mannojunior

I reckon Muniz will do the business for you. Great start to the season!

What a season mate! Some great signings to help you out with the additional fixtures next season. Tanner looks a quality player. Hope Marshall can fill Lowe’s boots 🤞🏻

Survival is the main aim and I think it’s achievable!

An Idiot Abroad - Pentagon edition (September/October 2024 Update) September and October have been and gone in the South African Premiership and things are getting tough. Cape Town City battered us 5-1 in September before we barely scraped a draw against basement boys, Richards Bay. A short month but September was definitely a poor month. We then picked ourselves up and stole three points against Cape Town Spurs with a last gasp winner from centre back Brauzmann. Pandemonium in the stands. Fresh off the back of a victory we slumped straight back to defeat in the Telkom Cup with defeat at home to SuperSport United. We then had the chance to bounce back with a league game against Upington City who have had a poor start to the season but after going 2-0 up we threw away three points with a dismal second half performance. Sundowns and SuperSport United then took full advantage of our poor form at the end of October. League Table Our early season form has certainly helped us survive a poor two month spell. Richards Bay look like they will be rooted to the bottom of the table this season but things can change in football. I really don't want to get caught up in the relegation play-off and our aim now is to finish 14th or higher to avoid that. 30 points was enough in the Premiership last season for survival and that is what we will be looking to hit going forward. I do think we will need to improve defensively to progress and January may well be the time I look to strengthen. Renecke will return to action soon following his 3 month injury and he will no doubt shore up the backline.

Absolute gem for this league…although he’s out for 3 months after making one appearance 🤣

Hard luck in the final mate but a strong position going into the final stretch in the league! Wishing you the best against Bayern 🤣

I think you’re right. Too big a job and too soon. I’d like to think it I keep us up this season I’ll have a chance at a bigger job. Last season 30 points was enough to survive so that’s the initial aim! We like to party is the official walkout music now 👀

Quality season in Canada mate! Can’t wait to see where you go next!

An Idiot Abroad - Pentagon edition Best of luck to Quinton. An opportunity missed perhaps. 2024/2025 Pre-season The summer window has seen a substantial rebuild at the club. Most players left on a free transfer over the summer with only a handful of players remaining. This cleared the way for a new batch of players to join the project. I essentially had to construct a new squad from scratch and I feel that we now have two players for each position which will help with injuries. League restrictions mean we are limited to five foreign players but unlimited loans which has proved a massive win for us. I am particularly happy with the recruitment of Waylon Renecke on loan from Norwich, the free signing of Christian Brauzmann and our new number one, Thakasani Mbankwa. August 2024 Results It didn't start well and I did question whether we were cut out for the Premiership, however, a fantastic end to the month has changed that. A real mix of scorers so far and as the month has gone on it is clear to see that the team has started to gel. I'm not getting carried away as this will be a long season but getting that first win on the board was crucial. League Table 7 points from five games is a great return for us. The aim remains to survive but this has been an encouraging start for sure.

Looks like a really strong window mate! Excited to see how you go. Strangely I’ve been really invested in the international management element which usually I’m not bothered by!

Quality performances mate! Shame about the Euro qualification but you were thrown under the bus by the IRL results not being included.

Cheers mate! Busy prepping for next season with one eye on the job centre 👀 Absolutely! Will be tough but I think with a good summer window we can try and avoid the drop. Leave it with me 🤣

An Idiot Abroad - Pentagon edition Results Capitulation at the final hurdle. Play-off mini league it is! Final Table Full credit to Upington City, they went on an incredible winning run to clinch the title. It felt like trying to battle Manchester City when they just won't drop points. Playoffs Success. We breeze through the play-off stages and clinch promotion to the South African Premiership. What an incredible season. What a team. End of Season Review Top average ratings No shock to see the strike force leading the way with average ratings. Some real consistency up top. Only one defender above a 7 is concerning. Top Scorers Not prolific but decent returns. Khunyedi only joined in January so a very good return for him. Dias from Segundo Volante has popped up with some big goals. Top Assists Dinge leads the way for assists. A very good winger and rightly getting a decent output. Looking Ahead Promotion has given our reputation a small boost but the club has continued to reject my requests to study for my National C licence. I will be keeping an eye out for any jobs available to help me take the next step but I'd like to stay in South Africa to try and tick off Africa at the start. I will begin to start the recruitment process for next season but with an incredibly tight budget a lot of the current squad will leave on a free and allow me funds to rebuild. We do however manage to extend the contracts of Dinge, Mudau and Khunyedi for next season. Vuyolwethu Dinge Sedzani Mudau Solly Khunyedi

The answer to that is, yes, yes we can!

