. We were also scheduled twice a week, all domestic league matches, through the second week of February. My players out at CHAN would make it back just in time for the resumption of the Champions League group stage if South Africa went all the way. The schedule wasn’t any less intense from that point forward – the resumption of Champions League play and the SA Cup kept us playing twice a week through the first week of March. That run was a challenge for my players’ fitness and my ability to rotate them, but by mid-February it was obvious we would win the league barring a catastrophic collapse. No such collapse was in the offing, and we mathematically secured the title in early April while we had 6 league matches left to play – our closest opponent was down to 2. We won our Champions League group with minimal fuss and were drawn against AmaZulu in the quarters. They are a traditionally good side and had finished a very credible 2nd domestically last year. This year they were a decidedly mediocre mid-table team, and the 5-0 aggregate result reflected that. In the semis things were a bit sportier as we faced last year’s runners up, ES Tunis. We won both legs, but not comfortably as the scoreline flattered us a bit away, and at home we put in arguably our worst defensive performance of the year. The final saw us face defending champions ES Sahel. Opening away, we were a bit unlucky in a goalless draw. A week later at home we scored 3 goals in the first 30 minutes in route to a 4-0 victory where our opponents had 0 shots on target. I generally won’t spend much time talking about individual players in my end of season reports, but I there’s one I find particularly noteworthy from my time in South Africa. Vuyo Mazibuko is a homegrown player who had just broken into the first team when I took over SuperSport. This is him at the end of the most recent season: Middling heading stats or not, his physicality had made him quite the threat in the air when there’s a decent crosser opposite him. He’s also technically and physically just very good for South Africa, and probably more than good enough for a much better league. He’s been interested in moving to Europe for the past 18 months, and I’ve been luck to hold him this long. That $2.4 million asking price is his suggestion from the previous summer window when West Ham lowballed an offer pretty badly and wouldn’t match the $1.2 million a Belgian team he wasn’t interested was offering. Wanting to leave or not, he was my leading scorer across all competitions this year, joint-4th for assists, and probably the single most important reason we were so successful this year. Depending on where I land next, I may just try to bring him along. The team's scoring and his individual stats: The end of season competition results: The Super 8 win was a nice bonus early on and we retained the league and FA Cup, the league in a rather dominant fashion. The African Champion’s League win was the important thing for me and completes the challenge requirements at the club level in Africa. I tried to double dip and get the Ivory Coast job mid-season but was not successful. I’m waiting a few days or weeks to resign to see what jobs open up and if I have any better luck job hopping while employed this time. I’m also weeks at most away from finishing my Continental A license and think that might be a good thing to have before applying for more jobs. There’s a World Cup this summer, which I also expect to open up some good international opportunities. Club wise I have no strong preference for where I go but am not leaning toward heading to Europe quite yet. Challenge Progress: 3/32

Season 28/29 – The Kids Are All Right My predecessor at SuperSport had been fired for not meeting the board’s expectations – 6th place in the league was not good enough. The board expected me to take us to at least 4th, the media predictions were similar, and my assessment of the squad led me to believe we could very likely do a bit better. I hoped to take us into the African Champion’s League for the next season. As I implied, the squad was good, perhaps very good. If anything, it was maybe a bit bloated, although conversely missing just a bit of quality depth. I had enough payroll space for one or two good signings, a transfer budget I didn’t expect to spend much of, and my secret weapon – SuperSport’s absolutely stacked academy and reserve squads. There were a couple of recent academy products who were already important players for me before the age of 20, and a couple more primed to break through. Over the course of the offseason I let a couple of rotational quality players go on free transfers, and sold one very talented young AMC who had his head turned by a Portuguese team. I didn’t want to lose him, but had plenty of depth in the role. There was also one young D(L, C) who got excited about an offer but I managed to hold on to him for the time being and had hopes of convincing him to stay in the longer term. I brought in two players – a good center back on a free to give me options in defense, and a young attacker I planned to use as my backup striker for about $38k. He started the season as my starting striker. My absolute priority for the season was the league, so I planned to prioritize that over any of the cups. We opened the season with 2 league matches and the Super 8 