The tale of the European Journeyman and the 6 UEFA Club Competitions

My career as a manager got off to a start in the Faroe Islands. And what a start it was! Won the league title in my first year after taking Argja Bóltfelag from 9th and almost certain relegation by winning all of our 18 games! With such a brilliant start I got a phonecall from London asking me to replace Frank the Fraud with a £100M budget! And I've been told there's a great party awaiting me in Argir (our hometown) with blackjack and

Hmmm

When I accepted the job I might have failed to notice that in the Faroese 1st Division teams play against each other 3 times and not 4. With the transfer window also closing a week before I joined I was stuck with a poorly-chosen 25 man squad (we had some pretty decent players in the club that were unregistered). But, and perhaps most importantly, I also inherited a 10 point gap to safety. With 18 games yet to be played that might have been manageable, with 10 it was definitely trickier. But let me stop complaining and show you how my 1 month managerial tenure actually played out



I only lasted 7 games. Oops. In all fairness, the results are a bit unfair. But I'm biased, I suppose.

My first league match was against Vikingur and the end result definitely fancied them a lot more than it fancied us. Now I'm no statistical expert, but I believe that when our xG is higher than theirs we played better football and created better opportunities



I might have lied about the "better football" bit, unless you're a fan of hoofing balls forward and defending all match, WBA style. But if you ignore the 3 goals conceded in 10 minutes we played remarkably well.

The next 2 matches, against IF and HB, were boring defeats (for us of course, I bet their managers were pleased) in which we showed no signs whatsoever of being able to get at least one point.

Following this we did get our first point, thanks to a 2 goal draw with Skála, which I was quite happy with, especially since we got a last-minute goal. But then again, the first goal of the match was in the 78th minute so I guess all goals were last-minute goals in a way.

After this match we were rewarded with a trip to Malta to get away from our small, cold island to play some football in a small, warm island. We had beaten Mosta FC 2-1 at home and we could really use those £50k given out to the winner. However, for once, the result fancied us a lot more than it should've.



It do be disappointing to lose after scoring our 2nd, which gave us a two-goal cushion, but fair play to them I guess.

After this, we had an absolutely must-win game with fellow relegation contenders TB (I love Faroese club names, just two letters. Thank God I didn't have to pronounce Tvøroyrar Bóltfelag). Such a crucial game treated me to an excruciating piss-take:



"We put out a fantastic performance according to our xG"

1 missed pen

1 disallowed goal

This was when I became sure we were going down. Thanks, FM Gods.

Before I finally leave the Faroe Islands, I figured it would be time to show you the highlights of my one-month stay here:

Thanks for watching!

In all seriousness, I'm a bit sad I didn't get the chance to stay here for longer. In all my time in Argir I barely had enough time to meet the residents (even though there aren't many around, I'm pretty sure all the playing and coaching staff make up around 5% of the population of the town). Nobody has told me yet how our star Belgian right winger got here and I won't be around to find out.



Huh, that was a lot faster than I expected