[FM24] Stranded: Zeb's African Adventure

There you go, the countries that are in purple are ones I have loaded in this save, green and anywhere with a team logo is where I've managed so far. The teams in order are Young Buffaloes in Eswatini, Baia de Pemba and Ferroviario de Maputo in Mozambique, FC Platinum in Zimbabwe, Township Rollers in Botswana, Orlando Pirates in Namibia, Guelson FC in Angola, Sporting Clube de Sao Tome in Sao Tome & Principe, Botafogo and Academica do Mindelo in Cape Verde and now the National Port Authority in Liberia.

Cool, thanks! Still a long way to go, but you already progressed a lot!

January 2035 - Liberia

The halfway point in the 2034/2035 season has arrived and my NPA Anchors side are currently second in the league, trailing LPRC Oilers by six point and they have a game in hand. Third place Mighty Barrolle also have a game in hand but the points difference keeps us safe from them for now, though the team in fourth, LISCR, have four games in hand and provided they score enough points, they could go second and push us down a place.

For the remainder of the season, I'm hoping we can keep pushing, I don't know if we'll be able to win the league, but finishing second with this team would still be a really good finish and even placing in the top four will be a slight overachievement for a team that ended up in the bottom half last season.

As of my last post, this save is now on FM24 and in my first piece of business in this new era, I can announce the arrival of Galy Coumaré, Marc Gaki and Raymond Wantee to strengthen the first team at the National Port Authority in the AMC, DC and CM positions respectively.

May 2035 - Liberia

The 34/35 season is over and I am pleased to announce that we managed to finish in second place, while it would have been nice to win the league, we didn't really have much of a chance with just how strong LPRC Oilers were, and their level of consistency.

For much of the season, we appeared to be in second place, but due to multiple games in hand, the eventual third-placed team LISCR, overtook us and gained a small lead which we had to work incredibly hard to overcome, by the second to last game of the season, we managed to take second place for real this time, and going into the final game, which interestingly enough, was against LISCR, we had to either win or draw the game to secure our position.
 

The away game against LISCR was one that I was not entirely sure we could win, they were the better side on paper, in terms of player ability, squad depth, size and reputation, we however had a few things going for us, notably proven tactics and the motivation to push beyond our means, despite being the weaker team, the fact that we were in the position we were, was a testament to our hard work all season, by the end of the game, and it really was the end of the game, we pulled off an 85th minute equaliser that got us the draw, second place and our entry into next season's CAF Confederation Cup (thanks to LPRC Oilers winning both the league and cup, we get the spot in the Confederation Cup which would have gone to the cup winner had they been a different team).

Aside from the league, we also took part in the LFA Cup, unlike in the league however, our performance there was largely forgettable, we were knocked out in the third round by Nimba FC, the team that ended up finishing fifth in the league.

Below I have included our transfers for this season, though as I've talked about our signings in previous posts, I don't really have much more to say other than that I was generally pleased with the business we were able to conduct, Bagbéma Nadinga especially turned out to be an inspired signing, easily becoming our star player almost straight away, besides him, most of our incoming players did their part and I have no major criticisms of any of them. As for the outgoing players, I felt we did quite well in managing to bring in £90k, especially given than none of the players had a transfer value, the only player I would say we missed, was Faisu Carlos, he was a left-back and his replacement, while adequate, did not particularly excel to any great extent.

In light of our, I would say, fairly successful season, I'm now left with a choice, try and continue to build up this team and try and challenge for the league title, all the while taking part in my first continental competition in quite some time, (despite having qualified for either the CAF Champions League or the Confederation Cup on a number of occasions, due to moving teams so frequently, the last time I actually managed a team in one of those competitions was back in 2027 while managing FC Platinum in Zimbabwe), or I could leave and once more, continue my journey back to the UK.

