Zebramanii - Comments

Now look at that, what an ending to the season, we managed to keep winning up until the second to last game, which we drew with GD Incomáti, leaving us with a must win final game, which, GD Incomáti also had to lose. A great man once said, ‘I love it when a plan comes together’ and it really did come together for us in the end. We went into the final game knowing we had to do a job and we did just that, winning 4-1 against one of our local rivals. GD Incomáti however, went and lost their game to bottom of the league Gaza, leaving us to sneak into second place via goal difference.

By finishing second, we qualify for the playoffs, where we will face the other second place teams. We qualify from the north division but there is also a central and a south division, of the three teams, we had the lowest points total and so go into the semi-final against the second best of the three teams. Now I have no idea why it works this way, but the winner of the semi-final goes up and the loser goes to the final, in the final, the winner there goes up as well, meaning that by being in the semi-final, we have two chances of going up, where as the team that did the best out of the three teams, only gets one chance… crazy really, I'm pretty sure somebody was drunk when they came up with that system, but hey, do we care that we have two chances of going up… no we do not, we are however going to use them.

A great start to my tenure at Desportivo de Maputo, quickly rising out of the relegation zone and up to fourth place. 

With the transfer window already closed, we couldn't sign any players, at least none that could be registered for the league, we did bring in one player for the senior team but he can only play in the cup, at least for as long as we remain in it. A second player joined us but he will go into the youth team for now. Without the means to really improve this side, we have to make the most with what we already have, but despite the previous poor performance, we seem to have a fairly talented squad, as demonstrated on the field for our first few games since I joined.

With only a short time left of the season, it's going to be a close call, whether we can secure promotion, the top two teams are still a good way off in the distance, though if we can keep winning, we still have a chance, that said, third place is entirely achievable and so that is going to be the next aim and if we can go beyond that, amazing, though just keeping the team in this division is the main goal for this season.

Whatever happens this season, it's next season when we really go for it, if we remain in the division, we will make a concerted effort to shape the team into a promotion challenger, but if we do somehow managed to get promoted, then it will be really exciting, the gulf in class between us and the division above should mean that we have to significantly improve the squad, I would suggest even that we might need a whole new squad to play at the top level and even then, that is likely only to be good enough to maybe survive in the division above.

As a native of Pemba and a former member of the Baía de Pemba women's team, when I suffered the injury that ended my playing career, it had been my goal to move into coaching with the short to medium term aim of becoming the manager of my home-town team and leading them to glory. The team itself has seen better days, the year I was born, they were one division higher than they are today, my father was their manager for a time and on his second attempt, managed to gain promotion by finishing second in the league and then progressing through the playoffs. 

The thing with my father, he never seemed to stick around for long, whether that was at a club he was managing, or in my life, not that it was exactly his fault as my mother never told him about me, but regardless he was and perhaps still is, a man of ambition and Baía de Pemba were not likely to remain in the Moçambola. My father left to join Ferroviário de Maputo, leaving his replacement to try and survive in the highest tier of football in Mozambique, he failed and the team fell back down. Over the subsequent years, they managed to gain promotion a few more times but each time, came back down, then one year they didn't go back up and then the rot set in, they became entrenched in their mediocrity and then one day, they went down again, down to the third tier.
 

For all their flaws, Baía de Pemba are my team and this year their manager departed and I felt it was my time, I applied for the job, but I don't know if they simply weren't interested, or whether it was a simple clerical error, but they never replied to my application and I just sat at home waiting to hear from them. As time passed, I decided I couldn't just sit about waiting and so I applied for a few other jobs. 

Months passed and I thought I would never become a manager, despite even having my first coaching qualification under my belt, which I funded myself, thanks to a couple of part-time jobs, eventually I received a message from the chairman of Desportivo de Maputo, a reputable team from the second tier. The major downside to taking a job with Desportivo de Maputo is that they are rivals to my father's second team in the country, and a team I do follow myself, albeit casually, but taking the job will give me my first opportunity to show off what I can do and perhaps, give me the springboard I need to really get my career going.

