DaneBramage

March 2031 - NK Travnik First League My first match in charge came around, and we struggled to a draw in a game pretty low on quality. The match against Jedinstvo was a six-pointer, and it didn't go our way. All the stats pointed towards us being the better team, apart from the one that actually mattered. Our starting strikers had a stinker and wasted too many chances. Luckily, we then had games against two sides struggling near the bottom. We spanked both teams easily. The draw against Celik Zenica was actually enough to temporarily send us top, but only because we played before Jedinstvo. Once they'd played their game they jumped back above us, and the loss to them saw the gap grow further. --------------------------------------------------------------

November 2030 Job Search I applied for two jobs in the Bosnian second tier, for teams in 5th and 6th place at the time. The team in 5th didn't offer me an interview, but the team in 6th did, and soon enough I was off to NK Travnik. The caretaker manager had been doing a good job, as he'd taken them from 6th to 3rd during his games in charge. There's 13 games left this season, but with the winter break just starting now it'll be four months before the first of them. Hopefully the recruitment team will get to work in this time, as we have four teenagers in the first-team squad, one 26 year old, and then a lot of players 28 and above. --------------------------------------------------------------

June 2030 - Kasserine History I haven't bothered with a screenshot of the squad. I have no clue who most of them are, could barely hazard a guess at most of their names. I know my two strikers were teenage loanees and both scored a bunch, but that's about it. Instead I'll celebrate my quickest promotion yet, just 10 games, due to inheriting a team in such a good position. -------------------------------------------------------------- Job Search + Game World Job's a good 'un, time to move on. I had been using RNG to select active leagues, but after four African promotions in a row I've decided to de-activate all African leagues. So I've still used RNG to pick the replacement leagues, but only including the other continents. These are the nations I'll have available once the effective dates pass. Asia: Cambodia, East Timor, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Europe: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Oceania: Tuvalu, South America: Bolivia, Paraguay --------------------------------------------------------------

June 2030 - Kasserine Ligue 2 - Group A Gameweek 24: We picked up a big victory to reach 48 points, but O.Kef also won (49 points). However, Stade Gabesien lost and remained on 45 points. Gameweek 25: We massively outplayed EA Mateur, but could only find the one goal to earn a draw and reach 49 points. Luckily, O.Kef lost so we equalled their tally (49 points), but remained behind them on head-to-head record. Stade Gabesien couldn't take advantage of this, only drawing themselves (46 points). Gameweek 26: It looked like it wasn't coming, but a late penalty from Taoufik Messadi for the only goal of the game saw us beat CS Korba. But how did O.Kef do? A win and they'd take the title and promotion, anything less and it would be ours. Wahey! That draw to EA Mateur very nearly saw us lose out, and it would have been gutting to do so by not beating the side bottom of the table. Luckily, both our rivals bottled it during the run-in and we kept our nerve. --------------------------------------------------------------

April 2030 - Kasserine Ligue 2 - Group A The loss to ES Beni Khalled was a nightmare. We had 15 shots, and got none of them on target. They scored four times from an xG of 0.64. Just an absolute shambles. With three games left there's realistically only three teams still competing. If two teams end up level on points then results between the teams is the deciding factor. That wouldn't work in our favour, both O. Kef and Stage Gabesien have winning records over us. --------------------------------------------------------------

March 2030 - Kasserine Ligue 2 - Group A Win big or lose big. I had a good feeling when we battered league-leaders EGS Gafsa on their own patch, and even cockier when we smashed AS Ariana. We were knocked back down to earth though by O. Kef, they just ran rings around us. The win over EGS Gafsa saw us jump into 1st place, and was the start of them plummeting out of the mix. But losing to O. Kef saw them climb over us again, and we fell to third. --------------------------------------------------------------