If I do choose to move on, I have several options that I am considering, previously I had hoped to try and reach Portugal via Cabo Verde, despite several successful seasons there, I was unable to secure a job in Portugal and that left me with little option but to try and cross the Mediterranean via north Africa. Upon leaving Cabo Verde, the most viable options for me at the time were either Senegal or Liberia, of the two, Liberia was the most appealing to me, but either way, I would need to progress through several countries before reaching the shores of the Mediterranean.

(Based on the rules I have for my save, I can move on from Liberia to a variety of countries, essentially, I could travel west/north along the coast as far as Senegal, back to Cabo Verde, or I could head east and go as far as Cameroon or anywhere along the way, as long as it is along the coast. I don't have every country in Africa loaded, which why I have set up some shortcuts—please see my initial post for routes, in this case it is the yellow route on my map.)

Looking to the job market as we head into the post-season period, there would appear to be an abundance of jobs going in Cameroon, while a move there might be of interest, I would be more inclined to go for jobs in the Ivory Coast, Benin or Nigeria due to the possible routes I could take in future seasons that would allow me to progress towards my goal. It's going to be a tough decision but one I expect to be able to resolve by the time of my next post.

July 2035 – Ivory Coast

This morning I made the decision to step down as manager of the National Port Authority in Liberia, after spending a few hours saying my goodbyes to the players and some of the fans that had gathered at the stadium, I headed out of the door and began a journey that would see me leave the country behind.

My time in Liberia was brief but my desire to return home was strong, in the lead up to my resignation, I had scouted the job markets of several neighbouring countries but one job stood out to me above the rest, that was the managerial position at Issia Wazi in the Ivory Coast.

With Issia Wazi currently playing at the top level in the Ivory Coast, I jumped at the chance to managed them, after attending an interview with their board, within the week I was being announced as the new manager.
 

In joining this team, I have moved to a bigger team in a more reputable league, both facts being vital to what will hopefully be a future move to Mali in one or two years time. Provided I can make a success of my new team, it could well stand me in good stead for taking on a job at the top level in Mali and that in turn will help when I eventually try to reach Algeria, provided this ends up being the route I take.

For now there is little to talk about, when it comes to the club, other than that the team finished in the bottom half last season, despite being a fairly solid mid-table team, I believe I can turn this outfit around and get them pushing towards the upper end of the table and hopefully I can being to do this right away, without even having taken part in one game with the team, I have already begun the process of strengthening the side and in time, I will also be streamlining it as well. 

My next update will be at the end of pre-season or perhaps a few games into the season, by that point I should have a much better overview of what I am now working with, on this new chapter in my journey.

Hi! Nice job. Where i can find the kits?

Out of the 11 teams I've used in this save, only the 2d kit for FC Platinum is available online, that came from FM Slovakia I think, the rest, both 2d and 3d kits I made myself.

September 2035 – Ivory Coast

Pre-season has come and gone, all too quickly it feels, though that said, I have managed to get in a good bit of business, strengthening the side with eight new players, adding to the two the previous manager brought in just before he stepped down.
 

When I joined, the team looked to be a fairly solid mid-table team on paper, but there was a major issue in that there was no first team standard goalkeeper, that was an issue I fixed straight away, signing two, one on a permanent deal and one on loan, though as both are of a similar standard, I could comfortably go with either as our first choice.

Not long into my reign at Issia Wazi, the captain and a good portion of the squad decided they were going to confront me over a lack of depth at the centre-back position, in my opinion they were wrong on several levels, firstly we had two really good dedicated centre-backs, on top of that, we had a talented left-back that was accomplished in the position (and who we had only recently signed) and finally, a third dedicated centre-back was also in the senior team and he was not too far off first team standard, I really don't know what they were complaining about, anyway, to shut them up I signed two more knowing full well that some of the players complaining would now lose out on playing time because of this, but do I care? No I don't lol, they raised the issue and now they can live with the results.
 

Because one of the new centre-backs was from Angola and as part of his signing, I promised to bring somebody in to help him settle, I also signed a decent Angolan centre-midfielder on loan, he was then joined by another, local, centre-midfielder, and a winger.

