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

June 2043

In my last post we had just been knocked out of the Champions League, but were looking ahead to almost certainly being crowned league champions and we were still in both the Taça de Portugal and Allianz Cup, in the former we were trailing Porto going into the semi final second leg, while in the latter we were due to face Belenenses in the final. 

As expected, we secured the title, our first since the 2029/2030 season, we almost went undefeated but for a single loss away at FC Porto. With the title on it's way back to Lisbon after so many years in Braga's trophy cabinet, we could now focus more on the two cups as we also finish out the season.

In the final of the Allianz Cup, we faced Belenenses, I knew we were good enough to beat them and we did just that, 6-1 the final score, it really doesn't get much more comprehensive than that.

We also managed to overturn the deficit and knock FC Porto out of the Taça de Portugal in the semi final second leg, it was a decent result for us, winning 3-0, a much better performance than in the first leg, though perhaps not quite as good as our 7-0 win over them earlier in the season. In the final, we would go onto face our local rivals Sporting, they gave us a fairly close game but we had enough about us to see them off, securing our third cup this season and making it a quadruple win for Benfica this season and the second one of my career (my last one came 37/38 with Issia Wazi in the Ivory Coast).

With the season over, I now face the difficult challenge of keeping my star players at the team as teams from the big four leagues and Saudi Arabia begin to circle like vultures. I suspect I might have to let one or two players go, and doing so should actually give me the funds to improve the squad in a number of areas.

The plan going forward into the new season is to stick around at Benfica for another year and try and repeat my success, domestically speaking, while also perhaps hoping for a slight improvement in Europe, though even if we only manage a similar performance, it isn't all that bad. Now that is the short term plan, but long term, I am starting to think about things, this season I will be sixty years old and while I have many trophies to my name, I have never won a major continental tournament at club level and though I have won one at international level with the Cape Verde Islands, my time in international football had been fairly limited. I'm thinking that should a bigger club (perhaps one of the top 10 teams in Europe) makes an approach for me to attend an interview, or should a job there become available, I might go for it, similarly if an international job comes up, especially one in Europe and one that has a chance at winning something, I would be interested.

At my point in life I have to admit that I have had a few thoughts about my retirement, I know I'm not going to be in football forever, I do feel like I still have a good few years in me yet but I'm conscious that my future in the game is now significantly shorter than my past, I'm going to have to think about, before too long, how I'm going to go out, will it be on an high, at the top of the game? Or will I gradually wind down, drop to the lower levels or to a country where the pace of the game is a little less hectic. One thing I have discovered recently, is that I have a child, born from a relationship I had with a woman in Mozambique. My first thought upon learning about my kid was can I sign him? A new player for the youth team would be good, though alas, it's a girl, a woman now in fact, it's been a while since I left Mozambique and I'd pretty much lost contact with everyone I knew there, but my ex found a way to contact me recently, evidently my daughter got into football but sadly suffered an injury that ended her career just as it was beginning, now she's looking to get into coaching and perhaps one day, she will be a manager as well (who knows, maybe her career will get a page here on Sortitoutsi).

September 2043

After a highly successful first season at Benfica, we move onto the next. The goal is much the same as last year, to try and win everything domestically and then perform as well as we can in Europe.
 

A big blow to the side saw our star player Sidnei Pato leaving to join Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia, we had a chance to retain him but simply couldn't match the kind of money they were offering. Joining him out of the door is right back Mark Green, midfielder Érico Pelicano and as of a few days ago, goalkeeper Vasil Stojkov. All together, including reserves and youth players, we raked in around £125m, though we have spent around £71m to bolster the squad, bringing in Eric Docherty from Man City, Solomon Akuneto (on loan) from Chelsea and Andrea Rossi from Lusitânia Lourosa to improve our defence, wingers José Luis Rodríguez from León, Mexico and Saul Renyard from Preston along with central midfielders Carlos Jaques on a free transfer and Josenilson Marinho from Palmeiras while also boosting our strike force with the likes of Thiago Fernández from River and Thibaud Nowak from Monaco.

In all, I'm fairly happy with our transfer dealings, though I do feel we could do with another goalkeeper, right now we have one really good keeper and a few youngsters, but none of them are ready to step up and probably won't be for another couple of years. In the January window we have another player coming in who is not quite to the standard we need, but he should be sufficient to warm the bench for a year or two, while having the potential to possibly surpass our number one in a few years time.

As I often do, the friendly matches that I arranged were largely about gaining confidence and match fitness, as such we did not play any teams at or close to our own level and we cut through them like a hot knife through butter, scoring more than twenty goals in two of our matches.
 

In hindsight, playing tougher opposition might have been the better idea, as when we came up against our rivals Sporting in the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira Vodafone, we came up short, losing the game 2-1. Despite this set back, we have since won our first three games, and I am hopeful of a better performance across the remaining competitions.

Looking forward, I am contemplating the possibility of moving onto another team at the end of the season, I'm not one hundred percent set on the idea and I might well stick around for a third season, but if the right opportunity presents itself in the job market, I might well take the leap, that said, I could leave earlier if I receive a really worthwhile offer from another team, but for now though, I am focussed on bringing success to Benfica.

December 2043

With Christmas fast approaching, it would have been a nice present to see us sitting top of the league, but despite a reasonable start to the season, we are currently only in third place after losing to both Porto and Boavista. Beyond the league, in the Taça de Portugal we've not faced the toughest of opponents as yet and we are currently through to the fifth round, due to face Leiria in the coming days. In the Allianz Cup we won both our games in the third round group stage and have advanced to the semi-final where we will face Vit. Guimarães. Last season we won both of these cups so I am hoping we can repeat the feat, especially given that we came up short in the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira Vodafone. Finally, in the UEFA Champions League, we are currently in sixth place in the league phase, we've done well so far, only losing to Monaco, while holding Juventus to a draw and beating Ajax, Hibs and Strum Graz.

February 2044

The mid-season transfer window is often a hectic time for any team but we tried to play it cool, focussing on identifying young talent for the future rather than making drastic changes to the senior team. We did manage to confirm three signings for players who will join us down the line, two from the Ivory Coast where I managed for three seasons and one from South Africa. These players, when they do eventually join us, will likely need to play in the B team or under 23s for a few years before moving to the senior side, though with how little we spent on them, should they not turn out as we hope, it'll not be a great outlay. 

Despite my aims for a calm and collected deadline day, we may have dropped a rather sizeable chunk of change on a new central midfielder, Ademir from Milan. At £30m possibly going up to £35m down the line, it is a big investment, you could argue a panic buy as well, but I am hopeful he will be a key player for us both this season and beyond.

Other than Ademir, we also bring in Samuel Gianola as a backup goalkeeper, he isn't really ready for first team football but he has some potential, and after selling our backup keeper and with our next best keeper out on loan, I needed somebody and Sam is classed as home grown in Portugal, which is a nice bonus as well.