An Idiot Abroad - Pentagon edition The decision was made to head to South Africa or Asia to start our career. After various interviews with clubs in those continents, we finally settled on South Africa and joined Venda FC in the South African Championship. The club is expected to finish mid-table this season but finances are incredibly poor and the squad available on arrival was less than ideal to say the least. The appointment was early enough to allow me time to bring some players in and shape the team my way. Transfers Near enough impossible to clear any deadwood and free up wages. Made the decision to use the loan market and stretch the wage budget to live in the red. Needs must. Some quality signings came through the door throughout the season giving us a fighting chance in the league. Ryan De Jongh, Miguel Dias and Solly Khunyedi all represent steals for the Championship and massively improve the starting eleven. Ryan De Jongh *Free Transfer* Miguel Dias *Season-long loan from Sekhukhunde United* Solly Khunyedi *Free Transfer - joined January 2024* Tactical Approach We are at the lowest playable South African league in the vanilla database so things had to be simple. We settled on a 4-4-2 with two DM's and a focus on getting the ball out wide to our wingers. Yes, my centre back is wearing the number 1. Not impressed. Results Wow. We certainly weren't expecting to be so good this season given the financial restrictions and the relatively small squad at our disposal. In truth, the league title would be wrapped up by now if we hadn't drawn so many games throughout the season. Our only two losses of the season so far have been against Black Leopards. Bogey side. Impressive to say the least and our ability to score goals has paved over the cracks in our defence. Championship Table Four games to go and it is all to play for. Teams finish second and third enter a playoff cup format with the team finishing second bottom in the Premier League. Winning the title remains the aim.

An Idiot Abroad - Pentagon edition Meet Ciro Venturo, a 31-year-old Italian from Sorrento with absolutely zero coaching experience or badges. What is his aim? To progress up the ladder and win the Champions League in all five continents. Trophy Cabinet Europe None Africa (2023/2024) South Africa Championship Playoff winners - Venda FC (2025/2026) DStv Premiership - SuperSport United Asia None South America None North America None Clubs Managed Venda FC (South Africa) - July 2023 to June 2025 SuperSport United (South Africa) - June 2025 to present

Outstanding season that mate! Interesting to see that no out and out striker came in top of the scoring charts! Can’t complain with goals coming from all over

Enjoying this mate! Been a good season so far! How is Phil getting on?

Voetbal - Bergkamp Edition - 2024/2025 Season Preview The final season is upon us. With the FM24 beta soon to be upon us, I have decided that this will be the final season of this save and Bergkamp's last at Ajax. With that in mind, we will have our eye on European success having gone close in both the Europa League and Champions League in the previous two seasons. The ultimate aim is to win the Champions League, although that may be a little too optimistic given that we are only entering our third season in charge. Domestically we need the Super Cup to complete the clean sweep and we will have the chance to collect that as we take on Feyenoord at the start of this season in the Super Cup final. On that note, let's get started with season three. Transfers Out A large amount of outgoings but none that have caused me any panic. A plethora of youngsters leave on a free as their contracts expire. Most notably, Amadou Diawara leaves after just one season for £15 million. He really didn't perform for us last season and with clubs interested in his services I thought it would be a good financial decision to recoup the money we spent on him last summer as he leaves to join Wolves. Nat Phillips has also left the club for £1.4 million as he joins Sunderland. Nat was very impressive for us in our first season but it soon became clear that our backline needed to be quick and good on the ball. We made the necessary adjustments last season which saw Nat drop out of the starting eleven and he never reclaimed his spot. Not a sale I necessarily needed to make but for the good of Nat's career I thought we would accept the offer. Transfers In From one central defence to another. With roughly £50 million in the bank we had a lot of power in the market and the only position I had earmarked for an upgrade was the left hand side of the back three. Solet is more than capable but I think he may have reached his ceiling and I wanted to bring in strong competition. We had initially earmarked a couple of other targets to come in and then Van De Ven became available. We agreed a deal at £20 million and made him our first signing of the summer. An exceptional central defender and a natural on the left hand side. His pace and acceleration make him a strong fit for our backline and I am excited to see how he develops with us this season. With Diawara leaving I knew I needed to target a defensive midfielder. We had seemingly wrapped up a deal to sign Wilfred Ndidi but at the eleventh hour I noticed that Romeo Lavia was available from Southampton for just £26 million. After a long wait we finally agreed a deal for Lavia and cancelled the Ndidi deal. This is a cracking signing and one that gives us a great chance going into next season. Tactical Shape No changes to the tactical shape this season as it worked so well for us last season. The two new signings will slot straight into the side. August Results We start the season in fine fashion by ticking the Super Cup off of our list. A hat-trick on the opening day of the season for Youssef Chermiti seals the win for us. A solid debut from Romeo Lavia although Micky Van De Ven didn't have his best of games. An undefeated start to the season for us. We took apart newly promoted Volendam with Chermiti claiming a second hat-trick in as many games. The only disappointment is that we lost Taylor to injury. We rounded off the month in unspectacular fashion with a scrappy 1-0 win away at Nijmegen thanks to a Josip Brekalo goal. Eredivisie Table Nothing can be taken from just two games but it's a solid start for us as we look to defend our league title.

