FM24 - The Pentagon Challenge

[misterioBean]

The Pentagon Challenge
​

Hello everyone!
With our Man. City save reaching it's end with the win of the UCL, it's time to start a new challenge.
I had many in mind but the one I was interested the most was the Pentagon Challenge. I never attempted to complete this one before and other than seeing some people posting about their experiences and tips I'm just going to learn the best way to do it as we go.

What's the Pentagon Challenge?
​

For those who don't really know what this challenge is about, it's a very straight forward concept:
Win the 5 major contonental trophies:

• Asian Football Confederation Championship (AFC)
• Confederation of African Football Championship (CAF)
• Confederation of North, Central American & Caribbean Association Football Champions League (CONCACAF)
• CONMEBOL Libertadores (Copa Libertadores)
• UEFA Champions League

Although the concept is easy on paper, the challenge is everything but easy to complete. That's because here's some rules we need to follow to do it the right way:

• We must complete the challenge in a single save game ( so basically not start a new save after completing one continent);
• No international management (not the best in FM anyway);
• The use of the in-game editor is forbidden (I don't even have it so no worries here);
• Players attributes should be masked (first time using this feature but it enhances the realism so I'm up for it);
• Start the save unemployed and with minimal badges and player experience.

Presenting Quim Tropedo

Here is our future legend. Quim Tropedo is a 30 year old Portuguese man from Guimarães who's dream always was to be a football player. Unfortunately, he lacked the skills to follow his dream and he decided to follow a different path. Now he became a maanger still waiting for the opportunity to get his license.

I decided to put all the mental points available in Adaptability because we will travel a lot around the world and having this trait higher will be a big help to change countries.

Looking For Our First Job

​

Due to our current qualifications we will start only with the African and Asian countries available to us since they are usually the ones with the lowest requirements. For this challenge you are basically required to download some sort of league add-ons because in Africa you only have South Africa in the main game. I did some research and chose some countries that are usually amongst the contenders for the CAF.

We will add more leagues as we procede in the challenge but for now this should be enough.

​

At the first day of our carreer there were a total of 111 manager roles available which gave us a lot of chances to get one accepted.

We got interview invitations from around 50% of them and after a lot of travelling, talking and ,most importantly, lying, we landed on Milford FC in South Africa.

Meeting the Club

Founded in 2012, Milford FC played in South Africa's 3rd division ever since 2014, having finished in the top 3 multiple occasions. In 2023, Milford FC bought the National First Division (South Africa's 2nd division) status of Uthongathi FC, replacing them in the competition.

The club's matches take place at Umhlathuze Central Sports Complex, which is located in the city of Richards Bay and has a capacity to take in 5k supporters, which can eventually go up to 8,750. The facilities are not very good but they could be worse as well.

i couldn't find any kits for them since it's the first time they are in South Africa's top 2 divisions so I decided to create them with the minimal inspiration I coudl take of the internet.

Finance wise we don't have any money to use for now but at least our balance is positive even though the projection is not looking very promising.

​

The board want us to avoid relegation this season which is probably a good start point for a team who's just been promoted.

​

We are predicted to finish at the bottom of the table which was to be expected.

Meeting the Squad
​

Our best player is a 30 year old striker named Mike Gumede who actually looks very good. He knows how to finish and is fast, decent mentals as well. I'm expecting him to be a tremendous goalscorer for our team.

According to our assistant manager both our wide defensive positions are well covered by Zolani Nkombelo on the left and Mphakamiseni Nene on the right.
I think they both lack some aspects in their game, Nkombelo has the physicals but everything else is not very good and Nene is quite the opposite since he lacks the speed.

Siphelele Magubane is our best winger and actually looks very good to play on the left side of our attack.

The shadow striker Lindokuhle Zungu looks very good as well. Lacks the mentals but has everything else and he's only 22 years old as well so he will develop slightly.

Our defense is probably the worst part of our squad. Sphakamiso Khumalo is our best center-back and at 32 years of age he will only get worse.

When it comes to our goalkeepers things don't get better as our best keeper is not very good.

​

I'm going to try this 4-2-3-1 tactic in the preseason just to see if we have what it takes to score goals. We don't have many defensive stars in our team so we'll play to our strenghts I guess.

As you can see, the quality we have in our front 4 is severly damaged by our lack of defenders and central midfielders available. We'll have to try to make some money by selling players in our 2nd team and try to get some transfers in for free if we really want to avoid relegation this season.

The staff needs a bit of work too but I'm not sure if we even have money to bring in some better ones. Let's wait and see I guess.

 

[Nightman]

Good luck.

 

[misterioBean]

Good luck.

Thanks, think I'll need it for the first few seasons at least ahaha

 

[misterioBean]

1st November 2023
Mistakes Were (Almost) Made

I decided to not show every month for this save because I'm expecting it to take a long time to end so instead I'm going to update every 2/3 months. I think it's better this way just to not be posting every few hours.