This latest window didn't see a great deal of action for us as far as far as outgoing players are concerned, we offloaded Pablo Rodríguez, a fringe player to Al-Khaleej in Saudi Arabia, and at the end of the season, we will be parting ways with Marcelo Villagra, who heads to Real Sociedad.

As we continue in the league, we still find ourselves in third place, though we are keeping up with Boavista and Porto, and with a game in hand, we might well retake first place if we win that game. As a side note, we have reached the final of the Allianz Cup and the semi-final of the Taça de Portugal and we hold a slight lead over Ajax in the Champions League knock out play off round, going into the second leg after finishing fourteenth in the league phase.

May 2044

At the end of my second season at Benfica, we see out the 2043/2044 season as champions of Portugal and bring home a domestic triple after what I thought was probably going to be a disappointing season, luckily we managed to move on from our defeat in the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira Vodafone and those defeats to Porto and Boavista in the league, early in the season and before long, hit a nice run of form that saw us lift both the Taça de Portugal and Allianz Cup before securing the league title and then managing to slightly exceed our previous season's performance in the Champions League by reaching the semi-final this time around.

With the season done for the time being, my focus is going to be on preparing the team for the next season, however, I will be interested to see what jobs become available and I may well look to move on, should a significantly interesting vacancy become available. Right now, I would strongly consider a move back to England or possibly Germany or Italy, though I don't have much interest in any other countries around Europe right now, international football would be of some interest to me as well, having only ever managed the Cape Verde Islands, it would be nice to manage another country.

Now just in case anybody has noticed that in some of these screenshots, it shows I have more than one manager in my save now, I can reveal that to be the case, though the nature and identity of the second manager is for a future update (probably the next one in fact).
 

July 2044

At the start of last season, on an otherwise forgettable day, I had been sat pondering my future in the game, thinking about how long I would remain in management and whether I would try to go out on a high, at the top of the game, or gradually wind down, taking on roles with less pressure involved and perhaps dropping down the divisions to moving to a country where the results just didn't matter so much. It was around that time that I discovered that I had a child, the result of a relationship I had with a woman in Mozambique.

It was June 2023, I had just won the title in Eswatini only a month or so earlier, with my first employer Young Buffaloes. Now I was only with them for a single season and we did well for saying we had such a minimal budget, but that was back when football in the country was going through a rough patch and none of the teams had much to spend, roll on a decade and then another, teams in Eswatini are some of the richest in Africa and I know for a fact that my old team has a healthier bank balance than some English Premier League teams. Anyway, Eswatini is ancient history as far as I'm concerned and this little story is about my next job in Mozambique.

When I crossed the border in my rickety old car, one I had purchased from a local dealer in Manzini and which may well have been put together by the dealer using parts from various other vehicles he had bought from scrap, I headed to the northern town of Pemba, where I was to meet with the board of what would be my next club. Upon arriving in town and knowing absolutely nothing about the place, I stopped at a local convenience store to buy a bottle of water and ask for directions to the stadium.

While buying my drink, I met a woman by the name of Maria Cossa, she was the daughter of the store owners and she was running the shop while the rest of her family were elsewhere. While striking up conversation with her, with the aim of getting my water and directions, little did I know how much she would be involved in my life, at least over the next few weeks.

It became apparent from the outset that me and Maria had a connection and from there we spent a lot of time together, short lived though it may have been in the end. I signed on with Baía de Pemba not long after arriving in town and me and Maria were together for maybe a month or so, it was quite some time ago now so exact times and dates are a little hazy. Maria would eventually move away after getting a job offer for a company down in Nacala and that was the last I saw of her. Her family remained in Pemba but I didn't see too much of them after Maria had left.

To cut a long story short I ended up moving down to Maputo and then I left Mozambique altogether, heading off to Zimbabwe and then onto many other countries until I reached the point where I am right now, sat in my office as manager of Benfica, one of my favourite teams.

Going back to last season, I mentioned finding out I had a child, Maria managed to find me, probably not too hard given that I had had won various leagues and cups along the way and had managed such clubs as Wolves, Barcelona and now Benfica, all of which quite notable, and I had also won the Cup of Nations with the Cape Verde Islands, quite an achievement if I do say so myself.

From what I was told at the time, Maria had a daughter, who she had named Ava Isabela, while she could have just given our daughter her own surname, she gave her mine as well. My daughter it seemed loved football like her father and had dreamt of being a player. A serious injury during a game ended her career before it started but it did not end her love of the game and while one door closed for her, another opened and into coaching she went, determined to make something of her life in the game. Maybe she wanted to be like her father, or maybe she wanted to go one better, who knows, but what I do know, is that she spent time, studying for her first qualification and achieved it with ease. At nineteen years of age, she put herself out there, looking for her first job as a manager and though it took some time, as of this month, she has now officially started her journey, taking on the role at Desportivo de Maputo, interestingly, they are a local rival of my old team Ferroviário de Maputo.
 

I don't know if my daughter will succeed in her new job, certainly she will have a tough time, joining half way through the season there and with a team that is battling against relegation, but I wish her all the best and hopefully she will turn around their fortunes.

It may be a little frustrating and sad in many ways, finding out that I've had a child all these years and not being able to be a part of her life, but what's done is done, there is nothing I can do to change the past but I can affect the future and hopefully in the coming days, I can build up some kind of relationship with my daughter, even if it is just to wish her a happy birthday or to send a congratulatory message when she wins a trophy down the line.

For my next update, we will see how my Benfica side fared in the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira Vodafone and how my daughter managed to get in her first few games in charge.

August 2044
 

It's time for the new season in Portugal and work is already underway on strengthening the side. We have sold three of our senior players who failed to really solidify a place for themselves in the starting XI last season and in their place comes fresh meat for the grinder. 

With our goalkeeper getting on in years, I decided to bring in his replacement, Eduardo Rambo, what a name, the guy is around the same level as our existing first choice keeper, perhaps not a experienced but certainly up to the standard we need as we look for a third successive league title under my leadership.

In defence we add Alejandro Desideri, who joins us on a free-transfer from Al-Ittihad, he should be around the level we need and from the looks of his stats, he should be better than any of our centre-backs from my first season at the club and around the same or marginally better than the ones we used most of the time last year. Joining him, on loan from Liverpool, we also have Riccardo Vimercati, another centre-back. Riccardo should, in theory be an improvement to our defence and will, if things go according to plan, be one of our star players in the forthcoming season.

With Sion Jones, we have a central attacking midfielder who can also play up front, we didn't really need somebody in this position exactly, but he was free from Everton when his contract expired, and he gives us options, allowing me to put our main AMC out on the wings as an inside forward, when needed, something he is quite good at.

The remainder of our transfers are players for the youth squads and B team, once again I have made sure to keep adding to our pool of potential future talent, the idea being that either we get players coming up without the need to spend big, or we have players to sell to make money, either is a win for us and keeps the team viable financially, something I am keen to ensure, as you can probably tell by the fact that transfer income has been higher than expenditure each season I've been at this club.

