[FM24] Stranded: Zeb's African & European Adventure

Hi there. What is the name of the background pack you are using? Background images look different to me. That's why I was very curious. Your career in leagues that don't get much attention is also very interesting. 

Hi, so most of the backgrounds you see in my screenshots are just photos that I've found using google, sometimes I make the images in photoshop and on occasion I've also used my own holiday photos, wherever the images come from, I typically just add them into the skin and use the background selector that comes with many custom skins to change the images at will. As I change teams, I simply replace the photos I already have, with those of my new team/city/country etc. The only proper background packs that I use, that are not part of the skin are stadium photos but these I make myself a lot of the time, mostly because of the rather obscure locations that I choose to manage in, I can't often find ready made ones.

Mid 28/29 - Namibia
 

We've reached mid-season in the 2028/2029 season in Namibia and we're doing fairly well so far, currently sitting second in the league albeit with the teams immediately below us having games in hand. Despite our high position in the table, it's not entirely been plain sailing, we were eliminate from the Bidvest Namibia Cup straight away and had a rough patch in the league with three losses in a row, but over the last four games, we've managed to put together a few consecutive wins for the first time this year and I am hopeful that we can carry this on going into the second half of the season. 

Late 28/29 - Namibia

At the end of last season, once my contract at Township Rollers in Botswana had run its course, I took up the new challenge of turning around the fortunes of Orlando Pirates in Namibia. The team had been expected to be among those battling it out in the relegation zone, though thanks to a combination of my signings, tactics and motivational abilities, we were able to finish in an excellent second place, twelve points clear of the third placed team, Ramblers, though still some way off Civics, who faced little challenge in securing their sixth title in a row.

While we did brilliantly in coming second in the league, our run in the Bidvest Namibia Cup ended much sooner than I would have liked, with us going out in the second round, basically the same round that we entered the competition. Winning the competition would have seen us qualify for the CAF Confederation Cup, though because Civics managed to win the cup as well as the league, the spot then went to the league runner up and that was us anyway, so in the end, our cup campaign was largely irrelevant, still, it would have been nice to secure a little more prize money.

As I'm sure many of you will be aware by now, provided you've been following this save for any length of time, my plan is to return to the UK, for the most part, moving one country at a time until I get there. So far my journey has not been the most direct and it has seen me manage in Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia, but as much as I would like to stick around in Namibia and try and win something next season, the journey must continue I feel, with that in mind, once the Namibian season was over, I looked to the job market and went for the one and only job going in Angola, the interview went well, perhaps in part due to the fact that I am fluent in Portuguese after my time in Mozambique, anyway, a few days passed by and then the call came… I can announce that I have taken up a new position as the manager of Guelson FC.

Guelson FC are a semi-professional team that finished in sixteenth and last place in the Girabola ZAP, the top division in Angola, they were relegated and now with me in charge, the aim is to get them back up to the top level.

On paper, the challenge shouldn't be the most difficult as the team is considered to be one of the better ones in the second tier, that said, there are no full backs in the team and many of the players are on non-contracts, so it could be difficult to retain our star players.

For my next update, I will look at the additions that I will hopefully have made to the side, along with results of any friendly games and possibly the first few league games.

⅓ Distance 29/30 - Angola

Having joined the recently relegated Guelson FC in Angola, I faced the prospect of attempting to take, what was on paper, probably the second best team in the Second Division, back up to the Girabola ZAP, the top level of football in the country.

In the early stages of the preseason, with barely a couple of friendly games under our belt, we lost our star striker and first-choice goalkeeper, both players, as with all of our players, were on non-contracts due to the club's semi-pro status. I tried my best to persuade the players to stay, but the draw of better wages and playing at a higher level, was too hard to resist. We did manage to bring in a number of replacements and reinforcements, all of which, in theory, worse than what we lost and no better than what we still had, but for the Second Division at least, would be more than enough to meet our needs for the coming season, and with the potential to perhaps raise their game down the line, enough so that they remain useful to us at the higher level, should we secure an immediate return to the Girabola.

My focus for the transfer window was divided between plugging the gaps in the squad and investing in youth prospects, in the senior team, we obviously needed a new striker and goalkeeper, beyond that, we lacked decent full-backs and a central attacking midfielder. With the help of my backroom staff, I found sufficient players for the positions that needed filling and several prospects that will perhaps find themselves on the fringes of the senior team this year, though with the opportunity to fill in as and when senior players get suspended or injured.

As the second best team in the league based on the media prediction and with two promotion places available, naturally we are going to be pushing for promotion, Lunda Sul are rated the best team and just looking at some of their players, they should in theory walk the league this season, that said, in our first ten games, it is my Guelson FC sitting unbeaten at the top of the table, not only unbeaten but with a one hundred percent win record and a 3-0 away win against Lunda Sul who currently sit in third place, having lost to two other teams.

In the Taça de Angola, the main domestic competition in Angola, we are through to the third round. We initially took on non-league side Ara da Gabela who we beat decisively 5-0. In the second round we faced a tough challenge in the form of Interclube, a team from the league above, who are four times champions in this competition and twice Angolan champions, we faced them at our ground and ended the match 0-0 before beating them on penalties thanks to some heroics from our on-loan goalkeeper. For the third round, we face Lunda Sul once more and I'm hoping we can beat them once more, the match will be played at our ground so I am hopeful that will help us on our way to victory. As a second division side, I don't expect to win the competition but it would be nice to reach the fourth round or quarter final, either of which would be well above our expectations.

Looking forward, we still have a long way to go until the end of the season, but I am hopeful that we can maintain our form for some time to come, I am counting on promotion to boost my reputation a little and assist me in continuing my journey up the continent. Right now it's perhaps a little early to be thinking about my next move and I am presently intending to remain at the club or at least in Angola for next season, beyond that though, the next obvious move would be to either the Democratic Republic of Congo, which borders the main part of Angola, or the Republic of Congo which borders the Angolan exclave of Cabinda. Aside from these two options, as part of the rules I set for myself for this save, I will also allow myself to move to São Tomé & Principe, this forms part of a shortcut I decided upon where I can move between former colonies of Portugal without having to go through all the countries in between, if I did chose to go this route then I would then either travel on to Cabo Verde or simply re-emerge on the mainland of Africa at the next nearest country that I have loaded, which I think is probably Cameroon.

My next save will be at around the two third point, by which time we'll probably be knocked out of the cup but hopefully still on top in the league.

⅔ Distance 29/30 - Angola

We are now entering the final third of the 2028/2029 season in Angola and my Guelson FC are still unbeaten after twenty games, with eighteen wins and two draws, we show little signs of slowing down as we look to secure an immediate return to the top division.