Getting to Know the League

The South Africa's 2nd division has quite an interesting layout.
It shows 4 different periods along the season and all of them have a monetary prize of 29k. I'm not sure if it is for all the teams or just to the team currently in 1st place. Each period ends after a certain number of games: 1st Period has 8 games, the 2nd has 7 games, the 3rd has 8 and the 4th ends after 7 games which coincides with the end of the season to make a total of 30 games.

It's also worth to point out the match rules which indicate there must be at least 3 U23 players in the starting 11.
This will become important in a moment.

Transfers Out

So as you can see a lot of players left the club. I basically sold every player that didn't have enough quality, was old and already declining or was replaced during the summer. This include some young players who I sent out on loan as well to free some wages. All of them were getting paid between 1.1k and 1.5k and we offload a lot of them but there were 2 players who didn't get any offers and stayed in the club but won't be used. Another player was also sold to a Chinese team but he won't leave the club until January so we are still paying him 1k/m.

Transfers In​

Kyle Peters

The first player to join us was the goalkeeper Kyle Peters who's a step up over Madondo. Still nothing special though and is already 30 years old.

Scara Mirwa

The backup for our Nkombelo on the left side of our defense comes in as the 28 year old was available on a free transfer.

Shane Thomson

I felt the need to provide some competition on the right as well and Shane Thomson was also available on a free. Yet again, nothing special but he's better than our previous backup.

Lawrence Ntswane

Another improvement to our defense as the 31 years old comes as a better option than any other player in the club at the time.

Manti Mekoa

An oportunistic signing as the 38 year old joined the club for this season to give us some more quality in the midfield.

Keenan Abrahams

Another center back comes into the club in the summer to play alongside Ntswane. This one is younger which is good because he can end up staying here for a while more even though he only signed a 1 year contract.

Rudiger Gilbert

Another player for the center of our defense but this time he will be a backup. He's way better than every other backup we had and at 36 years old he still has one season in him to play for us.

Tebogo Makobela

We had a star player on the left and we needed a star player on the right side of the attack as well. Makobela comes in for the season and hopefully we'll be able to extend his contract in the future.

At this point we were close to play our first game of the season. It was also at this point I noticed the rule stating we need at least 3 under-23 players in our first eleven and well...

Yeah it didn't look great for us. I rushed to bring in some younger players on trials in hopes we could find some good gems available on free transfers.
​

Bernard Bobete

For context, this was the only U23 player we signed before realising we had to have some more young players in the squad. He came in as a 2 star player but quickly became our first choice on the DLP role in our midfield.

Sphesile Mbhele

We signed a backup winger for Makobela and he actually doesn't look too bad. He's yet to make his debut for the clun after picking up a 6 week injury a few days after signing his deal.

Thabang Moabelo

Another backup signed, this time for our shadow striker role. Zungu also counts as an U23 player but in the case he gets injured or just tired we have another good option for his place who counts for the rule.

Yanga Madiba

The only player joining in on loan is another left back. Nkombelo picked up a 4 month injury so we had to find a replacement for him. Another U23 player so that will help us out as well.

Tapiwa Mandinyenya

A young striker joined our club on a free and only asking for 500€ a month while the others were getting over 1k. He's the only foreign player in the squad but he looks very good. He already scored a goal for us in just 3 appearances so that gave me more hope.

Preseason

After our transfer business in the summer the media expects us to finish confortably way from the relegation zone which is very good to see.

Our preseason was very good but we played mostly 3rd tier teams so we can't really look at it thinking we'll be champions or something like that.

August - October

Let's be honest here, it's going better than expected. 6 wins after 10 games is decent enough and way above what we were expected to get at this point. It becomes even more impressive when you see we are actually beating teams way better than us.

League Table

The good results we are achieving put us in 5th place just 4 points behind the promotion playoff places. I'm not expecting us to get there, but how beautiful would it be?

November and December

We'll be facing a lot of teams behind us in the table in the next months so it's a great opportunity to keep our good form going.
We'll also have our first cup game in December and I'm hoping we don't get a 1st division team yet.

Finances

Well our finances are getting worse as predicted when we joined and we are actually spending more than we were before but the team's quality is way better as well. Also in january Chili will leave to China and I'm hoping we can sell the other 2 players transfer listed which will lower our wage expenditure in 3.3k.

But hey, at least our staff looks better... That's something to hold on to I guess.​

 

[misterioBean]

11th February 2024
Still Exceding Expectations

November - December

What a couple of months we had in the league.
We won every match we played in. Yes it's true all the teams were considerably behind us in the table but I can't take the merit of our team who have been playing very well.

We were unfortunate to be eliminated in the cup in our first try at it but it happens and it wasn't our top priority.

Against all odds we are 2nd in the league as we reached mid season and are way off our initial goal of avoiding relegation.
Right now or focus is to get a top 3 finish in hopes we can get promotion to Milford FC.

January - March

In January there were no games due to international CAF fixtures, which was won by Algeria.
We took the time off so the team could rest and made some friendlis in the late weeks to get some match sharpness and fitness back to our players.

It won't be easy to keep our 2nd place but I think we can do it if we keep our good performances going.