With our transfer business still ongoing, there well be more signings to come, I already have my eye on several more young footballers to add to the youth teams, but also a potential left back for our senior team as well, if those deals go through, expect to hear about them soon. For now though, the next order of business is getting the team fit for purpose and to do that, this season I have arranged a training camp in the US and there we played a selection of lower league teams and Portland. As expected, we swept aside the competition and then subsequently lost to Lens, a minor hiccup in the grand scheme of things. In my screenshot, you can see I also played a game against Desportivo de Maputo, my daughter's team, and despite playing our worst youth players and a few fringe seniors, we still managed to beat the third tier team from Mozambique.

Finally, as we kick off the season, we do so in style by beating FC Porto in the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira Vodafone, making it two out of three during my time at the club, allowing us to wipe away the memory of last season's defeat to Sporting.

August 2044
 

On the fifteenth of August, my Benfica side along with two hundred and twenty nine fans, made the journey down to Mozambique, as far as the board was concerned, it was for promotional purposes, helping to maintain the teams presence in the country and maybe sell a few shirts, but the real reason for playing Desportivo de Maputo, the rivals of one of my former employers, was to visit my daughter and see how she was getting on in her first, hands-on, management role.

It was great to finally meet her for the first time, sure we had exchanged emails and spent time talking on the phone, but that just isn't the same thing as meeting in person. I never got to see her as a child or as she was growing up, but I sure was proud to see her now, as a grown woman, my daughter and as a manager, following in her father's footsteps.

Knowing that my daughter's team was currently playing in the second tier in Mozambique, I didn't wish to embarrass her or the team by sending out a full strength squad, as fun as it might be, seeing a score-line in double digits, I decided instead to send a team made up of a few select seniors, while the bulk of the team came from our youth setup. A bumper crowd of nearly five thousand, watched as we beat the locals 3-0, a respectable score-line for my daughter's team but I suspect a few in the crowd had been hoping for more, both fans of Benfica and the locals.

After the match, I spent a couple of hours with my daughter, talking about her new job, the team, the city, family, all kinds of things like that, she was very keen to tell me of her results so far, beating Gaza in her debut match 3-2 and then going on to not only win the next two league matches, but also a match in the cup, taking her side into the quarter finals. One thing that did amuse me a little, and her apparently as well, was that her side had been drawn against Ferroviário de Maputo, my old team, and one of which she was quite fond.

As I spoke with my daughter, it was as if she knew me all her life, yet this was the first time we had actually met in person, as she described it, she had apparently followed my career with keen interest, even from afar, and learning more of her past, it seems her mother had eventually moved back to Pemba and it was there that Ava had first started watching football. Once she was old enough, it was at Baía de Pemba that Ava started playing football and it was also there where her career had come to an abrupt end thanks to a dangerous tackle by an opposing player.

When the time came, I wished my daughter all the best and promised to keep watch over her progress and to offer, if she ever needed it, my advice. I did try to make a few tactical suggestions, just before parting ways, but she seemed to have her own ideas, though upon looking at how her team played in our friendly match, there was a lot of similarities to how I had the Baía de Pemba playing during my time there and also how I approached the Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe leagues.

December 2044
 

My third season at Benfica is progressing nicely on all fronts, top of the Liga Portugal Betclic after twelve games, having won all our games except one, top of the league in the UEFA Champions League (league phase) and still in both the Taça de Portugal and the Allianz Cup, after already having won the season opener, the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira Vodafone. 

We are currently on course to challenge for the domestic quadruple, something we managed to accomplish in our first season season under my management, but not last season when we only managed a triple. Despite leading the league phase in the Champions League, I'm not entirely convinced we are champions material, but I do think we are a better side now than at any point in the last two years, as such, the next step for the club is to win the trophy after having reached the quarter-final and then the semi-final, though realistically, reaching the quarter-final or better is a perfectly reasonable result for this club.
 

With our current and potential success in mind, it is a little sad then that today I actually say goodbye to Lisbon, though I contemplated joining either Everton or Hertha BSC at the start of the season, at the time I chose to remain, now however, I have had an offer from Liverpool and aside from having a stronger side than we currently possess, they are willing to pay me £110k per week while Benfica, after three rounds of contract negotiations, are still only willing to offer up to around £8k despite other staff at the club getting more than that, it really is a no-brainer.

As I join Liverpool, they currently find themselves in 7th place in the league after fourteen games, though they are still in both the FA Cup and the Carabao Cup, one major downside to this move is the lack of European football (the team finished 9th last year) but I reckon I can rectify that for next year. The goal is going to be to try and salvage this season before it's too late, we can still challenge for the title and possibly come away with some silverware so that is the ultimate goal, though I think as long as we qualify for the Champions League this season and reach the finals of the cups, we can build on this next time around.

February 2045

Since joining Liverpool at the beginning of December, I've been fairly busy attempting to give this team the push it needs to realise it's ambitions. We were seventh when I came in and now we are second, a big improvement. My first game was against Norwich and beating them 6-0 set the tone for how I wanted things to be at this club.

We ended up winning five games in a row, in the league, before finally losing to Man Utd, after that, a draw away to Arsenal was followed by five more wins. We did draw with Newcastle in our last league game, but they are still a fairly good team and we were playing at their ground, so I'm not too worried by the performance.

In the FA Cup we have managed to brush aside Burnley, Brighton and Reading during my tenure, and we now face a quarter final match against Leicester, which could be a tough match as they were league champions only two seasons ago and we haven't won for four seasons.

In the Carabao Cup, we defeated Leicester on penalties in the quarter final, then beat Derby 5-2 on aggregate in the semi-final (though all the goals were scored in our home leg and the away game ended 0-0). For the final, we have been drawn against Nottingham Forest, the team currently leading the Championship. Given our opponents are a league below us, I am confident of winning the game, though as they are top of their league, their morale will be high and so we might need to ensure complacency doesn't set in, so long as we respect our opposition and play to how I know we can, we should be victorious.

Upon joining Liverpool, I was only given a transfer budget of around £6m so as such, we were not likely to be spending big, that said, I managed to bring in Éderson on a free transfer from Santos, he'll never likely be a top player for us, but he is good enough to provide cover for the centre of midfield and will likely sell for a decent amount down the line, perhaps in a season or so.

Martin Farquhar and Tomas Jahn are both players for the future. With Farquhar, we have a player with a lot of potential, his transfer value is already £25-40m so if he can make decent progression over the next couple of years, we might be looking at a future first team player here. As for Jahn, my scouts didn't really think much of him, either here or back at Benfica but I don't know, I just feel like I can make something of him and having stuck him on for a game, he did manage a 7.4 rating and a goal on his debut against Everton.

Adding to our defence, we have Alejandro Arana from Monaco, I signed him on loan this season to give us a good backup at the left back position.

Finally our best signing of the January window is Tomasz Purzycki, a striker from Legia, at £6m possibly going up to £8m, he represents a relatively small outlay and yet is on par with any of our existing strikers, he could, much like Éderson, end up being a high value sale and help us make a little money, something this team is drastically short of at the moment, being £300m in the red.

