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DaneBramage

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Everything posted by DaneBramage

  1. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  2. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  3. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  4. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  5. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  6. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  7. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  8. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  9. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  10. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  11. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  12. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  13. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  14. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  15. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  16. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------
  17. July 2026 - Ndanda FC Squad Stats These players annoyed me a lot throughout the season. Given that we won promotion my words are probably harsh, but I did not like this squad. 18 goals in 33 games should impress me from Optatus Lupekenya, but he was rubbish so often. Same with Nohome Tadase, who reached double figures with goals and nearly the same with assists. I think the fact that so few average ratings are in the green tells the real story. -------------------------------------------------------------- History Job's a good 'un! I'm glad of the second promotion, but I did not enjoy this season. After a great start we just made hard work of it, never getting back into a good rhythm. From November onwards we never won more than two games in a row, or went any longer than three games without defeat. But at least we came strong when it mattered in the play-offs, and I gained my second promotion in four seasons. Now it's time to put in my resignation, as there's no point staying with a Premier Division side. I would have resigned even if we hadn't gone up this year though. Tanzania just wasn't fun. Between my scouts finding just two players all season, the chairman not letting me sign an AssMan, and only being able to arrange friendlies against our under-21s, there were too many annoying challenges. -------------------------------------------------------------- The Job Centre There are a lot of jobs available now the seasons have finished, and no doubt more will be available as it ticks over into the next campaign with all the newly relegated and promoted clubs. So I don't know whether to jump straight in to a new role now and have the summer to prepare for 2026/27, or wait a few months and see how everything shakes out. --------------------------------------------------------------
  18. July 2026 - Ndanda FC Contracts So it turns out that my contract was expiring on 30th June, a week before the play-offs. Thus I had to sign on for another year, though I will be resigning after these games no matter what happens. The bigger issue though was that a bunch of the players also had contracts coming to an end. I'd generally left that to someone else, but now I had to make an effort to get it sorted asap. I managed to get a few players to re-sign, but five players who I'd caused to dislike me left, including a starting left-winger, central midfielder, and centre-back. My scouts had finally found one more player in the country, so I signed a new midfielder to make sure we weren't weakened too much going into the big games. -------------------------------------------------------------- Championship Promotion Play-Off Mbeya City were clearly a stronger side than us, but due to the friendlies we'd arranged we were fitter. They had a lot of possession but failed to make it count, and we were able to surprise them with a goal just before the break. Another just after the interval really swung things in our favour, and Mbeya City were rattled. When we added a third in the 67th minute the game looked as good as over, but that's when Mbeya City hit another gear. Two goals in the final 20 minutes made the score a lot more even and meant we had just the one goal advantage going into the second leg at their place. The second leg was a more cagey affair, with chances limited. And then we scored with the first big chance of the game. The lead barely lasted a minute before Mbeya City equalised, but thankfully that was it for the day. The game fizzled out, we did enough to contain them, and we ran out 4-3 winners on aggregate. --------------------------------------------------------------
  19. June 2026 - Ndanda FC Championship Promotion Play-Off During the regular season we lost twice to Pan-African, going down 1-0 both home and away. In the two week break between fixtures we played the under-21s a couple of times. Losing the first of these games to them probably wasn't ideal, but it did mean we were prepared. Pan-African however, were not. They rested during this period and that gave us the edge. We ran rings around them on their patch, having 63% possession and making twice as many passes. Two goals within the opening 25 minutes took all the wind out of their sails, and from that point on we cruised, adding another late on to kill off the tie. At home we just needed to avoid doing anything stupid, admittedly something we've struggled with a lot this season. But Pan-African didn't offer much, and a goal in each half gave us the 5-0 aggregate victory. Mbeya City finished 14th in the Premier Division. They then lost 4-1 on aggregate in the first stage of the relegation play-off. There's now a three week gap until our two games in July, so again I'll put together some friendlies to keep our players sharp. --------------------------------------------------------------