Transfer Window

Transfers Out

We were finally able to sell Xulu and Nguse, the two players we wanted to sell in the summer but couldn't because nobody bid for them.
We also sold our backup center back Khumalo and, unfortunately, we had to sell our best player Mike Gumede. He didn't want to renew his contract and was our top earner so I offered him out and Stellenbosch FC playing in the 1st division came in with a 19k bid which my board immediately accepted.

Sad to lose him but it did free up a lot of our wage budget.

Transfers In
​

Waseem Isaaks

We went back to rely on free transfers in the winter and were able to pick up the 33 year old striker. He lacks the speed that Gumede provided but still looks good and hopefully will score a lot of goals for us when the league restarts. He's also earning less than Gumede was so a win is win. He did pick up an injury in training though and won't be ready to play our first game back.

Vusi Shikweni

I decided to use the spare money to strenghten our midfield and brought in the 31 year old Shikweni to be our main guy in the B2B role ahead of Mekoa due to his age and detiorating attributes.

Givemore Khupe

Khumalo's replacement in our center back is the 24 year old Khupe who looks way better than Khumalo and is way younger as well so I'm hoping him and Abrahams can be our starting duo from now on and in the upcoming seasons.

Finances

Our finances keep getting worse but we already knew it would happen.
At least we are now spending around 1k less than our wage budget which is a win in my opinion.​

 

[misterioBean]

1st April 2024
Slight Drop in Performance?

February - March

It didn't start very well with a heavy loss against Baroka, the 2nd of the season agains them, but ever since that we have been playing as we were used to even if we had to rely on late goals here and there to give us the win.

The last 2 matches our performances dropped in quality and we were lucky to even get a draw against Casric Stars. I decided to start the only striker yet to play a minute for the first team in that game, Jabulile Gxakoshe and he scored both our goals in the game.

Also I think I forgot to mention this but I had a problem with the save after the initial post presenting the challenge and had to restart it. If you remember, Gxakoshe was a midfielder and not a striker, but in this restarted save he became a striker, and a decent looking one for the matter. Unfortunately, it did change some other players attributes but it didn't influence their quality and Gxakoshe was the only player changing positions that's why I forgot to explain this before.

League Table

We are now the leaders of the First Division! Sort of...
For some reason, South Africa's 2nd tier is known as the First Division. The actual 1st tier is known as Premier Division.

Even though it's not the actual first division, that doesn't take from the fact that we currenly sit in the 1st place with a 4 point gap to JDR Stars even after losing 4 valuable points in the last 2 fixtures.

Can we actually win the league this season?

April - May

We are now entering the 4th period of the league with only 7 games left in the season.
In theory we have two hard matches against Magesi and JDR but after those comes the "easy run" as I entitled it after we won every single game against them in Decemeber.

However, are we really good enough to keep our 1st place, or is this just a temporary position for what's being arguably the best season this team has ever seen?​

 

[misterioBean]

End of Season
Not Looking Pretty

We had a very bad run in the last games of the season.
I probably shouldn't have called it the easy run after all.​

With only one game left, we needed a win or at least a draw to guarantee a place in the playoffs.

The game against City Rovers would decide it all.
12th place vs 1st place. We were favourites for this but we only brought one supporter for our team against their 237.
Lately we have clearly fallen to the pressute but the question still remains:

Are we good enough to win the title?​

The game starts and the first highlight came in on the 14th minute... it was a corner for our team. Magubane sends it to the near corner where our center back Khupe was waiting and... we missed.
But Khupe was pushed away by a Rover player and the referee points to the penalty spot. We have the ultimate chance to score and put us ahead on the most important game of the season.

Magubane is called to the center and takes it on himself to score, perhaps, the most important goal of his career.
He goes for it, shoots with power to the center of the goal and... misses.

After missing the penalty, the game became stale. There was no highlights whatsoever until the 36th minute.
Rovers coem to the attack but a bad pass was intercepted by Nzama, playing instead of Bobete who was injured for this game, he passes the ball to Gxakoshe who sends it to the area and finds Zungu who scores the first goal of the game from a tap in!

We were in front but Rovers were on to us. They come in with a free kick on the edge of the area.
A well placed shot to the top corner but our keeper Peters flies and saves sending it to a corner, which didn't bring anything to Rovers.

We reach the end of the 1st half winning by one goal and dominating the game.
As we start the 2nd half, our team keeps pushing forwards and on the 52nd minute Zungu finds the run from Gxakoshe who finds himself facing only the keeper, sends it to the far post and scores!!!

This goal seemed to have taken a big hit on Rovers because just after the kickoff Shikweni wins the ball, passes it to Gxakoshe who sees Zungu running and quickly passes and Zungu doesn't miss, making the score 3-0 at the 54th minute.