January 2030 Job Search I spent more than six months unemployed, there weren't any appealing vacancies out there. A few spots opened up in Bolivia during December, but their season wasn't starting again until July so I didn't want to join a club but then spend ages doing nothing. In January the managerial merry-go-round kicked into gear in Algeria. Ben Guerdane (bottom of Ligue 1) sacked their boss and brought in the manager from JS Kairouan (2nd in Ligue 2). I applied for that job and was swiftly rejected, and they instead stole the manager from Kasserine (5th in Ligue 2). So I applied for and won that job instead. We're in a pack of five aiming for one promotion spot. The winter break is ongoing at the moment with a month until our next game. This is good news, as we have very few staff at the club so recruitment will be the priority first. --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2029 - HB Chelghoum-Laid Squad Stats Noureddine Zouaoui had an incredible season, with 28 goals he was just one off being the division's top scorer. Younes Sayah also had a great year, and was picked as the division's player of the season. -------------------------------------------------------------- History Another promotion in the bag, and this one came easier than expected. I thought it would be more of a challenge grabbing the sole promotion spot, but we never looked in any danger of missing out. As much fun as it is smashing through these promotions, I think it will be time sooner rather than later to move on to the pre-existing countries rather than the additional nations to add a degree of difficulty to this. I've had three African promotions so far and one European promotion, so maybe I'll try and add an Asian, Oceanian, and South American promotion from created leagues before going mainstream. -------------------------------------------------------------- Job Search + Game World No point sticking around in a top flight, so I've handed in a resignation letter again. To freshen up the available jobs I've removed Kenya and Algeria, and added The Gambia, Uzbekistan, and Bosnia & Herzegovina. --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2029 - HB Chelghoum-Laid League 2 - East Two losses at the start of April had me worried that we were going to bottle it. Luckily CA Batna also lost one of their games at this time, so we kept the lead, though it was reduced to just three points. A number of fines were handed out, and a stern team meeting was also held to get minds back in the right place. From that point onwards we didn't slip up again. The ball was in our court, and by winning our final six games we did what we needed to. MC Alger came on strong to finish 2nd, but we'd done enough that they couldn't get close to us. CA Batna had been our nearest challengers but they fell away badly. USM Annaba ended in last place, I'm still annoyed they inflicted the first defeat of the season on us. --------------------------------------------------------------

March 2029 - HB Chelghoum-Laid League 2 - East Our long unbeaten run came to a crashing halt against USM Annaba, in an absolute shocker of a game. They hadn't won a single game all season before this match, picking up only two points. Our attackers had plenty of chances to score, but just didn't take them. Our defence were abysmal making so many stupid mistakes. Our goalkeeper couldn't catch a cold. And the midfield weren't up to much either. Just terrible all round. I dropped the whole starting XI for the next game and the back-ups just about scraped a 2-1 win late on, but couldn't produce the goods a second time when they lost to CA Batna. I then put the AssMan in charge of team selection for a while, and luckily we got back to winning ways throughout the rest of March. We still have a six point lead, and it's now CA Batna leading the chasing pack. We've played them twice this season, but only gained one point from these fixtures. --------------------------------------------------------------

January 2029 - HB Chelghoum-Laid League 2 - East Perfect, eight wins from eight games. Lots of goals with both strikers and both wingers chipping in. Our big test this period was against MC Alger, and we dispatched them with the only goal of the game. That's helped us overtake them and build a small lead. --------------------------------------------------------------

October 2028 - HB Chelghoum-Laid Transfers Big money changed hands, as my chairman accepted an offer over my head. My best centre-back left for £13.5k. We're still more than £300k in the red though. We brought in four new players for a total of £2.6k, who will all be going straight into the starting line-up (a goalkeeper, left-back, left-winger, and striker). -------------------------------------------------------------- League 2 - East A good start so far with only two points dropped. That game against CA Batna was infuriating, with ten minutes left it was goalless. We scored twice late on, then they immediately pulled one back and then equalised with their only two shots on target. New signings Youcef Fellahi and Noureddine Zouaoui have settled in well with nine goals between them. We went out of the cup at the first hurdle, but it meant we could rest players and leave the first team fresh to take revenge against NRB Teleghma a few days later. MC Alger are the newly relegated side, and they've made a perfect start. --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2028 - HB Chelghoum-Laid Squad Stats We're allowed two foreign players in the squad, but at present we have only the one, Moussa Mubarak. And he had a cracking season scoring 21 goals. If you only look at the period while I was in charge, he smashed in 17 goals in just 15 games. His strike partner Younes Sayah also impressed with nine goals and six assists under my management. Walid Hellal also contributed plenty of goals and assists from the left-wing, we'll be renewing his contract shortly. The three loanees we had in all did well, but it doesn't look like we'll be able to bring them in again next season. -------------------------------------------------------------- History After losing my first two games here, we then won 12 and drew four to end the season on a 16 game unbeaten streak. With only one team getting promoted from this league going for that sole spot will be tough, but there's reason to believe we could be in the mix if we make some good additions to the squad over the summer. -------------------------------------------------------------- Languages I've added basic Arabic to my repertoire. --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2028 - HB Chelghoum-Laid League 2 - East An excellent finish to the season. We made it 16 games unbeaten, which included a club joint-record of seven wins in a row. Moussa Mubarak was a man on fire with 11 goals, including four braces in this time. Younes Sayah wasn't to be outshone though, ending the season by clinching a hat-trick in the 95th minute on the final day. We managed to gain three positions to finish in 8th place. Prior to my arrival the club was averaging 1.42 points per game, during my time it was 2.22 points. We finished as top scorers, with only the champions CR Temouchent coming close. --------------------------------------------------------------