After talking with the board and specifically the chairman, I accepted the job. By the time I joined, the season was already at the mid-point, but with plenty of games left to play, and sufficient points available, I had high hopes that I could help lift the team out of the relegation zone and then, either to survival, or, should fortune permit it, to the promotion playoffs.

Check back soon to see how we did.

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.

Introduction & Explanation

This save is directly linked to 'Stranded - Zeb's African & European Adventure' and is based around the career of a second manager in that same save. The second manager is my fictional daughter as explained in my main career thread. The intention right now, is that in a currently undecided number of years, I will retire as a manager and my second manager will take over as the primary one, until that point, they will both run side by side with some possible interaction but given the teams used, that is likely to be fairly minimal.

The Second Manager

Ava Isabela Cossa Spencer, born in 2024 in Pemba, Mozambique. She starts out in March 2044, unemployed and as a former semi-pro footballer with the national C qualification. Ava has British dual nationality and supports Baía de Pemba with a strong affinity towards Ferroviário de Maputo, Benfica and Crystal Palace. Unlike with how my save started out, she will have no restrictions on her movement around Africa and Europe.

Loaded Nations

As this save is the same one as in my main career posts, it obviously uses the same loaded nations but to save having to check elsewhere, this is the map of countries where Ava can move about as her career progresses.

Finally

Subsequent posts in this career thread will be from the perspective of Ava but there will also be posts relating to Ava from my perspective in the main 'Stranded - Zeb's African & European Adventure' career as well. The main reason for not having them all in one thread is simply to keep track of seasons and trophies without them all counting under the same manager on this site.

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.

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.

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.

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).
 

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.

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.

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.

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).

April 2043

After an okay performance in the league phase of the Champions League, we went on to eliminate both Atlético and Real Madrid in the knockout playoff round and the round of 16, taking us through to the quarter final where we faced and were eventually defeated by Man City, who beat us in both legs, though we did at least make them work for it.

With our Champions League campaign now over, we can bring more focus to our domestic game where we face a tough second leg against FC Porto in the Taça de Portugal, currently we are behind 2-1, so this upcoming match is one we have to win if we want to reach the final. As soon as that match is out of the way, we then have the final of the Allianz Cup to tackle, there we are set to play against Belenenses and they're a team I know we should be able to beat, so it will be disappointing if we fail to do so.

Beyond those two competitions, we just have six more games of the season and with us being eleven points clear and with two games in hand, it'll not be long before I believe we will be crowned champions, we will have to seriously mess up at this point to not come away as champions.

February 2043

Half way through the season now and we're on a roll, dominating the Portuguese league after having won all our games so far. For the three domestic cups that we're in this season, we have already won the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira Vodafone at the start of the season and we are through to the semi final of the Taça de Portugal and the final of the Allianz Cup where we will face FC Porto and Belenenses respectively.

The only place where we're haven't done quite so well is in Europe, but even then we have done okay, we managed to reach the league stage of the Champions League after beating Gent and PSV and during the league phase we picked up some wins against Larne, Celtic, Napoli and my former employer Barcelona, we also lost to Atlético, Man Utd and Arsenal and only managed a draw with Frankfurt. Now we face Atlético again, this time over two legs to see if we can make it to the last 16, at this point, while I obviously would like to see us progress, the board are already happy with our performance so it won't be a massive problem if we go out at this stage.
 

December 2042

What a win, very satisfying to see that scoreline.
 

After securing promotion for Wild Bill's II, I decided to move on, spotting a now vacant position at the University of Guam. The Tritons were relegated and head down to the league I just escaped from, now you could say I've taken a step backwards but this was the job I was hoping to get upon moving to Guam but sadly it wasn't available at the time. Having just won this division, I feel like I know what I'm doing, so can I do it again, just like that? We shall see.