In my previous post, I mentioned how we had overcome top division side Interclube in the Taça de Angola second round and we were due to face Lunda-Sul in the third round, well we actually faced them in a league and cup double-header, we managed to beat them in both games, 1-0 in the league and then 2-1 in the cup a few days later, making use of two vastly different game-plans to minimise their chances of guessing how we could play. Once Lunda Sul were out of the way, we were drawn against non-league side São Salvador do Kongo in the fourth round, we easily defeated them, winning the game 6-0 before being pitted against Primeiro de Agosto B in the quarter final.

As we play the final ten games of the season, I am confident that we have won the league this season, it's more or less a question now of when we will get to lift the trophy, rather than if we get to lift it. Things could still go wrong, but given how far ahead we are, barring an absolute calamity of biblical proportions, it is unlikely that we will drop down to second or worse, out of the promotion spots.

The next update will be the final one for this season, at that point I will reveal the final table along with how well we fared in the quarter final of the cup (and beyond if we make it past our next opponent).

Late 29/30 - Angola

My first season in Angola has now come to an end and it's been another good year, we lifted the Second Division title with seven games to spare, leading the pack by a twenty four points and only losing one game all season, which, along with the twenty six wins and three draws, sees us on our way up to the Girabola ZAP, the top division in Angola.

In the Taça de Angola we didn't taste success, if by success you only count winning silverware, but in reaching the quarter final as a second division side, we nonetheless had a highly respectable campaign that saw us even eliminate a team from the league above us. In the end, we might have been eliminated by Primeiro de Agosto's B team, but that B team was a cut above any second division side that we've faced and was quite possibly better than some top division sides as well.

Next season we are going to be facing much tougher opposition and I think with the team we have right now, we will likely struggle to stay up. There were three teams in the Girabola this season that were semi-professional like us, I would put us at a similar level to those, two of which were relegated and the other finished just one place above them, I think it's going to take a lot of effort during the post-season period to bring in sufficient new players and mould them into what we need to stay well clear of the relegation zone.

Earlier in the season I mentioned that it was my plan to remain at Guelson FC for our season back in the Girabola ZAP, as things stand right now, that is still on the cards and I did accept a new contract for the forthcoming season, though I will also be keeping an eye on the job market to see if anything interesting comes up and it's not outside the realm of possibility that I will leave and be managing in yet another country as I continue my journey back to the UK. At this point there are no other jobs available in Angola and I'm not actively looking to move to another team in this country, however, I would potentially consider a move to another Angolan side, but only if it is one of the top sides with a chance at either winning the league or at least mounting a title challenge, any other team, be it a mid-table team or another bottom half side, just wouldn't interest me at this point. If I do end up moving onto the next country, I really don't have much of a preference as to the team, it could be lower level again or it could be a top side, the decision will mostly be based on what is available at the time and whether the team interests me, and that could be down to as simple and meaningless a thing as them having a cool name or team colours that I like or they play in a quaint little seaside town, who knows, whatever happens, it is for a future update, perhaps the next one or another further down the line.

July 2030 - The Celebration

Winning Angolan Second Division is probably not going to be the standout moment of my career but it certainly felt good, fixing the mistakes of a previous manager and taking a relegated team back up to the top division is never a bad thing, I felt it deserved a night of celebratory drinks with the team, the boys agreed so that's what we did.

Most of you guys are probably not aware of this but Luanda is practically the nightlife capital of the whole of Africa, or so one of my players proudly boasted as we hit the town. As a semi-pro team, the budget for drinks was never going to be large, and within half an hour, it had been spent in its entirety, leaving me and the boys to pay for our own drinks for the rest of the night.

I'm not as young as I used to be, and I also don't drink all that often these days, so naturally the next morning was as rough as it comes, thankfully though, there was no training so it was going to be a lazy day, decided to rent a boat and go for a relaxing fishing trip, sounds good, doesn't it? 

I should probably say right now, I'm not a fisherman, I'm also not a sailor, things did not go well, haha. Maybe I went out a little too far, maybe I didn't know what was wrong with the engine when it suddenly gave out, maybe I got picked up by a cargo ship bound for São Tomé and maybe I'm now sat on a beach wondering how I'm going to get back to Angola to lead my team through their season in the Girabola.

As I sit, contemplating my situation, I do wonder if this mishap was meant to be, perhaps there is a new challenge awaiting me on this island, perhaps it's time I checked out the local papers to see if any teams are looking for a new manager, am I really going to walk out on Geulson FC?  To be honest, the answer to that question should be pretty obvious by now, I'm not one for sticking around long term and I still have my plans to return back home to the UK.

So what happens now? Do I look for work here in São Tomé? Or do I try and book passage back to Angola and never speak of this "accident" to any of the players, fans or the board? In my next update, you will find out the answer to these questions.

When I started my save and I've mentioned it in many of my posts, my plan is to return home to the UK having started out in Eswatini. Under normal circumstances, this involves moving one country at a time up the continent and so far, I have done so, albeit in a somewhat indirect manner - Eswatini > Mozambique > Zimbabwe > Botswana > Namibia > Angola. 

When I first came up with the idea for this save, I gave myself a few exceptions to this and one such exception was that I could move between the former Portuguese-owned countries (that I have loaded so no Guinea-Bissau) and Portugal itself - Mozambique > Angola > São Tomé & Principe > Cabo Verde > Portugal. 

With this, I can enter the route at any of those nations and can move directly to the next one without having the manage in countries that lie between them. From São Tomé & Principe I can now move onto Cabo Verde, if I should choose to do so, or I can leave this route either by returning to Angola or by moving to the nearest mainland country I have loaded and that is Cameroon.

Now that I am managing Sporting Clube de São Tomé, the plan is to see out the season with them, hopefully turning around their fortunes in the remaining nine games and avoiding relegation. 

With not much time remaining in the already underway season, I'll either just do an end of season update or I might squeeze one in at what will be the halfway point between then and now, just to cover a few games and our transfer dealings in the upcoming window.

Late 2030 - São Tomé e Príncipe

Having joined Sporting Clube de São Tomé thirteen games into the season, there wasn't a great deal of time until the curtain came down on 2030 and when I joined the club, we were lying in ninth place, it was my goal to get them back up towards the top half of the table if possible.

Over the course of the first few days of my leadership, I made a thorough review of the squad and determined that it was lacking in many areas, I ended up making some quite dramatic changes, bringing in eleven new players and releasing eight, including several first team players.