Finally, I am pleased to discover that my daughter has managed to successfully turn around the fortunes of Desportivo de Maputo and secure promotion to the Moçambola. Having managed at both the second and first tiers in Mozambique, I can say, she is likely to face a tough time in the league above, but with the right additions, I have faith that she will see her team to survival next season.

April 2045

Just four games left to play and it's very close at the top of the Premier League. Despite me joining Liverpool fourteen games into the season when the team was down in seventh, we've had more than enough time to overtake five of the teams that were above us and then reduce Man City's lead, bringing it down to just one point now.

For the last few games, we have Aston Villa, Brentford, Tottenham and Chelsea, while Man City are due to face Aston Villa, Brentford, Norwich and Tottenham. I think we have the tougher games and obviously are trailing by a point, but Man City do have a tricky Champions League semi-final tie against Monaco, so if they lose in those two games, or are tired as a result, it could well have some impact on their remaining league games, one other aspect of note, is that Man City also lost their last league game to Derby, so there is a chance that may have disrupted their flow a little as well, will it make a difference in the battle for the title? Who knows, but as Tesco like to remind us ‘every little helps’.

May 2045

The 2044/2045 season came down to the final day, we had the scenario were we essentially had to get a better result than Man City, if they drew, we would need a win, if they lost, we could scrape a draw and win the league by goal difference but if they managed the win, we would come second, not matter what.

Playing away at Chelsea was always going to be tough, but given our performance since I joined, I had every faith that we would be able to give them a close game, I figured we had a chance of winning but a draw was a strong possibility in my mind, losing was also a possibility, though what ended up happening, was not how I envisioned the game going.

While Man City got their win, narrowly beating Tottenham 2-1, we were absolutely humiliated, losing the game 6-0, one of the worst loses I've ever had the misfortune of experiencing (in this version of FM or any previous). It was clear from the start of the game that Chelsea were going to make something of this game as almost every time they got on the ball, they seemed to cut through our defence as though it were not even there. After two goals had already been scored against us, I tried to change things up and counter what they were doing, though it had no effect and it was as if my team had no interest in the game, my players seemed to lose the ball as soon as they had it and barely challenged their keeper all game, meanwhile, they put our defence to the sword.

Despite the disappointing final game of the season, we still finished in a respectable position, finishing runner-up and securing Champions League football for next year.
 

If missing out on the league title was bad enough, we had the FA Cup final straight afterwards and while that was not quite the same level of humiliation, we still ended up losing the match. I had hoped we might win our second trophy after winning the Carabao Cup earlier in the season, but it was not to be and we ended up losing 2-0, though one pleasing note was that the team at least put up an effort of sorts and it was not an easy game for Arsenal.

Below you will see our results and signings, I started the results at the Norwich game as that was when I joined, anything before that point was out of my control.

In terms of signings, we spent a fraction more than we made, though a couple of our outgoing loans have the potential to be made permanent, meaning we may increase our income somewhat in the coming weeks. Of our signings, Tomasz Purzycki was the highlight, managing to score six goals in seven appearances in the league and two goals in three appearances in the cups, the other signings I made were mostly backup players or for the youth team.

Of the two players signed by the previous manager, one is possibly useful and the other not so much. Mario Freire was loaned out to Nottingham Forest for half a season and he played fairly well, netting ten goals, he is young and has potential, so I imagine he will be a solid first team player in a year or two, Alberto on the other hand was a total waste of money, he will never be good enough to play for Liverpool and in fact, I already got rid of him once in my career, while at Barcelona.

After the last two games, I had started to question whether joining Liverpool was such a good idea, especially with the limited budget I was given to strengthen the side and after seeing that Benfica won the league easily this season, though their new manager did not fare so well in the cups, getting knocked out earlier than expected in both remaining cups, but maybe that would have happened with me in charge, who knows.

Over the coming pre-season period, the plan is to try and generate funds needed to bolster the senior team, I'll likely let one or two fringe seniors go to give me something to work with, while checking to see if any of our youth players are ready to make the step up to the seniors. Once the new season kicks off, the plan is to try and challenge for the title once more, though as I'll be in charge from the start, if we can avoid the mistakes in the early season, we might be better positioned at the end to secure the title. Getting to the finals of both cups this season was a good result, and while I obviously want to win both of them next time around, my primary focus is going to be the league, I really want to get my hands on the Premier League trophy, additionally, if we can win the Champions League as well, that would make me a very happy man, and I might just bring forward my retirement.

Speaking of retirement, right now I'm thinking sixty five, that gives me a few years to try and win the Champions League, either here or perhaps at another club, depending on how things progress but if I don't manage it, I know I can look back and say I've certainly had a good career, getting to experience life in so many countries. Once I reach sixty five, will it be a hard or soft retirement? That is the question, I might be thinking about the end right now, but will I be able to give it up, just like that? I'm half tempted to head back to Cape Verde and give some team there a year or two, just to remind the country who's the boss, maybe a third term at Botafogo, who knows, could be fun, or maybe even return to where it all started for me, back to Eswatini and see just how much the football there has come along after all these years.

December 2045

I joined Liverpool half way through last season after departing Benfica after a highly successful spell there. In six months at Liverpool we rose from seventh place to finishing runner up in both the Premier League and the FA Cup, though it would have been amazing to win either of both of those, we came up a little short, we did however manage to lift the Carabao Cup, my second time after leading Wolves to glory in that competition back in 2040.

This season, I wanted to bolster the side and remove some of the fringe players but while I did bring in a few players, these are not exactly going to set the league alight, at least not yet. The biggest stumbling block for us is a lack of money, being around £300m in debt at one point and with only a small transfer budget to work with. The business we conducted helps to lessen our financial burden and sees a few new faces arrive.

My hope with Saul Reynard is that we can help him progress this season to the point where he can challenge for a place in the first team, then either by January or the end of the season, make his loan deal permanent, I think he has some serious potential and if we can keep him on for the next few years, he could be a first team regular here. Likewise with Eduardo José, if we can give him game time, I believe we can get him to become a capable senior player this season and then within the next few years, we could be looking at another top player. Finally we have Gonçalo Louçano, now I believe he can become a decent player for us, but right now he is far from ready, he's going out on loan this year and maybe in a couple of years, he'll be about ready to move up to the senior side.

Our friendly matches were nothing to write home about, a friendly against a local non-league teams and a tour of the United States for morale boosting and a couple of matches against Korean teams, seeing as they invited us, apparently it's good for business and boosts our reputation out there or something.

Now for the meat filling in our sandwich, the reason we go through all the effort before the start of the season, to see ourselves at the top of the table with a decent gap to second place, a great run of form so far and only one loss, long may it continue.

Finally, some great news out of Mozambique, my daughter, having secured promotion via the playoffs last season, managed an impressive fifth place in the Moçambola.

I think before the end of the season, I'll do a brief update at the conclusion of the league phase of the Champions League, after that it'll be the usual end of season update.