The rest of the game was controlled by our team and appart from some minor chances there were no more changes to the scoreline.​

After that desearved win, Milford FC are your First Division champions!​

What a season we had in South Africa!​

The board gave us an extra 25k in wage budget which will come in handy for next season.​

It seems like our stadium didn't meet the requirements for the Premier Division and we are now moving to Hartleyvale Stadium in Cape Town which is just 1800km away from our previous stadium located in Richards Bay.​

Our board then announced plans to expand our original stadium which will make it smaller? Not sure what happened here but hey I'm up for it.​

After asking 3 times, the board finally accepted to pay for our first coaching badge. We are progressing to our final aim but it's still way too far to even think about it.​

I was surprised about them rejecting to sign a new deal with me after paying for the course but I'm not opposing to it.​

There are some jobs available for us to pick...​

 

[misterioBean]

28th July 2024
Preseason Over, Time to Start

After rejecting to offer me a new contract, the board decide to back down and sent me a message asking for forgiveness and begging me to stay at the club one more year.

When I got rejected by Mamelodi Sundownds and a couple of other clubs outside of South Africa I decided to accept and the offer and stay one more year with the Stallions (which I'm not sure if I already mentioned but it's Milford's nickname).

Transfers Out

There was none.

Well I guess you can count the players leaving out after their contract ended but that's it.​

Transfers In

Kgaegolo Sithole

His contract expired and I decided to sign the young keeper but I'll be honest, I thought the 3 U21 rule was still a thing at the Premier Division which apparently it's not so... ups I guess.

Freddy Mathole

A lot of holes in South Africa and we signed our second one as the 20 year old midfielder joins us after terminating his contract with Black Leopards.

Divine Lunga

Our new left back joins from Mamelodi Sundowns after not renewing his contract. Hopefully he will help us get revenge for rejecting us both.

Mwenya Chibwe

We also signed a new keeper who just had his contract terminated this summer. Am I worried about him only playing 3 games since 2021? I'll answer this later in the season... maybe.

Azola Tshobeni

The last signing of the summer so far was the left winger from JDR Stars who's still 22 and is our best winger apart from Makobelo so they will both start for us this season.

The Squad

In a perfect world I would get a new midfielder to join the club and partner with Shikweni but it's proving to be easier said than done as there are not many available. We may benefit from a new RB and a new striker as well but the playmaker role is definitely the one I'm looking for the most.

Preseason

We only had 5 games in the preseason and it's a mixed one so not sure what to expect this season.

I think considering us to be the favourites to finish last is a bit harsh. I mean just won the First Division ahead of Maritzburg and I don't think they brought in better players than us.
I guess time will tell.

August - September

Not an easy start for us but we'll do our best to stay up this season.
I'll keep looking for players to improve our team but money is getting tight.

We only have around 10k to bring in more players so let's see if we use the money we have well.​

 

[misterioBean]

28th September 2024
And So it Starts

Transfers In​

Yanga Baliso

I said I wanted to bring in some new midfielders and I did just that as the 27 year old joins us to be a good option for both roles.

Diego Appollis

We had another striker joining our team as I felt Isaacs would struggle a lot in the Premier Division. He looks decent but nothing crazy. Unfortunately this is the best we can afford right now.

August - September

The season didn't start well with a 5-0 loss to Orlando Pirates but we have been looking pretty good after with 2 wins and 2 draws in the next 4 games.​

October - November

Very busy couple of months ahead of us with a lot of difficult fixtures and we may just see our performances decline in quality.

 

[misterioBean]

1st December 2024
Is the Media Prediction Even Accurate?

Transfer In
​

Fortune Makaringe

​

We brought in yet another midfielder to the club as the 31 year old comes with a lot of quality to add to our squad on relatively small wages.

October - November

In all honesty, this run has not been half as bad as I would have thought. We do have some slips here and there against some teams stronger than us but we are beatinga lot of sides even though the media predicted us to be bottom of the league.

We are currently 3rd and already have a 19 point gap between us and the relegation spots.
This is the second year in a row the media has underestimated us but noone could have predicted us to be doing this good.

Maritzbrug is also putting in a strong fight and are 12th in the league and may be in for avoiding relegation as well.

December - January​

Quiet month in January after a very reasonable end to the year. I may extend the next update until the end of February just to have some more games in.​

In February we already have some more games incuding the first cup match of the season.
Hopefully we can do better than last year's performance (for those who don't remember we lost on the first round).

Random Stuff​

The board agreed to send us on another coaching course as we are now studying to the National B License.​

 

[misterioBean]

15th June 2025
Got Too Excited

I got too excited while playing at work and when I stopped I realized we were already at the end of April with only 3 matches to play so I decided to end the season and then share the results.

Transfers Out

If we didn't sell anyone in the summer we made up for it in January as we had 7 players leaving the club on a permanent deal.

Transfers In
​

Cohen Stander

We lost two full backs and I had to bring at least one more. Cohen can fill for both sides of our defense and doesn't look terrible.

Kelvin Mangiza

We also lost iur 3rd best center back and I didn't trust Cele enough for him to not have anyone else on his position so we brough in the only player available we could afford.

Schedule and League Table

We can honestly say it was a very good season for our team. We lost some points here and there but we had very good results, specially the 5-2 win against Orlando Pirates, what a comeback from the 5-0 loss on the opening game of the season.