We lost our first game under my leadership but came back with two wins in a row, that was followed up by two draws which lead to me questioning what kind of a system I was going to put in place at this team, typically I either go slow, short-passing and focussed on retaining possession, or I choose fast-paced, direct football with an emphasis on counter-attacking, I tried both out in our early games but neither seemed to work noticeably better than the other, in the end I settled on the fast-paced game and it was the right choice, we won the next four games and that saw us rise up the table, finishing in fourth place.

As Santana FC won the São Tomé league, they got to face Porto Real, the league winner from the island of Príncipe to determine the overall champion, Santana FC ended up winning and as such are this years champions of São Tomé e Príncipe, breaking União Desportiva Rei Amador's six year hold over the title.

Because of when I joined the team, just after the mid-point, I'm not going to bother talking in any detail about the cup, the team got knocked out more or less straight away and I had no part in that competition.

Looking ahead, I have signed a new contract with the team and right now it is my plan to see out next season at the club, after that it may be a case of moving on, depending on the state of the job market at the time, for now though, I plan to upgrade the backroom staff a little and try to see if I can't strengthen the side once more, I think a few changes here and there and we could be looking at a strong title challenge next year, the media already thinks we're the second best team so I don't think it would take too much to give us that push needed to succeed in this division.

Mid 2031 - São Tomé e Príncipe

Last season, I joined Sporting Clube de São Tomé thirteen games into the 2030 season, the team was in ninth place out of twelve teams and by the end of the season we managed to secure a respectable fourth place.

As I attempted to turn around the fortunes of the club in the second half of last season, I made a concerted effort to strengthen the side and these improvements have continued into and throughout the pre-season period of the 2031 season, as of right now, we are rated by the media as the second best team, this was already the case by the end of last season, but with the latest additions in the recent transfer window, I would like to think we have closed the gap a little more between us and the top rated side UDRA.
 

The latest signings have seen us bring in a new goalkeeper, right back, centre back, left back, centre midfielder, right winger and striker, all of these signings bar the left back are players I would have no hesitation in putting into the starting XI, the left-back however is more of a backup at this point.

With the quality in the squad at the level where we can challenge for the title, that is going to be the goal this season, as the results and table shows, we are currently on course to have a good season, right now at the half way point, we are top of the table with a nine point gap over last season's champions Santana FC. If we can continue on in the same vein of form, I suspect we will have a good shot at lifting the title come the end of the season.

So far in the cup, we have beaten two teams to put us through to the quarter final, we next face UDRA who as I said earlier, are the top rated side in the country, as such, it could end up being a tough match and should we be eliminated, we have already met out competition expectations.

In many of my previous posts, I have often mentioned what my future plans are, right now, those plans are to see out this season in São Tomé, beyond that, I plan to check out the job market once the season has ended and if there is something suitable available, I may well make my next move.

Because of the rules that I am following for this save, I can't just move anywhere, under normal circumstances I can only move one country at a time and only to directly neighbouring countries that I have loaded, one of the main exceptions being that I can move more directly between the former Portuguese colonies which was how I ended up in São Tomé from Angola. For my next move I can either go onto Cabo Verde, back to Angola, or I can re-join the mainland via the nearest country or countries that I have loaded, in this case that would be I think Cameroon and Nigeria. Right now I am a bit torn on where to go next, both Cameroon and Nigeria interest me, Nigeria especially, but if I go via Cabo Verde, it might well speed up my journey back to Europe as based on my rules, from there I could potentially go straight to Portugal.

As I am only half way through this season, there is still plenty of time to decide what to do next, and a lot of it will depend on the job market at the end of the season and beyond, for now though, I will be focussing on trying to win what will be my sixth league title should we manage to hold our form and remain top for the rest of the season.

That's it for now, expect an update sometime in the coming days once we have finished the season.

Late 2031 - São Tomé e Príncipe

If I said 2031 was a good year, it would be somewhat of an understatement, my Sporting Clube de São Tomé side dominated the league this season, finishing seventeen points clear at the top of the table and going the entire season unbeaten (provided that is, you don't count the 3-1 friendly loss to our own youth team lol).

While we ended the season as champions of the São Tomé 1ª Divisão, Sporting Clube do Príncipe finished top of the Príncipe  - 1ª Divisão, leading to a Sporting v Sporting showdown to determine the overall champions of  São Tomé & Príncipe.

The first leg of the final was played in Príncipe, we won the match comfortably beating them 3-0 and headed into the home leg in a commanding position. The second leg was closer than I had expected and they managed to score two goals, thankfully we scored more, winning the game 4-2 and the contest 7-2 on aggregate. Our win keeps the trophy on the island of São Tomé for another year and where it has been now for ten years.

Our performance in the league was great, but it was not our only success, we also managed to lift the Taça Nacional de São Tomé e Príncipe, beating both the previous season's league and cup winners along the way.

If bringing home the league and cup was not enough, we asserted our dominance in the youth categories as well, winning both the Under 21 and Under 18 leagues.

Having now managed this club and in this country for two years now, I am faced with an important decision, do I remain for another year and try to repeat or better our success, there is still the Super Cup which we haven't won yet, or I could move onto the next country in my journey home to the UK?

I've talked in some of my previous posts about the rules I'm following with regards to moving from one country to the next, normally this is only to a direct neighbour though there are exceptions such as when dealing with island nations, crossing the Mediterranean and the special exception I made that allows me to move more directly between Portugal and her former colonial possessions. 

In the current case, being in São Tomé & Príncipe, I can either follow my express route to Europe by moving onto Cabo Verde and potentially onto Portugal at a later date, or I can return back to Angola, failing that, if I don't want to follow the express route, I also have the option to return to the African mainland by heading to the nearest country that I have loaded, in this case, it would be Cameroon, but because of the similarity in distance from São Tomé, I am also permitting myself the option of Nigeria as well.

Right now, the job market is not exactly overflowing with suitable job opportunities in any of those countries so it may be a case of biding my time, potentially remaining at Sporting for the immediate future until something comes up, I think it may be the case that these countries seasons operate at a different time to São Tomé so with a little luck, jobs will present themselves in the coming months, ideally during the pre-season period which would save me from having to put too much though into the 2032 season with Sporting.

In my next update, I will reveal whether I chose to leave, decided to remain for the time-being or even whether I decided to stay for the entirety of next season.

Early 2032

Despite having only just secured the domestic double in São Tomé & Príncipe, it was never my intention to remain here for long, in fact, given that I am trying to make my way back to the UK, I'm not planning to stick around in any country in the long term, the moment the season ended, I knew it was time to check the job market once more.

