Berwick Rangers: An English Club in Scotland

First 3 Champions League Games

In our quest to go one better than last season our Champions League campaign did not get off to a bad start with Juan Carlos scoring after 15 seconds as we ran our 3-0 winners against Feyenoord.

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And we won by a 3-goal margin again in our next group game, this time beating Wolfsburg 4-1.

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In the meantime we picked up a disappointing draw against Raith in which they scored with one of the two shots they had all game

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As you can see immediately after that game we again drew 1-1, this time with Atletico Madrid.

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They again had only two shots but that’s not to say we deserved to win. We had no key highlights and scored from a corner. It’s just two games but if it carries on then I might start to get worried.

We’re also still not safe in our group yet; hopefully we can get the job done and progress to the knockout rounds with a game to spare.

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As for Scotland it’s getting interesting as Celtic are all the way down in 6th​!

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I think a case could be made that they’re not even among the best two or three teams in Scotland now… however they could soon easily end up in second again with a good run of form.

​
 
Formation Change

Our 4th​ game of our Champions League group was a crucial one against Atletico Madrid. We ended up getting an extremely lucky 1-0 win.

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We had one key chance and should be doing better than only having 4 shots all game so I’m a bit worried about the tactic.

Nevertheless it meant that we qualified for the Champions League knockout rounds.

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We then had a lucky escape against Hamilton after going 2-0 down to them in the league.

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The performance was typical of us of late, a bit drab and underwhelming. It seems a bit trivial to complain about these results but aside from beating Hamilton 5-1 (with a rotated sides) we really should be doing much better than scraping wins.

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Subsequently I have changed formation.

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I really didn’t want to use a 3-striker formation but we have 3 world-class strikers so it made sense to play them in their favoured position rather than as inside forwards.

The first game using it didn’t go too badly.

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Time will tell if it’s a one off. To be honest we’ll only see if it works when we come up against proper opposition in the Champions League knockout rounds.

Next up is a League Cup final against Rangers as well finding out who are Champions League opponents will be.


​
 
Déjà vu

In the 2031 League Cup final we beat Rangers 1-0.

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That’s 6 out of the last 7 League Cups that we’ve won and the past 4 have been with our second string side. I’ve said it before but Scotland is far too easy.

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We also got an exciting tie in the Scottish Cup.

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We’ll play Brechin City in the 4th​ round, which is a welcome change to playing SPL teams in the cup year in year out. The last time we played them was 8 years ago and Sindri Snorrason, who scored in that game, is still club captain today!

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However that was the only draw that was favourable to us….

We comfortably won our group in the Champions League and our Norwegian striker Vebjorn Aure is currently the highest scorer in the competition.

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And because we comfortably won our group these were the teams that we could’ve faced in the Champions League.

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So of course we got Bayern.

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We never get an easy draw! We’ll be playing the same team that we knocked out at the quarterfinal stage last season.

Elsewhere the 3 other Scottish teams in Europe are all into the Europa League knockout round…

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Rangers - Everton
Hibs - AC Milan
Celtic - AS Saint-Etienne

I think the chances of a Scottish team winning both the Champions League and Europa League might be quite slim.
​
 
Don't do things the easy way do you! Good luck though, I'm sure you can out gun the german's again
 
Hectic Christmas Schedule

I think this is the longest time there’s been between each post since I started this thread (5 whole days!) This Champions League win is happening even if it slows down to one post a week. I also noticed this story has got over 100,000 views so thanks to everyone for reading!

-

So we’re in January 2032 and as explained in the last post we have Bayern Munich in the Champions League Knockout Round at the end of February.

For the first time in the save a Berwick player was named in the World Team of the Year.

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In fact there were two Berwick players; Pedro and Hector De Anda

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Carlos Chavez was also named second in the World Goalkeeper of the Year.

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So he celebrated it by getting injured for 3 months, meaning he’s out for the two knockout games against Bayern at least.