January 2046

In my career, I've had many successes at the domestic level, winning leagues and cups alike across a number of nations, and while I did taste success at international level with the Cape Verde Islands, I've never managed to win a continental competition. I came runner-up in the CAF Confederation Cup and reached the semi-final of the CAF Champions League with Issia Wazi of Ivory Coast, and during my time in Europe, I finished runner-up in the Europa League with Barcelona and as semi-finalists with Benfica in the Champions League.

While at Barcelona, despite my short reign in charge, I managed to win the league and almost the Europa League as well, and on top of that, I strengthened the side such that when they went on to win the Champions League last season, of the starting XI and the twelve substitutes at the final, almost half of them were players I signed for the team. I do wonder if I had not quit my job after one season, would it have been me adding the Champions League trophy to Barcelona's cabinet, but alas, in one brief moment of anger at something the board said to me when judging my performance, I walked out on the team and gave up my opportunity.

Having departed Barcelona and making a somewhat shock return to the Cape Verde Islands, which lasted only a single season, I eventually found my way to Benfica, where we managed to put in some good performances in Europe, seeing us into the quarter-final in my first season and the semi-final the year after. Naturally I could have remained there to try and go one step further but I just didn't think it would happen, I was sure we would need a few more years before being able to come home with the trophy, so that was when I decided to move to Liverpool, a team with the talent to challenge both at home and in Europe, but who just needed that extra push to make it happen.

So here we are, qualifying for the round of sixteen, finishing in third place in the league phase, Barcelona are in the hat for the next round, but who's that sat at the top of the table… Benfica, I swear if they win this thing now, I am going to resign and leave Europe for good.

March 2046

Disappointment in the Carabao Cup as my Liverpool side fall at the final hurdle, losing 3-0 to Man City. Last season we managed to win the trophy but went on to lose in the final of the FA Cup, hopefully this time, seeing as we've lost in this one, we can go on and win the FA Cup.

As much of a shame it is to get so close and come away empty handed, this cup was never a priority for me, I'd sooner win the FA Cup and even then, I'm not overly fussed if we do or not, this season I have two goals, win the Premier League and win the Champions League, right now, we are on course to do the former and as for the latter, we have a reasonable chance with us now into the semi-final, where we are due to face Chelsea. If we fail to win the Champions League, at that point I might care about the FA Cup a little more as it would certainly be nice to say we won the double.

May 2046

Normally my posts are long winded and I mostly just waffle on about stuff nobody really cares about but me, but this time I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking as I sit back and relax now that the season is over and I have finally added the UEFA Champions League to my list of achievements (as well as the Premier League and FA Cup but who cares about them lol).
 

90+1 Thank you Marcelo Paulino, you've made me a very happy man, though I cannot neglect the work of Jay Richardson, Paulino might have saved the day but Richardson got us going in the first place with an amazing hat-trick.
 

A fantastic season overall as we celebrate a fantastic treble, bringing home the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League trophies. The only negative for this season was our 3-0 loss to Man City in the Carabao Cup, but with out other successes easily overshadowing this minor setback, we can sleep easy at night knowing that nobody outside of Manchester will remember it, if they even do at this point, now that it is a couple of months on.

A quick look at our transfer dealings show that we did not spend big, despite our success, my focus was largely about trying to put us into a more secure financial position. Of the players we brought in, Saul Reynard did well, improving as a player and also putting in some decent performances as he attempted to secure a place in the first team. Juan Jose Redondo was also a fairly solid signing on loan and not only that, he was one of my best defenders back at Barcelona when I won the league with them, so I knew he would do well for us.

At this point in my career, having now won the Premier League and Champions League, I feel like I can retire with few regrets, I've had a great career and there's really not much now I feel I need to achieve. As the days pass by in the off-season, I'll be weighing up my options, trying to decide whether to give Liverpool another year to see if we can do it all again, or whether to set my sights elsewhere, perhaps begin the process of winding down my career.

July 2046

I've been thinking recently about what the final chapters of my career would look like, perhaps winding down a little, taking on jobs at smaller teams, where the pressure to succeed is far less than in the Premier League with a team like Liverpool. I thought about maybe going back to Africa, maybe to one of the more prestigious leagues to begin with, but perhaps eventually, back to the Cape Verde islands where I so enjoyed my time managing both clubs and country.

Lessening the stress in my life seems like a sensible thing to do, especially now that I'm into my sixties, but then bam!!! Along come England wanting a new manager after the previous one failed to win the 2046 World Cup. It's hard to turn down such an offer, when the only previous international management experience I have was with Cape Verde, but now it looks like my career wind-down will be more like going out with a bang, unless I think about continuing on until my seventies.

For a good portion of my life, England fans would sing, ‘It’s coming home', well, since I got into management, it came home three times, putting us one behind Brazil, Germany and Italy, will it be me to level the scores? Who knows, I can barely imagine still being here in four years time, but that far ahead really cannot be my focus right now, instead, we have the Nations League this year and then I'm sure it will be the case of working towards the next European Championships.

For those interested, I've included the list of previous winners of both the World Cup and the Euros, along with a list of the previous England managers dating back to Gareth Southgate's reign. Now looking back at the previous managers Southgate, Emery and Howe were the men to bring it home, if I can match them, that would be a great achievement, but my goal is to simply be better that José Mourinho and any of the other one to two year reign managers.

August 2046

Having been appointed England manager, the question begs to be answered, do I stay at Liverpool as well, or stand down and focus solely on my latest international adventure? The sensible option might be to focus on only one job, but I believe I can manage both to a reasonably high standard, managing England shouldn't take up too much time, a friendly here and there, a few qualifying matches for major tournaments every now and then, and when there is a tournament, it's normally in the off-season so the two roles shouldn't clash too often.

Before landing the role as England manager, I had surveyed the job market, weighing up several options as I planned to begin the gradual wind-down of my career, but right now, being Liverpool manager might well benefit me as England manager and vice-versa.

Going forward, I'm not thinking too far ahead in my plans for Liverpool, simply planning for the pre-season and those first few games. Before the league kicks off, we have the Community Shield and European Super Cup, I'll definitely stick around for those, perhaps adding one or both trophies to our cabinet.
 

When it comes to Liverpool and the upcoming season, I have once again looked to bolster our income, selling multiple senior players to give us something to work with. Leaving us this time around are Hiddadura Chaluka Mohamed Nafras, Marcelo Paulino, Bryan Abba and Toni Faßold, the first three all going to Saudi Arabian teams, while Toni Faßold heads to PSG. Beyond these players, we have also loaned out a bunch of fringe and youth players, giving them the chance to earn first team experience elsewhere and in the case of the fringe players, a possible future move, should they impress their new teams.

Joining us, I am pleased to announce the signing of Barcelona legend Xavi (newgen Xavi, not the real one), Aytaç Eraslan from Ajax, Narcís (also from Barcelona), Gastón Gadea from PSG, Danilo Console from Roma and finally, we confirmed the clause in Saul Renyard's contract, making his loan from Benfica permanent. One of the most pleasing aspect of these signings is that we managed to get Gadea, Console and Narcís on free transfers and with the other three combined at £165m, we've managed to strengthen the squad without actually losing money, helping our not so amazing bank balance a little.
 