My first season in Guam has come to an end and we absolutely dominated in Guam's second tier, leading our closest competitor in Group A by twenty points. In winning our division, we headed through to the three team playoff where we also managed to beat Disasters of Sidelines and Haagen Dasz to gain promotion to the top division.

Below you can see our results for the season, winning every game except for a single friendly match, when you also factor in my three seasons in the Northern Mariana Islands, I am still undefeated as of four seasons now. My record so far (not counting friendlies) stands at ninety-eight wins and nine draws, giving a ninety-one percent win record (the highest for any of my saves that went beyond a single season).

Finally, aside from winning our division and gaining promotion, we also brought home the GFA Cup, winning 4-1 in the final against the team that finished in second place in our division (what happened to all the top division teams lol?)
 

August 2042

Despite only having enough time to play one friendly before we had to face Braga in the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira Vodafone, we come away victorious after winning the game 3-1.

Just prior to the game we were able to confirm the signing of Giorgio Balzano on a free transfer and both Ranaldo Braithwaite and Roberto Rivera on loan from Chelsea and Leicester respectively, Balzano and Rivera managed to make the starting XI for this game and Balzano even managed to score our second goal.

With the super cup out of the way, we now face a Champions League third qualifying round before we kick off the season, I'm hopeful my tactics will continue to work though I don't have a lot of choice but to tweak as I go in competitive games, rather than friendlies as I normally would, the main downside of joining a team late into the pre-season and the complete opposite of last season where I had several months of free time to work with in the Cape Verde islands.

July 2042

Just as the tide comes in, it goes back out again, with that in mind, I have departed Botafogo and the Cape Verde islands once more and returned to Europe, taking over as manager of one of my favourite teams (as you can tell by my choice of gaming chairs lol) - Benfica.

Anyone that's been following my save will know I'll probably only be here a year or two at most before moving on, but while I am here, let's see if we can't restore this team to its rightful place at the top of Portuguese football.

As you can see from the league history, Benfica haven't won the league recently and Braga is the team to beat. My goal this season is simple, try and win the league and whatever other cups we happen to be in this season domestically, beyond that if we can give a good account of ourselves in the Champions League, that would be great as well, I'm thinking group stage as a minimum but the round of 16 or beyond could be a realistic target, any less and it would be a slight disappointment.

In order to meet my targets this season, I might need to strengthen the side, mostly this will be bolstering the defence and possibly replacing the goalkeeper, in midfield I feel we are fairly decent and my striker is almost as good as any I had at Barcelona so he won't need removing any time soon, unless he gets unsettled by another club.

As I write this, the pre-season is almost over, so my next update will be a short way into the regular season, once we've played a few games and perhaps made a couple of signings.

June 2042

As favourites to win the Liga Fogo, it was always likely that I would see us sitting at the top of the league at the end of the nine games but that was with the team I inherited, I wanted to make sure we did just that, hence why I signed so many players in the pre-season and with how long that was, we had more than enough time to find ourselves the right men for the job and turn them into a cohesive unit.

From the league table you can see that we won all our games in a clean sweep but the stats don't show the whole picture, we did actually have to fight to the very end of some of those matches to get the victory and in four of them, we had to come from behind to claim victory.
 

In winning the Liga Fogo, we took our island's spot in the Liga Cabo Verde, the national championships, there we faced off against the top teams from the other islands and in the group stage, we managed to finish top and undefeated, though we didn't manage to win all our games this time around. 
 

Once we reached the semi-final, we had to face Sporting da Praia over two legs and while we won both games, they did manage to score five so it wasn't as easy as I would have liked, luckily our strikers and attacking midfielders were able to out score them.

In the end, we took on Atlético de São Nicolau in the final and much like a few of our league matches, we had to come from behind to claim victory.

While we tasted success both in the Liga Fogo and the Liga Cabo Verde, we didn't do so well in the Taça Nacional de Cabo Verde, there we only managed to reach the second round after losing to my old team, Académica do Mindelo.