March 2028 - HB Chelghoum-Laid Transfers I joined with a few days left in the transfer window. During this time the scouting staff added a few loans, including a goalkeeper, midfielder, and left-winger, all of whom went straight into the starting line-up. Perhaps most importantly though, our highest rated player Younes Sayah chose to stay. Two transfer approaches had to be accepted as they met his £43.5k buyout clause, but he couldn't agree terms with either club. -------------------------------------------------------------- League 2 - East When we started with two losses I thought I'd bitten off more than I could chew here. I was definitely starting to feel the pressure by the start of March, when we'd only had one win in six games so far. But by the end of March we were looking in much better shape, with four big wins in a row. The loanees had settled in, the players were getting used to my 4-4-2 tactic, the gaps in the coaching staff had been filled, and Younes Sayah was moved from the right-wing to a deep-lying forward role. The peak was a 3-0 away win at CR Temouchent, where we tore the league-leaders apart in a great first-half display. We haven't yet made any upward movement, but there are teams within our sight over the final eight games. --------------------------------------------------------------

January 2028 - HB Chelghoum-Laid League 2 - East Since getting relegated in 2025, the club have finished 2nd twice in the second tier. Unfortunately, only the team that wins the division gets promoted, so they've just missed out. The same was expected this year, but instead they've been slumming it in midtable and the old boss was given the boot. --------------------------------------------------------------

January 2028 I decided to stay unemployed for a little while, looking for the right job to come along. There were plenty of open jobs in Senegal, Kenya, and Liberia, but they felt like a backwards step. By January a few months of the various seasons had passed, and roles started opening up elsewhere. I put in two applications, both in North Africa. US Tataouine had no interest, but I was granted an interview with HB Chelghoum-Laid. And it went well, and I was very quickly packing my bags. --------------------------------------------------------------

July 2027 - Vihiga Bullets Squad Stats The first screenshot shows the players who left at the end of June, the second shows those still with us at the end of the season. Hence the mismatched sizes. Christopher Ojwang is the obvious star, scoring 35 goals in total, one roughly every 67 minutes. He wasn't the only major goal threat though, three other players reached double-figures and five players in total managed 20+ goal contributions. -------------------------------------------------------------- History Another successful year. I'm sure the promotions will slow down when I move out of the additional database leagues and into the out-of-the-box nations, but smashing my way through this season was a lot of fun. -------------------------------------------------------------- Languages Since I'm globetrotting I thought I'd take a look at the languages I'm picking up along the way. English and basic Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish came from the initial set-up. Russian has come from my time in Moldova, Swahili has come from Tanzania and Kenya. -------------------------------------------------------------- Qualifications Just before the season ended I completed another coaching course. -------------------------------------------------------------- The Job Search With promotion to the top flight completed I handed in my resignation. There's a lot of jobs available, so it's time again to consider options for what's next. Aiming for another promotion is obviously the goal, but I think there has to be an element of progression too. I'm in no rush to get to the endgame, I'm happy with exploring a lot longer first, but eventually the challenge will be getting a side promoted from the second tier in one of the top European leagues. I've taken a look at the competition rankings for the leagues I've had active so far, and this is how the second divisions are sorted (and third for Moldova). I've highlighted those I've achieved promotions from so far. 2 stars - Tunisia, Algeria, 1 star - Moldova (A), Bolivia, Tanzania, 0.5 stars - Senegal, Tajikistan, Kenya, Moldova (B), Liberia, East Timor. So I probably shouldn't be looking at a 0.5 star league again at this point. I'm not entirely ruling it out, if needs must I'll happily try out another one of those countries, but having another crack at Moldova or working out the very complicated looking Bolivian league system should probably be next. --------------------------------------------------------------

July 2027 - Vihiga Bullets Second Division The win against Muranga Seal clinched promotion, the win against Assad clinched the title. The second-string were given a runout at Mwatate Utd but disgraced themselves, ensuring the first-team would play the rest of the games this year. Cups are stupid anyway, and we got knocked out of the semi-finals. Christopher Ojwang scored a brace in his final appearance for the club. My contract ran out on 30th June, so I had to renew for another year to take on the final two games of the season. This was the same date as player contracts, so a couple of them left at this point, as well as our five loanees, meaning we had a bit of a depleted squad in July. No matter, we still ended the year on a high. Easy. We ran away with it, even from the first update in December we never looked like being caught. --------------------------------------------------------------