Before even checking for available jobs, I had already identified a few options as far as where my next step would lead me, Cameroon and Nigeria, due to their proximity, were logical choices and I did apply for jobs at both Unisport and Brasseries in Cameroon and Crown F.C. in Nigeria, but it was ultimately a job offer from Botafogo in Cabo Verde that interested me the most, even though it might have been better for my reputation to have gone to either of the other two.

Botafogo play in the Liga Fogo, a league consisting of only the teams from the island of Fogo, one of nine inhabited islands that make up Cabo Verde, each island has it's own local league, though two of the islands have two leagues with the islands being split into north and south zones. The champions of each league and one additional team then head into a tournament to determine the overall champions.
 

As you can see from the fixtures and the current league table, Botafogo are currently seventh and with only four games left, we are still technically in with a chance, though I am not really expecting to progress this time around unless I can get the tactics spot on from the get-go. I think the most likely outcome this season is that we don't qualify for the Liga Cabo Verde and instead, have an extremely long pre-season to plan for next year. Looking at the team I have right now and considering potential improvements I might try to make in the next transfer window, I going to be aiming to position us among the front runners in our island division and hopefully, we can secure the spot next time around, certainly if we don't these nine game seasons are going to be boring, there's only so many times I can put up with playing friendlies against the same one or two local non-league teams. I swear I played Escola de São Tomé a dozen times during my time with Sporting, it probably wasn't really a dozen times but it sure felt like it.

With four games left of the Liga Fogo, it shouldn't be too long until my next update, given that not too much is likely to happen between now and then, it will probably only be a brief update with another one at the end of the season with a look at what happened in the Liga Cabo Verde if we did somehow manage to make it or just a long list of friendly results and some transfer news.

March 2032 - Cabo Verde

With the team lying in seventh place and with only four games to turn things around, I wasn't expecting too much from the remainder of 2032, but perhaps if I had looked a little closer at the table and the amount of points needed for us to reach the top, I might have had more faith, we were only five points behind the top two, four points from third and only one point behind the next three.

In preparation for our first league game under my leadership, I set up three friendly games and began working on developing our tactics, my initial ideas was to bring over what had worked well for me in São Tomé but then I started adapting it to suit the players I had to work with here, the strategy seemed to work and we won all three friendly matches, of those matches, one was against a non-league team, one was against a team from our island league and the other was a team from the same level as us, just a different island.

Going into my first match, I had high hopes that we might hit the ground running, we did fairly well and I was quite pleased with how we played, managing to limit their possession a fair bit and we created plenty of chances but I felt we were lacking somewhat in front of goal and the match ended 1-1.

Looking at the players in the team and how they were working together, I could tell we had the right people, for the most part, it was just a case of tweaking things until they gelled, the midfield and wing-backs seemed to create plenty of chances for our striker so I think it was a case that he simply couldn't feed off what he was being given, a change of roles here and there and things would improve.

I arranged one more friendly match, another team from our league, we beat them and headed on to my second league match, I went with the adjusted tactics and we managed to win the game 1-0. Despite the low scoreline, we took plenty of shots and prevented the opposition, who were playing at their own ground, from having even a single shot on goal.

The third of four games saw us playing at home and picking up an emphatic 4-1 victory, though this was after reinforcements arrived during the transfer window. 

To improve the squad, I decided to bolster the defence with a new centre-back and a left-back, I brought in a new centre midfielder, a right-winger/striker and I am deligted to say, I was able to bring in António Monteiro, a striker who played for me at both Guelson FC and Sporting São Tomé. In his two seasons in São Tomé, he was the club and league top scorer both seasons, he also impressed me early on by scoring four goals in the Angolan Cup.

The seven points we picked up in our first three games under my management, lifted us up the table to fourth place, the fact that we had a game in hand over the top two teams put us in the position that should we win the last game of the season, we would go top of the league, the only other team that could do the same, was our opponents, Académica do Fogo. The scenario was that whoever won the match, won the league, if it ended in a draw then both of us would end the season level on points with second place Nova Era and Spartak Aguadinha would lift the trophy and qualify for the final stage where twelve teams, the champions from each league and one second place team battle for the right to be declared champions of Cabo Verde.

The match to decide the finishing positions at the top of the Fogo league finally came around, despite technically being the away team, the match was held at the ground we share with six other teams from our division and we had around 44% of the crowd on our side for what ended up being a decisive 3-0 win for us. Our captain netted the first goal and that was followed up by new signing, António Monteiro scoring twice from the penalty spot.

In winning the match, we lifted the Fogo island trophy and now go onto face a group stage consisting of Estrela dos Amadores, Sporting Clube da Praia and Ultramarina, ideally we need to finish first if we wish to proceed to the semi-final, but failing that, being the best performing second place team would also get us through. I'm not quite sure at this point how well we do, sure, it would be nice to win the competition but as far as the board is concerned, we only need to be competitive. We'll try and do our best and see where that gets us, if we fail to make it out of the group stage then we'll try again next year and hopefully by that point, we will have strengthened the side once more.

I think aside from collecting ten out of twelve possible points in our remaining games, a big part of how and why we were able to pull off what I initially considered unlikely, was because teams like Académica, who were top of the league when I arrived, performed poorly in their remaining games and now they've finished in the bottom half thanks to two losses and two draws. It just goes to show how much difference one game can make when the league doesn't have many matches. 

[I'd actually be interested to see what the real league setup is like as I get feeling that this database might not be one hundred percent accurate, nine games each for the Fogo league seems a little low and some of the other islands it’s as low as five games, I reckon there is sufficient time for playing each team twice before the championship phase kicks in, so whether it's just a case of it being hard to recreate in the editor or not due to the different sized leagues, I'm not sure.]

One final thing to note is that after securing the Fogo title, we made one final signing, bringing in Geoxking Espírito Santo, a second first team player from my previous club and a decent centre-back for this level with some room to improve.

This was supposed to be a brief update but alas I had more than expected to talk about, my next update will hopefully be shorter as the transfer window will be shut by then and I'm not planning on making any more signings unless we lose somebody, so it should just be the results from the group stage and potentially the semi-final/final as well.

March 2032 - Cabo Verde

When I first arrived in Cabo Verde and took the Botafogo job, I can't say I had done much research, in fact, I hadn't done any to be honest, I didn't know anything about the team and as such, I didn't realise that they were one of the better sides in the Fogo league and were simply underperforming under the previous manager, as such, it came as a surprise that we were able to go from seventh place to winning the league in four games.

On winning the league, we were entered into the National Championship as the representatives of the island of Fogo, there we would face the champions from all the other islands and one second place team, we faced a group stage where our group consisted of Estrela dos Amadores, Sporting Clube da Praia and Ultramarina. With limited knowledge of football in Cabo Verde, I had no idea where we would place in our group but as the board only wanted us to be competitive, I didn't necessarily expect that we would end up winning our group.