  20. May 2026 - Ndanda FC Championship Transit Camp had earned 10 points in 27 games, and had a goal difference of -49. They hadn't won a game in more than six months. They had a player sent off after 26 minutes Easy win, right? Nope! 34 shots compared to their four, an xG of 3.25 compared to their 0.17, and all for a 1-1 draw. Pathetic. We let African Sports score with their only shot on target. Meanwhile, we had 23 shots and could only get three on target. Pathetic. Completely bottled it. We now go into a two-legged play-off against Pan-African. The winner then takes on the loser of the Premier Division relegation play-off. --------------------------------------------------------------
  21. April 2026 - Ndanda FC Championship I hate these players. Every single one of them. I don't even care that this lad has scored four times in the last three games, he's been crap for long spells of the season. Every time that it looks like we're getting back on track we manage another stupid loss. I've been offered a new contract but I've turned it down. Obviously if we get promoted to the top tier I'd have to quit anyway, but even if we fail (as is looking increasingly likely), I don't want to stay here for another crack --------------------------------------------------------------
  22. February 2026 - Ndanda FC Staffing Issues My AssMan left to join another team in our division. And in his infinite wisdom, the chairman decided we don't need someone in this role so I can't hire a replacement. Brilliant, thanks. -------------------------------------------------------------- Arrivals I wanted to bring in some new players this window, but my scouts managed to provide reports on just one player over the last six months. In one of his last acts before leaving, my AssMan signed that one player. But he's rubbish, I haven't even bothered registering him. I did bring in a new starting left-back though, from an agent offering his services. -------------------------------------------------------------- Championship Abdalla Ferouz returned to action after eight months out with an ACL injury and scored a brace on his comeback, then added another two in the next few matches. We've managed some good wins in this period, but also some really poor losses. We lost to Stand Utd due to my useless centre-back giving away a penalty in the second-half, but really I think most of these players are useless. I don't like any of them. We beat one Premier Division side in the cup before losing to another, but neither result matters. We're still 2nd with seven games left, but I'm not feeling good about the rest of the season. We're losing too many games, could easily bottle this. --------------------------------------------------------------
  23. December 2025 - Ndanda FC Championship Losing to Majimaji is disastrous. They were in 15th place at the time, yet they bossed the match. We only managed one shot all game, and that was from the spot. Then we hosted Fountain Gate in a top of the table clash, and smashed them with ease. Bafflingly inconsistent. Both my strikers ended their goalscoring droughts in this match (after 10 and 15 hours). We also won a cup match, but I don't care one bit about that. It's all very close at the top. We hold pole position at the moment, but only because of goal difference. One badly timed slip-up and we could easily fall to 4th, but at least there's then a small gap down to 5th place. --------------------------------------------------------------
  24. November 2025 - Ndanda FC Championship Ugh. We've lost any semblance of form, just blindly stumbling from one result to another. It's basically just a roll of the dice. We had made it six home wins in a row, but now we haven't won either of the last two. We hadn't won any of the last four away matches, but then we picked up our biggest win of the season. I've lost count of how many players were fined over these two months, there were a lot of individual terrible performances. We've tumbled from first place down to third. We're still strongly in the mix as we approach the halfway stage, but I'm feeling a lot less confident now than I was in September. --------------------------------------------------------------
  25. September 2025 - Ndanda FC Championship My scouts very helpfully managed to not find a single player in Tanzania to recommend. In addition to that, my AssMan didn't bother to arrange any pre-season friendlies, so I had to scramble together a few last-minute matches against the under-21s. Thus we didn't go into the new season in very good shape. No additions to the squad, and not fully fit. Yet somehow we flew out of the gates, smashing newly-promoted Majimaji on the opening day. We followed this up with three more wins before the streak was ended when we only took a hard-fought point from Mwadui Utd. We were straight back to winning ways next time out though, beating second-placed Pamba SC to open up a six point lead. All good things come to an end though, and we were comprehensively outplayed by Mbao for our first loss of the campaign. Top of the table, I will take that. Top two go up automatically, 3rd and 4th go into a play-off system with two teams from the Premier Division. --------------------------------------------------------------
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