Our good performance sent us to a 4th place finish in the league and I must say it shocked me to see it.
We were 2nd at one point but Mamelodi and Stellenbosch were 4 games behind and caught up to us.

With this 4th place we qualified for the CAF Confederation Cup, which is the equivalent to the UEFA Europa League. It's not our main goal but it's certainly one step closer to it.

Our board also gave us some more money to bring in new players next season.

After moving it around a bit we now have a lot more wage budget available to us and we may even keep focusing on free transfers and move all the money to wages.
Also it's worth noting how well the club is financially right now. We done a very good job getting them to where they are.

We also had a very good looking player coming through our youth intake.

At 16 years old he honestly looks good enough to jump straight to our first team and be a good backup player for us.

After two seasons we already had good improvements to our attributes and are building up our reputation nicely.
(Also I'm on my second computer and don't have the kits here so ignore the default kit on our profile).

The board doesn't want to send us on another coaching course cause they fear we will leave them if they do.

Thoughts

We still have one year left in our contract so right now if any good job becomes available I'll probaby take it.
On the other hand, if we stay next season and we end up qualifying for the CAF Champions League I may try and sign a new deal at Milford. To be honest if we can pick up a second tier team and make them continental champions in 5 seasons I would say it's a pretty good record.

However, as soon as we are done with Africa we'll have to finda good job in Asia. There are not many countries with direct access to the AFC Champions League so we will need to somewhat petty with where we choose to go.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves though as we are still far from completing Africa and I don't really want to leave Africa and go to Asia just to come back to Africa.​

 

[misterioBean]

1st October 2025
A Lot of Moving Around

Transfers Out

We lost our best player Lindokuhle Zungu this summer after getting a bid accepted from our board. He left us to join Saudi.
Every other player who left was not an important part of the team and barely even played so we were able to get an extra 30k on them.

Some other players saw their deals running out and left the club on a free.

Transfers In
​

Renaldo Leaner

A new backup goalkeeper joined us as I didn't feel like Sithole was ready for the challenge. We now have 3 keepers in the club just in case oen of them gets injured (happened last season).

Josh Brooking

Decent young right back joins the club on a free and grabs the right back spot for himself.

Mfundo Thikazi

I felt like we needed some fresh blood in the winger spots and Thikazi was waiting to get an offer and we were fast to pick him up.

Craig Martin

If we strenghten one side we need to bring someone for the other as well. Craig Martin brings a lot of speed to our attacking game even though he's 31 years old.

Kwanda Mngonyama

We also strenghtened our centre back positions to solidify our defense and despite his age, Kwanda is our best CB.

Amanuel Terfu

We needed another backup for the position as well and Terfu was available for cheap.

Pule Motsetse

We then brought in a new backup striker. Initially I wanted to sign a better one but there were none available we could afford so we had to do with what we had.

Mohamed El-Rasheed

With Zungu leaving us we had to look in the market for a new shadow striker. It turns out there was none... literally none. When I saw that I instantly looked at our team and thought who we could train to play there and Baliso was the best option available so we had to find a new playmaker and there's where El-Rasheed comes in.

Schedule

We had a very small preseason because I forgot to schedule friendlies. It is what it is.
We started with a very hard game once again against Mamelodi Sundowns but we then went into a 13 streak with no losses.

We are also playing in a lot of competitions this season: we have the league, the Telkom Cup starting in October which I assume is the league cup, the actual cup in February, the African Confederation Cup (to which we qualified after winning the preliminary round and the first round) and another cup called MTN 8 to which we qualified for finishing 4th last season.

No idea what it is though.

League Table

We are in the 3rd position some games behind the teams above us and even behind us.

October - December

We have a lot of games ahead of us but at least there's no games between the AFC fixtures.
It would be nice if the African continental competitions worked like the European ones but unfortunately if we end up winning this competition we just qualify for next year's edition, which kinda su*ks.​

 

[misterioBean]

1st January 2025
One Less Concern

Transfers In
​

Lucas Ribeiro

Our only transfer so far is also our first paid transfer. The shadow striker Lucas Ribeiro from Mamelodi Sundownds for a 9k fee.
He looks very good and is instantly out best player for the role. Very happy with this signing.

Schedule

After our very good run we had some good performances but also some bad ones.
As you can see, we lost in the MTN 8 Final against Mamelodi Sundownds and were also eliminated from the Telkom Cup once again. We also drew twice before the league break which was not ideal.

At least we are doing good in the ACC but since it doesn't really give us any advantage in advancing in the Pentagon challenge do we really care about it?

League Table

We are still 3rd in the league but we do have one game in hand over both teams above us so we could easily be top of the league if we win that game.

January - February

Some difficult fixtures ahead of us including the last game of the ACC group stage and the First Round of the cup.​

 

[misterioBean]

15th June 2026
Ups... I Did It Again

Once again I lost my tracks and ended up playing the entirety of the season.
I don't think it really matters. This way at least I have more stuff to show you.