With our transfer business mostly concluded, all there is left to talk about, and I won't dwell on it for too long, are our friendly matches, which like last season, featured a tour of the US and a couple of normal friendlies. We started with a match against our affiliate Viktoria Plzeň, beating them comfortably, this was followed by our tour of the USA, where we took on a bunch of nobodies and beat them all. Once we returned from the states, we faced off against the mighty St. Asaph, a team we feared and which we only narrowly beat 13-0. I think bullying non-league Welsh teams is going to become my thing lol, I already gave Rhos Aelwyd and Blaenau Ffestiniog a good thrashing last season. Finally, we took on Flint Town and picked up a respectable 6-1 victory, thus bringing our pre-season to an end.
 

With all that said, and if you're still reading at this point, expect my next update to be a brief look at our Community Shield and Euro Super Cup games.

August 2046

Winning the Premier League last season along with the FA Cup, we faced Newcastle in the Community Shield, last season's runners up in both competitions. We managed to beat Newcastle fairly comfortably, 3-0 in the end, a pleasing result, especially as Newcastle were the team to prevent me from winning the Europa League back when I was at Barcelona.

Though we did celebrate our victory in the Community Shield a little, we tried to keep the festivities to a minimum as everybody knows its just a glorified friendly, and speaking of glorified friendlies, we also had the UEFA Super Cup to contest a few days after our Community Shield game, that match however, did not go so well. Bayer Leverkusen took to the match, intent on coming away as champions and from the start, we struggled to get anything going, ultimately losing the game 3-1.

While it was pleasing to win one cup and somewhat disappointing to lose the other, I don't personally put a lot of stock in either competition, sure it's nice to add the trophies to the cabinet and I would certainly rather be a winner than a loser, but neither competition means anything in the grand scheme of things and as with last season, my focus is mainly going to be on the Premier League and Champions League, if we can do well in the FA Cup and Carabao Cup, all the better but these are not essential to me.

With pre-season done and the curtain-raising matches out of the way, now it's onto the real business, we kick off the season with a tough away game against Chelsea, followed by Tottenham, Everton and Man City, so not the easiest run of games, but I am confident of at least two wins there, and if we can avoid losing to Chelsea and Man City, it'll put us in good stead as we attempt to mount another title challenge.

January-February 2047

We're half way through the 2046/2047 season now, what will be my second full season at Liverpool having joined half way through the 44/45 season. We're currently top of the Premier League with Man City and several others not too far behind, we're doing well at the minute and I'm confident that we will on for a successful season.

Obviously the goal is to win the league and I know we are capable of doing so, though it will be a close run affair and the board are going to reasonably happy as long as we are in the running. Like the last two seasons, we have reached the final of the Carabao Cup, we won it in my first time here but then came runner-up on the second attempt, hopefully this time we can come away with the trophy once more. Our FA Cup campaign is unfortunately over, despite winning it last season, this time we got knocked out in the third round by West Ham, a very disappointing result, luckily we have done well else where to ease the pain of an early exit. In the Champions League, we finished the league phase at the top but level on points with Man City, we are due to face Celtic in the next round and I am confident we should have enough about us to see them off.

The January transfer window didn't see us bring in a great many players, we did spend, but all players are for the youth team or to loan out straight away due to a lack of a work permit. With Zulu and Muguruza, we've taken a bit of a gamble, because of the lack of a work permit, we can't really use them ourselves, but hopefully by loaning them out, by the time they return, we can see if the government is feeling a little more generous and if not, perhaps another season away. Right now, I'm not too worried, my scouts assure me both players are of significant potential, so even if they never set foot in Liverpool, they might at least bring us a little income down the line.

With the end of the season starting to get near, I once again have to consider my future, where last season I was fairly certain of remaining at Liverpool for another year, this time I am not. While I'm not against remaining for the final year of my contract, I'm also going to be keeping an eye on the job market for a potential move, whether that is a sideways move for a new challenge, or a move to a smaller team to begin my gradual progression towards retirement, that remains to be seen and won't be a serious consideration for me for at least a few more months.

Away from Liverpool, I am pleased to reveal that my first few games in charge of the England national team have been productive, winning five out of six games in the Nations League group stage, seeing us qualify for the next round. In the group we faced the Netherlands, Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina, I was generally pleased with our performance in most of the matches, though our away loss to the Netherlands 4-1 was cause for concern, hopefully when we face our semi-final opponents, we can go back to our winning ways.

As we wait for the next round, our group for the Euro 2048 qualifiers has been announced, we have Armenia, Denmark, Iceland and Romania, a group we should be looking to dominate and secure an easy qualification to the tournament in Belgium and the Netherlands.

A final thought for this latest update, upon checking in with my daughter in Mozambique, I am delighted to report that she has managed to win the Moçambola, the highest tier of football in Mozambique after just this season, taking on the role as manager of Ferroviário da Beira. In many ways, her success mirrors my own in Mozambique, we both gained promotion to the Moçambola via the playoffs and then both won the league with a bigger team, the only difference really is that she lead her team to survival upon promotion, before moving, whereas I left straight away, sensing that it was too much to ask to keep my team up in the higher division.

June 2047

The 2046/2047 season ended with my Liverpool side securing the quadruple, winning back to back Premier League and Champions League titles along with the Community Shield and the Carabao Cup.

With another fantastic season in the Premier League complete, we managed to secure the title with an eight point lead over Leicester and only lost three games all season (we lost away to Leicester and Man City but at home to Chelsea).

After knocking out MK Dons, Hull, Arsenal and Leeds, we went into the final of the Carabao Cup facing off against Man Utd, our previous results against them under my leadership saw us pick up two wins, three draws and a single loss, that lead me to believe that we were looking at a close game with a reasonable chance of winning, but with the possibility that they could quite feasibly come away with the win if we were not careful. What ultimately transpired was that we went 3-0 up after dominating the first half and just into the second half, before they started to mount a comeback. It went to 3-2 and I was worried for a while, I honestly though Man Utd were going to equalise, but then a goal for us in the 80th minute settled my nerves and we were able to see out the game two goals ahead, giving us our second Carabao Cup under my management and my third (my first was with Wolves).

It was a great season, this year, but the real icing on the cake for us, allowing us to end things on a high, was comfortably beating Sevilla in the Champions League final. Along the way to victory, we topped the league phase before eliminating Celtic, Atlético and Chelsea. Other highlights included a 6-2 victory over Dortmund and 4-0 against Juventus.

While we did well to secure the quadruple, I was slightly disappointed in only finishing runner up in the Super Cup and especially annoyed by our early exit in the FA Cup, there we should have done so much better.

