Itchygon

We kicken off the season by winning the Johan Cruijff Schaal (The Supercup or Charity Shield or whatever). Sparta couldn't live up to their role as league champions and we ran over them. Loan signing Scott Allen scored two and Tonny Trinidade one. That was actually Trinidade's only game for us this season as he started talking about wanteing to move to a bigger club. As he only had a year left on his contract, I offered him out. Sampdoria is his new club, after a 9.5 Million Euro bid was accepted. A bit sad, but that's life. Here's his replacement:



Bought for a small fee from LA Galaxy, he will add, not only quality, but some much needed experience, especially from European football. That will be vital since we're playing in the Europa League this year.



A pretty good start of the league, but then we hit a wall, or something, and our form dropped in October and November, when our only win in these two months came from a 3-1 win against Legia in the EL the first of October. You can only see the league games here but if you add the two 0-1 defeats against Bayer Leverkusen and the 2-2 draw against Sevilla, you see exactly how poor the form was. We turned things around come December with quite a lot of wins.



Vitesse and PSV are cruising - look at their goal scoring! Last year we had some problems in the defence, we settled that, but it has come with a lack of goals from our side. I'm happy staying in 5:th place though.



A couple of great performances in Europe, really pleased with the way we played.



We will face Udinese in the first Knock out Round.

From nowhere came the offer to take over as manager for the Romanian National Team. I thought "why not" as I had be turned down by the Swedish FA a couple of months ago. Just after I accepted the role I realised that Romania played in the final of the 2020 European Championship and only lost in extra time to Spain. We are ranked 11:th in the world!

The strongest part of the team is the attack - we posses some great attacking midfielders, but we are somwhat thin defensivly. Her's our top attacking quartet:







Interestinly my first match with Romania was away to Holland, the top dog in our World Cup qualifying group, and we started by going 1-0 up after 6 minutes. But a Luuk de Jong hattrick turned that around. Can't be too dissapointed though.




Next two games were pretty easy. Our defence, however, wasn't at their best as we conceaded two goals when the opponents only had one shot on goal all together...



Next up our main rival for the second place - Wales. Allways overrated in FM, they managed to snatch a draw at our place. I guess we will need a win away to secure the second place.



We ended this year with a heart breaking loss. We were winning 1-0 after a Niculae goal in the 45:th minutes. In the 65:th he missed a penalty to go 2-0 up and Strootman and Verhoek could get a goal each in the 79:th and 89:th minute.

ROOOOOOOOONAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY!!!

haha

Solid start to the season!

Doing probably as well as you could have hoped with the Romanians aside from taking 3 points from Wales and maybe snatching a draw or win at home to the Dutch. I need to check out some of those players as they aren't regens and are still gods, it's like the Romanian players from the older FM's(07,08).

Yeah, Rooney still has something to offer!

And that's a pretty good summary of the Romanian camp so far. And, yes, those attacking midfielders could be a good buy for many clubs. Like the Bogdan Stancu days. And I still have Gabriel Torje who is really good (maybe not as good as a couple of years ago, but still).

A rather good, but also extremly frustrating second half of the season. Played well in the league, and with two games left we were level with Twente in 4:th place. But we lost these two games and had to play the EL qualifying matches. An away goal win was followed by a narrow loss to Feyernoord. That means no European fotboll next year.
In that same Europa League we played Udinese and we made it very hard on ourselves, or rather Arnoud Narsingh made it hard for us by getting sent off in the 8:th minute in the home game after two yellow cards. Idiot. We still managed a 3-3 draw, but a 1-0 loss away ended our European campain.



Not too shabby, I guess. However the board are not too impressed, and they are not interested in renewing my contract that is up in a couple of weeks. I have asked for a new contract three times during this season and they have turned me down as many times.



Hmmm... They finished second in the Greek Super League after Olympiakos, and have some really good players. Well Breda board, now would be the time to offer me a new contract or you might regret it! I really want to stay at Breda, the team will be better as there are a lot of young players that are still improving.

Well, some waiting and thinking to do...

I would take over PAOK

Right on!

Yeah man, Bogdan Stancu, Ionut Mazilu, Torje, the Rat, Lobont, a left-back that I can't recall.

Romania? How's Gabriel Torje doing?

I would go to PAOK. They are much better than Breda.

It is intriguing... PAOK are not necessarily better than Breda (in FM, on my save, 2021), but maybe the Greece league are a bit easier to get some CL action from.




Torje is an excellent player, first reserve to the main three in attacking mid/winger.
Myself, I'm more of an early 90s Romania kind of guy. Lacatus, Hagi, Raducioiu, Dumitrescu.