We kicked off the group stage by losing away to Sporting Clube da Praia 3-2, at this point I thought we would be in for a tough time in this group, fortunately though, we ended up beating Ultramarina 4-2 at our ground and then went on to pick up a 4-1 win at home against Estrela dos Amadores. When we played Estrela dos Amadores at their ground, they beat us 1-0 and much like in the first three matches, our loss was followed by two wins in a row, seeing us pick up a 5-2 win over Sporting and then a 2-1 win over Ultramarina. The final match of the group stage was a close affair, we actually went 1-0 down early on and it was only thanks to two fairly late goals that allowed us to win the match, it was actually that we won this match that allowed us to progress to the semi-final as had we lost, we would not have finished top of the group.

Having reached the semi-final, we were pitted against Mindelense, the champions of the São Vicente league, one of the top teams in the country, one that has won it's island league seven times out of the last ten and as well, has been crowned national champions in five of those last ten seasons. We faced Mindelense at their ground first, and for most of the game, they were the better team, we were three goals down before we eventually decided to turn up, but despite mounting a comeback late in the game, it was not enough and we were not able to beat them or even level the scores, losing the game 3-2, those two away goals would be oh so important come the second leg however. 

When it came to playing the second leg, this time at our ground, things were totally different, we played so much more fluidly and we peppered their goal with shots, ensuring their goalkeeper was busy all game, we only won 2-0, but I feel the score could have been a lot higher on another day.

By defeating Mindelense on aggregate, we headed through to the final, only one step away from being declared national champions.

Unlike the semi-final, the final was a single legged affair, held at the national stadium, there we came up against Boavista da Praia, champions of the island of Santiago's south zone (Santiago along with the island of Santo Antão both have two leagues, a north and a south league). In terms of team comparison, Boavista were the slightly bigger team based on reputation, but just based off the quality of their players, I would consider things fairly even, I expected a close game but while we actually controlled the game for most of the ninety minutes and had nearly a dozen shots, we failed to put the ball in the back of the net and Boavista having two shots on target, scored from both of them, the game ended 2-0 and we could only return home to our island with a runners-up medal.

Just prior to the final, I was offered a contract extension, one that I accepted, confirming my plans to remain at the team for next season.

Looking ahead, the plan is to try and build on what we achieved this season, hopefully I can continue to strengthen the side so that when the next season starts up, we're ready to give it our all in an effort to secure a second Fogo league title in a row. In an ideal world we will win the league and qualify for the national championship again, I would like to try and win it next time and anything less than reaching the group stage will be a huge disappointment.

November 2032 - Cabo Verde

The 2033 season is about to kick off and our preparations are complete, we've had both our captain and vice-captain poached by other teams, but other players have stepped up into those positions, and I have brought in three new players to the side to hopefully give us the boost we need.

My plans for this season are fairly simple, I want us to win the Fogo island league and reach the national championship once again, we have a strong team, so I have every faith that we can do so, and the media seems to agree with this sentiment as they have us as favourites.

Last year, we finished as overall runners up, so the aim this time around is to try and go one better and become champions of Cabo Verde. At the very minimum, should we fail to win, or even match our performance last season, I would like to see us at least make it past the group stage.

In the main domestic cup, we were knocked out in the first round last season, this happened before I joined the team and started making improvements, so I think this time around, we should be capable of doing much better and ideally I would like to see us reach the latter rounds of the competition.

In terms of signings, I brought in a new goalkeeper called Ken, I don't expect him to ever become our number one as he is not quite as good on paper as our existing first choice, but we were lacking a decent backup and this is where I see him in our squad right now. 

When we lost our captain, we lost a decent centre-back, replacing him in that position, I have signed Lassina Touré from my previous club Sporting São Tomé, this should hopefully work out well for us as he will partner up once more with Geoxking Espírito Santo, who played alongside him at Sporting. 

Our third signing is Rahim Ouédraogo, a winger from Burkina Faso, signed primarily as he was of the same nationality as Touré and with the aim of assisting Touré in settling in the Cape Verde Islands. At the time of signing Ouédraogo, he was a bit of an unknown, he was simply the first player from Burkina Faso that I found that was willing to join us, I had no idea how good he would be, though looking at the reports since his arrival, he looks to be a marvellous capture, so much so that I don't expect him to stick around too long, in fact, I half expect him to get poached before the end of the season given that he has 4.5 star current ability and 4.5-5 star potential.

Before we get to the start of the league season, we played a whole bunch of friendlies, playing nine in total and winning all nine of them and even beating two teams from our own league 6-1 and 7-1. While last season we adopted a fast-paced, counter-attacking style of football, this season we are going to do the opposite, slow-paced, short-passing, possession-based football, hopefully this change will keep our opponents guessing and looking at the results in the friendlies, it seems to be working nicely, but only once the league games start, will I know for sure if this is going to work when it matters.

My next update will come once the Fogo island league matches have been played and the local champion has been decided, hopefully at that point, we will be lifting the trophy and getting ready for the national championship.

March 2032 - Cabo Verde

After narrowly snatching the Liga Fogo title on the final day of last season, we were able to claim it this time just before kick off on the last day. It's interesting to note that our points total last time around, which was enough to win the title, would have only secured us fifth place finish this season, luckily for us however, I strengthened the team quite considerably in the transfer windows since I first joined and so we won it on merit this time, rather than it being more down to luck.

Now that the island leagues are out of the way, our focus switches to the national championship, there we face a group stage consisting of Corôa da Brava, Ribeira Brava and Sporting da Praia, the winners of the Brava and São Nicolau leagues and the runner up from Santiago-Sul respectively.

Last season we managed to win our group and even made it to the final where we finished as runner-up, this season it would be nice to go one better, but at the same time, we are not favourites to win and I would not even put us as the best team in the group, on paper at least. The way I see it, Sporting da Praia are the team to beat in our group, but I think we are close enough to them in terms of player quality that we could well beat them if we play well, though it is not a certainty by any stretch of the imagination. Should we manage to qualify for the next round, teams such as Mindelense, Boavista da Praia and Académica do Porto Novo, the last three champions in fact, are all teams that could send us out of the competition if we're do not play to the best of our abilities.

Aside from the national championship, we are also still in with a chance at winning the Taça Nacional de Cabo Verde, the main domestic trophy. Right now, we're into the quarter final and we are set to face SC Farense, a team that I consider to be slightly weaker than us, but not so much so that they are not going to be able to put up a good fight. Farense could well be tough competition, but the game will be played at our ground, as such I feel we should have enough of an advantage to progress through to the semi-final.