Over the course of the pre-season, while working to improve the squad, we played a small number of friendlies, mostly against lower or non league teams, though we did have one match against another team from our division. We managed to win the first four friendlies but we only managed a draw in the fifth and that was the team from our division.
 

Once the league kicked off for real, we hit the ground running with a pleasing 2-0 win, that was followed up with a 1-1 draw, two wins and another draw, making it three wins and two draws in our first five games of the season, not a bad little run and that sees us up to second place at the moment, one point behind Stella Club, which happens to be a team I could have joined, they, along with my current club, both offered me job interviews at the end of last season and I turned them down for Issia Wazi, let's hope that was not a decision I will come to regret.

Sorry buddy, your reply appears to be blank.

Sorry, I'm here. I asked: Could you send me the 3d kits?

January - March 2036 – Ivory Coast

This was going to be the mid-season update but time just has flown by, such is the fun I've been having in this new country. Right now we are two thirds the way through the season and things could hardly have gone any better.

When I joined the team, my initial impression was that the team was a fairly solid, mid-table team, I managed to make a number of changes in the pre-season transfer window to strengthen the squad, and those signings have really hit the ground running and the team as a whole, has really exceeded expectations in the league this season.
 

At the half-way point, we found ourselves top of the league, ahead of USC Bassam by three points, but at the two-thirds mark, we now lead ASEC Mimosas by six points. With just ten games remaining, I am hopeful that we are able to maintain our strong performance to date and continue to push for what could well be this team's first ever Ligue 1 title.
 

Away from the league, we also entered two cup competitions, the Coupe de Côte d'Ivoire and the Coupe de la LPF, the Ivory Coast equivalents of the FA Cup and League Cup. For both competitions, the board have no real expectations and don't particularly care about the outcome, only that we be competitive, upon entering both cups, I didn't feel as though we would be likely winners, but being a top-half team from the top division, I felt like we had an outside chance at success.
 

In the Coupe de la LPF, we made it to the third round, eventually defeated by AS Denguélé, another team from our division, in the Coupe de Côte d'Ivoire however, we are still in and face a semi-final match against AFAD Djékanou. Should we manage to progress to the final, I am expecting to face Africa Sport, also from our division, but should they lose their semi-final, we could face non-league outfit ASC Ouragahio (they're possibly third tier but could be lower, I only have the top two levels playable in the Ivory Coast so I'm not sure), which would be an interesting match-up.
 

In the most recent transfer window, I didn't bring in any new faces, though I did try to streamline the squad somewhat, sending a few fringe players out on loan and offloading a few of the youth players that I don't consider worth keeping around.
 

The next update will be at the end of the season, hopefully we will be league champions by that point and it would be nice to see some success in the cup as well, though as long as we give it our best and are there or thereabouts, I will be happy. Looking ahead to next season, right now, my plans are to either do a second season here at Issia Wazi, or to move onto Mali, should a suitable job become available. Ideally I would like to join one of the better teams in Mali but if there are no jobs of interest come the end of the season, I will most likely stick around.

June 2036 – Ivory Coast

Jubilation and devastation in equal measure as the 2035/2036 season comes to an end in the Ivory Coast.

After being eliminated on penalties in the third round of the Coupe de la LPF, we managed to reach the final of the Coupe de Côte d'Ivoire, only to lose the match on penalties once more.

Losing in the cup final seemed to affect us more than I would have liked and our lead in the league dropped to just three points by the final day as we struggled to assert ourselves in the final few matches just prior to the final day.

Reaching the final game of the season, we knew that a win or draw would secure us the title, though we also knew that should we lose the game and should ASEC Mimosas win by a sufficient a margin, they could steal the title through goal difference.

As the game progressed, I watched as our title rivals scored goal after goal and by the end of the game, they had levelled with us on goal difference, we didn't managed to win the game or even score, but thankfully our opponents, third placed USC Bassam, were in the same boat, with the game ending 0-0, the single point we came away with, was sufficient to bring home the trophy and give the team and all our fans, something to celebrate after the heart break of the recent cup final.