April 2027 - Vihiga Bullets Second Division Seven more points in the league, but it should have been more. We had 22 shots against Migori Youth, but only managed an xG of 0.99. Wasteful. We led Coastal Heroes 4-0 at half-time, then nearly let them stage a heroic comeback in the second-half. There was over a week after the cup game, so I let the AssMan take charge of it and pick his strongest XI. We smashed the side bottom of the Premier Division. The hat-trick from Christopher Ojwang brought him up to 31 goals for the year. We're currently on 79 goals. I'd like 21 more in the final eight games to reach the big 100. --------------------------------------------------------------

March 2027 - Vihiga Bullet Second Division A perfect month! Five wins from five in the league, magic. Christopher Ojwang is now on 26 goals for the season, while Brian Onyango and Gadiel Singano have joined him in double-figures. Not that it matters, but we also won two games in the cup. Due to the way the fixtures fell our strongest team played and won in the first round, and our second-string then pulled off an upset to beat Premier Division side Nairobi City next time out. This is the last month where the fixtures will be so busy - there are only three league games planned in April, four in May, then two in each of June and July. 16 points clear with 11 games remaining. Start engraving lads, the trophy is ours. --------------------------------------------------------------

February 2027 - Vihiga Bullets Second Division Another good unbeaten month. The rotation policy continues to treat us well. The weekend team won three and drew one, while the midweek team won one and drew two. Our goalkeeper has played every minute of every game (22 games = 1,908 minutes), but nobody else has started more than 13 games or played more than 1,300 minutes. I missed taking a screenshot of the table, but we're running away with it. Muhoroni Youth collapsed and suffered five defeats this month, we now have a nine point lead over Muranga Seal in second place. --------------------------------------------------------------

January 2027 - Vihiga Bullets Second Division The 10-1 win over Admin Police was a mad one. They were bottom of the table with just one point so far and we just ran riot. Christopher Ojwang had a hat-trick within six minutes, and made it a double hat-trick after the break. Incidentally, Admin Police then bounced back with their first win of the season in their next game. We dropped points in a draw with Vihiga Utd, who I'm going to assume are our local rivals. Was an exciting game, no one would be leaving unhappy at that result. It was a bit more of a struggle at the end of the month. We needed goals very late in the game to turn around the result against Muranga Seal (in 3rd place at the time, so an important win), and although we battered Dandora we only just managed to gain a point with a last minute strike (disappointing as they were in 18th place). Muhoroni Youth could overtake us if they win their game in hand. We hold a commanding lead over everyone else though. --------------------------------------------------------------

December 2026 - Vihiga Bullets Pre-Season The board want us to finish in the top-half, while the media think we should be aiming for the top three. So hopefully the press have a more accurate view of our quality. The backroom staff were hard at work during the summer and autumn, bringing in 13 new players. Six are on loan deals, and seven permanent. The club is £500 per week over the wage budget, and more than £100k in the red, but since I'm delegating transfers I'm shifting the blame elsewhere for that. -------------------------------------------------------------- Second Division In a change from my previous clubs, this is a large division. 20 teams, so 38 games. None of the sparse fixture lists and long winter breaks I had to deal with earlier. Fitting eight games into December is excessive though. That's just too much, and I can thank my staff for bringing in so many new players allowing us to handle it so well. I followed the Jimbo technique of using two separate XIs (other than the goalie), with the stronger team taking weekend fixtures and the weaker team playing in midweek. And it's worked very well so far. We've won seven games out of nine, and lost just once. Star man has been Christopher Ojwang, a loanee striker with seven goals in five starts (and four sub appearances). Top of the table! It is a bit of a false position though. I've no idea why we've played so many games already compared to everyone else. Two other teams have played eight times, then everyone else are two games behind on seven. It does make for enjoyable viewing. Even if all the contenders won their games in hand, we'd still be in 3rd place. Muhoroni Youth in 2nd are the only team to have beaten us so far, they could well be our big competition this season. --------------------------------------------------------------

August 2026 - Vihiga Bullets I didn't stay unemployed for very long. When looking at the available jobs I noticed an interesting opportunity in the Kenyan second tier. The top two get promoted automatically, while third go into a play-off. And Vihiga Bullets had just missed out, finishing in 4th place. There was a massive gap between them and 5th place, 23 points, so they were by far better than most teams in the division. -------------------------------------------------------------- Game World I've made the first adjustments to the active leagues, with RNG helping decide which to bring in. Tanzania has been removed. Bolivia and East Timor have been added. --------------------------------------------------------------