Since my last post, we have done a little more business in the transfer market, bringing in a new goalkeeper, two new left backs to replace our first choice in that position who got poached, and finally an attacking midfielder who can play either in the middle or on the right, and who can also play up front if needed. The new goalkeeper and attacking midfielder were both signings made by my director of football, I didn't have a strong need to bolster either position but when I saw their star ratings, I decided to approve the signings, they will certainly boost our chances of success for the rest of the season, though I will need to consider cutting one or two players soon as the senior team is getting a little too large for the number of games we will be playing.

The next update will come at the end of the season when I can give a full review of our performance in the national championship and the domestic cup.

June/July 2033 - Cabo Verde
 

The 2033 season has now ended and I don't think it could have gone much better, we not only finished top of our group in the Cape Verde national championship, but we reached the final and lifted the trophy, if that was not enough, we also brought home the Taça Nacional de Cabo Verde, securing the domestic triple.
 

In my previous post I had identified Sporting da Praia as the best team in our group for the national championship, but once the games kicked off, it soon became apparent that we in fact, were the number one team, we won all but one of our games and it was actually Corôa da Brava who were the team that prevented us from getting a clean sweep at this stage of the competition, Sporting in fact lost to us 2-0 on both occasions, and despite them coming in second place, their posed little threat to us during our games.

Having progressed to the semi-final, we were drawn against Académica do Porto Novo, as one of the stronger teams in the competition that I had also identified in my last post and being a recent winner of the competition, I had expected a close contest with them, I knew we had a chance at home so the goal was to try grab a win in front our own crowd and then attempt to keep the scores close in the away leg, that was how I envisaged us getting past them. What happened was a definitive 3-0 victory in the home leg and a 2-2 draw at their ground, it wasn't too far from my prediction and plan, but I did not expect the home leg to go so well, if anything, I had a 1-0 or perhaps a 2-1 win at best in mind, so 3-0 was excellent and when I look at the match stats, it's pleasing to see that we largely controlled the match from start to finish.

Beating Académica do Porto Novo put us through to a final against Boavista da Praia, the reigning champions and the team that beat us in last years final. It was finally time to get revenge and settle scores, though if there was ever a match I expected to be tough, at least by Cape Verdean standards, this was going to be it.

As good as Boavista are, we managed to keep fifty-five percent of the possession and shots were at twenty-one to six in our favour, we controlled the play for much of the match. We took an early lead with a goal after nine minutes, they equalised just after half-time but we soon regained the lead with another goal in the fifty-seventh minute. As the game wore on, I began to see areas for improvement in our gameplay and ways we could exploit their weaknesses, late substitutions and a few tactical tweaks boosted our already strong performance and we added to our tally with two more goals, winning the game in the end, 4-1.

Upon lifting the trophy, my Botafogo side were crowned both island and national champions, but almost exactly one month earlier, we had the final of the Taça Nacional to play for, there we were faced with our main divisional rivals from this season, Nô Pintcha do Fogo.

Nô Pintcha do Fogo had a strong season in the Fogo Island league, though they ultimately finished in second place, they were the only team to actually beat us in the league this season, preventing what would have otherwise been an unbeaten season. Even before I joined Botafogo last season, they managed to beat the team under the previous manager as well, as such, I was not going to take them lightly. When the time came, I fielded a full strength side and we took the game to them, though I knew we were officially the bigger team and favourite for the match, I was not expecting the end result, 4-0 at full time. Wherever the team was, that beat us in the league, they were not in this game.

Having won the domestic treble, I had to ask myself if I was ready to move onto the next country, based off the rules I'm playing to, I could move from here to Portugal and finally end my time in Africa, I applied for the worst job I could find in the Campeonato de Portugal but the team did not even give me the time of day. I have eight league titles, six cups and two promotions to my name, but the deal breaker was apparently my refusal to make set-pieces an important part of my tactics, like seriously? How does some random lower-league team a continent away even know what my tactical intentions are? Maybe my players are just too honest to appeal for every possible penalty or free-kick.

With a move to Portugal looking unlikely at this point, that leaves me with either remaining in Cabo Verde a little while longer, moving back to São Tomé & Príncipe, jumping to the mainland and taking a job in Senegal, or having to make use of a special route I created at the start of the save that I have largely ignored [see the yellow route on the map in my original post or on my career page on Sortitoutsi] this route would allow me to take a job in Liberia as well, though along with the other yellow routes, I haven't needed to use them yet due to the green route and normal mainland movements have been sufficient to keep this save going.

While a move to either Senegal or Liberia did interest me, and I did apply for a job in the Senegalese third tier, ultimately I decided against it. The logic behind the move was that while it would damage my reputation to drop to the Senegalese third tier, should I get promoted twice to the top level, my reputation would hopefully be sufficiently boosted that it would make a future move to say Mali, much easier, the downside being though, that I might need to manage in Senegal for three years. In the end, before even getting an interview in Senegal, I was offered one from Associação Académica do Mindelo, the second biggest team in the country based on reputation. As one of only two one star teams in Cabo Verde, I took a gamble that it might help my chances in moving to a 1.5-2 star Portuguese team, if I were already at a 1 star team and not one with just a half star rating. With that in mind, I took a chance at an interview and while the team actually offered me a lower wage that what I was already on, I accepted it.

As of now, I am the manager of Académica do Mindelo. The goal from this point is fairly simple, try and stop Mindelense from winning the Liga São Vicente and then try once more to win the national championship and the Taça Nacional. I'm not sure how much longer I will remain in Cabo Verde, this forthcoming season will be my third [provided you count my first which was not quite a full season due to me arriving five games into the island league season] but I think if I can't make the move to Portugal within the next two seasons, I will try for Senegal, Mali and then via somewhere in North Africa.

My next post is going to be either at the end of pre-season or possibly after the island league as finished.

July 2033 - Cabo Verde

This update is a little earlier than planned as we've not played a single friendly yet but I though I would give a sneak peak at my first signings since hopping over to the island of São Vicente and joining Académica do Mindelo. 

We've undertaken a brutal raid of my previous club Botafogo, poaching one of the strikers, the left-back and three attacking midfielders, to my delight I can announce that António Monteiro will be teaming up with me yet again, having played under my management at Guelson FC, Sporting São Tomé and Botafogo.

Beyond our raid on Botafogo, I have gone in for Edgar Pires, he was the best youth player of his intake while I was in my first season at Sporting São Tomé, he broke his ankle in his first ever match and spent months out, despite his setback, he ended up becoming a first team regular their, and now he joins me in Cabo Verde where I think he could become a key player for us. 