Voetbal - Bergkamp Edition - 2023/2024 End of Season Review April Results April was always going to be a tough month for us and well, we bossed it. A 4-1 victory at home to Feyenoord all but confirmed the title as we were able to push our lead at the top of the Eredivisie back to 9 points. Comfortable wins over ADO Den Haag and FC Utrecht meant that winning the title would be all but a formality. We picked up our first silverware of the season as we demolished PSV 4-0 in the Dutch Cup final thanks to a brace from Kudus and goals from Leonardo and Chermiti. May Results Another perfect month saw us crowned Eredivisie Champions! Comfortable wins over Excelsior, AZ and PSV saw us home with Chermiti continuing his fine form. What a season from the lads. One loss, one b*stard loss to FC Utrecht has kept us from having an invincible season. 103 goals scored and a goal difference of 77. Bergkamp has transformed this Ajax side and in quick time. After last season's disappointment it was difficult to say how this year would go but it's clear that the summer transfer business fixed the leaky defence and turned the team into a force. A title winning season with 93 points and an 11 point gap over second placed Feyenoord. We really could not have asked for me from this season domestically. We complete the domestic double and return to being the best side in the Netherlands by a clear distance. Feyenoord and PSV are so far off the pace compared to us. Champions League We take that. A superb performance at home and just as it looked like Pedri had sunk us, Marcos Leonardo hit straight back to put the scores level going into the second leg. Get the f*ck in. That is a huge result for us. It wasn't pretty but the Icelandic youngster scores the decisive goal in extra time to send us through to the Champions League semi-final where we would face Liverpool. Bug*er. Certainly not a game that deserved to end in a 2-0 defeat. We didn't create an awful lot but 2-0 feels a tad harsh. Gutted. Ultimately, Liverpool were the better team over the two legs and deserved to progress to yet another Champions League final. I couldn't have asked for more from the boys. This just proves we can mix with the big boys in Europe. Player Stats A clean sweep in the league. Chermiti finishes the season 11 goals clear for Giminez as he notched an incredible 31 league goals. Impressive for a 19 year-old. Abde and Brekalo fought it out for top spot and it was Abde who came out on top in his breakthrough season. Both players have been incredibly important for us and their output far exceeds the output from our wingers last season. I know I've spoken about our defensive improvement this season but I do think the improvement in numbers from both wingers this season has been just as important for us. In all competitions Chermiti finishes with an impressive 42 goals. He has had an absolutely outstanding season. Kudus comes in second after another impressive season albeit one hampered by numerous injuries. Really happy to see Marcos Leonardo hit the ground running here and although he struggled for starts, he still notched up an impressive 11 goals. Turning to player of the season, I can only give it to one man. For an incredible season in front of goal, aged just 19, it goes to Youssef Chermiti. Honourable mentions must go to two Josips, Sutalo and Brekalo who were both crucial for us this campaign. Plans for next season With FM24 only a few weeks away I have decided that this save only has one more season left in it. We've brought the Eredivisie home and reached the Champions League semi-final. I am torn in terms of what to do. Do we stay and try and go one step further in the Champions League next season? Equally, the idea of this save was always to try and implement 'Total Football' in another country. Italy has thrown up some interest with both the AC Milan job and Roma job being available. Do we move and see how successful our style of football can be abroad? Or do we give Europe one last go here at Ajax? Chiefs.