quarterfinals in a span of 8 days. The squad hadn’t reached peak match fitness in the preseason, so winning the first 2 matches in the league left my first-choice players a bit tired. I rotated heavily for the Super 8 and lost to Cape Town Spurs in extra time. That defeat was a bit of an outlier. At the midpoint of the regular season in early November we had 13 wins, 2 draws, and were 8 points clear of 2nd. The academy graduates were also doing quite well. My left winger who had just broken into the team when I took over was quickly turning into one of the league’s star players, and a right winger and a midfielder from the recent academy classes had established themselves as regular starters. I needed to get the same kind of results with my defenders. There were 4 in the U21/U19’s who were nearly ready, and with a bit of luck will be my depth options for the next season. In mid-December I won my first trophy with SuperSport – the SA KO Cup. The draws were a bit kind, and we faced 3 consecutive sides in the bottom half of the table. We got through the first couple of those teams with a heavily rotated side, then I played my starters in the semi-final because it was such a good opportunity for a first trophy. I probably could have rotated for that one as well – we won 7-1. In the final we faced Sundowns but had little trouble beating them 3-1. The January transfer window presented more risk than opportunity. While there were areas I could improve the squad I had no planned targets, and a handful of my players had begun attracting serious attention. Fortunately, almost all of them were content to stay so all I had to do was repeatedly reject poor offers. My best centerback (not the one who thought he wanted to leave in the summer) was the exception. He had a pretty reasonable release clause but got upset at me for rejecting an offer that was nowhere near it. No one else bid for him, but he still managed to spread his unhappiness to a small group of players in the first team. It hurt the club atmosphere, but the level of cohesion was still very high, and I was pretty confident as we entered the final stretch of the season. On the opportunity side, I found a high-quality CM at Cape Town City with an even higher ceiling and snapped him up for his $225k release clause. I expected to ease him into the squad as a rotational player over the last few months of the season, but he projects as a regular starter next year. That minor bout of unhappiness was short-lived and didn’t really affect the squad’s performance. We were still unbeaten in the league when we secured the title with 4 matches left to play in early March. Our invincibles run ended on matchday 28 when my shiny new CM got himself sent off in the 27th minute for an unnecessarily aggressive sliding tackle in the middle of the pitch. We held on to the draw until the 83rd minute, had a disallowed equalizer, then conceded a fluky goal in stoppage time to seal the defeat. While it had almost no consolation value, my player’s red card suspension was overturned on appeal. In the SA Cup, we won a potentially tricky first round draw against Sundowns, then had consecutive matchups with lower division teams to take us into the semifinals. Golden Arrows didn’t put up much of a fight, and neither did AmaZulu in the final. Winning the SA Cup was our last competitive match of the year, and completed a treble that wildly exceeded my expectations. Heading into the offseason, I don’t feel like there are any areas where I absolutely have to improve the quality of my starters, but I will need to add quality in depth to the midfield and defense at least. My squad ran a bit tired at points this year, and the Champion’s League will add quite a few matches to the calendar if I have any success. I had a bit of joy bringing in players from my youth team in the closing stages of the campaign, but will need to accelerate that process, and still need to buy a bit. This also assumes I can hold on to most or all my starters, but several of them are attracting attention from overseas again. Losing any of those to the transfer market will require a top-quality purchase to replace them, but I’ve built up a decent shortlist to work from if that becomes necessary. In terms of my manager’s development, this year’s trophies did wonders for my reputation – it went from 2 stars to 3 in the spring. I also finished my Continental B License at the end of the season and went right into working on my A. I’m obviously staying at SuperSport next year, and think the squad I’ve got right now has a decent shot in the Champion’s League as long as I can keep them healthy and fit. That competition will be my first priority next season, but board was so pleased with my success in the SAPSL they expect a repeat performance. Challenge Progress:

Season 27-28 My job hunt in the truncated Welsh offseason was entirely unsuccessful, so come mid-July I was still employed by Flint Town. This was not the worst of fates yet, as I could at least take charge of the UECL play in games and hope for some unexpected success. Unfortunately, those games came so early it was near impossible to bring together a new squad, so the unit I took to them had some serious holes. We ultimately did OK, drawing 3-3 at home (after going up 3-0….) and losing by a goal on the road. No one was too upset by the aggregate defeat, and the prize money just for showing up was more than all of last season’s income in total. I stayed with Flint Town into the regular season mostly out of a desire not to be unemployed, and with a bit of hope that continued success would make me more likely to get the jobs I was after. It was an odd spot not to be fully invested in the team, and with a squad that I hadn’t quite managed to tweak following last year’s departures. Most notably, I did not have a right back who was fit for purpose. Last season’s 3rd choice and a new player brought in for versatile cover were my options. First, the domestic cups – we crashed out of both in mildly disappointing fashion, in both cases losing to teams we really should have beaten. That, and the fact that those cups were the only realistic hope of silverware for the season were the causes of disappointment – but expectations weren’t high either. We opened the regular season in the Cyrmu strong, and ultimately pulled ourselves to 5th before the league split. Despite the negative predictions around the team, we were never in any real danger of dropping into the relegation fight, but also had no realistic path to the top 4. I continued the hunt for a better job, but only collected a nice series of polite rejection letters. By this point I’d started to think already having a job is hurting my job search rather than helping it, and had decided to resign from Flint Town at the end of the season if I couldn’t move on prior. And so for a second straight year, my Flint Town side finished 5th. Unlike last season, there was no real sense we were in any danger of falling down to the 6th position (not that it matters at all), but there was also no real chance of climbing any higher. The league’s second stage was, for us, an exercise in futility – nothing changed at all. The European Places Playoffs did offer a bit of drama – and success, as we won the final with a 92nd minute goal. That means Flint Town will get another shot at the UECL play ins in the summer, and the financial rewards that brings. That however is a problem for the next Flint Town manager – I resigned a couple of days later in the hopes of getting a bit better luck with getting higher quality job. As a bit of a post-script to this season’s report, resigning worked. For a bit of context, I’m on a 2-star reputation and a Continental C license. That was true for the entirety of the above writeup. Something like 3 days after I resigned, 4 teams in the EFL Leagues 1 and 2 offered me interviews – I hadn’t applied to any. My recommended jobs were things I thought were a bit much for me at the moment, but I tossed my name in the hat for Argentina’s Racing Club because why not. Before they got through their process to give me an answer, SuperSport Utd in South Africa offered me the interview I’d asked for not long before I resigned Flint Town. They asked me to withdraw my other application, so I did. While I waited on their final decision, NYCFC in MLS offered me an interview out of the blue. I turned them down as well, and the next day was hired at SuperSport. So, I’ll go into the 28/29 campaign at a well funded club with ambitions – very much what I was looking for.

25/26 Season After finishing 2nd in the league the year prior, I thought a few more additions to the squad and the growth I hoped my players would experience would be enough to at least mount a serious title challenge, and probably win promotion. I also expected this to be my last year at Flint Town – looking further forward I expected keeping a newly promoted side up to be quite the struggle with no short term hope of trophies, and thought I’d come away from a promotion campaign with the chops to secure a better job. But that was all for the future – in the short term, I had a league I hoped to win. Things started very well for Flint Town. The team had ended the previous season on a good run of form, and simply continued it into the new campaign. We went unbeaten for almost the entire first half of the season, and had opened up a 9 point gap to second place at the midpoint. That was a bit of an over-performance, but despite regressing toward the mean in the second half of the season we won the league fairly comfortably. Our performances in the domestic cups was fine, but nothing to write home (or you all) about. Overall, this was a very successful year. The combination of promotion and a second consecutive coach of the year award should have left me a reasonably desirable candidate for a position with a better team, but I was planning on being patient – the campaign to keep Flint Town up was more appealing than a bad move, but it was time to start a job hunt. 26/27 Season As we moved into the offseason, I started my job hunt as planned, while continuing to prepare Flint Town for life in the Welsh top flight. My preferred next job was either in Australia or South America, and I was willing to consider South Korea or Japan, but those leagues seemed a bit beyond my reach at this juncture. I applied for a couple of jobs in Australia at different points with no luck even getting an interview, and as the beginning of the season approached accepted I was going to have one more year at Flint Town. The media had us as overwhelming favorites for relegation, the board fully expected it, and I was hoping to just steer clear of