Leonild Da Costa Fortes is a player we've signed that can play right-back or centre-midfield, he's been on my shortlist since I arrived in Cabo Verde but he didn't quite match my needs at Botafogo, here however, he could well be a good addition. 

Finally, I can welcome Samson Ibe, a striker I signed back when I was at Orlando Pirates in Namibia. Ibe did well for me in Namibia and after I left, he remained there, playing for the Pirates for one more season before joining Civics and then Ramblers. He was recently released by Ramblers and I feel he could really give us and edge, provided he is still as good a striker as I remember.

Really enjoying this mate keep it up. Love seeing obscure nations getting recognised on the forums

Thanks for continuing to follow my save, it's been fun managing in Africa so far and I'm especially enjoying Cape Verde right now due to the different league structure they have with each island having its own league and the winners of each playing each other to determine the overall champions. It does however have the potential to get a little confusing as there's is an Académica team on most of the islands and I believe it's possible for 9 of them to qualify for the national championship at the same time, that would mean ¾ of the teams in the final part of the competition having very similar names/badges/kits etc, thankfully that has not happened to me yet and the last two seasons, only three qualified.

November 2033 - Cabo Verde

A couple of posts ago, I announced that I had recently taken over as manager of Académica do Mindelo from the Liga São Vicente in Cabo Verde for what would be my third season in the country having previously managed at Botafogo for two seasons.

In the last post, I gave a sneak peak of my earliest transfers for the upcoming season and since then, we've added a few more, singing fourteen players in total (including ones mentioned in previous post), half of which I signed from my previous team Botafogo, and on top of that, three had played under my management at Sporting São Tomé, one of which also played for me at Guelson FC in Angola and then one of the signings had played under my leadership at Orlando Pirates in Namibia.

The squad I inherited upon joining was reasonable and might well have been able to put up a title challenge for the island league, but it was by no means sufficient for my ambitions, I do not want to simply challenge for the title, I want to win it, and what better way than to sign a whole bunch of players from my previous team, one that not only won the Liga Fogo twice, but also finished as overall champions of Cabo Verde once and runners-up once. Hopefully I can mould these players, along with others I have signed, into a similarly successful outfit here on the island of São Vicente.

In the run up to the start of the island league phase, I set up a good number of friendlies, eleven in total, we managed to win all but two of them, drawing one and losing the other. Generally speaking, I was happy with the progress that we made and I have high hopes that we can put up a strong challenge this season, certainly the signings have helped and the media is listing us as favourites now, rather than Mindelense, who have won the league for the last four years in a row.

In the last eleven seasons (basically since the start of the game), Mindelense have won the league eight times, only one other team has managed to stop them in that time and that was us under previous managers, I aim to stop them once more and put us through to the national championships, where I am aiming to reach the semi-final as a bare minimum, if we can reach the final, that would be good, but the real aim is to lift the trophy, though failing that, I would be satisfied with a runner-up finish this time around, failing to get past the group stage however, would represent a big disappointment, especially given that we are listed as the second biggest team in the country and that was before any of my improvements.

In my next post, which you should expect to see in a day or two, I will reveal the results from the island league along with any results from the cup, after that, provided we manage to win our island league, you can expect another update regarding the national championships and almost certainly one at the end of the season, if we fail to progress however, expect anything relating to the national championships to be lumped in with the end of season post.

March 2034 - Cabo Verde

That's it, the island league phase is over, we are champions of São Vicente and we now head onto the national championship, where we face a group consisting of last year's champions and my former team Botafogo, Fiorentina Porto Novo and Oásis Atlântico. 

I am hopeful of a successful group stage and I would put us as favourites to win this group, especially as I strip mined Botafogo of most of their talent when I first joined Académica. In my last post I suggested the aim was to win the tournament but finishing runner-up was acceptable, I've just taken a look at the board's expectations now that we are into the national championship, and they are expecting us to win it, I think their expectations are not-unreasonable, especially given that the three teams that won this competition in the years before I did with Botafogo, are not even competing this season due to not winning their respective island leagues.
 

Beyond the league, we are still in with a chance in the main domestic cup, currently we face a semi-final match against AJAC and I am confident we can beat them to reach the final, certainly we are a bigger team and on paper, possess the better squad. Should we reach the final, we would face either Académica do Fogo or Académica da Praia, either of which, I would say we have a good chance of beating, though despite having confidence that we could go on and win the competition, we still have to show up and do a professional job in both remaining games, if we don't, and complacency starts to creep in, there is a chance we could get dumped out.

The next update will be the last of the season, hopefully at that point I will be celebrating my second triple in a row, failing that though and even if everything goes wrong from this point on, we will at least still be champions of our island. Looking ahead, I am starting to look at where my next move will be, based off the rules that I am following, I am allowed to apply for jobs in Portugal and I have already, albeit unsuccessfully, if something should come up, I am going to go for it, though failing that, I am still thinking of moving on, so perhaps Senegal will provide opportunities if Portugal does not, whatever happens, check out my next couple of posts to find out how things turned out.

June 2034 - Cabo Verde

After a successful campaign in the Liga São Vicente, we booked our place in the national championship, I didn't know a great deal about two of the teams in our group but the third was my former club, Botafogo, I was really looking forward to playing them so that I could see how they would fare under their new manager and after I had raided them early on in the pre-season period, taking seven of their players.

Over the course of the six group stage games, we picked up four wins and two draws, the draws were against Fiorentina Porto Novo and my old club Botafogo, the former ending 1-1 and the latter 0-0, on the flip side, we beat both teams at our ground, 4-2 against Fiorentina and an impressive 5-0 against Botafogo, last years overall champions. In our games against Oásis Atlântico, we managed to beat them home and away, leaving us clear at the top of the group, progressing through to the semi-final against Estrela dos Amadores.
 

The semi-final was held over two legs, we had the home game first and I had hoped having the crowd on our side, would make a difference, but we played poorly and rarely threatened their goal, ending the match 0-0 and going into an away leg against a team I actually found quite hard to read, tactically, they didn't seem to be doing anything noticeably specific, making it hard to counter them, but while they did manage to shut down our offence, they couldn't break our defence, leaving things in a stalemate. In the second leg, I switched things up, going from what had been a short-passing, slow build-up style of play for most of the season, to a fast-pace, counter attacking style, this change seemed to work nicely in the second leg and we managed to beat them 3-1.

In the final, we came up against Onze Unidos, a team we actually beat 7-2 in the cup, naturally I was confident of a winning performance and I was not disappointed. We only managed to beat them 3-0 this time, but given what was at stake, I'm not complaining, the game was fairly easy for us and we never looked like losing.