With this season out of the way, it's onto the next and that is where I have to think about what to do, I could stay another year but even coming here this season has dented my reputation somewhat, I feel like it might be an idea to return to Europe or at the very least, join a more reputable team in Africa as I continue my journey. If I do remain in Africa, I would like to manage in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria or Tunisia, though Cameroon, Mali and Senegal are also contenders, depending on the teams, if I return to Europe however, I want to join a fairly big team if possible, now I know my reputation, dented as it may be, might stop me from getting in a world class team like my former employers Barcelona, I'm open to a top level team in any of the top six to eight nations or at one of the top teams in a lower ranked league, essentially, I'm looking for a team that could play in Europe either in this season coming or the next.

Although there's still a few games left to play in the season, and then the playoffs, my Wild Bill's II side have won our division in the Guamanian second tier.

January 2042

After five games in the Liga Fogo, we sit top of the league with a perfect record, five wins in five, if we can just keep things like this for four more games, we will be island champions once more.

During my previous spell at the team, I was able to lead the team to two Liga Fogo titles and subsequent managers secured another three titles in the eight seasons I've been away, the team last won it the year before last and with my improvements, I'm fairly confident we'll be able to do it again, though with only nine games in the league, one mistake is all it takes for another team to squeeze in and take it all from us.
 

For the Taça Nacional de Cabo Verde, we managed to win our first round game against Corôa da Brava but unfortunately, we faced last years champions and my former team Académica do Mindelo in the second round, there we lost 1-0 but the scoreline is rather misleading, we actually played the better football throughout the game and only really lost due to a fluke of a goal, that said, it's the goals that count and they were the team to score one, it's disappointing to be eliminated early in the competition but we did manage to meet the board's minimum expectations. With the cup out of the way, we can focus our entire attention now on the last four games and then hopefully, come my next update, we'll be entering into the Liga Cabo Verde (national championship).

Nice work so far, you did well keeping Polonia Bytom up, especially with minus points at the start and you seem to have had a pretty good start with Ślęza as well. I've only ever managed in Poland once and it was not long before the next game was coming out so I think I only ever played 10 games into the season but it's somewhere I'd like to manage at some point, maybe next time I do a European journeyman save I'll give it a go.

November 2041

My first league game back in charge at Botafogo and boy did we make a statement, 5-0, what a win! 

In many ways, the game was about returnees, firstly myself, that really goes without saying, and António Monteiro who we managed to bring back to the club, once Barcelona terminated his contract, his two goals letting everybody know he still means business, and finally, Carlos Lopes, the winger we signed from Académica da Boa Vista, an amazing start to his Botafogo career, scoring three goals, and what makes it all the more special, is that he is also a local lad, born in São Filipe on our home island of Fogo, so in signing him, we have brought him back home.

With the first game out of the way, that just leaves eight more to play, can we continue as we start? Find out next time.

November 2041

After my somewhat drastic exit from Spain and my return to Cabo Verde, I can say I have now settled back into my old office and begun this latest project in earnest, brining in a new assistant manager, two new coaches and a head physio along with eighteen new players to bolster our chances of not only winning the Liga Fogo but also challenging for the national championship and the main domestic cup.
 

While I have signed a couple of players for the youth team, the majority of the incoming players are for the senior team. Under normal circumstances, signing so many players at once would disrupt the harmony of a squad, but the one benefit to managing in this country, is the extremely long pre-season, at the point I write this, we have already played more friendlies than there are matches in the Liga Fogo (we play each team once) and we may yet still play more depending on the length of gaps between games.

I have not included screenshots for all the players due to the sheer number of them but instead, these are the more notable ones, with special attention given to António Monteiro who joins me yet again on this adventure having first signed for me when I managed Guelson in Angola, he later joined me at Sporting Clube de São Tomé, here at Botafogo in my first stint as manager, then at Académica do Mindelo before parting ways for a few years, I did briefly call him up for a Cabo Verde national side game and then he joined me once more at Barcelona. For Cape Verde and Barcelona he was way out of his depth but I wanted to give him a moment to remember as thanks for all the goals he scored that helped me secure four league titles across São Tomé & Príncipe and Cabo Verde.