Schedule

Okay okay I have to admit... I have no idea how we did this well.
We lost some points in the league but from we went on a 8 game win streak at the end for the league while still winning ACC and cup matches. I know the main person we need to thank of course:

This man just scored us 30 goals this season, 20 in the league alone.
Yes we had some more players worth mentioning but he was our main guy for sure.

We also won the cup against a 2nd tier team and were the runners-up of the ACC, which we lost to another South African team.
I'm starting to hate them in fact, last season we played them 5 times, won 1 for the MTN 8, drew twice for the league and on the 1st leg of the ACC Final and lost the 2nd leg... Not our favourite team to face.

League Table

Despite our amazing season it still wasn't enough.
Mamelodi Sundows were crowned champions once again but we only lost the title by a point which is very encorouging.
Also I'll give you bonus points if you can guess in which game we lost the lead of the league (yes we were actually in front at one point).

Well you were too slow to guess.

It was on the 14th of March against SuperSport.
The last game we failed to win last year and it cost us the unbelievable acheavement of winning the league.
I really hope I can express how much I hate this team at this point.

Even though we didn't win it, we still qualified for the AFC Champions League so next season we will have our first try at this trophy. Who would've guessed it would be with the first team that took a chance on us.

Next Season Squad

We will lose some players either to contracts running out or because their age is caughting up to them and they are getting worse.
We'll need to bring in some new players to replace them next season.

Finances

Thankfully for us, our board was very generous this season and gave us a lot of money for the season.

Random Stuff

We signed yet another contract with the club for the next 3 seasons but as soon as we win the Champions League or get a chance to go to a better side capable of actually doing it we'll take it.

By the way just a reminder that the last time a South African team won the competition was in 2016 so we have a lot of work to do if we want to win it.

We are now studying for another coaching course which is always good news.​

 

[misterioBean]

23rd September 2026
Preseason and Season Kickoff

Transfers Out

We had soem moves out of the club this summer including some important players like Josh Brooking, Vhibwe and Mngonyama.
There were a lot of reasons to justify them such as age, lack of gametime and most importantly, the money.
I mean just look at Brooking... he left for 800k. How can we turn out so much money for a player who joined us for free and was valued under 400k.

Transfers In

We brought just as many players as the ones who left us so let's get started.
​

Nduduzo Mhlongo

The first player to join us was a backup right back for Brooking (before he left of course). He's not anything special but he does the job.

Duncan Adonis

We keep going strong on the free transfers as we get yet another B2B midfielder for the club. This time he's younger though so unless we find an absolute beast for his place he's probably going to be our main guy for a while.

Blandile Dlamini

The next palyer to join was another free transfer to fill the backup slots. The 23 year old Dlamini can play basically everywhere on the left side and will be a good asset for the club just for his versatility.

Joseph Ngcobo

I saw this 18 year old available on a free and immediately knew I had to sign him. He looks very decent and still has a lot to grow. I'm not sure if we will ever use him because I have no idea how many time we have left at this club but hopefully not that much. At least we gave the club a good player for the future.

Thabang Mavidia - 43.5k

I wanted to strenghten our midfield once again and saw this guy available for less than 50k. I know he's not exactly a starter or anything but he looks very good and is still 17 years old. You can get a manager out of Youth2Gold but I guess you can't get Youth2Gold out of a manager...

Keabetswe Nkogatse - 145k

The club's most expensive signing ever comes in to replace Brooking on the right side of our defense. Is he as good as Brooking? No, but he is younger and has a lot of potential.

Nattapol Upadee-Srinork - 750k

The record breaking signing lasted a good week before we signed the 18 year old Thailandese striker. I don't think I really have to say much about him but you can see his average rating since joining the club.

Mpho Peterson - 210k

Took us a lot of time to replace Chibwe but we finally did it as we sign yet another 18 year old for the club. Not sure what this South African kids are taking but I don't really care if they come out this good.

Mohamed Camara - 44.5k

The young players just keep popping up to me. We signed the replacement for Mngonyama 2 weeks after his departure and he's the first Senegalese to play for our club.

Preseason

We don't really have much time between seasons to play a big preseason so this was we had to work with.

August - September

It has been a terrific start to the season only losing one of the 12 games we played so far. Of course it had to be to SuperSport United right? RIGHT?

League Table

We sit in 1st place with a slight advatage but it's still so early in the season I don't want to get my expectations too high.
We all know what Mamelodi Sundownds are capable of...

October - December

A lot of games to be played in the next 3 months including our first games on the proper ACL, the first few in the club's history.
This fixture list can also go increase if we win in the Telkom Cup but I'm not expecting to because I'll use the 2nd team in every match there.

Finances

Finances are looking good and we still have quite a lot of money to use if needed.​

 

[misterioBean]

1st January 2027
Winter Blow

Schedule

After a very good start to the season we had a very good month of October continuing our good performances. However, November was very bad for us. We had a few key players injured and was hard to get the team playing well again.
Our performances stabilized again in December but that didn't prevent us from losing 2 more games, including for the CAF.