With the season now over, much like last season, I face a decision, stick around for another year or move on. As I stated in my previous post, the aim is to move onto Mali should a suitable job become available, right now there are positions available, but these are at either second or third tier teams, or one top tier team that has already confirmed its relegation to the second tier, these jobs are not really what I am looking for, so naturally staying in the Ivory Coast might well be my best bet, though if one of the top-half teams decides to part ways with their manager, I may well make the move, provided they are willing to hire me.

Should I end up sticking around, which is by no means certain given that as of right now at the beginning of June, I have yet to be offered a new contract, the plan is to build on our recent success, strengthen the side once more and attempt to win our second title, while also hopefully doing better in the two main domestic trophies and also the Coupe Houphouët-Boigny, which we should enter as league champions.

As usual, my next post will reveal whether I have decided to stick around or continue my journey back to the UK.

So with my recent success in the Ivorian MTN Ligue 1, I have been presented with the manager of the season award, this is the first personal award I have been given during my fourteen year journey through Africa.
 

[The lack of awards in my career is mostly down to the database files that I'm using being not detailed enough to include awards for many of the countries, otherwise I would have probably won a few more by now, given that I won the top divisions of Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, São Tomé & Príncipe & Cabo Verde, along with the second division of Angola, and where I didn't win the league, such as Namibia and Liberia, I overachieved enough that I might have had an outside chance at winning the award, if it existed in the game.

Beyond the award, another aspect of this save that I'm happy to announce, is that this save, as of the end of the 2035/2036 pre-season, is now my longest ever save on any Football Manager or Championship Manager game, the previous longest was my save on FM15 which was thirteen full seasons long and then just the pre-season of the fourteenth season. 

Looking ahead, I am planning to keep playing this save through early-access and so I would expect to see at least one more season, once the game is fully released, I am planning to create a new save but I will probably keep this save and run them alongside each other, generally I have two to three saves on each edition of the game so this should work out nicely as I do want to try and get as far as I can towards reaching my goal of one day managing in the UK, at the very least, I would like to reach the shores of the Mediterranean or even cross over to southern Europe.]

Just caught up on this, good going and seems that FM23 saves with added leagues work fine in 24. What skin is that you're using?

I haven't noticed any major bugs, the one issue I did come across was simply my finishing position in Liberia wasn't showing up on my job history page straight away, it did however fix itself maybe half way through the next season, this season it has worked fine so I think it might be just down to my season in Liberia being played half on FM23 and half on 24. As for the skin it's OPZ Elite, I'm not sure if the latest version is on this site but I'm pretty sure FM Scout has it.

August 2036 – Ivory Coast

After last season's disappointment of losing on penalties to Africa Sport in the Coupe de Côte d'Ivoire, we get our own back in the Coupe Houphouët-Boigny at the start of this season.

With the Ivory Coast's equivalent of the Community Shield out of the way, now we turn our attention to the league, where we hope to repeat our success from last season. At the end of last season, six of our senior team departed due to their loan spells ending, we managed to bring one of them back on a permanent deal but this time, we have three new players joining us on loan, along with six additional players who join us on permanent contracts, most of which were free transfers, but we did sign one player, Georges Doumbia, who at £32,500, is not only a club record signing, but a personal one as well [in this save at least].
 

April 2037 – Ivory Coast

The 2037 season is drawing to a close with only four league games left to play, however, because I never did a mid-season post, I'm going to hold off revealing the current table for now and focus just on the cup competitions.

In my previous post, I revealed that we managed to win the Coupe Houphouët-Boigny, the Ivorian equivalent to the Community Shield, beyond that, we also entered both the Coupe de Côte d'Ivoire and the Coupe de la LPF, the equivalents of the FA and League Cups. Last season we came close to winning Coupe de Côte d'Ivoire, only missing out thanks to a penalty shootout in the final, in the Coupe de la LPF, we reached the third round, this time I hoped to do better.