Voetbal - Bergamp Edition - February/March 2024 Not the most helpful start to what is a very important period for us in our challenge for the Title. However, we are much better equipped to deal with it this season with the likes of Unuvar and Johanesson available. Results February was an incredibly busy month and the fixture congestion caught up with us. I rotated more than I probably should have done and this showed with uninspiring draws against Mijmegen and NAC Breda. I did start to wonder whether the season had caught up with us and then we played Arsenal. Wow. What a first leg result that was. Despite going 1-0 down early we picked ourselves up and absolutely tore them apart. By far our most complete performance. We followed that up with a decent spell in the Eredivisie and secured ourselves a spot in the Dutch Cup Final. A 4-0 win over Groningen had me confident going into the second leg against Arsenal and well, we lost. But our first leg thrashing meant we progressed with a 7-5 scoreline. I certainly did not expect us to beat Arsenal over two legs considering just how well they have done domestically in this save so far. This lead to a fine finish to the month with 4-1 and 5-1 victories moving us another step closer to that title. Eredivisie Table Feyenoord have not relented in their chase to catch us and the draws in February mean that our gap at the top of the Eredivisie is closed to 6 points. Still a comfortable margin but we must remain focussed with 6 games to go. Champions League Quarter-Final Draw There were no easy draws here. If pushed, I would have probably chosen to face either Napoli or Milan but we get given a tie against La Liga leaders, Barcelona. They've got an incredible squad and it will be a good test for us. Rensch has very much become a squad player this season, with 7 starts and 10 sub appearances in the league. Unfortunately he has decided that he'd like to consider his options on the expiration of his contract and I am resigned to losing him on a free. This man is so, so good. 15 assists and 4 goals so far this season. A remarkable turnaround given that I had almost written him off in the early part of the season. We've got some player on our hands.

I’ll grab some for you this evening

I’ve promoted Hato into the senior squad and sent a fair few out on loan. This isn’t a long term save - probably one more season left after this before the FM24 beta comes out. The narrative of the save is more about that tactic than the players

Voetbal - Bergkamp Edition - January 2024 Update Results Another clean sweep for Bergkamp's men in January and another stride towards the Eredivisie Title. By all accounts it was not the most difficult month to navigate but with the absence of Kudus and Diawara it was always going to be interesting. Add to that the fact that Naci Unuvar was unavailable for a large portion of the month due to injury and it caused us a slight headache up top in the 10 role. Isak Johannesson took his chance in the 10 and was an able deputy to Kudus and Unuvar. FC Twente appear to be a shadow of their former selves and you would not realise that they are actually the reigning champions. Chermiti continues scoring goals throughout January, but what else is new? Eredivisie Table With 14 games to go we have opened up a 9 point gap between us and Feyenoord who are trying to chase us in second. If we bottle it from here it will go down in history as one of the biggest bottle jobs in the history of football. Players Stats It's a clean sweep when it comes to goals, assists and average rating in the league. Chermiti is clear at the top of the goalscoring charts with 19. Abde and Brekalo are fighting for the most assists with 11 and 10 respectively. Kudus and Sutalo top the charts for average rating as the cement themselves as the best two players in the division. The stats just back up what an incredible season we are having and the boys are doing the business for Dennis. Youssef Chermiti gets recognition for his fine form by picking up the European Golden Boy aware. A fantastic achievement for 19 year-old in just his second season at the club. His goal scoring record is insane, with 78 goals in 102 games. Another young lad who deserves his plaudits is Isak, who has featured heavily for us this season, either playing in the 8 or the 10. He's shifted to the 10 during January with Kudus and Unuvar unavailable and he has excelled in that role. The 10 is not his long term role with the talent we have at our disposal but he will slot back into that 8 position and continue to be an attacking threat for us. This lad will be special in the years to come. Mr consistent certainly deserves some praise with his work often going under the radar. A hard working box to box midfielder who continues to chip in with assists and goals. He is invaluable to this Ajax side. January Transfer Window Heading into January it certainly felt like the vultures were swooping, ready to pick apart this Ajax side, just like they do in real life. I was determined not to let that happen. I had no intention of letting any key players leave in January. At the outset we did say that we would continue to sell players and reinvest where possible but selling in January just doesn't make sense for us and certainly not in this position. In the summer we may revisit things but for now, our gameplan is clear. Are they for real? £37 million up front is a joke. And they are back. At least they improved their offer, right? Still way off my valuation and it was a swift rejection. Surprisingly, this ended Manchester United's pursuit of Josip Sutalo and it also ended all interest in our star man. Phew. Good business for us. Chermiti and Kudus limited Brobbey to just a handful of appearances this season. I was also conscious not to stifle a young Dutch player's progress and £25 million represents great value in my opinion. With £40 million in the bank and Brobbey out the door I really did need to bring in an alternative to Chermiti who could provide an out and out rotation option. I was initially tracking Roony Bardghji who was available for around £15 million. In the end, I opted for a young Brazilian in the form of Marcos Leonardo who joined for a touch over £15 million. Leonardo is an incredibly good signing and provides us with pure firepower up top. Will he struggle to adapt to Dutch football? It took him just 8 minutes on his debut to net 2 goals. This man is special.

It’s been such a good season so far and I am a little surprised at just how well it is going. The only tactical change was moving the wingers from a support duty to attack. It seems to have helped out a lot.