League Table

Despite our break in performances, we are still 2nd to Mamelodi Sundowns only with 2 points between us and even thiugh we have Cape Town City and Orlando Pirates behind us we are one game behind.

Champions League Group

The one loss we had against Club Africain from Tunisia puts us behind them in the group stage but we should be going through since we can esaily beat the other teams in my opinion.

January - April

We only have 10 games left in the league but we are still on two other competitions.
However, I think we will neglect the cup and focus on the CAF. If we could win it this year that would be absoultely amazing and we can start focusing on the AFC.​

 

[misterioBean]

1st June 2027
The African Campaign

Transfer In
​

Yacine Titraoui - 120k

The only player to join our club was the Algerian midfielder Titraoui, who comes to be our main playmaker in our midfield trio. Easily in the top 3 signings we made since we joined Milford.

Schedule

We had a very good end to our season beating pretty much everyone, including the reigning champions Mamelodi Sundowns.
As you can see we also reached the Nedbank Cup Final once again but ultimately failed to win it losing 3-2 in extra time to Swallows.

League Table

What a season it was from us at Milford!
We clinched the title away from Mamelodi Sundowns as they drew 3 games and lost against us. It was close but we did it. Milford are your new South African Champions.

CAF Champions League

We ended our CAF group stage as we started it, with 2 more wins and another loss to Club African.

With those results we finished the group in the 2nd position way ahead of the other two teams contesting us.

Our next opponents in the Quarter Finals were Mamelodi Sundowns, a team we know very well and already showed we can put up a good performance against.

CAF Champions League
Quarter Final 1st Leg

We win the first leg of the tie playing at our stadium.
It was a good performance which put us ahead of the tie so we couldn't ask for much more.

CAF Champions League
Quarter Final 2nd Leg

When we went tp their stadium we couldn't get the win though.
It was a very balanced game but they ended up beating us with 2 late goals.
However, with the score equal on aggregate we went through due to the away goal rule, which means that even losing this game we passed to the Semi Final just because we scored one more goal than them.

CAF Champions League
Semi Final 1st Leg

We went against another Algerian team in the Semi Final.
We beat MC Alger at our home and are once again ahead in the tie.

CAF Champions League
Semi Final 2nd Leg

It was a very balanced tie and the 2nd leg showed just that with neither team being able to do much against the other.
Thankfully for us, the win in the 1st leg sent us to the CAF Champions League Final.​

It seemed like it was set from the start. We were to face Club Africain once again in the Finals and now we have the chande to redeem ourselves from those two fixtures we lost in the group stage. I'm going to be honest, there were way better teams around in the tournment but they were still the only team to actually beat us this far (not counting Mamelodi Sundowns).

We couldn't have started in a worse way.
A 2-1 defeat in Tunisia puts them ahead of the Finals and now we have an even bigger challenge for the next round.
At least our sub Moabelo was able to find the back of the net in the 87th minute to make it 2-1 otherwise it would be even worse.

It seemed like a dream.
Playing with 10 man for 60 minutes, a very bad 1st half from both teams and basically starting the 2nd half losing with them scoring on the 53th minute.

We were creating chances but nothing seem to worked. However, with 69th minutes on the clock the wonderkid from our academy Dladla found the back of the net to level the game and, right after, getting possession back and sending the ball to Thikazi as he scored the 2nd to level the tie.

It went all the way to the penalty shootout but it was meant to be...

MILFORD FC ARE YOUR CAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE CHAMPIONS!

It took us 4 seasons to get our hands on the first trophy of this challenge and honestly I'm glad it was won with the team that took us when we were nothing. Milford FC will always be in Quim's heart and mind as we proceed with the challenge.

Unfortunately, we had to leave South Africa in order to keep chasing our main goal: win all the club continental competitions.
Before moving on, let's just take a look at what we achieved while managing Milford FC:
​

2023/24 - Champions of the South Africa First Division + Promotion to the Premier Division
2024/25 - Nothing
2025/26 - Nedbank Cup
2026/27 - South African Premier Division + CAF Champions League

What's left?
​

• Asian Football Confederation Championship (AFC)​
• Confederation of North, Central American & Caribbean Association Football Champions League (CONCACAF)​
• CONMEBOL Libertadores (Copa Libertadores)​
• UEFA Champions League​

We are now a way better manager than we were when we joined Milford FC, and what we achieved with them improved our reputation massively. From now on, it should be easier to find better jobs and with Africa dealed with, we will now start looking for a new club in Asia or North America.​

 

[misterioBean]

27th June 2027
New Beginnings

After leaving South Africa, Quim found his next club in tne 2nd tier of Japan.
There were some better clubs available but we got rejected so this was basically the best we could get.

Ventforet Kofu will be our home for the near future.

Key Players

Yushi Hasegawa

According to our staff, Hasegawa is our best player. He's nothing crazy but he looks decent enough. He's a very balanced player but he's already 30 years old.

Taiky Yamada

We have a good goalkeeper in the club but I'm not too happy about his agility. He should be good though.