Now that most of our business in the transfer market has largely been concluded, I am looking forward to seeing whether this group of players can come together into a cohesive unit that is sufficient to meet my ambitions this season. Looking at the results of the friendly matches, I believe we should do well and right now we are 1-10 favourites to win the Liga Fogo, something we have to do if we want to play in the Liga Cabo Verde later in the season and challenge for the right to call ourselves national champions as well as island champions.
 

Thanks, the skin is OPZ Elite

July 2041

In a move that has shocked the footballing world, I have today ripped up my €120k p/w contract with Barcelona in order to re-join Botafogo in the Cape Verde islands, a team I managed back in the 2032 and 2033 seasons.

As far as why I decided to make such a dramatic move, I guess it comes down to a couple of issues, the first stems from a club vision meeting I recently had with the Barcelona board, where they were somewhat critical of me in areas I had little control over, another side of it comes from the fact that I change directions more often than the wind.

Upon handing in my letter of resignation, I reviewed the job market, there were jobs available at Man Utd, Liverpool and Tottenham, all of which I could have gone for, had I wanted to, I actually turned down offers of an interview from both Athletic in Spain and RB Leipzig from Germany, in the end, I noticed that my old team Botafogo, from the Cape Verde islands were looking for a new manager and I remembered the good times I had in the country, both as their manager and also as the manager of Académica do Mindelo and then later on, as the national team manager.

During my time in the country, managing at the domestic level, I won the Liga Fogo twice and the Liga São Vicente once, I also won the Liga Cabo Verde and the Taça Nacional de Cabo Verde twice each and finally, while managing the national side, I was able to claim the Africa Cup of Nations. Having tasted success there, it just felt right to return and see what I can do this time around.

In my first season back at the club, the plan will be simple, I will completely overhaul the backroom staff and then start reforming the side so that it can challenge for the Liga Fogo title once more and as a result of that, reach and challenge for the Liga Cabo Verde as we did in my second season here last time.

The next update as normal will cover pre-season and transfers.

June 2041

And we are done, the 2040/2041 season has now been entered into the history books. On one hand we are celebrating an amazing undefeated season in La Liga and our victory in the Supercopa de España, our season has not been perfect, we only managed to reach the quarter final of the Copa del Rey, one round less than the board were expecting, and we got within touching distance of the Europa League, only to fall at the final hurdle, finishing as runner-up after losing to Newcastle.
 

To start with, in the league, we blew everybody away, never losing and only failing to win a handful of games. We registered some big wins along the way, including a 5-2 win over Real Madrid and we also scored seven goals in two matches, six in three games and five in nine games, demonstrating the lethality of our strike force.
 

I'm pleased that we were able to lift the Supercopa but in only reaching the quarter final of the Copa del Rey, we should be a little disappointed in ourselves on that front, the board expected us to at least reach the semi-final and judging on our league performance, we should have easily won the cup, unfortunately we faced an Atlético side that really decided to turn up that day and we just didn't have enough about us to hold them off that time.
 

Finally, in the Europa League, I had high hopes of success, I didn't necessarily think we would definitely win it, but I thought we would be one of the more likely ones to do so, it was therefore disappointing that having reached the final, we did not manage to lift the trophy at the end of the match. Had it not been for us losing a player to a red card, early in the match, I feel like we might have had a good chance at success, as it transpired though, we lost, albeit, we still managed to play fairly well, even scoring a goal after the red card.

Below you can check out our results throughout the season.

Now that the season is over, the question, as always is what to do next. Right now, I'm looking at improving the squad over the pre-season as we look ahead to another year challenging for the title and all other top-level domestic trophies, while attempting to also challenge for the Champions League, which the team has not won since 2015. As always, I like to keep an eye on the job market, so while the plan is to stay for another year, you can never rule out me moving onto a new challenge.

Cheers, it's always nice when things go to plan.