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

April 2049

Seven games played and seven wins, Miramar are crowned champions of Maio. 

Now we go onto the Liga Cabo Verde, where we face a group stage consisting of Académica do Porto Novo, Ribeira Brava and my two-time former side Botafogo. Naturally I want to win all the games, but I won't take any pleasure in victory, should we beat Botafogo, I enjoyed managing them enough that I ended up quitting my job at Barcelona to re-join them.

While my team is in Group A, in group C is Mindelense, their presence in the competition means my other former side, Académica do Mindelo, failed to qualify from the Liga São Vicente, which is a shame as I like to see any of my former sides doing well, years after I departed.

June 2049

After winning all of our games in the Liga Maio, my SC Miramar side headed to the Liga Cabo Verde in the hopes of coming away as champions of the Cape Verde Islands, though I wasn't actually expecting to win the competition, I felt we had an outside chance.

At the end of the group stage, we only managed to finish in second place, and unfortunately, as we did not possess the best record as a second placed team, were missed out on the fourth spot in the semi final.

With the season now over for us, I can look back with a sense of pride, even though we did not become national champions, we did well for a team where most of the players had not played together for long, with the starting XI having been largely built from scratch at the start of this season.

My return to Cape Verde was largely in line with my plans to wind down as I approach retirement, working here has largely been a stress-free job and it has been fun, though right now, I feel I do still have a few years left in me, though whether those years will be spent here on the island of Maio, or elsewhere, will be something I have to think on as I enter the post-season period. I could remain and work towards securing the Liga Cabo Verde title with Miramar, or I could look to see if there are any other options out there that might interest me.

On a side note, it was also pleasing to see my (fictional) daughter do well in her second season in Turkey, managing to finish third in the Süper Lig with Ankara Keçiörengücü, a team she took over at the start of last season, after they had just gained promotion to the league, under the previous manager.
 

July 2049

A year on from departing Liverpool and stepping down as England manager, and having recently won the Liga Maio in the Cape Verde Islands and finishing as runner up in group stage of the latest Liga Cabo Verde, I decided to take a moment to take stock of my situation.

While sat on the beach, relaxing in the shade of a solitary tree, sipping from a bottle of coke I just purchased from a nearby shop in Calheta, I looked back over my career, to all the countries I have visited during my journey from Eswatini, back to the UK and then since, to all the highs and the lows as well, well… not so many real lows as such, but there were a fair few moments with cup finals where we came so close that we could almost touch the trophy, only to come up short at the last minute. 

At first, early in my career, the passing of time barely registered, it was not something I even considered, but more recently, especially since I reached my sixtieth birthday, each passing year is a reminder that my future in the game is much shorter than my past. For several years now, as I have felt the approach of my eventual retirement, I have begun to think on when that date might be. At sixty-four I stepped down as manager of Liverpool and England, I figured that was it, time to wind down now and take life easy.

Giving up something you love is never easy, so I figured, going back to the Cape Verde Islands, a country where I had enjoyed my time managing on the islands of Fogo and São Vicente, was as good a place as any to begin my pre-retirement years. I figured two to three years, that would be enough, after that? Who knows, maybe I would have bought a restaurant or opened a shop, just something to give my life meaning during my retirement from football, but then, as I was sitting on the beach just a couple of days ago, looking over news from around Europe, I spotted something that caught my attention.

“Csaba Mezei appointed manager of Nice”

Now Csaba Mezei is not a manager I really know anything about, he spent a good few years in Hungary before moving around various other countries in Europe, he managed Újpest for a while before taking the Levski job, when he moved on to Nice, he left a very tempting opening. Now as much as I love the life here, chilling out on beaches and playing a handful of games a year, probably arranging more friendly matches, than I am being involved in competitive games, I am nothing if not attracted to shiny things, and in Bulgaria, as manager of Levski, there is a good chance at winning three domestic trophies this season, as well as rocking up in the Champions League with the possibility of causing headaches to a big team or two.

As I considered all the possibilities that managing Levski could bring, I found my hand reaching for my mobile, was it a job I could get? Despite dropping down to play in Cape Verde, a country with a rather low-ranked league system, I figured my reputation from before, would be sufficient to get a foot in the door and secure an interview at the very least, I mean, I once left Barcelona to manage here, and afterwards, managed to get hired by Benfica, so Levski should be a very real possibility, and it was.
 

Two days later and I find myself not only the manager of Levski Sofia, but also seeing my new team lift the Superkupa na Bŭlgariya, having had almost no time to adapt to my brand of football. The game was actually fairly close, and my first half tactics, didn't seem to fit the squad quite as well as I expected, leading to us going 1-0 down. I changed things around at half time, and in the second half, we managed to level the scores, eventually taking CSKA 1948 Sofia to a penalty shootout, which we won, much to my delight.