Atsushi Soma

Our best striker is on loan at the club and doesn't have a buy clause included but he's cheao and honestly looks decent enough at 18 years old. I don't know if we'll try to keep him because he's not very fast but he's the best option we have.

The Squad

We have depth in the squad but unfortunately it's not very good looking is it?
There are some positions, specially in the defensive third, in which we need to bring in some new players.

We'll try a different approach from the one we took in Africa but it should be very similar on paper, just slightly slower.

League Table

The Japansese season goes from February to November so we come in after the previous manager poor performances.
We were predicted to finish 6th but we currently sit int the 14th position. However, the gap between us and the playoff places is only 8 points so there's definitely a chance we can still make it to the playoffs. We just need to play well and maybe bring in some good players to the club during the summer.

We have 13 games left in the season, which means there are still 39 points to be made.
Let's hope we can some of them, at least enough to get us some places up in the table.​

 

[misterioBean]

1st December 2027
End of Season in Japan

Transfers Out

We came, we saw, we sold.
A lot of deadwood and players we weren't going to use left the club and still gave us some nice fees.

Transfers In
​

Reece Molefe

It's a bit ironic that the first player to join us comes from South Africa but when I saw him I just knew we had to get him. He looks amazing and he's only 19.

Hugo

We then strenghtened our left back with a Brazilian available on a free transfer and despite being 30 years old he still looks good.

Sidney Lima

The next player to join us was another Brazilian and this time we signed the 30 year old center back also on a free transfer.

Yuki Yamamoto - 74k

We finally signed a Japanese player and he actually looks very good despite already being 30 years old. His contract was ending next season so we only paid a small fee to bring him in.

Moha Keita

We are allowed to play 4 foreign players and Moha Keita is our 4th and final one. We needed a better winger and he's just that.

Daiki Hashioka

This would have been the best signing of the transfer window. A Japanese international available on a free? That's ridiculous. So why did I say "would have been"? Well that's easy, he signed for our club on the 19th of August, the last day of the transfer window. However, we couldn't register him for the league because the registration closed on the 13th of August. Well, that kinda blows because we sold our best right back on the same day and now we don't have a viable right back option for the rest of the season...

Schedule

Despite not being able to play the best player we had in our squad, we actually did pretty good.
We lost some points here and there but I mean 9 wins in 13 games was good.

Amazingly, we got to the 4th place and qualified for the playoffs.
In just 13 games we were able to climb 10 places and rescue this season for our team.

We were to face Tochigi in the Playoffs Semi Final, a team we beat 3-0 last time we played against.

J2 League
Playoffs Semi Final

We dominated this game but despite not letting them shoot once in the whole game we also couldn't score any of our own.
However, we qualified for the Final due to a very interesting rule in Japan, which states that, in case of a draw, the team who finished higher in the league table qualifies. So we were lucky enough to earn a spot in the Playoffs Final.

And we got the first team we faced when we first joined the club.
We won the game 4-2 when playing at our own stadium, but can we do it again when it matters the most?

J2 League
Playoffs Final

I guess we can.
We got the exact same result even though we went to half-time losing 2-1. What a great comeback and what a way to end our first season in Asia.

Finances

We have a lot of money to throw around next season and we'll need to use it right if we want to avoid relegation.

We really need to improve some of our positions because our current squad is not good enough to play in the J1 League.

Random Stuff

After our success during our spell at the club the board was generous enough to pay for our next coaching course. Let's keep them coming shall we?​

 

[misterioBean]

1st June 2028
Mid-Season

Transfers Out

We lost some players during this transfer window but none them were actual starters for us. The only one was the striker we had on loan at the club but even him was replaceable.

Transfers In​

Tomoya Ando

The first signing of the transfer window was a Japanese center back ti improve our defense. He's definitely an improvement for our club.

Keigo Sakakibara

We then signed a backup midfielder to add to our depth and since he is also Japanese so doesn't count for the foreign rule (which is 5 foreign players in the match squad instead of 4).

Jung Jae-Min - 275k

Another position was strenghtened as we signed the Korean striker to replace Soma.

Ryoya Hori - 4m

Another signing for a different position and the first time time we signed a wonderkid for the club.

Cristian Godoy - 600k

We immediatelly followed it with another wonderkid signing and let's just say the young striker from Paraguay looks absolutely amazing.

Koki Saka - 2.1m

The last signing we made was a defender who can play either on the center or on the right. Good player who adds good depth.

Schedule

This season has been way better than we could have antecipated.
This seems like a big dejavu from our time in South Africa. If you don't remember, we actually did a great job in our first season on the Premier Division qualifying for the African Conference League.

League Table

Let me just say this: I don't know if we are being amazing or if every other club is just being horrible.
I mean last season's winners Vissel Kobe are 12 points behind us. They have also won the last 2 editions of the AFC so they are clearly underperforming.

We are now slightly over mid season and have 18 games still to be played in the season.

Random Stuff

We have been given yet another coaching course and are close to get the last of them all.​