the worst of the dogfight. The season started just slightly better than I’d hoped – we weren’t going to put together a run of wins, but were able to build a small cushion – something like a game and team – between us and the relegation spots. A couple of injuries to important players in that opening run gave me cause for concern, but we coped well enough. As the squad got healthy and this year’s version gelled, we actually improved, enough that in the second half of the first stage of the season we were sitting between 7th and 9th (of 12 teams mind) in the table. From this point, we got some serious help while we hit what might have been our best form of the season – or at least the most important. We climbed to 6th, which put us in the top half of the table when the league split, and meant it was impossible for us to be relegated. That was the season’s objectives secured right there, and goals really exceeded with where we were in the table. While this was going on I hadn’t stopped my low key job hunting. I probably applied for a job about once every 6 weeks, most or all in Australia – with absolutely no success, not even an interview. However, the 2 teams in the relegation spots offered me interviews in fairly close succession. I’m not sure what they thought the appeal of moving to a team that was far worse off could have been, but I had no qualms about telling them no. I expected the final 10 games, all played against the better teams in the league to be a struggle, and they were. What I forgot was that everyone had that problem, and The New Saints pretty much own the league, with one or two other stronger teams right behind relative to the rest of us. I didn’t exactly take a lot of points, but did just enough to finish 5th. It was a shocking over-achievement for this squad, good enough to earn my 3rd consecutive coach of the year award - and Flint Town doesn’t pay enough for me to be able to afford a trophy case. Our finish also meant we played 2 extra matches at the end of the campaign for a spot in the UECL play-ins. We won, the second of those 2 on penalties, and not only stayed up but would be in Europe the next year. No sooner had the season ended than my 2 best defenders decided they no longer wanted to play for me, and would be leaving at the end of the season – the perils of short contracts that. I wasn’t thrilled, but had no plans of sticking around at this point. Not wanting to get stuck in a mid-table grind with a team favored to go down yet again, I’m going to widen the aperture on my job search a bit. I’m still not resigning from Flint Town, but have no intention of managing them through another season. Challenge Progress: None, as yet.

I had an incomplete attempt at this challenge a couple of years ago, but decided I’d like to take another shot at it as my FM 24 save. So, allow me to introduce Dunning Krueger: I got a few seasons deep in the save before I sat down to write anything up, so I’ll post a couple of 2 season rollups to get caught up. The game started in summer of 2023, and I waited a few months to start applying for jobs. In the fall, I got my first head coaching job at Tochigi, who were at the time sitting just clear of the relegation zone in the J2 League. I saw keeping them up as an easy win, a chance to get a bit of experience, and hoped the team would be an opportunity to build a bit of actual success. I guess 2 out of 3 isn’t bad. I in fact kept Tochigi up – just a bit clear from serious threat of relegation, exactly how I found them. The players however were not convinced by my leadership, and the playing squad clearly needed a major overhaul in the offseason to avoid relegation the next year. I was hesitant to take on that particular project, and when the board denied my request to go get my first coaching badge during the Japanese offseason in December I resigned. My next stop was Flint Town, a semi-pro side in the Welsh second tier. In early spring of 24, late in the Welsh league season Flint Town was just clear of the relegation fight and looking for a manager. I jumped on the job, seeing the Welsh leagues as perhaps a better place for an experienced at best manager to make his mark. The Flint Town team I took over was an interesting one. I had precisely 11 players good enough for the league by my count, and one of them was my backup goalkeeper. We did just enough to stay up without too much concern. Moving into the 24/25 season I knew I needed to improve the team and absolutely had to build a usable bench, so off to the free agent market I went. A total of 7 free agents both improved the quality of the first 11 and gave me just enough depth to allow for minimal rotation. Equally important in my view was that I now had the players to shift into a formation and system I didn’t hate rather than a 5-2-3 that was barely held together. Oddly to me, the board’s expectations had become more pessimistic during the offseason – the previous year they had wanted to be mid-table, but this year seemed to expect us to be relegated. The media predictions had us mid-table, and I thought that was very achievable. We finished 2nd, which does not earn promotion to the top flight, but that was just fine with me. It was a bit of an overperformance measured against any reasonable expectations, and was also enough to earn me the Head Coach of the Year award.