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We’ve also made some record business in January. I was unable to persuade centre back Luka Sevic to stay so sold him for a record £40m to Borussia Dortmund.

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He was our 3/4th​ choice centre back so I immediately signed a wonderkid to replace our wonderkid.

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I just missed one key detail.

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He’s not joining until next year! I think I’m just going to have to go with 3 centre backs for the rest of the season and hope we’re not plagued with injuries in defence.

In other transfer news we received £2.6m from a player we sold 6 years ago.

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It seems a long time ago since we had Pape Samb but at least we’re getting some money from the clauses I added to the transfer deals.

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Meanwhile we’re dominating the league (surprise surprise) and remain on course for an unbeaten league campaign.

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We’ve also won our last 19 games.

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Only 2 teams have scored more than once in a game against us this season. They are Hearts… and Brechin City!

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They admirably fought back against us in the Scottish Cup. Hopefully the defence isn’t that leaky against a slightly better team in Bayern Munich!
​
 
Last edited:
Brilliant going as per usual, what sort of level are the team and Scotland now considered amongst over parts of Europe, Im assuming still not too high as your best players are still only valued around £15Million despite being among some of the best players in the World! KIU
 
coolmcool said:
Brilliant going as per usual, what sort of level are the team and Scotland now considered amongst over parts of Europe, Im assuming still not too high as your best players are still only valued around £15Million despite being among some of the best players in the World! KIU
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We have a 4 star reputation, which makes us the 63rd most reputable club in the world. Hibs, Celtic and Rangers are all 3 and a half star.

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And Scotland has been the 7th​ highest ranked league in Europe for a couple of seasons.

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Because of our run in the Champions League last season the coefficient increased meaning that next season, for the first time, they’ll be two teams from the SPL in the Champions League group stage.

So Scottish football is making progress but as for the prices of my players I’m not sure if that’s some sort of glitch because I’ve got some genuinely world class players that are being linked with massive clubs for £13-14 million when they could easily fetch £60-£70m​
 
I do feel that FM does like to try to undercut us human players, i will have a striker smash in 30 goals in a season, valued at £20Million with 4 years left on his contract and some team will offer £17Million in installments!
 
coolmcool said:
I do feel that FM does like to try to undercut us human players, i will have a striker smash in 30 goals in a season, valued at £20Million with 4 years left on his contract and some team will offer £17Million in installments!
Click to expand...

Yeah there was a thread on the general discussion page about the value of players on Scottish teams being inaccurate but it might just be a wider thing on FM or something to do with the reputation of teams. Either way it's quite annoying!
 
First Leg V Bayern Munich

So… finally we arrive at our first knockout round game against Bayern Munich in the Champions League First Knockout Round... a game which our best player, and one of the best midfielders in the world, David Herrera was injured for.

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As was our left back Lebogang Mokoena, arguably another world class player.

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And as mentioned in the last post our first choice goalkeeper Carlos Chavez was out for the first leg at least so back up Barry Brown will deputise for him.

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Throughout the save we’ve had about 4 or 5 different Scottish keepers that have all been on the edge of making it to the national team and Brown is one of them (earning his 3 caps whilst at Reith Rovers in the Championship 6 years ago). Brown is adequate for the SPL but may be slightly out of his depth in the knockout rounds of the Champions League…

Preparation for the first leg at the Allianz Arena has been fine in the sense that we’ve won our last 23 games…. However we’ve only kept one clean sheet in the last 5 games against inferior opposition.

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We beat Bayern 6-0 on aggregate in the quarter final stage last season so I’m sure they were out for revenge…

…So I suppose scoring after 2 minutes wasn’t the worst of starts we could’ve had!

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But that lead only lasted 5 minutes…

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But then again it only took 2 minutes for us to go in front again!

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Then Juan Carlos capped off a dominant first half from us.

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Or so I thought. Bayern scored in first half stoppage time to cap off a crazy first half and make the second half interesting.