After learning that the board was looking to build a new stadium at the end of last season, they have now announced that they are going through with the plan. In June of 2050, Liverpool will be moving into the somewhat boringly named Liverpool Stadium, an 82000+ seater venue. With the move being three years away, I'm not sure it's likely that I will be hear to usher the team into their new ear, my contract runs out at the end of next season and I'm currently not planning to renew it beyond that point.

Moving onto the post/pre-season period, my plan is to look to make some changes to the side, perhaps offload some of the fringe players once more and bring in some fresh blood, strengthening the side in a few areas is going to be important as we look to gradually replace some of our aging stars, though as I'm not 100% committed to remaining here in the long term, I will also be keeping an eye on the job market in case something interesting comes up, or perhaps, I will step down and concentrate solely on my role as England manager, though that decision, is not one I will be making likely, and it maybe the case that remaining as Liverpool manager will be the best decision for the short term, at least while I remain England manager as I will have some control over a number of the England players at club level and can ensure they get game time on a regular basis.

August 2047

The moment the previous season finished, I began working towards improving the side, as always, I like to bring in some players for the senior side and some to bolster our youth teams, giving us a small boost right away, but also ensuring that down the line, we have a consistent flow of talent emerging into the senior side that can take over from our aging stars, or via sales, give us the income to bring in the players we need.

This season I took a look at Enyimba Aba from Nigeria and took one of their top young players, Justice Bassey. From Malmö FF we signed Loïc Akom Nze Ndong, neither player was able to secure a work permit right away, but I believe they both have high potential and if we can set them up with a decent loan move right away, by the end of the season I think they should have done enough to secure one, or failing that, we can always send them away again.

Our first signing for the senior team was Iker Alonso, a free transfer from PSG, now with Alonso, he's not somebody we really needed exactly, we already have fairly decent players in his position, but he was free, and maybe a season or so down the line, we might look to sell, or should one of our existing centre-backs leave, he can slot in nicely. Part of why Alonso wasn't needed was because I had plans to sign Ranaldo Brathwaite, a star player in the same position and one that is a key member of my England side. Also joining us in the same position is Utz Straten-Wolf, he joins us from Arsenal in a cash plus a player deal that sees Narcís leave in the opposite direction. The trade for Utz Straten-Wolf sees us receive a weaker player right now, but one that has a fair bit more potential and if he can reach it, would leave us a lot better off a season or two down the line. At this point, we have five players that can play in the centre of defence, technically six but the sixth will mainly be used as a right back and occasionally on the left if needed, due to signing three new players here, I could do with dropping one, though which one is going to be a tough decision and one I need to consider carefully, for the most part, it will likely to be down to which one attracts the best offer as any of them can be replaced.

Another free transfer player joining us this season is Benjamin Eckstädt, formerly of Chelsea. Eckstädt is not quite up to the level that we need for a first team player, but I think with his age, he has a little room to improve, mostly I just signed him to try and make money either at the end of the season or perhaps next year. I can't imagine him getting many games here, but if we can loan him out and get him first team football on a regular basis, we could be on for a decent payout when we do sell him.

Our final signing so far this transfer window is Zack Stebbing, like with Utz Straten-Wolf he joins us in a money plus a player deal, seeing Alex Bakor leave on a permanent deal with Crystal Palace, while they also take Mateusz Janas on loan. With both of these money plus player deals, the plan was to sign better players while also getting rid of some of our fringe players that were failing to attract transfer interest in their own merit.

With our transfer dealings for this window more or less concluded, now we just have to come together as a team and show the world that we are ready to do it all again.

For this pre-season, I decided on a single friendly against a Welsh team and then a tour of Singapore before returning home to play a game against one of our affiliate teams. As you can see from the results, we didn't have too much trouble, though I am a little concerned that we conceded three goals against Viktoria Plzeň.

Once the pre-season period had concluded, we moved onto the Community Shield, where we managed to beat Man Utd 3-1. In that match, we took the lead fairly early on, but then after improving somewhat, Man Utd managed to equalise and for a little while, looked like they might score again, though after a couple of changes to both the team and the tactics, we scored again and then a third to seal our victory, securing back to back wins in this competition.

After last season's loss in the UEFA Super Cup, I really wanted to win this one, but just last last season, we did really well in winning the Community Shield, then played poorly in the Super Cup. For most of the game, Real Madrid were the better side, and though there were flashes of the team I know we can be, we never really troubled their keeper except in one moment when I thought we scored, only for it to be ruled offside. I think once our goal was disallowed, heads dropped and then Real Madrid scored what would be the game winner. 

Now that the two season opening games have been played, it's onto the regular season where I hope to secure Liverpool's twenty nineth title along with as many other trophies as we can manage. I will be paying extra attention to the FA Cup this season as I aim to do better this time around, following last season's third round exit.

February 2048

At the start of the season, we managed to come away with our second Community Shield in a row, but at the same we would end up finishing as runner-up once again in the UEFA Super Cup, that kind of mixed fortune has followed us to the present day, or at least that's how it has felt at times over the last two months as we picked up two of our four losses in the league and got knocked out of the Carabao Cup.
 

As the January transfer window came and went, we made no major signings, only bringing in Thabiso Badboy from Sundowns in South Africa for £145k and then immediately loaning him out to Ankara Keçiörengücü, the team my daughter currently manages after she recently left her job in Mozambique after winning her second league title. In terms of outgoing players, we have lost Gorka Domínguez to Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia, and while he was still a decent player by Premier League standards, he was now largely surplus to requirements due to a combination of us having multiple better players in his position, along with his age and him having spent a fair amount of time out with injury this and last season, disrupting his chance at maintaining his place in the starting XI.

At the moment we sit top of the Premier League, but we face stiff competition from the likes of Chelsea, who are level on points with us, Man Utd and Southampton, who are both only a point behind, and after that, there is Newcastle and West Ham, who are both close enough that they could well come out on top if any of the teams above screw things up. With thirteen games left, there are plenty of points available and everything to play for, my goal is going to be to make sure we can make the most of next few months and hopefully see out the season as Champions once more.

Beyond the Premier League, we are through to the fifth round of the FA Cup and the round of 16 in the Champions League. Obviously it would be great to win both, we came up short in the FA Cup last season, so winning it this time around would make up for it, though winning the Champions League again would mean just that little bit more to me, aside from winning it again meaning it would be our third time in a row (something I haven't done since maybe FM06 or possibly earlier on the Champ Manager games), it would see me emulating the great Jürgen Klopp who famously won the competition three times in a row in 23/24, 24/25 and 25/26 (my save started in FM23 in case you're wondering why Liverpool won those first two).

While my next post is likely to be an end of season review, it may also be my last as manager of Liverpool, my contract is due to expire at the end of the season and I am considering letting it run down, I have been offered a new contract with a sizable pay increase, but the team wants me to stay for five more years, I just can't see that happening, I would consider a one year deal, keeping me at the club until after the European Championships, which would be of benefit to me as England manager, two years at most, but five years is too long at my stage of life. No, I believe when the season ends and my contract expires, I'll probably just leave, at that point, I'll either have to get another club job, or perhaps remain solely focussed on England, at least until after the Euros, for at that point, I am planning to step down as England manager. Going forward, the plan is to start winding down my career, perhaps looking to manage at a slightly lower level for a season or two, before ending my career somewhere familiar, perhaps in the Cape Verde Islands where I enjoyed my time, or perhaps even Eswatini, where it all began.