In the Coupe de Côte d'Ivoire, we have managed to reach the final once more and we face ASEC Mimosas, it'll be a tough match but we have a chance, we have managed to beat them on several occasions since I took charge at this club. For the Coupe de la LPF, we did unfortunately get knocked out, but we managed to reach the semi-final so whatever happens from this point, we have at least made an improvement on last season as far as domestic competitions go.
 

Now while we've had a shot at three domestic trophies (not counting the league), we also took our place in the CAF Champions League, it was a relatively short campaign and after beating AS Otôho from the Republic of Congo in the preliminary round, we were knocked out in the first round proper by Wydad Casablanca. Wydad being the bigger team, I fully expected them to beat us, though in actuality it was a close affair, they beat us at their ground 1-0 and we beat them at ours 3-2, unfortunately that meant going out on goal difference, annoying but those are the rules, we can still take pride in the fact that we game them a good match and we were not in the least bit outclassed by the bigger team.

Being dumped out of the CAF Champions League, we see one door close, but another opens and we found ourselves in the CAF Confederation Cup instead, the second tier competition in Africa, there we emerged in the second round, a round in which we managed to fend off a challenge from Wiliete de Benguela, I club I once faced during my time in Angola. Having found our way to the group stage, we came up against last year's champions MAS Fès from Morocco, WAFA SC from Ghana and Sundowns of South Africa. At the start of the group stage, I was unsure how we would fare but any doubts soon went out of the window when we managed to win the first three games, scoring eleven goals in the process. The final three games did not go quite so well but we did manage to win one of those three and draw another, so a single loss in six games is more than reasonable.
 

Having reached the quarter final, we now face WAFA SC again, though we have a chance of progressing here as we did beat them in the group stage, nothing is certain and there are still some good teams in the competitions should we manage to get beyond this round, and I would not put us among the favourites, still, anything is possible and we may yet pull off a few upsets.
 

The next update will be an end of season review so expect the final table and the results of the Coupe de Côte d'Ivoire final and final three rounds of the CAF Confederation Cup.

May 2037 – Ivory Coast

'Always the bridesmaid and never the bride' a phrase that I feel could almost describe us after we finished runner-up in the Coupe de Côte d'Ivoire for a second year in a row and also runner-up in the CAF Confederation Cup this season, the only reason why the phrase is not a true match for us, is that we did manage to win our second league title in a row and we also came home with the Coupe Houphouët-Boigny at the start of the season.

In the league this season, our performance was generally excellent, while we did lose one more game than during last season, we managed scored more points overall thanks to a higher win percentage. Where last season we beat ASEC Mimosas by one point, our sixty-nine to their sixty-eight, this time around we beat them by eleven.
 

As I mentioned in my previous post, we reached the semi-final of the Coupe de la LPF before getting knocked out, that was a big improvement over the previous season, though our performance in the Coupe de Côte d'Ivoire was only the same as last time, still, reaching the final was more than reasonable and losing to ASEC Mimosas was not totally unexpected, though we have beaten them in the league on several occasions, they are still the bigger team in terms of reputation and the quality and depth of their squad.
 

As far as continental football goes, I think we had a good year, though we did get knocked out of the CAF Champions League in the first round, we were never really expected to progress far, still, getting bumped down to the CAF Confederation Cup was probably a good move for us and we generally fared well against most teams that we came across, only losing out in the final to ES Tunis, a team that is not only one of the best in Tunisia, but also one of the best in Africa, currently rated 3rd on the continent.

Now that the season is over, decisions need to be made, on one hand, my contract runs for another season, on the other I am ready to move on, as per my plans to try and make my way back home to the UK (and based on the movement rules I'm following), Mali looks to be the next step, the only problem I have is waiting for a suitable job to come up, right now there are four clubs in Mali looking for a new manager but all of them are third tier teams and that would mean dropping down to a semi-professional level once more after now three seasons at professional clubs. I'm in two minds as to whether to just go for one of the jobs in Mali and work my way up, or wait and see if anything at a higher level becomes available down the line, though doing that is why have been at Issia Wazi for two years now and why I didn't just leave at the end of last season.