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There was, however, only one goal in the second half and that too came from Berwick striker Juan Carlos.

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So 4-2 was the final score in the away leg against Bayern Munich. Not the worst result we could’ve got!

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Juan Carlos proved he was worth his £27m price tag with that performance but we still have work to do in the second leg.

That was also our 24th​ win a row which is a Berwick record!

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Meanwhile Celtic beat Saint-Etienne 4-0 on aggregate and will play Napoli, Rangers beat Everton 6-2 and will play Schalke whereas Hibs lost 3-1 to A.C. Milan in the Europa League.

It’s looking good for Scottish teams in Europe… so far!
​
 
Great result against Bayern, fingers crossed this is finally the year!!!
 
Loving this story, and read it from the start these past two days.

Can I just ask - Lets see Scott Scott one more time please?
 
neavie pops23 said:
Great result against Bayern, fingers crossed this is finally the year!!!
Click to expand...

Not a bad result considering we haven't played any team that's half decent in months!

salopsi said:
Loving this story, and read it from the start these past two days.

Can I just ask - Lets see Scott Scott one more time please?
Click to expand...

Cheers mate glad you've enjoyed it! And here you go, the man the myth the legend... currently back up at Championship side Forfar!

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Bayern Second Leg

Despite former Berwick right back Juan Grecco scoring in extra time for them, Man City were knocked out of the Champions League by Porto in the 1st​ knockout round. Serves them right for beating us in the final!

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That result mattered little if we were to not go through after beating Bayern 4-2 in the first leg.

The first half was very uneventful so I changed the passing to mixed from direct and it made an instant impact.

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And in the second half Juan Carlos proved again that he was a big game player by breezing through the Bayern defence to grab us a second.

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And that was that.

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6-2 against Bayern Munich over two legs with a backup goalkeeper isn’t bad going.

The only negatives from that was that centre back Luiz will be injured for the first and maybe the second leg of the quarter final and we picked up 6 bookings in that game, so potential suspensions might be a problem in the long run.

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But who cares? We’ve knocked Bayern Munich out of the Champions League for the second season in a row. Our prize for doing that?

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We get Chelsea in the Champions League Quarter final. They knocked us out at the 1st​ Knockout Stage 2 seasons ago so we’re treating this one as revenge.

Elsewhere Celtic are the first Scottish team to reach the Europa League quarter finals for a long while after beating Napoli over two legs.

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They’ll play Schalke in the next round, the team who have just knocked out Rangers.

It also goes without saying that we’re close to winning the league and are in the Scottish Cup semi final where we’ll play Dundee.

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There’s still a possibility of an unbeaten season in the league. But my main focus is obviously getting to the semi finals of the Champions League.

Finally, Richard Carter has been called up to the England squad.

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He came through the Berwick academy and is used as a back up central midfielder. I would have never of thought he’d be anywhere near the England set up but Roberto Mancini has gave him a call up!

So, naturally, I gave him a start in the game before the international break so he could show everyone that he was worthy of the call up.

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There’s no chance he’ll ever be near the England squad again. I’m so sorry Richard…
​
 
Hampus Silverholt said:
Despite former Berwick right back Juan Grecco scoring in extra time for them, Man City were knocked out of the Champions League by Porto in the 1st​ knockout round. Serves them right for beating us in the final!

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That result mattered little if we were to not go through after beating Bayern 4-2 in the first leg.

The first half was very uneventful so I changed the passing to mixed from direct and it made an instant impact.

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And in the second half Juan Carlos proved again that he was a big game player by breezing through the Bayern defence to grab us a second.

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And that was that.

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6-2 against Bayern Munich over two legs with a backup goalkeeper isn’t bad going.

The only negatives from that was that centre back Luiz will be injured for the first and maybe the second leg of the quarter final and we picked up 6 bookings in that game, so potential suspensions might be a problem in the long run.