Loved this!

May 2048

What a win!!

May 2048

A couple of months away from twenty six years in management and I have finally been confirmed as the greatest English manager of all time, that said, I have yet to break into the top ten as a manager in England and I only sit in 17th place in Europe right now.

Had I spent my entire career in England or in Europe at least, I might be higher up in those other two lists, but I have managed in thirteen different countries and ten of them were in Africa. 

When it comes to Africa, I don't actually make the top 20 for the continent as a whole, despite winning multiple leagues and a variety of cup competitions, but this is down to the fact that most of my successes were in mid to lower ranked nations and I never actually managed in any of Africa's top leagues, such as those of the north African leagues of Egypt, Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia, or the likes of South Africa and Nigeria, the most prominent league I spent time in, was the Ivory Coast and while I had great success there, it was not enough to see me onto the continental leader board, though I did break into the top ten rankings for many of the individual nations where I did manage.

Looking ahead to the final days of the 47/48 season, there are two more games remaining in the league, and we have the FA Cup and Champions League finals to play, I'm not sure I'll be overtaking Jose Mourinho to make it onto the Hall of Fame list for managers in England, but it would be a nice way to round out the season if it's possible, though more importantly is that we bring home both trophies to add to the Premier League title and Community Shield that we have already secured this season.

June 2048

And that is another year done, three titles in a row now for Liverpool in the Premier League. If this had been my first year here I would be saying it's a job well done, but it is in fact my third and this was a slight downgrade on the previous two years, even so, a win is a win I suppose.

In previous posts I already mentioned that we managed to win the Community Shield, that was unfortunately our only other silverware this season, we finished as runner-up in the UEFA Super Cup, ended up getting knocked out of the Carabao Cup in the semi-final and then finishing as runner-up in both the FA Cup and the UEFA Champions League. To come so close to so much silverware and not bring it home, it quite disappointing, having already decided that this was likely to be my final season at Liverpool, I had really hoped to win more, how amazing it would have been to win three Champions Leagues in a row, still, two in a row wasn't bad, I can at least take pride in that, along with the other cups we won since I joined.

A look at our transfers for the season, while Brathwaite and Stebbing were key players for us, Alonso and Eckstädt never made an impact, the rest were players for the future. With my daughter now managing at Ankara Keçiörengücü, I was able to loan out one of our new signings, Thabiso Badboy to her squad and he played really well in the second half of the Turkish season, pleasing stuff, two of our other youth players joined him out there and they also did well, hopefully they will be able to do so again next season.

With my contract having expired now, I will be considering my future.

June/July 2048

Having recently seen out the 2047/2048 season with Liverpool, I move onto the 2048 European Championship as manager of England, my first time in this competition, though my second tournament in charge of England, having lead the country to lifting the Nations League a year ago.

We started out with a fairly easy group consisting of Serbia, Bulgaria and Iceland, and while we failed to beat Serbia, somewhat disappointingly, we did manage to beat the other two, seeing us through to the knockout rounds.

With the group stage out of the way, we moved on to the next round, facing Belgium. We beat Belgium without too much trouble, but before taking on two time World Cup Winners Switzerland (yes you read that right lol) I stepped down as manager of Liverpool. While I could have made moves in the job market straight away, I chose to focus on my job as manager of England.

As you can see from the results above, we made it all the way to the final and lifted the trophy, below you can see how both teams lined up. The England starting XI featured four players from my now former Liverpool side, with four more on the bench and one former player from my time at the club, also featuring. Additionally, one starter and one substitute from the Croatian side were players I worked with during my brief spell at Barcelona.

The final was a bit of a dull affair until the final few minutes when we found a way through their defences, in many ways it was like trying to open a can of tuna with a knife, bit of a faff to begin with, but once the lid was off, we got at all the juicy meat inside.

With the European Championship trophy remaining in England for another four years, I can step down feeling satisfied that I had done a good job for the country and on a personal note, I felt a little better after the recent disappointment of finishing as runner-up in three different competitions with Liverpool this season and worse if you count the Carabao Cup semi-final exit.

Having stepped down from my two jobs, both club and country, I now need to decide what my next adventure is going to be, though at sixty-four years of age, I think it might be time to start winding down, I don't expect to remain in the Premier League, but where I will end up, is anyone's guess, I think I'm going to take it easy from now on though, so don't expect me to be walking out in front of 50k+ fans on my next game-day.

July 2048

Before officially stepping down as manager of both Liverpool and England, I had planned to begin the process of winding down my career as I approach retirement, in my mind, that meant maybe spending a year or two in lesser ranked league/nation, perhaps one of the countries outside the top six nations in Europe but one which could still qualify for Europe, after that, perhaps dropping down again to the semi-pro levels, maybe somewhere in southern Europe where the weather is a little nicer, or perhaps somewhere I've managed in Africa, specifically somewhere like Cabo Verde, but as I looked over the job market and by the time I had stepped down from my two roles, there just seemed to be a distinct lack of decent options to match my short-term plans, so I decided to go straight to the endgame (potentially) and take on a role back in the Cape Verde Islands.

Now I have managed in Cabo Verde before, managing Botafogo on two separate occasions, winning the Liga Fogo three time and the Liga Cabo Verde twice, and also Académica do Mindelo once, winning the Liga São Vicente and the Liga Cabo Verde once each, beyond that, I also managed the national side to a historic Cup of Nations victory before I move on to managing in Europe.

Looking at the job market in the Cape Verde Islands, there were plenty of options to choose from, with seemingly half the teams ditching their managers at the end of the most recent season, it might have been nice to return to either of my previous employers but both have recently had a good season and retained their respective managers, and while I did actually get a firm job offer from Mindelense, the highest rated team in the nation, the job I decided to go for, was with Sport Club Miramar.

SC Miramar are a team based on the island of Maio and therefore play in the Liga Maio, it's been around fourteen years since a team from Maio has won the Liga Cabo Verde and only two have ever done so, Miramar are not one of those two, and in fact, they have never even won their own island league or the Taça Nacional de Cabo Verde, leaving them with an empty trophy cabinet.

Now I don't know how long I will stay on Maio with SC Miramar, but I do hope to see them lift some silverware during my tenure. My goal for the upcoming season is to heavily strengthen the side and get us ready to challenge for the island league, if we can win that, that would put us through to the Liga Cabo Verde and put us in with a chance at becoming national champions. In my previous times managing here in the Cape Verde Islands, I managed to win the Liga Cabo Verde with both of my teams, so I know it can be done, even with a team that is not among the favourites.

My next update is going to be post pre-season, with a look at our signings and friendly results, hopefully by that point we will be a competitive outfit ready to take on the other teams on our island and hopefully beyond as well.