Thanks guys!

I'd stick at NAC Breda personally.

No surprise there Hopefully you can crack on and get into Europe

I want to stay for at least a couple of more seasons, I feel the team can only get better. We really need to qualify for Europe coming year.

Let's start with the World cup qualifiers. And let's be frank, there are some horribly poor teams in this group. I forgot to take a screen shot of the first match of the year, but we beat Northern Ireland 5-0


Nothing special, really.


Important win, and we were the better team for all 90 minutes.



Two rather unconvicing wins. But still, 6 more points to the tally. We need all the points we can get to secure a a place among the best second placed teams.


And in the end it was not much of a contest in this group. Holland the best team and Romania after that.

And ofcours we were drawn against my native Sweden in the Playoffs!


We didn't show up in Stockholm, and let ourselves get smashed 2-0. We were never close. However, we are a strong team at home, so I was still hopeful that we could do it.


And how we did it! Right back Andre Marc scored his first two gaol for Romania, and Iulian Chitu and Emilio (born in Brazil) also scored their first international goals and that on their debuts.

And if the qualafying group was easy, this group in the Wold Cup may take the price as the weakest ever! As we were seeded 4:th we could have had a night mare group.


OK, both Chile and USA are decent teams, but they are not the scariest of opponents.

Nothing to writh home about. Very inconcistant. Some stupid losses to Utrecht, VVV and Groningen. We can't afford to lose against the weker teams.


Same same...


My hero!

We got ourselves a Chinese feeder club to get some Asian support. And when I signed a Chinese center back they were overjoyed! So was my finance staff.



After six moths the have sacked the new manager and came back after me. This time I didn't attend the interview.

Excited for the Romanian exploits in the World Cup!

Decent in the league, as you say, same same.

Yea, really excited about the World Cup. But that will be after this weekend!

Boring. Poor. Uninteresting. Only two things stand out - Kelechi Iheanacho and the Cup. The Nigerian striker scored 28 goals in the league (top scorer), 33 in 38 matches over all, including the magnificent hattrick in the cup final. That means European fotboll next year.





This is a little disturbing...

I hope that my fellow country man would let me stay. It's quite fitting that a Swedish board would like to keep a Swedish manager... We'll see.

Håper du beholder jobben

Takk!

Hope they stick with you! Amazing result against Sweden

Iheanacho

To warm up before the World Cup we played Kuwait (4-1) and Costa Rica (2-2). Decent games but very friendly. Unfortunately star player Gabriel Iancu, who scored two goals against Kuwait got himself injured and had to be replaced. The same story with Gabriel Torje.

The Group Stage


A great opening game by Romania as Nicusor Stanciu led the team with two goals.



After 15 minutes right back Andrei Marc got himself sent off. That of course made this match a whole lot more difficult...



In the last group game we won easily against the host and as the USA won against Chile we finished top of the group!



The 2nd Round


An even game, but as the headline says, we were the better finishers.

The Quarter Final


An over time loss to Spain isn't anything to be ashamed of. But we were actually the better team so it does sting a bit.

So this is how it ended, Argentina won the second World Cup in a row.

Unlucky, but a solid Romanian run.

Great run in the World Cup

They did. So far at least... And Iheanacho... it was a long time ago I had a favourite player like him! indeed!



I'm happy about the world cup results, and I have decided to stay with Romania for a while longer.

Everything was pretty normal, I have signed quite a few new really good players for free or for small fees, sold some others for big fees. But as I tend to do I had signed too many strikers, so I came up with a new three striker tactic that worked pretty well. Sometimes. And sometimes didn’t work at all. The same inconsistent Breda as ever.

We outplayed Lille (5-1 at home) and Dynamo Kyiv (2-0 away) in the Europa League, and also won 3-1 away to Ajax in the league. But the next time around we go on losing to Heracles at home…

Then this happened:



Roberto Mancini was finally sacked after turning this club into crap. I have no idea what he’s been up to, the first team only have two center backs for example, and now that one is injured for a couple of months, I have recalled two guys from loan. Instead we have about eight half decent right wingers. I will try to sell a couple of them in January. And of course I will try to buy Iheanacho... We’re currently 17:th in the table.

The board wants me to develop and use own players and that is something I’m really keen to do. We have superb training and youth facilities, and I have brought along about 10 of my former Breda staff, all 4-5 star rated coaches.


First match. Pretty nifty. Qualified for the next round on goal difference. Unfortunately we draw Real Madrid.

The next match we crashed out of the French Cup, losing 4-0 to Guingamp…

Good move to OM

Could the font have got any smaller for Guingamp

Any big players at Marseille?