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But who cares? We’ve knocked Bayern Munich out of the Champions League for the second season in a row. Our prize for doing that?

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We get Chelsea in the Champions League Quarter final. They knocked us out at the 1st​ Knockout Stage 2 seasons ago so we’re treating this one as revenge.

Elsewhere Celtic are the first Scottish team to reach the Europa League quarter finals for a long while after beating Napoli over two legs.

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They’ll play Schalke in the next round, the team who have just knocked out Rangers.

It also goes without saying that we’re close to winning the league and are in the Scottish Cup semi final where we’ll play Dundee.

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There’s still a possibility of an unbeaten season in the league. But my main focus is obviously getting to the semi finals of the Champions League.

Finally, Richard Carter has been called up to the England squad.

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He came through the Berwick academy and is used as a back up central midfielder. I would have never of thought he’d be anywhere near the England set up but Roberto Mancini has gave him a call up!

So, naturally, I gave him a start in the game before the international break so he could show everyone that he was worthy of the call up.

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There’s no chance he’ll ever be near the England squad again. I’m so sorry Richard…
​
Click to expand...

Mate, Richard must be so disappointed. So close to international duty...
 
Hampus Silverholt said:
Not a bad result considering we haven't played any team that's half decent in months!



Cheers mate glad you've enjoyed it! And here you go, the man the myth the legend... currently back up at Championship side Forfar!

View attachment 1170913 View attachment 1170914
Click to expand...
,

Wonderful to see the old legend, at 31 he is obviously in the twighlight of his career; I wonder if he will have decent coaching attributes? - How fitting it would be if you could add him to your backroom staff when he retires!
 
Basel93 said:
Mate, Richard must be so disappointed. So close to international duty...
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I knew as soon as I started him that he'd get injured... poor bloke!

salopsi said:
,

Wonderful to see the old legend, at 31 he is obviously in the twighlight of his career; I wonder if he will have decent coaching attributes? - How fitting it would be if you could add him to your backroom staff when he retires!
Click to expand...

I'd love it if that could happen! Might give him a bumper contract so he can be our 12th choice striker for the next 5 years...
 
Chelsea Champions League QF First Leg

So a Quarter final against Chelsea was next up for Berwick. What better way to prepare for it than for star striker and leading scorer in the competition Vebjorn Aure to get injured on international duty.

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Oh, and having to play two games in the space of 3 days beforehand.

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The game against Celtic was the Thursday after the international break so many of our players had just played 90 minutes on the Tuesday. So it was not exactly if our players were fresh…

With 5 first team players, including Aure, already injured there was no chance I was risking any more injuries. So we basically had to give up our unbeaten season, as well as our momentum, just to have players fit for the Chelsea game.

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4 debuts were made over those two games. It’s annoying because there’s no way games would be scheduled that close together in real life.

Anyway, Aure wasn’t 100% yet I decided to risk him for the first leg. We were however still without 4 first team players including goalkeeper Chavez.

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Yet again we made a lightening fast start to the game.

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It remained 1-0 until half time but these were the match stats. I’ve never known dominance like it.

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Then after 59 minutes Chelsea were handed a red card… that gave us no excuse not to win the game by at least two goals.

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We still could not make the breakthrough though and it was looking like it wasn’t our day… until the 77th​ minute.

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Hector de Anda! Our hero in the Champions League last season came up with the goods again!

And so it finished 2-0 – a fantastic result for the first leg.

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We utterly dominated that game and should’ve won about 9-0.

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Our next game in the league against Rangers was a weird one.

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After going almost all the season unbeaten in the league we’ve now lost two in a row. This time it was thanks to a second half capitulation which saw their uncapped Scottish striker Tom Saric score a hattrick inside 6 minutes.

What made it weirder was the fact that we won the league because of that game.

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Our 6th​ SPL title in a row was confirmed after Hibs drew their league game. 6th​ in a row!

Now it’s time to get to the Champions League semi final!​
 
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