When it comes to the cup, the Taça Nacional de Cabo Verde, we didn't face a particularly challenging campaign, by the time we reached the latter rounds, all of the other top teams had been eliminated and I was fairly confident of beating whoever we faced. In the six cup games we played, we had a 7-2 victory, two 4-0 wins and in the remaining three, we scored twice in each, only conceding three goals in the entire competition.

By winning the island league, becoming national champions and winning the domestic cup, we have secured what is my second triple in a row in Cabo Verde, winning it with two different teams, one season after the other. I could stay on for another season and try it all again and while I am enjoying managing in the country, I do still plan to try and get back home to the UK. Over the coming post-season period, I will be checking out the job market, looking to see what jobs are available in Portugal, provided my reputation is high enough, a move to the Portuguese fourth tier might be possible, though if not, Senegal and Liberia represent possible options, or I could even return to São Tomé & Príncipe and then look to move to either Nigeria or Cameroon a season or two down the line. 
 

[One of the biggest problems with this save, logistically speaking, is that with moving countries so frequently as I have have done, sometimes joining really small teams like in Cabo Verde and São Tomé & Príncipe, my reputation has taken a battering, right now I think Portugal might be a struggle for me to move to as despite my current team being 1 star and the worst 4th tier Portuguese teams being similar, most low level Portuguese managers have a higher reputation than me, even when their current ability is probably half of what mine is, aside from that, the Portuguese 4th tier is a 2 star league and the one I'm in is only half a star.

My current thinking as to the best way for me to reach even my first European country is to wait for a job to come up in Senegal, preferably at a club that is of a similar reputation or better than my current one, a team that I could turn into a title challenger quickly and if I could win the country's top division, that should hopefully boost my reputation enough to then pick up a good job in Mali, where if I then do well there, would help me pick up a reasonable job in Algeria, one that isn't just in the lowest division. If I could one day win the top league in Algeria, I think my reputation would be enough to pick up a job in the lower levels of Italy's footballing pyramid, with that in mind, I'm thinking maybe five to eight seasons just to maybe get a job in Europe, though if I were to remain in Cabo Verde and keep plugging away, it's possible I could do it quicker, but I could also end up eight seasons down the line and be not much better off than I already am. I have previously applied for jobs in Portugal and most have outright refused to even shortlist me, though I have had a couple of interviews, which makes me think there is a slight chance that I could get hired there within the next couple of years, provided I can continue to be successful here and keep increasing my reputation, even if its only by a tiny amount with each trophy won.

Given the probable timeframe in even getting to southern Europe, I'm not fully confident I will actually reach the UK before FM24 comes out, I think if I even reach Europe by that point, this save will have been an interesting adventure.]

I waved goodbye to Cape Verde today and took the next step on my journey, I had hoped that my next step would be to Portugal, but unfortunately none of their teams were interested in me, their loss is another country's gain.

I knew in order to continue my journey, I would need to return to the African mainland, Senegal would have been the logical port of call, however the available jobs there were not really what I am looking for at this point in my career, instead, I booked passage to Liberia, where upon landing in the port of Monrovia, I was detained by the Port Authority.

At first I thought the authorities were taking issue with the way I arrived into the country, or perhaps with my documents, but it turns out the Port Authority wanted to hire me to be the manager of their football team, naturally I looked them up on the website of the Liberian FA and discovered that they were in the top division, that was all I needed to know, I took the job and here I am.

The team last won the LFA-Cellcom First Division League back in 1994 and they have at times been towards the upper end of the table, though for the last few, they have been in the bottom half and this season they are a candidate for relegation, predicted to finish just ahead of the recently promoted teams.
 

In the next few weeks I will be assessing the current squad, removing the deadwood and bolstering it where I can, though we are currently predicted to be in amongst the relegation favourites, I don't plan to be involved in any kind of struggle for survival, so expect a good number of changes to the team, both on and off the field.

Once I've had chance to review the squad, make some transfers and play a few friendlies I'll have a fairly good idea how well we will do this season, though looking briefly at the top couple of teams, I think winning the league is out of the question this season, that said, if we can keep well away from the relegation zone or even push for the top half, I think that would be a decent achievement. Keep an eye out for my next update which should come at the end of pre-season [probably within a day or two real-time].

August 2034 - Liberia

With a new season comes a new challenge, after leaving Cabo Verde I now find myself at the helm of the National Port Authority Anchors, at the time of joining, one of the weaker teams in the LFA-Cellcom First Division League.

Having joined at the start of pre-season in Liberia, and with the transfer window wide open, I have taken full advantage of our time and made a number of additions to the squad, strengthening the team in most areas as I attempt to turn this outfit from a likely relegation battler, to one that can push for the upper reaches of the league.

Amongst the new signings, I have brought over four players from Cabo Verde, three of which played under my management at Botafogo, the fourth player was one which I became aware of while managing in the country and who I had kept on my shortlist, but who was never quite what I needed at the time when managing there, here in Liberia he makes a good addition to my side, along with the others that I am more familiar with.

My signings from Cabo Verde strengthen the team at left-back, right-wing, central attacking midfield and up front, though as the whole squad more or less needed improving, they are but a small selection of my signings. Other key signings come in the form of central-midfielder Stephane Boumsong from Brasseries in Cameroon, centre-back Mark Bility from LPRC Oilers, goalkeeper Aboubacar Keïta from Académie Kabassan in Guinea, central-midfielder Dennis Williams from MC Breweries, centre-back Emmanuel Olalekan from Freeport and from Burkina Faso, we bring both central-midfielder Harouna Ouédraogo and left winger Bagbéma Nadinga, from Sya Foot and KADA International respectively.

With the arrival of our new signings, where we were previously expected to finish just above the relegation zone, we are now expected to finish in fifth, perhaps with good tactics and the right motivation, we could push higher still, though I would not necessarily expect us to topple the big two teams, which right now, are LISCR and LPRC Oilers, that is unless they end up losing key players to injury or transfer, and they massively underachieve, so with that said, I'm going to put it on record that I'm aiming for third but a top five finish would be pleasing, though anything inside the top half is going to be acceptable this year.

Just caught up with this save! What an epic journey you're on, and long may it continue! 

Nice to see some different footballing nations being showcased! My favourite part is seeing the weird and wonderful team names!

I'll be following from now for sure. 

Hi, thanks for taking the time to read through my posts, it's been a fun save so far. If you like the weird team names you're going to love it if I end up in Nigeria at some point, they have some of the best on the continent, Mountain of Fire and Miracles FC and Federal Road Safety Corps FC both spring to mind.

Good luck in Liberia!

It would be nice to see your journey so far in a map, for who's not so familiar with African geography!